in record time

 We had a combined YM/YW activity today.  It was really a lot of fun.  We called it "pumpkin and dunkin" and we, as you may have guessed, carved pumpkins and ate donuts.  

We had a good turn out and there was lots of happy chatter, smiles behind masks and good natured ribbing.  The pumpkins turned out cute and the youth had fun.

We tried exploding a pumpkin too but it didn't explode.  

So the record is for shortest time in grad school.  2 hours.  Yesterday was my first day.  I came home looking forward to starting and looked through my classes and syllabi and mapped out how to get thru the semester.  I left the "gate" class for last.  Liberty has gates that you pass thru for graduation, to make sure you are on track, they are an orientation for each section.  That's when things went awry.  First surprise, I was admitted into the college of behavioral science but at gate 2 I would have to be accepted into the guidance counseling program. This was a suprise to me, even my acceptance letter said it was to the school counseling program.  School counseling had 2 requirements that I hadn't read about before that disqualified me without a lot of additional work.  One you had to have a statistics class in college.  Which I didn't.  I didn't have it or the prerequisites for it.  So I would have to take those before I could go thru gate 2.  Also you have to have taught school for 2 years with a permanent credential.  I taught for 3 years but I had an emergency, and then a provisional credential.  When I started teaching CA was going thru an education crisis, they quickly reduced class sizes across the state to 20 or less, and hired 1000's of teachers with bachelors degrees but no education training.  That was me.  We had 5 years to complete our credentials and I was on track, and had moved from emergency to provisional but I hadn't completed all the requirements. So clearing my credential and teaching for two years, taking the math classes and then doing the whole program I literally would be looking at being 57ish when I finished.  I withdrew and am regrouping.  There are options, I just need to figure out what will be best for me and Rob in the upcoming decade and a half until retirement. I was willing to give up all my free time for 2 years to do this, but I don't know about 5 years, or even 4.  Today I was lamenting to my coworkers and I learned that there are some options out there I wasn't aware of that may work.  I won't be able to get around the statistics class but maybe that'll be okay.  

Speaking of Rob, he's on a business trip to CA.  His flight was safe and he had lunch with a friend and he’s having dinner with Bryan and Tami.

And we stayed home and ate a huge nacho platter for dinner.