Finally Finished with Finals

I gave my presentation on Tuesday, and all went well. Then I spent the rest of the day studying.


Yesterday I had my Amazonian Linguistics final at 11. I felt pretty prepared. I was wrong about that. I could not answer the questions. I was completely drawing a blank, and was kind of freaking out. I had gotten good grades on my other stuff, so I knew I would still pass the class even if I bombed the test, but it wouldn't be good for my GPA and it was just disappointing, because I had spent a lot of time studying. So I did my best, and tried to make up some stuff (there were only 2 out of the 5 questions that I actually knew the answers to).

So that was a big bummer, but I stayed on campus to try to finish my Quechua composition and study for the exam. The composition was supposed to be 500 words. I had probably spent a good 4 hours on it, at least, and had gotten to about 370 before I finally gave up. Remember how you can translate like a 10 word sentence in English to like a 2 word sentence in Quechua because they use so many suffixes to add meaning? Yeah. Makes it hard to write 500 words. It also makes it hard when the prof never really focused on constructing sentences throughout the whole semester. 


About an hour before the exam I met up with my friend from class, Carly, so we could study in the cafe on campus. As I was sitting there my linguistics professor walked in and told me he had graded the exams. To which I thought, well thats embarrassing because you probably think I'm an idiot. He said he couldn't tell me my grade but that I did fine, and I passed. 


Quechua was an oral exam, which really worried me, but it ended up being the easiest exam of my life. First we had to go around and each say why we took Quechua (in Spanish, not Quechua) and then he started writing sentences in Quechua on the board. We just had to raise our hand, pick a sentence, and translate it into Spanish. If we were right, we got an A. So that was a relief. 


Then when I got home I checked my email and I had already got my linguistics grade back. I got a 17! (out of 20) Which is a miracle, because judging from the points breakdown on the test and the amount of questions that I am positive that I did not answer right, I should have got like a 12ish. I have a few theories about this. 
1) All of us did bad on the test so he decided to grade them easy.
2) I have a cold, so every once in a while my eyes get really watery and it looks like I'm crying. Maybe he saw that, felt bad for making me cry, and gave me a good grade. 


I guess I will never know.


But exams are over!!! Woot woot!! I am officially care free for my last few days here!!


To celebrate, a few of us went over to Kristen and Carlin's for some coke floats. :)