and now legally responsible!

"Professional engineer" means a person who, by reason of his or her special knowledge of the mathematical and physical sciences and the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, acquired by professional education and practical experience, is qualified to practice engineering as defined in this section, as attested by his or her legal registration as a professional engineer. 

Before I fell off the social networking earth in October, I mentioned once or twice that I was prepping for my Professional Engineering exam, held on October 29th. 

Here's a little background...after college most engineers (nearly all civil engineers) take a national exam called the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE).  So, after earning an engineering degree, passing the FE exam and working in the engineering field for 4-years, one becomes eligible to take the Professional Engineering exam (PE). There is an application process where 5 registered engineers have to verify you’ve actually been working as an engineer, then an 8 hour exam and 8-10 torturous weeks of waiting for the results.  After passing a person becomes a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Washington (as defined above), and gets a jazzy wall certificate and official stamp to put on engineering drawings.  Passing the exam is a pretty big deal.

I’ll just kill all the suspense right now and say that I passed. I freaking PASSED!  I will never ever have to take another exam...EVER.  Unless I decided to delve into a master's program...but at this point, my plan is to become ridiculously rich and famous and have an honorary degree from some prestigious university bestowed to me at a lavish ceremony in my honor.  Aim high, right?

So, I should probably tell you that I am not a good tester. Never have been...never will  never have to take another one again.  Ha.  TAKE THAT WORLD!  Anyway...I went into this with the mindset, if there is just one test I pass on the first try, it will be this one (I've had to retake A LOT of things).  As the end of August approached, I started my studies.  I took two review courses (one online, one at the UW in Seattle) and studied a little bit every day.  Every.Single.Day...until the end of October.  Some days it was for 8-10 hours, other days it was just for 1 hour.  As long as I kept my stress level low and was able to convince myself that I was doing everything possible to be prepared, I thought I could keep my anxiety in check throughout the exam.

However, the morning before the exam, I fell down the stairs and landed on my back, bum and arms...and threw the coffee I was carrying all over myself, the carpet and the walls.  I gave myself an 8.5 (I probably could have scored a 9 or 10 if I didn't start hysterically crying).  This new injury, combined with stress and sitting hunched over for 8-hours while taking the exam, left me in a sad physical state after the exam on Friday night.  Neverfear friends!  I eased my pain and anxiety with a couple bottles of wine. When I woke on Saturday afternoon (first time I slept in since August!), my body was still sore, but the weight of the world was  gone...for now.

It returned mid December when I foolishly began to expect an early release of the results...unfortunately for me, they didn’t arrive online until after Christmas.  But it was the best gift, EVER.

Jessie...Wins...Party.

(only one of you will get that joke, but it was still worth it.)