Having bottled 50% of my exams because of a competition, I'm determined to give it socks for the remaining 50%.  However this get-up-and-go spirit is somewhat dampened by a recent incident.  Friday last (May 7th) saw me in a bit of a pickle.  

We're allowed dictionaries in our French exam.  Standard operating procedure is for the inspectors to spot check them, making sure there is no undictionaryesque material in them.  Much to my surprise, I had two sheets stuffed into my dictionary - these bad boys are over 2000 pages long so one would easily miss two flimsy sheets.  This set the aul' biddy superintendent off like a rocket.  Fair enough, this is a serious 'breach of examination regulations', but their behavior that followed was a breach in a little thing called etiquette.  They caused a rousing fuss, which not only disturbed me for a good 35 minutes, it stirred up a wave of distraction in the exam.  

All eyes were on yours truly, The Cheater.  I'm not blaming my fellow students for this, hard for them to help it since one of the supervisors had practically taken up residence beside me.  At one point, she snatched the EXAM PAPER out of my hand, accusing my of bringing other 'ex-rated material' into the exam.  Really love, the exam paper?  On a final note, I'd like to point out that the two sheets found in my dictionary were rough work, and I didn't even answer the question that they referred to.

So, why the huffing and puffing now?  Yesterday I got an email from the President's (of the university, not Ireland) secretary requesting me to meet with the 'University Advocate' next Wednesday to address my 'breach of examination regulations'.  Given the 30 plus minutes lost in the exam, this has already screwed me over enough.  What more?  Will they ask me to repeat?  Get real!  Any professional supervisor, would have given me no more than a finger wagging at the time, and held me back after the exam to give me the lo down on how this would be dealt by student services.

Would love to hear your advice, thoughts and opinions...