Organizational system…
So, if you follow the Mamademics FB fan page (you really should) then you know I’m about a week post exams now. Comprehensive exams vary between departments and ours are take home exams. In the past, you were required to take two exams before writing your dissertation proposal, but our department recently changed this policy. And by recently, I mean approximately six weeks before my exam start date. This meant that I could take one exam over seven days or two 72 hour exams. I figured the seven day exam would work better for me because I could just get it over with all at once. Well in hindsight this was not the best idea.
Quick Exam Breakdown: I was given five essay questions to answer and each essay required roughly a 10 page response. In an email prior to the exam, my adviser told me it was okay if some were shorter and some were longer this is an approximation, but I should turn in 50 pages at the end. I turned in 62… (Sidenote: my thesis that I researched for a year and wrote over a 4-6 week period was the same length).
The first few days weren’t so bad…
I decided to start my exam at 12 noon on a Saturday. This meant that I would have at least 36 hours of writing time with Mr. S available to help care for Sesame. I went to a Barnes and Noble the first day and worked for 6 or 7 hours. I actually made quite a dent in the first essay question and then the guys picked me up we went to an early dinner and came home. I relaxed for a little while with Sesame and watched a little basketball. I went back to work and started outlining and pulling more quotes for the second essay and finally went to sleep. On Sunday I woke up and tried to get back to work, but for some reason I just couldn’t get anything on paper. Apparently this is pretty common for day two, well that’s what one of my really close friends in the program said so I didn’t freak out too much. By day three I had finished one essay, had a rough draft of a second, and an outline of a third. Pretty good, right? Yea… no because at this point my insecurity had started to set in and I was pretty sure I answered the first one all wrong. I actually still feel that way, but I was encouraged to walk away from it and move forward.
My sentiments exactly…
Day Four–now this is where things start to get a bit rough. At this point I was not only staying up late at night to write, but I also wasn’t taking naps with Sesame during the day because I needed to work on teaching obligations. I was exhausted and cranky and starting to feel like I was going to fail because while I can vocalize exactly what I want to say I am not confident when it comes to academic writing. I don’t think I wrote a single word that day, but I did cry A LOT. This is when I started getting pep talks from family and friends. I was just so tired… not to mention Sesame was tired of me working so much and started having screaming fits when I pulled the laptop out. I finally just let him snuggle with me during the day as much as he wanted.
Day Five–I decided that since I work better at night. I’ve always worked better when the rest of the world is sleeping that I would nap as much during the day as possible with a “toddler” and then work through the night. I stayed up to about 4:30 am and wrote and wrote and wrote. By the time, I decided to try and take a quick nap I had reached the 35 out of 50 page mark. Not bad…
Day Six– I pulled another all-nighter. This time when I got in bed I had roughly 50 pages and only one essay left to work on and I felt pretty confident that I would finish in time to enjoy the Michigan/Kansas St game. GO BLUE!!!
Ignore the messy background, please
Day Seven– I spent most of the day consoling a very very cranky Sesame, who did not understand why his entire morning routine had changed and his mommy was a walking zombie. See the picture collage above? Yea it was not a good morning/afternoon for us at all. Somehow I managed to get through most of the last essay and just had a few more pages to write when Mr. S came home from work. Oh and he came home bearing gifts— pizza and the new Bud Light strawberry margaritas. I ate a couple slices of pizza and got back to work. It was game time, but I still wasn’t finished and the game started upsetting me. I decided to get through the essay and then edit it before the second half started. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! Plus, my team won, so it was an awesome day.
So how did I survive? In short, very little sleep; a ton of caffeine; and lots of pep talks.
I am now on constant email watch waiting to find out if I passed, but it hasn’t even been a week yet.
