If At First You Don't Succeed, You Were Probably Me This Morning.

Note to self: next time I take an exam, I should probably study for it.

A week back a friend called me and said that spur of the moment her colleague had walked in to take the Real Estate Salesperson exam. You who know me know that I will regularly pour over Dream Homes magazine and/or attend open houses for property I have no interest in buying, just because that's the type of weirdo I am. SO. He had taken the exam which encouraged her to sign up and take it which encouraged me (see the mob mentality?) to finally do it. I had said forever that I wanted to take it "just to have" (sound like my Bar exam, anyone?). So I signed up.

I wasn't going to study (if you're a lawyer you don't need courses, law school waives you out) but last week I put in an earnest few hours reviewing the material. And guess what? Last night, halfway through the evening, I picked up my study guide and looked at the cover. As if for the first time. And guess what I realized? I had been studying for the Real Estate APPRAISAL exam. Which on the one hand explained why it was so effing hard, but on the other hand, well, that just sucked. (Especially because at Starbucks I had held my ground studying while a deranged and possibly homeless man made repeated advances on me, writing things in the air to me. Yes, seriously.)

Then I realized that last night, the night before my test, was the eclipse that has been in the news for the last month. So Jessica and I set our alarms and got up to see it. It was beautiful. I hope I don't go blind from looking. That would suck. I probably should have found out if that was a concern, but when you're waking up at 2:45 to look at the sky, you aren't really thinking like that.

Anyway, the test sucked. From the moment they gave us the papers I felt like I was in elementary school ("fill in the circles completely, making a dark mark") Even the hard stuff I had studied, the archaic land description crap, wasn't on there. I couldn't even wing it with my below-average Property Law grade! It was just plain hard. So, doing a quick cost-benefit analysis, I cut my losses. I finished circling them circles and got my stuff and by 9:30 am I was headed straight for a celebratory bagel. As Jessica says, you miss 100% of the chances you don't take. Maybe next time I will aim for 'chances' that involve a later wake up call and a minimized nerd quotient.