Thursday, April 19, 2007

It's over. Unbelievable. I have attended my last class in the course of my undergraduate studies. Am I excited? Oh yes. Am I in shock? Sure. Can I really appreciate it? Not just yet. But I'll get there.

You'll be happy to know that I finished off my last huge assignment this afternoon (my 15-page "take-home exam"), and I'm actually pretty pleased with it. Same thing with the other paper I was talking about yesterday, which ended up being an even 20 pages after it was all said and done, which is roughly 5 more than the prof asked for. But like I said yesterday, they're five good pages, so I think we'll be okay.

Now the waiting begins. Not necessarily the waiting for grad, but the waiting for my assignments to be returned. Let's see here, there are two for my first class, two for my second class, two for my third class, and two for my last class, plus one that I did last semester that was just graded a while back (it's technically a two-semester course, so that's the excuse, I guess), and then another whole course that I did via distance ed this semester that I haven't received any assignments back for (I think there were five).

The frustrating part is that I will go into my grad week having absolutely no idea how I did in my classes. I know I was doing quite well in all of them, and I expect that trend to continue, but you never really know, right? And I want to know. You'd think that in a college of only 400 students, your profs would be able to get your work back in a timely fashion. They impose deadlines on us, but then they take their sweet time in handing things back. I know they're the profs, and I know they've worked really hard to get where they are, and they're the smart ones, and all that stuff, but still, it's about respect for the students.

The good part about all this waiting, though, is that at least I understand why it always took me so long to get my distance ed marks back, and why it never seemed like a big deal that it was happening. It's par for the course here, I'm afraid.

Back to the main theme. There are a few more small assignments I have to take care of before I'm officially done (plus that one pesky final exam), but in my books, I'm done. The rest is just tying up loose ends.

In other news. For some reason, I can't access my blog from my desktop, only from my laptop. Strange. You'd think it would be the opposite, considering I run Windows 98 on the laptop, and the robust Windows XP on the desktop. Robust, indeed.

Carrying on. They actually got the weather right for once--it's snowing, hard. It actually rained today (one of the six days per year that it does that), but now it's snow. It's just cold enough to stick right now, but it's not sticking to the streets. That may change through the night if the temperature drops, but it's been pretty consistent all day, so I don't expect a huge change. I know, I know: famous last words. They've been talking about up to 20 cm of accumulation overnight, but I don't buy it. I can't buy it.

What else? After last night's late bedtime, the alarm rang much too early today. School was good, made all the better by the imminent end of the semester. Only had three classes today, which was nice, so I used the time I would have been in the other class to finish off my last paper. As much as I'm a constant tweaker, it's good practice for me to just get it to the point where it's good and hand it in, instead of just modifying ad nauseum. We got a two-day extension (which everyone believes came as a result of our prof drinking too much, as this is very out of character), and as much as I wanted to use it, I also wanted to just get it over with. So I did. And I'm glad for it.

After dinner, I had a very strange wrap-up party for the ministry that I'm involved in here on campus. Not that there was something inherently strange about it, but simply that it was ill-conceived. For some reason, the guy who runs the ministry thought it would be a good idea to have a party on the second-last day of school when everyone is busy wrapping up, and was surprised when less than half of the invitees arrived. Hmm. 17 people out of a possible 42.

Unfortunately, we had bought enough food to feed 42. Although I appreciated the extra ice cream, it was a little gratuitous. We somehow managed to get rid of the extra (giving it to the guys dorms makes that easy), so we were good. We had also bought prizes--we had 15 of them, expecting 40 people. It turns out that only two people didn't get prizes, which might have been worse. The whole thing turned out to be a little bit forced, and I was glad for it to be over.

Home afterwards, and the chance to finally sit and relax without the imminent pressure of looming deadlines. We ended up watching last week's episode of 24, so we're almost caught up. Just to re-affirm what I said a couple days ago--this show is turning into a steaming pile of crap. I was wondering what the next twist in the plot was going to be after Jack found the nukes, but I certainly wasn't expecting the worst actor in the history of the show--Kim Raver--to make a re-appearance. (I don't bestow that title lightly, either, considering Elisha Cuthbert was on the show. I'm sure they're both very nice people, it's just that their appearance on the show grates on me like Chinese water torture. Sorry, that's a bit of an inappropriate simile, considering the new plot line). I was really happy when, earlier this season, they revealed that she had been killed off. But that whole scene seemed like a forced imposition intended to foreshadow her eventual return. Face it, you knew she'd be coming back. You just didn't want to believe it.

And by they way, did the Chinese capture her a year ago as a hedge against Jack's eventual release? What possible reason would they have to elaborately stage her death at that point in time? Did they know that Jack would be released? Wha...but...um...gosh!

As for the whole storyline with the president's health--yawn. If there wasn't a clear case for the 25th ammendment before, I think there is now. Where's mister firey-pants vice president now? Probably off shagging the Belinda Stronach look-alike. That's a plot line I wouldn't care to see.

So, there you go. Another day in the books, finished off without appropriate segue. And hey, it's 10:30, and I'm actually going to go to bed. What a novel concept. Thanks for stopping by. See you tomorrow.