last few days

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Let me tell you a little story about the Macquarie grading system. It is set up in a way so that you either get a fail (F), conceded pass (CP), pass (P), credit (C), distinction (D) or high distinction (HD). HD means your work is publishable with little or no corrections, D means your work is publishable with some corrections and so on. There is a curve set up so that basically in a class of 20, 2 will get D, 3 will get C, 14 will get P and 1 will fail. This set up results in absolutely no motivation to do work. If my above stats are correct (which they’re probably not, but they’re close), I have a 70% chance of getting a P, regardless of my quality of work. In addition, any grade I receive will not transfer to any other university, only the credits will transfer, given that I at least pass. So today for the first time in my entire life I sat for a final exam with exactly zero preparation. I believe I sufficiently BSed my way to a passing grade, which is all that matters. I could have busted my butt and still been part of the 70% that will receive P’s or I could have really busted my butt, gotten a Distinction and nobody would ever know about it because grades don’t transfer anywhere!

Now that that’s out of my system…life on the boat is pretty good these days. I sit around reading books, playing poker and eating food. We’re having an open mic night tonight and a masquerade ball on the 12th. Everyone is done with finals and all schoolwork so it’s going to be a relaxed last few days. We’ll be in Portugal on the 15th and disembark in Amsterdam on the 19th. I’ll be leaving the 20th for the south of France and then spending 3 weeks in Italy and Greece exploring with my friend Nate. Then I’ll stay for a month in France doing some language studies and enjoying merlot and tarts. It’s pretty much smooth sailing from here…no pun intended!

That’s it from here. Hope everyone at home has a great weekend! xo

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