Exams! Exams! and some more exams!

This week had been a rally of exams for me. But there is much more than my exam experience in this post.

Exams in Finland are not quite frightening as in India, not because of simple questions though.
There are three times that you can take up an exam and best of three is considered as the grade for that course. If fortunately you got good grade in the first attempt, you can be satisfied with it. If you dint get good grade you always have a possibility of taking it twice again. You can even skip the first exam if you cannot make it. Its quite really flexible!

I could see some striking significance in having this kinda exam flexibility. First and foremost, many a times in India, I always fell sick during exams (not exam fever!) and happened to take it by mustering energy. For I will be considered Fail if I skipped it and the next time I take it, its considered as Arrears! Oh pity on me..
So I really like this flexibility for I always have two more chances (hoping I wont feel sick then).
Isnt it real that my case can happen to anyone. Does students who cant prepare or attend exam for some worthy reason, consider that its their FATE to be failed.
Why is there only one chance to prove yourself?? Exam is not a competition, it just tries to evaluate your understanding. Isnt it the sole reason behind students getting frightened about exams??! How can we ask students to not get afraid on exams with this exam structure?
Something serious to ponder on our Indian exam structures.

Yesterday I took my Finnish exam without a single minute preparation. Though I spent my time preparing for another exam next day, I really wanted to give a try based on my class work.
And, it did went well, except that I know I am wrong in my answer but dont know what is right :-). It was real fun writing it.

Ofcourse, I am going to take my next Finnish exam with some preparation knowing what to prepare!

Fascinating to see snow first time!

Since I had come to Finland, I heard people warning about the November month dark climate and people's depression feeling then. But now that November has passed, I could say, yes it was dark most of the day, but may not be depressing so much as people were warning.. I think its perhaps the people's slight dull feeling got aggravated by collective feeling. Like, when I say its dull and I am down, and gets the same reply from most of my friends, I feel even more dull. I am not an expert in psychology, but I could infer this from my experiences with people here.. Though I basically feel that we can change our moods by changing our thoughts and involving in different activities, I have to accept, that it is quite difficult in practice. Yes, I did feel tired after spending long hours of lectures and assignments, and it gets even worse when I came out of the college and saw the dark evenings. I do wish it to be bright then, to make me bright. But Nature is not on our demand. Once I reach home, sheer presence of Sriram charges me up. I do scream at him manytimes, but he remains calm and cheer me up in his own way. Nowadays I get accustomed to this climate and know how I can be charged! After a few days of ordeal in this climate, one fine afternoon in the midst of my assignment work at my Chinese friend's 6th floor apartment, I saw many tiny white dust flying down. On a second look, I could recognize that it was SNOW! sorry, may be flurry. But I was excited.. Next day, I was not feeling well, and woke up late. Sriram woke me up and told that it snowed last night. We both enjoyed seeing snow for the first time. It was nice to walk down to college that morning, walking over fresh snow. Children had started making snowman early morning. I could understand why Finns like snow instead of rain. It really makes the place bright. On my urge to know, how snow makes the place bright even when the sky is cloudy, I found a research paper substantiating it. You can find it here How places covered by snow is bright! You can go through selected parts of it according to your liking. One and all it was really fascinating to see SNOW and that too after November's climate. At the same time, I would say we need to learn to relish the taste for all types.

Nature has something for us on November before it reveals itself as snowy December!