I see the light!

It's at the end of the tunnel, and it's NOT an oncoming train! The last week has been all finals, all the time 9 hours a day for five days straight. Three afternoons in a row we had to have a waiting list for computer use. Today, I have been able to sit down for as long as fifteen minutes at a stretch! There has always been at least one more computer free, and omigawd there are only three hours left! Of course, it's not yet the last screaming minute, so the last screaming wave has yet to hit.

OK, now it's only two and a half hours. Silly me, starting a post when deadlines loom. I have been starting testees for the past 30 minutes non-stop. Most of the tests are allowed two to three hours, so I am warning folks that they will be thrown out at five PM regardless if they have finished or not. Everyone says, "Oh, no problem. I can do this in half an hour with my brains in a sling." Come five PM, we'll see what they say.

I am running lowish on patience myself. If you come in to do an online test in a class that requires you to enter a password and user name, and you don't remember your password and user name, why do you think I can fix it for you? How in hell am I supposed to know your password and user name? If you don't know how to find it, then I think you are screwed, OK? Standing there and whining about how you need to take the test right NOW, and looking wounded, wounded, so wounded - doesn't change the fact that you need to know your user name and your password to take the test.

And there is one test for an online class - I don't know what it is with these students. They get online, they open their class, and they can not seem to find the tab at the top of the page, highlighted in bright yellow, that says, "Final Exam." Every single one of them - all fourty one, have come trailing out saying, "I can't find the test." Even when I started telling them where it was, they STILL can't find the test. Bright yellow. Top of the page. Says "Final Exam." So they trail out looking totally befuddled saying, rather accusingly, as if I had hidden it on purpose in some malicious fit of ill-timed pranksterism, "I can't find the test." Then I go in with them,, point at the top of the page and they go, "Oh!" as if it had just magically appeared there when they stepped away to get me. And today, when the fourty second one came trailing out, saying "I can't find the test." I wanted to scream at him, "We've been doing this over and over for four freaking days! Why in hell can't you find the sock-tucking test? Don't you ever learn?"

Wait. I've been doing it for four days. But for every one of these poor benighted souls, it's the very first time they have taken their final exam on line. They aren't ever going to get any better at finding that ever-lovin' pea-pickin' test. Never. Time to change my expectations and get over my important self.

And then there are the placement tests. If you want to place in math 65, but you just took the test which places you in math 10, and you need to take math 10, 20, and 60 before you place into math 65, what good is it going to do to turn around and take the test again right away? Will you magically absorb the knowledge out of the air? Did you somehow get smarter without studying? Don't you have anything better to do? Other people need to go to school for a year to learn all those answers. How did you get so smart so fast and why couldn't you have been that smart the first time you took the test?

What are these people thinking? Other colleges charge five dollars per placement test. We are still giving them away for free. People applying to other colleges come and take our placement tests, then take the scores and the tuition elsewhere. And my hours are cut because our school is strapped for money.

It's a glorious, sunny, warm and vibrant day, and I'm locked inside with these hapless, feckless, gormless ditzlewits. Buncha sheepbiters!

Just one hour to go. Want out. Want out! Want out now!!

Knitting on Saturday. The theme is "rose pink." I got out all my cups and saucers with pink roses on them, and I used some new (secondhand) rose-pink napkins. Very sweet and festive. Tonight I go home and fly into baking frenzy. Tomorrow, I roll out and give the house the final brush-up, grab a fast shower, put the curried chicken sandwiches together, put the last batch of cookies into the oven (so the house smells good) put the fruit out, put the tea water to boil, . . . and welcome my dear guests! You can drop by if you want to. Come on down!