Lost cat

My cat got lost (is is not home 5 days already ;/) so I told my parents we should go to ask some people around if they seen him. My parents told me: "Noone did, people don't care about cats." and refused to do this (they only asked our nearest neighbor a few days ago - he told us he seen the cat Wednesday morning) so I decided to go alone. I choose an area of rent gardens close to my house because I figured out it is a nice spot for a cat to hunt for mouses so Ipek (my cat) might be there or at least he might come there if he is hungry and there must be a lot of people there because it was very sunny day. 

At first I was scared. I entered the area looking around, feeling like I am not supposed to be there - I am not a resident of those and I was not a quest so I was feeling like encroaching someones territory, uninvited and unwanted.  But I told myself it is something that has to be done and I am the only one who can do this because my stupid parents don't give a damn and it is totally ok to walk there because I am not doing anything back and there is like 20 gardens in the area so walking the track between those doesn't make me look suspicious at all.

I come to the fence of the first garden. An old woman was sitting on a deckchair there. I asked her: "Umm... excuse me. Have you seen a cat? Black-orange, with long fur and very big tail, like a squirrel.". "There is a lot of cats walking here. I have seen a orange one passing by..."  -she answered. "Not orange. Black-orange. Almost all black, just with some orange spots on it's back. And I don't mean today. The cat got lost this Monday and I am trying to figure out where is the territory he used to hunt at so I get a clue where to look for him. Here, its his photo.". Then I showed her a photo of the cat and she said she haven't seen him around but told me to ask other people and look near the area of pond in the middle of gardens. So I did.

I was asking and showing the photo to anyone I seen (however I was not desperate enough to call a man using loud lawnmower, too much noise for me) and I found the pond I had no idea it is there before. There was no cats around though and almost none of those people seen my cat. But the people renting a garden nearest to the pond said they know my cat and seen him many times. Then the owner of the garden told me he seen the cat last Wednesday near the corner shop two streets away. It was some good news. It was 2nd time someone told me he seen the cat last Wednesday in our area. The cat got lost in the Monday so it means he might be alive, just walking around. I was afraid my neighbor was wrong but second person saying the same confirms his words.

I went back to the house and told my mom to go with me to check the shop area. She agreed since she had to do some shopping anyway. Then problems started. I can do it if I am alone but if there is someone with better social skills around I prefer if they do the talking. My mom is a secretary and likes her job, so she should have no problem getting information from strangers. But she wasn't doing anything. She did the shopping and got to pay. I asked her silently: "Will you ask?", she nodded but was doing nothing. I repeated: "Will you?". "Then ask her yourself." - my mom answered. That was unfair. Why was I supposed to do it? I forced her "You ask. You are better with people.". Then she asked and I showed the photo. Unfortunately the shopkeeper said she havent seen the cat since she works here only on weekends.  

We left the shop and walked around a bit. We seen some people in the gardens around houses. I told my mom to ask them but her answer was "They are busy." and when I forced she told me "Then do it if you care that much". Damn it. I come to a woman living close to the shop and asked her. She didn't even look at me or the photo and told me she haven't seen any cat. I got discouraged. I didn't ask anybody else, just went home.

I hope the cat is going to go back. The shop is not that far from my house so if he is really somewhere there he should be able to find the way when he feels like it. So far the weather is nice and I bet there is a lot of mouses around so I guess the cat feels no need to return home just now. Cats can go out for even a few months and then return as if nothing happen, right?

The Exam

Today I had an exam. The national one that gives a prove that I am able to fix computers. 

The exam was in a school in another city - one that I have been inside only 2 times in my life. And I was supposed to apear there at 7:15 in the morning (while the exam was supposed to start at 8AM) which is totally against my biological clock. No surprise I couldn't fall asleep the night before so I ended up sleeping only 5h. In fact it is partly my fault too - at 11PM I reminded I need to prepare clothes for the morning and I should read about something I apperently "had no time" for before (because I decided to play a game instead...). 

