Archive for Autumn

Autumn Repeats

Posted in Education, History, Maynooth with tags , , , , , on August 5, 2025 by telescoper

As I mentioned yesterday, it is almost time for the repeat examination period to begin once again. In fact the first papers are due tomorrow (6th August). A couple of years ago, Maynooth University produced this nice good luck message for those resitting so I’ll repeat it here:

I was a bit surprised when I first arrived here in Ireland that the August repeat examinations are called the Autumn Repeats. After all, they happen in August which is generally regarded as summer rather than Autumn. The term is, I think, a relic of the old Celtic calendar in which the start of Autumn coincides with the start of harvesting, the old festival of Lúnasa being when people celebrated the Celtic deity Lugh, who would bring a good harvest or who, if not satisfied, could bring his wrath to bear in storms that would mess everything up. Lúnasa is the name for August in modern Irish; Lá Lúnasa is 1st August, and the first Monday in August (Lá Saoire i mí Lúnasa) (yesterday) is a Bank Holiday.

Anyway, the repeat examinations start tomorrow and go on for ten days or so, I will have four different papers to grade, though I’m expecting only one candidate each for three of them.

Every year at this time I mention the difference between the system of repeats in Maynooth compared to other institutions with which I am familiar, especially in the UK. Elsewhere, students generally take resits when, because they have failed one or more examinations the previous May, they have not accumulated sufficient credits to proceed to the next year of their course. Passing the resit allows them to retrieve lost credit, but their mark is generally capped at a bare pass (usually 40%). That means the student gets the credit they need for their degree but their average (which determines whether they get 1st, 2nd or 3rd class Honours) is affected. This is the case unless a student has extenuating circumstances affecting the earlier examination, such as bad health or family emergency, in which case they take the resit as a `sit’, i.e. for the first time with an uncapped mark.

Here in Maynooth, however, the mark obtained in a repeat examination is usually not capped. Indeed, some students – though not many – elect to take the repeat examination even if they passed earlier in the summer, in order to increase their average mark.

Some people don’t like the idea of uncapped repeats because they feel that it would lead to many students playing games, i.e. deliberately not taking exams in May with the intention of spreading some of their examination  load into August. The Institute of Physics has decided to impose capped resits as part of its accreditation requirements. Some people here seem to think IOP accreditation is worth having so we’re being pushed into that requirement. I find it heavy-handed and unhelpful. It is also unimportant unless you want to do postgraduate study in physics in the UK. It doesn’t matter at all anywhere else.

If you think students have an unfair advantage if they don’t take a full diet of examinations in May, then the logical conclusion is that part-time students have an unfair advantage as do students taking micro-credentials consisting of just one or two modules. It’s the essence of the modular system that each module result should be considered on its own merit, not in relation to other modules a student may or may not have taken at the same time. One can of course argue whether the modular system is good or not, but if you have it then you should act consistently in accordance with it. You wouldn’t penalize students who have to work to support their study relative to those who don’t, would you?

And there’s no real evidence of students actually playing the system in the way the IOP thinks they do anyway. For one thing the results from the repeat examination period are not confirmed until early September so that students that deploy this strategy do not know whether they are going to be able to start their course until just a couple of weeks before term. That could cause lots of problems securing accommodation, etc, so it doesn’t seem to me to be a good ploy. Finallists adopting this strategy will not be able to graduate with the rest of their cohort and may miss several months of potential employment. I think most of our students are smart enough to realize that it’s a risky strategy.

Anyway, I’d welcome comments for or against whether resits/repeats should be capped/uncapped and on what practice is adopted in your institution.

