Trinity Term 2013

 28 April - 14 June 2013

On recovering from my hectic thesis submission, it wasn't quite over yet. On the Tuesday of the following week (i.e. Second Week) I had been asked to give a presentation on my thesis to the graduate Philology Seminar (one of my coursemates was to do the same, and another was to present his the following week). Fitting a 25 000 word thesis into a short talk was not easy. I also had to tone down some of the specifics of the linguistic detail as most of those attending wouldn't be familiar with the Chomskyan framework I was using. I was extremely nervous since a number of well-versed faculty members would be in attendance and most of those present probably knew more about Greek than I did. In the end, the talk went really well. There wasn't too large a turnout and I think I was able to answer the one faculty member who bombarded me with questions afterwards quite well. (In most cases, I could say that I had thought about his objections even if they hadn't been directly implemented into the thesis). A number of people congratulated me afterwards on making the subject matter accessible to those who were unfamiliar with it.

The remainder of trinity term involved me preparing for exams. I had three exams over two days (13 and 14 June): General Linguistics on the first day and Historical Linguistics and  History and Structure of Greek on the next.

Between studying for exams, I had a little spare time this term. The two social highlights were a dinner organised by Emily with a bunch of college friends who were all quite special to us: Mary, Rosaria, Rex and Zoe. The second was a River Baptism held by my Church (St Ebbes) on 2 June. Two of my friends from the Worcester College CU (Chris and Yiyi) were among those getting baptised. It was a lovely day weather-wise, and it was nice to see two of my friends share their testimonies of what God had done in their lives and show their commitment by being baptised.

Rosaria, Zoe, Emily, Rex, Mary

Rex, Mary, Me, Emily, Rosaria

Baptisees

Worcester crew attending baptism

Emily, Mary and I also continued watching Doctor Who once a week and we succeeded in getting to the end of Series 5 by the end of term. Mary's birthday was in early May, so we doubled up one of our "Dinner and Doctor" evenings with birthday cake. We also had a break from our normal mince-based dinner one week by eating fish fingers and custard. This will make no sense to people unfamiliar with a particular episode of Doctor Who. (If you really want to know, watch this link).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo2RKAHu-kI

Mary, as the most sensible of us three, kept her custard for pudding and ate the fish fingers separately, but Emily and I actually dunked out fish fingers in custard. Let's just say it didn't taste too bad....

Emily and Mary

Mary's cake

Fish fingers and custard

Yum!

Exam week was quite stressful, but in a different way to thesis week. The thought of writing nine essays in two days, with an hour per essay, was more than daunting. But I prepared as best I could by revising the preparatory essays I had written. Oxford has a rather bizarre tradition when it comes to exams in that we wear a "uniform". This consists of "subfusc" (a white collared shirt and black skirt or trousers with a black bow for women, and a dark suit and bow-tie for men) and our college gown. We also have to carry graduation caps into the exam, though we are not allowed to wear them. In addition there is a recent tradition of wearing carnations to exams: a white carnation for your first exam, pink for any intermediate exams and red for the final. Since I had exactly three exams, I got to wear one of each. Exams were written in a building in the Oxford High Street aptly named Exam Schools (the same Exam Schools where I rushed to submit my thesis as recounted in the last post). It is used for lectures outside of exam time.

My carnations

Morning of first exam

At the Rad Cam between exams 2 and 3

After last exam

The exams themselves were, for the most part, all right. The structure and set-up was not that different to what I've been used to at UKZN. Although I didn't get all the questions I was hoping for (and sometimes the wording was slightly different or specific in a different direction to what I'd prepared for), I was able to write answers for three questions in each paper, which was what I needed to do. Although I panicked a little in the days leading up the the exams, the Lord gave me a sense of peace and calmness as I was writing. And looking back, it's an enormous privilege to have been able to write exams in the same location and similar circumstances as countless great academics who came before me. I had two hours between my two Friday exams, so I didn't go back to college, but stayed around the High Street area and had lunch. The matter of most concern on the day was that my left wrist (I'm left-handed) was very sore from writing the first exam and I didn't think it could handle another on the same day. So went to Boots (for South Africans that's a medical store roughly equivalent to Clicks) and found a wrist support. I had to find a very cheap one as I had little money on me (we had to leave our bags outside the exam venue), but I managed to do so. The support was basically elasticated fabric that wrapped round my wrist but it was enough and I was able to write the second exam without much problem. During the break between exams, I spent some time with two of my course mates who also had two exams that day and, although we were writing on slightly different topics, just talking to them helped me with my preparation for the second exam. During the break, Emily also came to find me and brought my red carnation so I could switch it with the pink one I was wearing.

