Me is Educamated!! (Officially)

Well god damn and whoppee!! Just checked my results of my final exams online and I passed everything so now I will be graduating with A Bachelor of Arts in September!!!

I am so bloody happy! Even the exams that I thought went quite badly I ended up with a decent grade in.

My final marks were:

Anthropology 304: Contemporary Oceania - A-
History 125: War, Peace and Society since 1800 - A-
History 307: Modern Germany since 1848 - B+
Politics 106: International Relations - B+


Happy happy happy! And now I am furiously getting ready to fly out to England in two days! How exciting is everything right now.... I can't hardly wait :)

Well that's that then.

So after sitting my Politics exam on Saturday afternoon I now have completed all my assessments for my Bachelor of Arts. That is ... if I pass everything. It's bizarre but my last exam was by far and away the worst exam I have ever sat, and it is only a bloody first year paper. I studied what I thought would be enough but for one of the three sections I had no question offered that I had prepared an answer for. This kind of unsettled me a bit for the rest of the exam but I am hoping I did enough to pass, I only need a C- in this paper anyway and I went into the exam needing only 13 marks out of the 50 on offer in order to pass. Well I guess it will be a couple of weeks until the results are released and then I will know for sure.

I celebrated my last exam by going over to a friends place for a few drinks. I managed to drink a considerable quantity of his very expensive whisky which I think left him quite unimpressed but then you don't finish the last exam of your degree every day do you? No real highlights from the evening I just had a good time except for Team New Zealand losing to Alinghi in the first race of the America's Cup final. Hopefully we will equalise tonight.

So now I have two weeks of full time work to look forward to until I get to fly away to England, the weather has been pretty rotten so I am most probably going to get a damn good soaking in the next couple of days.... I just hope I don't catch anything before I go away.

Anyway, I'm just marking time now... it seems so close but still far away if that makes any sense...probably not. Come on July 11th, I can't hardly wait.

Two hours to go....

Only two more hours in my undergraduate career! I had my Anthropology exam today and I think it went OK. Lots and lots of people left the exam room early and I left about 20 minutes before time. I hope I did enough to get a decent mark. It's kind of hard to tell seeing as how the lecturer hasn't handed back our last assignment. So that leaves me with only one more exam, International Relations, to do on Saturday afternoon and if I pass everything then I will graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Anthropology! Nice one!

On another exciting note, I passed my Class 2 practical assessment yesterday so now I am legally allowed to drive trucks weighing less than 18 tonne upon Her Majesty's New Zealand Roads. The instructor/assessor said that I was very safe but I was a bit untidy in my gear changing, I guess that is because of having only two lessons before being assessed. I think I will definitely need more than two lessons when it comes time to do my Class 4...Three more months from now and I can start learning to drive Class 4 trucks. Of course that would be contingent upon me getting the job in the UK. Actually I will probably do my Class 4 anyway even if I don't get the job but perhaps not try to do so quickly.

Alright so I'm off for a bit of a kip... these exams can be tiring things.... no need to panic study for the last one.... maybe open a book or two on Saturday morning.....

Big ups to the Commish

Well I have to give out a "bloody well done old chap" to the British High Commission in Wellington for handling the renewing of my Brit passport in record time. I wasn't expecting too much and having heard of the huge delays that some US citizens were having getting passports I assumed that my new passport may not even make it to me by the time I left for England next months. Instead, barely 2 weeks after I sent off the application my brand spanking new passport arrived, complete with new biometric thingy-ma-bobs to prove that I'm not a terrorist.

3 days until my next exam - I really should start studying for this one as it may be tricky. Also I received a mark for my last third year history paper and I'm thinking that I will get a B+ as a final grade which is acceptable. 8 days until exams are all over and about 25 until I fly away!! Can't wait.

One down - two to go.

Had my first exam yesterday, now only 2 left until I graduate. It was a History exam but only for a poxy first year paper so I probably didn't study enough. In fact I know I didn't only relaly started that morning but I lucked out on the questions that I got, almost exactly what I studied for. I only had to write two essay in two hours, my first essay was;

"The humanising of war! You might as well talk of the humanising of hell!" (Sir John Fisher, The Hague, 1899). Do you agree that the attempts to restrain and limit wars and warfare have failed in the period 1815 - today? Explain your answer, citing evidence from at least THREE different periods of conflict and/or conflict resolution. No problems with that one - wrote about 6-7 pages and some of it may even have been relevant. Next question;

The Second World War is the world's only example of truly 'total war'. Do you agree? Discuss, reffering to at least TWO other twentieth-century conflicts aside from the Second World War.
Again not too hard - I tlaked about WWI, WWII and the War on Terror.

I only needed 8 marks from the 50 on offer in the exam to pass so I am hoping that I did ok.

Next exam is next Tuesday and is a third year Anthropology paper on Contemporary Oceania, might need ot do a little bit more study for this one.

On a side note - I bought some travel trousers today - chino(ish) style and quite comfy. And my payment has been received for my flights and my tickets are being generated. Exciting stuff!!