This was a triumph!

I'm writing a note here:

HUGE SUCCESS!

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction at learning, finally, how to work WITH the school. In the proud tradition of James T. Kirk, the school had thrown me into an unbeatable situation. I had to grade my finals. But the school didn't know when the finals would be. Furthermore, I had to purchase plane tickets: the sooner the better. My options were to buy the plane tickets and blow off my only responsibility as teacher of this culture class, or to wait, and lose my chance of being able to visit Georgia AND Portland. Now, i'd made a lot of big promises to both Lexi and my parents. Losing time wasn't an option. But neither was dissappointing my students and leaving my finals to be graded by some idiot - or worse, having them shovel the work onto my coworkers! No, i couldn't do that. Man's gotta have virtue.

So, what to do.

Well, on the bus ride this morning, the answer dawned. The problem isn't my schedule, and it isn't the school, and it isn't my students. The problem was the test! I had considered the test to be fixed, but one of the advantages to working with the chiense system is the fluidity of pretty much everything. If it can be fluid for them it can be fluid for me! I want the final exam on monday of the last week of class, well, that's when we'll have it. The only people that can say no are my students, and I'm the goddamn teacher. By the time the school figures out i did the test early, i'll have their grades ready, and i seriously doubt i'm going to get my skull busted by the school for doing my work EARLY.

"But Dan! You cheated!" you might say.

No, dear reader. I simply changed the parameters of the test.