I love TED talks, and when I find an interesting one, I like to share it with others. Here’s Daniel Kahneman speaking about happiness and the riddle of experience vs. memory.

‘Tis the season…do something nice for someone…just because.

I know he’s supposed to be a heel right now. Sure, he attacked Jeff Hardy out of nowhere and that’s something. However, it’s really tough for me to boo the guy when I agree with the majority of what he has to say. Preachy…yes, but correct in most aspects.

I meant to post about this last week but never got around to it. First of all, despite my last post on this subject, I’m not done teaching. I thought I might be, but I was wrong. It hit me at the 6th grade graduation at the end of the year. I wasn’t even planning on attending because I just wasn’t in the mood, but I did at the request of some of the 6th graders themselves. Teaching is what I want to do, and regardless of what one interview committee thought, I’m damn good at it. You can ask anyone else that works at the school. So I didn’t get the job I wanted, oh well. NO ONE tells me when I’m done, that’s my decision to make. I decided if I don’t have a job for next year, I might as well take the opportunity to finish up my next level license.

Last Monday I had a meeting with the head of the education dept. at UMD about student teaching in the spring. The interview is required to make sure that everything else that needs to be done is. I knew all I needed was one more class which I could take in the fall and then I’d be all set for the spring.

At least, that’s what I thought. See, I haven’t taken a class for a year. Within that year, they decided to restructure the education program and I was not informed. The original program had all graduate level courses except for the intro course, and none of those would count toward a Master’s, just for the teaching license. The new program replaced the original intro class with a graduate level one and allowed those courses to be carried over into the Master’s program. In fact, with the new program in place, I’d only have to take one more class after student teaching and I’d have my Master’s Degree…good news!!

Like a hero of mine (Randy Pausch) said, “The brick walls are not there to stop us, but to prove how much we want something.” My brick wall was not getting the job I’d earned, and when I decided to push forward anyway the universe responded and said, “Hey, you passed the test, now we’re gonna make it way easier to get your Master’s!!” Good universe.

However, the brick walls weren’t done. I was now required to take the new intro course as a replacement for the original. “OK,” I thought, “I’ll just take two in the spring.” I was then informed that the two courses I need were running on the same night at the same time. Go figure….but the universe intervened again on my behalf. That very day, the intro course had just had their first class for the summer session. It was being taught by the dept. head who I was discussing all this with. She remembered who I was from 2 or 3 years ago when I took the original intro class with her. Apparently I was a loudmouth or something. She told me I used to “go at it” with some of the other students. I can’t help it if I like to question everything. Anyway, there were no more spots left in the class, but she had one student who hadn’t shown up that day, and if she wasn’t there tomorrow then she’d automatically fail. I told her I’d be there at 9:00 am ready for class just in case.

I went the next morning and sat eagerly while students filed in. I had no idea who I was looking for so I just waited, tapping my foot nervously as I sat at my desk. 9:00 am rolled around, she closed the door and gave the thumbs up. I’m in!! Now I’m back on track to get this class done, take one in the fall, student teach in the spring, take one more class afterward and Master’s Degree completed!! Now can you dig that…