The Culmination

My exam is tomorrow and I am sitting and typing out this post now. Well, everyone needs a break. Or like my parents keep reminding me, I apparently study in the breaks :P

Tomorrow marks the culmination of 6 months of work. I wanted to write hard work, but no, in all honesty maybe I could have worked harder. (Is it just me or does everyone feel that way before an exam?)

To sit in one place for more than 45 minutes staring at carbohydrates and sphingolipids has really exhausted me mentally.The monstrosity of the the syllabus that I have had to swim through has left me overwhelmed. And yes, I am definitely feeling the pressure, but I think it is more just the pressure that I quit a job I love, to sit and study for one of the more competitive exams in India. I have had my many many moments of frustration, many feelings of being incompetent and of course, the worry that what I am just not good enough.

So,does mean that if I don't clear this exam everything ends here? Hell no! Just studying for this exam has given me enough and more ideas of what I want to do after this. It has definitely given me direction and clarity. It has reminded me of how much I love being a teacher and a lifelong student, of how much I love biochemistry as a subject.

For the first time, in a very long time I feel focussed and my heart says "Bring it on".

This isn't the end, it is definitely the beginning.

".. And miles to go before I sleep,

     And miles to go before I sleep"- Robert Frost

Krupa

The Invigilator

Today I write a post not as a teacher but as a student.

I wrote an entrance exam recently and it was quite an experience. For starters, studying for an exam after 5 years is a task. Not just a task but a huge mountainous task (is mountainous even a word? It didn't get underlined in red, so I will assume it is and move on). It took a lot of will power from my side, and nagging from my parents to get me to sit and study for an exam again. My students, rather ex students, took great pleasure in telling me "go and study and stop texting", or asking me " Ma'am how is your preparations going on?". Some took it one step further and said "Ha now you know how we felt!". Somehow they managed to forget that I have written exams before, and then eventually became a teacher :P However, I digress.

The exam I wrote was very different from previous entrance exams. For starters, there were two blocks on which the examination was conducted. If that wasn't enough of a confusion, there were no roll numbers written on the desks in the hall. Every person who walked into the classroom looked around in sheer confusion and desperately checking each desk for their roll number. It was a free-for-all, sit-where-you-please type of seating. That has never happened to me before.

The Invigilator, dressed in a floral shirt and pants to match the shirt, walked in around 2pm in slow motion, looked around and then opened the box containing the question papers. After this he decided to ask us, "are you all writing the Biology exam?". (good time to check dude, after we sit in the hall and the exam is due to start)."What time is your exam supposed to start?"- that was the next question that sent a ripple of shock around the room and had everyone looking at everyone else. What kind of invigilator was this??

The Invigilator then took a good 20 minutes to read the entire question paper and then instructions before he handed out the papers to us.
After handing out answer sheets, he decides to re read the instructions on how to fill the answer sheet and successfully confuses even the clear ones.
Here are the instructions (I am quoting only the ones that confused him)
3. Fill the details such as name, address etc in pen on the reverse of the answer sheet
7. (iii) Fill in the reference code and the answers in pencil.

I still can't figure out how that can be confusing, but oh well, maybe his mass of hair was stopping his ears from hearing what we were trying to tell him. (he had a long pony tail that would have made my sister envious. It was definitely longer than hers)

After this he walked around checking our hall tickets and handing out the question papers. As he did this, he took a nice long good look at our faces and the terribly printed photos on our hall tickets. I am sure he was just trying to find 6 points of difference between the real person and the printed person. By the time he finished this process it was 2.40pm. (Writing time was supposed to start at 2.30pm). Once he had distributed all the papers, he says, "Start the papers when you want. Relax and write slowly." Eh... what?

The next shocker was the fact that The Invigilator just walked out of the room just as soon as everyone had started writing, for a good 10 minutes. Ummm.. I am sorry, was this not an examination hall?? Okay focus on your paper Krupa. Not like anyone would copy. There is no concept of sharing is caring in a PhD entrance exam.

I then put my head down and started working out rate of reaction questions, while silently thanking God that I was a chemistry teacher. The next time I looked up (which was after 10 minutes and two questions later), The Invigilator is busy peeling an orange, removing the fibres and eating it in a super slowly (I think he may have been counting 32 times in his head). He did this at a steady pace for the next 20 minutes (and no I didn't spend the next 20 minutes staring at him eat an orange. I just kept looking up every time I didn't get a question).

The classroom was really silent, just like any examination hall when suddenly we all hear a loud whisper, "I am in an exam.", we look up to see The Invigilator on his cell phone. 10 minutes later he walked out yet again.

In the middle of all this, the big clock on the wall wasn't working and The Invigilator had to climb up on a chair, get the clock down and reset it. Talk about disturbances and distractions.

Despite all this, I managed to sit through a a two hour exam for one hour and forty minutes before I decided that I had had enough of staring at wavelength questions that were simply not meant for a non-physics brain to answer. I got up, submitted my answer script and walked out. End of story.

Well that is one exam done. One more to go. It was an experience and hey, The Invigilator, definitely one-of-a-type kind of guy.

