Happy New Year

I already want to wish everyone a happy new year. Be safe with the fireworks tonight, don't drink and drive (well....if you're drinking alcohol that is).

A little over 10 hours to go (at least for me) and it will be 2010, the year of my graduation. Finally, the end is near :D. I've got no more classes, only exams and my thesis, which I hopefully finish at the end of May (that way I have it handed in before the deadline of June 11, and will be on my way to the US with my parents).

Read (since see is not appropraite) you all in the new year.

little pet peeve

So how was everyone's Christmas or other holiday you celebrate? Mine was doable. We have two days of Christmas. The first was spend with my mom's dad, and the second with my dad's family. It was ok, we had food, we didn't eat too much. My mom didn't want to spend her whole day in the kitchen so we had an "easy" dinner (although it still consisted of 4 courses). The second day everyone has made small snacks (we did something with smoked salmon). Apparently something wasn't completely right since my stomach wasn't all too happy that night (I normally sleep on my stomach but now I couldn't which resulted in a bad night sleep).

In the beginning of November me and my friends had a birthday party of another friend. I had some ideas for presents and we decided to put our money together and buy the gifts for the friend. Since it was all done through text messaging and e-mail, the money wasn't actually put together yet. I bought the gifts and was supposed to get the money afterwards. It's fine, I know my friends, I'll get the money. Because the birthday friend was constantly around us, I didn't get the money that day, which is still ok. We decided that I should e-mail my bank account number so that they could wire the money. Well....from one friend I got the money even before I send the email with the number (I was in his "address book"), and I got another after a week or 2. So after 2 weeks I send them a reminder that I still hadn't received all the money. One friend emailed back saying that he would wire the money from him and his girlfriend that evening, but he forgot.

On the day of my birthday party (4 weeks after the friend's birthday party), I still hadn't received the money from 3 friends (out of 5), so I send them another reminder e-mail with the message that if they want they could give it to me tonight.

Immediately after I send the e-mail, I had this weird feeling. I told my school friend (girl 2 from previous post) that I had the feeling that they would give me the money back in form of a gift. E.g. they see something I'd like, but it costs more than they would spend on a birthday present and then put the money they owe me also in the birthday present. The school friend was like No one would do that, would they? And I know my friends aren't like that but I still had this weird feeling.

So that evening the party starts and people come in and hand me their presents. The couple says this includes the money we still owe you. I open the envelope and I find money for my birthday in there as well as the money they owe me. Then I get the present (also an envelope) from the other couple where only one still owes me, and the girlfriend says this includes also the money he still owes you. I open the envelope and it's a gift certificate for an online shop which includes the money he owed me.

Now I know it's a gift certificate and it's not a present, so I can still spend the money. But I would like to have the money, and not include it in my gift. Now I'm obligated to spend the money he owed me on something in that online shop. And I'm not happy with that. I had that weird feeling, and it was justified. I should have send that e-mail a day later, or reminded them at the party. (Although that gift certificate takes a day in the post to get there, I wonder if that would have made a difference, or maybe they already had that gift certificate lying around and after that e-mail thought we can finally get rid of that gift certificate).

Would you ever do that? But the money you owe someone in a gift?

Christmas break

So I've been slacking here. It's just because I've been soooo busy.

I was sick the first week of December, too sick to do anything. I'm still coughing and have been for four weeks (it's getting pretty old, I haven't slept in my own bed for 3 weeks now, since that one can't go up).

Maybe the reason why the cough isn't gone is because of all the stress I had since the beginning of December, I haven't been able to get a second of rest.

First of all, slacker girl (previously known as aily) has been kicked out of the group. We gave her another deadline. Mostly because we didn't have time to do her stuff before the deadline anyway. The deadline was set Friday 1.30. At 1.19 we get an e-mail with an attachment, in the e-mail she says that the other stuff is on another computer and that we would get it shortly. The attachment contained crap, it was completely irrelevant to the project so no clue why she send it to us. At 8pm we still haven't had the stuff, so I send her an angry e-mail asking how much it takes to walk from one computer to the next? and if someone else would be working on it, that person could give her two minutes because it doesn't take longer than that. I gave her another ultimatum, Saturday morning before 9. Well....at 8.50 we get an e-mail, saying that the email was still in saved and hadn't been send.

What would any normal person do if he/she would find out that a very important e-mail hadn't been send? Send it! Well....she didn't do that, nope she first opened the e-mail I send the previous evening (6ish) with the latest layout, adjustments and sorts. And she copied and pasted her stuff in, making a few adjustments along the way in her previous stuff. We figure that she hadn't not send her e-mail with the stuff, we think she was still typing it. Even after we e-mailed a few times that if she had problems with the stuff she could come to us. But nothing. Then I looked at what she actually did. She had to describe something with 10 aspects, guess how many she did describe? 3, and she did only the minimum, she only defined what does 3 aspects mean, not even comparing them, not even to the conceptual framework she was supposed to describe. So we finally kicked her out.

