slapdash;

[helenic]

Serendipitously (is that even a word? I like the sound of it) I am now hosting emilie, and I love her new site so I'm telling you to see it.

Essay paper this morning, four in three hours:
x. Does Lucretius 'reconcile the conflicting demands of his loyalty to Epicureanism and his "calling" as a poet?' Discuss in relation to DRN I.
x. Who or what is to blame for the tragedy of the Hippolytus?
x. What are the differences between the kind of expertise displayed by Ion and Socrates?
x. 'A fundamentally political arena.' Discuss that assessment of the Athenian lawcourts.

The first three were from section A, the last from section C. We had to choose questions from at least two sections or I would have answered them all on literature, but luckily there was a choice of at least ten questions per section. The first two were quite standard and I handled them competently, if unimaginatively; the third was not something I'd ever thought about before so I wrote it off the top of my head, counting on the fact no-one else will have answered it and managing to twist it round to talking about "Plato's expertise" in the conclusion; and the fourth was just comic. I only revised two philosophy and two history topics and none of them came up, so I somehow managed to slot what I'd learnt on Athenian democracy to this question by defining "political" as concerning the polis rather than the oikos, giving me liberty to talk about exploitation by the individual elite. I hope it worked.

I wonder if we can claim our scripts back; I'm always curious after an essay paper whether my perception of how I did is accurate, and how my style changes when I'm in a state of heightened-exam-tension.

It was my best paper by far, but the worst is tomorrow. I have done remarkably little revision today. I have, however, indulged in a new bag, a black oriental style top with a ribbon, a necklace to match my dress, and shoes. So what if polkadots are a cliché; they're still damn cool.