3.20.2011

Hitting the Books

It's been a long time since I spent the weekend wearing the same clothes, but I realized today that I hadn't actually changed my clothes from the day before. I also have eaten lunch at my desk at work for the last 13 days in a row. I swear I will stop complaining about this exam. But I finally had all of my materials in one place and it does make an impressive pile.

The stack to the right is the mandatory codes and specifications required to take the exam. The bottom three binders are the bridge code, which weighs 16 lb alone. It's open book, so you can bring any reference materials in you want. The pile to the left is my personal arsenal of reference material and text books. No loose paper allowed. No blank paper allowed. No sticky notes allowed. I thought I did pretty good. I've heard stories of people takes suitcases and dollies full of books and references. I've also been told if you need that many books, there's no way you'll pass the test. I have so many numbers and Greek letters swimming around in my head I can barely remember my own name. What's the equation for stress in an element subjected to combined axial and flexural loading? P/A +/- Mc/I. What's the equation for maximum deflection of a uniformly loaded beam? D = (5wl^4)/384EI. What did I have for breakfast? I couldn't tell you. But that's not going to be on the test, so I'm not worried about it.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Your passion and dedication to conquering this exam is inspiring! You're going to phruph that test! (that's a new word I made up...it's the 'word verification' to post on your blog this time. It seems to say exactly what I'm feeling :) )

Christi said...

You go girl! I am sure that you will do awesome!

pigtailultrarunner said...

Holy crap woman! You are going to do AMAZING...between all the studying and hard work you've done and the amount of good karma you've built up lately, you'll be GREAT! Hang in there!!

Kelly said...

You are almost there girl! A couple more weeks...you can do this!