Another Oxford tradition is that when you come out of the final exam, your friends "trash" you by throwing confetti and other things on you (the less pleasant forms involve champagne or even worse, raw eggs - though the latter is banned and you can be fined for making a mess). Emily (and her parents, who had arrived in Oxford that day) came to trash me. She threw confetti on me, and gave me a fun party hat and balloons. Her father took lots of photos :D

All done!!!

Maddy and Charlotte

With Rex

Bubbles!!!

Walking up Cornmarket

And with that, my studies at Oxford were over. It was just a matter now of waiting for results (which we would not hear about until 2 July).

That night was a strange evening, since it coincided with the last day of term and so many of my undergrad friends were packing to go home and I had to try to say goodbye to all of them, many for the last time. On top of it, Emily's parents had arrived, so they were getting settled in and Emily was getting most of her stuff packed up. That Sunday, I was going with her family on a trip to Angelsey off the coast of Wales (but that will be another blog post all of its own).

That evening, we celebrated by - you guessed it - watching Doctor Who. It was essentially our only opportunity to finish series 5 with Mary (and since they were her disks, we needed to do so).

It was all a bit of a whirlwind, and the sense of relief and joy and appreciation took some time to sink in. Of course, there was also the little niggle,that I still had no idea what my results would be (up to this point I still hadn't had a single mark for anything I'd done at Oxford). But those were worries for the future and for now I just enjoyed being finished.

I close out this post with some pictures that my TLC friend "The Happy Islander" drew and sent to me as encouragement in the days leading up to and during exams.

Thesis

21-26 April 2013


I ended the last post rather abruptly. I realised I could never get in an account of the final week leading up to my thesis submission in that post. I apologise for the length, and possibly dullness of this post. It's probably here for my sake more than anyone else's that I have this account of this week. I promise that the next post will be more like the other posts, covering more interesting events (with photos!).

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Thesis and syntax-related books

As the deadline* for my submissions loomed, so did my stress levels. I spent much of the Sunday of first week, working on my syntax essay. I thought I'd finally come up with a decent account of the data I had been looking at. On the Monday, I sent a copy of it to my tutor, fairly pleased with what I'd done. I hoped that it would only require minimal corrections to polish it up and that could focus on my thesis for the rest of the week.

On the Wednesday, my syntax tutor sent a copy of my essay back to me with comments. She wasn't satisfied and recommended some major revisions. In particular, she didn't like the fact that I was wavering between two alternative explanations and suggested that I pick one of the two and go with it. I was very reluctant to have to do that, since I knew neither explanation was without problems. I thought it would be in my interest to show that I'd thought through both alternatives rather than only one. It took the rest of that afternoon, not a few tears, and a walk outside, to convince myself that it was not a lost cause and I could make the necessary changes. I reluctantly cut the one of the explanations almost completely from the essay and just focussed on the other. This had the added advantage of cutting down my word count (which was slightly over the limit) and, after reading up a bit more, I was able to strengthen the analysis I'd picked significantly, while still pointing out its flaws. This was probably the toughest moment of submission week, but I somehow got through it.

In the mean time, I was on the final stages of my thesis; really just polishing it up and finalising the introduction and conclusion. At about lunch time on Thursday (the day before it was due) I printed out a full copy of my thesis, all 78 pages, and began to do a complete read through. I had been doing most of my work in my room in college, so, having gone to the the linguistics department to print, I stayed there to work on my edits for a change of scenery. My plan was that I wouldn't go back home until I'd finished the read-through, made the necessary corrections and printed the final copy. The read-through took a few hours longer than I had expected. It was sometime near 6.00 pm when I was done reading and marking corrections on the printed copy. I decided I had better go home and at least have something to eat before continuing. So I took all my stuff back to my room (I lived about a two minutes' walk from the department) and continued my work there.

I made myself microwave porridge for dinner because it was quick (with the plan to make scrambled egg on toast later), and proceeded to transfer my corrections from paper to computer. I could tell that the stress and shortage of sleep that week was getting to me when I added far too much salt to the porridge. It was horrible, and under normal circumstances I would have thrown it out and made more, but I ate it anyway. The transfer of corrections also took far longer than I'd anticipated, and finalising the bibliography was also quite time consuming. I think it was around 11 pm when I was finally done and happy with my work (or too exhausted to care any more). I could have waited until the next day, but I wanted my thesis printed just in case anything went wrong. I also had to have it bound before submitting it, and had been so busy worrying about getting it done, I hadn't quite figured out how and where I would have it bound.

