Day one complete...

First day of class is complete. I don't know whether to be stressed or amused. *Everyone* (instructor included), keeps talking about how terribly hard this test is... yet one woman who has been certified for NINE years, and has taken the test three times previously (and I'm assuming has passed it), couldn't identify seven elements on a screen today accurately. (What the hell is going on when the one person without any real experience v. 6-yrs. v. 9-yrs. is the only one who can answer the questions??)

So, anyway, I found out today that we *will* be taking an abbreviated practice examination tomorrow. My co-worker (who used to work for the training company I'm using) said, "Oh, no one ever passes our practice examination, there's not enough time." (It's 2 hrs. vs. 3 hrs. for the real exam.) It's only 150 multiple choice questions for God's sake. This is not rocket science (though for some odd reason the entire profession treats it as if it were).

I don't want to be overconfident, but I vacillate between sheer terror in anticipation of taking this 'monster test' and sheer disbelief that it could be that hard. Of course, that being said, I take standardized tests extremely well (re: National Merit Scholar and class valedictorian, 1390 of 1600 on SATs, member of MENSA).

So I'm not sure quite what to do at this point... wait and wonder, I suppose.

Ciao for now.

Shame on me...

I knew it was bound to happen eventually, but I wasn't paying attention.

I just lost all of my poetry because Geocities shut down, and my haiku/poetry pages there were the only place I had a lot of my work still pixelated... the original works were lost long ago. I kept telling myself I needed to go back the site up, but I never did.

There was some good stuff out there, fiction and poetry that I am sorry that I lost. Pics of me that I no longer have on my computer. I took that site for granted, and now it's gone.

Maybe that's just for the best. Maybe it's the Universe's way of telling me to move forward, to write new stuff, to get the creative juices flowing.

Still hard not to be disappointed, however.

UPDATE: Found my pages actually cached out on another site called 'reocities.com' I'm kind of disturbed it looks like the whole Geocities community was hijacked, but very much relieved at the same time. I've backed up all my content.

Ciao for now.