Cursed.

Oh yes I am.
Cursed.
Utterly.
Totally.
I just have no luck with handing in essays on time in Newcastle.

For two consecutive times,
when I have to turn in 3000 word essays to the Sociology department here
which is about 15 mins walk away from my place
at 12pm promptly,
I always fail to make it miserably.
And thats when I have already spent a whole night toiling away and finished it abt 2 hours before the deadline.
I know, I am supposed to have prepared and done it like days before
but honestly, I dont work that way and I have so much more inspiration when I work hours before deadline.
I know, i know
i'm just plain weird.
Or maybe its just plain procrastination.

But anyway,
the first time when I went to hand in my Gene Wars essay,
I was happily proud that I was gonna be early as I went out at 11pm to print.
I went to the nearest computer cluster in my faculty and
wham!
it was closed.
And being a fresh freshie here,
I was not acquainted with other departments or faculties
but I had to scramble to other faculties
like the dreary and crreeeppy looking Engineering and Maths and Stats dept
which claimed to have computer clusters on third floor
but actually inside looked like hospital wards or psychological patients' wards
for reasons obvious,
i dont like hospitals and i hate being stuck in a foreign old dodgy and creepy place alone
in corridors and staircases i suspect there was not a single soul
and a very smart aleck me tried to be gungho and explore the place
in my desperation to hand in the brainchild of mine
grrrrr i was lost.
okay, im not known to have the best direction sense.
sigh.
and the sign stated that the com cluster was on 3rd floor
but i forgot that here in UK,
the first floor referred to 2nd floor actually for those of us who come from Singapore
simply because our first floor is their ground floor.
confused?
me too.
go figure.
sigh.

anyway
i climbed so many creepy squeaky stairs and went to wrong floors
only to have found the correct place
printed my essay
and was late for one hour.
i was so irritated because i was theoretically early until my brilliant sense of direction decided to fail me.
and so, when i had a paper to submit this morning,
i made it a point to let it not happen.

And yes, after hours of working at my paper on Sociology of work about
how understanding social divisions is vital to understanding work and how it is experienced,
i was slightly late because i overslept cos it had been a hell week
but i still rushed to the com lab that i was sure was confirmed to be free and not closed
and ta-da!
i was so proud to print my essay
and it hit me then
that i had ran out of credits
now, here they dont practise the normal standard of cash card
u are given 10 pounds to print .. and 10 pounds allowance of over draft..
after much printing in the past 2 months
i have used up i think 23.40 pounds of credit
that means i have limited my 10 pounds over draft right?
and yes, it is freaking expensive
almost 70 Sing dollars to print readings
so for those who are so lucky to be able to print notes so cheaply and without any hassle in Singapore,
pls kiss or hug your notes or something :(

back to my story,
i couldnt print anything and i was freaking out
as this essay was 50% of my term grade
and i was late late late..
it was like 12.25pm
and i tried topping up 5 pounds online
but to no avail
the printer kept gaving me blank stuff
i realised i was so clever as to not realise i had to top up for my overdraft limit!
and meanwhile before i figured that out,
i asked this british guy beside me if he could help me print and i'd pay him back
he looked kinda lost,
and when i sent my work to him THREE times via THREE emails
somehow they just didnt get thru
and he was just clueless.
sigh.
when the day gets bad,
it gets really bad
but after i topped up another 15 pounds,
8 pages of my hard work was printed.
*sweat*

and i was already 50 minutes late when i reached the department.
yes, they are that particular about deadlines
and the clerk told me curtly that the lecturer can refuse to mark my paper since it is late

whaa---aaat?

i was not gonna take that cos honestly i dont think i deserve it.
and so i went to the lecturer's office
and explained to her my condition
and she was sooooooo nice about it.
and i explained to her about my essay which went over the limit.
yeah, what's new?
sometimes i think i write too much nonsense
but i really cant keep to the limit.
bad habit i know but it is just my drive to just keep writing and present the best.
im mad.
=)

anyway the clerk was so shocked to see me when she took my paper into my lecturer's office.
haha. i felt a lil embarrassed too, cos it felt like a little weird. but i was not like pleading with her to not penalise me for the lateness, but i went to explain in the hope that she would mark my work. i am okay with being penalised, because i was late.
but i wanted my work marked.
haha, i think its my sense of pride in my work.
crazy right? shld have taken opportunity to ask her not to penalise,
but oh well, i know i am not in the position to do that, and it was not really my interest to do that.

anyway, im glad i took time to explain to her.
she surprised me with a good news that
the Erasmus (european union) exchange coordinator decided that:
exchange students are exempted from exams this time
and only have to do a max of 4000 word essays!

sounds too good to be true right?
Means for my module, Soci of identities, i only have one essay to hand in instead of an addition of 1 written exam.
And yes, the pressure is there cos it means that the essay is 100% of my grade for that module
but i dont really mind cos its on my favourite topic...
FREUD!
i can go on and on about him. i love that man. =)

and for my other module, soci of work, which i painstakingly wrote 3500 words instead of 2500-3000 words,
its actually 2 essays both 50% and each 2500-3000 words
now for us, its cut to only 3000 words (1st essay as we had already handed in when she told us this morning in the email by the erasmus coordinator) and the next essay is 1000 word.
hurray right?
but no, i think im in trouble
1000 words is probably gonna be like my intro and conclusion combined.
sigh.
where got enough space for me to write everything?
so much for being long-winded.
O.o

anyway,
its still a good twist to a sucky day.
i just wrote an email to confirm that this lucky news applies
to not just erasmus student, but normal exchange students too.
*hopes hard*
cos this means that january,
i wont have exams to worry about and can take days off to travel in uk
before i go back to Singapore.
=)

going glasgow this weekend!
will update about amsterdam.
=)