jessybxx

( CPE oral exam )

So now I'm sitting here, waiting for yamasagi to come back from the goddamn summer BBQ party. Gee, at this rate, I'll rot here =_=

It mostly went well or very well.
However, writing was every bit as tedious as I expected. And more. I terribly miscalculated the time and so I had to write really quickly during the last half hour to actually get everything onto the answer sheets.
But even if that one turns out to be mediocre, there's still the other papers where I'm pretty sure I did rather well.
Use of English and Reading were fun. And I loved Listening, at least for the most part. It was the one paper I was least worried about, and rightly so. Most of the others think they bombed this one. I... most likely didn't ;)
Right now, I'm not even thinking about the oral exam next Friday. And somehow, I don't think it'll be too bad.
Anyway. I'm tired now. C ya! ^^

I finally managed to pull myself together and looked up public transport infos to get to the CPE exams (written: 14 [Thursday], oral: 22 [Friday next week]).
What idiot decided to hold them at the adult education center in Dortmund? Rumour first had it that they were supposed to be at the one in Düsseldorf, but nooo...
Getting there is gonna cost me 20 Euros. Per day. Not to mention I'll have to get up at like, six AM on Thursday. OMFG.
But Julia was cute when telling me that "The center in Düsseldorf is right next to the station". Uh... most of them are ;)

The letter stating the place and time(s) of the exams starts with "We'd like to invite you to the exam..." O_o Invite? Well, I hope they have the red carpet and champagne ready XD
There's also this sheet called "Notice to candidates", telling you stuff you're allowed to do ("drink plain, still water only from a plastic bottle with a secure lid" - What, are they afraid of bombigns?) during the exam and anything that's forbidden. Like, cheating. Woah, big news there. Anyway. Of course, the thing is in English and one of the first sentences on it is "If there is anything you do not understand, ask your teacher or the examination supervisor.". Or don't even try talking the exam, is what I say XD
Another sheet also states the sames of the candidates for the oral exam. You take it in pairs and apparently, I've been teamed up with a woman whose name looks like she's from an Eastern Eurpoean country. Which is nice since people from those countries are usually friendly people and have lovely accents ^^ (What's that, backwards racism? X_x)

And no, I'm still not scared. The different types of exams and exercises are all fun and challenging and the overall feel kinda compares to playing Sudoku... if I palyed Sudoku ^_~
So I'll try approaching the whole thing as calmly as possible because I know I'm not totally hopeless =)

ETA: What? I just read that to achieve a grade A, you need 80% and above? I thought that eprcentage was much higher O_o

( Three scenes )

Aaaand we have a bonus!

( In which K scared the shit outta me )

1216 words for Monday. Quite good, I'd say *nods*
This is all for today since I'm off to CPE prep in half an hour and won't be back before 9:30 PM. And then, I'll prolly be too tired to turn on the laptop again ~.~
(I actually stuck a Biffno logo to my prep course note book to remind me of the fun during those dry and frustrating hours ^_^)
But! I finally made it past the introductory stuff (Whoops, that turned out to be a bit long XD) and right into the action. And wow, so far, I'm absolutely lovin' it. Can't wait to get on with it tomorrow!
Right now, I feel like I'm in the middle of a cool movie and I'm the director :D
...
Yeah. Good times.
[/shameless squeeing]

So, I had my first (for the others, it was like, the eleventh, but anyway) CPE prep class yesterday.
And I died.
And came back to life because I had to.
Several times.
For one, about half of the course was missing for some odd reason (the teacher suspected a mix of last week's Carnival and the flu making the rounds).
For another, I felt like being back in highschool. Gap texts, vocabulary discussions and listening comprehension. Holy hell O_O

And that also includes:
- people not being able to use the right tenses unless you tell them
- people who can't pronounce a "th" and don't really seem to bother
- people who switch to German repeatedly because they're running out of words and getting stuck in their own sentences
-people who are unable to follow a discussion on tape that's been recorded in the clearest British English imaginable and at about half the normal talking speed

The teacher is a very funny and friendly, small and chubby black woman who was actually late for class *lol* She has a tendency to REALLY get distracted from the subject we're talking about or the exercise we're doing at the moment and to tell us personal stuff instead. And when I - new student, yasee? - stayed to talk to her afterwards, she told me that it's always difficult to get stuff done in class so a lot of self-study will be in order. Heh, that's fine with me.
Oh, and last but not least: Most people in there apparently don't know jack shit about idioms. And I thought I was bad at those. But apparently, the 'net did teach me quite a few of 'em after all. At least I wouldn't try to sell "the top of the iceberg" to my teacher like certain other people did. Owwies =_=
Long story short: I won't take responsibility for any fits of rage that might occur during the next couple of months.

What really bugs me is that I read the course description beforehand. And it sounds really intimidating. Somehow, afterwards, there wasn't much left of that feeling.
We'll see what's gonna happen tomorrow (second part of class, diferent teacher), but my hopes aren't exactly high.

BTW, am I sounding too arrogant here? If so, feel free to slap me. I'm just a little... surprised at the level of the class right now.

And... Eurobeat people, please stop speeding up songs to fit into your megamixes. Right now, my dear Manuel sounds like he'd had a can of helium before recording "No control" ;_;