So I ended up falling asleep at 1AM (or some time later - the ticking of a clock was really disturbing me, I got oversensitive again) and waking up at 6AM. Not fun at all.

Anyway. I finally wake up and went to the school.My mom gave me a ride there before her work. It looked like I was the 1st of my group but my classmates apeared soon. We started to talk about what we know and what we suppose may be on the exam. A friend of my talked about the thing I was reading about in the middle of night. Everyone was stressed. I was stressed too but I was able to hold the feeling down. I mean. Stress before exam is a normal thing but I was pretty sure I am well prepared. After all I got nearly 90% from the practice exam we had a few weeks ago in the same classroom. "I have to think positive, there is nothing to be scared of, you will do well, if not you - who will?" - I was saying to myself.

The teacher apeared. He told us some data to remember. He apperently seen the questions already but shh, it's a secret. I totally understood what he is speaking about and I instantly wrote the info in my brain storage. Yeah, I got something like that. And I got suprised other people had trouble remembering and understanding the info. It wasn't that hard. It was just 3 numbers: 40, 12 and 2 and a info where and what order to put them in. I quess I was well prepared for the exam after all.

Soon we put our mobile phones and stuff in a seperate room (we were not allowed to have them with us during the exam) and the exam started. I got stressed out. "What now? What if I don't know what do do? What if they consider me cheating while I am not? What if I dodnt know the answers for any question?" and then I told myself "Kate, calm down. Remember what you did right before the end of year exam on the University 2 years ago? Smile.". So I smiled. The stress disapeared. The smile way seem to always work for me. While other people smile when they are happy my smile actually makes me happy and relaxed. I know my brain works a wierd way...

So I looked at the papers. I did all the preparations (writting my number, the ID of my group etc.) and read the questions. First surprise, a good one. "Mount a DVD drive to the computer". Guess what! That was exackly the same thing I got my 90% from on the practice exam I was doing in the classroom a few weeks before! Other people got other questions back then but I wa sthe one and the only one who got to practice with the DVD. Lucky. Second surprise. Not so good one. "Write what type of RAID should make the best use for editing movies? Point adventages and disadventages of it." (I am pretty sure I translated it wrong but it was something like that). I had no clue... I mean - I did know there are at least 4 kinds of RAIDs (0,1,2 and 3) but I totally forgot to read about them and last time I heard about hem on a lesson 2 months ago. And it was a huge question, we were supposed to write an A4 essay about this. Crap. 

"No, you won't!" - I told myself, feeling an panic attack coming "You know enough to pass the exam even if you write nothing about the RAIDs, just do the other stuffs. It's gonna be fine.". And I started to work on the other stuffs. I succesfully mounted the DVD and RAMs I was supposed to, I turned the computer on and I installed Windows. While the OS was installing I read the papers again and answered anything I was able to without entering the system (that included the question the numbers 40, 12, 2 were answer for, teacher was honest). 

Then only thing left was the poor RAID question. "Ok, Kate. You can do it. What was it? Think. What is happening when someone is editing a movie? Yup, the movie is being read and written on a HDD. Can a single HDD do both on the same time?", "No, it cannot.", "Is is possible to read from one HDD and write on another at the same time?", "Yes, it is, there was a RAID doing this.", "Ok. Which RAID could it be?", "Hey, I got this! Most of the RAIDSs write and read on all the drives at the same time but there was one that puts the date once on one drive, then on another and so on. The first one I read about. Was it the RAID 0?", "Correct.", "It was THAT easy? Thanks long term memory!". (It is good to talk with your own thoughts, isn't it? At least you talk with someone smart. :D) Then I thought it out and put some adventages and disadventages as they wanted me to. I got a feeling I got it right. 

What's funny I didn't really understand the RAID thing back then. I didn't see any practical use for this.

