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Finals
For most people, finals is a bad part of their time at university. They remember the stress, the nerves. But for me it was like my whole university experience intensified - it was intense but ultimately I look back on it and I enjoyed it. The feeling of being full of knowledge, ready to go. I guess part of it was that I worked hard in that final term, mostly on past paper questions so I really did feel prepared. More than just learning the stuff I had a handle on what topics would be covered in each paper so that I could for example not revise statistics at all (the one part of my course which totally lost me) and concentrate on probability and linear programming. I even knew which topics I might get an alpha in and which would probably be beta's. About once a week I would boil over and Alex would take me out to dinner to calm down. I would describe to him in great detail my exam plan for whichever paper and, to his credit, he would listen without looking bored and say encouraging things, remembering enough from his finals to give me sensible advice.
So, I did a lot of work. But I also still managed to have fun. I'm pretty sure I made it to OUSFG most weeks although I stopped staying late. I had Suz, Rach and Marta round all the time, sitting working (or drawing horses in Rachs' case), laughing, singing along to Joseph or Phantom, drinking tea, calming each other down.
Even when it came time to do the exams themselves I wasn't scared, I was high. Geared up on adrenaline. The difference between that and mods was almost palpable - I hadn't done hardly any past papers for mods revision and ended up not really knowing what to expect. On edge, but in a good way. One of my enduring memories of Oxford is the afternoon of Saturday 17th June 2000. I had my B1 paper (set theory, computability and logic) which was definitely my favourite. I was going really well and when I got to the end of one of the further logic questions, I found this -
Deduce that L' is compact (you may assume that L is compact)
Now I knew that L wasn't compact. And I knew a really short proof of that. I could also see that if it was compact then it was easy to show that L' was also compact. I guessed from context that what was really meant was complete not compact. I wasn't feeling rushed (I'd done 5 questions and had 20mins left) so I decided to be a bit smart. I proved the result requested with the assumption stated. I then disproved the assumption. I then proved the completeness of L and from there deduced the completeness of L'.
Now I know this makes me really sad but doing that made me feel really high - I was knowledge girl! I headed out of the exam in the sun down to Parsons Pleasure for the OUSFG punt party, told Alex about it in an extremely excited fashion and then drank, ate, laughed and punted home for more drinking, laughing, etc. That day was like the archetype of my life in Oxford. It was great. This userpic was taken on that day as I head across the field to the party still in my gown and sub fusc.
When I finished my exams, we all went to the pub and got drunk and laughed and I went home that weekend and watched the whole of the first week of Wimbledon. I'm not kidding! I got up at about 11am, had breakfast, mooched and turned it on at 12 on the dot. Because the results day was so close to when I finished (2 weeks) I felt like I was in suspended animation. I had a pretty good idea of how well I'd done, enough to tell me that I was on the borderline of 1 and 2:1. The next weekend I went back to Oxford to stay with Alex so I could go get my results on Tuesday from Schools. I went over at lunchtime and they still hadn't put them up. I went over the bridge to college and put the tennis on. Every couple of hours I would head back to exam schools to check. Now I felt scared - now it was out of my hands. I watched the Williams sisters play each other in the women’s quarters with my stomach churning. I headed out of college again at 4:30 to check schools and met Karen on Cowley Place coming back. She congratulated me on getting a first! I was so excited that I actually punched the air. I didn't quite dare ring Mum to tell her til I'd been to schools and seen it myself. Sometimes I still can't quite believe it. I got a first! I went round the corner and rang Mum, Alex, Dad, Nan, everyone. I had planned to pretend that I had failed and then admit it but I was too excited even for that. Mum cried and rang all her friends. Alex took me out for dinner and when we went to the pub all my friends seemed much less surprised than me. We bought champagne from the bar. I still feel like grinning uncontrollably when I remember it. It was one of the best experiences of my life.
So, I did a lot of work. But I also still managed to have fun. I'm pretty sure I made it to OUSFG most weeks although I stopped staying late. I had Suz, Rach and Marta round all the time, sitting working (or drawing horses in Rachs' case), laughing, singing along to Joseph or Phantom, drinking tea, calming each other down.
Even when it came time to do the exams themselves I wasn't scared, I was high. Geared up on adrenaline. The difference between that and mods was almost palpable - I hadn't done hardly any past papers for mods revision and ended up not really knowing what to expect. On edge, but in a good way. One of my enduring memories of Oxford is the afternoon of Saturday 17th June 2000. I had my B1 paper (set theory, computability and logic) which was definitely my favourite. I was going really well and when I got to the end of one of the further logic questions, I found this -
Deduce that L' is compact (you may assume that L is compact)
Now I knew that L wasn't compact. And I knew a really short proof of that. I could also see that if it was compact then it was easy to show that L' was also compact. I guessed from context that what was really meant was complete not compact. I wasn't feeling rushed (I'd done 5 questions and had 20mins left) so I decided to be a bit smart. I proved the result requested with the assumption stated. I then disproved the assumption. I then proved the completeness of L and from there deduced the completeness of L'.
Now I know this makes me really sad but doing that made me feel really high - I was knowledge girl! I headed out of the exam in the sun down to Parsons Pleasure for the OUSFG punt party, told Alex about it in an extremely excited fashion and then drank, ate, laughed and punted home for more drinking, laughing, etc. That day was like the archetype of my life in Oxford. It was great. This userpic was taken on that day as I head across the field to the party still in my gown and sub fusc.
When I finished my exams, we all went to the pub and got drunk and laughed and I went home that weekend and watched the whole of the first week of Wimbledon. I'm not kidding! I got up at about 11am, had breakfast, mooched and turned it on at 12 on the dot. Because the results day was so close to when I finished (2 weeks) I felt like I was in suspended animation. I had a pretty good idea of how well I'd done, enough to tell me that I was on the borderline of 1 and 2:1. The next weekend I went back to Oxford to stay with Alex so I could go get my results on Tuesday from Schools. I went over at lunchtime and they still hadn't put them up. I went over the bridge to college and put the tennis on. Every couple of hours I would head back to exam schools to check. Now I felt scared - now it was out of my hands. I watched the Williams sisters play each other in the women’s quarters with my stomach churning. I headed out of college again at 4:30 to check schools and met Karen on Cowley Place coming back. She congratulated me on getting a first! I was so excited that I actually punched the air. I didn't quite dare ring Mum to tell her til I'd been to schools and seen it myself. Sometimes I still can't quite believe it. I got a first! I went round the corner and rang Mum, Alex, Dad, Nan, everyone. I had planned to pretend that I had failed and then admit it but I was too excited even for that. Mum cried and rang all her friends. Alex took me out for dinner and when we went to the pub all my friends seemed much less surprised than me. We bought champagne from the bar. I still feel like grinning uncontrollably when I remember it. It was one of the best experiences of my life.