I'm really starting to slack here! Stuff has been crazy. On Wednesday of last week, I finally heard from HR. First, let me give a little bit of background: each state has their own awesome, unique way of judging whether or not a teacher is qualified to teach in that state. In Alabama, I was required to take 2 tests to prove that I was smart enough to teach elementary school, and I had to take the tests before I could be certified to teach in Alabama (hence the reason I didn't get a job in AL-- no time between UF graduation and the start of the school year.) I was thrilled when I moved to Texas and realized they offered a one-year temporary certification for out of staters like myself. Basically, I have to take 3 tests here for a standard certification, but if I paid $150 extra I could be certified almost immediately and start applying for jobs. Then I had a whole year to take those three tests. So that's what I did and I thought I was all set, but then HR informed me on Wednesday that in order to be "highly qualified" (a caveat of No Child Left Behind) I needed to take one of those tests before they could write me a contract. Lovely.
So I scrambled to find a test within an hour or two driving distance and the soonest one I could find was on Monday near downtown Houston. I passed, got my scores on Tuesday, but HR didn't get my scores until Thursday (and they wouldn't take my word for it, of course, even though I sent them a copy of my score report.) Then on Friday, after they got my scores (again), HR told my principal that they needed ANOTHER reference, from a "supervisor" and the supervisor had to be someone who supervised me in relation to teaching. I had already given them the only people I've actually worked for in the last 4 years related to children, so I gave them my study abroad supervisors name from when I taught 3rd graders for a few weeks in Plymouth. She is on vacation until Monday, so I can't go to the new teacher orientation Monday morning. It is such a racket, but I still have a job, so I am just trying to take it all in stride. I am going to be going in on Monday afternoon to get better acquainted and meet everyone, which is fine, but I'm going to have to do the orientation at some point, I assume.
Training has been going smoothly, and my neck healed rather quickly. I did end up biking the Saturday after my last post with minimal pain, and it feels 98% better now. This week has been pretty grueling, and I'm not scheduled to have another off day until next Thursday (my last rest day was on Sunday.) But some of the workouts are so easy that it almost counts as a rest day. Yesterday's swim, for example, was only 1200 meters at an easy pace, and no more than 300 m without a 10-20 second break. I also redid all of my time trials to see how they compared to the ones I did a few weeks ago, and, much to my disappointment, only my bike time improved (I shaved close to two minutes off of that!) My 400 m swim was slower by 10s and my 3k run was slower by 31s. I guess overall my time improved though, so I'll just think of it that way:) Also, this training plan says "aim for your race pace" during the test runs, and my race pace is "moving." I'm not aiming for a particular time, so as long as I'm moving I'm "on pace."
Today was pretty rough, partly because I only got 5.5 hours of sleep last night, but partly because it was another "BRICK" workout, and I find transitioning from one discipline to another very difficult. I have no idea how people do ironman competitions...or even half iron mans (iron men?) I biked 17.08 miles and then ran 2.82 miles and I was totally beat by the time I got home.
Rob is off golfing with his friend Andrew, who is visiting from Birmingham for the weekend. They are going go kart racing later, but I think I might opt out for a nap:)
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