Amuses

1/4 down, 3/4 to go

I received my grades! You know I was worried about them, so you are going to find this amusing. The grades were fine. But once I got used to the idea of having passed, and having passed well, I started worrying about why I did not get higher grades. Which is really, really silly. Remember how I struggled to get in and keep up, the first couple of weeks especially but actually all the way through. I was so relieved that I could do it at all. So, laugh at me, I deserve it. Husband does it too. Let me give you the figures. Dutch grades go from 1 – 10. From 8 it is cum laude territory. I got:

  • 8 for my paper on “Autopeiosis as a mechanism” for Philosophy of Mind;
  • 7.5 for my paper on “Collective speech acts”, which is Philosophy of Language
  • 8.5 for a collection of work (papers, presentation) for Methods & Skills.

Time to party. This is an 8 on average. Which is why this post has a very cheery picture. Apart from the grades, I now have a total of 30 EC, which means that I am 1/4 through the Research Master (which is 120 EC- normal Master courses are 60 EC). Considering I did this with only 1 day off work every 2 weeks, I am allowed to be a little proud of myself. And of my husband for bearing with me and my late night studying. Driving me back and forth to Nijmegen. Listening to my rambling. Proofreading my papers.

Yet I am not entirely satisfied. Yes, you may laugh, I said, didn’t I? On both the Philosophy of Mind and the Philosophy of Language paper I lost points for not being quite clear enough about my research question. Must improve that. Also, I did something revolutionary on the Phil-Mind paper which they did not quite understand because I had flown the idea in from informatics – and had not explained it sufficiently. Oh yes, and my own professor (you remember, the beloved grumpy one) decided to deduct marks for my writing being insufficiently clear whilst the other professors were raving about my writing and giving plus marks for same. Beauty in the eye of the beholder? Probably not. This is supposed to be academia.

I am seeing my professor at the beginning of August, so I have a chance to discuss it. I really want to get to the bottom of this. I know he is a logician at heart, so maybe he wants me to be much more precise – which will be difficult to achieve if the text also has to comprehensible. Never mind. I will find out what it is I have to learn.

On a lighter note: I had to change my glasses. I developed a chronic headache and sore eyes. First I thought that was because of all the studying, and then I had my eyes checked. It turns out I have a prism thingie – basically the brain not quite matching the two pictures from the left and right eye. So I have bought myself new bifocals, and also another one for computer work. What else does one have holiday money for? These glasses are really special – I can change the frame by changing the magnetic cover. So I now have glasses in many colours – green, turtle, red, purple and even bright pink! I have tried them out at the office. Swapped the frames midway through a meeting to change the atmosphere. It amuses my colleages. And myself. I change them at least 3 times a day. Have look at the manufacturer’s site if you want to see how it looks. Poor Husband. More new-fangled nonsense for him to put up with.

I am now more of less on holiday (well, working full time, but the evenings and weekends are temporarily my own). In September everything starts again. Probably I will be doing two seminars and a “state of the art” paper, again 30 EC. But first: party time. This 1/4 is behind me now. I may now regard myself as a proper student, having finally fulfilled my own prophesy at the tender age of 23 – that one day I would go back to university. Well, it has happened and it is great.

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