A Triumphant Tale of Two Cities

Friday could have possibly been the longest day of my life.  It was the day I had to take the TEAS Test, which is the exam you have to take to get in to almost any nursing school. Because of some scheduling problems due to the class I'm currently taking, it turned out that the only school in the entire state of Virginia that could proctor the exam on the days I could take it, was in Wytheville.  Wytheville.  Otherwise known as, four hours and twenty minutes from where I live; 260 miles.

Do you see it?  There's little Wytheville all the way out in the boonies of western Virginia. Don't be fooled by the big dot, it's a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere. My testing appointment was at 1pm, and I didn't want to take any chances on being tardy, so I woke up bright and early at 6am and left home at 7am.  There's just something wrong about having to drive four hours and twenty minutes to take a three hour and 45 minute test and then turning right around and driving home again.  But that's what I did.

It was a good thing that I left so early, because there was a ton of traffic and I didn't get to Wytheville until 12:15pm.  By the time I parked, found the testing center, and signed in, it was almost time for the test to begin. There was no down time or time to think about anything- which was probably a good thing, because I most likely would have started to stress out. 

And then the test began and the next three hours and some odd minutes are a blur.  I guess it was a good blur, because I ended up doing much better than I thought I would do.  The scores are based off of the National percentile and my overall results placed me in the 91% National percentile.  And then they break it down into subject areas- Science, Math, English, and Reading and give you your percentile ranking in those subject areas.  They have to do it this way because many nursing programs won't accept applicants that receive below a 50% in any subject, even if they got perfect scores on everything else and their overall NP is 85%.  I wasn't really worried about that happening to me, but I still get apprehensive about any test that involves math (especially tests that won't let you use a calculator!).  So I can't even begin to explain how shocked I was when I read that I was in the 99% for math.  I did a double take when I saw the results because there was no way that could be possible.  I don't do math- numbers and I don't get along, especially when those numbers are attached to shapes and adjoining letters and other weird symbols.

I walked backed to my car with my results in hand and I actually wondered if my brain chemistry/neuronal synapse direction firing (I totally made up the aforementioned term) had changed.  When I told my mom, she thought there must have been some glitch in the computer scoring system.  When I told me dad, he said "you're joking? right? No, seriously, you're joking?" 

But it really did feel like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders- this test has just been looming over and taunting me for months now.  I almost fell back into my old buy myself something nice when I do well on a test pattern, when I saw the huge billboard for the Wytheville Outlet Mall Featuring 36 Stores, but resisted the temptation and kept right on going.  Finally, after a total 9 hours and 20 minutes of driving, plus 3 hours and 45 minutes of test taking, I got home at 9pm. 

My body hurt all over when I woke up this morning and my brain was begging me for a vacaction day.
But as my luck would have it, my physiology final is on Monday and I have a lot of studying that needs to get done.  I do see the light at the end of the tunnel though; I also see a really long, long, long nap.