I headed back to the linguistics department (using the side door because the front was locked by this time). I made my way around in the dark until I could find a light switch, and printed out the two required copies of my thesis. Then I headed back home (narrowly missing tripping down a couple of steps in the dark). It had started raining very lightly, but I had my thesis in a plastic folder so it was safe. I got home, relieved my thesis was done, but unable to relax as I still needed to finish my syntax essay.

The original plan had been to have my thesis printed out by about 6.00 pm so I would have the rest of the evening to work on the essay, but, well, things hadn't exactly gone to plan. It was looking like I'd have to pull the first all-nighter of my academic career. Finalising the essay (but not the bibliography) took me till about 3.00 am, when I had a quick shower. By this time, I did not feel like going downstairs to the kitchen to make my still-overdue scrambled egg dinner, so I used up some cold meat I had in the fridge on cream crackers. I then did a proof-read through, before working on and completing the bibliography for my essay (which again, took quite some time). Satisfied at last, and certain that I had multiple back-up copies, I finally climbed into bed at about 5.00 am. I set my alarm for 7.00, because I still needed to print my essay, get my thesis bound and buy envelopes in which to put the pieces of work I was to submit.

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Despite my bed feeling more relaxing and softer than usual, I couldn't fall asleep. Naturally! At about 5.30, I remembered I'd meant to have a bowl of cereal before I went to bed (and I was feeling queasy - from some combination of tiredness, hunger and nerves). So I got up and poured myself some Rice Krispies. I can't decide whether that meal counts as a really late dinner dinner or early breakfast - maybe I should coin a new word and call it supfast or something. Anyway, I somehow managed to doze off for perhaps an hour, but woke up again sometime between 6.30 and 7.00. I had some more breakfast (or second breakfast) and coffee, got dressed and headed to the college computer room to print my essay. I had until 12.00 midday to hand my assignments in.

Print-out of thesis

After printing the essay, I would still need to get the copies of my thesis bound. I had briefly noticed that the secretary of the linguistics department had mentioned in an email that the department had a thermal binder, but I was so distracted by my work at the time I hadn't had a chance to follow up on it. I thought it might be easier to take my theses to the printing-and-binding shop just outside of college. I had checked at some point during the night that they opened at 9.00am and decided to head there as soon as they were open. I thought I might find envelopes there too.

But as I paged through the essay I had just printed, to make sure everything was in order, I discovered that I had printed the entire document without page numbers. The tiredness and stress was getting to me again. The printer at college, like the one in the linguistics department, is an industrial style printer-copier, and I had no idea if or how I could run the pages through again, just printing page numbers on the bottom corner. I tried to think where I could find someone with the printer that would let me do that, and decided to go to the linguistics department to see if I could use the printer of a staff member. Neither the secretary nor my supervisor were in their offices that early in the morning, and I began to panic just a little. Knowing I still needed to sort out binding and to buy envelopes, I decided to go to town and come back and sort out my essay's page numbers when there were more people around.

Just as I was leaving the department, I bumped into one of my course-mates, Christelle. I told her what had happened with my page numbers (or lack thereof), and she told me to calm down, stop worrying and just reprint the entire essay using the department printers. I realised she was right, and though I loathed the waste of reprinting, it made the most sense and would mean I had one less thing to worry about. I'd want a copy of the essay for my own records in any case. I also mentioned to her that I was on my way to the printing/binding shop and she asked why I didn't simply use the department thermal binder the secretary had mentioned, since that's what she was going to do. That took a second weight off my shoulders, but I still needed to buy envelopes.

In addition to needing A4 envelopes in which to put my thesis, essay and problem sets, I also needed small letter envelopes. We weren't allowed to have our names anywhere on the assignments, but we also had to have a signed declaration that what we were submitting was our own work. As a result, the declarations had to be in sealed envelopes that would be checked by someone other than the markers.

On my way to town, I met the linguistics department secretary, who hadn't been in her office earlier, and I double checked with her that I could use the department's binder. That confirmed, I relaxed a great deal. She was the second person God had placed in my path that morning to help with the panic I was experiencing.

The envelope-finding trip took far longer than it should have. None of the stationery shops sold single envelopes of either kind and I really didn't want to buy packs of 10 or 20. In the end, I went to Poundland (across the other end of town) where I did end up buying multi-packs. But since they only cost a Pound for the whole pack, I didn't mind the waste so much.

