The Adventures, Mishaps and Musings of Me

Italians produce fantastic food, cars, fashion, and generally excel at anything that requires passionate input. However, when it comes to administration and organistaion, the country is an absoloute disaster. England, a country that often views itself as beauracratic, is simplified bliss in comparision. After my year and a half of living in Milano (Yes, Milano, not backwards Napoli), I have many, many examples, so let me tell of my most recent run in with the joy of Italian administration...

( "The Beautiful Mess" Explained... )

OH GAWD COULD THE FIRE ALARM PLEASE SHUT UP!!!!!

The firealarm has being going off for two hours straight. Usually, you can't get through two days of living in this dormitory without the fire alarm going off at some point due to everyone smoking in the rooms. But, God alive, it's now completely malfunctioned and has being going off continuously for two hours. After the first half hour of it, I came to the conclusion that there may have actually been a fire, but after a bit of investigation this was, of course, not true - the alarm in the halls have just gone completely bonkers.

Wait, it's stopped.

And now it's started again. And stopped. And started again. And stopped.

Ugh, I forsee a painful headache coming on...

EDIT: Three hours of fire alarm and it's finally stopped. Phew.

So I got my mark back from Financial Markets exam. I got 29/30.

29 out of 30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Literally, the message came up on my internet student diary saying "Financial Markets: 29" and I thought it meant a room change. Only on a second glance did I realise it was an exam result of which I then sat for a minute staring open mouthed at the screen. 29 out of 30!?! I mean, yes, I thought I did reasnobly well on the exam, but not THAT well. I kinda think there may have been a cock up in the administration, but hey, I'm not going to be the one to draw their attention to it (that can be the job of the poor bugger who thought he sat a near perfect exam to find out his grade said he failed it).

I also got my maths grade back at 19/26, which is pretty good and more importantly on target to reach the grade to get on the student exchange (something I desperately want to go on - the chance to live outside Western Europe for six months? Gimme, gimme, gimme!) I've only got three weeks left of class untill the Christmas holidays and then the painful onslought of the January exam session. The final exam session before the exhange selection preocedures, so I really need to pull my (currently crap) grade point average up out of the mud.

To summarise my thoughts on my progress with each class:

Financial Markets: Good - as long as I don't let my first mark go to my head... (too late)
Law: Good.
Math: Behind.
Macroeconomics: Very, very, VERY behind.
Russian: Good.
Italian: I have this paranoid feeling that I'm going to get ensared in picky grammar exceptions. But, I find such paranoia is a good thing providing you act constructively on it...

And I'm also wanting to re-sit my computing exam in January. "Re-sit" is a misleading word here because I never sat it in the first place, when I should have done last year. To cut a long story short, administration wouldn't let me because of missing documents. Of which I still need to get sorted... but, first a nap. Toodles!

Or, in other words, I'm a student - watch how crazy I can be.

So, this is an idea that I believe came off katoki's blog of which I've since been completely intrigued by, and now am going (or rather, am in the proccess) of trying it for myself. The basic principle is that instead of sleeping (or trying to sleep) a full 8hrs, you take a series of naps throughout the day, and are able to cut down the hours you have to waste spend asleep. There are several different systems of doing this, but I am going to try for 4x30min naps a day, aka one thirty minute nap every six hours, aka the Dymaxion sleep cycle. Now for the question you're all asking: If you are only having two hours sleep a day how are you possibly going to have enough sleep to function properly? That, my friends, is the beauty of it.

For a bit of Layman's science on the thing (that is no doubt better explained else where on the net), there are five stages of sleep that you go through in a night. Only in the fith stage of sleep (REM deep sleep) do you recouperate energy, something which lasts approximately 1hr30mins in a standard 8hr sleep. The Dymaxion sleep cycle works by having your body skip out the first four stages, and jump immediately to the fith stage, thus in the two hours a day you spend asleep, you spend 2hrs recouperating energy and thus, in theory at least, you should be more refreshed and alert then if you slept a full 8hrs. How does your body learn to do this? In adapting to the sleep cycle (i.e. staying awake all night and only sleeping in 30 minute slots) your body gets so sleep deprived it "realises" that it has to make use of the thirty minutes you are staying asleep to rejuventae otherwise you'd eventually pass out and die. Thus, 8hr sleep can supposedly be left behind in the dust.

After timetabling my naps around my classes (easier said then done), figuring out a (ha, ha) foolproof alarm system with my IPod and, finally, stocking up on Kit kats, sucky sugar sweets, tea bags, and, only to be used in emergencies, caffinated chewing gum (caffine filled, but apparently 'sugar free'), I was ready to give Dymaxion a try...

( Dymaxion Adventures Continued... )

Text message received at 5:30pm:  Hey Vice Chief, I'm really sick so can't make it to the student union board meeting, could you please go on my behalf?  It's tonight at 6pm.

*checks watch, checks message, checks watch*

Self:  I'm just about to cook dinner and read that chapter on Macroeconomics I should have read three weeks ago; the last thing I want to be doing is going out in the dark, cold and wet in order to spend two hours arguing noisily in the SU in a meeting of which I don't even know what is to be discussed.

