I haven’t written in a week because I’ve been studying (and doing some chip work, which gets in the way of studying).  Today though, I attended a teacher training day.  Usually, I wouldn’t be doing this, but I was helping with the setup, technology and tear-down, so the principal let me stay and participate.  I eventually joined the Social Studies teachers.  While at this all-day event, I learned quite a bit about how things will be taught starting next school year (not this school year).  I also made a lot of contacts, since there were 70 teachers and four administrators there.  The break-out sessions were enlightening because the teachers rarely meet with each other apparently, so I was getting to know the teachers even as they were getting to know their peers from other schools.  They all shared similar goals and frustrations, and came to some conclusions as to what they would try under the new system by this coming November (the next teacher gathering).  Since the new standard is a year away, these schools are going to try to use some of the new standards this year.  I applaud their efforts.  This also means that I’ll be coming into the school system (should I get a job) just as the curriculum changes.  I see this as a good thing.

Oh ya, one of the history teachers talked to me at length.  After he spent much of the day with me, he said that I certainly had the “chops” and the knowledge to successfully teach.  Just one thing remains: learning classroom management.  The secret to teaching middle school and high school, he said, is all about classroom management.  If you can manage the class, you can teach effectively.  If you can’t control your class, it doesn’t matter how good or smart or knowledgeable you are, you simply won’t get the opportunity to teach.  He recommended that I pay more attention to that in my upcoming college experience than anything else.  Effective teachers are first effective managers of students.

On the college front, no word on a job there, but I’m progressing on my application process.  I have one excellent letter of recommendation, and another on the way.  My transcripts should also arrive soon.  With that gathered, I should be registered soon.

Oh, speaking of jobs, I had a friend call me out of the blue and mention that he is now at a new semiconductor company and thinks that I would fit great there.  He’s not aware of any job opening right now, but he’s going to talk to the powers that be anyway.  I’m not looking for a job right now, but I’m also not going to snub my nose at anything that comes my way that easily.

My wife’s middle school also announced the sudden departure of one of their history teachers – he’s now at the district level as a tech guy.  The principal lamented that I didn’t already have my credential.  I could have started on Monday!  This sudden opening creates a one year only contract position.  If the guy who left that position doesn’t return the following year, that job will be open again next year as a permanent position.  I don’t know that I want to teach seventh grade, but I do like the subject: Ancient Civilizations.  Maybe this will aid in motivating me towards completing my credential quickly.  I don’t know if I can actually get a credential in just under a year, but I’ll ask.

And, one of my former college profs also wants me to come in and teach as a guest lecturer.  I’m not going to turn that down!  I need all the experience I can get.

The theme of the day was “study.”  More than that, today, I would study Ancient Civilizations.  I read through a couple of books until I got tired at 2:30, and then watched a video lecture on the same subject.

For lunch, Barbara cooked some wonderful French-inspired, breaded Tilapia with a side dish of pickled zucchini.  The zucchini was OK, but the Tilapia was wonderful.

She also made bran muffins.

For dinner, she made petite steaks with mushrooms & onions on top, and a side of tarragon aioli; Lima beans and sourdough bread on the side.  Again, all was wonderful.

We had cracked open a bottle of Cotes Du Rhone wine to make the recipe.  It was too bad I couldn’t have a glass – I had to get to band practice.

Band practice was a pure pleasure.  I showed how God was pointing me towards teaching (sharing what God was saying to me through scripture), and they were encouraged by that.  We got silly at prayer time – our group is so comfortable with each other.  The music sounded good as well.  I think this is the first time I’ve been on bass since before my NY vacation (about two months?!).

I had a glass of wine when I got home and watched the Olympics.

Right before bed, I saw that one of my contract jobs had work for me.  I guess I’ll need to spend a couple of hours working on a chip tomorrow.  I’d rather study.

This morning, I created a reading schedule for my upcoming CSET test.  I have 38 books to read in 25 days.  It seems a little aggressive and unrealistic to me, but I’ll see what I can do.  I am (going to be) singularly focused on learning all I can over the next month.  I’m treating my studies as “work.”

