i’ll have a post up within the week about why season 6 of ’so you think you can dance’ was a huge disappointment. i have a lot to say, so it’ll need some time.
told you i was addicted to reality tv.
home in less than 7 days. i can almost feel the family love, food, bed, friends, car, tv. sigh.
I know, you’re probably all tired of hearing me rant about the CU examinations office. But I ain’t finished!
I just came home, and the first thing I did was pee, and it seriously felt like the first time I had a chance to sit down and take a break all day. Sorry if that was TMI.
I had a double shift proctoring today. The first exam I had a very pleasant experience; the other proctor was experienced and took control over everything, and all the students behaved.
The second exam I proctored was in a giant auditorium. The room was slated to have 132 students writing in it, so clearly there has to be a lot more proctors to handle all the work, clearly. NO. Once again I was setting up the room ALONE for 132 fucking students (and guess what – the other proctor that was supposed to be with me was the SAME GUY that abandoned me on my first day – FUCKER). Luckily my supervisor sent around a backup proctor to help me. Let’s name him Drew.
Drew was very keen on helping me, but I think it may have been his first experience proctoring ever, because he was kind of clueless. I was put into a position where I had to lead him, when clearly, we are both inexperienced proctors. He was so slow doing everything and I had to explain everything to him several times. He was nice though. What made it super difficult was that as I was signing in 132 students ALL BY MYSELF, I couldn’t pause and tell him the time of day if he needed it, because we were already running late.
I was seriously pissed off that I was put under such pressure, and there were NO experienced invigilators around to help us.
What made it even worse was that there were 2 different exams being written in my classroom. So once again, double the paper work. The profs AND the students were getting majorly annoyed that it was taking forever and a day to check everyone in and assign a seat, and to make it worse, an Exams Officer came around and heckled me as to why I was taking so long. MOTHER FUCKER STEP OFF. She could at least offer to help set up, or send someone to help. As an Exams Officer, she was the person assigning proctors to whatever room, so she should have known that there were 2 inexperienced proctors in a classroom full of 132 students.
And retardedly (not a word, I know), the Exams Office were stupid enough to combine 2 exams that were DIFFERENT DURATIONS. I know it sounds silly, because it shouldn’t be a big deal that one exam was 2 hours, the other 2.5 hours, but there are stringent rules that in any exam, the first 1/3 of the time period, no student is allowed to leave the room. So that means different time periods for each exam. This just made everything super confusing.
Anyway, we started the exam 33 minutes LATE. WTF.
So after each student started writing their exams, I had to go around and take their attendance (they just sign a form, and I collect their student ID cards). But that took me like 30 minutes because of the size of the classroom. I couldn’t ask Drew to help me because one invigilator needs to be free to observe and answer questions. The crazy thing was, that I wasn’t even halfway done taking attendance, and students (all from the same course) were already asking me if they could leave because they were finished.
Even though the alloted 1/3 of exam duration had already passed for them, I had to make them wait until I had signed everyone in. By this point I felt soooo bad for the students because all I was doing was making them wait for the exam to start, and wait for the exam to end. Gosh, I felt so horrible for them, because I was taking away their time to study for their other exams. But what could I do?! My hands were tied.
So after about 45 minutes after the exam began, I had a HUGE line up of students who wanted to leave. So after I frantically alphabetized their ID cards, I signed each student out. But the worst part is that this was a giant distraction for the other students in the room who were writing the longer exam (from a different course). What kind of retard Exams Office does that?! Even if the office didn’t know that the students would finish the shorter exam sooo quickly, they should know that having separate durations are inevitably going to be a distraction for students writing a longer exam (because we have to announce when to stop, etc.)
At this point, Drew and I weren’t even paying attention to the class to see if they were cheating or not. We were just way too busy signing students out from both exams, and sorting the goddamn seat numbers (those seat number assignments are a good security measure, but they are seriously inefficient).
Luckily after all the students from the other exam had finished and left, the room was a lot more calm. But the stupid prof kept having conversations with his students (casual convos, not answering exam questions), which made the students feel like they could all talk to each other. I tried to keep it as quiet as possible, but meh – I suppose it’s the prof’s prerogative. He also kept answering his phone, which pissed me off.
Anyway, I later asked my supervisor why there were only 2 of us in a room of 132 students. He revealed to me that were actually supposed to four of us. FOUR!! What the mother eff. He said that the others just didn’t show up. Either the Exams Office is just hiring anyone and anybody or any old bum off the street who can’t keep commitments, or the people who got hired just lied a lot and charmed their way through their interviews.
