Testing times as a simple blunder leads to graveyard shift
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By Karen Anderson
It’s been another funny old week this week.
We were supposed to be visiting my mother-in-law, something we do every April and October.
But, Covid and increased restrictions in the Newcastle area saw to that. It’s really difficult for her that we are not there as it’s now over a year since she clapped eyes on us. We hope there is better news in the spring, and hope that she stays safe and well until we canget there.
What to do with another week and nowhere to go? I decided I would rescue the spare bedroom from the massive Lego and Hot Wheels collections to create a home office. Since March, I have been perched in a corner of the living room. But this has meant that my work is always there on weekends and days off, reminding me that the emails are still coming in. I should have a space that I can be shut away in when working, and shut the door on when not.
The boy and I set about it with differing levels of enthusiasm, but we did it in a day and it has the added bonus of being a completely bland background for video calls! No racks of bookcases for nosey callers to pore over to decide what my taste reveals about my character.
What to do for the rest of the week? I have been studying on and off for the last eight years; latterly a foundation course in accounting. The first part went as normal via a UHI evening class, but then Covid intervened and the course was put on hold for the summer and then restarted online.
The exam was another issue though.Unfortunately, UHI are unable to hold exams on site at the moment, so the body who provided the exam set up remote invigilation – someone somewhat creepily watching you for two hours through your webcam.
The cancelled holiday presented the perfect opportunity for cramming and then the exam at the end of the week. I booked it online, somewhat disappointed that the only times available were around lunchtime but settling for 1.20 as it would give me time to eat first and
be raring to go.
Best laid plans and all that. The revision went well, and when I logged into my weekly tutorial on Wednesday, one of the other students asked me to run through the process of booking the exam. I shared my screen to show them a couple of emails that they would receive, and one (who I am very grateful to) pointed out that there were two very important letters I had missed on the email – A.M.
Yep! The body I was doing this for is based in America, and the times I had been offered were to suit them. So, I would not be having an early lunch on Friday. I’d be getting no sleep at all on Thursday night. What a wally! It had simply not entered my head that the times offered would be anything other than normal UK office hours. Another lesson learned alongside the ones I learned to thankfully pass the exam in a surreal session which I finished at 3.40am.
Now I am going to join the boy on a gap year – possibly longer – and the only studying I am going to do is learning to crochet which I have always meant to do. But with no timetable and definitely no exams!
Karen is Mum to an autistic teenager and campaigns for the rights of unpaid carers to be supported in their caring role and involved in the decisions that affect their lives and the lives of the people they care for. You can find her on twitter @Karen4Carers.
