This is where I have spent the better part of this week: The library in my apartment building..... (notice my one-liter tea thermos -- my most important study-aid!!!)
Study, study, study.... some days have been better than others, both productivity-wise and confidence-wise... seems my cold has come back - hasn't helped things as I enter the home stretch.
I'LL BE SO HAPPY WHEN THIS IS FINALLY BEHIND ME! And to think that I'm still considering sitting for Level 2 should I pass -- I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.... one step at a time - need to pass this test first.
Went in to the office today to get tutored in a topic I've been struggling with. While I was there, I learned from my colleagues that there was a stabbing on Saturday at the 7/11 in our building. No joke.
On Saturday afternoon, Steven Kratzsch, 24, a clerk in a 7-Eleven store on John F. Kennedy Boulevard near 18th Street, approached a man who was looking at photos of scantily-clad women in a magazine and asked him to leave. Instead, the man flew into a rage, police said, and began stabbing Kratzsch repeatedly. Detective James Seymour said the store was filled with customers, including children. The attacker ran out, leaving his victim bleeding on the floor, and fled north on 18th Street. Kratzsch was rushed to Hahnemann University Hospital, where he was in critical but stable condition with a collapsed lung and other internal injuries. Investigators confiscated the King magazine the man had been reading and lifted fingerprints from it. The attacker is described as a dark-complected African-American, about 5-foot-7 and weighing 150 to 160 pounds. He was unshaven, with a slight moustache, and was wearing a camouflage jacket with a brown fur collar, dark blue jeans, and a black wool cap. The man has been seen in the LOVE Park neighborhood, and is believed to be armed and dangerous, police said.
I find this pretty scary, AND, the description of the assailant sounds like this homeless guy that I have seen countless times hanging out on the steps in front of our building by the busstop.
If you had asked me yesterday, I would have said that I am "cautiously optomistic" that I will be able to pass this test. Today, my answer is "highly unlikely"......
I took a full length (6 hour) practice test today -- I feel like I got my head punched in. The time constraint was extremely difficult and I felt like majority of the questions centered around things i didn't remember..... I can only hope that going over all the answers tonight will help me fill in the gaps.... and that the test focuses on some of my strengths....
FOUR DAYS AWAY. Still lots of studying to be done.... ugh.
Show us one of your Thanksgiving traditions.
Adam and I have 4 families to juggle, so we don't really have a standing Thanksgiving tradition.
At my dad & Margit's (in recent years) the tradition has been that the grandchildren hover around the island and watch as he carves the bird. AND, as always, Colin and I lurck nearby waiting to pounce and steal a tasty morsel (we do this at just about every family meal where there is somethign worth nibbling on).
Couldn't resist sharing this email forward that I received today:
Handle every stressful situation like a dog would:
If you can't eat it or hump it, just piss on it and walk away.
Show us how you're spending the day after Thanksgiving.
In the office studying for the exam -- only about 5-6 people came in today. Its 2pm and everyone else has already left..... study, study, study....
It's 8:30 and the damn parade is really up & running now. It is freakin' loud!!!!! The parade goes down Market Street (just a block away) and it couldn't be more annoying!!!! All those cheerleaders and high school bands - ARGH! I don't know how Adam and I manage to forget each year that we live on the Thanksgiving and New Years Parade route... We need to remember to get out of the city the night before.... Hmmm... guess we should really think about your NYE plans. Staying in the city doesn't sound as much fun anymore.
Fingers crossed that our car didn't get towed!!!! We gotta move. I can't take all these hassles anymore....
Update: Turns out the car had been towed. There were plenty of cops around because of the parade and one of them was quickly able to tell us where we had gotten towed to -- turned out to be the same place it got towed when Adam spent two hours looking for it (so at least now we know where to start the search the next time this happens!). Once again, our car was unlocked, as they had to (somehow) get in to our car to undo the parking break before towing.
Took my first practice test today... got a 60. Need a 70 to pass... got lots of studying ahead of me. Actually, I don't think I 60 is that bad, and it is actually right around where I thought I would land. I felt like there were a lot of questions were I was "firing on all cylinders" and I was approaching the question in the right way, even if I didn't end up with the right answer. AND, the practice test was only 1/4 the size of the real test, and I felt like a lot of the things that I KNOW COLD weren't tested. With more questions, the likelihood of those items being includes increases. Also, two of the topics that I tested particularly poorly on are ones that I haven't gotten a chance to circle back to and are slated to cover in the next two days....
Going to be a busy/stressful week!!!
Looks like Rendell and others were unable to sway the minds of gun-toting politians. I find it sad and extremely disheartening that these politicians aren't doing anything to help the murder and crime rates in what has now been dubbed "Killadelphia", because they have a constituency of back-minded hicks living in rural PA (the article nicely refers to these people as gun-rights stronghold in the southwest -- I like my version better).
Rep. Ron Marsico (R., Dauphin), the committee's ranking Republican, said that he sympathized with Philadelphia's high crime rate, but that he did not believe "feel-good" gun-control bills were the answer.
Why don't they see that gun control is an important first step in improving the crime rate???? It's not like these laws are saying people who have guns can't have them. Is it really so bad to make it just a little harder for people to be getting their hands on a gun???? Buying one handgun a month - that's the rule they wanted to make. Why would a law-abiding citizen need to be buying more than one a month anyway? This is just curbing the activities of criminals.
Stuff like this drives me nuts!
As a nice little treat after one of the weeks when I had been studying diligently, Adam bought me a "Marvelous Morning" Spa Package. I called up today and made arrangements to have it the day before the exam. I'm getting a manicure, a facial, and a swedish massage. Yeah!!!
This will be a nice way to de-stress the day before the test..... this, and a little Ethics reading - that's what's on the agenda for next Friday.
TEST IS NOW ONLY 10 DAYS AWAY!!!!
