Rachel K. Goal-setting

To make this entry less ridiculous, I've decided to paste an e-mail I wrote to my family about the progress I've been making in the past few weeks with regards to teaching and whatnot.

Herro family,

SO there have been some developments in the misadventures of your daughter/granddaughter/niece/nephew/surrogate/shoe elf.

Firstly, I have been trying to get my grad school/life plan/job applications all organized and together. Right now they exist in a huge time line on the dining room wall. I think it compliments the room, personally.

So here are the goals... this is easier to send in an email than to explain anyway.

Jobs etc:

I have a phone interview with UCDS on April 28th. It's a private elementary school that Mo used to attend and they hire resident teachers, who are basically assistant teachers, every year. I hope to be one of them! The job would offer me about $30k as a salary with some compensation for health benefits. It would start right after summer camp and go up until next summer, so it would be the full on elementary classroom experience. I hope they hire me because I would like to have a full time job again someday.

 Volunteer Work:

As of tomorrow, I am starting at BFD Elementary School as a volunteer for two fifth grade classrooms helping out with math work. I'll be there from 9am until 12:30pm every week day from now until the end of school in early June. They seem really great there and I know I will learn a lot about how to become a teacher if I get to work with REAL ones and with other volunteers and student teachers. It's a public school, so it's good to see the differences between those and the private school that I applied to work for next year. I love the diversity at this school so far -- it's 60% minority, making it 160% less Japanese than my last school (or some non-apocryphal %). I'll let you know how that goes when I start tomorrow!

Grad School:

So far I haven't really applied to any graduate schools. Although, I did go to a q&a a session about the masters in teaching program that they have at UW. The program is two years long: the first year is courses and classroom experience and the second year is student teaching with minimal campus time to check in with mentors and supervisors. I would come out of this program with a residency certification (allowing me to teach in WA state) and I would attain my masters after the second year of student teaching. So, that would be ideal.
The only challenge to that program (the MIT) is that I need the following to be eligible:

• 60 hours or more of classroom observation time (which is why I am doing the volunteer work). 
• 6 prerequisite courses (which I would have to complete as a non-matriculated student, online or at night at community colleges before August 2011) 
• The regular letters of recommendation, goal statement, resume, etc. for the application itself. They're allowing me to transfer my application from this year to next year for no extra cost (Huzzah!) 
• taking and passing two state certification exams; the West-E and the West-B, which are for elementary school certification.
• No GRE. God is laughing at me.

So the challenges for this program are mostly going to come down to me figuring out how to complete that many prerequisite courses within the next year! It sounds expensive and if I get the UCDS job, I'm not sure I would be up to the challenge since I would already have a full time job teaching. Though, it's something to think about and although the application for this job is due Sept 17, 2010, they allow you the rest of the year to find out if you got into the MIT program and to complete your prereq. studies between then and 2011, which is somewhat helpful.


As for other grad schools, I have a few in mind that I am going to apply for during the summertime. They have some teacher certification courses (no masters) and masters programs as well. If don't get the job with UCDS, I will look into ways to get some kind of certification while taking courses for the MIT program at UW. The downside is that I would likely have to get a part time job somewhere else to keep up with rent and study costs and food... things like that.

The Rest

Aside from all this craziness, I am trying to study for the GRE, which I will have on May 26th -- ready or not. I don't feel overly confident, but I also just want to get it over with so I can study for other things. I also need to eventually study for the WEST-E and WEST-B exams, although those will be a lot easier and less ridiculous.


Kevin and I have decided to visit Laura and Tristyn in LA at the end of the month to quasi celebrate our half-anniversary. Also, it's a good excuse to get out of Seattle for a while! Then I'll be traveling to San Francisco at the very beginning of June to visit Natanya and Amy, who live there, and to go to my iD Tech camp training seminar at UC Berkeley. I'm looking forward to that since I've never really gotten to explore San Francisco! And let us not forget, I will be spending a brief few days in Boston for Laura's graduation from Emerson. Bring on the Dunkin' Donuts and the funny accents!


