Doneski

Today saw the first Qantas Casualty. The first of us fortunate four has sprouted wings and is in the air at this moment on her first leg of a three legged journey back home. Within 12 hours of starting our final exam, Laura got the heck out of Dodge.

Alex’s parents will be arriving here in a week or so and they stay around here for a little before doing some traveling before going back to the States, and Ryan leaves around the same time as Alex to enjoy Sydney for a few days before returning to the States. Ernest, Ryan and my roommate, leaves for home on Dec. 1st. Starting on December 2nd I will have all of Adelaide to myself. I look forward to it, and also wonder how I’ll distract myself enough to not notice the loneliness of the situation…

So I am officially done classes and have a large 47 day holiday to enjoy before my next class (which will be at Clemson). Yesterday the four of us had our final exam: Quantity Surveying. I wasn’t feeling too confident going into it, and I think that is a big portion of why I don’t feel that confident about how I did on the exam. I calculated beforehand that if I got a zero on the exam, I would still have a 50 in the class, and unless I’m mistaken, a 50% is a passing grade, and since only my credit transfers back to Clemson, I was guaranteed to pass the course. It was reassuring to know that I was not pressured to do well, but I’m not the kind of person to purposefully neglect my studies like I would have been if I didn’t study.

The exam itself was quite the experience! The first of our two exams was administered by our teacher in that course for the four of us exclusively (our teacher was helping us consolidate more time to see Australia/allow for a sooner flight home). However, the exam we took yesterday was administered in the usual Adelaide manner: at the Adelaide Showgrounds, and in our specific case at 6:30pm.

So first off, you had to check your bag and were not allowed to take in your cell phone. Then about 500-800 students crowded into a large room set up for the occasion. The room was broken into blocks and you sat in a certain section according to what class you were taking an exam in. I don’t know why it makes sense to do it this way, but in this manner there were probably 5-8 courses being examined at the same time, while probably 3 people per seating section patrolled the area to limit the amount of cheating possible.

Before starting this SAT-esk ordeal, we laughed out loud as the attendants of each section, in airline style, pointed out the nearest fire exit, and orders such as “please move quickly and silently to your block and take a seat” in that passive-aggressive, female voice played over the loud speakers. 2 hours of prison-like patrolled silent sitting later, we issued out of the exit and made our way to the pub. A quick drink as a double celebration (the end of exams, and the last time the four of us will be together at least until we return to Clemson for classes) finished the eventful day.

-Cheers!