i'll fly away

listening to the o.b.w.a.t. soundtrack, trying to be uplifted!

i've got no time to spare, but i just wanted to mark today as being special - we heard the lime's heartbeat this morning (!) he/she has eyebrows and fingerprints now, and his/her bones are getting hard, turning from cartilage to real bone. the ultrasound will be scheduled for shortly after christmas - this means that there may be a photo to come...

sam's holiday concert was last night. he wore a clipon bow tie and i forgot the camera. doh. also, jake played the cello. i think he may have sounded like he needs more practice, but so did the whole gr 6 class, so it was hard to judge. they have other things on their minds, i guess. for example, this morning my baby walked to school with a girl from his cello class :-)

tonight is jake's choir concert. his voice hasn't started to change yet, and he is the quintessential choir boy with his mop top hairdo and his clean and tidy white shirt and black pant combo. i should be studying but what's one more night of screwing around, really?

in case anyone is wondering how school is going, i wrote my contracts exam yesterday. the way i see it, if everyone else fucks up, i'll probably pass. if everyone else does well, i will be at the bottom of the curve. it feels so weird, not having my marks depend on me. tomorrow is property. there is no finessing property. i need to have skills. maybe a good fairy will visit me while i sleep tonight? (please god, let me sleep tonight. no more insomnia, i beg you!)

last week i had a look at the property exam from last year. it seemed pretty straightforward and doable. then, yesterday, after the disaster they call "contracts", this helpful chart of grades from the 2004 property exam was posted on the website as part of the exam prep stuff:

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The median on the exams was 70, and the marks distribution was as follows:

Grade  Number of students    % of class   % required by curve* 
 A           5                 10%        10-20%   
 B          23                 45%        35-55% 
 C          10               19.5%        15-30%  
 D          10               19.5%         5-20%  
 F          3                   6%        0-5% 

• As discussed in class, only “substantial compliance” with the curve is required for December exams in first year. Pre-curve, the class median was significantly lower. (emphasis mine.)
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(html is icky. don't judge my chart.)
at this point there are two important facts about school that i need to remember in order to remain sane and whole:
1) the bell curve is weird and unpredictable and beyond my control.
2) the december exams are failsafe. they are for status only, and i have no status to lose. things can only get better moving toward april!