Successful Argument 101
so my computer refuses to load up secure exam. That is some silly
software that we have that keeps us from cheating on our law school
exams. My secure exam software was not working correctly, last
semester, so I hand wrote my exams. Pain in the ass. I blame my c+ in
evidence on handwriting the exam, not apparently, my inability
to master a rule based course. Strangely, I can put evidence
rules into the most mundane situations, but not apparently on an exam.
O well. So this semester I want to type my exams using stinky secure
exam. So I registered on time, but you have to upload a practice exam
to the network so that IT can make sure your exam works. There
was a deadline of the friday before spring break, the 9th to upload
this. I admittedly forgot about the entire thing until Saturday the
10th. I go to run secure exam and it does not work. O well, I
say, I will deal with it when I get back from spring break.
In business orgs today, I casually mention to my friend Asseff that I
needed to talk to the Dean about secure exam b/c I'd missed the
deadline.
Asseff: good luck on that. Dean H*** made a whole bunch of first years
write a brief on why they missed the deadline and still would not let
then take it.
Me: Ha! funny joke.
Asseff: I'm not joking.
Me: Ha! funny joke. A brief. (side note: first years live in
fear of an appellate brief they have to do and this would be a
particularly heinious punishment see blog from March 05 for gentle
writer's own brief related trauma)
Asseff: Seriously
Me: If you were joking that would be funny.
So I realized, if I marched in and tried to relitigate the same stupid
deadline missing issue with Dean H*** I was not going to prevail. Hmmm,
maybe if I try a different issue based on the facts here being so
totally different (e.g. practice law).
Me: Dean H***, I need to talk to you about two words you do not want to hear.
Dean: What?
Me: Secure exam. I've technically missed the upload deadline.
Dean: Why?
Me: My computer does not work with the software so I can't upload anything.
really this should be the end of it, either "get out of here" or "you
are forgiven". Insead, in true lawyer form, he looked at the school
policy, the honor code and the IT code and found an ambiguity in
whether or not students were indeed required to upload exams that they
could not actually create when they had software issues.
So I got out with a stern warning. Sure enough he sent the email to IT
that I was to be exempted from the deadline. Here are all the emails:
from dean to IT: Please allow ****** to try to upload a practice exam despite the
lapsed deadline. She is having some hardware issues with her laptop
and may need to purchase a new machine to use this semester. Although
she understands that we might have been made aware of this before the
deadline, we will allow her an exception this semester, provided she
resolves the hardware problems or replaces the machine with all due
speed.
from IT back around: We can't really turn the upload page on for one person without turning
it on for everyone. ******, please just take at least a 15-minute
practice test and e-mail the document to me. Securexam Student will
save it to your Desktop when you exit the exam session.
from me, with original point:
Actually, I'm having difficulty with actually getting the secure exam
to load at all. I'll bring my lap top tommorrow to show you.
Damn my cunning. Some first years gonna be jealous.