So I took part of the California Subject Examination for Teachers (CSET) on Saturday. It was the math/science subtest and took place at a high school in Bakersfield. I’ve never driven in that direction before so I armed myself with MapQuest directions, green tea, and plenty of extra time.  I figured that leaving at 5am would get me there by 7:15am, no problem. I got there by 7:10, but there were a few problems. It was dark/raining/hailing/snowing/fogging, the road was blocked off in front of a massive Hindu temple and I had no clue how to find the high school. So I did what any directionally-challenged girl would do in said situation. I called my dad! He figured out how to get me where I needed to go and I arrived just in time to hear “Look for your seat number on the board and then you can go sit in the classrooms”.

Then we all sat there for 30 minutes while a 7ft man in orange glasses generally carried out preparatory proctoring duties. He secured the box of test booklets under his arm very correctly and precisely made one trip per job. For example, he walked around and held the inkpad out for each person’s thumb and then made another trip to collect each person’s dirty alcohol wipe. I felt a little bit sorry for him because he was trying so hard to be dignified and yet all things conspired against him. Namely, his attire, inefficiency, and the podium, which kept rocking violently back and forth, dumping papers on the floor that he had to descend to retrieve. There were about five trips total. Then we started the test.

The test turned out to be much easier than all the review I’d done. Most of the questions didn’t even require any of the handy mnemonics or acronyms I’d learned or created. Nothing on the planets (My Very Early Morning Just Started Under Nancy’s Pancakes) or mitosis (IPMAT). But there was the famous flagpole question (thanks, Dr Murphy!) And something about trophic levels and the sun’s energy. Apparently the Most Detested science class I ever took was good for something after all!

I read all the CSET test-taking tips from my official book during review. One of the tips emphasized the importance of eating a good breakfast so that your stomach doesn’t growl and disrupt the concentration of others. “Hi, my name is Melissa and I’m a test-disrupting stomach-growler.” My concentration was momentarily shattered as I wondered how likely it was that everyone else’s concentration was also broken.  It was kind of funny that there I was, taking this big test, and all I could think about was breaking the tips list. “Oh, did you hear that? SHE didn’t read the tips!” lol

The drive home was beautiful. The sun was up, the test was over, and I finally drank my green tea. The 58, between Bakersfield and Tehachapi is the most glorious country I’ve ever seen. There were rolling hills dotted with craggy rocks, cows, calves, and all shaded in greens and browns. Of course, the clouds were amazing, also. There’s nothing more boring than a description of scenery when the author doesn’t have the skill to describe it so I’ll borrow from someone who has skill and just say the whole scene reminded me of “Tuscany and the south of France!” And again, “What are men to rocks and mountains?”

If you read this far, Congratulations! You are truly devoted! Rest easy, I don’t normally write such horrendously long blogs. If you didn’t make it this far, you won’t know to look for the fascinating upcoming posts. In Which I Will Introduce Lily and Popeye. And In Which I Will Discuss Other Fascinating Things. :)

Last week we went to a reunion for Mom’s side of the family, the first we’d had in twenty years. It was fun to see all these people that I’d heard about for years but had never seen since I was old enough to remember. There was Uncle Chris and Sonny (Nana’s brother and his wife) and their kids, Pam and Valerie and Ken, and more.

It turns out to have been a blessing that we were able to have a reunion. Mom got a call this evening from Nana and Granddad, saying that Uncle Chris just died during a surgery to remove a cyst or tumor from his neck. Nana and Granddad were crying on the phone and Mom started crying when she got off the phone and had some tears during our regular family Bible time that we had not too long after.

Luke was impressed to witness the unusual sight of Mom crying and cried a little bit himself, although he had to ask, “Which one was Uncle Chris?” Caleb cried a little bit and said, “I’m sad but I don’t think I’m sad enough!”  All of this is sympathetic grief since they don’t really know what they’re crying for.

After Bible time, we started discussing the time when Bessie was in the hospital (at 13mo old) and remembering all kinds of stuff that happened during those 17 days. As usual when this subject comes up, Dad started crying and Mom cried again and Bessie cried. There were a lot of waterworks tonight! We fell silent for a few moments, with sobering thoughts of death, disease, what happened, and what could have happened.

Then Mom pipes up:  Well, are there any more sad and depressing stories we could talk about?

Heidi, always ready to help: Hmm…there was that time we thought Caleb had cancer.

[Collective groans and then laughter]

Dad: Well, Mom did ask! J

After that, we played out the humorous turn the conversation took by purposely recalling all the sad and depressing stories of our favorite dearly departed pets and the circumstances of their deaths. 

I was walking in the rain today. The valley was soggy and misty and the sky was filled with clouds of indeterminate color. It looked like the whole sky was weeping and washing right down onto the hills. Whenever it looks like that, I always think, “a vale of tears”. And today it was.