It's the Fi-nal[s] Countdown

It's amazing how well the title fits for this posting as well as allowing me to make an Arrested Development reference.

The single digits are upon me.  I don't know how it's possible but in exactly one week, I go back to the states.

I've had two exams so far and have three to go.  On Thursday was management accounting which, as I was expecting, did not go so well.  Accounting is not my thing and the way classes work here did not help me learn the subject.  When I took another level of accounting at CSU, I had class multiple times a week and lots of online practice problems which helped me successfully get through the class.  Going from that to one class a week with no other material made this course incredibly difficult.  Oh well.  At least that's out of the way.

The exam set up didn't add to my success either.  The testing centre is off campus.  The school provides a free shuttle bus but it only holds about 40 people for a school of +20,000 and everyone else has to to pay for the city bus or take a 45 minute walk.  The actual building the exams are held in, I'm pretty sure, is a place where they do horse showings.  It's essentially a giant warehouse/barn.  There are well over 1000 students taking exams of varying subjects at the same time in this massive room which gets quite distracting.  Some exams end sooner than others as well so half way through there is a shuffling of 100s of students whose exam time has expired.  I already get a little test anxiety and all of the above just heightens it.  That and knowing these exams are worth, on average, 80% of your total grade is nowhere near ideal.  The way exams are run here is the only thing since being in Europe where I just do not understand why something is done the way it is.  Everything else I've been able to see it from a different perspective, but this just does not make any sense to me.

Not a good representation at all but this is the
warehouse where we take the exams

Saturday was better.  It was my Marketing Communications in the Digital Age exam which was all essay format questions, something I'd say I'm really good at even if I don't entirely know the answer.  There was some sort of science test going on at the same time and an announcer would come on and talk about the multiple choice section of the science test so that the whole room could hear.  It was very distracting!

I've got two exams on Tuesday and then my last one on Thursday.  A lot of people I know only had two or three exams so I'm not really sure how I got stuck with five.  I have one last outing planned at the end of the week with some people as a final goodbye.

I should probably start thinking about packing at some point which might be my least favorite thing in the world.