Hot and tired, I headed back to the Linguistics department and got instructions on how to bind my theses. The machine wasn't too hard to operate, but it required patient holding of the document in the machine while it melted and set the glue that bound the spine. And it wasn't guaranteed that everything would stick. The first copy of my thesis came out perfectly. The second, was a flop, and I had to start on it again from scratch. Eventually I got most of it to stick and decided I wouldn't loose marks for a slightly uneven binding. While Christelle worked on getting her documents bound, I put mine into the required envelopes and double checked the (rather complex) instructions on how we were to address them. Christelle also had problems getting her documents to stick. While she tried to get the machine to work, she asked me to help address her envelopes. She had many more pieces of work to submit than me because I only had the syntax option evaluated by written assignment. All Christelle's options were examined by written assignment, hence the extra work due.

Time was ticking (it had passed 11.00am), but Christelle wasn't panicking and I followed her lead. What neither of us realised was that she was going by the wall clock in the room where we were, which was between fifteen minutes and half-an-hour slow. She suggested, since things were taking so long, that we order a taxi to take us to Exam Schools. I know I can do the walk from the Department to Exam Schools in 15 to 20 minutes, if I hurried, but a taxi should make it much quicker. At about 11.35 (or perhaps a minute or two late), the taxi arrived. But when the taxi driver heard where we were going, he pointed out that there was no way he could get through Friday midday traffic in Oxford faster than we could walk it. Many of the streets in central Oxford are closed to vehicles or one-way, meaning the taxi trip would not be direct. We should have figured this out beforehand but, well, it had been a long week. The taxi driver offered to take us as far as Broad Street (a street taxis could not enter) and we could walk the rest of the way. This did save us some time, and we all but ran from the corner of Broad Street to Exam Schools (dodging tourists), getting there just before 11.55 by my watch.

Walking round Worcester the evening of submission

I thought once we got to Exam Schools, all we'd have to do was hand over the documents and be done. But when we got there, we discovered that there were forms to fill out. Among other things, they asked for us to fill in our exam candidate number. I hadn't memorised my number, and there had been no instructions to write it anywhere on the outside of our envelopes. So the only copy I had of it was inside the envelopes, now sealed. I was loathe to tear them open and have to reseal. When one of the officials keeping an eye on us, learnt of my dilemma, she told me to stop worrying (knowing how close it was to the deadline). She said that there were few enough of us taking the course, and they could look up my exam number and fill it in for me. I should just take my documents to the submissions counter and hand them in. That lady was the third God-send of the day.

I went to the counter and someone there started to put up a fuss about me not having my exam number on the envelope (something that no one had requested before then; it was for the form that I needed it, not the envelope). My watch by this time was reading 11.59. Someone else behind the counter, overruled the instruction, however, and they handed me a receipt to say my documents were submitted at 11.55. Both my watch and the clock at exam schools read 11.59, so I can only assume that their time stamp was 5 minutes slow to benefit students who were so close to the deadline like me.

As we left exam schools, it took me a while to realise that it was all over. I felt sort of numb, and wanted to laugh at the same time. It was bizarre. A week of stress, a night of no sleep (or only one hour) and a rushed, chaotic day will do that to you.

We headed to a pub for lunch where we were to meet up with the rest of our course mates and celebrate our submission. After hanging out together till about 2, I headed back home. I had one of my rather bad headaches from a night of no sleep and all the anxiety that had piled up. I tried to take a nap, but the headache and adrenaline were not much help. I might have dosed for about an hour before waking again.

That evening Emily and I celebrated by going to Pizza Hut for pudding. I had a banoffee cookie ice-cream sandwich. On Saturday evening, we went out to the Inklings' pub, the Eagle and Child, with some a couple of our friends. We also celebrated with Mary by watching five episodes of Doctor Who between Friday and Saturday night. Emily gave me a mini daffodil plant and a sachet on which she'd cross stitched a hedgehog pattern as "thesis completion" gifts.

Gifts from Emily

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who helped me with (or put up with me while I was working on) my thesis, and to give praise to the Lord for the many ways in which he helped me get through the difficult patches and how he provided for me on the day.

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* I've mentioned this before, but as a reminder, my Master's course consisted of 5 components: a thesis (max 25 000 words), three specialist options and a general exam paper. The specialist options could be examined by written submission or exam. The written assignment/s were due at the same time as the thesis (the first Friday of the first week of Trinity Term in my second year) and the exams were set for the end (8th week) of the same term. My specialist options were Syntax, which was examined by written assignments (a 5 000 - 7 000 word essay and a "problem set"), and Historical Linguistics and The History and Structure of Ancient Greek, which were both tested by exam. As a result, in the first week of Trinity Term, to which this post refers, I was working on finishing up my thesis as well as my syntax essay and the problem sets. They all had to be submitted in sealed envelopes to Exam Schools (a building in Oxford used for lectures during most of the year, and exams at the end of the year) by 12.00 pm (midday) on Friday 26 April 2013.