cleared that hurdle

I passed my Professional Knowledge - Secondary Education exam.

Yay!

I'm almost halfway through my Bio class and it's crushing me. Just a tremendous amount of work in a very short period of time. Midterm on Friday, or Saturday if my studying does not go well. Whee!

So, where does this leave me in my pursuit of teaching certification?

Well, to get a provisional certificate, you need:
1. application
2. fee (of course)
3. a valid fingerprint clearance card
4. a bachelor's degree from an accredited university
5. completion of an accredited education program, or, for Secondary (middle and high school), 30 hours of education-related courses. Either one must include at least 8 semester hours of practicum (student) teaching, or you can work full time for two years instead of doing the practicum.
6. Professional Knowledge test
7. Subject matter test (in my case, biology, test day March 28)
8. Verification of 3 semester hours of SEI training (structured English immersion, my last horribly painful class)
9. US constitution
10. AZ constitution

Fortunately for me, 1 & 2 aren't at issue right now, 3,4,6 & 8 are now done, and 7 will be finished by April. I'll actually get a few years to complete 9 & 10 -- it's #5 that's the big stickler at this point. I have 3 1-credit courses, 2 3-credit courses, and 2 2-credit courses to go as far as classwork, then 8 credits of student teaching.

I still have to apply to the program, though. It would be so great if MIT could send Rio my transcript in such a way that Rio would know what to do with it.

Yeah, this is going to take a while.

field trip!

DS1's class, studying the Medieval Period of European history, took a field trip to the Renaissance Festival today, and I went along as a chaperone. We had a blast.

Dextre Tripp, fabulous showman

We did a lot of walking in the four hours we had, and saw jousts and jugglers, tried archery, walked through the dungeon museum, saw birds of prey and a fabulous whip-cracker.

DS1 and his best friend, with lunch

After escaping the maze and displaying feats of strength, the boys were fortified by smoked turkey legs, roasted corn, and anachronistic french fries. Shopping? Sure: they bought bows from Bows of the Risen Son (note the spelling there), while I chose a basic contact juggling kit from Sphereplay. I still can't manage regular juggling (so much for my 2008 New Year's resolution) but this looks amazingly cool and strangely relaxing, so I thought I'd try it. Why shouldn't Mom buy herself a new toy every now and then?

An exhausting but really great day.

so much

I can scarcely believe so many days have gone by since I last posted. Two birthdays, hours and hours of biology, substitute teaching, field trips, shopping, cooking, ferrying, another ThyCa meeting --

I've been really good about not staying up too late, because I've been so busy, until today.

Healthwise, briefly: RA is moderately bad, the twinge in my left Achilles was doing better until today when I re-tweaked it at Bounce U (DS2's party), I started on 137 mcg Levoxyl (actuall, the generic, there was a screw-up) on Feb 11. Also, I've had symptoms of an ovarian cyst since last Saturday (Feb 7), I'm giving it a bit more time to see if it goes away. It seems better today but that may be just because I'm eating much smaller quantities in an effort to stave off intense abdominal pain.

The ovarian cyst, if that's really what's going on, could be the un-thought-of consequence of the big shift back to carbohydrates my diet has suffered. I can't digest vegetables or fruit in any significant quantity; gone are the days when I could have a big, delicious salad for lunch. Even soup gives me problems! And I don't do that great with fats and only moderately well with proteins, and I have to eat something, so I eat more carbs. I'd completely forgotten that I have PCOS because when I limit my carbs, I don't. (Also, the hysterectomy I had in 2003 makes it easy for me to forget about ovary-related issues, until something bad happens.) Apparently, that remission was conditional.

At least both the internet and my car are working reliably these days, knock on wood, and it sure would be nice to know why but I am not complaining. Plus, school is going well despite my feeling as if I am constantly behind, and the ThyCa meeting went well also. Everything's pretty much OK or better than OK with us and I wish I felt better so I could enjoy it more.