Now that this is out of my system, I will go study.

krupa

5 types of students you find in an exam hall

One of the most boring things to do as a teacher is invigilation for a Board Exam. It is like a slow torture cell, but that experience is reserved for another post. Yes it deserves an entire blog post dedicated to itself. We also have to invigilate school exams and that is a different kind of experience. Our school made sure that the three hour exam was broken into smaller sessions of an hour or hour and half for each teacher to do invigilation duty. That's pretty bearable provided you find a way to entertain yourself. For me, I found it fascinating to simply observe the students as they write the exam. Over four years of teaching I realised that there are some "types" of students that a recurring occurrence in each batch, so I thought I would introduce you to some of them.

1) The Late Lateefs- These are the one who walk in late even for an exam. They are just chilled out and well they know they are late but what could they do, traffic didn't reduce just because they had an exam. And getting up early? That was totally not a possibility after pulling an all nighter. They would be the last student to enter the exam hall, and mostly would have to be reminded to get their pencil case from their bag before entering the hall. Mostly they don't care about how they look and walk in like a ragamuffin.

2) The Transfixed- There is always this one student that would just stare into space for a sufficient amount of time before putting pen to paper. It usually wasn't a one time occurrence during the exam. At some point during the exam they would just stop writing and stare. Now if this person was staring directly at you, it is really creepy. I am never sure of how to react, so I just get up and walk away. The thing is, they aren't actually staring AT you, but more like THROUGH you. In some cases their eyes follow you as you walk around and have such a blankness that it makes you panic about whether they know anything or not. Then they will suddenly put their head down and write with such vigour it makes you wonder if the answer was written on you or projected somewhere behind you.

3) The Prim and Proper- I don't mean to be a sexist, but this is usually a girl. Sometimes more than one, but definitely atleast one. Its always so easy to identify her. She will have a pencil case with two backup pens, pencils, an eraser, sharpener, scale and sometimes colour pens or pencils depending on the subject. Even if during exam time, she will come neatly dressed, hair pinned away from her face, and turn up early, not just to school but also enter the hall before any teacher tells her to. She will arrange her pencil case and exam pad neatly, set down her water bottle next to her and then sit silently and pray.

4) The Crammer- This one is also The Procrastinator. You will see him/her with notes/ textbook in their hand right until the teacher says, "get in and sit down or you will lose reading time". Once inside, their lips will keep muttering something, or they will keep writing in the air. It is their way to trying to recall the last few points that they have crammed.

5) The Hair Fixers- These are definitely the funniest to observe. Their hand never leaves their hair. Like the keratin is providing all the information needed to write and the answers are flowing out of their brain cells, through hair, through their fingers down to the other arm that is busy writing. It is always easy to make out when they don't know an answer because their hand will automatically mess up their hair. Once they have it figured it out, they will start to set their hair neatly again.

There are a few more but these are the most common. I'm sure after reading this some of my students will be identifying themselves with this. I am not talking about any one of you in particular, but hey if the cap fits, go ahead and wear it.

A proud granddaughter

When my grandmother passed away. I wrote a really emotional piece about it almost immediately. It affected me a way that I tried to describe in words but I doubt I could do justice to the actual feeling.

It has been 6 months since my grandfather passed away. I know you must be wondering why I am writing this 6 months later. Was I not upset enough before? Was I not affected by his death? 

Well it so happens that today would have been his birthday. he would have been 88. I always felt proud that my birthday was just 2 days after him. It made me feel closer to him. That and the fact that I, being the first grandchild of the house was definitely the most pampered, even by him. I like to believe that even though I didn't inherit his nose, I did inherit certain other traits from him. 

He was quite the disciplinarian. Always woke up early, went about his duties of tending to Ganesha first, and then the garden, meticulously practised shorthand for as long as he could, religiously avoided the television except for the 8pm news, and went to bed by 9pm at the max. We heard stories of his famous temper but being the grandchildren we were never subjected to it. 

He was quite methodical in his daily activities, like the puja done for the Ganesha just outside the house. That puja was a huge part of his daily routine and well when we were in town, we would all fight over who would get to do the puja on his behalf. The condition was simple- you had to wake up early and have a bath before my grandpa got everything ready for the puja. Being the eldest grandchild, I liked to assume that it was my prerogative to be chosen to do it. But that;s not how it worked.
Now mind you, if you had to do the puja, it had to be done his way. You could NOT change the order in which he did it. Cleaning, washing, drying, redressing and then finally lighting the karpooram (camphor). It had to be done the exact way he would do it, and he would watch you like a hawk as you performed the whole routine. 

Lunch at 10am, that is the other thing that had to be followed very strictly. I know this is a concept beyond comprehension for any one who is not from a traditional Tam Bram family. No breakfast, just lunch at 10am and then tiffen at 3pm and dinner at 7,30pm. Well it makes sense, I mean heavy breakfast, light lunch and lightest dinner. Sorry, I digress. 

Today, being his birthday, I realise I do miss him more than I have expressed. I look at my cousins, my sister and myself, and I see various aspects of my thatha in each of us- being strong, hardworking, methodical, meticulous, the infamous rage, taking the responsibility of overlooking any work that needs to be done in the house, sincerely practising whatever skills we have, and oh yes, our command over English. He certainly left us with a rich inheritance.