The other thing I did today was call the National Hispanic University (NHU).  From all I had heard, the NHU had an accelerated program (one year!) that fit the needs of most (and not just Hispanic students either), and it was cheaper than SJSU’s 2-3 year program as well.  I talked to the administrator, who was very informative and downright friendly.  I like this school already!  Based on that conversation, I filled out the application form, filled out a financial aid form (which I though was ridiculous, but they guy assured me that most actually get financial aid, even if they consider themselves well-off), sent my two favorite professors a plea for letters of recommendation, and then wrote a two-page “letter of intent” about my desire to be a teacher, which the school requires.  A little later, Barb got in contact with one of the substitutes who had gone through the NHU program and I had a chance to talk with him a while.  He had really enjoyed the program, and would recommend it to anyone.  Yeah, I felt like I was really on the right track now.

I didn’t actually read much today, but I felt I accomplished a great deal.  That evening, the admin guy (Danny) wrote back and said that my letter of intent was one of the best he had ever read.  That made my day.  He invited me to an open house next Saturday at NHU.  I hope that I can not only see the place next week, but that I’ll be able to talk with someone in the Art department.  Over the weekend, I applied for an open teaching position at the University for an Art Appreciation class. I would like very much to teach that class, and Danny says that I can be a teacher and a student at the University at the same time, so long as the classes don’t meet at the same time.

Soft does not mean comfortable; I was up all night.  This did however afford me hours of conversation with the owner of the B&B once I left the room.  She was a nice enough gal.  After a couple of hours, some of the other guests began to make their way downstairs and then breakfast was served.  The food was good, and we had been paired-up with a couple from somewhere in North Yorkshire, England (though they had grown up and met in Newcastle).  They were fascinating people to talk to.  He was a paramedic on an oil rig off the coast of England, and she was a science teacher for what we would call 9^th and 10^th grades.  We talked about the Olympics, the state of US and English schools, the French, football (soccer), and our two fancy cars (they had borrowed her brother’s BMW Z3.  He lives in Reno).  None of us wanted to leave the table!  Eventually we had to though – they had an organized wine tour today, and we wanted to hit the wine trail ourselves.  Upon exiting, the owner of the place asked us to come back soon.  She said that having the Porsche parked right in front really classed-up the place.

At the B&B

Our first stop was to the Jacuzzi Winery; not that we wanted to drink wine at 10AM, but because there was a highly-rated olive oil place in the same building.  We love fancy olive oils, and this place, The Olive Press, did not disappoint.  Since we were there, I also did a wine tasting and found one wine that I absolutely adored, so I bought a bottle.  The grounds of this winery were beautiful as well, so we lingered a while before heading back to Sonoma’s downtown.

Jacuzzi Winery

We found the free parking behind the Mission just fine and opted to simply keep the car there all day and walk everywhere.  Our first stop was to the “Depot Museum,” a turn of the century train depot.  It was closed on Tuesdays, so we walked around the perimeter then left.  We took the bike path down to our next site:  Vella Cheese.  Of the three cheese shops in Sonoma, this was the highest rated.  The last time we were here… about 25 years ago, we had ventured into the 3^rd best cheese shop.  I recalled that Barbara was really impressed with the cheese back then; me, less so.  The Vella Cheese shop did not disappoint.  The gal who gave us samples was wonderful.  We were able to try as many cheeses as we would like.  We fell in love with many but chose to buy three… later, on our way out.  No sense in carrying cheese around all day or storing it in a hot car (even though we had the foresight to bring a cooler with ice).  We told the gal we’d be back.

The bike path led us further out of the city center to the Sebastiani Winery.  25 years ago, we had taken their tour and loved it.  We got there at 12:10.  Tours were at 11, 1 & 3.  We didn’t want to wait 50 minutes, so we simply shopped and hung out in their wine cellar, which was cool on this 90 degree day.  I got both chocolate and oil samples on my shirt.  The provided crackers had holes in them – perfect for dripping; not so much for dipping.

