Unrelated Thoughts ... This is How My Brain Works:

Well, my clock radio didn't wake me up to the tune of "Tonight's gonna be a good night" this morning. Condo ads and home renovation promotions were on this morning's agenda. Commercials. Selling. Pressure. Blech.

So I hit the snooze button. Four times. Kinda like spinning the wheel of fortune. Where it stops, nobody knows. Ads, ads and more ads. It must be Friday. Those in the selling business are ramping up the volume to get people out there spending their money instead of singing the tune "Tonight's gonna be a good night" ...

I walked down the hallway as I faced the day. And John Denver was singing in my mind. "Like a sleepy blue ocean ... you fill up my senses ..." Ah! Now that's a better way to start the morning.

The price that I must pay for having Monday off of school, is that I still have some hours to log today. I only have to put in a half day. But I have to leave the confines of my home. Sigh.

But, it's been a productive week at school. I wrote another exam.

Oh! The angst that I put myself through before I write those exams. I felt so confident when I finished that course last week, that I thought I should just write the exam immediately. Without studying. I wish they would give us a trial run so that we could see where we stand before we start to study. But that isn't the way of the school world. No trial runs. You write the exam when you decide you are ready. And you get what you get. So I studied.

I had all weekend to put school work out of my mind. A four day weekend to boot. I cracked open the books Tuesday morning and I was overwhelmed. I thought "I can't remember reading this!"

I slowly waded through the chapters. Reading. Listening to the audio tapes. Making notes. Dozing off (yes, I've been known to actually find myself waking up with a start as I sit and ''study'').

I did this for two days. By the end of the second day, I was a wreck. I kept reading things as if I was reading them for the first time. I kept nodding off. How much can you absorb when your mind is in a catatonic state? I fretted. I stewed. My heart started to palpitate.

At the end of the second day, I still had two hours left. Enough time to write that exam and just get it over with. Be done with it. Grit my teeth and bare it. Whatever mark I got, I deserved. I couldn't take the pressure any more.

As it is in life, the reality wasn't half as bad as what I had imagined it would be. As I went through the exam, my heart was beating regularly (for the most part). I was 2/3 of the way through the exam when I thought I was finally hitting the tough part. But I read, reread and figured out my answers. It was going to be okay.

These are online exams. At the end of them, you simply hit a key ... close your eyes ... and your final mark leaps out from the computer screen at you.

The moment of truth. What will be will be. I was done. It was time to move on to something new.

Da-da-da-daaaa ... I hit 'the button' that would tell me what I needed to know, to move forward.

100%.

I can't believe that I psyched myself up and worried a few years off of my life. I knew that I felt confident before I started to study.

I guess I'm just a perfectionist at heart. It's nice (every once and a while) to see that pushing myself does help me achieve my goals.

What goals should I set for this weekend?? I don't think it will be home renovations &/or condo living. Your advertising can't harm me! My mind is like a shield of steel!!

I shall shun this morning's radio ads and create my own destiny. I believe that I may start by cracking open the book "The Passion Test" ... The Effortless Path to Discovering Your Destiny.

I'll bet it doesn't tell me to renovate my home or buy a condo.