So I've got two essays due next week, one on science/scientists in Gothic lit (and particularly Keats' "Lamia" and Shelley's Frankenstein, and the other on... either something to do with Gilgamesh or the Book of Genesis or both. I haven't actually decided what I'm writing for the second one. I've done most of my research on the Gothic lit, and it feels weird, because normally this is the point at which I'd start writing the paper, and normally it would be due on Wednesday at the latest, and it's like "I... do not write essays this early, what do I do now?" Granted, there's still the second paper to research and write, and I have two more due after Christmas, so I should at least do some research for them, but other than that? This lack of a constant presence of small amounts of homework is kinda weird.
And then I read the posts on the class mailing list back home, and realize I am SO VERY FUCKING LUCKY not to have to do all that stuff. Because eleventy small, fiddly assignments on stuff I already know (seriously, why is there still vocabulary in the third year of the English course?) is so much worse than anything I have to do here.
Reading and Writing Women - 1,000 word critical analysis, and 1,500 word essay
Myth & Narrative - 2,500 words essay and a second essay of I don't know how many words, since I'm doing an essay instead of a presentation in the exam period
Gothic Literature - two 2,500 words essays
19th Century Literature - 1,000 word editorial analysis, and two 2,000 word essays
So that's 15K plus the one essay I don't know about yet. Which seems a lot better than vocabulary and grammar exercises, and endless repetitions of the rules of academic writing. (With that last one, it seems highly illogical to me to really properly start in on it in the third year, when we've been writing essays since the beginning. I get that the Polish educational system doesn't put a lot of emphasis on academic writing, which is why it's necessary, because a lot of people are *still asking "how are we supposed to cite things in this essay?" (which makes me want to grab them and scream that YOU DO IT THE SAME WAY YOU WERE SHOWN EVERY TIME YOU FUCKING MORONS, but that might just be me. I don't remember the exact details of how my high school English teacher handled citations and stuff, but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of "this is the MLA style manual, there are some copies of it in the library, I expect you to learn it and use it properly" and then we were expected to get it right - and we wrote essays from the very start, proper essays of 1,500 words, none of this "write 200 words on the metaphor of writing as a quilt" (which caused people so much grief and OH MY GOD I'M SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS))).
*deep breath* I think I lost my train of thought somewhere in all those parenthetical asides. But anyway. Schoolwork differences. They're a little weird, because I feel like I should have something to do (beyond the required reading, and even that's less involved than back home, what with the lack of "suggested" secondary sources for each and every lecture) more often, rather than nine assignments spread out over six months. But it's definitely preferable to fiddly shit that doesn't actually make me learn anything beyond memorizing pointless lists of words that I'm then expected to vomit back out onto the page during the exam.
And now I'm going to go read some Virginia Woolf, because if I'm going to write an essay on A Room of One's Own, I should probably read it rather than just skimming through it.
And then I read the posts on the class mailing list back home, and realize I am SO VERY FUCKING LUCKY not to have to do all that stuff. Because eleventy small, fiddly assignments on stuff I already know (seriously, why is there still vocabulary in the third year of the English course?) is so much worse than anything I have to do here.
Reading and Writing Women - 1,000 word critical analysis, and 1,500 word essay
Myth & Narrative - 2,500 words essay and a second essay of I don't know how many words, since I'm doing an essay instead of a presentation in the exam period
Gothic Literature - two 2,500 words essays
19th Century Literature - 1,000 word editorial analysis, and two 2,000 word essays
So that's 15K plus the one essay I don't know about yet. Which seems a lot better than vocabulary and grammar exercises, and endless repetitions of the rules of academic writing. (With that last one, it seems highly illogical to me to really properly start in on it in the third year, when we've been writing essays since the beginning. I get that the Polish educational system doesn't put a lot of emphasis on academic writing, which is why it's necessary, because a lot of people are *still asking "how are we supposed to cite things in this essay?" (which makes me want to grab them and scream that YOU DO IT THE SAME WAY YOU WERE SHOWN EVERY TIME YOU FUCKING MORONS, but that might just be me. I don't remember the exact details of how my high school English teacher handled citations and stuff, but I'm pretty sure it was along the lines of "this is the MLA style manual, there are some copies of it in the library, I expect you to learn it and use it properly" and then we were expected to get it right - and we wrote essays from the very start, proper essays of 1,500 words, none of this "write 200 words on the metaphor of writing as a quilt" (which caused people so much grief and OH MY GOD I'M SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS))).
*deep breath* I think I lost my train of thought somewhere in all those parenthetical asides. But anyway. Schoolwork differences. They're a little weird, because I feel like I should have something to do (beyond the required reading, and even that's less involved than back home, what with the lack of "suggested" secondary sources for each and every lecture) more often, rather than nine assignments spread out over six months. But it's definitely preferable to fiddly shit that doesn't actually make me learn anything beyond memorizing pointless lists of words that I'm then expected to vomit back out onto the page during the exam.
And now I'm going to go read some Virginia Woolf, because if I'm going to write an essay on A Room of One's Own, I should probably read it rather than just skimming through it.
