My studious weekend
0 Comments Published by Oh Wayward One on 25 June 2006 at 6/25/2006 05:17:00 pm.
This weekend didn't revolve around booze, fun, or anything exciting. Just my friggin IEMA exam (so I can become an Associate member as I am now but a meager peon Affiliate). UGH!
Friday: Aine gave me the day to do my exam at work. Which was good considering I had 2 weeks to do it and naturally in the last 3 days I had only answered 3 questions out of 10. oops. Well anyway the company is paying for my membership, so they might as well make sure I pass and give me a day to do it at work, so whatever, fair enough. I stayed at work til nearly 7pm (atrocious!!) and still only had 5 questions answered. But damn they were good answers.
Saturday: NINE HOURS on this machine. OK thanks be to WHATEVER that a few choice angels happened upon me in my hours of need on the ol' Instant Messenger. That was nice. Thank you. Breaks. Must.have.breaks. Finished the night at 1am with still 2 questions left to answer.
Sunday: Woke up "early" at 10 or so, went straight to the machine again, starting with the hardest one (which turned out to be the easiest), and left myself the easiest one for last (which turned out to be the hardest!!) unreal!!! Completion: 5pm.
I'm glad I did it. I'm also nervous. Olivia is 1000 times more smart than me, and she failed it last year. Yeah it'll be great if I can have the AIEMA letters after my name but I'm trying not to count chickens pre-hatching.
It was actually strangely fun to write 400-word answers. I like the feeling that I am actually writing about stuff I KNOW about. Something strangely different from all those tests/papers in college. Just goes to show you actually DO learn a lot on the job. I found the hardest thing sticking to the 400-word limit. I was constantly going: highlight--> tools--> word count and seeing numbers like "505" or "450".... ugh. edit edit trim trim.
The Mr. was his gorgeous saintly self during the whole thing. making me tea, baking brownies (brownies?!?! we've never had brownies in this house WTF!!!), and doing all the jobs I wouldn't be fielding this weekend... laundry, breakfast, cleaning... etc. OK we found a couple hours on saturday to go out for coffee and a bit of shopping but that was IT.
For my own record, here were my topics. Let's just say a quick prayer that I don't have to re-do it again next year with a whole different set of Q's:
Q1: hydrological and carbon cycle impacts
Q2: improving biodiversity
Q3: advantages/disadvantages of bio-fuels, particularly palm bio-diesel
Q4: EIA - specifically port development
Q5: Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of environmental performance
Q6: Fair Trade
Q7: ISO 14001 / Environmental Policy writing
Q8: Global ENergy Security / energy efficiency
Q9: Transport Assessment vs. EIA traffic assessment
Q10: Environmental legislation specifically Ireland related.
I found number 4 definitely the biggest breeze (I just finished WRITING a port development EIA!!!!), and number 8 & 1 the hardest of all. Mainly number 8 because it was midnight and I couldnt pare down the words enough, and number 1 because I learned that shit like 1000 years ago and now I'm old.
Here's to September, when I get the results. -sigh-
Oh yeah, it has a happy ending: reward = Bob Dylan concert tonight.
Friday: Aine gave me the day to do my exam at work. Which was good considering I had 2 weeks to do it and naturally in the last 3 days I had only answered 3 questions out of 10. oops. Well anyway the company is paying for my membership, so they might as well make sure I pass and give me a day to do it at work, so whatever, fair enough. I stayed at work til nearly 7pm (atrocious!!) and still only had 5 questions answered. But damn they were good answers.
Saturday: NINE HOURS on this machine. OK thanks be to WHATEVER that a few choice angels happened upon me in my hours of need on the ol' Instant Messenger. That was nice. Thank you. Breaks. Must.have.breaks. Finished the night at 1am with still 2 questions left to answer.
Sunday: Woke up "early" at 10 or so, went straight to the machine again, starting with the hardest one (which turned out to be the easiest), and left myself the easiest one for last (which turned out to be the hardest!!) unreal!!! Completion: 5pm.
I'm glad I did it. I'm also nervous. Olivia is 1000 times more smart than me, and she failed it last year. Yeah it'll be great if I can have the AIEMA letters after my name but I'm trying not to count chickens pre-hatching.
It was actually strangely fun to write 400-word answers. I like the feeling that I am actually writing about stuff I KNOW about. Something strangely different from all those tests/papers in college. Just goes to show you actually DO learn a lot on the job. I found the hardest thing sticking to the 400-word limit. I was constantly going: highlight--> tools--> word count and seeing numbers like "505" or "450".... ugh. edit edit trim trim.
The Mr. was his gorgeous saintly self during the whole thing. making me tea, baking brownies (brownies?!?! we've never had brownies in this house WTF!!!), and doing all the jobs I wouldn't be fielding this weekend... laundry, breakfast, cleaning... etc. OK we found a couple hours on saturday to go out for coffee and a bit of shopping but that was IT.
For my own record, here were my topics. Let's just say a quick prayer that I don't have to re-do it again next year with a whole different set of Q's:
Q1: hydrological and carbon cycle impacts
Q2: improving biodiversity
Q3: advantages/disadvantages of bio-fuels, particularly palm bio-diesel
Q4: EIA - specifically port development
Q5: Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of environmental performance
Q6: Fair Trade
Q7: ISO 14001 / Environmental Policy writing
Q8: Global ENergy Security / energy efficiency
Q9: Transport Assessment vs. EIA traffic assessment
Q10: Environmental legislation specifically Ireland related.
I found number 4 definitely the biggest breeze (I just finished WRITING a port development EIA!!!!), and number 8 & 1 the hardest of all. Mainly number 8 because it was midnight and I couldnt pare down the words enough, and number 1 because I learned that shit like 1000 years ago and now I'm old.
Here's to September, when I get the results. -sigh-
Oh yeah, it has a happy ending: reward = Bob Dylan concert tonight.
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