and so it ends.

well, the bar is over.

wooooooooo hooooooooo!

that sucked. i thought the exam itself was very difficult, as i expected it would be. but for me, the biggest challenge was when my laptop crashed wednesday night. at about 9pm i tried to turn it on, and.....nothing. the lights on the keyboard came on, but the screen was blank. so, i tried to remain calm, turned on my desktop computer to do a little research to see if this was a common problem and there was an easy solution. after searching for about an hour with nothing, i decided to call hp tech support.

the first person i talked to spoke very broken english with a heavy accent, so heavy that i couldn't understand what he was saying. after about 30 minutes of that, he finally put someone else on the phone. she also had an accent, but i could at least understand her. but, it quickly became clear she wasn't understanding me. our conversation went something like this:

me: my laptop isn't working. the screen is completely blank - i can't get anything to come up. i can't get to windows, i can't see anything.

hp rep: okay. thank you for calling hp. i understand this must be frustrating for you. now, go to the start menu on windows, and select restart the computer.

me: but, i can't get to the start menu. my screen is completely blank...i can't see a thing.

hp rep: okay. i understand that you're screen is blank. now, click on the start menu and select "system restore." this will restore your computer to its settings a few days ago.

me: i can't get to windows to do a system restore. i can't click on anything. i don't think you're understanding me.

hp rep: i'm sorry, let's try something else. press control, alt, and delete, and click on the "restart" option on the shut down pull down men.

me: can i speak to someone who's not retarded?

finally at about 1am, after getting nowhere, i decided to just go to bed. so, i ended up handwriting all of thursday's exam. unfortunately, i haven't handwritten anything more than my grocery list in probably a year.

about half way through thursday's afternoon session, my hand started to hurt. like, really hurt. it cramped up and i couldn't hold the pen anymore. at one point, i had to take the pen with my left hand and shove it in my right hand, and hold my right hand closed around the pen with my left hand. by the end of the exam, my right hand looked like this:

fortunately holding a cold beer quickly afterwards helped :)

my hand is still swollen and i can't move it much, but forunately it can hold a cup, which is about all i need it to do for the next few days. :)

i think it's going to take some getting used to being done with the exam. i still woke up at 5am this morning like i have for satan knows how long, hungover of course, but ready to study.

i'll write more about the exam later. now, i think it's about time for a nap. because i can.

congratulations to everyone who's done!!! forget about the exam, and think about all the things you get to do now that it's over. like have a life again.

out.

- L