Halloween Song

Last year about this time, I had a visitor while getting ready for work. It inspired the following song set to the tune of "A Beaver Ate My Thumb".**

There was a spider in my tub
Giving himself a little rub-a-dub-dub
I did not like him there
Splashing around while I was washing my hair
And so I said to him
Look here, Mr. Spider, your future’s very grim
He went quickly down the drain
I’m afraid he’s no more, but he’s not in any pain

** I'm pretty sure this is a fake song, but it does have a catchy tune:)

P.S. Spiders seem to feel right at home in my house. Perhaps they are under the misapprehension that it is a haunted, abandoned place. I am trying to spread the word that this is not the case and that cobwebs, while unique, do not make great wall hangings!

Home Again, Home Again

Yesterday, the day of the test, I was scared that I wouldn't wake up and so set 3 alarm clocks. There was no need to worry - I was awake long before the alarm went off. Today, however, my alarm clock system failed, and the two days with only 6 hours of sleep finally kicked in. I woke with just enough time to catch my flight. I reasoned that no-one would know that the clothes and hairstyle were an exact repeat of yesterday (I did manage to brush my teeth.)

A voice cut through this illusion as I made my way down the airplane tunnel with a "Hey, how are you doing?" I turned around, and the woman behind me was the person I sat next to in yesterday's exam!!!! What are the chances? Well, if I knew the answer to that question, yesterday's test probably would have caused me no problems... I would say, "Well that was embarrasing, but I'll never see her again", however, this statement somehow lacks confidence.

On a sad note, I arrived home to find a fire damaged neighborhood:( The destruction one block from where I live is amazing (and not in a good way). It has inspired me to do some major cleaning, so that no-one thinks my apartment was a victim of the chaos.

Test Anxiety

I finished taking two major tests today. Although I don’t officially get the results for another thirteen weeks, there were some minor clues that the morning test won this round.

- Sadly I did not have a watch and was not good at gauging the time… when the proctor said 15 minutes remained I had only completed 30 out of the 50 questions.

- When I didn’t know the answers to questions 1-7, I skipped to the end of the test, Question 50, hoping things would be easier if I worked through the problems backwards. This seemed to be a good strategy and I was on a roll until Question 47. I knew how to do the problem, but it seemed like one critical value was missing from the problem statement. I was not to be deterred however, in attempting a solution, for a question I mostly understood. I assumed a value and got an answer that closely matched one of the multiple choice answers. Yay! I circled my scantron and flipped the page to Question 46. A nice diagram jumped off the page and introduced itself as the “little green friend“ who would help me with Question 46-47, and yes, my assumed value was slightly different from the given value in the picture. So even though I did not finish all 50 questions… I did do some of the questions twice – I don’t think that counts for anything.

- “Little Green Friends” were jumping off the pages talking to me during the test!!! (And they were not the helpful ones from Chemistry Class either)

- Near the end I resorted to this strategy: Calculate and obtain answer. If solution is a close match to any of the multiple choice answers, cross out that answer to narrow “educated” guess down to remaining three choices. (33% is better than 25%, right?)

And so I use the term “finished” loosely as I will be back… to face this test another day!!!! (I just hope it’s ready.)

P.S. Where do the proctors come from? Is there a pool of proctors? Is there a way that I can figure a proctor position into my retirement plans? (Do they allow proctors to heckle?)

Is anyone still here??

I tried to sign up for a blogger account today – I know, I finally arrived!! Probably only to discover that everyone has left and gone to some other computer land world that I haven’t even heard of yet. Yes, I am from the pen pal era, and in fact am still waiting for the zebra to come from my friend who was writing using her zoo animal stationery. Technically, however, I still have not actually arrived! I couldn’t get it to work on my computer due to some cookie blocking software. Did I actually tell the computer that I needed to lose a few pounds, or did it assume that on its own? I’m not sure if I should feel loved or offended.

I did make it as far as checking available blogger names, and I must say that was frustrating and hilarious at the same time. There are now a few blogs that I need to check out!! The one I finally ended up with …”but we get there” comes from a cartoon song that I saw as a kid. I loved it, but have no idea where it originated, or how I saw it. Basically, all these fast cartoon animals were getting to fun locations and then the chorus would show the slow turtles and have a line like “We may not go whizzing by with skateboard speed………..but we get there.” I thought it was hilarious (and still do) and it strangely is a good tagline for my procrastinating life-style… which some day I plan to work on!

P.S. I think I finally did arrive!!! Nice to meet you blog world!