Day 238

Today did not go quite like I had planned, but it was a good day I think.


I got up this morning, made eggs for breakfast, and reviewed some formulae for FM.  I took  my first timed practice exam this morning, but more on that later.  So I showered, read through the rest of the formulae, read through a few examples, then went to work.


The practice exam is structured in a similar manner to the actual exam, though there is a warning-type message reminding you that the practice exam may or may not be reflective of the actual exam, since none of the exams have been publicly released since 2005.  I had 3 hours to answer 35 questions.  This might seem like a lot of time, but I can assure you that it is not.  So around 9:50 I got to work!  I turned my phone off, set my alarm for 3 hours, and began.  On my first run through I answered 26 of the 35 questions.  One of the nice things about the actual exam is that you can "check" questions so that you remember to look at them later.  So a couple of the questions I had wanted to look over again I forgot to recheck, but most of them I remembered to look at again.  I think that there were 3 or 4 that I really just had no idea how to answer.  One of them was (in my opinion) due to poor wording, but I have to be ready for that.  There will be poorly worded questions on the exam, but typically not more than 1 or 2.  And as professor Dean has said, if 1 question is the difference between you passing and failing, you probably should have studied harder anyways.  Which is completely true.  In the end, I ended up getting 23 out of 35 correct.  A passing score is usually between a 65% and a 72%, but recently it's been closer to a 72%.  So I was about 2 questions from passing.  I definitely know the areas that I need to keep working, but it was nice to know where I was doing decently.  I definitely need to do some warm up problems before the exam to get my brain working.  There were about 4 questions right at the beginning that I missed and forgot to look at again.  And that can easily be the difference between a pass and a fail.  I had made a check next to them to look at them again, but that page got lost in all my papers of answer-writing.  Oh well.  I just need to keep focusing on the areas where I did not do so well, and make sure I keep reviewing the things there weren't covered (just in case).


After I finished my exam I got some lunch.  I was going to make a salad, but hadn't cooked any chicken yet.  And I was lazy.  So I just finished pizza from last night.  Then David called to see if he could get a ride to the store.  I obliged.  He has been very appreciative of the help while his car gets fixed, which he said should be tomorrow.  So we went to Wal-mart, then to Walgreens to get some medicine thing they didn't have at Wal-mart.  Then I took him back.  I was feeling kind of tired, so I went to get some coffee with Kathryn, whereupon we just kind of vented (and by we I mean mainly me) about life and school.  Many of the resources that my friends and I use for studying encourages us to keep company with people who are also studying.  It's much easier to vent and rage with people who are going through the same thing, because they can genuinely say that (to a strong degree) they understand what you're going through.  During our coffee-ing, she reminded me that even though I'm getting frustrated, God hasn't forgotten about me, and his plan is better than mine anyways.  And she's right.  It's just difficult because I feel like I'm not getting much for all of the effort I've put into this program.  But as our pastor reminded us yesterday, the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  And one of the important lessons that simply does not get taught in academia is that fairness is illusive and unrealistic.  Working harder than anyone else will not necessarily deem the best results.  


I also get frustrated because... I like to plan things out.  In abnormal amount of detail. Well, I assume it's abnormal.  Do other people think about all the conversations they anticipate having in a day, then consider multiple outcomes for each, while also estimating how likely each of those possible outcomes of a conversation is to occur?  I might be on my own on that one... It's strange.  I like to have immediate things planned out.  And I like to have a very general long term plan for what's going to happen.  But if it's not immediately going to happen (immediate being within the next predictable time period, having undetermined length) then I don't care about details.  Sometimes I'm ok with simply knowing what I will do moments before I do it. Other times I want to plan out likely possible conversations for an entire day. or sometimes I just want the next road for which I need to look when I'm driving.  It's all very strange.


Side note, when I was going to get David this afternoon, I blinked and noticed  short red vertical lines when I blinked.  It was odd.  Like a flash.  Approximately 3/4 of the way across each eye (going nose to ear), every time I blinked I saw these red lines.  And then after about 30 seconds it went away.  Peculiar.


When I got home I started making lasagna.  I texted with Kimmy about potential housing for next year.  Since she has some spare time, she offered to do some research into various apartments and houses to rent.  I gave her some guidelines (price, looking for included utilities, general distance from school) and she picked out a few that we're going to look at when she comes to visit over her J-term break.


The lasagna turned out decently.  I'm really bad at reading recipes.  I saw that I needed ricotta cheese and just assumed that I needed one package.  I was incorrect.  But it turned out just fine.  I had some other extra cheese that I put on top.  I made each layer thicker than the recipe called for, but it turned out well.  And it tastes pretty good!  It should be a pretty good dinner for the next.. 5 nights, I believe?


I talked with Andre for a while.  He didn't go home this weekend because his mom needed to use his car.  So he just stayed here, which is unusual for him.  But we've had some good conversations, so it's been nice.  I didn't get the extra studying in that I had planned, but that's ok.  Taking that practice exam was pretty draining.  On the plus side of that exam, I really shouldn't worry about time.  When I decided to be done, I had an extra 20 minutes.  That includes at least 10 minutes on one problem that I didn't know how to solve using a short cut, so I did the (very) long way.  Ha, I still got it wrong.  Oh well.  But I'm really not worried about time.  Many of the questions I saw and just knew what to do.


Anyhow.  Bed time.  Good night!