Well, I just signed up for the 50 dappim (two-sided pages of Talmud) on which I’ll be tested in late August for the Scary Talmud (Review Awfully Necessary) Graduation-Level Exam (STRANGLE), aka The Daf Exam Part One. (The Daf Exam Part Two happens in December, but fortunately I don’t even know on what material, so I can worry about one thing at a time.) I guess I have to actually, you know, learn them now.
Truth be told, I’ve been trying to amble my way through review, to at least have looked at all the pages once before getting down to serious review business this summer. I won’t have had a chance to do this with everything (and there are a few pages I’ll really be learning from scratch), but it is helpful to give things at least a glance-over, if not always an intricate dissection of the sticky bits. I keep getting stuck in the snoozefest chunk of Ketubot I’m on now, though–I pick it up, and it’s about loan contracts, and I have trouble getting myself to move forward. It’s funny, this gemara has the same amount of intricate back-and-forth as other bits, but since the back-and-forth isn’t about indignant virgin brides or smashing pagan idols, it’s a lot harder for me to study on my own. What can I say? I’m a sucker for content. In any case, I’ll have hevrutot (study partners) when I get back to the States, so J. and S. and whoever else can keep me focused even when we get to contracts and loans.