The final summit

Last week was a good cliffhanger, I thought, but it’s not quite the end of season 1. My final task was to pass An introduction to medieval English. I don’t recommend giving yourself a week to prepare for a 2 hour exam from scratch (i.e., reading the Wife of Bath in Middle English for the first time) but it’s obviously doable. Essentially, I wrote two essays- about 1000 and 1200 words- and then memorised them to within about 90% accuracy within a day or two using a mnemonic I used to memorise long numbers with to show off to my Chinese students. Then I reproduced them in the exam, including some long citations. Of course, I wasn't actually masochistic enough to bother reading the whole tale in Middle English. I mostly read a faithful modern translation and memorised middle English chunks for citation. Not that the Middle English is so difficult, but time was of the essence. I gave good answers but not really to the questions asked (time constraints, my dear), so I expect them to be more in the B-C region than the A-B. My only complaint: I needed to ask Sarah questions about three times and each time she had her head down and I had to wait until she happened to look up. Or maybe she’d noticed me waving my arms frantically. I do like Sarah, though. She’s unfailingly kind (despite my skipping her lectures) and she tends to call me by name a lot, which is a sign she is aware of my existence. I mean, some people just call me hello.

So bar the final meet ups of the writer’s group, which is very much a casual arrangement (and was cancelled last week), I now have more than four months to do whatever I please. That’s nice but also a bit of a shame because this summer I could have been having a lot of fun. About £3000 worth of fun. What is that these days? A weekend in Las Vegas, a short cruise, a long summer in South East Asia. How is this a fact, you ask. Well, I could have booked the cheapest room, which would have cost me about £79 per week, or A cheap room shall we say, instead of a studio apartment which cost me £156 per week or £6,500. I would have had to have used a shared bathroom, kitchen and toilet but my room would have had a sink and the point is at the end of the year I would have been laughing, very loudly. Ah well, there is always next year. One year older and wiser I’ve already booked a more modest room in the older halls on the other side of town for my return in September. Unfortunately, the smallest rooms (now £80 per week) are gone, the next up are £96 but I looked at the floor plan and they look crowded. I’ve chosen what looks on paper to be a quieter and larger area at £103 per week (I’ll wear ear plugs) and sandwiched between a bathroom and kitchen. Of course, it won’t be so nice not having my own kitchen and bathroom but who knows, kitchen wise that may be a good thing, socially speaking. I’d like to say the £2500 I’ll be saving is going on a holiday next year but that is about how much I owe Tesco banking, so...