exam time

They take their exams seriously in Melbourne.

Walking 15 minutes past campus to the Royal Exhibition Building, I suddenly found myself in a sea of students gathered with their books and pens at the main doors and a man making announcements over the speaker system - not what I expected at all.  When the doors opened, I luckily happened to pass by the posted list of student numbers and... seats.  Yes, assigned seats.  I was 2499, all the way at the back directly across from the main doors.  The large hall was lined with desks and chairs, each with a specific exam booklet awaiting the students because this wasn't just one class, this was a bunch of classes taking their exam at the same time in the same place.  There were proctors stationed everywhere, walking up and down the isles, checking to make sure your bags were outside in the provided storage containers (by storage containers, I really mean large shipping containers).  I noticed some picking at pencil bags to make sure there were only pencils.  

There's a designated reading period where you are advised to read through the test (or start it right away if you're antsy like me).  Then there's the announcement for the writing period when you are asked to fill out an attendance sheet, which will later be checked by two proctors and collected by a third.  Fortunately, you are allowed to leave early (but not during the last 15 minutes of the 3-hour exam period), and you can bet I booked it out of there as fast as I could after I finished bullshitting all the short answers (damn, how I hate short answer tests).

I'm 98.28374% certain I will never need to know the family of wind pollinated eudicots (Caesalpiniaceae) or the different forms of lichens (crustose, foliose, fruticose), so threw all my notes on bryophytes and angiosperms and fungi away - what a good feeling.

Thank you, Duke for requiring I take a diversity course.

One down, three to go.

On the bright side, Carte is giving away free nutella crepes after your last exam.

 So speaking of uni-related activities, let's talk about how delicious Egg was.

All semester, I've seen people with their Egg bowls and Egg bento boxes, and I've heard such good things, and as I was headed home to stirfry some bok choy, Joelle intercepted me and bound and gagged me, and dragged me (not really, all she said was "Come," so I did) back to campus to try what would be the second meal I've eaten on campus.

It was one of those "choose from A or B" type places, but all you really need to know is that there were choices, which meant Amelia was overwhelmed.

Which also meant Nikhail had to ask one of the workers to explain the system to us,

and we ended up staring at the menu while waiting for the lunch rush to pass, so we could make a level-headed decision.

I went with the Japanese curry and teryaki tofu, Joelle got the tofu and chicken namban, and Nikhail got the namban and Japanese curry (and the most meat, that fucker).

All so surprisingly good, especially when you've been trained to believe campus food is absolutely shit (except Subway, I miss Subway.  Oh and the salad bar, I do appreciate that).

Potentially productive day turned on its head when I wanted free coffee >> finding free cookies >> finding AC'd, well lit study room with comfy swivel chairs >> naps and collaborative risotto effort...

asparagus, mushroom, spinach, and green peas risotto

(looks kind of like a pancake in this picture)

Also discovered Joelle and I out-eat Nikhail every time - reinforces my sense of femininity and added benefit of getting to finish off his leftovers.