certifiable?

whew. i passed. somehow, i went crazy with the cramming. after having roger teach us for eight hours yesterday, i came back to the hotel room after dinner and just studied like a madman. it brought back memories of college, where the last few years i crammed all night before every exam, and either learned it the night before, or for most open book tests (thank you school of engineering), found it in the book and learned it during the test. yikes. and of course, there were the endless mornings waking up with textbook marks on my face. i also remember that one time i fell asleep studying sitting crosslegged, and when i woke up my legs were so asleep i couldn’t move them at all and had to drag myself across the room with my arms.

i’m not sure why, but i was freakishly determined to learn and pass this test. i don’t know if it’s just because i’m more mature now, or because it’s for work, or if it’s because i didn’t want to do poorly around everyone else taking the test, but i went crazy and was up studying until 3:30 last night, and didn’t get to bed until 4am. and somehow i was all tense and anxious about it, and i was restless and even work up an hour early momentarily (and ended up walking into a doorframe while i was up), despite usually sleeping like a log anytime anywhere. i was afraid i was going to be brain dead today, despite only getting 7 1/2 hours of sleep over the last two days, but somehow i maintained coherence (and on only one cup of coffee), and finished my final two chapters during the day, and then skipped the second lab section to finish studying. when i went to take the test at six, i was past ready, and just wanted to get it over. it wasn’t too bad, actually, as roger had done an excellent job of preparing us. i was actually done pretty quickly, but then i had 33 minutes left, and i thought, “well i might as well look over all the answers again, because well, why not? i have the time.” well, i didn’t actually change anything, but i feel like it’s a good practice, right? anyway, the cool thing is that immediately after you’re done, you find out exactly how you did. and then they also send you this email:

Thank you for using Prometric Prime Testing Systems. 
Below are the results of your recently attempted test:
=============================================
Name: Ed 
Name of candidates company (if provided): xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx 
Test Title: IBM DB2 UDB V8.1 Family Fundamentals 
Start time: 11/18/2003 2:12:22 PM (GMT-12:00) (cst) 
End time: 11/18/2003 3:10:29 PM (GMT-12:00) (cst) 
Passing Score: 61% 
Your Score: Pass - 88.89% (48 earned out of 54 possible)
You passed the test. A minimum of 61% is required.

so now i’m db2 certified. i’ll be sure to mention that a lot the next time i’m out at oracle.

Posted at November 18, 2003 8:42 PM