Finally

November 15, 2010

About two years ago, I decided to pursue further education and enrolled into the Autism and Behavioural Science program. I started school a little after we got back from our honeymoon and for the first year and a bit of our marriage, Andrew and I worked hard for this certificate*.

In the interest of using our time wisely though, we decided not to attend my convocation ceremony and opted instead to have them courier my certificate to me.

Last week, the package finally arrived.


Awesome.


*Despite coming home at 3am from one job, leaving for his other job by 5am and working throughout the day, Andrew always found some sort of energy to stay up with me while I did my work, edit my assignments, go out to grab food for me and click the "submit" button when I was too chicken to. So it really was a joint effort.

Stress

April 23, 2008

With two more exams to go (tomorrow), this is what I'd like to do but emptying my brain at this point is probably not advisable.



















(source: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~frankh/dilbert.html)

Unprepared

April 7, 2008

Today was the last day of classes for the term and normally, this is the day I try extra hard to go to class as some sort of final effort to finish off the term on a good note. This morning, I managed to get up and get to class but as much of an achievement as this was for me, I was left feeling somewhat saddened.

I suppose it could have been because it's the last day of my undergrad lectures but I think it was something more than that.

At some point last week, I found out that one of my professors resigned. While his teaching style was not the greatest nor did he teach my favourite courses, he did care about his student's achievements and he always try to make his class laugh. After having five courses with him, I had come to know and expect his laid-back style and found some sort of comfort in the consistency of it.

And then, in the midst of this already bittersweet time, I find out he resigned. More importantly, I found out why he resigned. I think this is one of those times where seeing someone in the same situation as you (not really knowing what to do next) is anything but comforting.

Stop The Clock

March 30, 2008

With just under a month of school left on the clock, most of the grads I know are thinking about the future. We've all been trying to come up with answers for the perpetual battery of questions regarding our plans for the summer, plans for the rest of our lives. Most of us answer half-heartedly, not entirely sure of ourselves but wanting to have something better to say than "I don't know".

We've been going through endless checklists to make sure we've completed the requirements for our degree, to make sure we have a fighting chance of being accepted into grad school or getting a job, despite the growing feeling that our chances our slim.

Despite all the uncertainties about the future I'm now facing, I feel like most of my worries stem from uncertainties from my past. This is another chapter of my life coming to a close! Is the story at least one that's good enough to tell, or is it something that's better forgotten.

Anyway, enough with the melodrama. Time to get back to my books.

Fighting Til The End

February 11, 2008

On my way to my exam this morning, I noticed someone sitting with a laptop, looking at what appeared to be the final exam schedule for this term. Being the absolute keener (read: procrastinator queen) that I am, I went home to check and see if it was up. It was. The final exam period for this term is from April 10 to April 24. You'll never guess when my last exam is.

That's right, folks. My very last exam of my very last undergraduate term (crosses fingers) is on the very last day, in the very last time slot possible. And I have two exams that day! Can you imagine my luck?! Looks like I'll be here, fighting it out to the very end.

The Pseudo End

December 6, 2007

This is the last term that a lot of the people I started university with will be on campus at the same time. It's finally starting to hit me what this means. You see, thanks to the wonderful co-op program at Waterloo, unlike at other universities, we are divided by streams. Streams that dictate when we will be in school and when we will not. Because of these streams, I will be graduating next term while all my co-op buddies will be at work, only to come back to school the term after. So instead of saying goodbye once, we have to do it twice. It's the end, but it's not really the end.

Survivor

August 12, 2007

I did it, I am done. I have survived the most brutal 5 days of my life. Never have I been put through such mental and physical stress. To start things off, my exam schedule was brutal. It went a little like this: Wed (12:30pm), Fri (9am, 4pm), Sat (9am, 4pm). When I first found this out, I had a plan. I was going to start studying early. I was going to be productive. Then, things happened. I had papers to write and being at home more made it impossible to study.

So, I started studying for real on Tuesday. Yes, Tuesday. This week has been an intense week of memorizing material, forgetting material to memorize more material and (for my last exam), not bothering to study anymore.

In any case, some good has come out of this week. Not only did I test my super-hero abilities but since I was in such close proximity of a very clean washroom, I was able to go to the bathroom more often (sorry). This is a bit of an accomplishment for me because I have had a tendency to hold my pee in for inhumane amounts of time until my bladder would cry out for help. But not any more because, boys and girls, that is VERY BAD for you!

Survival Mode

August 7, 2007

Cold. Tired. Hungry.

It's exam time. I'm in survival mode.

I have 5 exams this term. Normally, that's not really that much, it's just a full course load. But! Now, factor in the fact that I haven't studied for any of them AND that all 5 exams will be written in the next 4 days. Okay, do the math, that's 5 exams times 0 studying divided by 4 days equals *mumble*mumble* DISASTER!

Final Marks

July 20, 2007


After all those countless hours of work during the term, after all the textbook-reading, paper-writing, midterm-cramming and memorizing. After all that work, isn't it devistating to know that your final mark hinges on 2.5 hours of writing the final exam.

I hate this system. For some reason, I can know all the information I need to know, but once I get into the test-writing situation, it's like it all disappears. But sometimes, I won't even know this. I'll be writing my exam, thinking that things are going well, I'm answering the questions correctly, then when my final mark comes out, it's like a slap in the face.

Oh, another issue is that your mark is also determined by who your prof is. Sometimes you'll get an easy prof and you'll end up with a high mark. But you could take the exact same course another term, with a different prof and be on the brink of failure.

Which brings me to the thing that's been bothering me all term. One of my psych profs is non-existant. In fact, I don't even know who he is. He has TAs running the discussion boards and the tests aren't even written by him. The tests are a joke. They are multiple choice questions provided by the publishers of the textbook. They are questions based on one sentence in the textbook, so specific that only someone who had the textbook in front of them would know the answer. And after you do the test, it is marked automatically by the system (again, no work for the prof here!), and you don't even get to see which questions you get wrong. I'm not even learning anything from this course because of how crappily it's been set up.

Based on those two criteria of estimating my final mark, it looks like I'll be failing this course. Great.

(Note: The textbook in the picture is not from the course I'm disappointed with.)

Mispronunciations

July 16, 2007

So I'm a bit of a nut when it comes to pronouncing words correctly and using them for their proper meaning. To a certain extent, I can generally brush it off and forget about it. But I think there are times when it is pretty much inexcusable. This is one of those times.

I'm taking a few psych courses DE this term, which means the lectures are pre-recorded. For one of the courses, which happens to be the advance psych course I need to fulfill the requirements for getting a psych minor, the prof. mispronounces a word. It's not a very hard word. In fact, when he first said it, I thought it was one of those psychology terms that you learn as you listen to the lectures but I soon realized that it wasn't. The word was 'scenario'. However, my prof. said 'sceniaro' and does it multiple times throughout the lecture (in fact, I've paused the lecture to write this because it's annoying me THAT much).

I suppose this wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that this guy is supposed to be a prof - a title which I think holds a lot of weight. He's supposed to be an academic fellow with a certain amount of knowledge, and I think the correct pronunciation of that word should be part of that knowledge. Also, this is a pre-recorded lecture. It's not like it takes that much effort to go back and record the lecture with the correct pronunciation. As with most lectures, I'm sure this one has been used over and over again for many years and I'm quite surprised that no one has mentioned anything to him. (On the other hand, maybe they're all like me and don't really feel like writing an email to the person who's in charge of giving them a mark at the end of the term, saying he's stupid because he can't pronounce a simple word.)

Anyway, I really should get back to the lecture...