No More Exams!

Exams and excursions – that’s what happened today at the IChO in Budapest. The students took their 5 hour theoretical exam this morning and afternoon. Afterwards, they walked from the ELTE where they had their exam to Váci utca, a shopper’s dream in central Pest. That walk was quite a distance especially after sitting for 5 hours and being mentally drained from their effort!

Mentors and guests went to Pannohalmi Főapátság (Pannohalma Archabbey), an abbey and winery that was established in the 11th century. The abbey is a World Heritage Site that is home to Benedictine monks who also run a boarding school for about 300 boys from kindergarten age through 18 years of age. The winery was nationalized during Soviet rule and was reestablished in 2001.

While waiting for the students to arrive back at the Grand Hotel, we watched 2 young men battle it out in World of War Craft on Korean TV. The announcers were pretty excited as they commented on the strategies of the players. I tried uploading the video, but it was taking too long and internet access is not cheap here in Budapest!

After all of these excursions, mentors and students met back at the Thermal Hotel and boarded the Európa for a reunion dinner cruise on the Danube. Here students told us about eating the same thing for breakfast every day: bread, cheese, meat, and jam (to which the Irish mentor replied, “How is that any different than when they’re at home? Have their mothers made something new for breakfast everyday for the past 18 years?” I thought that was pretty funny.) The students were glad the exams were over and were ready to just relax and not think about chemistry anymore.

Highlights of the cruise included being the students being teased by Dr. Lynch’s children, one student losing a shoe to a lower deck, and Dr. Lynch getting caught in a downpour of rain. The food was excellent, the students and mentors had time to reconnect and everyone is looking forward to the next few days. Students will be on excursions on Friday and Saturday while the mentors will be very busy. We will be correcting the students’ exams tomorrow using the rubric given to us by the Hungarian organizers. We will then compare our scores to the scores given by the graders during arbitration on Saturday. It is possible that we may be able to gain some points back for the students if the grades don’t agree. The stress level for the mentors will be building as we correct the papers and try to determine how well the students did. Stay tuned; Sunday will be here soon and we’ll all know the results.

Ciao!