Ciaoo! Today is a great day, I have finally completed all my exams, it's St. Patty's Day and 150th anniversary celebration of the Unification of Italy. Parties all around! Haha. Yesterday I finally completed my exams, which I surprisingly stressed a lot about. It's common knowledge that the classes abroad are easier than our home institutions- so coming here I knew I wouldn't have to put much effort to do well. When we got here we found out that not only do Providence and Fairfield's classes transfer for direct credit but our grades are factored into our GPAs. So, my roomies (who I still love a lot! Hey Steph and Shira!) get to take lots of fun classes like Food and Wine Appreciation and Italian Fashion, and then can essentially get any grade above a 70 to be able to pass. Providence didn't allow this for us. We had to take pre-approved classes (that's why I'm taking Chemistry and Ethics, eck) and if I get a 70 as my final grade, I have a 70 into my Providence GPA- which I've worked so hard to keep high and clean. So of course, as midterms are coming up and my roomies are galavanting around the city, all us Providence students actually had to study... a LOT.
Let me tell you that I absolutely hated scheduled exam weeks more than anything. Normally, the only scheduled exams we have are Finals Week, and midterms are spread out according to the teacher, so they usually never fall in the same week. So, this adds to the stress of everything. Not to mention that midterms are going to be my first graded assignments, cause I don't really have tangible homework here AND I have no idea how my teachers will format or grade their exams. So needless to say, I had to paint another coat on my nails to keep me from knawing them off, I was stressed.
On Monday, I had two midterms: Chemistry and Intermediate Italian. I studied a lot for Chem which was a little disappointing since it turned out to be really easy (or maybe all my studying paid off). Italian was pretty simple too, especially considering that I didn't really study much for it at all. So all in all, Monday's tests were successful and got me feeling confident. Tuesday wasn't too bad either. I only had one exam, History of Photography. My teacher had previously given us a list of 30 photographs and told us for the exam she would randomly choose 10 of those and ask us to list the artist, title, date and type of photograph (heliograph, gelatin silver print, albumen print, etc). So all I did was made flashcards and studying for that was a sinch. I was still feeling pretty good, so good in fact that I decided to go for a longg run on Tuesday afternoon to clear my head before I started to study for Wednesday's exams. It was sunny and beautiful and I ran in only a tee shirt- no jacket! I was definitely feeling good. Then I sat down to start work on my two next, and last, exams- Ethics and Gender Relations in Italian Society. I wasn't too worried about Gender since I've studied so much about American Gender Relations, but Ethics was starting to worry me. I had already typed up all the notes from class as my study guide but thought it would be a good idea to go through his powerpoint presentations. I logged on to the email he gave us for class and almost passed out when I read the latest posting. At 5 PM the night before the exam, I see "Possible Essay Questions for the Midterm," I read on further and the email said he was going to randomly choose 4 of these essays for us to write about, and this would account for 60% of the exam grade. I almost vomited. I like to be extremely prepared for exams so the fact that I was just seeing this email the night before, when I had another exam to study for, freaked me out. Luckily I had some good ideas for some of the questions and my friend Meg came over and we collaborated on ideas for the other ones. Throughout the rest of the night I was continually writing the essays in my head to keep my ideas fresh, and I barely got to study for Gender.
The next day, I woke up early (930 AM!) and studied a little more before my exam at noon. We got to class and you could tell we were all nervous. Some girls hadn't even seen the possible essay questions and a lot of people were asking eachother for ideas. He passed out the exam and drew cards to determine which questions each row would be assigned. I ended up getting two that I liked and two that I HATED. He then tells us that the essay portion is worth 60%, so if you choose to only write one essay elaborately, he will grade that from the 60%, but you could also write two essays- each from 30%, or three, or four respectively. I choose to write three of them and was overall pretty satisfied with my answers. After that I went straight to my next exam, Gender, for which I hadn't really studied for. We were all a little shocked when she passed out the exam- 6 short answer questions regarding oddly specific points she made in class. THANK GOD I've taken gender classes before, because I referenced all my previous knowledge to answer about half of the questions. The other questions were taken from the Italian history readings which I luckily did, so all in all I think I did pretty well. I was pleased!
Now, I'm finally on spring break! Nathalie and I went out last night to celebrate our completion of exams. The streets were wild with people celebrating the 150th Anniversary. At every Piazza there were concerts, events and fireworks! It was awesome, there were parades right outside my window.
Tomorrow, I depart for spring break. I'm flying from Pisa to Paris. Staying in Paris for the weekend and then flying to Dublin for my 21st birthday! The morning of the 22nd, Meg, Nathalie and I are taking a bus to Galway to stay with Meg O'Neill! We will be flying home on Saturday and I'll update you all then!
Wish me luck,
Love all of you!
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