What kind of raving lunatic am I? Yeesh, I forgot how much of a gigantic pain in the ass applying for graduate school is. I've been to a grand sum total of 5 schools -- two community colleges just to take a few classes since I graduated, which means I have 5 sets of 2 transcripts each to order and pay for. UC is making me request my undergrad and grad transcripts separately and pay for them! Each school has its own peculiar ritual for getting transcripts, too. There ought to be a Discovery Channel show on the bizarre and unusual weirdnesses associated with each school's transcripts procurement process.

I sent off 3 out of 5 transcript requests with accompanying checks today. I started tearing apart boxes to find my CBEST score and instead, I found old transcripts. That's good though because now I can fill out my graduate application which requests that I figure out my cumulative GPA, and now, I don't have to pay to get transcripts sent to me. The only transcript I don't think I can get my hands on is my graduate transcript, so I may have to fax them my visa for it. I didn't find my CBest, but I did find the form I filled out for the CBest to take the damned test originally, so at least I have a date. I downloaded the necessary form for a copy of my test score to be sent to me and filled it out and then discovered that they require a money order or cashier's check. Much cussing ensued upon reading that, but I'll live.

I started my essay today. You know the essay. It's the one that all students historically torture themselves over until their hair falls out in clumps. I have 2 pages in which to explain the last 12 years of my life and it hardly seems sufficient or right. I guess if I have 12 years to cover, I feel like I should be able to use a page a year, you know? Mostly, I am writing about my experience in raising Russell. I explain that I was drummed out of the credential program. I am debating how much to tell. I don't want to go the TMI (too much information) route, but I also don't want to omit that I was hospitalized only a few months before I started the credential program in a credential area I did not want to teach in (in order to get to teach in the area that I did) and that I was student teaching in a school that had regular gang shootings.

I have the option of using my editor when I get the thing to a semi-finished place and making him help me make it pretty. I got one reference letter asked today and a message to the other person I had in mind. I am unsure about the other person because she was Russell's teacher, but she was with me at several IEP meetings over two years and she supported me in getting him the help I sought for him, so I think she has a good idea of my capacities and willingness to go to the mat for a kid. Ladawn would also write me a letter if I asked. I've been thinking about asking Russell, too. He knows more about my abilities as a teacher and my knowledge of special ed probably than anyone short of Mike, of course, asking my kid might be considered a cheap shot, too. I don't know.

I walked for about 45 minutes today. I plopped Genny in the stroller after lunch and then hauled my big fat butt all over the hillside behind our house. I found a new route and it had a lot of uphill and at the end, it had a blessed, albeit small downhill. Genny fell asleep in the stroller about 10 minutes from home and I unraveled her from her jacket, dolly, and sneakers and plopped her in her bed. Tomorrow, I have her all day, but I think in the morning, we'll be going to Costco and laying in supplies and then I'll stick her in bed and unpack all that crap, do some more quilting and probably take a snooze. I've got hill butt tonight, but I feel pretty good, so I don't really care. I was bummed at how huffin' and puffin' I was, but it's a start and I'll take that.

There's other stuff, too, but Genny keeps wanting "Uppy," so I'm off to find a comfortable chair for my baby girl with the runny nose, who got her flu shot yesterday, until Daddy and Bear get back from Cubscouts.