Series 99 test tomorrow morning. I studied a lot more than I thought I would for it. I’m still not passing the practice tests, but I was told the questions on them are much harder than they are on the regular test so I’m hoping for the best. I feel like this studying strategy is heavy on the hope and optimism. Not so heavy on the studying and actually being prepared. Oh well. At least it’s just to get licensed to do work I have no desire or hope to continue doing. So, there is that.

I was a horrible student in college, but able to get away with it because I’m good at cramming and memorizing large amounts of information and regurgitating that information for a test – and then immediately forgetting most of it. It’s a special gift. Normally I would start studying the night before around 10 or 11 pm and plan on staying up most, or all, of the night. I would then go into school the next day and take the test and promptly crash afterwards. This was an incredibly stressful way to go about doing things and it required me to use massive amounts of caffeine to get through it all. I had a ritual where I would put on movies to use as background noise while I studied. I get distracted very easily so the movies always had to be ones I’d seen a million times that wouldn’t really pull my focus from what I was doing very often or keep it for very long when it did. As I was studying tonight I put on Pirates of the Caribbean which is one of the movies I would study to in college. It brought back a lot of memories of days gone by. Mostly good memories, but I can’t help but feel a pang of sadness at the missed and squandered opportunities that have now landed me in my current predicament. Now that I don’t drink caffeine it’s much more difficult to engage in my former studying habits. I don’t necessarily feel overly prepared for this test tomorrow, but I’m glad I’m going to take it without feeling cracked out of my mind. Maybe I have grown up as I’ve gotten older. Wish me luck!