ok, will try this again. Blogger magically made the post that I was writing go *poof*
So it's been a while and I'm happy to report that I'm not dead, though not quite alive either. Exams started on Wednesday but I got horribly sick after sitting my first exam. As a result I couldn't really study for my second one which I screwed up majorly. I haven't been that sick in a while and that I-feel-like-I'm-dying feeling kind of put things into perspective a little. So I'm just gonna worry about recovering for now and not think about how bad the exam was. Until I apply for med school and they reject me because my grades in my pre-requisite courses aren't good enough. But I'll think about it then and maybe I'll realise that the day I got sick was the fateful moment when my life turned down an entirely different path.
anyhow. During the exam yesterday, on top of all the stress and panic, something happened and though it may sound amusing and funny now, I was quite.. insulted. Here goes the story of what happened during my chem 205 exam:
At UBC, when we write exams, we have to get our student ID's checked and we have to sign our names on a sheet which has our info (name, student number, major, etc). It's a big school and it's just some verification thing that they do. Anyway, so in some of the exams, we do that at the end when we hand in our papers, in others, they have TA's or profs come around and check our IDs and get us to sign (quite distracting, if you ask me). In this particular exam, they had TAs come around to check our names off the list.
This TA came around to me, picked up my ID, looked at it, and put it down again beside me. "Christina?" she said. I looked up and nodded, my head going "what? what entropy? how do I know that? absorption? what is this????" She looked at her sheet for another moment, turned to me and in a slightly confused and apologetic tone said, "um, they have you down here as female. Can you sign here please?" In my head I was like, wtf?? what the hell are you talking about? no shit, coz I am! But then I was too tired to come up with anything intelligent to say so I just shrugged and signed. My priority at the time was to get on with my exam.
Now I wish I had said something, because if there's anything that can make people realise that I AM a girl, it would be my voice. Whenever there is such confusion and people make the wrong assumption, they usually look embarassed once I open my mouth to speak. But this TA had the advantage of knowing my NAME. yeah, coz my mom would name her son Christina, right? I mean, I guess my appearance isn't exactly what you'd call girly but if it's bordering on non-gender specific, you'd think that a name would help her decide which side I'm on. But no. Guess that only means that with a girl name, my appearance can still convince her that I'm a guy. My haircut isn't even a valid excuse because in my picture in my student ID, I have long hair. And ok, fine, even if she really does think so, but isn't sure, can't she just keep her mouth shut? It was kind of... stupid of her. Anyway, just sharing it here because I find it amusing now. At that time it really ticked me off, but probably because I was in the middle of the exam and because I couldn't come up with a better response.