Ten and a Half Hours; No Breaks

I'm tired, so here's my attempt at a short post.

1st class was EMA from 8 'til 9:30. Learned some cool new stuff, got a bunch of homework for some other day. Also got my quiz results. 22/40 compared to the other students' 40/40 and 37/40. I lost a shitload of marks due to careless mistakes and failure to check my work. It's still a really tough subject, though, so at least I know I've got a couple of geniuses to turn to if I need any help.

2nd class was CTS from 9:30 'til 11:00. Learned about fallacies and stuff. Was okay. Didn't drag. Projector wasn't working.

3rd class was Advanced English replacement for the one hour I missed yesterday. It was from 11:00 to 12:30, but I was leaving early. I made some new friends and listened to Mr. Dharminder talk about his experience at an Ali Maju the other day with Mr. Joel, my EMA (and formerly Calculus) lecturer, which involved them sitting across from a table of loud, vulgar students. Apparently all the vulgarity was coming from the girls. We had to explain how "the f word" had changed since his time as a student, and become a very versatile adjective instead of a swear word. That was fun.

4th class was Physics tutorial in one of the KPD labs scheduled to last from 12:00 to 2:00. It took me around ten minutes to get there. Fortunately, we managed to complete all six questions quite quickly and left with 20 minutes break.

I spent that break getting money to get my ticket from Roopa, who had booked a table for the ball. The ticket is pretty cool. Also when I was running to the ATM I figured out how to simulate drowning: get your heart rate up, then hold your breath and sprint. That was quite an interesting experience.

5th class was Advanced English from 2:00 to 3:30. I gave a presentation and was evaluated by the class. The presentation didn't count towards the continuous assessment mark, but it did help for the next class.

6th class was Moral Studies from 3:30 to 5:00. I had to give a presentation that was worth 10% of the total marks for the subject. I asked one of my classmates to help me out by asking questions so I could stretch my five slides of content to last for fifteen minutes. She agreed to help me out, so that was nice. I managed to get a bit of audience participation going on by way of a Q&A, and my presentation lasted 16 minutes. My classmate, Annora, actually lifted up a sheet of paper that said "14 MINUTES" at one point, so I knew when to start wrapping up. Yeah, that was nice. When my presentation was done there was another presentation by two dudes, the first half of which was presented quite well and the second half of which was pretty much a comedy routine. There are some funny dudes in HELP. I think they're gonna score pretty high. After class was over I got to see my score and I got 8.5/10, which was awesome. Annora's group got 7.5 but I'm pretty sure they did better than me, since their slides had visual aids and animations and stuff.

7th class was the Moral Studies Quiz, which I wasn't prepared for. I didn't understand what the questions were asking of me, so I was tempted to pull out my notes and cheat. I actually managed to get them from my bag to the desk before I realized that cheating during a Moral quiz, although deliciously ironic, wouldn't be worth the consequences of getting caught, so I put the notes away and reached into the recesses of my memory for the answers. I'm not sure if I answered correctly, but I passed a much more practical moral test that class.

When I was done with the quiz I talked to Davinia, who I apparently hadn't spoken to in ages. She asked me how things were with "Junita, or Julia or whatever" and was shocked to hear of my motorcycle accident last week. I said something along the lines of "Oh wow, it really must have been a while since we last talked. You don't know the name of the girl I can't shut up about, you don't know about my motorcycle accident, heck, I bet you haven't even heard about my dad's funeral." Her reaction to the last item on that list was worth the horrible fabrication. I forgot what we talked about next even though that was less than two hours ago. Again I will blame sleep deprivation.

After that I talked to Ms Usha because I wanted to tell her to call off the search since she still had not made any progress finding someone who I could ask to the ball. Apparently she had not told anyone that she was helping me, but somehow all the girls she asked knew she was talking about me when she told them about (her words) "a tall, fair, handsome guy" to ask to the ball. I told her of course they're gonna guess me if she uses the word "fair" in her description. With the exception of the international students, that word would only be used to describe two people, and although it could be argued that she is tall and handsome, Juria is most definitely not a guy. I guess that is the downside to a mixed heritage: you tend to stand out, even in three-word descriptions.

Ms Usha then said that her new plan was to get a column on the notice board for students to put up their phone numbers and descriptions of themselves and of what kind of person they would want to go to the ball with. I agreed to be among the first batch up on the board. Perhaps I should not have volunteered, though. It just seems a bit desperate.

While I was getting ready to go, this old dude with a terrible combover approached a group of students and asked how to delete text on a slide. When I started to answer him he grabbed my wrist and dragged me over to his computer so I could help him with it. I don't think I've met a bigger stereotype in my life before. This guy was a classic technologically illiterate elder. After attempting to help him get his presentation done for a while (he wouldn't tell me exactly what he was trying to do, just what he wanted me to do next, so all that ended up being changed was that the text in two slides were replaced by the text of two other slides that he didn't know where there, and one of those slides being moved up in the presentation), I gave up and set the alarm on my phone to a minute later, then picked it up and excused myself. Man, I hope I never get to the point where I'm pulling random college students into my cubicle to help me adjust the holoprojectors or reconfigure the teleporters or whatever.

I finally took my motorcycle home at 6:30. I wanted to take a nap, but my mum wants me to go to bed at 10pm so I don't end up staying late and getting only four or so hours of sleep like I did last night. Eh.

I figured today would be a lot harder than it was. I was riding on a sleep-deprived high for most of the day, and I only crashed when I got home. My mood's not too great right now, but I was pretty dang ecstatic for classes one through six. Ah well, that is the price you pay for not listening to your mother.

Anyway I'll end this here. I'm gonna go take a nap.

Edit: I didn't actually take a nap. I think I may actually go to bed at 10. I am really tired.