Exam prep

This week closes out the official lectures.  Of course, we have three lectures next week, but we’ll ignore that.  This is when lecturers prepare students for exams, hopefully by giving us “areas of concentration” for our study.  Thus far, only one lecturer has been so inclined.  We’ll work on the other three next week.

Canon Musiime, when we asked for areas of concentration, asked if he should leak the exam questions to us.  We say yes; his exams are tough.  I pointed out that Professor Byaruhanga gave us the questions, and then he STILL slaughtered us.  Canon Musiime laughed, but hasn’t leaked anything yet.  But he’s one of the three, so perhaps we’ll be able to wear him down a bit.  John and Romans both are quite a bit of material, yes?  Goodness.  Or “banange,” which is mostly untranslatable, but is a way of sighing (ba-NAHN-gee, hard g).

Canon Kasamba, on the other hand, has never lectured us before.  The other lecturers have the (mis)fortune of having had us in their classrooms previously, and are used to us.  God bless them.  Canon Kasamba has been lecturing us in Christianity in Uganda, a paper (exam) that were I not so fried from my dissertation, I would have asked to have written another paper rather than sit for the paper.  Especially since his is the fourth in our five-day marathon.

Canon Kasamba did not give us areas of concentration, though he did talk to us about making thoughtful and supported arguments.  Fine and good.  Then he said that no one should leave the room before 2.5 hours into the three hour exam.  Someone said “Jessica,” and we all had a good laugh.  My average is 1.5 hours, and since I’ve not been learning the history of Christianity in Uganda since secondary school like all my classmates, I’m not certain that I’ll have a whole heck of a lot to write.  I tried to negotiate him down to two hours, but he didn’t seem willing to bite.  I tried to explain that I think in English, and that contributes to my speed.  I’m not certain he heard me; it was pretty loud in the room at that point.  Clearly, I’m going to need to talk to him before the exam.