(Note: Wrote this yesterday afternoon but forgot to post it, so posting it now.)

Loyal readers!

Thought I dropped dead, eh? :) To explain my lack of updates, please remember that I am actually a very san si hang (new toilet) kinda person. As in, I'm very enthusiastic in the beginning, but generally lack the will to continue projects to the end. Unless my grades depend on it, then it's a different matter.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I was actually stricken with disease (fever, blocked nose, headaches, general throwing up) a day before my Human Comm test, which resulted in me being very cranky and stressed. The next day I had to rehearse my sketch/play thingy, and so didn't have time to do anything but eat, rest and watch Buffy at night. The today, I'm free so I'm updating my blog and writing this very boring account of my life in the past 3 or so days.

I'll be ranting about today now. If you're not interested in reading brainless rants you should just go and click on some of the links on the sidebar for fun. If you click Blizzforums 3 million times you'll lose 1 pound!

Today we had a visitation from the USM lecturer who's in charge of Management. To explain, Taylor's Mass Comm program is actually USM's Mass Comm program, and every semester they send spies over to keep track of whether we bad Taylor's students are doing what good USM students do, which is mainly drinking and having wild monkey sex. On campus too, tsk tsk.

Anyway, I don't think anyone will believe what she did with more than an hour of my time today, cos, you know, she's a doctor and everything, she's supposed to be smart. You see, our lovely Taylor's lecturer, Mrs Malar, who teaches Management, has already taught us all the concepts from chapter 1 to chapter 16. So what does this USM lecturer decide to do? Nothing much, except to sit there in the middle of the lecture hall and read the contents of the textbook, from chapter 1 to chapter 16, to us. Of course she used her own words and drew illustrations on the board (which were, btw, also in the book) about the concepts. The same concepts, as mentioned, that have been explained to us by Mrs Malar.

Note the emphasis.

I'm sitting in the bloody cold lecture hall, hungry (it was 12, I need to eat or I get incredibly cranky) and she's just sitting there reading to me. From a book, which everyone in the class has a copy. I spent a good 15 minutes holding back my curses, cos, well, as you know, good girls don't swear. :D

But hey, I'm just getting started here. Not only did she see the need to read to a bunch of college students, who, after spending about 16 years in Malaysia's education, would presumably be able to read, she never answered any of our questions. 19 chapters is not easy to memorise in an exam, and with her being the most anal-retentive person I've ever known in my life, the exams are going to be tough as heck. To illustrate my point, allow me to bring up a question she asked in a class quiz.

Which company below was not mentioned in the textbook's example on page (insert page number)? A)Boeing B)GM C)UPS D)Ford

I was under the impression that in a Management test, they'll question you on Management concepts to see if you actually understood them or not, cos hey, that's why I signed up for the course, ya? USM lecturer, on the other hand, thinks that Management is just another word for memorise-and-regurgitate. WTF...

So later, another one of my classmates asked her if there'll be questions based on the examples and cases mentioned in the textbook. Classmate's smart, she grasped the way this USM lecturer operates. What was the answer? "I cannot tell you, because I don't even tell my own 700 students in USM." So basically, aside from every example mentioned in the textbook, we have to memorise all the examples used to illustrate a particular concept too. Most of those examples involve American companies, which do not exist in Malaysia, so she can't even claim application of concepts and theories here. To her credit, she never even tried to explain why the questions are like this. I feel a sense of deja vu, like I'm back in secondary school, only this time I'm actually paying for my education.

To top it off, something like the proverbial cherry on top of the proverbial sundae with loads of whipped cream (only in a bad way. Very bad), she tells us that negative marking will be implemented. Not news to us, since we're already aware that she's using that in the mid terms. However, there's a little twist here today. Previously, if we weren't sure of the answer, we should just leave it unanswered, because every wrong answer would incur a .25 penalty in the negative marking scheme. So it's very possible to score a negative mark if you screw up the drinking-wild monkey sex-studying schedule.

Today though, USM lecturer said that it doesn't matter if you leave it blank or answer wrongly, there'll still be a penalty. This is the first time they're implementing this, btw. Previous semesters were marked according to the old system, which is blank answer = no deduction of 1/4 mark. When questioned, she said the system was programmed that way and they can't change it. I guess of she were ever in charge, all programmers and techies in Malaysia would all be out of a job.

The explanation for the implementation of negative marking was to deter students from guessing the answer. After all, the odds are pretty good, 1/4 chance of getting it right is not bad. It's better than buying lottery, at any rate. This new rule though, I don't understand. And either the USM lecturer herself doesn't understand it as well, or it's a state secret that we lowly students aren't supposed to know, and since it only involves our grades, it's not important at all.

The culmination of all this stupidity just bites you in the ass. If it doesn't, well, it sure as hell bites ME in the ass. More than 1 hour sitting in the lecture hall and I went out with less than I went in with. Should've skipped class and ate lunch instead.

I gotta hand it to her though, she's a great dodger. I've never seen anyone deflect questions with such standard (and stupid) answers since, well, since I heard the last politician speak.

To top off a bad day, I've just discovered that I can't find my Dune and Dune: Messiah books! OH NOES! *cries*