Anxiety Dream Maybe?

So I've been bemoaning the whole "change of careers" trauma on these pages off and on, right? Well...

 

I still am, don't worry.  I'm not about to tell you that I'm taking on the ruler, dirty looks, and perpetual clipboard of my former years, not today at any rate.

 

It's just, well, I'm also a "play-it-safe" kinda gal.  I don't gamble.  I don't much like the lottery.  Game shows that even feel like there's a chance you'll lose it all?  Not my thing.  I'm not the most popular on any "game" night, lemme tell ya.  So what if I change my mind on the whole "teacher" thing?  A girl's got that right, right?

 

So, I'm renewing my California teaching credential.  It expires in August and I'm getting the paperwork together to do it "one last time..." maybe.  I'll have 5 years to see if I really do want to just give it up, you see.  For the non-teachers out there, in Cali, when I EARNED my credential (blood, sweat, and tears) back in '97, I fell into the lot of newbie teachers who have to gather together 150 "professional development hours" as well as have "a plan" and "goals" and "stuff."  You know, like an advisor to sign off on all of it.  You can pretty much do all that ANYWHERE, thank you liberal Cali.  So, while in Hawai'i, I gathered and was advised and "stuffed" for my upcoming renewal.  I'm not just gonna throw all that time and effort away!

 

That was now officially 2 states ago.  2 HUGE moves ago.

 

Now just ask me where I've put it all?!?

 

So the dreams have started.  My wonderful anxiety dreams.  Beginning with the one I had the other night where actually it was August of 2006 that the ol' credential 'spired.  SOL Loser!  I think I actually propelled myself out of bed in record time to physically look at the credential.  I do know where that is.  I "keep it secret, keep it safe."  (Just re-watched the LOTR, can you tell?)

 

Last night I was back in Santa Cruz.  For some reason I was taking a bath while wearing a jacket-style floatation device.  There were people doing acrobatics in the hallway.  Once dressed, or at least out of the bath, details are sketchy, I was confronted by an old friend.  He accused me of being a "teacher"--said in such a way that you knew he'd said a bad word--because I had an old-style wooden pencil in my room!  Which he brandished like a wand, or sword, or something.

 

Right.  Woke up on such a good note there.