It took a while to get back to “civilization.”  On the way, I called my service provider to get the messaging fixed on my phone, which had stopped working during our East Coast trip.  Barb and Ray (currently vacationing with the Woos at Disney World), were having a rousing text conversation about whose daily activities were better and I wanted in on the conversation! (Since we had been at Disney World last month, they were also texting to ask me where the “cool” spots were, since it was over 100 degrees where they were.  Yesterday, they were at Epcot looking for my recommended “Antarctica Pavilion,” which doesn’t exist.  I told them that it was at the center of the lake.  Today, they sought the cool and comfort of Pirates of the Caribbean.)  Anyway, we reached civilization before AT&T was able to fix my phone, but the gal was a big help and she eventually succeeded.

Barb and I were now hungry, so we went to the place we couldn’t get in to last night: A Taste of the Himalayas.  The food was great, though largely Indian.  The one authentic Himalaya dish did not impress.  Overall, I felt it was a good value for the money.

Since we were now near the Mission, and our car, we decided to stow our purchases then go see the Mission.  This particular Mission, San Francisco Sonora, was the last of the 21 California missions to be built.  I got the sense that the Spanish money must have been running out by this last mission because it was one of the smallest and least “grand” structures that we had seen (this makes 14 of the 21 missions that Barbara and I have seen – 7 to go!).  Still, the mission was nice, and the barracks and slave quarters were larger and better preserved than other mission sites we had seen.

Mission San Francisco Sonora

Kitty corner to these two buildings was the impressive General Vallejo house.  I think it was larger than the Mission!  These days, the general’s house was a shopping center, so we shopped.  As we strolled down the last shopping street, and past the other two cheese shops (we went into one), it was getting really hot outside.  It was now 4PM.  Our plan had been to shop until the Farmer’s Market opened up in the park/square at 5:30, then shop there and eat dinner there until it closed at 8PM.  Now, we just wanted to call it a day and go home.  We had one more stop to go: a music store that made hand-made guitars.  When we got there, we read the sign on the door that said: “back in 15 minutes.”  We just had to laugh.  We had been thwarted so many times on this trip!  We headed to the car and then drove to Vella Cheese.  The gal there welcomed us back and we bought our cheese and a bottle of water for the trip home.  We forgot to actually take our bottle of water, so the gal delivered it to us as we were pulling out of the parking lot.  Talk about customer service!

The drive home went fine until we hit that predictable slow patch in Berkeley and Oakland.  Maybe I should have gone through San Francisco instead!  It took us one hour to go four miles.  Stop & go traffic is murder in a Porsche with a stick-shift, especially when behind a Prius (as we were), which seemed entirely comfortable with going 2MPH or less most of the time.  The Porsche begins to stall at anything below 5MPH unless you ride the clutch (and why would I want to do that?), yet this Prius basically forced me to do just that.  When I was finally able, I got around her (and behind a big pickup with no break lights.  Hmmm, which is worse?).  My foot was so tired by the time we got to normal highway speeds just past the stadium.  That Porsche clutch is extremely heavy!  Finally, we got home; happy to be in our own house and in our own bed again.

Hey, what do you know, the kids are gone on a week-long summer camp!  This meant that Barbara and I were free to do whatever we wanted.  We decided to go on a road trip.

Over the weekend, I booked a B&B, planned the route and gassed up the yellow car.  I have not yet taken the yellow car out of the Bay Area (only my parents have!), so this would be exciting and new for me.

We dropped the kids off at church at noon, arranged dog sitting, then headed north.  Eventually, we got on highway one (the California coastal highway) and kept on cruising north.  The Porsche is absolutely amazing in the corners so anytime we were not stuck behind some slower person, we zipped around a bit.  After three hours, we had reached our first destination: Fort Ross.

