20 Years Later: One Year Later

Today is a major milestone: exactly a year since I started my A Level and approx eight weeks until I sit my AS exams. It's been an interesting year; I certainly know more about Russia in the nineteenth century and various other historical topics than I did a year ago, but I still feel very much a neophyte, especially on the MA. I still feel very much like my toe is just only in the water and that I need to find more time to throw myself more fully into the subject, but I'm hoping that will come with the MA.

Aside from the day-job, my major focus are the exams in January. As has been the case throughout the last year, I'm pulled between the two poles of obsessively wanting to do the best that I can and knowing that, particularly the A Level, is something that I am doing for interest and that I should enjoy the process. I find myself veering between these two poles, thinking "I have to get a good grade in the exams" and then consoling myself with "yes, but remember, you're doing this for fun; whatever you get, an extra A Level won't go on your CV".

The hardest thing recently has been getting my head around revision, not least as the last exam I sat was in 1996! I started revising back in mid-October, but made little progress for the first few weeks. When I've been able to make time with the MA and the day-job, I've started to make spider diagrams for the various topics and, all things being equal, hopefully I should be able to finish the Britain and Appeasement ones this week. Then, it's the hard slog of trying to memorise as much as possible the material and order it in my head in such a way that I can answer questions. When I think of the topics, I can faintly see the material (as if through a fog) and how it all fits together, so I'm hoping that the more I devote myself to it, the clearer it will be.

hopefully...