Good Things Come to Those Who Don't Think They Know Enough

Yup! I stepped up to the plate and sent the ball flying out of the park. A grand slam on all accounts for me. Let me tell you why...

I joined the Army obviously with the intentions of better providing for my family but had my doubts as to how well I'd do in one of the hardest MOSs in the military (68W has a huge dropout rate). Needless to say I passed every single one of my tests on the first go and am still planning on keeping that up.

A few weeks ago we had our All Skills practical (hands on) to see how well we learned in our classes and to make sure we knew what we were doing. I psyched myself out for some of those but, in the end, shouldn't have been so nervous because I did just fine and passed all six of my assessments easily as well. The one part of the testing routine that really gave me the jitters and kept me entirely too antsy was the NREMT (National Registry for Emergency Medical Technicians). This test basically shows how much you really know and whether or not you end up getting EMT qualified.

I took the test (all 70 questions for me) in about 55 minutes and didn't even care to think about it after I had finished because I knew I'd likely trip out as to whether or not I'd done well. What normally happens after any other test is that our instructor calls the names out of those that failed so they can be counselled and retake the test. Well, my name was the first one called out and I was really nervous. My heart was pounding excessively, noticably out of my chest in my opinion, and I went and took a seat next to my instructor. He told me to relax and congratulated me because I was the very first one with positive results back on my test. I PASSED!!! He had me help him type in the rest of the class info, person by person, to check how everyone else had done. When all was said and done we had about a 68% pass overall in our class and an astounding 74% or so pass rate company-wide.

I felt so much relief and didn't have to worry about studying to retake the test. Its an honest blessing that I've done as well as I have and I only continue to keep this habit up. Now don't go thinking I've grown out of my procrastination phase that I had throughout school and college... I still wait til the end sometimes to get things done and to study. This time though I think I had a greater motivation than I ever have had in the past: Katie and Caleb. They've been my deciding factor and personal drive the entire time I've been gone and they are obviously doing me well. Not only do I have them but I had great instructors too that really made things easy to understand and always went out of their way to help me understand what I wasn't quite grasping.

I'm one happy man and excited to move on and see what else is out there for me. Just a few short weeks left to go and I'll be back home where I belong! Or so I thought... but thats a different story for a different time. Lets just say it all began with the weekend after the NREMT test and I'll fill ya in soon enough...