This past Thursday I had a test (all short/long answer questions) for one of my uni classes which had to be completed in the lab within a one hour time constraint. The class is scheduled to be, and usually always lasts, for 1 1/2 hours. Why we were only allowed one hour to complete it is utterly beyond me… but anyway.
I show up to class (an achievement) early (another achievement) because I am ready to write this stupid thing and pass the crap out of it. My mindset was good, I was feeling the lure of a passing grade that morning. In fact I was in such a positive mindset that I could have barfed up some optimism and still had enough left over to be slightly obnoxious.
I studied for this test. So hard. Okay, that was a lie. I studied a little. And by a little I mean the absolute-last-minute-morning-of-the-test kind of studying. But I still knew enough about the material to wing it and do reasonably well. By my wager I had just the right amount of knowledge to pull off a nice B and feel relaxed about it.
So I’m sitting there in the lab, early, ready to go and thinking yeah, I can do this. I can pass this test! My god it’s an achievable thing. Just believe, just believe! I look to the prof in mildly tense anticipation waiting for her to give the okay to click the START TEST button. When at last she gives us all the go ahead I take a deep breath, and click. The questions pop up, and as I read through them an immense flood of relief washes over me because I know most of the answers. By some miracle, I have been given the knowledge to succeed. I sat there and thought thank you, universe! I love you.
Well let me tell you, that appreciation got me NOWHERE, and the promise of optimism is nothing but a facade to set you up for disappointment… I may be exaggerating a little here. But disappointingly..
I failed the test. Not because I didn’t know the answers, for I surely knew enough of them to pass. So how then did I fall short of success? Well…
I had to use a mac to do it.
That’s right, I am BLAMING the mac for my failure of this test. If the mac were a child I would send it to sit in the corner, or make it stand shamefully beneath a dunce cap for its ridiculous behaviour. I would even let the other kids tease it. I mean imagine my annoyance. I woke up early to read and study things I don’t care about in order to pass a test, and because of the mac, I failed anyway. Thanks a lot, apple inc!
Now before you think I’m trying to justify my failures by blaming apple products, allow me to explain. I have never had any unreasonable distaste for pretty laptops and snazzy products. I am not one of these anti-mac people who hate everything apple. I even have an ipod. So you know my grievances must be legitimate.
Before this test I had never operated a mac computer for longer than twenty seconds. I don’t even know how to describe what went wrong except that my test window disappeared, random useless windows APpeared, I couldn’t right click, I didn’t know where the minimize and maximize buttons were, random things popped up when I pushed certain buttons that wouldn’t go away, and on, and on. It was absolutely the most ridiculous thing ever. And the worst part is, I started getting so FRUSTRATED. I was fuming. I wanted to throw the keyboard across the room. Several times I imagined myself screaming aloud in unbridled rage WHAT IS THIS BULLSHIT! and then grabbing my stuff and stomping out of the room like some sort of crazy child having a temper tantrum. I was so mad it was comical, because no matter what I did I could not figure out how to make it function properly, like a PC.
This was me at the end of this horrific mac experience:
By the time the test was over I had only managed to complete maybe half the questions, and not even the important ones worth the most marks. When the prof walked by and kindly asked me if I had finished, I smiled bitterly and said “For better or for worse, emphasis on the worse.” And then I imagined burning the lab down so that I would have my vengeance against the computer that damned my grade.
I’m considering blaming apple products for all of my life problems in the future. It feels good.
Some call it red 