At this point I’d be deluding myself if I said that I was ready to tackle the comprehensive examination, which is supposed to be held sometime this week. Indeed, I told my mother as much when she called us this morning; as it stands I’ve barely red a quarter of the works on the list, and while the curriculum itself is supposed to prepare us for the exam, I don’t recall ever been told to read Toni Morrison for example, unless the department presumes that as a participant in the program one has to have already read some of the material to begin with. Huh.
Anyway, I’ve decided to just use the rest of this term to collect some of the material in the required reading list. I do hope they don’t change the list much for next term’s exam, as it’d mean that what I’ve been doing is a colossal waste, especially on the spending side. Frankly, many of the titles in the review list are expensive. To give one an idea, I dropped by power books to see if they had some of the books on the list (and I do prefer having a physical copy rather than a file on my desktop PC). They did, so I purchased the ones that were there, that I didn’t have PDF files found already, which were the following:
- Leaves of Grass (Whitman, Walt)
- The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer, Geoffrey)
- Orientalism (Said, Edward)
- Beloved (Morrison, Toni)
- The Famished Road (Okri, Ben)
- In Cold Blood (Capote, Truman)
The total for this single purchase of just seven books is more or less a quarter of my monthly salary. Yes, it’s freaking expensive, and this is barely a quarter of the stuff that needs to be read (or at least be familiar with) to be able to pass the test comfortably. And let’s not even go into the local selections included. Ugh.
The required poetry readings are relatively easier to track down online, for some reason, as well as the titles for drama, so the net is going to be the bulk of my source for those. As for the rest, well, hopefully I can photocopy the bits and pieces I need (have to get around the copyright restrictions somehow!) at the Library.
Yeah, higher education is sure expensive.
On other topics… Boy was it hot today, which is why the a/c at the library and at the bookstore was a welcome relief. The skies went dark for a bit, but I was glad it didn’t rain this time, as it might have soaked my newly-purchased (not to mention expensive) new reads. Ugh, though this means it’s going to be rather sticky tonight, which means if the temperature doesn’t get any more comfortable I might have to use the a/c in my room.
All to fall asleep comfortably, I suppose.
Posted by Myssa 
