Well, last week... or maybe you might say the week before on the Wednesday I was invigilating an exam.
The clock on the wall which we were going to use as the official clock was an hour and a half slow... we decided to use it anyway, and convinently, as the exam started at 1.30pm it kinda made it simple to work out how much time was left... (not that it's not simple anyway....).
When I made the announcement at making sure that phones were all off the was a little snigger... (from the people who clearly thought it obvious I guess...) there also were some people who reached to turn it off... cool... so we'll be having no interuptions then :-)
So, the exam starts.... about 10 mins in there's a noise sounding distinctly like an incomming message tone... grrrrr.... it was obvious which bag it was coming from (it being the only one at the front), and also obvious who's phone it was (due to her sheepish look...). Not to worry... at least it was only a text.
25 mins later it does it again... and she says to me... "Can I close it?". For them who's not in the know "close" is a literal translation into English from 'foreign' (many languages I think) for "turn off" - coming from opening and closing a shutter to turn on and off gas lights or something I guess... anyway, no she bloody can't close it. I know that it'll be going out of the door if it make another peep... It's one of the odd things about doing the exams... if you bring something valuble and it gets nicked during an exam... no our problem... something valuble shouldn't have been brought to the exam.... also means that when people moan that their iPod they were listening to whilst doing their exam gets confiscated they haven't got a leg to stand on when they don't get it back for a long time / forever.... while their blatant disregard for exam conditions is investigated. I digress.
So, then we're notifed by one of the other candidates that the clock on the wall isn't going at all now.
Arse.
Now, this isn't really a problem as I know by my watch when the exam started... it is however a problem to the watchless souls in the hall infront of me who have no idea how long they've got left. We ponder how to tell them... or if indeed not to tell them at all...
About 15 mins later the clock starts again... now this is more of an issue... 'cause people won't realise that the clock's clearly wrong now (a stopped clock clearly not telling the right time...[other than the twice a day when it does.. yada yada]).... we decide to tell them not to pay attention to the clock.
A little later... we make the dreaded announcement "There are fifteen minutes remaining. Nobody else may leave the examination room until the examination has finished."
5 minutes later "phone girl" gets up out of her seat..... Argggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Clearly my announcements make no sense to her.
So that was that...
In the evening Sarah and John or John and Sarah (depends on which one you ask) came round for food. The planning wasn't too great for this... as in involved them going to the shops and buying most of the food... whoops!
In the evening we went to find the geocache I'd failed to find that late Friday night... Much funny - Sarah was looking all over for it (even under cars?!) it was around the time she was looking suspiciously under a car when an employee of the bookmakers came out for a fag break and watched her with a puzzled/worried look on his face. Teehee. Needless to say, her looking paid off as she was the one who found the cache in the end.
And that is that...