Series 7

I passed !

March 12 was a crazy day. Started the test at 8am. The first half of the test took me 2 hours. I had to take at least 30 minutes break between the first and second half. After the first half, I thought - "that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." Went in to take the second half. About an hour into it, I thought "I should just walk out." Thankfully I didn't. The second half of the test was WAY harder than the first half. It took me 2 hours and 57 minutes. It was excruciatingly difficult.

When I was done, I hit "enter" and the computer said it would take 10 seconds to tabulate my score. Those 10 seconds took about 3 hours. I can not recall the last time my heart beat that loudly, that slowly. FINALLY, the screen was done, the hourglass was finished spinning around. Had to hit enter again. Then a screen comes up with lots of information, lots of numbers....I don't think the people that created this screen realized the terror that the test taker would be feeling at this point - eyes darting around the screen - looking for the number...THE number. The first number my eyes fell to was "66%" which is NOT the 70% or better that I needed. Then I saw "73%" and "75%" and had no idea which one was mine (note to NASD/NYSE/MSRB - a giant GREEN checkmark or a giant RED X would work really well here). I went out to the proctor and asked her if I had passed or not. She looked down at her screen, and said, without emotion...."oh yeah, you passed" - I almost passed OUT. [the 66% referred to the percentage of people that TOOK the test that PASSED the test in the past 6 months....I have no idea what the 73% was, but I scored a 75% and thats all I care about]

I called Karin and told her the good news, which was good because she was a wreck an unable to concentrate all day at work. Called and left a message for Pop and Mom.

Sent an email to friends at work, to let them know that we were going to grab a drink that night.

Went home - shaved a celebratory mustache for the fun of it, and went out. (FYI - this is usually done once a year, for, at most, 6 hours)