Blog by: Matt

If you’ve been following these blogs, you’ve probably come across the term ‘May Week’ by now – this is the week straight after the exam period finishes (this year it’s June 14-21), when suddenly everyone comes out of their self-imposed revision imprisonment and many parties are had.  There are two main kinds of party – the Garden Party and the May Ball/June Event.

Your typical Garden Party happens in the afternoon, is often run by a society; the Union GP held in the grounds of Sidney Sussex college each year is one I can recommend – live music, oysters* and champagne, croquet*, cocktails and a pasta-y couscous-y buffet. (*It was my first time trying these!)  Often, non-members can attend for a few pounds extra – to give you an idea, the range of entrance fees I’ve come across is roughly £7 (PakSoc) to £18 (Union) with most somewhere in the middle of that.  For a once-a-year chillout, it’s well worth it.

May Balls are big all-night parties run at colleges, with a committee of students working through the year to plan and run them, at eyewateringly-high budgets (I’ve heard figures around quarter of a million, but I don’t think that’s the highest).  That’s more understandable when you think that typically thousands of people will be at a May Ball.  There’s live music and comedy (sometimes with some truly famous headliners – this year Scouting For Girls and Truly Madly Deeply have been about, among others), free food and drink all night, normally some fun areas like fairground-style rides, and some quieter areas to sit around on cushions and ponder your momentary bliss.  June Events are the same concept really, just lower budget and lower expectations  - the food might run out sooner, the entertainers might be just fellow students (though these can sometimes be very good!). whichmayball.co.uk has the lowdown on this year’s range of Balls and Events, if you’re interested!

So how about my May Week 2014?  I’ve had two main things in the calendar.  I worked at St John’s College May Ball, by helping clear up the morning after – there are a lot of opportunities to work at balls, with some perks such as payment and reduced tickets, and it can be fun being part of such a huge operation.  For 6 hours of dismantling displays and picking cigarettes off the lawn, I got £35 and the right to buy a ticket next year (which are normally only open to St Johns students).  My most surreal moment was walking through the college wheeling a full size Tutenkhamen-style sarcophagus (upright) on a trolley in front of me, I like to think I caused a few double-takes!

Finally we got to my main event – King’s Affair.  This is technically a June Event, I suppose, but one that likes to be a little different.  And it’s not just in the name.  While all the other Balls and Events have a black-tie or white-tie dress code, King’s goes off to the other extreme and stipulates fancy dress.  Like most balls it has an overall theme, which this year was ‘Subterranea‘, so the chapel and grounds of the college were flocked with miners, tube stations, mythical underworld creatures, and the like.  My friend Adam and I went further than most and had a lot of fun brainstorming and designing our costumes, which you can see below – Adam as the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, and myself as the Great A’Tuin from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.  We were rewarded with a lot of comments, including from most of the comedians we went to see!

Sadly (in my own opinion) these events all tend to centre on the idea of people getting as drunk as they can stand, and playing music so loud you can feel your organs vibrating – maybe if you run a May Ball committee one year you could do it differently, and attract a whole different crowd of students! – but that’s still only one part of the experience.  Highlights for me were seeing a few student comedians perform in the comedy yurt, including one Oliver Taylor from my college who is surely destined for fame; and lying around (with a hundred others) on mattresses in King’s College Chapel at the end of the night, listening to some chilled Celtic music from a ceilidh quartet and gazing up at that breathtaking medieval ceiling.

Revision time again…  and not for the last time in your life, either.  So there’s no point hating it!  Here’s some tips for exam survival and thrival.  (I may have made that word up, but that’s ok, I’m a linguistics student.)

- Life goes on!  Eat, sleep, exercise, and (occasionally) have fun, just the same as normally – if anything, this routine should be MORE established in exam term, not less!  Why?  Because, despite your mother, tutor and life guru all telling you this constantly, it is actually true:  a healthy lifestyle makes you perform better at everything, and not only that but you’ll enjoy it more (which leads to more success…it’s what they call a ‘positive feedback loop‘, go on, get your nerd on!)

- Take your exams early.  So, your exam’s on June 2nd.  You dread, you read, you watch tv.  May 27th you start staring with distaste at those few past exam papers unfortunate enough to cross your path.  As the exam looms into your immediate future, cold and unforgiving, you realise there’s nothing for it and get down to business.

And it turns out, you get it.  Hell, you might actually do pretty well, and that was a fascinating idea you’ve just come across, might follow up that reference, read that book, become a world authority, rewrite history (ok, or biology, maths, peanut husbandry, whatever)…  and then, you’re out of time, exam, bam, done.  Now if only you’d had a couple more weeks – and think what you could do with a month.

The solution…  pretend the exam’s coming sooner.  Give yourself a mock exam.  Do that really hardcore, kick-ass “don’t disturb me Mum I’m studying” stunt in the 3rd or 4th week before your exam, as if it really mattered.  Then take a break.  Cos why not, you deserve it?  When you come back to study nearer the time, everything will seem so simple – you might even have time to learn that extra case study.

Yes, it’s totally counter intuitive to do it this way – I’m not denying it!  So why bother?  Because you’ll get better marks and have a happier life.

- Be creative with your techniques.  Study is a game, it should hold your attention – if it’s getting boring, mix it up.  Here’s some that really work for me…  writing definitions for key words…  drawing diagrams…  thinking how to explain it to a child (and hold their attention)…  just listing key words…  asking myself ‘yeah but why?’…  laying out ALL my notes for a course on the floor and looking for the gaps in my knowledge…  thinking of a new example, instead of the one in the textbook…

If they look boring, that’s maybe because you’re just reading about them instead of doing them.  But the best idea of all is, come up with your own technique to motivate yourself – do it your way, break the rules!  (Within reason!)

Good luck!

Last term was dominated by writing my final year dissertation.  In Linguistics, like some other subjects, the dissertation is compulsory and counts as one of my four papers for this year – meaning that the exams will only count for the remaining 75% (takes some of the pressure off!).  On the other hand, it did mean I had to get organised and meet that deadline!

Dissertation preparation started back in 2nd year with a series of lectures which advised us specifically about the early stages of the dissertation – coming up with ideas, choosing a topic, finding a supervisor, reading and notetaking.  We were advised to do the bulk of data-collection (or reading, for a more theory-based dissertation) over the summer break so as to start third year with only the writeup left.  I’m not sure if anyone actually did this – I was still finding a supervisor and settling a topic as the title-submission deadline approached in October.  My supervisor was very helpful, providing ideas and guidance as I put together my plan through Michaelmas term; around the start of Lent I had gathered some data and felt it was time to get writing.  So, not entirely as the faculty guidelines had suggested – and in fact some others started much later than me, but I really wouldn’t recommend this!!  After about 2-3 weeks writeup I had something I was happy to submit, and even had a little time to play around with the presentation to make it look good.

My dissertation took an innovative topic, comparing people’s speech habits with the way they chat in instant messaging conversations (like on Skype or Facebook Chat).  I found it really interesting and it was exciting to note some similarities in this barely-studied area.  Maybe if I’d started sooner I could have found more!

On deadline day a bunch of us met up in our favourite pub in the evening, to celebrate and unwind.  It was nice to renew acquaintances with some people I don’t see much of, since we’re studying different papers this year.  It’s not all over though – next stop, exams!