good afternoon fellow glitchnetizens,

i was meaning to write this post a couple days ago, but i just got around to it now, so here we are again.
me rambling on about some random nonsense and someone reading it. i hope you enjoy, reader.

real quick: SPOILER WARNING FOR CCST! do not read if you are planning to take the ccst exam and have yet to do so (sysop).

edit note: in light of accidentally including a bunch of pii in this post, all corrections/amendments will be marked by this cyan colored text.

this past thursday, i took my ccst exam in HWSNBN's class! sounds delightful, right?

no. not delightful.

to start, we first found out about our exam being on thursday ON WEDNESDAY. the day before the test. the morning of solarfest (woo solarfest!).

needless to say, wednesday sure was also something. i wore a white shirt again for the first time in months, we did quite a bit of setup, i traded jobs a couple times, yknow the deal.

at first, things were going really well, we were all setup and ready by the end of 3rd period, i had to run inside to give someone their wristband right before the event started, but all good!

that morning, my weather app said light rain at 5 pm. no biggie. by noon, my weather app said light rain by 5 pm. that's all fine and dandy!

at about 1:30 pm, we were seeing quite a few dark clouds in the distance. weather app was still hopeful, we were all hopeful, all chill.

(note: these times are all a rough approximation, but this all happened very quickly, so imagine that as you wish)

2:00 pm. all good.
2:10 pm. a little bit of light sprinkling while me and tar walked around being security.
2:15 pm. it was raining quite a bit heavier, and my former POE teacher made the comment, "at least there isn't lightning on the radar!"

boy was he mistaken!

2:20 pm, it was raining very heavily, and there were swarms of drenched high schoolers huddled under every type of possible
shelter. under the pavilion, around the solar car, inside of the crates near the tennis courts, under trees in a vague circular shape.

as it started raining harder, i decided to go out and tell the kids who were still out in the rain to start heading in, just in
case things went not so great suddenly. and as i was sending in some of the younger solarhawks, i believe it started to hail???
just small bits of ice falling from the sky rather than raindrops.
absolutely lovely.

having sent them in, i tried to start bringing some stuff back, tarmac went to help our dear sysop collect the big checkers game to bring in.

at this point, i was completely drenched, my shirt being very wet and the hoodie
i put on over top being soaked with water as well.
I WILL SAY- the solar car hoodies are great for heavy rain however, as the insides of my sleeves were still dry despite the heavy rain! cheers ben for his incredible clothing efforts.

everyone was drenched of cource, tarmac looking like a sad cat that had been forced to take a bath, datbirbdude more akin to a wet dog, and a variety of
others in a variety of other states of damp.

a great day to wear white shirts too.

so we got most of the stuff back to the pavilion, the majority of our event-goers had by this point ran inside, and teachers were yelling at people to continue going side. xolo and grabbed mine and tar's bags, so inside we went.

thankfully, my stuff only had minor water damage, mainly my papers which are still wet to this day.
my computer and other electronic devices were fine, however, thankfully.

by this point, having gone inside with our stuff out of the rain, it was approximately 2:30 pm. solarfest had lasted not even 30 minutes i would say
before it was
over, and kids were angrily sent back to their classes.

unfortunately, not all items were saved from the rain, with datbirbdude's car key and phone having been left outside, same with sysop's bag (with all of his things), ben's backpack, and many other people's stuffs.

the car got rained on quite a bit too, but i think it's mostly fine now.

but yeah, everyone was soaked, and i had to go to a doctor's appointment immediately after school wearing soaking wet clothes,
which was lovely.

keep in mind: it was just that morning that we found out that we were going to have the ccst exam the literal next day!

so, to continue on the original point of this post, thursday rolls around, i got approximately 5 hours of sleep that night, so i
was very tired. i was also very
nervous about taking the test, and i kind of felt like i could either pass or fail depending on the questions.

we get to mmpc. HWSNBN immediately is telling people to put their bags in the middle of the room, phones off, sign into their computers and go to certiport. okay.

so i did that, bag on table, signed into my computer, opened certiport, and went to sign in.

i realized, i didn't know my certiport password off-hand, so i grabbed my phone from my bag, found my password, and typed it into the login menu, glancing at the answers to my security questions that i had written right next to my password in my phone as well.
i turned my phone off, put it in my bag, and moved on. i was signed in and dreading taking the exam, but all was fine.

time was ticking down, several people were struggling to sign in the rest of the way, and HWSNBN called time, telling them to leave the room since they couldn't get it in time.

HWSNBN said that from 10 am, we had 15 minutes to get signed in and begin testing before our testing vouchers expired, each of
which costed 150 dollars. 17 people were testing, so roughly 2000 dollars worth of testing vouchers was riding on him being able to administer the test.

10:05 am. HWSNBN was scrambling to find out how to get the test started. hamrum walked into the room to ask about it, and he offhandedly commented something
about another program being used to administer certiport's exams, rather than just doing it on
their website. he walked out of the room.

