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October 29, 2004
2 Down, 1 To Go!
As you might be able to guess from the title of this post, I've completed two of my three final exams for the semester. Yet more evidence at just how rapidly the semester is marching on. More on the exams in a bit though.
Back on Monday I decided that I should probably start studying a little. So I got together with BradWa, Simon and Connie to study (we're all in different subjects, we were just trying to motivate each other to study our own stuff) in the afternoon and did a little 'studying' -- and by studying I mean procrastination. Like some frisbee with Simon & Brad, a trip to the grocery store, and then in the evening neither Brad nor I had the willpower to shut off that dang TV, hehe. So all in all, I think I got maybe one Fluid Dynamics problem done all day. Maybe two. Tops. Like the Demotivators poster we have on display back in 202, "Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now." I so love despair.com!
Tuesday was a much better day as far as studying was concerned. In the afternoon for a study break BradWa took both Stefan and I on a drive down to Caulfield, to show us where the Racecourse was so that we'd know where we were going when we had to take our finals. And it was still nice enough to study outside on a picnic table for most of the afternoon, although as evening approached I had to start dodging raindrops a bit. Ever since it's been cold this week, blah. Well, not cold in the MN/WI sense of course, but cold (10-13C much of the time, mid-50s F) compared to some ever-lengthier stretches of temps in the mid 20s (upper 70s F) that we've been getting over the last month and a half.
Wednesday was more of the same, workin through past Fluid Dynamics exams, except I was forced to do it inside, seeing as how it was cold, windy and raining most of the day. But I really shouldn't complain about rain down here, the entire continent always needs it badly. But in the evening it was time to head over to Farrer Hall to celebrate BradWa's 21st birthday! Practically all of CU came over for the BBQ, I think we were all surprised at the turnout. Needless to say it was a very good study break, and I got quite a few photos of friends (Kieran took several with my camera as well, he was havin some fun :-). Oh, and in case you're wondering why he's called BradWa, it's because there's a second Brad in CU, we call him BradWe so that we can distinguish between the two, hehe (they're short for their last names, Watson and Wells). Happy birthday BradWa! After the cake it was time to get back to studying unfortunately.
Thursday morning I got down to the bus loop plenty early to catch the free Monash shuttle bus to the Caulfield campus, only there was a bit of a line, so I had to wait for the second bus to come (they only seat 24, which is rather inconvenient during exam times and hundreds of people from campus are needing to get down there). What's really annoying is that the drivers are so insistent about sticking to their "schedule" that even when we completely fill up the bus and there's still a huge long line of people waiting for the next one, the driver just sits there reading a book for a few minutes before he finally decides it's time to head out. You'd think they'd have the shuttle bus drivers driving basically non-stop in the hour or two leading up to exam start times especially, just to make sure that everyone gets there. That'd be the sensible thing to do, which is of course probably why they don't do that. Oh yeah, and then peak hour traffic is so bad in the morning on Princes Hwy that we end up having to stop at seemingly every traffic light, so it takes forever to get there. But I still got to the Racecourse in plenty of time, so I'm not complaining too much. And despite a couple of nasty problems (I was convinced for the longest time I has gonna have to give up 18 of the 88 points by leaving a couple problems blank), I managed to scratch and claw my way to what I figure is a quite reasonable score, as in the last 15 minutes I managed to salvage all but 7 or 8 of those points, woohoo. The exam was worth 60%, but I think I did well enough on it to secure an HD (high distinction, 80-100, transfers to the States as an A) for the course. At least that's what I'm hoping for...
Here's how Monash does final exams. They book the huge Caulfield Racecourse complex (quite possibly the nicest horse-racing facility in Australia) for four weeks, and in each of the large rooms just filled with desks, although fortunately they're facing away from the windows, so that we're not distracted by a nice view of blue sky or green grass. They wouldn't want us to start daydreaming or anything... But anyways, in each room at each exam time slot, there are anywhere from hundreds to sometimes close to a thousand students from all sorts of different subjects taking their exams simultaneously. The doors only open 10 minutes before the scheduled start of the exam, and once they pass out the exams you have ten minutes to read over the exam questions, which is really nice. Then you can't start writing or anything until they announce that the entire room can start. And there are heaps of invigilators (or "the old people," as many of the students colloquially call them) walking around to make sure that none of us candidates are cheating or anything. And there are no lecturers or professors present, so you can't ask anybody a question if you're confused by the wording of a problem on the exam, which kinda sucks. Oh, that and weeks before the exam we get assigned a specific seat we have to be in during the exam. They sure take their exams seriously here.
Thursday afternoon and evening I sure didn't feel like studying. I just read a bunch of stuff online, and eventually walked down to Monash Pizza to get some supper, where I ran into Jane from my Weather class (she's all excited about studying abroad at Penn State next semester and getting to spend a few months in the snow, so if I wind up visiting Penn St in my search for a grad school I'll no doubt stop in and say g'day to her :-), so I talked to her for a bit while our pizzas were waiting. Oh, and I got some stuff from the GAC study abroad office yesterday too, a generic letter about registration and a couple of Weekly's. Thing is, the envelope was sent three weeks ago. What was the holdup? Perhaps it could have something to do with the sticker on it that says "Posten Sverige AB International Mail - if undeliverable please return to:" blah blah blah "Malmo, Sweden." So yeah, for some reason my package got diverted to Sweden for awhile on its way to Australia from America. Sure is an interesting route the post office chose for it.
This morning I went back down to Caulfield to take my second final, Climate Change & Variability. Before classes ended I figured that this would be my easiest final, and it sure feels like it was. What a cake final. :-) We just had to write some stuff for a couple hours on a few different topics of our choice that we already knew like the back of our hands. I really haven't done a whole lot since I got back, basically I've just been relaxing a bit, since my final final isn't until Tuesday. That one could be a bit tricky though, it'll require a bit of studying (Large-Scale Weather & Climate, there's a decent amount of maths and equations that we'll have to remember for it). That, and now I'm officially taking the General GRE here in Melbourne on the afternoon of Nov 8th. So once final exams end, the studying won't. Sigh. But I guess it's good to get it out of the way when I don't have to worry about other classes, papers or tests.
Tired of all the bad news about Iraq that's constantly being spewed at us by the mainstream media? Well, click here to read about some of the many, many good things that are happening in Iraq these days. It's certainly not all doom and gloom like the mainstream media would like to portray it! And related to Iraq this week was the completely bogus story in Monday's New York Times (CBS had been planning a "60 Minutes" on it this coming weekend - October Surprise!), alleging that 380 tons of explosives had been looted from the al-Qaqaa facility in Iraq under the "incompetent" eye of President Bush and our troops. Kerry's been off and running with the story ever since. Thing is, it's totally not true. Stories have been emerging from several places, including NBC & ABC (I guess they'd rather not risk being tarnished by CBS's lack of credibility), that say that the explosives were not only gone before US troops even got there, but that the explosives only totaled three tons, not the 380 that the New York Times and John Kerry still claim were stolen in the presence of American troops. Seriously, how can anyone possibly vote for this man? But this explosives story still needs to be kept in perspective, because we've rounded up and destroyed over 400,000 tons of explosives so far in Iraq. In non-political news, NASA's Cassini probe has been getting some amazing pictures of Saturn's moon Titan over the last couple days. And Josh's parents should take note that now they'll be able to keep track of his whereabouts at all times in Japan now!
Posted by Jared at October 29, 2004 11:57 PM