Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Exams

Ahh, exams. How happy we would be if we were without them. Out of the 4 annoying exams I have (1 per subject) only the 1 hour open "book" exam remains and arranging my "book" is slowly driving me insane.

The reason this "book" for my open book exam is giving me trouble is because it really isn't a book. The whole subject is an online course, where there are no lectures to attend or any contact with the people in charge. This can be awesome (an extra few hours to yourself a week) and it can also be absolute crap. As it is casually assumed in this day and age that everyone has high speed broadband access (they've actually made it so you can't pass uni without it), it is expected that everything you use is online based and that can lead to problems, say like when ones internet is on the fritz. At present moment, the main house computer is having issues with itself and as such refuses to load up a single pdf file. Guess what is the universal file used by Adelaide Uni and several other scientific journal sources? That though can be overcome thanks to me being smart enough to get internet for my lappy, which is not on the fritz.

All would be well if that was the only problem but no, it is not. Some of the journal articles DON'T EXIST. That's right, these handy dandy net based journals haven't put all of their issues on the net, or better yet they're there, you just have to pay a $50 subscription fee to view it.

My screams can be heard in Alaska.

But wait, it gets better. This (and I make up nothing) is an actual statement attached to my work by the course coordinator in the list of articles we need for our exam; (Note that for copyright reasons this article and the article by G. Thompson on Australian Bat Lyssavirus cannot be made available concurrently as separate articles in the catalogue. However, the journal itself is available to you.)

Now, how am I supposed to get the journal article if we physically cannot be saved. I swear the man who runs this course has peanuts for brains. So that is my day and if you hear a nasty swear word screamed in a high pitch voice wherever you may be, it is probably me.

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