Very proud

Dave had to travel on Thursday, so after I studied for a few hours in an office at work, I came home and Alina offered to spend the night so I could get more studying done. That was a God-send! Considering the kids didn't have school on Friday, I knew they'd want to stay up late, and I didn't think they'd be sympathetic to the fact that I needed to study. So, around 7, I started studying again, and finally around 1:45 AM I figured I might as well take the sample test. Two months ago, I took the pretest to figure out where I should spend most of my time studying. The short answer? Everywhere. Let's just say I did less than stellar on that. So, I was excited to take the post-test to see my progress. I finished around 2:15, waited for the calculations, and...

Failed. Miserably. Worse than I had done on the pre-test actually. At that point I could either stay up studying or get some sleep. I tried to sleep.

On Friday morning, I got up, made some cheat sheets to study in the car, got to the test site 10 minutes early and studied a little bit more before finally going in. They make you take off your watch, turn your pockets inside out and go through a metal detector. This place is serious! I waited for them to call me, and prayed to Jesus, Mary any saints I could think of and my grandma for good measure.

I started the test... 3.5 hours, 225 questions. I went through all of them, marking what I knew, marking for review what I wasn't sure of. There were a lot to review by the end. I went back through those, and then it asked me if I wanted to review everything. After about 2 questions, I realized I just couldn't reread each one, so elected instead to hit "END". But it took me at least a full minute before I could hit that button. Too nervous! When I finally hit it, a pop up comes up, "Are you sure you'd like to end this test? You will not be able to review any further questions." UGH! YES! They make me hit the button again.

Then it's "Please wait."...  "Please wait."... I nearly puked And then a pop up! Asking me if I'd like to take a survey. Ugh. Sure, why not. Were the testing facilities quiet? Yes. What study method did I use? SHRM Self-Learning (or at least I attempted to use it). Submit survey.

"Please wait."...  "Please wait."... Nearly puking again. And then a pop up! Saying "I Passed!" Me, now nearly crying and laughing out loud. I just sat there and read it over and over. I truly was shocked and thrilled. No way could I have faced taking that test again!

And so, that's it. Months of studying (kind of) and I now have my Senior Professional of Human Resources (SPHR) certification. Just don't ask me what it can do for me... I'm really not quite sure!