Anyway, after finding out we couldn't print out our testing permits at the condo we decided to make the two block walk to school. We grabbed our IDs and waited until after 5:00pm (because you have to be dressed up to go to school during working hours). Neither Farley nor I had a print card, so first thing we went to the print card vending machine. Luckily for us, you had to had a one dollar bill to buy the card then you could add money to the card. Neither of us had a one dollar bill and the machine was not accepting credit cards. We went upstairs to the main offices (which frankly can be a scary place) and our favorite office worker, Mrs. Kind was still at work. She didn't have change for a $5.00 and refused to let us pay her a $5.00 for the $1.00 dollar bill that we so desperately needed. I think she is probably one of the most helpful and genuinely caring people that our Caribbean Medical School has to offer. She is like a surrogate mom to any student in need, while maintaining her professional boundaries of course.
After obtaining the elicit dollar bill, we bought the card and then put $5.00 on it to purchase copies. We headed right to the computer lab and logged onto our respective computers. Farley hopped right on and had his permit printed quickly. I, on the other hand, ran into some troubles. I logged onto the website a few weeks ago to check the permit and make sure it was correct--it must match your ID exactly or you are not allowed to take the exam and if there is a problem you must correct it a few weeks before your exam. Obviously, I knew my password three weeks ago, but I could not get logged on yesterday. I tried retyping my password several times. I tried a different password. I tried everything I could think of. Nothing was working so I decided to click the "I forgot my password" link and have them send me a temporary password. We waited and after five or ten minutes, I thought that maybe I didn't fill out the "I forgot my password" information correctly so I did it again. About three minutes late, the temporary password arrived: It didn't work. We thought maybe another email would be coming since I did the "I forgot my password" thing twice. We waited for about a hour and kept trying to use the temporary password to no avail so we headed home.
I was worried about this password thing all night. I knew that I would be able to contact the medical board people and figure out my password in the morning, but it was weighing on me. I kept thinking to myself, thank goodness you decided to print this out two days in advance rather than one day or you would be in trouble.
This morning at 9:00 EST, I got online and tried one more time with the temporary password. It worked. After all of that, it worked just fine. I logged in changed my password, copied the permit into an email in case I had any other problems then headed back to school.
School was a ghost town. It is Wednesday so all of the third year students were enjoying a great day of lectures in Downtown Miami. I was alone in the computer lab, so alone I even turned on the lights. I tried to log onto the computer and it wouldn't let me. I was contemplating trying to find one of the IT guys, but on the fourth try, I got onto the system. Besides, the IT guys are also in Downtown Miami for the all day lectures, lucky them. So, once I was on the computer system, I logged onto my email to get my account number so I could then log onto the medical board web site and print out my testing permit. Failure. I could not get onto the medical board website. I tried to print out the testing permit from the email, but the formatting was completely different so I didn't think it would work. Security for these exams is extensive--they finger print you every time you take a break and leave the test room in addition to taking your picture and probably your first born child. But, it is a good thing security is so tight as these are medical boards and it is essential that medical students meet the minimum marks before moving forward with more extensive patient care.
Anyway, I ended up calling the medical board. I spoke with a very helpful lady. After telling her my life story to prove that I am who I claim to be, I she gave me the password that I had typed into my computer less than an hour before. In my rush, I neglected to read that passwords should be 6-9 characters and mine was much longer. So yes, I typed it in correctly that morning but the computer only picked up the first 9 characters and when I typed in my full length password which was longer, the computer caught it as an error. I felt so stupid. But, I now have three copies of my test permit just in case I lose one before tomorrow morning!
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