Well, it's all over bar the shouting

The shouting being the oral for literature seminar tomorrow morning.

The history exam had a newspaper article from 1972 about the French atoll atomic bomb test*, and then a series of 8 questions, like:

1) Explain "When President de Gaulle" in line 1. (That's a real St. Custard's question, isn't it! Like "Are the Andes?")

2) What do they mean by "la force de frappe".

3) In 5 - 10 lines, recount the "previous regime" referred to in line 11, giving dates.

4) Who was President in 1972?

5) Who was his Prime Minister?

etc...

Althouth sorely tempted to give Nigel Molesworth style answers "I neither kno nor care, I diskard them", I did my best.

A student came up to me 12 minutes before the exam and asked if she could borrow my notes to photocopy. I said "Now? You want to photocopy my notes 8 minutes before the start of the exam?" (My watch was fast)

She said, "Yes. Last time I used them during the exam." Hmmm. Well, I suppose it is a test of your FRENCH, really, not of your ability to remember obscure dates.

Afterwards we went for lunch at the Veracruz and started our long ritual of saying goodbye.

One lecturer has fallen in the foyer of the DEFLE. The floor in the foyer is landscaped, with pebble beaches and concrete walkways, so I am not surprised. Apparently she has broken her arm.

Another lecturer has lost the love of the 3rd degree students by setting them things in the exam that they reckon they have never seen. Questions like "Write a sentence containing a transitive and an intransitive verb".

* I remember the French Atoll Atomic Bomb test in 1972. Imagine it. I am studying history and it's things I remember. Just how old am I?

Comments

MartinY said…
You are _really_ old when you go to a museum and see the equipment you maintained. Ever heard of cablecode? It's a form of morse and very obsolete now.
9:22 pm
Anonymous said…
Martiny, you are giving things away that you don't need to? However, I remember doing semaphore as a boy scout and to make me even older than Alan, not only do I remember the Bikini Atoll (I think it was) tests and all of the hoohah that accompanied the French pride about being members of the 'Nuclear Club', I had already been in the sevices, finished my time and was by then well into what was to be my final pensionable job.
1. All that and not a full stop? Wow!
2. Ought that not to have been 'Nucular Club'?
11:23 pm
Alan said…
Amazing. Someone even older than I. (I must stop doing grammar.)
7:02 am
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