HWSNBN continued to struggle to find how to give the test, having the 14-15 of us who remained join an exam group, which did not work to get us into the test.
10:10 am. hamrum returns, saying that he believed a different software had to be used to take the test, which our computers did not have. however, CW's (the teacher who had replaced my freshman year IED teacher) room did have computers with the necessarily software! so HWSNBN made the executive decision to send us
on our way to their room instead! so off we went!

we made the great migration, quickly walking over to their room.
we got into their room, most people having already sat down at a computer and beginning to sign in.

i sat down next to ben at a computer with a black moniter, trying to get it to turn off. similarly, tarmac also sat at a dark computer, which did not turn on. after a solid minute, they abandoned their computer, going to the other side of the room.

i realized my computer was not going to load, so i turned around and scanned the room.

i saw one computer that was on and not signed into.
i practically lunged out of the chair, stumbling to the seat between rohan and datbirbdude, hands shaking as i failed to type my user id and password into the computer.

next to me, both datbirbdude and unnamed student 1's (thusly, RB) computers had begun signing them in, and behind us, suddenly, Nazeer asks what he needs to do. HWSNBN tells him to open the software, he does, it loads, he signs in, and HWSNBN gives him the access code, and he enters it, and he's in the test!

wuh oh.
we sit and wait for the computers to slowly load.

datbirbdude's computer loads, he searches for the testing software, and waits. RB's computer loads a bit after, he opens the testing software.
my computer has yet to load.

i have absolutely no idea what time it is now, but people are continuing to sign in to the testing software and start testing.
finally, my computer loads, and i quickly open the test software.

datbirbdude gives me a thumbs up, bro is trying to calm me down a bit, i am so fucking nervous in this moment.
fully panicking.
hella worried.

his program loads. it opens to the login menu. he signs in. it opens to the screen to enter the access code. it dawns on me.

i do not know my password. i am fucked.

he enters the access code and gets into the test. 40 questions.
great.

my program is still struggling to load, and RB's loads.
he enters his user and password, enters the access code, and starts testing.

at this point, i am twice as nervous as before, because i don't know my fucking password, and HWSNBN had already basically yelled
at 2 people for not knowing theirs. biting my tongue, i continue watching the stupid fucking loading circle continue to spin.
finally, it loads.
the login menu opens.
i do not know my password.

i type my username. i stare at it for several seconds. i do nothing.

next to me, datbirbdude fully notices that i have been staring at the login screen without typing anything for a solid 20 seconds.
i type in what could possibly be my password, and i hit enter.
it says wrong password.

fuck.
i stare at it for another 20 seconds.

then, i click the little "login help" text at the bottom corner of the screen. it opens a new window, asking for my username. i enter it. it goes to a new page, asking for my birthdate and the answer to one of my 2 security questions.

i knew the answer. i entered my birthdate, and i entered the answer, and it takes me to a new page.

enter a new password. confirm password.
my holy fucking grail.

i type in the phrase "pleaseletmein" twice, first for the new password and then to confirm it. i hit enter.
it takes me to the login menu. i close the window.
i enter my username again, and i type in the new password i made, "pleaseletmein", and i wait.

it loads briefly.
it opens the test to the access code menu.

i am absolutely fucking ecstatic because i get to take the test and i didn't immediately fail by not being able to take it!

i turn around and ask HWSNBN for the code, he gestures at the paper on the table he's sitting at, and i enter the code. it opens
the test.

i turn around again and hand the code over to unnamed student 2 so that tar can enter it, and then i start my test.

from there, it was really just taking the test. as i said before, 40 questions total, for a time of 50 minutes.
some of the questions were really easy, a few of them were more difficult since i couldn't remember exactly what the subject matter was, but i tried my best.
after about 20-25 minutes, i was mostly done with answering questions. i continuously went back anad forth through questions, reconsidering some answers and changing a few of them to be better than before.

around us, people had been submitting their tests, some passing and some failing. finally, birb submitted his test. 911/1000. god fucking damn bro.
HWSNBN saw it, congratulated him, told him to log off, then walked away.

in that moment, i submitted my test, skipping the feedback menus, and there it was.

811/1000.
i passed the ccst exam!!!

i looked at birb and he looked at me, and we were both really excited about it which i really appreciated from him, very quietly celebrating.
i show HWSNBN my score, he gives me a fistbump, and me and birb sign out of our computers before leaving the room.

as soon as we get around the corner out of CW's room, i immediately tell birb about how i forgot my password, and matching my energy, we banter back and forth about it on the way back to class.

we get to HWSNBN's room, ben jumps on us asking about our scores, and we find out that out of the 12 people who were able to take the test, 7 people passed.
that being myself, birb, tar, ben, Nazeer, Hurricanehenry, and unnamed student 3.

overall, pretty mid test i would say. could've gone a lot worse, but thankfully, things worked out!

anyways, thanks for reading i guess, will blog again soon.
cheers