"We will sleep through all the lectures, and cheat on the exams...

...and then we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest."

Yesterday brought with it my final two exams and an essay deadline, and much relief as consequence following their passing. The first one I was really worried about - half an hour oral exam over all the texts from the course, all 14 of them. Because the class was on fin de siecle Viennese literature most of the texts were concerned with beauty and death, and the ideas, rather than plot, were the most important things. It's nervewracking discussing it with a professor who has written papers on the subject as an Auslander speaking in your second language. Once I got started though it flowed quite naturally, I find an interruption or a question I have no idea how to answer can really scupper me.
The second exam however, was not plain sailing. I was the last examee of the day having arrived slightly late when the professor's secretary was registering us for it, and finding an orderly queue outside her office, just like home!
This is not in itself a handicap, but by the time it was my go everything was running half an hour late and he was obviously growing weary of hearing people talk about Exile Literature 1933-1945 for the whole morning. More importantly he cut me short as he had appointments that hour we had eaten in to, meaning a lot of what I'd prepared I didn't get a chance to say. While i sympathise and understand he was on a schedule it is a little galling, as I could by my reckoning have gained a few more marks with what I still held 'in reserve,' planning as I was for the full twenty minutes. Anyway, I passed., and for that I am thankful.
Now I've got to pack up all my stuff for leaving I've got large collection of undemanding crime fiction bought for escapist wind-down purposes that I can't really take home but don't want to throw away, so if anyone wants a copy of Kiss me Deadly or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, let me know