Up at 8, I studied and memorized my timelines in my bedroom. I should have looked over my castles more, because by this time, the first dozen castles were really blending together. A little after 9, I went downstairs and made some breakfast, a lovely egg McMuffin with some fun fancy cheese I had picked up at Tescos. It was an awesome way to get the morning going!
Matt had come by, since Tom hadn't told the other house the test started at 10, so he just wanted to be ready. I studied with him and the girls for a while, mostly on the timeline again from 2000BC to about 1600AD. Tom was out returning the van, so when he got back on his bike, he ran over to the other house and told them to come to our place for the final.
When he got back, he gave everyone a colored notebook and a pen. He began by saying that this final weighed heavily on our grade, but it was made so that no one could get a perfect score, so some things would be easy, while other questions were pretty much supposed to be missed.
Here's my theory, but don't tell Tom because he really likes to seem strict; the final will make up most of the grade, but most of the questions don't really matter. The last question on our final from our class at BYU was 'what grade do you honestly think you deserve and why?' I had bombed every quiz because the questions were so random-fact oriented, but after I thought about it a while I answered an A-, because I hadn't done all the assigned work, but I had done most of it and worked hard at all my projects while never missing a day. My grade for that class came out as an A-.
So, I ran through all my facts I had memorized that morning as well as the long list of terms, vocabulary, and facts we had drilled along our travels, but kept up the hope that some leniency will be shown again, since I know I didn't remember all the trivia.
The test started by Tom showing us 20 pictures of us at castles. They were only of one room or one portion of a castle. I totally forgot two castles, and couldn't remember the name of the estate I had fallen asleep at thanks to the power of Benadryll, but I got everything else, and some were hard! He gave us a few freebie ones though, so that was great.
We were given a blank map of the UK and a list of 10 locations. I know I got 6 for sure, but had to make educated guesses on a few of the smaller and specific spots, such as Lanyons quoit. I knew I should have kept asking Tom through the week to show me where Stonehenge was on the map. (I had actually drawn up a map and put a ton of places we had been on it the night before we left for York and Scotland and had studied it in the van on the way home a bit, but Stonhenge was not among them since it wasn't on the big map.)
We had to describe the 5 types of castles and give examples, draw two detailed floorplans of castles and a cathedral, describe a person, place, and/or event from each of the 11 time periods and explain why that was important to the time (we had only really discussed 7, so I got a little creative :) ), compare and contrast Caerphilly to Beaumaris castle, and then pick three consecutive generations of kings and talk about who they were, what they did, and who they fought. I was stoked about this one and had a ball talking about Henry III, Edward I, and poor Eddie II. The last few questions required us to fill up three pages talking about what part of the trip we could argue to eliminate from future trips (Bradford-upon-Avon for me), what the best and worst parts of the trip were, and what advice we would give future SA students. My advice: do whatever it takes to bring your fiddle along if you play!
It took us all around three hours to take the final. Some of the girls finished up really early, but they told me it was because they had left some of the essay questions blank. Funny huh? Just as most of us were finishing up, Anders came in with a giant box. Our personalized hoodies were finished! He threw us each the hoodie that we had picked out and selected a phrase to have embroided on. They're pretty fantastic!
As I finished up my final, around 1:30, Tom announced that he and Katy and any who were ready would be going over to Chillies again for lunch at 2. With the extra incentive, I quickly finished my final and then ran upstairs and got ready. Yes, I took my final in my pajamas, and GLADLY!! :)
About ten minutes later, I left for Chillies with Tom, Katy, Courtney, Anders, Matt, and Nathan. The girls all wanted to walk down to Cardiff Bay (a 45 minute walk) to see the Dr. Who exhibit for thirteen pounds. Since I know nothing of Dr. Who, I decided I wouldn't go with them, since it was so much, and go to lunch instead.
As we walked to the indian restaurant, I asked Tom where one might exchange something like a sack full of coins for some paper money. He laughed when he realized what I was referring to and said that any of the banks in the Hays should be able to do that.
We then saw a box full of books sitting outside a house with a Free sign on them. We looked through, I found something someone already has but might like, and took it with me. We each had picked out a book, since we're just such a classy group I suppose, and continued on our way.
Well, when we got to Chillies, it was closed. Apparently they only deal in supper. So Tom and Katy said they were going to an antiques shop and we all split up from there. I was actually feeling up for some lunch and a movie, but I wanted to walk around the northern part of Cardiff town first. This part of town really isn't nice, but I thought I'd give the old charity shop one more try.
I walked in as soon as I got there and looked around. As I happened to glance at the CD rack, I found three fabulous Nat King Cole CD's for a pound each, and I couldn't leave without them, though I tried. I also found something I've been searching for for about a month, just right there in that cute little shop; a gift that I thought I'd never actually find, but there it was! I snagged it and walked happily home where I made some musseli for lunch.
As I made lunch, I did my laundry and cleaned up the kitchen a bit. Then I took a quick shower while the place was pretty empty and then had some me-time while I watched a movie in my room.
Theresa had gone down to the Hays alone instead of going to Dr. Who, and she had brought back the power of the internet! We all paid her a few pounds and when Lydia returned from Dr. Who (it had closed a half hour before they got there) we worked on planning our post-trip stuff with our fresh internet.
We decided that it was just not possible to do Scotland, Dumphries (where my families castle is) and Paris. We both really wanted to do northern Wales and Scotland more, but we couldn't find easy passage, and there didn't seem to be a whole lot going on during this week, so we decided to just do Paris.
We booked our bus to and from London and from London to Paris, a cheap hotel room right next to the bus station. While we were at it, we also booked our train and ferry tickets from Cardiff to Crews, then to Holyhead, and then finally to Dublin, as well as our hostel for two nights in Dublin.
Feeling pretty good about our accomplishments, we made some dinner together, and then watched the last TWO episodes of Sherlock with everyone! We had to do it this way because some of us will be leaving as early as tomorrow, so it was our last hurrah all together.
After the movies ended, we went upstairs and turned in for the night. Till tomorrow, Cardiff.
No comments:
Post a Comment