Three days ago, I took a certification exam.

In preparation.

Before that, I took a leave of less than a week. This is supposedly to help me study, but I ended up really studying like hell on the last three days. It was crazy.

The night before the exam, I crammed like hell. I read furiously on two topics that I’ve never read before, brushed up on two that I’ve gone through weeks ago, and took the sample exams. I ended up sleeping past 3AM. I didn’t get to read the last topic.

On the day itself.

I set my alarm on 8:30 AM. Amazingly, it didn’t take much to get me up. The first thing I did was check the printouts of the sample exams, identified the topics where I was weak, and compiled them into one of the binders. This is what I read through all the way from the house, until I got to the exam center. On the road, I got myself a cheeseburger meal, but I only ended up eating the fries, thanks to the butterflies in my stomach.

I’ve never been this nervous for an exam. If the shuttle van’s lights were working, I would’ve been studying, and I wouldn’t have been forced to eat my burger. I kind of forced the food down… My stomach felt so weird I could’ve puked anytime. Thank God I didn’t.

Fifteen minutes before the exam was to start, I found out about the Austrian named Josef Fritzl, who locked up his own daughter in a cellar for 24 years, and had 7 children with her. It bothered me so much (sick! sick!), that the butterflies left my stomach.

For our batch, there were only 3 examinees. The other two were taking the same exam, so they were able to review each other for a bit before the exam. Ten minutes before the exam, I can’t review anymore — my brain just stopped.

During the exam.

We were given 3 hours to answer 80 items of multiply choice/multiple answer(s).

I’ve never felt so unprepared. I’ve never been so unsure of 90% of my answers.

I ran through the items at least two times. The first run took only 20 minutes — but this is just identifying the things I know for sure — which is just about 10% of the items. For the rest of the time, I went through everything else at least once more.

One hour before time was up, my brain could no longer process the questions. I was able to read them, but the words did not translate to any concept or idea in my mind. I decided not to push myself to think. I figured that I’ve squeezed what I can out of my brain, and forcing my brain to process some more is not going to help. What I know, I’ve already given. Bahala na si Batman.

30 minutes before time would expire, one co-examinee and I resigned ourselves to chatting away with the proctor. The other co-examinee (who happened to sit in between us) kept on reviewing her answers, apparently blocking all the noise we were making.

1 minute left. I turned off my monitor.

1 minute later, our diligent co-examinee exclaimed that her computer hung. OMG. It meant time was up, and the results were being prepared. Bracing myself for the results, I turned on my monitor, preparing myself for the worst.

Aftermath.

Everybody was cheering for a cheeseburger. Burger! Burger! Burger!

I’ve never felt so relieved for something that, once achieved, didn’t really have much impact (at least while working for the same employer).