Common Sense Bound and Gagged

There are times in my life when, sadly, I have completely ignored common sense. When I have gone so far as to bind it to a chair kicking and screaming, and then gag it. Taking my scoping exam was one of those times.

I'd like to say that my scoping class had gone well. I hoped that I would wow the instructors with my grammar skills, but I did go to school for that and it is my career, so it'd be embarrassing if I didn't do reasonably well. My instructors have provided positive feedback to my work, complete with blinking smiley faces and full-page pictures of Tigger leaping into a pile of leaves. I'm not really into clip-art for corresponding, and especially not between adults, but whatever floats their boat, as it were.

Then came the test. I was ready. I knew my stuff and I could use the hundreds of pages of reference materials to help me, so although I knew the test would take a while, I was pretty confident.

I got the test via email. I printed it out and proceeded to answer the questions by hand. I used my best handwriting and only had to scribble out one answer, but it was pretty contained and I hoped it would slide. It took me four hours to complete the test because I checked and double-checked my answers. I wanted to leave this wretched course with a bang, not a whimper.

The trick was figuring out how to send the test back. It was pretty long. I looked at the directions on the test. It said to do my best...blah blah blah...return the document...blah blah blah. I had visions of receiving the only perfect score. Of my directors speaking of me in awe in years to come. Monuments would be erected in my name. If only I could figure out how to send this darn test. Ah-ha! My scanner! I would scan this rather large document and send it via email to my director! Not only would she be amazed at my test, I could also show her my tech savvy. I took the document to my printer/scanner/copy machine and fed it into the device. When it had scanned all 10 pages of the test (it made some choking and gurgling sounds and seemed to be working hard) my computer had to do something to itself to be able to send such a large document. In fact, it had to make a whole new icon: "Large Attachments." My computer informed me that this would be a 30 MB file.

It was at this point that my common sense tried to tell me to abandon the scanner idea. 30 MB sounded like a lot. "Mega" sounded like a big number, but then so did "kila" and whatever other unites of measure computers use. In the back of my mind, my bound and gagged common sense was writhing against its ties and practically screaming at me, "Abort! Abort!" Did I listen? Sadly, I did not. I sent the large document to my director, scanned from my now-smoking machine.

I blithely went about my day. I received an email from my instructor, Cathy. It went something like this: "Hi Janae. Sadly I will not be able to accept this gargantuan document from you and you will have to redo it. Please use your brain this time and type it out using the test I will REsend and send it back on a much smaller Word document. Please don't use your horrible, scribbly handwriting that you have taught third graders with and for heaven's sake don't scan the document and then send me a $%^&* 30 MB file. Moron. Oh, and P.S., there will be no monument." Then she had one of those little blinking smiley faces at the end of her letter to mock me.

My common sense looked at me beseechingly from above the gag. I removed the obstruction and it patiently told me how to follow the instructions. It took me another hour (for a grand total of 5 hours) to type out the test. When I told my mother what had happened, she laughed and made up several metaphors of me getting tangled up in the finish line, running off the race track all together, etc, etc. I am glad I can entertain.

I missed four on the test.