Wooo Hooo...

or, how to make a short story long.

Let me tell you ladies about my day. I was totally stoked to put my national boards box in the mail. In it is all the work I've done to get my certification. Hours and hours and hours. Seriously, alone, the box took like 3 hours to pack. There are 4 entries each with their own envelop an packing list and then a 5th envelop for all the forms, I mean really, you have to verify that all the packing lists are where they need to be right?

But it was done. I went to the post office annex place inside the shell station, which is much less sketchy than it sounds and happily gave my well taped box to the happy little man. He was worried that the pre-printed label which was ON THE BOX would be too hard to see and pulled out a sharpie in order to make it more visible, hey great no problem. Then he flips the box over and proceeds to CROSS OUT the pre-printed, specially placed very important bar code stickers. My number (02701156) had been put on the 73-ish pages of then entry over and over again and needed to match the box. And he crossed it out. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I stopped breathing and was like "wait, no, stop." I took the box back out to the car, calmly looked for the help number on the box and in my NBCT stuff then started hyperventilating. No phone number. I drive home. Open the door and immediately smell shit. I'm greeted by two dogs, Sam and Ru. I'm dog sitting. I look around and see a few small piles of poop. Weird, it's sure stinky, I think to myself. I grimace and attempt to wipe it up. Then upon further examination find a literal cascade of shit going all the way down the stairs. There was a definite problem earlier today, and while both dogs appear fine, at one point in time one of them was NOT alright.

Now, I'm trying to prioritize. I mean, there is crap all over my house but a box that I really, really want to put in the mail, like now. I decide to clean. It takes comet, plastic bags doubling for rubber gloves and at least 3 of my rattiest kitchen towls before I feel like it might be okay.

Back to the first issue, the box. I find the number and explain the predicament to the lady on the phone, "I've got a problem. My box is ready to be shipped. Literally, sealed and in the hands of the post office guy and before I could stop him, he crossed out all the labels. And then I stopped breathing. What do I do?"

"Well, you can start by breathing again." At this point I feel relieved but am so keyed up I start to cry just a bit. She explains that while she also would have wanted to kill him, they open every box and because each envelop is labeled, all the information will go to the right place. It will be okay, it has happened before.

But, not to me. I trusted her, put the dogs in the car and went back to the post office annex. the guy was very apologetic (good thing) and I put it in the mail. My house doesn't even smell like poop and my portfolio is now left to stand alone... either it will or it won't. I've done my part.

poor timing but a positive outlook

So, it occurs to me that I shouldn't have put forth a huge writing intensive goal (this blog) when the other goal I am currently buried in (National Boards) is also huge and writing intensive. National Boards is currently winning the battle of time and intellectual bandwidth. I am making good progress but it will be another month until I can re-focus my energies here. But, here is the thought that pushed me through the weekend and past a huge diaster of a taping session....sometimes it takes a massive failure and good friends to mitigate the ensuing mess to put things back in perspective. I feel, finally, that I might actually pass. I'm not sure, but I'm no longer convinced I will fail.

pep-talk via social networking

I'm at the beginning of what promises to be an intense six weeks of work. (Not that my past few weeks have been stress free, but this I can anticipate coming.) But, in a strange venue for a pep talk one of the administrators from my building, who also happens to be my friend asked me how I was doing through facebook chat. I really didn't want to talk to her; I was trying to work (so, yes, I probably shouldn't have been on facebook at the same time) but she knew I was stressed and asked about it. I concurred, yep, stressed. She then proceeded to give me the nicest "Go Get'em Tiger" type speech. Including telling me that I was a "tremendous teacher" and if her son (overly precocious 3 year old) needed special ed (as if!) then she'd want him in my class. Wow, totally unexpected and completely welcome.