In retrospect, I am seriously convinced that the Exams Office is full of idiots. On the working schedule that they gave me, I was actually only supposed to proctor a 2 hour exam this afternoon. But as I mentioned before, the 2nd exam being written in my classroom was a 2.5 hour exam – so…were they going to pay me for that extra half hour? Luckily my supervisor actually adjusted my pay roll to reflect that I worked 3 hours this afternoon (because we started half an hour behind), so I will get compensated for my time. I’m just curious as to whether Drew and I would have actually gotten paid if my supervisor didn’t take the initiative to change the official schedule.
Just a note: the supervisors are not Exams Office people – they’re hired just like the proctors, and are not the ones to be blamed for all these shenanigans.
Anyway, that’s that. I’ve decided I’m never going to work for these idiots ever again, which saddens me. Being able to work as a proctor is a privilege offered to grad students, and there are many people who would LOVE the job. I wish I could just enjoy what I was doing, but the dimwits who run the Exams Office make me not enjoy it. We do not get paid enough for the shit we have to endure. Just another week of doing this….T_T
Today was the first official day of examinations at Concordia University (CU). It was also my first time EVER invigilating/proctoring. I’m used to examination procedures in general simply because I’ve been to so many during my undergrad, but I think CU has a new head Examinations Supervisor who has made exams at this university a lot more strict (not a bad thing in my opinion).
For instance, before students enter the exam room the proctor (me) has to assign each a seat & check them into the room – this helps the prof know who was sitting next to each other just in case the exams seem suspiciously similar, and the checking in is one step to prevent hired exam writers come into the room (aka. cheating). I’ve never experienced this before, but I completely understand the reasoning behind it, and I’m kinda impressed that this is the level of security has been implemented.
Clearly, all of this seating assignment, checking in, checking IDs, etc. takes a lot of work on the part of the proctor. That’s why (amongst other reasons) each exam room has at least 2 proctors assigned to it. Today during my first time proctoring, MY CO-WORKER DID NOT SHOW UP.
Being the first time I’ve ever done this, I was learning as I was going along, and I had limited time because the exams office was slow in getting our materials ready to hand over to us. What made it even worse was that there were 2 different exams for different courses being written in my room so I had double duty in handling all of the paperwork (the rosters, exam questions, other important forms). I frantically tried to do it all as fast as possible but I ended up starting the exam 12 minutes behind schedule.
I couldn’t leave the room to get the supervisor because students were lined up outside (which means they could sneak in to look at the exams while I was fetching help), but I knew that someone HAD to come by since my partner hadn’t signed in for duty (so the higher-ups would know that I was alone). Luckily my supervisor did show up for a bit and helped me handle the chaos of admitting the students, but I did have to set up the room all alone.
Admitting the students is incredibly stressful because of the seating assignment red-tape & the checking-in on the roster. Since I was alone, I couldn’t be inside the room making sure that everyone was turning their phones off & making sure each student found their seat.
Thank goodness that one of the profs for one of the courses that had their exam in my room spent most of his time with me – especially since all the students who needed to use the bathroom were all male. However there were times that I was alone, and I was so restricted because clearly I couldn’t ALWAYS keep my eye on the students, and I couldn’t leave the room to fetch help until someone wandered by. I couldn’t have even left the room to go to the bathroom if I needed to.
In addition, apparently the new head Examinations Supervisor changed some other rules too. For the last 15 minutes of the duration of the allotted time to write the exam, students are not allowed to get up from their seats and leave the room, even if they’ve completed their exam. This is a rule that I’m used to, because this was enforced at my undergraduate university. However, this is a new rule at CU, which I wasn’t aware of.
Once I announced that everyone had to stay seated for the last 15 minutes, there were some very pissed off students (esp. because the exam had started late, and it was an evening exam). I didn’t really have a good explanation to give to the students when they asked why they had to wait, because I was caught off guard that they didn’t know this rule (because these were 2nd & 3rd year students, who I assumed would have had exam experience before). To be honest, the proctors were never given an explanation for this rule in the training manual or in the training session, and I never asked because I just took it for face value.