Continuating the exam I created user account they wanted me to... I had some problem with that because the question got double meaning and I was not sure which one is correct so I asked one of the teachers watching over us how I am supposed to understand this. She told me something very stupid about that (apperently she had no clue about computers...) so I nodded and when she left I just choosed one of the interpretations that looked slightly more logical to me. Soon after I realised it was the right choice.

Then I got into the system, installed drivers, the printer, created other user accounts, worked out the double meaning thing of the users question, checked the HDD with HD Tune, created the partition using the thing I learned last night at 11PM (lucky me!)... basically I didn't everything they asked me for and I ended up with 1h 15 mins free time (the whole exam was supposed to take 2,5h...). I decided it wouldnt be wise to finish with only half of the exam time passed so I took my time to double check my answers and add some more data that wasnt nessasary but might give me some additional points.

Then I heard one of the teachers asking "Are you done?", I looked around. My friend was preparing to leave. "Yes, as soon as I check this one more time." It was 45 mins of time left. 

"I am done." - I said, getting my stuff The teacher come to my desk, checked if all the stuffs I was supposed to leave are in right order and another teacher walked me to the room we had our mobile phones and stuff. There he asked me how I did. I said I answered every question. "Did you answer the RAID question?", "Yes.", "What did you choose?", "Raid 0, it was the best choice, wasn't it?", "It was. Congratulations. You got this question right.". I left the exam happy. Of course - I probably did some mistakes but the fact I answered all the questions and the question I got most doubts about ended up to be right was very calming. 

Soon after my friend left too. She come to me and we started to talk about the exam. I was quite suprised. She considered some questions hard (noone, maybe except RAID was hard for me) and she was not able to do the partition thing although she was telling us how to do it right before the exam started. She apperently did 3 other stupid mistakes. "You got stressed out, right?" - I asked, wanting a comfirmation. I had no clue why else she could do something so stupid and forget about a thing she was talking so much before the exam. "No, not really.". Was she lying? Before I managed to made up another question another friend of my come out of the classroom. So the 3 of 4 best students were there (the 4th got exam at another hour).

"How did you do?" - I asked and the other friend started to describe. I got surprised again - he also did some stupid mistakes that I could never say he can do.He got same IQ as me! He is very smart! And he is always so calm... Did he get stressed out as the first friend did? (She got lower IQ than we but she spends a lot of time learning so she gets straight A just as we do). I asked. He said no. Were they lying or there was another reason than stress for their mistakes? Or maybe they did no mistakes but were pretending they did so they wont be considered narcistic or something? But whats the point? Why lie you did a mistake if you didnt? It makes no sense. Well. I was not able to ask them for a reason because they started to argue about a question and I decided to explain it to them.

Another 20 minutes passed and 2 more students left the classroom. We asked them if they answered everything. One said "Yes", the other made a stupid face and said "Pff". I quess it was something like "You are joking, right? Of course I didn't.". The discussion continued, I explained the RAID thing to the guys. After a while the exam time was up ad the last student together with the teacher left the classroom. The teacher come to us and said to me "I don't know exackly how many points you got but I seen one minus on your card that the other teacher was checking". "Just one minus?" - I asked, surprised. There was 100 points to get, one minus was getting me at 99 points, it seemed impossible even with the confidence I got. "Well, one minus on the part I have seen.". That was more like it. But still. I don't know how big was the part he seen but even if he seen only the part covering 5 points (which can be checked within a few seconds, but I suppose there is about 25 points on each key page). One minus in those 5 makes me average of 80% correct answers. It looks good so far. Results in August. I can't wait. I got a feeling that if I am not going to pass it then noone will. And the decision who passes and who doesn't is going to depend on the average points of all the students and I would definitelly be above the average.

When I finally left the school something catched my eye on the grass... 4 clover leaf. I haven found a 4 clover leaf like this for ages. I usually find one if I am looking for them out of boredom but never just by passing by. It was apperently really a lucky day for me!