A report half way between praise and lament

That’s also why this term is not exactly packed with exciting activities. Whereas during the normal academic moths most people try to take at least one day off every week, in spring term nobody indulges in leisure even on his birthday. The library is bursting at the seams. Despite the fact that silence is prescribed, from time to time you can catch an echo of distant snores coming from hard-working but exhausted students, or sighs coming from those brought to desperation by piles of books. And this is not too much of an exaggeration. In a word, you don’t come across too much serenity and bliss during this term. However, any signs of impending depression are dispelled by the weather, which in Britain for some reason always tends to get nice and sunny before the exams, and the somewhat homely atmosphere at the college, where you are constantly surrounded by friends sharing your worries.

Luckily, there is always something going on in Cambridge. One interesting event that recently took place was a talk given by Peter Singer, one of the most famous contemporary philosophers, who spoke about the philosophy of charity and altruism. These lectures always make one’s supper to taste a bit bitterer. Another notable lecture was on economic liberalism and Adams Smith, delivered by Václav Klaus. He even found a bit of free time to speak to us, Czech students, afterwards, sharing some of his experiences with us.

For me, the most important kinds of relaxation were walks in the nature, occasional tennis games (we have grass courts in the college – how English!) and cyclo trips. We once managed to cycle even as far as Ely, a well-known town with a picturesque cathedral about twenty miles from Cambridge. Ely lies on the same river as Cambridge, so to get there it suffices to follow the bank. It is a nice trip leading through several bird reservations and little harbours. The only problem lies in the fact that virtually all land is privately owned in England, so you can’t make a step without bumping into some notice board enumerating all things that are forbidden in this area. We once managed to get into conflict with a farmer on whose land we unintentionally stepped. But otherwise, it was a great trip.

The exams hit me at the end of May, all five during one week.  I was especially nervous before my first exam, having had to rest a lot and even dreaming about it at night, but after a little while I turned into an old stager. Our exams are all written and consist solely of essay writing, with the exception of logic which has a mathematical part, too. I only hope that the examiner will have a sense of humour, because in one of my exams I succumbed to temptation and used a philosophical joke about behaviourism. (I am not going to retell it here, because a reader certain background knowledge might come to the conclusion that I am a bit weird.) I didn’t come across an important problem, at any point, but we once all got a bit confused when the examiners revealed a mistake in the exam paper when the exam was in progress. Our last exam was quite notable: we were given 10 words and our task was to choose one and write a three-hour essay about it. You obviously can’t really prepare for it too much, but I think that it perhaps makes the resultant philosophical essays even more interesting.

We celebrated the exams in a pub and since then, I have been doing a lot of relaxing stuff. I have attended one hippie music festival in Cambridge, spent a couple of days in London and am looking forward to the Cambridge “May week”, which starts in a couple of days.