(Deep Exhalation)

It is officially over!!!!! I have completed the program and, as a sidebar, I still have most of my sanity intact (given that there wasn't much to start with).

I am still awaiting the final numbers for Ethics, but even if I had failed to turn in the final paper I would have passed the course. So, no worries there. (As a sidebar: I wrote said paper with such minimal effort and in such a hurry that I didn't bother to even proofread it. It may well be the biggest piece of typed trash since Paris Hilton's book came out). I managed to squeak by with the bare-minimum I needed to get an 'A' in Management, which was a nice bonus for a class I scarcely attended and only lightly reviewed for (I say this not as a testament to my own intellectual acumen, but rather as an indictment of the course and the instructor). Management remains among the most superfluous courses I have ever taken. What little I gleaned was mostly related to the capstone project, and that bared so little relation to the coursework and the teachings that it could have stood apart from it completely.

The biggest piece of good news is that I succeeded in passing the dreaded exit assessment. I improved markedly from my initial performance (by 10 points). The bad news is that more people than usual will be retaking the examination. In the past 3 years 6 people had to retake the examination COMBINED. This year, two dozen (over 20%) will be retaking it. According to our resident test guru, it is due largely to the fact that the test was much more difficult than in years past. Whatever the cause, I still feel terrible for everyone who has to retake it. I am sure they will all pass it the second time, and there is no penalty to retaking it multiple times if need be, but still it would be quite debilitating to anyone's confidence. I wish them all luck the second time through.

Now to get my Oregon state license application together. I think I am finished with two of the 67 steps needed to complete it. I got the fingerprints and the physical application, but I still need a passport photo, official transcripts, a videotape of me breaking the all-time scoring record for Donkey Kong, a signed copy of the New Testament, and about $400 odd dollars in cash. I think that covers it.

Off to celebrate.