Methods? Or Madness?

You know that dull, sinking feeling you get when you're on a ship that's going down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean a thousand miles from the nearest dry land and you suddenly realize that the sole lifeboat has sprung a leak? It's a feeling not many people would know first hand, so if you don't know it, imagine it. Then square it and then multiply it by a randomly chosen number greater then twenty. That'll give you some idea of what it felt like to sit in the exam room on Saturday afternoon and skim the QM paper. And that was before one read the instructions at the beginning and saw all the double-whammies.

And then there's the issue of selling ice cream in Moscow. The importance of marketing is all very well, but if I were selling ice cream in a city where it was an occasion if the temperature touched twenty-five on the Centigrade scale at the height of summer, and if people were actually willing to buy enough of it that I was not run out of business in the first week... I would be at least marginally less worried than I would have been had I been vending Popsicles in the Gobi Desert and still not had people out on the streets clamouring for my product.

I have endterms next week too. It's an odd sort of limbo here, where you're perpetually either convalescing from one lot of exams or just getting ready to face the next set. To cap everything, it never seems to make a difference how much you prepare. I spent most of Thursday and Friday either studying in the library or studying in my room, and I will still have to rely on a healthy combination of divine grace and a lenient evaluator to get a passing grade on the exam.

As for what's coming next Monday... all I can do is take a few deep breaths, make sure I have the cyanide capsules handy, and go to the tumbrils.

One a Penny, Two a Penny

A week since course bidding, but somehow I don't feel as though I am much more focused or aware of what I am doing and where I am going as a result of knowing what I will be studying in fourth term. Let me qualify that. What I will allegedly be studying in fourth term. I will not commit the sacrilege of suggesting that second year is actually meant for work.

For the same reason I will not say that there was learning from the bidding process, but it was fun. I did give a small start of horror when I logged in to the bidding server and realized that it was nine minutes ahead of my computer clock - my computer being four minutes ahead of the classroom clock so that there is absolutely no chance of my running into class in time to receive the what-kind-of-manager-do-you-think-you'll-make look from an irate professor. But then I figured it didn't really matter. An hour and forty-five minutes, I mean, honestly, who would take an hour and forty-five minutes to allocate points for courses? Especially when, like me, you're more worried about getting out of the institute unscathed than about getting out of the institute with FORM and IPM and MACR under your belt.

The most agonizing part - and therefore, with the benefit and objectivity of hindsight, the funniest - was the tantalizing random number X.

One hour and forty-five minutes after bidding starts, the timer frame will go blank. Thereafter, bidding will continue for X minutes, X being a randomly generated number between 1 and 15.

It was rather like playing Hot Potato as a six-year-old, when the thought being the one holding the ball at the end of the game inspires such dread you would think it really does burn your fingers. Points on MN, you think. MN is climbing, I have to have - oh my God, IDF is running away. Wait, wait - no, please don't stop now, please don't stop... Reallocate points, one eye on the clock, your finger practically trembling on the mouse. And then try to watch all six courses at once while doing a mental analysis of how much risk is acceptable on each.

For once I was actually happy to see the error message on the screen when X was reached and the server disconnected.