Last week I upgraded my HAM radio license to Extra.
Since then, I've been trying to fill the void created by the sudden stop of my license study.
I mean, I was studying and prepping for the exam practically every waking minute of the day.
This I did, in between dev builds, QA time, waiting for meetings, after work, in the bathroom, after dinner, watching movies, before falling asleep and often right after waking up.
I would have to classify this, after reading it, as obsessed.
For those of you who play an instrument, sport, other repetitive type of activity, you develop muscle memory. Muscle memory is where you don't even think about doing it, it just happens. Martial artists & fighters in general learn different movies and repeat things over and over. This way it becomes easy to recall and you don't realize it's happening.
This is what I wanted to do for my Extra class exam. I did the same thing last year for the General class exam.
The huge/major different for Extra class license, is the level of knowledge and math skills required.
Now, one thing to understand about me, I am a championship test taker.
In the 80's California started statewide testing for schools. During this time, we used to spend a few weeks studying and practicing these types of tests.
I got good at scanning questions, reviewing answers and making the right choice 99.9% of the time.
Much of the right choice was because of what I knew, and much of it is that I am a calculated risk taker... generally. Not that I could become a professional gambler, but I know when I can bet well, and other times when I should just stop and walk away. The rest of that time, I don't always listen to either voice, and wind up losing.
My test taking skills were so good that from Elementary School to Jr. High School, I went from generalized classes to advanced classes. (For the modern times, Jr. High School for most of us through the early 90's was still 7th-9th grade.)
In 7th grade, my first year in Jr. HS, I was put into Pre-Algebra. I liked it, but was a terrible student. While I could do the complex math with a calculator, I couldn't do basic math without one. The freaking teacher would allow us to use our calculators for homework, but not allow us to use them on the tests. While a novel idea, it sucked. I struggled with completing the tests in time, but understood how to do the work!
My other classes outside of mathematics really stank, except for PE... but unless you're a complete moron, PE isn't a hard class. The only exception here was the next year and the one after, when I got introduced to wood shop. I love working with wood.
The second year (8th), I felt that I was dumped into an elective class that was only available because the others were full... typing... what a total suck ass class! HOWEVER, without this skill, I would've had a hard time getting office type jobs, like data entry.
My hands have primarily been on a keyboard, touch typing for the last 20 years! So, while I can't hand write worth a damn, I can out type 80-90% of the people I come into contact with.
Going back to testing, I suppose the crowing achievement of my time in High School, period, was when I took the Golden State Exam for Geometry. I got so good with geometry, and would not only always pass a test, but usually be the first one done. So when this test came up, my Geometry teacher threatened to break my arm if I didn't take the test. (Good ol Mr. H.)
The day before the test, I only took an hour or two to read forward into the book about some of the formulas & concepts of things I didn't know, yet.
I took the test, and went on with life until the next school year. During my advanced algebra class, the teacher was handing out the certificates from the Golden State Exam, by passing the papers from the front of the row to the back.
As the tests got passed back from the front, all I heard was "damn"...
My test results said that I "Passed with Honors". So, not only did I pass, but I kicked ass!
I know by now, that my Geometry teach is probably dead, but I'll never forget him.
Lastly, I suppose while still on the topic of school, I need to give a HUGE shout out to my 11th grade English teacher.
She knew I was smart, and that I was also enrolled in Creative Writing. However, going back to my habits out of grade school, I was a bad student. I didn't like doing homework, and failed to actually take notes about when and what homework needed to be done.
Now that I think about it... my folks were always working when I was in grade school, and they never followed up with me after school about homework. In fact... it feels like they let me down by not following up with my homework/school studies. My younger sister is a much better student and didn't need this type of follow up, so I suppose it must be my being a bonehead.
This English teacher though... When it came to the quarter semester, she gave me a B, when I deserved a D. She looked at me and said, "You're going to earn that aren't you?" I could only answer "Yes, Ma'am." At the end of the Semester I kept the B, and the next quarter and final Semester, I earned and kept an A.
Also during this time though, my writing assignments became very dominate throughout the rest of the classes, because she often read them through ALL of her classes that year. At one point, a snarky girl in the class said "Jared isn't the best writer in the class..." The teacher retorted, "He's the best writer out of ALL my classes this year."
Now that I've covered my favorite part of the teenage, pimply parts of my life, let me return to the Extra class test studying.
I'm good at memorizing and remembering things that might seem forgotten... If I can remember that I knew something or that I did something, but not the details of it... I can sit down somewhere with my eyes closed and after a while of thinking about it, I can recall almost the entire incident or information that I need. Sometimes, like when it came to the school details above, I can even remember the entire scene like watching a movie. I can remember where I was sitting, who was sitting where in the classroom, what the teach was wearing, the weather outside, and often what things smelled like at that time. (perfumes, etc.)
When I studied the tests, I started out with online flash cards from
HamExam. I started by learning the answers, and then after a while, I would go back to the actual theory and read about why the answers were what they were. HOWEVER, I also got to a point where I knew keywords or number sequences, or answers that would only have certain words or not have certain words.
Understanding that I only needed to correctly answer 37 out of 50 questions, I expected that I could miss some of the questions. Since the questions on the tests are pulled out of each theory area, there are perhaps 2-4 out of each section. If I knew more about one area than another, I could miss those questions and still pass.
Two weeks before the test, I stopped failing all practice tests.
The day of the test, I knew almost ALL the questions and that several of them, I had a 50/50 chance of answering right, because I knew the numeric sequence, but not the final part of the wording, because it would've helped if I studied more of the theory in that area.
Now that I passed the test, let me "SLIDE" back to where I started off at.
Last week, since the test, I've been bored during my "slow" times.
I started playing logic puzzles and backgammon again.
The last few days, those have been boring me pretty badly again too.
So, I started back into reading the news sites again.
One of these is The Blaze, Glenn Beck's brain child.
Does this mean that I follow Glenn Beck religiously or at all?
No, not really at all.
I did once though.
At the height of my emotional turmoil with Bipolar Disorder, I was listening to Glenn Beck and other similar radio show hosts. I even had a subscription to the The Blaze internet TV site.
Ellie knew I was doing this and finally told me it might help my stress if I stopped.
It took me a bit, but when I finally stopped, my stress did drop a LOT.
I still keep an ear to the ground and do not regret the history and other things that I went about learning because of Glenn Beck.
What I'm getting a little bit concerned about... is that I'm starting to get bored enough to start reading The Blaze again, and looking at Glenn's site...
Today, I even fired up the free internet feed from his radio show...
After a while of listening, it went to the stupid on air commercials, and I had a chance to stop and think...
Am I "Beck-Sliding" into my old emotional turmoil again?