In retrospect, it seems it’s been implemented to reduce the chaos of ending an exam, and to prevent students from trying to sneak out a copy of the exam questions. What I don’t understand is why all these new rules were not announced/emailed/posted on the school website to all the students?! It boggles me. Not only did it put pressure on the proctor of trying to calm down angry students, but it seriously shocks students to hear a new procedural rule when they’re already in a state of high stress and anxiety. Seriously, another example of idiocy on the part of the exams office.
And because I was alone, I took a really long time checking each student out. This is another security feature that I’ve never experienced: as each student hands their exam in, they have to initial on the roster that they’ve finished/left the room, and I have to indicate next to each name that I received all their materials & that all their papers had their names on it (that one is a little weird to me). And because I was dealing with 2 separate courses, I had to keep asking which student was in which course, and separate all the exam papers in different piles, etc. This sounds easy, but when you’ve got 5 impatient students breathing down your neck and the rest of the classroom full of more anxious students, and no one is there to help you, it’s pretty stressful.
I was also pretty shocked at the audacity of some of the students. I’m sure this is found in ANY university or educational institution, but after 3 warnings of “Pencils/pens down & calculators away please”, some just kept writing, and some even tried to sneak in some more writing while they were getting up to hand in their papers!! I understand that they may be frantic and/or desperate, but they seriously should know that it’s not worth it to get charged for academic misconduct and fail the course for a few extra marks. One student actually asked me if they could just please take guesses and circle in some answers on the multiple choice form – this was AFTER they had gotten up from their desk and signed out on the roster. Well, at least he as polite enough to ask.
I’ve never been in such a ridiculous working situation. Gosh, what a horrible way to start a new job. Hopefully things will get better as I get used to the procedures and actually have co-workers who show up to work.
disclaimer: This is in no way a complaint about the particular job I’ve been hired for. Please read comments for further explanation of the origins of this rant.
As a graduate student at Concordia University, we are allowed to apply to be invigilators (proctors, etc.) during the exam period for undergraduate exams. Tonight I attended the mandatory training session and I was SHOCKED at how dim witted the 95+ group of invigilators were, and the idiocy of the examinations office official who ran the training session.
Before I start bashing the lady who ran the session (let’s call her Dummy #1), I do want to acknowledge that she answered questions that the group had pretty well. I can only assume this was due to the fact that she has been doing this for some time (actually, 10 years, because she kept reminding us of this fact) and the procedural questions that were asked were just second-nature to her.
So Dummy #1 began the session by talking at (not to) the group. She didn’t introduce herself or what her position was, or why we should even listen to her. She then proceeded to lecture us on the training session material, testing us to see if we’d done read the materials that were mailed to each person prior to the training. That’s a normal thing to ask, but in a room of about 100 people who are all strangers to each other, not everyone is going to audibly proclaim “Yes I have read the documents.” We are all adults & we should take responsibility for our preparations so I don’t even see why it should matter since we were there to be trained on the same material anyway. Due to the little response from the group, she proceeded to heckle us and say “So would you all be able to tell me what happens next in the exam procedure?” That was just confusing because she never even began to describe a hypothetical exam situation. So her immediate reaction was to scoff & generalize that “not anyone” had done the reading.
I guess that was her way of beginning her presentation, but no one could really tell, because on the screen projecting the PowerPoint presentation, she hadn’t actually pressed “Play Slides”, so the screen remained in the preview/edit mode, leaving me even more confused as to what we were doing. But she started to read and scroll through the slides still in the preview/edit mode!! Seriously stupid. The size/scale of each slide was set too large to be viewed all at once (cuz as I’m sure you’re all aware, the sidebar, toolbar, and other stuff is there), so she kept scrolling up/down each individual slide to read off of it, but every time, she’d scroll too far and the slide would change to the next/previous slide. I’m PRETTY SURE that ANYONE who kept experiencing this while controlling the mouse would wonder why it was doing that, and finally come to the realization that they hadn’t yet entered the slideshow mode yet.
The worst part was that her colleagues just watched and never said a word. Seriously, who hires these idiots?! Didn’t she say she’s been in her position for 10 YEARS?! Oh, and let me add that she pronounced every “-sk” sounding word incorrectly. Ex. “ask” = “aks” or “escort” = “ekscort” (serious question: Is this a black thing? Because I hear this type of pronunciation primarily amongst black people. Not in any way trying to imply black people are less educated or intelligent; just asking if it’s a dialect/accent thing like how Koreans can’t pronounce “z” sounds or how they keep confusing “l” and “r” sounds).