But, on the other hand...

If I don't go on exchange next year, and instead stay in Italy then I definately want to have the position of Chief Editor of the student magazine... something that should be handed to me when the Chief steps down at the end of this year...   Still, that's not an absoloute given, and it definately wouldn't be a good look out as Vice Chief to refuse to attend a meeting...  Besides, it would allow me to talk to the very, very top of the SU... getting on the good side of the SU President would definately be a plus...

Text message sent at 5:31pm:  Of course.  What room is it?

So, it's the night before a maths exam - the first of this year.  Traditionally I would be, about now, whacking my head against my paper, formula and tea cup littered desk, and writing something adolescent on LJ along the lines of "I hate Maths" (which is silly because my whole degree revolves around maths, I can hardly hate it).

But, I'm rather bored of that attitutude.  So I'm instead taking an apathetic line of  "If I fail the exam?  Ah, well, I'll just have to take the January exam instead."  A far more relaxing way of looking at things, definately.

Right, I'm off to get a good night sleep.  Buona notte!

P.S. Happy Bonfire Night Britian!

Man, I forgot how insane taking an exam at my Univeristy could be. 

Firstly, they announce to you what room you're going to be in the day before on your 'internet student diary', but I completely forgot to check and only remembered on waking up this morning in an instant panic... At which point the announcement had disappeared.  I only found out which room by hurridly phoning up friends who are close to me in the alphabet, otherwise I would have been completely roomless.

Of course, once you've reached the correct room, then we have the exam itself.  The two assistants that were overseeing it seemed to assume that all students are cheating little bastards, and thus were positively militant in their anti-cheating policies.  I had one of them barking at me for writing with my paper slightly to the left of me (because obviously I was trying to give the people behind me a better view.)  Certainly, it was not a de-stress situation as they glaringly marched up and down the benches.  Once you'd finished, it was very much a matter of making sure that you didn't do anything that could possibly be construed as cheating.  I managed to solve this dilemma by taking a nap on the desk!

The most ridiculous thing of all was, that for all their keeness to stop people from cheating during the exam, they didn't actually check people's identity when they came in.  So, clearly their line was anyone is allowed to take your exam, but whoever that person is, they absoloutly must not cheat!!   

All that aside though, the exam went well.  For Financial Markets, surprisingly so.

Hopefully, I can say the same for Statistics on Friday...

It is so c-c-cold in my d-d-dormitory.  N-n-no central h-heating for another m-m-month.  I'm wearing my entire w-w-wardrobe and its n-n-not helping.  I didn't s-s-sign up for the st-st-student cryogenic freezing experiment.

T-t-think warm thoughts... Think warm thoughts... Think warm thoughts...
...

About now is when I rethink going to Russia on the exchange next year.

EDIT:  Nooooo Evil Cleaning Lady!!  Don't leave my window open letting all the freezing cold air into my room!!

I've just been appointed Vice Chief of the International Student newspaper!  Mhahahaha! My power in the International Student Union is growing.  Sure, it's just Vice Chief for now, but I'm sure the Chief Editor could have a nice meeting with some of my Siccilian and/or Russian friends...

One of my "New Academic Year Resolutions" was to religiously attend all of my Italian lectures.  However, evil forces were at work to make this resolution as hard to keep as possible.  Evil forces here meaning the Time Tabling department.  My two Italian lectures are scheduled, one as the fourth and last lecture on Tuesday at 6pm, the other at 8:45am on a Thursday with three lectures to follow it.  Horrorific.  Honestly, how could anyone manage the motivation to attend those?? 

End of self justfication.

( Meme )

You know, the more I go on planes and airports the more and more I hate them.  And when you're on your own for five hours having to sit and wait at one, quite frankly, they suck.  Nevertheless, I'm happily back in my room in Milano, putting up posters, revelling at how much easier administration is now that I speak decent Italiano and feeling rather all-knowing due to two of my room mates being freshmen.

Year two of Uni here I come!

So for my Microeconomics, when I took the first midterm, I passed but with a bollocks grade.  Nevermind, I thought, I'll just have to retake it and do the general exam.  Well, I took the general in the middle of July and got the results back today, and said result was...

The exact same shitty mark I got the first time around.  DARGH!!!  What was the flippin' point of that!?!  So much extra work and no result.  Quite frankly, I'd have been better off abandoning the first mark and just taking the second partial exam, entrusting the law of averages to bump my grade a little.

Yet I didn't... because I am an over reaching idiot who tried to eat the whole damn cake and choked on it. What's worse is that I don't have the option to retake it again.  That mark will simply sit, ferment and drag my grade point average down the tube. 

Grandoise ideas of third year exchange?  I can be waving those goodbye now.

Taken my last exam of the year.  Woot!  And for a microeconomics exam it went reasonably well too.  Double woot!

Now I just have to twiddle my thumbs in a fast emptying domitory for a week before flying home for the summer on Saturday.  Drink, anyone?

So, I have to sit my dearily, dreadfully dull exam in Accounting today.  My prediction is that I will do reasnobly well on all topics with the exception of "consolidation" of which I shall be murdered by. 

