Reluctantly Optimistic

I would give my work on my exams a tentative OK. I knew what I was going into and I felt like I knew what I was talking about, but when I sat down for Paper One, I lost my head for a little bit. I picked my question (Number 1) quickly, but after finishing my outline and writing for about fifteen minutes, I wish I had picked a different question. I think I was too confident in my ability to come up with a design for a scene I hadn't thought about staging. It was a question about a pivotal moment for a specific theme. I chose tradition and focused on showing this shift, especially in Koro who had come to represent tradition, from traditional to faithful. I talked about the scene right before Kahu's mounting of the whale, where the villagers gather on the beach to try and push the ancient bull whale back into the ocean. I showed this shift by focusing on Kahu's invitation of the women to help in the effort. I still think it's a good idea, but it required a lot of moving parts to portray it as I wanted and I think I left out some relevant ones toward the end. I had begun to rush when the proctor started giving us a countdown. My literary analysis and introduction were solid but the justification for some of my later staging ideas was lacking. I think I got something down on paper, but I kind of went black for the last twenty minutes and was working of muscle memory from the things we had done in class. I don’t feel very confident, but I think I did fine. Or at least that’s what I’ve convinced myself of.

I feel much better about the second one. I think literary analysis is more my strong suit and this paper was strongly centered on it. I picked question two which dealt with the use of single words to portray a particular thought to the readers. I was worried about finding enough examples in ‘Arabic Coffee,’ but I just started saying the poem out loud in my head (I’m pretty sure that makes sense) and picked out words that I felt helped portray a feeling or idea beyond its purpose in its sentence. I thought we had been memorizing them to present them, which upset me at the time, but is something I was very grateful for when taking the test. There are certain words you emphasize without thinking about it and all I had to do was ask why and I had Nye’s half of the answer. I had analyzed Dickinson’s “I dwell in Possibility-” over and over again in class and on my own time, so I’m pretty confident in my work regarding her. I really love that poem and answering the question became more fun than it was challenging.

Overall, it wasn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I got a little test anxiety towards the end of the first one, but I managed to finish the second five minutes early. Truthfully, for all I complained and will probably continue to complain, it wasn’t that bad. I was prepared for them and even though I’m going to stress about my grade until I see them in July, I’m confident that I was mostly coherent and sensible, if not intelligent, in my writing.