HFCS: effika’s blog

(so far)

I woke up early this morning to drive up to the central office so I could take my licensing exam. The snow was flurrying decently, but was so dry that it created ineffectual fluffy soft drifts on my car and merely danced along the roadways. Of course, it can’t be Oklahoma without somebody panicking at snow (no matter how harmless) and along I-35 I saw one poor van that had apparently slid haphazardly onto the shoulder.

I arrived (after 45 minutes of commute) at about 8am, found the room I was supposed to test in, and sat down to study. My test day was only supposed to have 2 other people on it, but we had 2 extras. One was Nate, whom I’d met in Tulsa last month. Poor Nate. I guess his bosses failed to tell him the important parts of applying to take the exam (like, that you needed to apply 10 days prior) and the fact that he’d need to prove he’d had 30 hours of science. Nate showed up with a transcript detailing his last year at college, which only had about 15 hours of anything on it total. The rest? At another college, on another transcript. The proctors were going to be nice (since he did have to drive 2.5 hours to get here) and let him take the exam if he could prove his 30 hours of science, worrying about getting the application filled out later. Alas, poor Nate. He did not bring the proper transcript and was sent packing. The other gentleman who showed up was in the same situation as Nate, but had brought his complete transcript. He was able to test. Anonymous unprepared guy apparently didn’t pass, though, as I didn’t see him presented before the Board later that morning.

I guess I scored better than most of the testers do; the Board was impressed with my score and wanted to know if there were any materials in particular I found helpful as study aids. Just reading the regulations was enough studying for me, that and my coworkers telling me to study sewage heavily. I wish they’d split off the DEQ and health department licenses so I didn’t have to study all that sewage and air quality stuff. On the other hand, now I’m able to do percolation tests and inspect private sewage systems as an extra source of income so it’s not all bad.

I even got to leave early today! I didn’t want to accrue comp time so I worked an adjusted work day. Jay got me an awesome aquamarine-leaved copper-wire-trunked bonsai tree sculpture. It goes nicely with my amethyst-leaved copper-wire-trunked deciduous tree sculpture from last Valentine’s day. He has set up an awesome and high bar for himself next year. :-) I got Jay 3lbs of Jelly Bellies and a new Groove Lily CD (well, he’ll have it when it gets in. I procrastinated in ordering it). We then ordered pizza and watched most of Sin City before Jay had to go to work.

Sorry I’ve been so silent this February. That licensing exam (and I’ve got the NEHA one still to go) took up most of my energy.