I survived the exams and my BSM

Like promised, having survived my exams I am back to blog. The exam week was.... very unlike the other 5 exam weeks I have had at SMU. It felt doable, survivable and conquerable.

There was no last minute dash to complete syllabus (for at least for 3 of my 4 exams). I wasn't feeling as stressed as I always do. I had more than my exam usual 3-4 hours of sleep each night. I didn't break out into cold sweat sitting in the exam hall and I managed to complete the exam papers (all except for 1). All in all it felt good completing the last paper. I knew I had put in my best and just prayed that my hardwork would be rewarded.

On the last day of my exam I was woken up by mom. She was really cute as she woke me up saying "Wake up beta, end of year 3!". Isn't my mother the best?! I seriously love her. She puts no pressure on me for my studies. She accepts my results without a question. She tolerates my mood swings, my messy room and my erratic behavior around the exam time. Best of all she supports me through everything. She is the best mom I could ever want!

My messy study table that only unfolds during exams

It is an utter mess..

Anyways my results are out and I cleared all my exams. *woohooo* I'm officially done with year 3. It proved to be the longest year in SMU with the normal term, modified term and term 3A. Now I am getting geared for summer school at LSE and the final forth year at SMU.

End of "Calm before the storm"

So it is 1st of June 2008 today, the start of yet another month.

The onset of June also means that tomorrow morning is my first exam.. I am not entirely nervous. But the fact that I am not nervous is making me slightly nervous. Crazy am I not?

At this point of time I am just desperately praying for my 4 exams to go smoothly and get over fast! Though not that fast that I don't get enough time during the exam itself.. If you know what I mean. Anyways I can't wait to officially get done with 3rd year at SMU. I will be just 1 year away from graduation. That in itself is another bittersweet event creeping into my life.

However before that I have many other things to look forward to. The 1st of which is my BSM to Scandinavia!! *wooohoooo* Less than a week now. I am so excited. I have finally opened up my suitcase and starting thinking of what all I want to bring with me to the other side of the globe. That brings me to the highly intriguing fact that I seemed to have misplaced 1 pair of shoes and my brand new deck of UNO cards in the house! I am totally baffled. I just hope I can find the UNO cards before Saturday as I want to have the safety of UNO cards to keep me entertained on the Scandinavia trip.

Anyways as the title of this post says, I am bracing myself for the storm to hit tomorrow at 9am. Wish me luck! Hopefully I will survive and be back to blog about my survival stories :D

Let me leave with this group photo of the BSM group with the Danish ambassador. It was taken when she visited us during 1 of our seminars.

Exams Frenzy

Yikes where does the time fly..

Wasn't it just yesterday that I was enjoying my Chritmas holiday weekend with my girls in Genting? Or wasn't it just yesterday I had started with my Investor Relation classes? Or wasn't it just yesterday that I had my first Tax Planning class and hated it?

All the slogging, all the tears, all the hardwork and all the torture culminate in the 4 exams I will soon be sitting for. I have never hated exams as much in my 12 years of schooling as I hate them in university. The time never seems enough, I never feel prepared enough and the atmosphere doesn’t seem conducive enough!

A semester in SMU lasts for 15 weeks. 13 weeks are for lessons with a one week break in week 8 and week 14. Week 15 is exams week. The 1 week break in week 14 is coined the study break as it is before the exams. It is supposed to give students time to concentrate fully on exams. However I think 1 week is just tooo little, especially with professors stubbornly holding tutorial and revision classes in the same week. Where is the time to sit and down and burry myself in books if I am going to be running back and forth SMU and home?! That is the normal state of things during the weeks of classes anyways. That leaves nothing special about week 14 break week.

Also no matter how much earlier I want to start studying for exams, I can’t.

1. The syllabus doesn’t get completed before week 13, or week 12 at the earliest.
2. There is a rush of project, report and presentation deadlines in week 11, 12 and 13; sometimes even in week 14!

I usually end up staying in SMU till crazy hours in my bid to meet these deadlines

Making the library my 2nd home, I have stayed in the library latest till 3.30am!

So it all boils down to the week 14 where I have to manage/ attempt to cover my studying for all my exams; 4 for this term.

My exams are as such,
2^nd June, 9am: Advanced Audit
3^rd June, 2pm: Ethics
5^th June, 9am: Tax Planning
6^th June, 9am: Advanced Management Accounting

My carrot to survive through the exams is my flight to Sweden on 7^th June!! :D