The wrap-up

If you're here, you might be wondering what the heck happened these last couple of days... if not, then... well, why the heck are you here? Go away. :)

Let's see, Sunday morning started out not too bad, all things considered. I had packed and loaded up everything I could the night before. I got up pretty much on time, got myself ready, packed and loaded the rest of my stuff, checked out from my hotel room, and got myself some breakfast. And I was in the test room about thirty minutes early, feeling not too bad about my chances, having studied almost the entire night before.

But then the proctors initiated "room lock-down" and passed out the tests, just in time for me to get nervous. At 8:50 they said "begin, you have six hours."

So I opened the test book, and "oh crap" were the first words on my mind. I had no idea how to answer the very first question. Not a good way to start a test, but it was something we just didn't cover, and that I don't remember being in the study guide. I would later discover there were many such questions.

Of course, I skipped those questions, at first. Couldn't let them bog me down for too long. I proceded to zip through the test, marking in my test booklet all the answers I knew, and circling questions that I needed to revisit. That "only" took three hours. I then filled in all the little scan tron bubbles for the questions I had already answered, after which I got on "the list" to go to the bathroom, since we couldn't go but one at a time.

When I got back from my little break, I went back through the test and re-evaluated all of the questions that I had not previously answered. Yes, I was guessing most of the time, but I spent another good hour reading through those questions carefully only to realize I just didn't know the answers.

So I'm not sure I passed, if you can believe that, after a week of fairly intense training. But I won't know for sure for two weeks. I can't believe I may have to sit through that again. But it turns out my sentiments were not isolated. Many of my fellow test takers gathered in the hotel lobby after the test to discuss the experience. And not one of them felt comfortable about what they had been through.

After about thirty minutes of that, it was time to get out of there.


It took way longer to get back from Austin than it did to get there. Austin traffic does indeed suck, plus there was construction in south Oklahoma that kept the travel speed down to five or ten miles per hour for about fifteen miles.

But I had one reprieve in all of this. While it was 10:30 when I got back, I didn't have to go get the kids after all. I missed them and wanted to see them, but I learned earlier in the day that they were going to Kingfisher to see their grandmother, and she was supposed to get the kids a couple of days during spring break anyway, so I suggested they stay there for a couple of days, making the whole kid exchange thing much more efficient. So I won't get them back until tomorrow night. But that has allowed me to work a couple of thirteen hour days and thereby get caught up with a few pending issues that got more urgent during my travels. Things aren't quite back to normal yet. But they should be soon.