But that meant that I had to spend my Saturday instead of preparing for my party, writing her stuff. Well...I planned to do stuff for school anyway because I had more than one project that had a deadline last Friday. But I couldn't because I had to do slacker girl's work. I choose to do that project because there's this other girl dependent on too.

And with the bad nights I'm having because of the coughing, I was really taking it hard. I couldn't focus. Our presentation was fun, that was before slacker girl was thrown out, she hadn't let us know that she wasn't coming, although we didn't expect her to show. The other girl had some stress problems too and was seeing black spots, so a minute after she started her part of the presentation she broke down since she couldn't see the text on the paper in front of her. I took over her part but I was reading it and with the coughing fits in between, I don't think anyone had any idea what our presentation was about. But I digress.

I had a week and we still had 2 major projects to sort of start. And with the bad nights, I was almost completely worthless. Even the doctor couldn't do anything for my coughing and wrote a note for my teachers (yup I just turned 24 and the doctor still writes a note for my teacher :S) saying that I needed to rest, and that all the bad nights could have an effect on my project work. So I e-mailed one teacher (I was trying to do as much as I could before all the deadlines and I was only asking one teacher for a delay), but apparently that already gave me the feeling that a heavy load was taken off, so my work went smooth. I finished that project in 2 days, and on Wednesday me and the other girl made our own model out of the stuff we did before, and also that went as a train, we finished that day (most people were working on it for a few days not to say weeks, but we were so done with everything and the deadline being only 2 days away we didn't really have a choice). So instead of finishing everything just before the deadlines (noon and the closing of school), we finished everything on Wednesday evening. Handed the stuff in on Thursday, and then went shopping, to the movie (avatar 3d) and out for dinner. And all our other classmates were still working on it Thursday night. So we did a good job, and we deserve a few days of peace.

But of course that's passed before you know it, since I have to make up the lost time for my thesis (when I was sick the first week of Dec) and I've got exams right after the Christmas break. Only until 11 June, that's the deadline of my thesis. And then I'm completely done with school. Now I can only hope that I can join the workforce.

Happy Holidays!

I so hate freeloaders

Sorry for not posting but life has been hectic. Well...maybe not life but more school. All those bleep projects.

I ranted in a previous post that I had to give up my "free" Tuesday, well....that project took a turn for the worst.

We're with a group of 3. And we have to describe 3 theoretical models. So 1 each right? Wrong. One of the group has an ailment (aily) so missed a lot of classes the first period, and didn't do the exam (so she didn't study). Because 2 out of 3 models have already been discussed in class and were in the topiclist of the exam, me and the other person described them. The third was new for all of us, and because we get that she has an ailment and can't do as much as us, we would do the third one with the 3 of us. Aily would be the expert and we would help describe the model.

So the other person travelled to her room in our school town yesterday (a trip of over 2/3 hours), that way we could start early today. I only have to travel one hour, so I took the train this morning. While I'm in the train I get a text from aily saying that she's working from home today but we could e-mail her. WHAT?! We came to school especially for her. I called the other person and she was mad too. What a waste of time.

Aily has a knack for being passive. She was unable to make the deadlines in the previous period and she discussed that with the coordinator. Fine, I get that. But I would make sure that the teachers of those courses knew it too, she didn't notify them, she hoped that the coordinator would. And then she looked at us like Ha! I did better than you on that small test. Well yeah duh! If I only had that small test to focus on I would have gotten higher than you, but since I have ten zillion other classes to worry about too, that one can slip because I'll pass it anyway.

Then before the exams she already knows that she won't be able to do one of the exams because she has one from a previous year (which we weren't allowed if we wanted to enter this course but hey she's an exception), and I told her that it would be smart to also let the teacher know. Her reply? He's already gone. He was probably only 5 steps away from the classroom.

But back to today. We decided to meet anyway there's a timelimit. Texts and calling left us without a response. After a lot of discussing we went to find the teacher for this course, just so he would know that she didn't show (again). He was a bit angry, appointment is appointment, and you can't behave like this. But since we are in our final year we should be able to handle this ourselves, but if we wanted to kick her out of the group we'd have his consent.

We thought that was a bit too drastic but we've come to that idea in the end. We've reorganised our project, added some things, and divided it all up into 2. We've send aily an e-mail that if she wasn't our friend we would dismissed her from the group way before this, that we're now in a difficult situation and don't know what to do. Hoping that she would reply. And apologise and stuff. From 12 to now (that's almost 9 hours) we haven't heard a thing.

