My Worst Break-up Ever

I have been a little preoccupied lately. A very big event happened in my life this past Saturday, and it took up most of my time and thoughts preparing for it: March 13th, 2010 was the fateful day that SRTA broke up with me.

Let me give you a run-down. SRTA stands for Southern Regional Testing Agency. Instead of having a National Clinical Board, someone has decided to divide all the states into their own testing regions, and they even overlap states to make it more confusing. Anyway, I decided to take this test with the mindset that if I ever moved away from West Virginia that it would be somewhere to the warmer South. Like you all know, I was pretty worried about my patient showing up for the test and qualifying. These were my main worries… And here is how my time spent with SRTA was like a relationship:

• A relationship starts off with a hope, just like me preparing for this test and hoping for success for my future career.

• In the beginning of a relationship there is always a little worry that the guy doesn’t like you as much as you like him. This is like my worry that my patient wouldn’t work out.

• In a relationship, there should be butterflies in your stomach whenever you see that special someone, just like I had on my “date” with SRTA that March 13th.

• In a good relationship there are times when there is smooth sailing and everything is happy, as it was when my patient arrived the day of the board exam AND qualified!

• In a relationship there are ups and downs. One such down in my relationship with SRTA was that I had forgot to fill out part of a form, but it was nothing that I couldn’t apologize for and correct. And this had no bearing on my final score.

• At the end of a date in a relationship, there are those butterflies and questions like “Did he think it went as well as I thought it just did?”. This is how I felt after my clinical board.

• There is a time in a relationship where you are comfortable with the situation and who you are with. After I took the clinical part of this exam, I also had to take an electronic portion. I came out of this part thinking it was ridiculously easy.

• In a not-so-good relationship sometimes the person leads you on. Monday morning I checked my SRTA account to find out I had a big ole “PASS” typed out on the screen before me. This just confirmed my previous feelings of comfort.

• In a relationship you can be dumped. This is what SRTA did to me Monday evening when I found out I failed my clinical portion of the exam. My heart was broken.

This is me after I found out SRTA dumped me. Like what I've done with my hair?

• At the end of a relationship you can be sad and sometimes mad at who broke up with you. I was mad! I feel like SRTA lied to me and about me, and also sold me false promises of hope during my time with it. I was also sad because all the hard work I put into the relationship was now null and void. I talked to my girlfriends about this exam and they backed me up like good friends do. There were 6 of us in the same relationship and SRTA broke up with 4 of us and kept its 2 favorites (sort of The Bachelor-ish). We came together and shared our stories after the final rose, I mean after the exam was over. It makes me feel better to know I have people to go through this with me, but that also makes me feel really bad cause I don’t want any of us to fail. We all are good at what we do and can’t help that the judges grading us couldn’t see the same thing. It doesn’t help that I added up my score and found out I got a 74.75%, only 0.25% away from passing. Another girl got the same score, which makes us a little skeptical.

So now it’s time to start a new relationship with a SRTA in a different school. I have to pay another $915 (ridiculous! SRTA is only dating me for my money!) not to mention go through the turmoil of finding another board patient that would be willing to come to WVU to be screened and then be able to go to Bridgemont Community & Technical College in Montgomery, WV on April 30th. And so my life continues to be stressful for at least another couple months, and I feel bad for Phil having to put up with the moods I have during this process. He’s a trooper though, and at least I know he is my everlasting relationship.