An anthology series containing memorable scenes of my life as a Nursing Student in the Philippines. This series will include a broad range of stories, such as comical moments and even those lutang escapades.
"Mariah, turn on your camera! The quiz is about to start."
Everything happened in a flash. It wasn't always like this.
"Where's Belle? I'll mark your quiz as invalid if you won't open your camera."
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The bliss of hanging out with my barkada felt within yesterday's reach. But now, I'm imprisoned within the four corners of my laptop screen longing for the past. It's futile to lull over what has been done, but I can't get myself to imagine how everyone would fare better in a face-to-face setup. Definitely much more motivated than the snoozefest I'm in.
They say that interesting things pop up at times you'd least expect. I've come across that phase where just about anything amuses me—from browsing memes to nitpicking my professors. I do see how that makes me immature at times, but hey. It's better than brooding over the lockdown.
One of the professors that I frequently mess up with is Professor Lucy. She's old—perhaps too old—and her teaching methods are even more dated. That's what makes her quirky. At least, that's how I view her. She's the perfect prey to fall victim to tricks and schemes. Still, she's got the eyes of an eagle. Too perilous to move your eyeballs an inch away from the screen.
For others, she's hailed as a Rap God due to her speed in reading everything on her slides. A challenge. The pure speed in which she dashes from one topic to other tires even the most studious student. When you hear her beguilingly smooth voice, time almost stops. Perhaps she could finish an entire textbook within six hours if she wanted to. That's why she's one of the more dangerous professors I've met—the number of topics she could cover in a single lecture gets dragged and condensed into a ten-item quiz.
Of course, the only reason I'm able to put up with her antics is that I find her otherwise snide commentary ridiculous. Take more than half a second to think about an answer? You'll be accused of using Google, or as to how she says it: Gugl. She'll even prey on you if you aren't keen on answering correctly. It takes more than a prayer to avoid her from calling your attention. Jusme.
When it comes to conducting quizzes, we have a policy in my uni to always have your camera turned on for proctorship. Funny how they never put it up with periodic exams. There isn't much protection against cheating either. Most of the imbeciles that barely passed the previous semesters suddenly come out as the cream of the crop. Bullshit. Despite that, I don't take their underhanded methods heavily. In a culture where grades are being gratified more than actual learning, you'd think that getting an easy uno would give them a false sense of achievement. On the contrary, they just become entitled to receiving marks they don't even deserve.
Professor Lucy, being the old geezer she is, used to rely on manual checking of answers. She'd simply boot up a PowerPoint presentation containing the questions, and we'd write them down and send our answers privately. It took the entire batch by surprise when she suddenly showed up with a quiz configured online. To think that she'd actually learn how to set up quizzes on our uni platform. I'm proud of her, perhaps.
