Out of my league

Doing things outside of one's capacity is good for one's... humility. Having recently received my final report card, a slice of humble pie was in order. I was served that slice of humble pie today.

I applied to the county Sheriff Department dispatcher training program a couple of weeks ago. Part of the six month (and I'm not exaggerating) hiring process is a CritiCall test. It's used to weed out the inferior  assess the skills of the applicants. They have a really high applicant rate and they need to employ only the most qualified individuals.

Today I took that test.

And I failed it.

How embarrassing.

That was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. I just completed a rigorous four year college education. I picked the hardest classes to take in high school. I'm not dumb. But I failed the test.

Ouch.

I'm not used to being the one weeded out, but I was. Not harshly, mind you. It was a three hour test (or two hours if you're so wound up and neurotic that you do everything faster than necessary... not saying that's what I did. I'm not saying that's not what I did either...) with 20 modules that all tested different skills. You needed to pass all of the modules to get to the point that you could do the psych exam, physical exam, lie detector test, personal history profile, background check, etc., etc., etc.

18 of the modules I scored between 90% and 100%. The other two? I was short of the passing grade by just a smidge. And I knew it too. One of the two modules was one in which the automated voice read a string of 6 to 12 numbers and letters. After he was all the way done reading them, you had to type them into the little box. Dang it. I have always, always, always had trouble repeating back phone numbers, social security numbers, etc. from memory. I always switch a couple of the digits.

I was so tense during that test that my shoulders inhabited a region very near to my ears. Still working them back down.

Mum says it's good to do stuff out of your league once in a while to keep up your spirit of adventure.

I don't know about my spirit of adventure, but my feeling of inadequancy is alive and well now.

New Fads

I'm not normally one for fads, but there are a few exceptions.

When I was about six or seven, the movie Titanic came out. And oh. my. goodness. I begged and pleaded my mother to let me go. I was swept up in a fan CRAZE. She took me and I was walking on air. There was a maternal hand carefully shielding my young eyes at intervals, but I didn't care. I gloried in the beauty of it all, particularly Rose's dresses. (I have always loved pretty clothes. I was just too tired to wear them junior and senior years...) When the song came out, I copied out every word of it in orange marker and memorized it with a classmate. We sang it every day during recess, lunch, and after school.

There have been other occasional obsessions, but most of them have not been the popular ones. I've got one now, though: Zumba. It's the most fun way to get your cardio EVER. I would always run, dislocating every joint in the process. Zumba is basically an adaptation of Latin dancing by yourself, or, in my case, a retarded white person imitation of Latin dancing. So. Much. Fun. And everything stays in joint. I get exercise sans injury. Win!

And all the celebs are doing it. It's popular.

Next thing you know I'll be wearing stilettos and doing dietary "cleanses."

Kidding, Mum, kidding.

I'm such a dork...

oooooops

I did it again. I get so enamored by the concept of free time and doing fun things that I start doing too many of them simultaneously. I'm in the middle of three different books and I started making four aprons. I have so many loose ends (literally and figuratively), I'm not sure which one to pick up first.

And instead of trying to pick up one or another, I blog about it.

Has anyone seen my apparently misplaced logic?

Skeptic

One thing my college experience has done for me: made me a super suspicious reader. Everything I pick up (and I mean everything), I pick to pieces. I can't just pick up a book and read it anymore.

This has its benefits, but definitely cuts down on the simple enjoyment of reading.

Maybe I should just leave the reading and thinking to the men and continue baking cookies and sewing aprons.

Kidding!

Lesson Learned

Don't feed the dog while baking cookies.

I was happily milling barefoot around the kitchen, throwing together some peanut butter cookies, tasting bits of things as I went. Five o'clock rolled around: time to feed the dog.

I carefully measured out the dry kibble, drizzled the warm water on it, and added a scoop of wet food. The spoon had a bit of stuff on it and (you can probably guess where this is going), I went to put it in my mouth. I all but clamped down on it before I realized what I was doing.

I nearly dropped the spoon, I was so horrified.

Lesson learned.

No more holidays

Things around here are a changin'.

I graduated.

Hopefully now I'll keep up this blog more regularly.

Maybe not.

Who knows?

Not me.