Finals Week: I had forgotten how much I love, yet hate this week of my life all at the same time.
You see, finals are a funny thing. They are supposed to measure all that you've learned in one semester. Really, all I think that they really measure are people's ability to stay up late and cram an entire semester's worth of information into two days of studying.
In Jamestown, I was a hardcore procrastinator. We're talking save a 10-page term paper until the night before it was due procrastinator (I got an A on it, in case you were wondering). It never helped that I was always able to get good grades even though I procrastinated. My procrastination was positively reinforced, and my grades never suffered as a result of my saving my work until the end.
During my second go-round, I decided to change my ways. I wanted to get things done before they needed to be done so that I wouldn't stress out at the last minute. I had it in my head to excel at my coursework without all the craziness involved in putting things off until the day before they were due.
I succeeded at first. I would actually read the assigned readings in my theory textbook, and did extra homework to practice, just for fun. I did my listening assignments weeks ahead of time so that I could listen to them more than once before the quiz. I wrote papers before they were due so that I would have time to edit and revise them.
Things slowly deteriorated as the semester went on. Music theory suddenly wasn't as hard, and I didn't feel like I would need to read the readings. I didn't really do the listening assignments because we listened to most of the pieces in class. I saved the papers because the ones I had to write weren't as difficult as psychology papers. In short, I just got lazy.
It's a bad idea to procrastinate studying for cumulative finals that make up a large percentage of your grade. Luckily for me, most of my classes are cumulative in themselves, so it's not a whole bunch of review. I mean, one can't study pieces of theory and have tests on it and then put it all together for a test. It's like math: it builds upon itself. And either you get it, or you don't.
I have had a decent finals schedule: 1 last week, 2 Saturday, 1 Monday, and 2 today. Yes, final exams start on Saturdays here. At 7:30 am. No, I'm not kidding. I'm grateful I didn't have one Saturday 7:30. Gross. Everything has gone mostly fine. I take my theory exam in 20 minutes.
To me, though, the most important final exam isn't an exam at all. It's a performance jury. Every performance major in every area has to show the semester's progress by performing for all of the faculty in the department. As a freshman, I had to have 6 songs prepared, of which I would sing 2. The performer picks the first and the faculty picks the second.
Needless to say, I was nervous. Always am. I always feel like I'm not going to live up to the faculty's expectations of me. I psyche myself out. Strangely enough, though, I wasn't nearly as nervous as I usually am. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting more comfortable with performing, or with the faculty, or if I was just well-prepared enough, but the fact that I wasn't nervous freaked me out...
That's beside the point. I walked in, and received a very warm welcome. They asked me what I would sing, and I surprised them by introducing a musical theatre piece by Stephen Sondheim. Upon the pronouncement, the opera director pumped her fists in the air with excitement. I performed the piece nearly perfectly, and upon its completion, one professor told me never to sing that song again because it made her cry. Another said that she was so happy that they had me here at CU. The second song was technically great, but I have a hard time relating to it emotionally. Most of the comments centered around my lack of emotion, which I predicted. I'll keep working on it, though.
The good news is that I earned an A for the semester in my voice studio, which is awesome. That's what I'm here for. I hope to continue improving, and look forward to the many juries ahead of me.
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