The phone lines are closed...

..the votes have been counted and verified, and the results are ....


L - O - N - G


P - A -U - S - E


...in your pigeon holes for collection.

Actually it doesn't seem to be the done thing to talk about our results. Sorry about that. If I actually published the breakdown of my scores somebody would probably get upset. But for those who have been following my progress in Greek, that particular result rhymes with fix-de-swine.

Most of my results started with a 6, only one with a 5, one even with a 7, and the figures 7 and 8 were common as second figures. If we were to get Peter Snow to project these results onto a final degree result, it wouldn't quite rhyme with Thirst. But as I'm only staying long enough to complete a Diploma that's a fairly academic point. (academic! - get it? Oh, please yourself)

A few days after the results were issued we also got our essays back with the examiners comments. This is where we start to get a real feel for what we need to do to improve our marks for next year, if indeed we're aiming to improve - I started out aiming only to pass the diploma, but I feel an increasing urge to continue study after ordination at a slightly slower pace in order to complete to degree level and to see just how well I can do! I do have a common theme of not making sufficient reference to the books that I've read on the subject, or an over-reliance on one particular author. In one case, I read loads of books on Youth Ministry but struggled to find anything of direct relevance to the Romsey Mill situation that I was writing about, so the bibliography was long, but the list of references was very short... I guess I can learn library skills from that for next year.

We now have the summer holidays to decide which modules we'll be taking next year. There is very little choice to be honest, as most people on my course have little prior theological education, so we're guided to the same core choices as each other. Where it will vary a little is in detailed choices such as between studying one pair of Old Testament books or another, and the ability to 'audit' certain additional courses, which means we can sit in on lectures but don't have to submit any assessed work - this way we get to hear material, and can read around what interests us, but without the pressure of related essays.

And I've got all summer to consider my options, even if I didn't make any notes from the options meeting......ooops!