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Autumn Repeats

Posted in Education, History, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , on August 1, 2023 by telescoper

It’s August already, which means it is time once again for the repeat examination period to begin. Maynooth University has produced this nice good luck message for those resitting so I’ll pass it on here:

I was a bit surprised when I first arrived here that the August repeat examinations are called the Autumn Repeats. After all, they start on 1st August which is generally regarded as summer rather than Autumn. The term is, I think, a relic of the old Celtic calendar in which the start of Autumn coincides with the start of harvesting, the old festival of Lúnasa being when people celebrated the Celtic deity Lugh, who would bring a good harvest or who, if not satisfied, could bring his wrath in storms that would mess everything up. Lúnasa is the name for August in modern Irish; Lá Lúnasa is 1st August, a cross-quarter day lying (approximately) half-way between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. The festival is marked in the modern calendar by a Bank Holiday on the first Monday in August (Lá Saoire i mí Lúnasa) which is next Monday (7th August), so I have a long weekend to look forward to!

Anyway, the repeat examinations start today and go on for ten days or so, except there are none on the Bank Holiday when the University is closed. As it happens, my first paper is on Saturday, so I won’t be able to collect any scripts until Tuesday 8th, on which day I have two further examinations, so I’ll have three different sets to deal with.

Every year at this time I mention the difference between the system of repeats in Maynooth compared to other institutions with which I am familiar, especially in the UK. Students generally take resits when, because they have failed one or more examinations the previous May, they have not accumulated sufficient credits to proceed to the next year of their course. Passing the resit allows them to retrieve lost credit, but their mark is generally capped at a bare pass (usually 40%). That means the student gets the credit they need for their degree but their average (which determines whether they get 1st, 2nd or 3rd class Honours) is affected. This is the case unless a student has extenuating circumstances affecting the earlier examination, such as bad health or family emergency, in which case they take the resit as a `sit’, i.e. for the first time with an uncapped mark.

Here in Maynooth, however, the mark obtained in a repeat examination is usually not capped. Indeed, some students – though not many – elect to take the repeat examination even if they passed earlier in the summer, in order to increase their average mark.

Some people don’t like the idea of uncapped repeats because they feel that it would lead to many students playing games, i.e. deliberately not taking exams in May with the intention of spreading some of their examination  load into August. There’s not much sign of students actually doing that here, to be honest, for the reason that the results from the repeat examination period are not confirmed until early September so that students that deploy this strategy do not know whether they are going to be able to start their course until just a couple of weeks before term. That could cause lots of problems securing accommodation, etc, so it doesn’t seem to me to be a good ploy.

I’d welcome comments for or against whether resits/repeats should be capped/uncapped and on what practice is adopted in your institution.

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Autumn Arrives

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , on August 6, 2021 by telescoper

Working at home all day yesterday I thought I might take a break and go for a walk…

… and then I thought “perhaps not”.

The inclement weather did however remind me of something I should have posted last Sunday, namely that 1st August is regarded in the traditional Celtic calendar as the first day of Autumn. In Irish September is Meán Fómhair (middle of autumn/harvest season) and October is Deireadh Fómhair); August itself is Lúnasa.

Each season lasts approximately three months. Traditionally, winter starts on 1st November and includes November December and January (with the Winter Solstice in the middle). Summer consists of May June and July (with the Summer Solstice in the middle). That period is definitely the best time of the year in Ireland, actually. Spring (February to April) and Autumn (August to October) are likewise roughly bisected by the two equinoxes. It all makes astronomical sense.

This also makes sense of something that puzzled me until yesterday, which is why the repeat examinations held in August (which I should be marking instead of wasting my time blogging) are called the Autumn repeats in Maynooth instead of Summer repeats (which is what they are called everywhere else I’m aware of). That’s because August is in the Autumn.

P. S. The title is meant to be a play on Autumn Leaves…

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Autumn

Posted in Poetry with tags , on November 16, 2010 by telescoper

Walking to work through the cold fog of a Cardiff November morning, a vague recollection of this poem popped into my head from somwhere or other only to disappear when I made it into the office. It was foggy again on the way home, so I remembered the half-memory I had earlier on. I had a look around and found the poem that had been in and out of my head.