We discussed the situation with a couple of other classmates/friends but they hate to be in our shoes right now. Aily is a friend but one of the other said, well....is she a friend if she lets 2 friends out in the cold? She got a point there. If I would have not been able to come to school, I would have called with a detailed explanation, I would have send an e-mail with this is what I've got, and I would be available by phone the whole day. And so would the other projectmember.

We've just decided that if aily doesn't respond before tomorrow 2pm, we're done. The only excuse is hospital or near dying. I know it's hard but we have to take measures. We're now discussing if we should let aily know about our decision. We've told her that we would have thrown her out if she was any other and that we were now uncertain what to do. But to be politically correct we should text and e-mail her. But then she could pull an all nighter and still have something to show, and we're sorta fed up with her anyway. And it would be cruel to keep rubbing it in, but it's also cruel to just throw her out. SIGH!

The last e-mail on the course we got from her was at 0.30am, I was fast asleep at that time. So the other member said we should suggest that aily sleeps at night, works on school during the day, and keep away from other activities. Now she's making her problem our problem, and we're not so happy about that.

Well...thanks for reading another one of my rants on school. All advice is welcome.

What's this world becoming?

The people in this world are becoming crazier by the minute. Here's why:

Last week a 14 year old boy was found dead in the woods. Today I heard what the reason was he was beaten to death, the 14 year old offender was in love with the same girl as the boy who died. How sick?! And you know what people (complete strangers) are saying? That the girl (13 years old) is to blame for this, because she made them fall in love with her. Come on!

I open my igoogle just a few minutes ago and there's the latest (horror) story. Yesterday a man was stabbed to death in the New York subway because of a seat. The victim had his bag on the seat next to him and refused to remove it when someone wanted to sit on that seat because there were enough free seats (apparently the subway was only half full). The offender then started to stab the victim multiple times.
Why? Why not remove the bag? Why not choose an empty seat to begin with? Why if the person doesn't remove the bag choose a different seat? Why on earth are you carrying a knife for anyway?

Why just not treat people the way you want to be treated? That way the world would hopefully be a better place.

oops forgot to post (business as usual)

So I clicked save instead of publish on Tuesday, just before I shut down my laptop. But here's the rant anyway.

Life is going as usual, school school school. I've managed to fit in two birthdays the last weekends, so I've catched up with most of my friends. The next time I'll see them is probably on my birthday (3 weeks).

The teachers are giving us loads of stuff to do but at the sometime nothing at all. The deadline is known, Dec 18th, but we can't really start yet, which is really frustrating, because you know you're going to be uber-stressed in a few weeks time.

Right now I'm giving up my free day to work on the project. Well...Tuesday is class free but most of the times I'm completely stuffed with schoolwork, like today but we have to start the project and that leaves me giving up my free afternoon. I'm soooo not feeling it, I would like to do some other courses but I don't think I'll be able to manage that today.

The things that I am able to do for the classes are taking longer than expected. For instance for Finance I've had all this stuff before but the teacher just gives us less data and I was staring at one of the assignments for over half an hour before I knew how to calculate it. Dad and little brother couldn't help me either and they're both good at finance too. I know you're all thinking why didn't you just give up and start the next assignment, well...I knew I was able to find the answer, I just didn't know how. None of my classmates know by the way, they are already crying for help because nothing makes sense. So I think I have to schedule a few tutoring classes, which will be good but then again it will take up a lot of time. And I'm not sure if I have that time, since I already know how to do everything. If I help them pass one course and because of that fail another, well....that's not good. I need to make sure that I pass everything. So they'll just have to wait and see if I'll have time for them.

Going under

I survived last week, but only barely. I had decided not to study for the exam on Thursday, that way I would have enough time before Tuesday to focus on the Tuesday morning exam, and would leave me with Wednesday and Thursday to study for Friday.

On Tuesday I get to class, late. Well...actually, after Monday's exam I get to the station and see that my train is cancelled for unknown time. The only way to go home is to get a bus, but not one going straight from this station to my station, no the bus has to pass all the stations it always passes. So I would first take a bus from A to B, 1,5 hours, B to C, 1.5 hours, C to D 1 hour. And if you have motion sickness, that really isn't an optiion. So I had to wait, luckily I had schoolstuff with me, but I came home at 5pm instead of 12.

One of my friends said Hope your train rides tomorrow. And I was like, well...we have our exam at 10.30, I'm at the station before 9 (train is supposed to leave at 9), so then I have over an hour to get to school, and I only need an hour. She was ok that's good.

On Tuesday morning, I get up 30 min earlier than I need to get up, I was awake and figured I could use the extra time to revise. When I'm completely done with my morning ritual, I pack my bag (that morning it was around 8.15), I checked my schedule to see what room I have to be in, and see that the exam starts at 9.30. Oh, that meant that I had to be in the train at 8. But we can be 30 min late for the exam and I would only be 5 min late, hopefully.

