Last Day of UTS! Obama!

So I ended up staying awake until 4:30 last night because of the videos in my powerpoint. I didn't think it would take as long as it did. First I had to find some on youtube, then I had to download (which took forever in my room so I literally went outside in a shirt and shorts at 2:30am and 3:40am with my laptop, walked towards the house with the good internet, connected to that, and stood outside in the middle of the night for a few minutes while the things would download, and I did that twice) then I had to encode, but because I didn't pay for the encoder, it stuck an ad on the middle of the video. So I found another, but this one only did the first three minutes of a video. I tried minimizing the ad and how much it was on the video and it took way too long.

And then I woke up rather early to get to UTS because we were supposed to go 30 mins early to make room for all the presentations. I got there and only a few people actually were there. No teacher though. I bummed around with my iPod until more people showed up. A substitute we had before was our teacher again. So our real lecturer was only there for the first class. Crazy. She marked our papers though and we got them today. I got a C++ which is also a computer programming language. But it basically translates to an American B+ while still making me feel kinda bad about it because it's 2 grades below the highest and only 1 above "pass." I can't wait to get back to our grading system. She really only marked me down for sentence structure. But here, if you make one mistake over and over, you get a lot of marks down. At home, they recognize it as one mistake and you get one mark down for them all, because they trust you learn your lesson for next time. We are nice, they are harsh. She also marked "kids" should be "children" in my paper. I guess I'm not thinking like a teacher. Oh well.

So being there early was a waste since we started at 1 anyways. Luckily they grabbed an audio/visual cart for us to use. That was the one thing I worried about. I brought my laptop in case I had to just play my slideshow on that for the class, but it was nice I didn't have to. But it sucked that I had to carry it around all day. It's heavy! I worried about my bag breaking like before. Tape keeps it together to this day. The presentations were good. We had 15 minutes each. I thought I would fly through mine but that wasn't the case. I initially was a bit awkward talking because I was racing through it as fast as possible. I misjudged the length of the video clips I had, and with 1/3rd of my presentation to go, I got the "1 minute left!" warning. Crap. So I raced even more to finish it up and at least I didn't stumble over words by then, but it wasn't as well done towards the end. I think my finish was strong though, so we'll see.

I ended up leaving before 2 people presented (it was already 3:25 when I left and our class usually goes until 3:00) just to catch the shuttle back. Then I got home at 5pm like usual. Free of UTS! I will miss that class, and the chance to watch up to 6 episodes of TV during the travel time. And the fast internet alongside the non-ancient computers.

I just vegged (vedged?) out after I got back. Dinner was early at 5:30, we had some scallopy potato-y stuff that wasn't too bad, salad with onions and feta cheese and green peppers, and breaded pieces of fish. Mmm. Which reminds me, I think the train or subway station or underground tunnel smelled like tomato soup. Weird.

I wanted to go to Julian's (a guy I live with, married, last sem. of uni for him, a couple years older than me) guitar recital, but I forgot about it. I didn't want to eat and run either, since they were leaving as we were praying. Oh well.

Then I went to do my note sheet for the exam tomorrow, that I get to use. I'm gonna be up late finishing it, since we can cover the entire 2 pages, front and back, with notes. At least I can sleep in since the exam is at 2pm-5pm. I heard an ASC girl took the entire 3 hours. *gulp* I'm nervous since this is the class with the teacher that shouldn't teach. I dread that class. At least the amount of anxiety will just hit rock bottom and I will be as happy as the Obama family was today, when it's over. And my grades on the papers so far should keep me afloat no matter how well or poor I do.

I was sad that I had to be gone all day and miss the election news. I had no idea it would be calculated this fast! Did Florida ban voting for people over 65? haha, kidding. I guess the biggest surprise is how much of a landslide it was. I thought it would surely be closer to 50-50 with the electoral votes. Crazy how much America is clamoring for Change. Now we just have to play the waiting game until January and hope the country doesn't go further south until then.

Tomorrow after my exam is the end of the year dinner/dance. Armed with my new swing dancing knowledge (I won't call it skills just yet), I just might dance. Probably not unless I really have to though. The dinner will be nice! I hope my clothes are formal enough to fit in. I should be fine. I'm borrowing a pair of Ish's shoes. They are a little big but we'll see what I can do...

Cheers! Pray for me and the exam!