Final Exam: A Major Scam
Hello guys! I was hired by urdzy to blabber about my life. You probably didn't know me, but I am Tomoko. xD I'm using my staff e-mail and I moved my blog and everything there, so that should explain the different names and all. But I'm still the same Tomoko you guys probably only knew as a crazy staff here who's writing unfinished stories... or probably you guys didn't know the crazy stuff or story stuff. LOL. Now you know, right? Right? Right?
So today, I was at the accounting office to pay for my tuition fee and other miscellaneous bills. I was very confident that I didn't have to do any adjustments because I passed all of my subjects. I'd just received my grade in Statics of Rigid Bodies, and I'm kind of elated at the moment because I know I didn't have to repeat any subjects. XD Engineering is hard, too. We have like 4-5 math subjects in one term plus two or three laboratory classes for electric circuits analysis or something. >.> So here goes... There were a lot of people there D: and when I say a lot, the air conditioners were having a hard time keeping the place cold. Well, I'm sure we all know about the thermal equilibrium and all that stuff in Physics. The room was small and other students had their parents in there which contributed to the noise and carbon dioxide that made the room hotter. But I managed to have my fee reach the cashier and I only had to type ten sentences in this blog when my name was called and the official receipt was given.
I have to say I'm very lucky in one subject, which is Statics. As in, extremely lucky. I don't know if it's some kind of sick and twisted fortune star that befell on me. Because I know if I fail the final exam in that subject, I would be failing it, too. My quizzes were not too good - I failed quizzes one and two. My third quiz was never given but I am very sure it failed, too. So flashback before the exam, I went out of my way to study Statics. Slept at 8, woke up at 1 am and studied until 9 am before I went to school. All the while though, I felt like my notes were insufficient for me to make it to a passing grade. *sobs* I forgot to go to the chapel to pray for my salvation, plus I somehow encountered something irritating that day that made me swore and swore all through out. So I went to the designated room of the exam and when I saw the proctor-in-charge, my heart almost stopped dead. When the final exam questions and the scantrons were handed out, I scanned through the pages and I almost cursed loudly. So, I tried my best to answer and solve everything. However, the test was a multiple choice of 50 items, 2 points each with 4 letter choices (A, B, C, D) each number. That gives me a very low probability of getting the correct answer. The fifth choice to be shaded, (named "E") was when the answer could not be found in the four choices given. How cool is that?! The final exam lasted for three hours. And when the professor stood up, I had only shaded 10 certain items, which was equal to 20 points. OH DEAR GAD! So during the last 15 minutes, I spent 3 minutes calculating the score I needed in order to have the least passing grade for the subject. The calculator reflected a 51.666666 worth of points in the finals and my eyes were like @_@. The remaining time was for the shotgun. Shotgun means randomly deciding which of the choices - A, B, C, D or E - will be the correct one for a number, and shading the corresponding letters in the answer sheet provided. The final exam was a scam, indeed. A scam, I must repeat. I was chanting that spell until the time was up. The bell rang and I knew it would be my downfall, and so is yours if you can't decode the key today. You have to know what I used in order to record my answers in the final exam.
After the dilemma, my friends and I chatted in our own Facebook private group about the final exam. We all had this thought in unison: The final exam is truly a hoax, indeed. We also had this uniform speculation regarding the contributors in the final exam: They were nothing but a bunch of sadists who wanted to take away the dreams and future of aspiring candidates for the honor roll this term. And truly they were! Even during the vacation, I never get to enjoy it because I was worrying about my final grade in there. Fast forward to the grade-giving day, September 1, 2011, Statics grade didn't show up, instead a dash. Cold-sweat broke out. I consulted with my classmates and theirs were also displayed as dashes. I was relieved and worried, too, if I will pass or not. We called the professor and he said he submitted the grades already and there must be a problem with the school's site that's why it was never showing up. And just today, the website reflected my grade and I passed. *huge sigh of relief* And so it followed that I was able to pay the fee in relief, because it will be a great hassle if I failed the subject. Also, it's a good thing because my parents will not have their bloods boil at me. LOL.
{RELEASES}
1.Ano Ko to Issho volume 03 chapter 09 - My favorite part is the author's notes - be sure to look them over! So funny! =D
2.Hyper Baby volume 02 chapter 09 - Bad guys on the move!
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i have no idea what's your objective with this "decode the password business", there are other ways to stop those creepy sites that "steal" your scanlations... but anyway, its up to you to decide how you go about it.