Fort Ross is a Russian outpost – yes, the Russians “owned” California for a brief period of time – and we wanted to see it.  Unfortunately, it was closed due to severe cutbacks in park and recreation funding.  Well, I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to see this, and Fort Ross is near absolutely nothing, so we, and a whole bunch of other folks, walked through the “sort of” closed gate (we got the feeling that the gate was left open on purpose.  There was simply a sign that said: “keep gate closed.”), past the entrance building (complete with a very large dirt path – looks like a lot of people went around this building) and down to the fort.  The exterior was wonderful, and really, there didn’t appear to be too much inside the fort from what we could see, so I didn’t feel like I really missed out.

Fort Ross

Because the park was closed, Barb and I did have to find some alternative bathrooms – it had been three hours after all.  She found some bushes and I found a tree.

Our drive to Sonoma included 50 miles of highway one that we had just been through.  Google Earth had showed us a more direct route, but the Porsche navigation system said that we’d save time by retracing our steps.  I didn’t mind the longer but quicker route because highway one is really pretty, and curvy.  Alas, we got behind a truck almost immediately after leaving Fort Ross.  At first, I thought this would be a problem, but the truck driver turned out to be really, really good at driving.  He obviously also knew this road very well.  Basically, he drove his truck like I drive my Porsche; and we both clipped along very nicely.  Eventually, we parted ways and I met up with a couple of speed demons (a Mustang and a motorcycle) and we hit the long straightaway to Petaluma at blinding speeds, only slowing down when the roads became rough near the city’s perimeter.  The ride to Sonoma after that was both quick and scenic.

The B&B I had chosen was highly recommended, but I was really not all that impressed.  It was basically an old house that had only been moderately kept up.  We were also given the bedroom that Yelp had advised us to avoid due to excessive traffic noise.  Barb and I opted to spend as much time out of the B&B as possible this evening, because there was absolutely nothing to do in the house.  The only amenity we had in our room was a TV that got four channels.

We opted to take a walk to dinner; since we had been driving all day (that and I had scored the one parking spot under a tree in the shade at the B&B).  The walk to the restaurant was 1.2 miles, so not so bad.  When we got to the restaurant, it was closed.  Much like in Europe, the restaurant folks work the weekend because that’s when the people arrive in droves, so they close Monday or Tuesday.  Today was Monday.  Grabbing our smart phones, we looked up our alternative restaurant (I had chosen the top six rated restaurants on Yelp, and had chosen two as possibilities for this evening).  The website showed that it was also closed.  The restaurant I had chosen for tomorrow’s lunch was open, so we went there for dinner.  What a great choice!  The restaurant, “The girl and the fig,” was a moderately-priced French restaurant with great reviews.  The inside lacked air-conditioning and (just like Yelp had mentioned) had a fly issue, but I had not tasted food this good since my last trip to Europe.  The meal was simply awesome (and in typical French fashion, also very long – two plus hours).  No worries, we weren’t in any hurry.

The cheese plate

The sun set as we were walking home.  It was no much cooler, which is a good thing because the walk to the downtown area was very hot and uncomfortable.  Once we got to the B&B, we watched the Olympics on one of the four channels and settled into our extremely soft King-sized bed.

With one test out of the way, my goal now is to “study like crazy” for the CSET (California single subject test) in History/Social Studies.

I read through the details and requirements of the test and quickly realized just how much I had to study.  Even though the CSET results in my ability to teach Jr. High and High School students, the test itself is a at the college level.  I am expected to have the breadth and depth of a college graduate in History.

I gathered all the history books I had throughout the house, and compared them with the list of subject matters on the test.  I had no California History, Civics or Economics in my collection, so I went shopping on Amazon for used college texts.  Fortunately, the CSET prep document had a four page list of all the history books it considers important for the passage of the test.  I bought half a dozen books.

I also noticed that, just as with my Art History major, there is a disproportionate emphasis on women in history, minorities in history, revisionist history, and non-western history.  I attribute this to the large liberal population (mostly non-western, minority women with a penchant for revisionism) that decides on the curriculum for the schools.  As a white, European male who likes documented history (I’m a deconstructionist, not a revisionist!), I am at a clear disadvantage.