An autumn melancholy seems to have taken grip of many folk in the department, probably because it seems like there’s long dark tunnel until Christmas, never mind next Spring. I have to say I rather like the autumn, actually…

I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;–
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?–With the sun,
Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?–Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noonday,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?–In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch’d from her flow’rs
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,–the green prime,–
The many, many leaves all twinkling?–Three
On the moss’d elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling,–and one upon the old oak-tree!
Where is the Dryad’s immortality?–
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly’s green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish’d hoard,
The ants have brimm’d their garners with ripe grain,
And honey bees have stored
The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have wing’d across the main;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
And sighs her tearful spells
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Alone, alone,
Upon a mossy stone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone
With the last leaves for a love-rosary,
Whilst all the wither’d world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drowned past
In the hush’d mind’s mysterious far away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, gray upon the gray.

O go and sit with her, and be o’ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair:
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;–
There is enough of wither’d everywhere
To make her bower,–and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
Is Beauty’s,–she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,–
Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

by Thomas Hood (1799-1845)


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Les Feuilles Mortes

Posted in Biographical, Columbo with tags , , , on November 16, 2009 by telescoper

After the strain of writing a long post about something halfway interesting yesterday, as well as spending most of today at work composing and sending out  umpteen letters of recommendation for various people’s job applications, I haven’t got the energy to write very much today. However, I was reminded at the weekend that it’s been a while since I posted anything about Columbo.

It’s almost two months in fact since I took the moggy to the vets to have another blood sample extracted, although I think he extracted more from the vet and her assistant than they got from him. They phoned me a day or two later to say that his blood sugar levels were fine and he didn’t need to go back for six months or so.

We’ve settled back into normality, except that I’m keeping a specially close eye on his food intake since the vet declared him officially obese. He’s lost about 350g since he’s been on the current diet, so it’s working. He’s more affectionate too, at least when it’s time for the grub. Cupboard love, I think it’s called.

After a couple of generally fine and temperate months in September and October, we’ve suddenly hit a patch of decidedly inclement weather this November. Over the weekend a fairly intense storm passed over the UK, heavy rainfall causing floods here and there and high winds causing problems in a number of areas. Cardiff is fairly sheltered so the winds didn’t do much serious damage here – at least not that I noticed – apart from bringing down what was left of the leaves on the trees in the surrounding streets and in the park. The effect of the pouring rain on the fallen leaves has been to produce an unpleasant slippy  brown sludge on the paths and pavements.

Columbo has a bit of a thing about windy days and leaves. He always seems to enjoy going out into the garden when it’s blowing a gale. He gets very skittish and chases things about as if he were a youngster again. Well, for a few minutes at least. The recent storms have curtailed this fun a bit. I don’t think there’s much excitement in playing with a pile of soggy leaves stuck to the ground compared to nice dry ones floating in the air.

Columbo isn’t spending so much time outside these days because when he does venture forth he’s as likely as not to come back soaking. Then he usually comes straight to me, leaving a trail of muddy footprints and jumps up covering me with mud and twigs. Once he was so filthy when he came in I had to put him in the shower, although I just sponged him off rather than turning it full on. He’d probably have a heart attack if I did that.

Although the weather has reduced his options, Columbo’s life still seems to present many challenges for him. The main one these days is where to sleep. In the summer he’d quite often snooze outside on the lawn, on the decking or under a bush in the garden. Now these are no longer viable, he still has important decisions as to where to take his repose.

Columbo has four main places to sleep inside the house, and he seems to visit them in the same order each day like a drowsy student moving from one lecture theatre to another. At night he sleeps in a basket in the dining room. After breakfast, and the brief period of wakefulness that follows it, he moves into the sitting room (I think because it catches the sun in the mornings).  In the afternoons he likes the space under the window in the spare bedroom and then in the evenings he likes the mat next to the bath.

He sometimes interrupts his busy schedule of napping to climb onto the sofa, usually when I’m trying to read or do the crossword, to snuggle up and to sleep again always in what looks like an impossibly uncomfortable position.

That’s just about all there is to report for now. Soon, if I can be bothered, I’ll be putting up a Christmas tree. That usually produces a generous batch of  hilarious moments because he likes to play with the decorations, especially if they’re reflective, batting them about to the point of destruction. But I’ll leave that for next time.

By the way, he often sleeps on his back like this. It’s quite strange for a cat, I think.

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