I called my friend to tell her that I would be late, and that she could have warned me that the exam wasn't at 10.30 but at 9.30, well...she didn't know, she also thought it was at 10.30. Ah well...she would be on time and notify the teacher. Then the train stops change, normally it's an intercity and only stops at the few big cities, but because of the accident the day before, it would stop at all stations in between as well. And there goes my exam, oi.

Well...I got lucky the bus was a bit late so I managed to catch it and be only 15 min late. I looked at the exam and thought I should have missed it, because I didn't know any of the questions. The teacher had mentioned that the models in his lectures and some chapter from the book were the most important, so I studied them and you could ask me anything about any of those models. It had just slipped my mind that we also had articles that accompagnied every workshop, so I had read them once for class but I hadn't studied them and most were about a model anyway. Well...the teacher asked very specific questions about those articles. Most people had no clue what he was asking.

The girl sitting in front of me gets up 45min after the exam started. That's fast, but most of the time I'm also one of the first to leave. So I didn't give it much attention.
Later when we're studying with a group for the afternoon exam, one says She just walked out, she had only written half a page or so (not nearly enough to answer even 3 questions). Doesn't she know you have to have at least 35% to be allowed to do a resit? And I and all the other went euhm...WHAT!!!

Previous years you had to have 55% correct for a pass. This year it's 60%, under normal circumstances that is perfectly doable (I normally go for 70%, don't try to compare it to the US system, it just doesn't work), but with too much to do for all courses that just managable. But now we also had to have at least 35% to even be allowed to do a resit. Jeez. So long for my exam on Thursday and Friday :s.

I studied mostly for the one on Friday and did minimum for Thursday because I knew that there was no way I'm going to pass, so hopefully with minimum studying and creative answers I would be able to get 35% right. Well...I did the exam, and I'm not counting on it but I might have actually passed it. It was just sooo simple, and if I had done just a bit more I would be sure that I'd passed.

The one on Friday was also doable. At least this teacher already mentioned the models you needed to use for the question in the question (not like the one on Tuesday), but you have to completely explain all models. I think I have managed at least 50%, I know that's not 60% but this exam will be combined with a paper (deadline the Friday before Christmas), and I usually get 70% on those which is 60% on average.

As soon as the exams were over I had to start a project with a deadline this Tuesday. Well...I rewarded myself with visiting a friend, I was in need of some rest and no school thoughts (well....that didn't really work since her thesis is on stuff I had to learn for these exams, so I could help her a bit with giving names for models and sources).

Yesterday my brain just didn't work. I had managed to get everything non-school related done before 12 (that includes sleeping in), but there I was was, sitting in front of my notebook with my schoolbooks and just nothing.

So I only have today, and I'm sort of procrastinating. The paper is only 10 pages but the teacher said that it would be difficult to stay within those 10 pages (although it's allowed to be a few more but anything over 15 won't be read). And I soooo don't want to do this anymore.

It's not that I can't handle it, I'm managing, sometimes almost having panic moments/nervous breakdowns, but I'm handling it. But the thing is, I would love to just have one day, one day completely free of school. Not only just relaxing and doing nothing for school but also not having that little voice in your head going it would be smart if you'd do something for school, you know it's going to be tough if you do nothing. Because right now, I have the feeling I'm going under and that I'm not coming up to catch enough breath before going under again.

This whole paper should have just not been there. They just gave it before the Autumn break (only studying for exam week) and it has to be done after the examweek, so only 2 weeks. And those 2 weeks no one had any time at all (everyone still had to start this weekend).

This weekend should have been completely relaxed, done with one period, not yet started on the next. A weekend where you could destress and mentally prepare yourself for the next challenge.

Although there's some good news. the next examweek is after the Christmas break, so 2 weeks of studying instead of 1. And I've checked and we can only have 3 exams.
But with good news there's most of the time also some bad news, only 3 exam mean at least 5 papers to write (got 8 courses), and those deadlines are all Friday 18th Dec. Only 6 weeks. (but that also means, only 6 weeks till Christmas).

Another reason for me going under. In October I wanted to go a month without snacking, which I gave up after 2 weeks, since it didn't help. And I still have no idea why not? Instead of loosing weight I'm gaining weight. I know I haven't moved a lot the last 2 weeks, because I was too busy with school but that also means that I haven't been getting up to get snacks. I gained 2 kilo's, how on earth is that possible?

So with the new school period starting tomorrow, I'm going to stop snacking again (at least till Christmas) and try to do extra exercises every day for 30 min (I already cycle for 30min (but that's from getting to the station and back) and walk 30 min (since the damn train is delayed and I miss my bus) on top of all the walking daily do). This needs to work. I can't start dieting, I'm a too picky eater for dieting.

Now I really have to get to work on my paper, ugh.