Congrats! Gotta have some Schwarzenegger back muscles to be wearin all that swag. I did a couple of local 5k's this year. Nothing too strenuous, since I got a bum leg. All I got were T shirts.

:beer:

I am

Something like this happened to me a few years ago. It's fairly sobering to realise who your real friends are. These were people from college, and looking back I don't think I really had much in common with them.

Same. Afterward I came to the conclusion that bending over backwards to make friends when it doesn't come naturally to you is a good way to end up around people you probably should have kept at the acquaintance level.

Posted this text on Facebook today but maybe it belongs here too.

I've been going to SRJC for like, seven years now, but there's an end to my time there in sight and it's finally all starting to pay off. I completed my student teaching and received a certificate in Early Childhood Education last Spring, which qualified me for this amazing opportunity to work as an intern through SRJC in a classroom that serves as a best practices model site for the CA Program for Infant/Toddler Care. The second leg of my internship begins next week, and by May I'll be a fully certified preschool teacher with literally the best training you could hope to get - the SRJC Children's Center doesn't get enough shine, it's really an incredible resource not only for local families but for students of many disciplines, but I digress.

I finished two AA degrees this past semester, one in Religious Studies, and the other in Humanities. At the end of Spring I'll have officially wrapped up my AA in Child Development, but I still have some GE classes to knock out in order to fulfill SSU's transfer requirements, as I plan to pursue from there a BA in Human Development with a minor in Multicultural Studies, and eventually an MA in Social Work. I'll meet those transfer requirements by the end of Fall 2017, by which time I'll also have wrapped up an AA in Philosophy, and an AA in Social and Behavioral Sciences.

One could kind of look at it like I am being awarded five degrees in 2017, maybe. Sorry if this all sounds braggy but I think I downplay my own successes enough on my own time that I don't need to feel guilty for acknowledging my own accomplishments when I'm really feeling proud of myself. I hope to feel shamelessly proud of myself more often in 2017, to be honest. Both academically and internally I have a lot of work to do this year, and I'm ready.

Right on, even if the thought of spending all that time with small children gives me the willies.

I'm totally anti-procreation but believe that we have to take the best care we can of the babies that exist. I used to be squeamish about being near babies too, but once I started hanging out with them all the time I realized how much of a trip they are. I watched six babies take their first steps last semester - like wtf this is my job? Every day is like a science/social experiment and babies think I'm hilarious and I get to practice my Spanish with toddlers that don't judge my terrible accent.

Not to mention I get to introduce kids to things like worms and hand drums and mud for the first time ever. And they're full of comedic gold, if it wasn't all super confidential I could fill a book with great toddler one-liners.

Wait what!?

You could totally do a version of kids say the darnest things but with toddlers. Why is it confidential? The things that they say?

I mentioned the classroom I work in is part of a model program - to expand on that, it means that there are observation booths attached to each classroom - like full on double-sided mirrors, in which ECE, Pyschology, Linguistics, etc. students can use to observe the development of children enrolled in the care center. There are also observations of the center's staff made because our performance determines the grants we get to run the center, but is also essential for use in training other prospective teachers. The children enrolled in the center belong to the college staff, or low-income parents who are also enrolled in the college and maintain a certain gpa.

It's confidential because we're basically all lab rats, but parents can decide their children are not to have their picture taken or otherwise be observed for class projects or whatever.