The white stuff

Woke up this morning to gigantic chunks of the white stuff drifting down. "Oh no," I thought, "Bus service will be disrupted and I won't be able to make it up the hill for my exam." I turned on the computer, and by some miracle, buses and trains were running as usual. The university was open, and exams were proceeding as scheduled.

Trudged to the train station, made my bus connection, and slowly but surely, forged my way up the mountain. Left myself a couple of hours to go over my notes at the library, to memorize the gazillion distinctive features of phonological systems. My friend P called me just as I was beginning to feel confident about what I knew: "Did you hear? Buses have stopped running. The exam is cancelled!"

And indeed, the exam was cancelled. Went to see my professor, who told me that it would be rescheduled for Tuesday, December 16th. That would normally be hunky-dory, but I am flying out on the 15th!!!

What are my options? Well, since Dr. S is going off to Brazil for four months on the 17th, sitting for a make-up exam in January is out of the question. That leaves us to consult the Chair of the Linguistics department as to how to proceed. The Chair, of course, was conveniently elsewhere, not to be found.

Dr. S thinks that I'll be given the option of being graded based on my average thus far in the course, or getting credit for the course without a final grade. But I need a final grade! The grad school I want to get into needs this course as a prerequisite, and will look specifically at prerequisite courses when making admission decisions.

Now, I wait.... The moral of the story: Do not take classes at a hill-top university in a West Coast city that does not know how to deal with snow. Or, alternately, when something is beyond your control, stop thinking about it.

Stupid snow, stupid snow, STUPID SNOW!!!!!

* Let's see what happens tomorrow. I have another exam scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.