Just a few things

First of all, congratulations to Gail and Joe and Rich and Cass!! New babies for everyone!! Both James and Tristan are beautiful, beautiful babies =)

Faithful readers, I apologize for falling so behind. Not only have I not yet chronicled my day in Bath or put up those pictures (London and Oxford are there), but I have yet to document the week following Easter, which I spent traveling up and down Ireland with Mary and Tine (my aunt and cousin)! On Monday I am flying to the Netherlands to visit my uncle Gerry and his family for a week, so I really may never catch up. I'll try though, really.

On Thursday I had my one final, so I am now done with classes!! I would just like to recount to you the saga of NUIG finals, because it's really something a sane school would never think of. I think I mentioned in an earlier post how silly the class schedules are, never in the same room or at the same time during the week (are they trying to hide our movements from enemy intelligence?). Now, when they have to arrange finals, we see again some stellar ingenuity. Lots of the classrooms are theatre-style, with rising levels of long tables with chairs attached to the floor. They are apparently very worried about cheating, because for the exams they put everyone in rooms big enough to hold rows of separate desks so everyone has so many feet of free space around them. This fear is ironic, I feel, because of the preparation given for these exams: many classes have tests from previous years on the library's website for you to peruse at your leisure; teachers often give out the exact questions they plan on asking or use the same test that's posted online; and one of my professors (and from what I hear this happened in other classes too) talked us through one of the questions, telling us exactly what we needed to write to fully answer it.

So, the only problem is, where to fit everyone? There are only so many large rooms on campus, so where can we find additional space? The answer: the racecourse. Yes, the racecourse. There are large rooms there (with their own taps... apparently they're party rooms on raceday) in which rows of desks have been set up and numbered, corresponding to an alphabetical list of your particular class (I was 139). Of course, the racetrack is a bit of a distance to walk for a 9:30 exam, although only about 10 minutes driving, so they provide buses leaving from the Quad on campus. BUT they charge 3 Euro! Not an astronomical sum, but they make us pay for a bus that we need to take only because they lack sufficient space! Gah. The buses for the 9:30 exams left at 8am (ugh), leaving us an hour to sit around in the general lobby of the racetrack and stew. Luckily I have a bunch of friends in that class, so we were able to pass the time well enough.

Then of course it was the easiest exam ever (did I mention I was walked through the answer?). I just thought I'd share. You may now be wondering why I didn't just take this time to finish off my England trip. To you I say -- I've been at NUIG for a long time now. The logic switch is not always turned on. Goodnight!