She went through the material pretty rapidly but was incredibly thorough (which is good), but there were some old people who had been hired to invigilate and they seriously would not shut up with their inane questions, most of which had already been answered or explained.
Dummy #2, one particularly annoying elderly gentleman, asked Dummy #1, “Are those extra details you’re explaining to us in the training packet?” He was referring to details such as “in the case of this, do that” or other instructions for specialized/highly unlikely scenarios. Clearly they weren’t in the packet – that’s why he was asking: to challenge Dummy #1’s haughty attitude. However he completely failed at bringing her down from her high horse because he continued to say, “Well you’re telling us a lot of details and we’re being expected to remember all of them.”
UMMMMM…
The room pretty much erupted in laughter at Dummy #2, because seriously, we’re all educated people here. He tried to defend himself by saying “You may think it’s funny but…” blah blah blah; I didn’t hear the rest. He claimed that he was worried, because he’s the type of learner who needs to try/practice something before understanding it. Here’s a first step you could take Dummy #2: WRITE DOWN THE DETAILS/NOTES IN THE BOOKLET OF NOTE PAPER THAT EACH PERSON WAS PROVIDED WITH FOR PRECISELY THAT REASON.
Honestly. And these 2 weren’t the only dummies in the room. NUMEROUS people kept asking same questions over and over again, and I seriously wanted to just groan out loud in frustration of their idiocy. HOW ON EARTH are these types of people expected to supervise university examinations?!?!
I guess looking back, I really shouldn’t be so shocked. Examinations Office staff proved themselves to be huge idiots, therefore a good handful of people they hired are bound to be bona fide retards. This really opened my eyes as to why Concordia University is so not a respected school – we breed some pretty incompetent “academics”.
Yeah I am being judgmental and rude, but I’m just saying this because I can’t believe that university administration and students are at such a low standard @ Concordia, and more so, I can’t believe I go to this school. My program is widely and highly respected in its field, but I seriously have a hard time swallowing that it’s affiliated with such a shitty name in the world of intelligentsia. Even my profs are very aware of this fact. I guess it’s just too bad.
Phew, that feels better.
End of the year means the end of many reality tv shows. I friggin’ looooove competition reality TV (but not the trashy kind w/ couples, temptation, and relationships and all that involved).
Tonight, the 15th season of The Amazing Race came to a close and I was sooo satisfied with the winners! Meaghan and Cheyne!! They were consistently the strongest team throughout the season, and clearly had the best teamwork. Perhaps it’s because they come from sports backgrounds, but they seriously knew that teamwork meant no bickering and hesitating to trust each other, but instead supporting and communicating with one another (the Globetrotter team was very good at that too).
Cheyne grew balls when he was required (the fear of heights thing, the floaty boat thing), and Meaghan was an admirable female athlete throughout (muddy volleyball challenge). Both were very good wits-wise, and although they fought about Cheyne abandoning Big Easy and Flight Time when the 2 teams were working together, Cheyne definitely made the right choice in taking that taxi.
Honestly, who ever saw that poker challenge comeback coming! I swear, I thought Meaghan and Cheyne were going to be eliminated when they went to all the wrong hotels, but they kicked butt at counting those chips. My sister the mathematician says that it wasn’t that impressive, it was just that the other 2 teams were huge dumbasses. But to me, they were awesome, because numbers ain’t my thing.
Yay, back to school work.
1. don’t take me to dinner at a semi-nice restaurant, and not offer to pay.
i’m no traditionalist, but when you’re taking out a girl and want to impress her, at least OFFER to pay, especially if you’ve got a steady job and said girl is a student. and if you’re worried that i’ll be uncomfortable with the idea of this dinner becoming a date, grow a fucking pair and claim it as it is. geez, i’m a grown woman.
2. buy some clothes
so you’re not into your appearance because materialism sucks and shit? well i care. Jesus doesn’t care, but fuck me for being a human. i like nice clothes. and if you’re so smart that you’re acutely aware of how high maintenance i am, try and keep up, duh.
3. honestly, grow a pair.
yeah i’m hot so i make you all jittery. but you know how they always tell women that “confidence is the best accessory”? well it goes both ways. and i love a good accessory.
4. i’m not laughing
so try and make me laugh. if i’m still not laughing, get out of your fucking box, or get the message (the sooner the better).
