Earth to Grump!

Ok, so I decided a while ago to sign up to take the AEPA for Middle School Mathematics and today was the day. That means I paid a lot of money to put myself through a 4 hour test to see if I can get certified to teach teenagers algebra. Um, yeah.

So there I am laying on the couch last night thinking over and over "Go to bed idiot, the test is at 8:00!" I didn't, and I was up WAY too late. I went to bed thinking, "Eh, I'll skip it; no big deal." But my body is used to waking up at the butt crack of dawn, so I woke up early enough to go.

I tossed it around right up until the last possible moment, and decided "whatever, if I pass, I pass; if I don't, whatever." So I jumped in the shower, pulled the hair up, made a quick stop at Mecca (otherwise known as Starbucks), and headed to the high school where the test was being given.

Parking lot full.

I actually made it into the building, walked up to the info desk and they informed me that I can't take my coffee into the test "but oh, you got time to enjoy it." Ok, so I stood there trying not to chug my coffee - which I kind of ended up doing anyway, and let me tell you, even if it isn't scorching hot, coffee doesn't translate into a shot like other libations - when she said "and I hope you brought a pencil."

Ooops. Nope. But she said maybe I could beg or con one off one of the people who likes to bring 12 with them "just in case." I saw one woman with like 24 pencils on her desk. Freak. I didn't ask her for one. I'm pretty sure she would have said something to the effect of "I can't spare a square."

Anyhow, with a stomach full of chocolate and peppermint syrups, steamed milk and whipped cream, the vague stirrings of a lack of sleep headache, and no pencil, I headed towards the testing room. I conned two pencils, found my seat, and got situated.

Front row. Of course. Ugh. Well, better than in the middle. But then everyone could see and hear that nope, I didn't bring two forms of ID, no I don't have the one I do have out and ready, yes I have a pocket full of kleenex; and yes, the pills you hear me shaking around are the 3 extra strength tylenol I need to take to get through this morning. Seriously, when will that invisibility super-power kick in already?

After what seems like hours of proctoring, the proctor says we can start. Oooh, yay, they provide the formulas! Volume of a sphere, volume of a whosamacallit, area of a weird shaped thingy, midpoint of a vector somethingorother, quadratic equations...this should be a piece of cake!

Thing is, I haven't done middle school math since middle school. When was that? Oh, yeah, 30 FUHUHUHUHUHKING YEARS AGO!? Perhaps I should have looked at the study guide? After 4 hours I barely finished the multiple choice section. I never made it to the essay question. Which is ok because I probably would have written "I choose moving company A which will charge me $50 an hour and mileage over company B who charges $40 an hour for 3 hours then goes up incrementally every hour after that because I'm so fucking tired and cross-eyed by this test (and conceivably by moving) that I don't give a flying fuck which company is going to get more money out of me because I'm so damned happy that someone else will be doing all the heavy lifting anyway." Which probably would have done nothing for my test score.

I should know how I did in a little over 6 weeks. Anyone want to hazard a guess?