yesterdays leaden sky. this morning’s is even worse. it’s grey and windy. the exam weather is well and truly gone.

on saturday, i finished my exams. yippee. it feels great to have third year behind me and to know that i only have one year of my course left. four years is a long time to spend proving a point to yourself, especially when you are also working full time and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life. being a night student comes at a price. it costs a lot of time and friendships. you get a lot of abuse from relatives about how they never see you, how you never call etc. except they don’t call me either so i don’t see why it is SOLELY my fault. it drives me bananas when they take out their (metaphoric) plastic hammers and start hitting me over the head about not seeing me. because nothing that involves contact between people or lack thereof is just one person’s fault.

after my january exams, i had to high tail it down to cork immediately.

this weekend, i finished an exam and once again had to high tail it down to cork. i was frantic when the power mad invigilator who had to check things with each member of his team ten times instead of once or twice still hadn’t let us leave the exam hall. it left me with about forty minutes to get to heuston which on certain days in dublin would have been impossible, but on saturday was strangely manageable. despite the unfathomable lack of a working ticket office or working automated ticked machines at the new terminals which are far down the tracks near the heuston car park. to get a ticket involved walking all the way up onto the main concourse and then back down again. i am sure that one day, i will find that the ticket machines are working, but in the mean time it is a pain in the neck. especially when you are in a rush and worried about missing the train. it causes a froth of stress. i made the train. i even had time to buy a celebratory beer to bring onto the train with me and to have SK hug me and say well done, congratulate me on finishing another year and wave me goodbye as i boarded the train.

i arrived home to spend a few hours with my brother and his wife who were flying back to new york on sunday. it was good to see them. good to be home eating delicious food, drinking delicious wine and chatting. and being totally relaxed. a state i hope to stay in for the next four months. my sister-in-law and i stayed up until two a.m. talking and drinking wine and sitting on the patio in the dark whilst she smoked cigarettes. i t occured to me, whilst talking, in the dark on the patio, that i am glad to have a sister (in-law, but a sister nonetheless) to have girly chats with and drink ludicrous amounts of wine with. it’s nice.

i’m only sorry that i didn’t have longer with bruce and kate. but there’s always new york.

our class rep emailed a lecturer about some of our notes yesterday. when i say notes, i use the term loosely. the “notes” contain a class model, some ocl constraints and nothing to explain them.

the lecturer in question set and corrected one of the last exams, but still “he had no sample answers” (sample meaning answers to the exam papers which we consider to be samples)

here is the mail:

—–Original Message—–
From: A Lecturer [mailto:lecturer@unhelpful.ie]
Sent: 19 May 2004 09:21
To: ourclassrep@ourclass.net
Subject: Re: OO Analysis - Sample Papers

Hi Penelope*,

> In relation to the past papers, particularly the OCL questions - do
> you have any sample answers, everybody is struggling with them as the
> notes really don’t explain enough to answer the papers.

No, I’m afraid, I don’t have any sample answers.

John*

*real names and email addresses have been changed.

I have a warm and fuzzy feeling inside from the helpfulness of this lecturer.