ammogirl

You know, it’s pretty safe to assume that I spend a large quantity of the minutes in my day on a computer.  I work exclusively from databases, both online and internal, and conduct the majority of my business via email.  I take online classes.  There’s this, here, and that list of other peoples this-es that I like to read on a regular basis.

Also safe to assume?  That the last time I wrote any sort of paper by hand was…hmmm…during my senior year of high school.

Imagine my total horror, then, when I sat down to my mid-term exam this morning at a desk…that had no computer. “Hmmm…odd”, was what came to mind, as I looked around and saw that everyone else had actual instruments of writing in front of them.  And then, as the realization slowly started sinking in, my heart started beating fast and my hands started getting sweaty, because you guys, writing by hand!  HANDWRITING!  By hand!

So, there I was, with a PEN, because who knew I’d be having to for real write? And the proctor started handing out the tests, and oh my god.  EIGHTY-THREE QUESTIONS.  Twelve of which?  Essays.  Essays which had to be written…by hand.  In pen. With a time limit.

Let me tell you, there is an entire universe of difference between typing something on a computer, reading it, deciding you don’t like what you have typed, deleting it, and starting over, and writing something down by hand with a pen on paper.  Entire universes of universes of difference.  Regardless, I found myself with pen in hand, quickly reviewing the questions before I started.  Looked easy enough, okay, first essay question, go.  I turned to the answer key, placed my pen to paper, and jaggedly scribbled out the craziest looking S I had ever seen.  And then I realized this was not gonna work, my handwriting is barely legible at best.  Just jumping in all crazy like and trying to handwrite my essays - TWELVE OF THEM - was just not happening.   I figured the only thing to do was to answer all the other 71 questions first.  These ones were easy - definitions, multiple choice, true or false.  By the time I got to the last one, my writing jitters had pretty much cleared out, and I felt okay about tackling the essays.

But then I realized that for the most part, the first thing I think of and write down in response to essay questions is absolute crap.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize this until after I had answered them all, because hi, what’s the point in re-reading your essays if you can’t correct them anyway, because you are writing in PEN on a piece of PAPER and there is no more room and your time is out anyway? God.  I mean really, GOD.

Twenty-five minutes in, I had to stop every two or three sentences and shake my hand out, due to an extreme (and surely fatal) case of writer’s cramp.  Well, probably not FATAL, or not NOW, anyway…we’ll see how extremely fatal my writer’s cramp was when I get my grade back.  You guys.  I’m not hoping for an A, nope.  I just want to not get a D…or WORSE.

And THEN!  I was almost the last person left in the testing room!  I almost ran out of time!  Of course, everyone else around me was taking math and computer and accounting classes, which, I think, do NOT have essays.  Either that or…I’m just an extremely slow writer.

Anyway, I just thought that was extremely unfair, to have the tests handwritten.  In Korea, all the tests were done online, so I don’t know what the problem is here.  Stupid.  Taking tests by hand should be banned.

Tonight is the season finale of The Office.  I don’t talk about TV much here, because I really don’t watch much of it, but I have to admit something to you.  I am fully invested - to an almost unreasonable amount - in the outcome of tonight’s episode.  Obsessive levels of invested.  It’s unhealthy.  And that is all.

Tschuss!!