And yet I’ll press on.  I can at least memorize some of the stuff, even if I don’t totally believe in it.  It will sort of be like the evolutionary concepts that I had to pass for my anthropology class to get my biology degree.  (If I went for my Science/Biology single subject credential, I would likely be the only person in the district who considered Evolution a theory… which it is since it cannot be definitively proven.  Teachers of biology at the Jr. High/High School level generally seem to believe that Evolution has been proven recently – that it is now a fact… which is a complete myth.  At least college professors will generally look up the facts.  Jr. High/High School teachers seem to more readily accept whatever is told to them, or whatever is in their textbooks, even though a few items in the texts have been proven false up to 50 years ago (like “Lucy”).  The HS texts seem to be written by administrators, not leading-edge researchers.  The evolutionary dogma is kept intact.  When you think about it, Evolution should be considered a religion.  It takes about as much faith.  The evidence is “sort-of” there, but cannot be proven.)

Well, that was easy.

I got to the test site half an hour early and they let me start the test immediately.  I probably should have gone to the bathroom first – I had drunk two cups of coffee just before coming in to guarantee I wouldn’t fade too much towards the end of the test.  The test monitor, who should have been there the whole time, was not.  I decided to do all the multiple choice sections (reading & math) and then take a break.  Actually, “scheduled breaks” were supposed to happen, but they never did.

I finished the multiple-choice, and still no monitors.  It had been two hours.  I moved on to the two writing assignments, periodically waving into the camera on the wall in case someone was watching.  No one was watching.  I finished my first essay in a little over an hour.  It was at that point that a monitor person finally came in, talking on his cell phone (very rude to those of us taking the test!).  I got up, he said “bathroom?” and I nodded.  He let me out.  The second essay felt less rushed, though I did this one in just over an hour as well.  It took me 4.25 hours to take the CBST.

When I got to my car, I realized that I had no way to pay for the parking.  The test center doesn’t allow anything (paper, pencils, phones, wallets), so I had left everything but my driver’s license at home.  Fortunately, there was a guard at the exit who allowed me to leave for free (saving me $17. – thanks!).

The preliminary results showed that I was proficient in reading, and not too bad in math (I should have done better).  With the written portion yet to be graded, I currently sit one point away from passing the exam; in other words, I passed the exam based on 2 of 3 sections.

Band practice this evening was a lot of fun.  Jeffrey is getting better on bass, and because he is on bass so often, I’m getting better at electric.

Jeffrey has also decided to learn how to play harmonica so he can do the solo in “There is no rock like our God,” a very challenging harmonica solo.  I wish him luck.

Today was a rather unspectacular day, except that I did a spectacular thing: I signed up to take the CBST test — the first thing I need to do on my way to a teaching credential.  Had I went for the more traditional (and much cheaper!) paper version of the test, I would need to wait until September 9th.  I did not want to wait that long! (The first available date for the CSET test, the single subject test, is September 18th.  I didn’t want to do back-to-back weeks).  I paid the extra $61 to take the “online” test, which still requires you to show up at a testing facility.  We’ll just call it the computerized version of the test.  The advantage of the computerized version is that there are many more dates to choose from, and not all are on weekends.  I could have gone with a week from Saturday for a local test in Milpitas.  Still too long a time frame for me; I went with a test in San Jose that takes place tomorrow!  I’ll have little to no time to study for the test, but I think I’ll be alright: the test is supposed to be “basic,” and every teacher I’ve talked to says that I’ll ace it.  I also took the practice test and got something beyond 90%.  I should pass this thing the first time.  The main challenge will be in the reading portions later on in the test.  Afternoons are not my best time, and I can only handle so much mental exercise before my dyslexia begins to creep in.  Reading and Math get difficult after that.  Usually, I can counter all this with coffee, but no food or drink is allowed in the testing center.  Tomorrow, it will be just me and a computer for 4.5 hours.