But, at least this exam brings with it the joy of never having to study Accounting again.  Huzzah for silver linings

POST EXAM EDIT:  Yep.  Murdered by consolidation.  Crap.

I think it shows how little I paid attention in accounting class by the amount of utterly bizzare spelling mistakes that are in my hand written notes.

Honestly, "Investory" instead of "Inventory".

"Cahe" (or perhaps "cake", I can't quite tell) instead of "cash".

"Prefredd" instead of "preferred" - what?!

Apparently, I was strung out on financial statements and lost the ability to form words.

Today's exam went fantastically!  So fantastic that I had to geekily get up halfway through to fetch more paper to write on from the desk - something I have never had to do in the whole of my academic career!

One more economics exam to go and then I'm flying home for a week to see my adoring family, eat alot of chocolate and complain about only having a week of Easter holiday compared to my other English friend's three weeks.  Two weeks for Christmas, one week for Easter and six weeks for summer; Bocconi has short changed me on my lengthy Uni holidays.  God damnnit. 

LOL at LJ friends who work.

I've just come back from an exam in financial accounting, which challenges strongly for the title of "Most Boring 90 Minutes in My Life".  I'm somewhat miffed that I couldn't get my balance sheet to balance, but apart from that it went fairly well.  Balance sheets are things that I find easy and simplistic in class, yet when it comes to exams I cock up on them everytime.  Most irratating.

However, in the pervious exam where I also couldn't get my balance sheet to balance, I only lost two marks off the paper so I'm hoping for a similar result this time round.  Except the first time may have been a marking mistake, but I wasn't going to look into it =P

On route to my exam, a man stopped me in the street to try and get me to sign up to a charity to give money to children with AIDS, however, I was in a rush not to be late so I callously said "No, sorry, I don't have time," to find that, since this is Italy, my exam naturally started half an hour late.  I felt like such a mean cow.  However, by the same token that this is Italy, any money given to charity would have most likely just ended up in someones pocket anyhow. 

There is no better way to spend an evening then with friends; a bottle of seriously good wine and a movie.

*sighs*

I can't believe I have exams in less then two weeks.  It feels like I've only just finished the last set.  More lonely afternoons spent in the company of maths and economic text books are soon coming my way...

OK... Bocconi trys to be down with the kids and so, for written exams, they text us our exam results, although, for the maths exams they put up the solutions to the exams on the internet the day after the exam, so, as long as you remember what you put for the 10 questions, you can work out your grade early.  I did this to work out that I was one question short of passing. 

HOWEVER a few seconds ago I just recieved the exam result text for maths telling me I've passed.  OMG!! WTF??  Don't give me false hope Bocconi messaging service!  Instantly suspiscious, I checked on my "Student Announcements", which also confirms that I passed!  OMG YES!!!

So, did I misremember what I put in my math exam when I was working out my grade?  Did I make a mistake totalling up my marks?  Did I not tally it correctly?

...

I PASSED WITH MATH SKILLS SO CRAPPY I COULDN''T WORK OUT MY GRADE PROPERLY!!!!!

I passed the law!  And not just passed, I passed it well!  WOHOO! 

This is doubly awesome because Law is definately the most unpleasant/nerve wracking/scary exam of them all so far.  One I definately wanted to go through only once.  Why is it so unpleasant/nerve wracking/scary?  Three words:  Public Oral Exam.

90 people sit in a lecture hall with two proffessors who call forth the names of the victims students to question them verbally on Private Law.  Questioning sessions will be about 15 minutes long, you will get 4 questions and EVERYONE is watching and listening as you sweat and shake while blanking on the underlying principle of possession.  It wouldn't be so bad if the proffessors were trying to put you at ease, but no.  The Law Proffessor is really confrontational during the exam and watching him lay into your class mates, picking their answers to bits does nothing to calm your nerves.  After failing five people in a row he broke into a rant about how students who didn't study properly were wasting his time.  Luckily, that was a fair few hours before my exam so he had time to get out of his "fail all studdents" mode. 

Unluckily, I came to the lecture hall at 8:30am, thinking I'd be out by lunchtime due to my surname beginning with C, to find that, actually, they were going to do it in reverse alphabetical order.  Pants.  I spent 11 hours sitting on a lecture bench waiting for my turn, my exam taking place around 7:30pm.  By which time all nerves had evaporated to be replaced by serious boredom; the wish that I had been christened "Anna Zzut" so I could have got it over with quickly and the sentiment that after spending a whole day waiting to take the exam I was going to be really pissed if I failed it after all that.  Finally, a hot chocolate, a tea, a cappucino, multiple bottles of water and a slice of pizza later:  It was my turn to go under interrogation.

And... it went well!  I survived and came out with a grade!  BOOYA!  It almost makes up for failing the maths.  In fact, I'd much rather fail the maths and have to face another math paper that doesn't judge you for being stupid if you don't know the answers immediately, then have to spend another day waiting in a lecture hall to be aggressively interrogated by a monobrow weilding Italian proffessor who totally needs to get laid.   

Valentines Day tomorrow and I'm being cooked for ^_^