Losing a part of me

I still cannot believe it.

I left home at 11:15am so that I would be at the testing centre thirty minutes before the scheduled start time of noon (that is not only recommended, but ISC2 states that if you are not at least fifteen minutes early then you are considered late). I was driving down Walker’s Line when I realized that I had not taken my meal replacement shake with me, which had been my plan. With all of the stress and anxiety in my gut, I did not want to make things any worse by going into the exam room hungry. I stopped at a convenience store and picked up a sleeve of peanuts. They did not have any unsalted peanuts, and I know I will be paying for that tomorrow morning when I step onto the scale. With my emotional turmoil I decided that was a problem I was willing to live with. I even splurged… seeing that the nutritional facts were pretty close, I picked the salt and vinegar flavour.

The staff were welcoming and helpful, but that would not be helping me to get through the next two hours. They had me take off my watch, ring, and my dogtag (although they let me keep my chai necklace), and empty my pockets of everything except my drivers license. It all went into a locker and I was escorted to the exam room.

As I sat at the computer at the testing centre filling out the post-exam survey, I was trying to think how much more studying I would need to do before I would be confident that I was ready to re-sit the exam. I clicked ‘End Survey.’ I raised my hand to call the proctor over. She had me rescan my palm print, checked my ID, and escorted me out of the room.

As I was reasonably certain that I would not like what I would see on the score report, I did not mind that the administrator told me to collect my things from my locker before collecting it. I was actually relieved by this because I was extremely thirsty, and along with my wallet, watch, keys, and jewelry I had also left the half-bottle of water that I was drinking as I arrived.

‘Congratulations! We are please to inform you that you have provisionally passed the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) examination. Your examination result is provisional in that it may be subject to further psychometric and forensic evaluation before a certification decision is reached.’

I did not even read past the first word… my mind exploded with relief. Unlike last week, I did not wake up this morning with that sense of peace that came with the acceptance that I was unlikely to pass and that it did not matter. I was stressed, I was anxious, and I was frazzled. I wrote in my journal this morning that I was a bit out of sorts and that I had not slept well. All true. I walked into the exam room with that same heavy weight that I have been carrying on my shoulders for… how long? I don’t even know.

I have another high-stress situation that came up this morning, but that is going on the back-burner until Friday. This evening I am going to go for a walk, then I am kicking my feet up and relaxing. Tomorrow I have several engagements that will keep me busy, but none of them are stressful – three meetings with friends for either coffee (the two in the morning) or cigars (the evening, and my cleaning lady is coming between those. On Friday I will deal with the bullshit.