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Greetings

I hope I find you all in good spirits. Hopefully the OLCR gods have been kind to you.

All my fervent prayers (along the lines of 'Oh my god, I hope I don't get this one or this one!') have been answered, bar one: I have one, read ONE, tutorial on Wednesday - yes, I have to go into Uni for one single tutorial! 

It takes me 1 hour by public transport or 20 minutes (plus parking fees) with a car, assuming I can get my hands on one (car, that is).  Of course, I will go and talk to the relevant people and see if there is anything that can be done but I fear the worst: come 2nd year, there are less choices, especially in the units I'm taking (read: Classics). 

It's such a nerve-racking thing, putting your preferences in when you have certain strictures - you might live far away from Uni or you might, like me, prefer to study at home any chance you get. So a lot of feeling and hope is attached to the outcome.

An outcome that is, in my mind, in the Hands of the OLCR gods.                         They can be fickle - like my one lone tutorial on Wednesday, four lectures one after the other last semester for my brother or a totally unavoidable clash of two lectures for one friend.                                                                                   They can be benevolent - giving me no day where I am still at school at 5pm, the exact tutorial after the relevant lecture desired by a friend or a wonderful 2 hour break between two lectures, perfect for lunch and a spot of Latin translation (or test-induced panic, depending on the situation).                                               They can be indifferent - handing out 9am lectures willy-nilly, not caring that some people don't do Mornings (yes, Mornings with a capital 'M') or giving you two classes on opposite parts of the campus but then giving you a nice break afterwards.

After your first encounter with the gods on the battleground that is OLCR, you feel victorious: you played, you won! It is good! You know what you're doing - after the initial shock of having no clue of what to do and having various nightmares of graduating without ever being able to master this devious allocation system. You feel brave in the face of UWA administration - if you can do this, you can do anything! Bring it on!

But you forget, as time goes on, in the interim of study, Uni life, exams and, if you have time, a social life. You forget that you have do it all again, come Semester 2. All of a sudden, you regret poking fun at your first semester timetable - afterall, it worked out ok. But maybe this time ... maybe this time the gods will take your jibe that '... computers are totally useless for anything but solitaire!' seriously. Maybe they were offended that you don't respect their omnipotent power over your study schedule. 

Then again, it is 'only' an automated computer system, so who knows ... 

Good luck