*well, at a least a test won’t keep me back. How could a test keep me back? It’s a sorta-long and very-boring story. TLDR: I am incredibly excited that I passed a hard test.

Here’s what went down. I pulled a dummie and didn’t get my mits onto a study guide until two and a half weeks before the test. Open the cardboard box, crack open the book, 50 bucks for one single 18 page chapter on the particular test I’ll be taking. And oh my word those 18 pages are all little bullet points, things to study each bullet point a huge thing to get into my head and working well. Might as well be 180 pages. Or 500 pages. Yeah..definitely 500 pages.. Biology. Geology. Astronomy. Chemistry. Physics. Lab procedures. Me, I love science, right? Even better teaching science. But this is a LOT of science in not much time.

Two and a half weeks plus three hours later I walked out of a room feeling like I just finished having my science head and knowledge and ability stomped and sqrcckkked (that’s the sound when you twist your foot on gravel) into gravel..because that’s exactly what taking that test felt like. And of course, all the teachers I talk to say “ohhhh that test, yeah that felt horrible after I took it, totally thought I bombed, but then I passed!” and I say to myself Oh gees thanks for the nice little ‘make me not feel so horrible’ gesture.

And four weeks later: 190/200. Certificate of Excellence mailed to me. Kinda felt a bit of the coolness of DiCaprio’s Abegnale at the end of the movie, albeit briefly, as any of the coolness that remained after my nobody-is-around-so-I-can-fully-show-my-joy-by-couch-vaulting was definitely lost in the midst of still-nobody-around-celebratory-somersaults.

So what now?

Diomede. Nunam Iqua. Hooper Bay. Koyuk. Tuluksak. Final polish on my resume today, submit apps tomorrow, job fair friday, my gut says if she goes steady as she goes than Nunam Iqua or Diomede…but I’ve heard that a job fair can be a pretty wild thing, so we’ll see.