Gallows Pole

I'm starting have a greater appreciation for what a man sentenced to death feels like the night before his execution. My first practical exam is tomorrow, and it's going to be certain death. (Which causes one to wonder why I'm spending my time writing this?)

- I know nothing.

- I know I know nothing.

- I know my knowing nothing means I'm going to get screwed.

- And yet, there's no fear here!

It's like the man who knows for sure he's going to die come sunrise. He's not afraid because there's nothing he can do about it. Might as well die happy.

In my case, there is something I can do about the whole thing. And that's quit writing this post and bury my nose in my books! But why bother? Some people will swear that you can get as much studies done in the 12 hours immediately before your exam as you can in the 12 weeks preceding it; but in my case the 12 weeks saw no studies at all, and so I doubt these 12 hours are going to see too much either.

Our examiner tomorrow will be X. My only previous experience of him as an examiner would have been hilarious, had I not been one of the hapless victims in the story.

It was my DPL (don't ask me what that stands for, I'd forgotten it 3 seconds after leaving the exam) practical examination. I had no previous interaction with X, and he looked benign enough. That impression was to change, and fast! He called up the first few guys for their oral examination. I was one of them. (Now that I look back, giving an 'oral' in the other sense of the word may actually have been better!)

He asked the first guy some question.

The guy started to answer, "Sir... Basically... "

He immediately stopped him and whirled around in his chair to face me. "Define 'basically'!"

Here I was having somehow managed to cram the finer subtleties of the COBOL Programming Language (that's what that Lab was about) into my average sized cranium, and now this ass was asking me to define 'basically'? I don't even remember what I mumbled out.

He focused his attention on another student. "What is the difference between COBOL-74 and COBOL-86?"

"Sir, actually... "

I saw it coming. And sure enough, another whirl later he was staring at me again. "Define 'actually'!"

Bottom line, as he as never ceased repeating from then on, eradicate the words 'basically', 'actually', 'fundamentally', 'may be', 'could be', 'whomsoever', 'whatsoever' etc from your lexicon. They are very vague terms and must never be used. Ironically of all our teachers, he is the only one who uses the last two, and frequently!

The batch after our's was even more unfortunate. One guy was made to repeat "I am a fool" ten times. However, in all fairness, X is one of the most generous distributors of marks around. His bark is worse than his bite.

To get back to my troubles though, I know absolutely nothing. So, umm... basically, I'm screwed!! At least the condemned man gets a last wish. Hmm.. wonder what I'd ask for?