Class Roundup: Hong Kong

Though I am confident I did well in Hong Kong and the World, in no way did it end on the same high note that Humanity did. On the other hand, it was my last final, meaning that I was then done with the semester—a fact that I now feel was bittersweet at best.

This final was organized much in the same way as my other finals here at HKU. Given the entire two-hour slot, there were two essays to write with a good selection of prompts. There are hardly any questions asked during the final because the prompts are all approved my other professors, often at other universities, as well as by the university (the department specifically if I remember correctly).

As such, all my finals except this one went by quietly. There were pens righting and the professor staring down students to mitigate the likelihood of cheating, as well as flustered students working all the way up to when time is called. This one was different though in that it was in the Lindsay Rider Sports Centre.

This Lindsay Rider Sports Centre I’d never heard of before. The only sports centers I knew of were the Stanley Ho Sports Centre which I believe is near the Sassoon Road/ Medical School Campus, and the Flora Ho Sports Centre, which I would see on the bus ride to school every day.

So not knowing where this Lindsay Rider Sports Centre was, I figured I’d ask the tutor, and what better time to ask the tutor than during the last tutorial, when the tutor was soliciting questions about the final. So I raised my hand and asked the question, “Where exactly is the Lindsay Rider Sports Centre?” Many people in the twenty-five-person tutorial laughed. Who was I to ask such a stupid question, right?

Well the tutor answered me. I was to go to the Flora Ho Sports Centre and follow the signs, because the two sports centers happened to be connected. Those people in the tutorial that had just laughed at me then took down notes for where they were supposed to go for the final—they were just to principled to ask themselves and just too polite to not laugh at my question.

I showed up on time—though it was more like forty-five minutes early, since I didn’t want to be late and had but a rough idea of where the venue was exactly. I found some people to talk to, friends even (though more like a person and a friend, respectively), so it wasn’t too bad of a wait.

The examination room turned out to be a sizeable gymnasium. It was cold (apparently low 60s are like piercing icicles to me now) and had noisy ventilation that served little to no purpose, seeing that it was freezing. With such a big examination room, it was no surprise that we were sharing the venue with two other classes. It was more of a surprise to me that we were sharing the gym with two math classes, especially after my annoyance during the test.

The clocks started at 9:30 a.m. and I got to work. My hands were freezing but I did my best to warm them up, mostly by starting to write my examination. Almost immediately, they had to make an announcement for one of the math classes. It was to fix a mistake in the answer choices, which, seeing that it was a math final, was understandable. Whatever, back to work.

All of ten minutes later, the other math class had a correction to announce. Unfortunately, this time I was in the middle of my train of thought, and that little statement (after being repeated twice lasting a few minutes) derailed it. I stared down one of the many people administering the examination to voice my frustration.

Unfortunately, this happened throughout the first hour and a half, and I just so happen to be used to silence during written exams, and the exam was only two hours long. Needless to say I didn’t churn out my best piece of work ever. More than likely I will formally complain to the university, knowing that it won’t do anything for me myself.

Oh well, I’m sure I passed. Other assessments for the class included an eight hundred- to one thousand-word editorial-style term paper about a particular subject in Hong Kong. I won’t go into that since I have previously. Other assessments were tutorial participation and lecture participation, which I’m sure I did fine on.