Spring Break? Are You Sure???

Today is the first "official" day of Spring Break for those who work in my school district.  It has rained, on and off, for three days.  The mountains are getting pounded with snow, the Grapevine (I-5 through the Tejon Pass) was shut down and we had thunderstorms during the night.  Welcome to spring in California ...

I had an exam for my Psychology 101 class that had to be taken on campus, and I needed to take my friend S. some tickets for an event we are going to on Saturday, so I drove over to Citrus this afternoon.  When I left the house, the clouds were breaking up.  This lasted until I got halfway to Glendora, when the heavens opened and POURED rain for about 30 minutes.  The rain tapered off just as I got to campus, a bit frazzled from driving in such crazy weather.

In theory, the exam should take about 30 minutes from check in to finish.  I checked in, was assigned a computer and began the online exam.  Not too bad.  I whizzed through the first 15 questions in about 10 minutes ... and then the computer stalled on question 16.  I clicked the button to go on to the next question.  Nothing happened.  I waited a couple of minutes and clicked the button again.  A message popped up telling me that this function was already in process and to leave the computer alone (well, that last bit was sort of implied).  So I sat there for a few more minutes.  Nothing happened.  I asked the testing assistant what to do and she clicked the button again, only to get the same message (basically, "you already did this, you twit, now leave me alone!").  She went to talk to her supervisor.  Meanwhile, NOTHING HAPPENED.  She came back and said they were going to try to contact the professor to get a hard copy of the exam.  So I sat there even longer while nothing happened.  Eventually, we tried logging out of Blackboard and back in, but all that did was inform me that I had completed the exam and to please go away (again, I am paraphrasing the computer).  So, there I was, with only 15 (or possibly 16) of the 25 questions answered, which meant that even if I had gotten them all right, my score was a measly 64.

By this time, I had been there for an hour and had accomplished NOTHING.  The attendant assured me that I could retake the exam but they had to contact the professor first; that I would not be penalized because it wasn't my fault, but could I come back tomorrow?  Grrr ... Before leaving the testing center, I emailed the professor about what had happened, prepared to make the same drive AGAIN in order to retake the exam.

When I got home, however, I had a email from him allowing me to retake the exam from home.  Hooray!  This time I was able to access ALL the questions and completed the exam in about 10 minutes.  And I got 100%.  Thank goodness for happy endings! :)

The other half of my errand went much more smoothly.  I gave S. the tickets, we chatted about work for awhile (you can take the girl out of the library, but you can't take the library out of the girl ...) and she gave me a crinkly cat sack she'd gotten from her BFF on a recent visit.  Here is a picture of Pippin enjoying the sack:

"I am the sack master of the universe!!"

Here Timothy, Harry, Billy and Jasper (counterclockwise from top left) confront the intruder:

"What's that?  Let's kill it!"

Even scaredy-cat Tim checked it out:

"If I stretch my neck out real loooong, I don't have to actually get close to it!"

But only Billy was brave enough to go inside:

"Hmm, what's in here? A mouse? A catnip toy? A portal to another dimension?"

And when he came out, he was curiously changed:

"Does this sack make my head look big?"

And that's what happened on my first day of Spring Break!