This picture is appropriate because it looks like MysteryMan could be either reading or praying, two things that both of us will be doing a fair amount of in the next 48 hours. That’s because at this time tomorrow he’s going to be crammed into an examination room with scores of other people who enjoy doing math for a living (oh, the insanity) starting the first of eight hours worth of engineering questions.

I have been loaning him one of the spare rooms in my house since January so he could have a nice undisturbed study area and he has been holed up in there for hours almost every single day doing equations and solving the mysteries of the universe or whatever it is that math-oriented people do. Sometimes he likes to have me look at a problem that he is working on, ostensibly to ask if the solution makes sense to me, but really I know he just likes to watch my eyes cross when I try to make sense of an equation that covers two sheets of paper.

The last three months have been a study in ”being a supportive girlfriend” for me. I’m used to being my own best cheerleader… knowing I can get things done and accomplish anything I set my mind too. Unfortunately I can’t go in there and take the test for him (or maybe that is fortunate considering I don’t even remember the proper order of operations), so instead I dug up every reference material and piece of information about this exam that I could get my hands on and have been bombarding poor MysteryMan with this information for the last 98 days.

I’m not kidding, there has been a constant stream of “I heard you should stop studying two days before the exam” and “Do you think I should get you earplugs to take in there in case the guy next to you clears his throat every five seconds?” and “Make sure you underline the units they are asking for in the question and double check yourself” pouring out of my mouth for almost three months straight. I think maybe he only studied as much as he did because he knew once he holed himself up in his room with his books I wouldn’t disturb him.

Hey, whatever works.

We’re leaving for Columbus tonight and I am going to spend eight hours tomorrow biting my nails to the quick, and possibly wandering around the capital of this great state taking pictures of all the places I sit and worry about how the test is going.

The worst part is that it will take them twelve weeks for them to inform MysteryMan of whether or not he is in fact now a professional engineer or still only a pretend one, as I like to call him now. (He likes to roll his eyes all the way back into his head when I do that.) The good news is that once it’s over I can shut up about it and never have to know or say another thing about the PE exam ever again.

So, wish us luck! To MysteryMan for getting at least 70% of the questions on the exam correct, and to me for not driving him to the brink of insanity and ending up duck taped in the trunk of my car.

UPDATE: Fear not. It was touch-and-go there at the end, but I did make it to Columbus without “mysteriously disappearing.” It is 12:15 here, which means MysteryMan is already done with half of his exam. I was worrying about him so hard this morning that I actually gave myself a bloody nose. I didn’t even know that was possible, but I’m telling you, the last time I had a bloody nose it was because a foot connected squarely with my face. It does not happen often, which tells you what kind of strain I have been under.

I have also already read the last 300 pages of The Other Boyeln Girl this morning, walked a half a mile and become a card-carrying memeber of the Columbus Public Library system just so I could get my internet fix. Obviously I have more than one problem!

The good news? Compared to two hours North, the weather is gorgeous. Which is nice since I will be wandering aimlessly around the city for the next 5 hours until I can go pick the boy up.

Tags: columbus, MysteryMan, PE Exam, studying