ReplyDeletei simply came to show my indignation. i always read you posts and try to guess the password, but its come to a point were it's getting annoying. well, life goes on, and i personally know my opinion isn't worth nothing here, but i just came to say that you lost a fan that appreciates all the hard work you do.
keep up the good work. and to all the people who, like me, got tired... better luck some other time. l0ol
hugs & kisses
lyanthros
It was a bit challenging but got it on the third try. Thank you for your hard work and CONGRATULATIONS for passing such challenging classes!
ReplyDelete@lyanthrosThank you for your comment. I understand that things can become frustrating at times, and it's in no way our intention to make it impossible to read our releases. And this is why for those who can't "decode the password" (or just read the passage since it's always in each post) we have our handy-dandy online reader.
ReplyDeleteI understand that this may not be the best way to go about trying to put some blockade between us and people who make money off of scanlations, but I figured that this was a better way than asking each of you to make X amount of posts to see the release. That way it's still open for anyone that is willing to put forth the time to read.
And speaking of the creepy sites, it's really not the fact that they "steal" our works as much as it's that they make money off of it. And no, I'm not personally hurting for cash, so this isn't a "Wah! I'm not making money!" because as you can see FG doesn't have any ads or donation pages or anything that evokes money coming into our lair. Because scanlation is something that should be kept free.
As far as today's password, this post was written by our lovely Tomoko. It being her first time to write on this blog I expected some bumps, so I made sure, by reading it, that the password could be found and worked for each release. And seeing that not only I but a plethora of others have found it I know that it is attainable.
So point of story, is I'm sorry if these methods upset you. If you are wondering if I'm planning on using the password system forever, the answer would be no, but at the same time will I personally be scanlating forever - again the answer is no.
I truly do wish you the best on your journey and I hope that you will continue to support all your local scan teams that you come across. :)
Thank you for the great post Tomoko! =D
ReplyDeleteI, for one, enjoy the password hunt!
ReplyDeleteI end up reading and reading the same post over and over again and I smack my head real hard when the password is right there, so freaking obvious yet my eyes kept missing them. And when I finally found them, it's like a feeling of a great accomplishment! HAHAHAH.
Please don't get discouraged by people who do not like this idea, dear FG staff. You cannot please everyone. There will be people who will like it (like I do), there will be people who won't. It's called difference. You can't simply make everyone like your way :)
I prefer password hunt rather than forums that ask people to get a minimum 50 or a 100 posts just to get their downloads. grr. FG's release method makes my mind working! ;D so keep it up!
thanks so much for the releases and the hard work. looking forward to more password hunt! ;D
While I understand the reasoning between trying to prevent your projects from being uploaded to sites which make money off your hard work, this site can no longer say it's projects are 100% free.
ReplyDeleteFree has been negated as is evidenced by the definition of what free means:
1. Not controlled by obligation or the will of another
2. Not affected or restricted by a given condition or circumstance
3. Not subject to a given condition
4. Given freely without restriction
As Forbidden Garden is no longer making their scans available to download free of charge/restriction/etc they've become like what they detest, sharing sites like MT and etc.
I've read the post above about four times. I have been out of school for over twenty-five years. We weren't even allowed to use calculators in school to solve math equations.
I'd have thought that as when I was in high school, the instrument used to mark answers on your test paper was a number two pencil. Guess things are done differently now.
Anyway, I don't use online readers. I download everything and read it at my leisure. I've been away from reading manga for several months so I wasn't aware you all had started doing this.
Guess, I'll continue to out on FG projects.
Thanks for all the hard work put forth by you all and hope things continue to go well for the group in the future.
Thanks a ton for the release! I've been waiting for it. As for the password hunt this time is a bit difficult especially for people like me who has no idea what the meaning of it is (in my country we do not call it in that name). Anyway I succeed in the second time though ^^"
ReplyDeleteI must say that I really like to password hunting, but I have to admitt that this time I have no idea :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your release. I'm also from another country so it was quite difficult to find the correct pw. It might have been better to use some common word and not some brand name...
ReplyDelete@Anonymous #4: While I agree that the password hunt was fairly difficult and tedious this time around (my first guess also being "pencil"), it is in no way fair to compare fg to mt or some other manga aggregator site.
