Thursday, December 15, 2005

Super Sandra


PortSyJohnsPool
Originally uploaded by ilanpillemer.
At the beginning of this year Sandra registered for Homeopathy at the DIT. She had a difficult time registering as she had not studied courses such as physics, chemistry and mathematics at the official requirement levels of the department. Eventually she got accepted as a "mature student" and was exempted from these requirements on that basis.

But the requirements are there for a reason, and many of her courses assumed knowledge she did not already have - and this meant she had to catch up this material.

But this was not the only obstacle she had to face.

English is not her mother tongue and suddenly she was attending a full days of lectures all week long in English.

She had to pass exams in English. She had to deal with oral exams in English. She had to write weekly tests and assignments in English.

In the beginning she would sit in lectures and struggle to understand what was being said, never mind understand the difficult content of subjects such as histology, radiology and anatomy.

Well she worked virtually every night until midnight. She sat with vast huge texts in dense academic English and pored over abstruse diagrams.

Well to her great glory and acclaim Sandra was awarded two distinctions, one second, and two thirds.

She got her distinctions in biology and philosophy. She got a second for Physics. And she got thirds for Chemistry and Anatomy.

Super Sandra!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bravo both of you!
The overcoming of uphill challenges seems to be a trademark with you two! Sandra :from a fellow student in a foreign language you get my deepest sympathy! Ilan: the cinamatheque seems empty without you...
LOVE you,
auntie Grac.

...

.. It's in words that the magic is -- Abracadabra, Open Sesame, and the rest -- but the magic words in one story aren't magical in the next. The real magic is to understand which words work, and when, and for what; the trick is to learn the trick. ... And those words are made from the letters of our alphabet: a couple-dozen squiggles we can draw with the pen. This is the key! And the treasure, too, if we can only get our hands on it! It's as if - as if the key to the treasure is the treasure! ------- John Barth, Chimera