5. subtlety is a gift
don’t judge me, my friends, or my family for your own humour. do i even know you? aren’t you trying to impress me?
6. can you feel that? no, me neither. stop trying.
when there’s no chemistry, there’s not future. don’t force it. obviously you just don’t know your ass from your face when it comes to women.
but seriously, thanks for trying.
I want this. I hate umbrellas that get all effed up in the wind. Plus, I’m that person who laughs at people when their umbrellas get flipped inside out, so when it happens to me, I just get pissed off.
davek umbrellas have a lifetime warranty and claim that they can withstand the strongest winds. Possibly the strongest (and most stylish) umbrellas out on the market. Take that Rihanna.
They even make golf umbrellas! Amazing.
If you follow me on Twitter, then you’re probably aware that I had a very odd weekend last week. I did not end up going to see a doctor, so I’m going to hypothesize that this is what happened to me…
I went to a charity dinner on Saturday night – the food was homemade food (not catered), and it was ethnic food as well. It was delicious. And then afterwards, I went to Starbucks and ordered a latte. While I was there, my friend bought me a polar bear cookie. That night when I was sleeping, I received a text message at around 3-3:30 AM, which woke me up. Oddly, I couldn’t fall back asleep because I felt kind of nauseous and I had a piercing pain in my stomach. I just gave up trying to fall back asleep, and ended up throwing up 3 times that night.
By my final episode of throwing up, it was around 8 AM, and I called my friends in desperation, texting them to see if anyone else got sick from the banquet, etc. Everyone else was fine. But my friend offered to pick up some Pepto for me, since he has a car.
My apartment building is pretty damn ghetto, so the buzzer system hasn’t been set up yet (even though it was promised to me that it would be many months ago), so whenever I have a guest, I have to go downstairs and open the door for them. So when my friend arrived with the Pepto, I walked down the stairs (BIG MISTAKE), and I started to feel really sick. I just thought to myself, “get the medicine and rush back upstairs to throw up in your own apartment!!!”
After my friend dropped the Pepto off and left, I was really dizzy and wobbling around at them time. I assured him I was fine, because I really had no clue what was happening to me. I tried as best as I could to get to the elevator, and I was able to press the up button, and stumbled into the elevator. The next thing I knew, I was thinking “damn that hurts”, because I had just crashed my head/face into the elevator doors while I was fainting. Odd.
A while later, the elevator doors opened because no buttons had been pressed, and that jolted me awake. I realized I was still on the first floor, so I pressed my floor’s button. I was really confused. But what confused me even more was that when the doors opened onto my floor, I woke up only to find myself on the ground again. I had passed out again.
Freaking out, I just told myself to get myself in bed asap, so I stumbled back to my apartment. I then later woke up in the hallway right in front of of my door. I had passed out a third time.
Anyway, I meant that to be a short summary, but it ended up being long, so I’m sorry!
So I think because I hit my head the first time I fainted, I may have suffered a very mild concussion, because I spent the next 2 days in bed feeling incredibly dizzy.
I’m completely fine now, but here are the pics I took of the bruises on my knees! They were painful. Seriously though, what a weird weekend.
shmexy.
JUST finished my second bottle The Body Shop’s Tea Tree Oil Blemish Fade Night Lotion. I swear I don’t know how they got all of those words on that teeny bottle.
As you can see, I marked the date when I first started using it, and it has lasted me exactly 6 months, and I use it EVERY night without fail. Such a good investment.
TBS relaunched the Tea Tree line in the summer, so all the products have new packaging and/or formulations. I have 2 bottles of this awesome stuff waiting in my drawer, and they’re both the new formulation, so we’ll see if I love it just as much (or perhaps, even more!)
The product is 1 fluid ounce (30 mL) and is $18 CDN. Wait for the Tea Tree 2/$18 specials that come around once or twice a year, and it’s literally BOGO.
If you’d like a more in-depth review, request it (even if you’re just dropping by the blog!)
Yesterday I went to see my OT (occupational therapist) for a regular assessment, and afterwards she said to me, “I’ve never in all my years – and there are a lot of years – seen someone recover so smoothly and quickly!”
I can’t explain how happy I was to hear that, because I’m sure you all can understand how friggin’ scared I was that I would have debilitated sensation forever. To know that I have been blessed with a speedy recovery is a testament to how faithful God is.
I know I won’t ever be back at 100% sensation, but at least I know I am getting better and that soon it’ll all be over!!