WOW! Though I truly appreciate Forbidden Garden hard work and stuff, today, I have no intention of re-reading for the password. I started reading the whole thing and I was like, omg, I was that way too. I was feeling a sort of kinship with the writer. Never once did I think about looking for a password. Sorry to say but sometimes hiding a password in a long essay is kind of frustrating for some people when the first thought in their head was never to "look for a password". Thus re-reading it is kind of pointless. Also, I am going to quote what the writer said about her day cuz this is exactly what I am feeling right now, "I somehow encountered something irritating that day that made me swore and swore all through out." I guess we now know what I encountered. TGIF!
ReplyDeleteGosh I'm stumped! Tried about 20 different passwords but haven't gotten it yet >.> Haha but it's quite fun and anyway for those who complain about it, if you're just trying to read the chapter you can always use the online reader, so I find it quite okay. But maybe as a staff I'm biased in favour of FG :D
ReplyDeleteThank you for release!
ReplyDeleteWow! Finally, I manage to find the password!!!
Thanks for the release!
ReplyDeleteI thought the password was delightfully difficult this time around and for the first time, thought about giving up (of course I didn't, not for Ano ko to Issho, one of my fave projects). In the end, the key was to stop freaking out with impatience, read really carefully and use a little logic and the answer clicked. Ahhh it was totally worth it feeling like a complete idiot for a couple of minutes because once the password checks out you feel so much better.
wheww... it REALLY is hard this time. I finnaly got the answer after giving up for days. thanks for the release anyway :)
ReplyDelete@urdzy HAHA! Thank you, too, for editing the post <3 Believe me, readers, you wouldn't have guessed if urdzy didn't edit it xD And may I apologize for disappearing? I do have something to rant about. The term is closing on December 18 which happens to host the hell week starting now xD Anway >:D< I wanna get back to you guys this December perhaps? :)
ReplyDeleteCheers!
^^; This reminded me of my own traumatic days as in undergrad engineering. There was this one idiot professor, who thought it'd be cool if the highest grade was 40 with the average being 20. In a department where curving grades was not allowed, he did it anyway by hacking down the highest grade and redrawing the cutoff from about 90-80-70 to about 40-30-20.
ReplyDeleteI normally enjoy password hunts, but this one was a bit traumatizing for me.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that the password will turn out to be some sort of pencil or other writing implement that is standard in what I'm guessing is the US? The problem is that for many of us who are not from your country we might not have a standard type of pencil that is used, it might be called something entirely different or there may be other complications. (For example, in my country there isn't really any standard, you just use whatever kind of writing implement you're most comfortable with. It's also very rare to have multiple choice exams, students are instead expected to write the answer down. I've gone through university all the way from tiny undergrad to the years spent as a postgrad and I think I may have had about 10 multiple choice -questions-, not exams but QUESTIONS, in all that time, the rest of them being the kind where you pretty much have to know the answer and can't really do this "shotgun" thing you're talking about.)
I'm kind of ok with the password-hunts (can't say I love it, but it's better than some of the alternatives). But may I just suggest that you, as far as possible, avoid using password that might seem obvious to you but nearly impossible for the rest of us to figure out? It seems to be quite common for particularly US americans to be quite US-centric, but please remember that the rest of the world exist as well and we might do some things very differently from you.
After a bunch of tries I gave up. I mean: yes, it's worth spending A BIT of extra time searching and figuring out the password, but after a while you find that you just have to weigh all the useful stuff you could have done in the time you've been trying out possible answers against the actual pleasure of reading one or two chapters... and then the gratitude you usually feel for the scanlators hard work is replaced by a nagging feeling of resentment for the time you've wasted. (Especially if you've still not managed to figure the password out.) Personally I'll probably be giving up on your group, I'll be sad to miss out on the end of the series that I'm following, but I'll just write them off as series that were just never finished.
I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to be honest with you and I hope you'll not hold it against me. I know that my opinion doesn't matter since I'm not that important, so I'll just say bye and thanks for things up until now.
/Anne
PS. No, I don't like using online readers so I don't really consider that an option.
The password is: scantrons
ReplyDeleteHuh? What's a scantron? (Or is it always plural?)
ReplyDelete-googles-
Oh... I'd never heard of that before. We don't use it in my country. Thanks for the help, that would have been impossible otherwise.
I don't understand how this password thing works. How did scantrons figure in the blog entry?
ReplyDeleteOh seriously??? God help me... what kind of password was that?! I have mixed feelings...
ReplyDeletewooww.. i really cant guess the password if you didnt spoiler it. well, it's cool sometimes, but after several times reading and you have no idea at all, it's overwhelming
ReplyDelete