So after months of studying, taking a review class, and feeling guilty whenever I took a break from studying, D-day finally arrived. It started on Thursday with the California special exams. Seismic in the morning and surveying in the afternoon. I was on the verge of breaking down in tears in the seismic test. For both of the special exams you get 2.5 hours to do 50 questions. The seismic was much harder than any practice exam. And I didn't do so well on those practice exams. It would take a miracle for that to be a passing effort. So John joined me during my lunch break so I could have company and de-stress a bit. Then I went in for more torture. Surveying wasn't as bad as the seismic, but I just had no time to make sure I was doing anything right. I'd say I have a 50-50 shot at passing that one. I felt like I had been hit by a train. Go home and try to relax while fighting off a headache. At that point, it was not looking good to be going back for day 2.
Well, the morning part of the national 8-hour exam was a good confidence builder. I didn't have to do any reinforced concrete so that made me happy. I only had 1 problem I couldn't figure out. I finished in about 2 hours then spent 1.5 hours checking and re-working some problems (and trying to figure out that one problem...). The confidence I had from the morning vanished in the afternoon. There were a number of problems I couldn't figure out. Like, why do I need to calculate Henry's constant when it's always on a table and all my references had no equations? And I hate stoichiometry... I was ready to do hardness stuff, but not what they gave us. Overall, the NCEES practice exam was right on for difficulty level for the morning, but easier than the actual exam for the afternoon. But my chances feel pretty good for the 8-hour.
So I carpooled with a coworker on Friday. As we are leaving the Pomona fairplex, some guy points out we have a flat tire. So I pull off. My left front is completely flat. Crap. I just wanted to go home!! So we pull out the spare and start trying to change the tire, but can't get the lug nuts off. So just as I'm about to call AAA, a guy stops to help us put the spare on. So we drive back to my house so I could take care of it in the morning. In the morning my spare was looking flat! Lame-sauce. Guess I need to fill it back up. But we took my car in and had to get new front tires. The real awesome part is that I just had my tires rotated so my good tires were in front and my crappy tires in front. If I hadn't gotten my tires rotated just days ago it would have been the crappy tires I would be replacing. So instead I have 2 new tires in front and 2 crappy tires in back! Love my luck! I'm just grateful it happened after all the tests were done!
So I'm alive and my car has new tires. And I'd really like to not go back! But all I can do now is wait... And I'm going to Disneyland!!!
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