The Lake of Boredom.

I have no other words to describe the still lake I am wearely swimming into. The Lake of Boredom. In 1 week I will be past exams, waiting for an interview in London. I am not stressed, I am not even tired. I am just deeply, inherently, profoundly and inescapably B-O-R-E-D.

I am preparing for exams that I have chosen and, partly, enjoyed. I still think they are worth it and interesting. BUT, it is just the complete lack of any pedagogical sense in these exams that turns me off 100%.

PREAMBLE
I am reading for a MPhil in Development Studies. An MPhil is supposedly partly taught and partly research. Fair and fine I have done my fieldwork in Mozambique and written up a 30,000 words long thesis. Last year I had qualifying exams to pass on to my second year, which I have passed. Now, after having submitted my thesis (which I wont discuss if the examiners are not worried with plagiarism issues) I still have to sit 2 exams, which will hopefully allow me to pass the two options I have taken this year.

EXAM SPECIFICATION
This is how it works. I attended each of these two modules for 6 weeks, once or twice a week. The options were "Migration and Development " and "Health and Development" (quite broad, isn't it?). For each of them I will have to sit a 3 hour exam in the scary Exams School, on the High Street. Each exam entails a list of approximately 10-12 questions, among which we will choose 3 to answer thoroughly. Which means more or less 4 A4 pages per answer. Which translates into annoying arm-ache throughout the following 3 days. I have exams on monday and tuesday. Handy, no?

FRUSTRATION
Now tell me. How does it feel to carry out research, write a convincing argument for months and then be put in a room where you have to vomit premade knowledge in very short and very stricly controlled amount of time? What kind of knowledge is this approach encouraging? Dont bother, I am providing he answer. Mnemonic knowledge.

MNEMONIC KNOWLEDGE
The kind of information you can just throw on the paper without thinking too much, cause you have preformatted your personal internal hard disk for weeks beofre (supposedly).
The kind of knowledge they try to discourage everywhere (except China maybe), here is proudly fostered.
The kind of knowledge you will unmidfully drop with the second pint of celebratory beer.
The kind of knowledge I despise.

BOREDOM
I got to the point where I find it really hard to trade off my own moral standpoint on knowledge with the Oxford style. I am 28. I have studied for 20 years. I have built my steady grounds of knowledge. If the plan is to built a house, a town, a village, a lock, a car, whatever, well, I am in the process of embroiding the windows curtains. Yet, examiners do not want to evaluate the quality of my embroiding. They want to assess my knowledge of the other constructions in the area, and abroad. They want to see whether I have any idea of the historical process that brought me to use those materials in that specific way. They do not want to know if there is any other reason behind my choices.

I am sick of this. When are they going to challenge me on the embroidery?? Is it ever going to happen? Even if, will it be what I am expecting? I know the thesis should be for that...yet. Uff maybe it feels this bad cause I handed in my thesis and this exam business, well it feels like going backwards. I had to do the embroidery and now go back to foundations. I am bored.

Bored.
Bored.
Bored.