Moving from Oregon to Arizona is proving to have all kinds of quirks I never thought of.  For example…highs are still in the 90s.  I’ve adjusted somewhat, but the weather is still telling me that it’s summer.

While that isn’t itself a problem, I’ve felt like I was going crazy lately because of thinking the sun was going down waaaay early.  I suppose for November these sunrise-sunset times are perfectly normal, but I’m from Oregon and it’s 90 degrees out.  In short, to me, it’s August, and the sun should be up a lot later in August.  Really throwing me off.

By “home” I mean an apartment that still has hardly any furniture (as in, two beanbag chairs, one air mattress that actually holds air, one that doesn’t even after patching, and a small cat condo that doubles as a table because it has a flat top).  It also now has cable TV and 7M internet (as in, it’s crazy how fast things load).

So, there are so many gaps to fill in, in the story of what’s been going on.  WOU jerked me around a bit, I need to finish up some things with OSU, and I have to get another piece of paperwork from district HR before I can get the emergency license to let other things process.  Why they only gave me one of the pieces of paperwork, I don’t know.

On the good side, I definitely like the school I’m at.  They’re literally putting all seventh graders into pre-algebra, to get everyone taking algebra in eighth grade.  No pressure on their seventh grade math teacher, though –actually it’ll be OK because they’re giving us double-length class periods for math, so I’ll have time to fill in all the gaps.  It’ll work.  I can make it work.  And it’ll be cool.

The good news is, I’m in Phoenix.  Having a roof over my head and places to be during the day is a good thing.  Air conditioning is a very good thing…”it’s a dry heat” doesn’t apply in monsoon season, which is apparently now, and which involves Arizona being hot and humid.  And the really long tire-devouring (story to follow) road trip is over.

However, most of my stuff is still on the way, packed in the van, and I’m still getting my license stuff squared away which involves my dad hitting WOU with a rock.  Maybe they’ve mailed a transcript, I don’t know.  Argh.  And there’s still also plenty of shopping to do, plus I need furniture.  Which is why moving is only “sort of” done.

According to an online version of pretty much the classic stressful life stuff inventory, if I figure in the next two weeks (which I think is reasonable since I’m already stressed about that stuff), my score is 358…and at a score of 300, I’d have an 80% chance of some kind of health thing blowing up in my face.

So, this is a couple days late, because I spent the rest of that day hitting the books hard and letting my parental units buy me dinner, and the next day sleeping late, hanging out with the cats and somewhat with the humans at my parents’ place, then driving from Portland to Salem for girls’ night.  So I haven’t had time to write this up.

I have, officially, for real, paperwork signed, presented and defended my MAT portfolio…and it was approved, no dissenting votes!  IT’S DONE!!!!  I only have to get at least a C in everything and a B or better in, I think, either one or two classes, and I’ll have all my school stuff taken care of.  And two of them have sort of similar assignments so I think I’ll be able to double-dip a little and save myself some time.  Paperwork is still ongoing, moving arrangements are still ongoing (and extremely freaking me out because it’s getting down to crunchtime)…but…the school stuff, I think, is clear.

Are university administrative offices inherently evil, or is it specific to all the ones I’ve ever interacted with? Two weeks ago, the stupid fracking Graduate Office told me that it wasn’t absolutely necessary for my degree plan change form to be turned in before they did the transcript audit associated with scheduling my portfolio presentation, because according to them the list of what courses I still need is a convenience for me, not anything they superdoublecheck. Today, after I e-mailed in my portfolio (dear lord I’m glad that thing’s done, I feel more clear-headed already, though that reflects on the baseline more than anything else), my program coordinator wrote back to say that the scheduling had never gone through…we compared notes, and the fact that the remaining paperwork wasn’t Priority 1 may’ve been the problem. I was flat out on other things and THEY TOLD ME THEY DIDN’T NEED IT THAT BAD, what do they expect?

My advisor lost one of my forms that I turned in to her back at the end of fall. I KNOW I turned it in–I specifically had my cooperating teacher fill it out at the end of fall term because I knew they were going to be asked for at the end-of-fall meeting. Naturally, though, none of this is my advisor’s fault…so as soon as I’m not flat out on other things, I’m supposed to hunt my cooperating teacher down and get her to fill it out again. This is holding up my licensure. I need my Oregon license in hand in order to apply for the Arizona license, which I need in order to get the job that I’ll have in a month…I’m gonna end up getting a sub license to cover the processing time, I think. Speaking of which, I need to sign and return the contract, maybe even pay extra for faster mailing; I haven’t had time to sit down and word-for-word read it but it’s got a deadline inside of a week so I think I need to just take the chance on signing away my soul.

And I’m behind in one class already because of spending almost all of yesterday on the portfolio. At least I don’t care if I end up with a B in pretty much everything. And at least Tech Foundations for Math Ed and Tech for Teachers are similar enough that I may be able to double-dip assignments with minor modifications.

And, a month from now this won’t be the last thing, it’ll be the first. I’ve given notice on my apartment and don’t have anywhere to move to. I called for an application a few weeks ago at my first-choice apartment but they never got back to me, so I may have to start over on trying to find a place with air conditioning that’ll take me and my three cats.