I have a lot of work to do when it comes to the camp this summer. I haven't even opened my handbook, and I know I have a lot to read as far as being the asst. director goes. It's hard to make that a priority when there is so much else going on, but it's always in the back of my mind. That and refreshing myself on all the programs I might have to teach if the camp doesn't always have 60+ kids and I have to relegate myself to being an actual instructor again (oh no!) Oh well, the thought of a decent salary and free breakfast, lunch and dinner compensate my worries for now.


Kumon tutoring continues and remains totally awesome.

This completes my life outline to date.

Questions or comments are welcomed and can be directed to diplobrat@gmail.com to our Life Coordinator, Rachel Sreebny.

Best Wishes,

Rachel's Brain & Friends

Rachel K. Jetlag

My jet-lag kicked in today and I ended up spending the entire night creating a new Seattle-themed blog. The name seemed funnier at 4am – I make no apologies.

Around 6am I decided it was time to wake up and get things done. I organized my suitcases in terms of “stuff I need in the condo”, “stuff I need for the east coast in two weeks”, and “stuff I hardly need until I’m moved in somewhere for permanent”. I threw the things I don’t need around into the storage locker down the hall and put the rest into nicely organized bags. Ahhh… order. Afterwards, I talked with my parents and then sister on the phone for a while. We’re all excited about meeting up in Virginia in just two weeks for a grand Sreebny reunion (following the massive Sreebny Migration of 2009).
I decided to try finding some shampoo and conditioner so I could grab a shower. Thank God for my Bubbeh – even in death she is providing bottles upon bottles of soapy, sudsy goodness. I also found five sticks of deodorant and a lot of Listerine. I’m never going to Walgreens again!

Around 7am, Zaydeh joined me and I gave him his Japan gift – a scroll I had painted as a hobby. It reads “Ine – abundant nature”, or 自然豊かな伊根町. He liked it a lot! In return, he pulled out some antediluvian poster containers to show me. One of them contained an award to Dr. Leo Sreebny (aka: Zaydeh) from the City of Paris for his cooperation in teaching at a University there. Another ancient document contained Bubbeh’s high school diploma. Underneath the diploma was an award for “excellence in attendance”. It’s good to know that my punctual genes come from somewhere.
Zaydeh told me that he wanted to take me to the nearby Starbucks at the tiny “World Trade Center” near the ferry terminal to meet his favourite barista, Shannon. Sure enough, Shannon was there with a coffee mug tattoo on her wrist. Now that’s legendary service – BURNED INTO SKIN. She told Zaydeh to “hug it out” and gave him a big hug before turning to me and saying, “Ohh! You must be the niece I’ve heard so much about!” I don’t believe Zaydeh has any nieces, but if he did, they’d be lucky to be me. We then snuck Megan out of her office for a few minutes to say hi and give her some bites of scone and coffee cake before sending her back to work. The Starbucks seems busy enough to keep from boredom, but small enough to stay polite and high-energy. I think I’ll turn in an application on Monday. Zaydeh and I left for our errands contended by caffeine and sugar, only to realize that Zaydeh had left his bag in the shop. A brisk walk later, we had the bag back in tow and were on our way to the downtown area to get business done. I also found out that Zaydeh has a health condition I was unaware of until today. I’m a bit addled by the news, but if he’s OK with it I suppose I can fall in line, too.

Our first stop on the list of errands was to deposit the thousands of dollars I had in cash into my bank. Seattle never seems more full of homeless people than when you’re all your cash in a fanny pack on your waist. Yeesh. The halted construction sites and poverty around the downtown area made me see the truth of the American economic crisis a little more clearly. And still I ambled onto my bank to deposit my earnings. May they rest in a safe rather than in my pocket.

Other errands included trying and failing to switch over my New York driver’s license (apparently one needs proof of address – lame), registering to vote, and obtaining a library card. The Seattle Central Library (pictured left) is truly a marvel in itself. It’s 10 floors high and had hundreds of computer outlets with free internet access, a book conveyer belt where you can drop your returned books, and a 4th floor that is entirely painted red. I have never seen so many vivid colours in a library until now. Town Hall, where I registered to vote, was also especially beautiful on this bright and sunny day. The buildings in the surrounding area are tall, clean and gorgeous in any kind of weather. I could have taken pictures all day!

By the time we returned to the apartment, I was ready to crash from jet lag and all of our walking and errands. We had taken a bus back to the Market, but we had walked quite a few miles before doing so. So, I took a four hour nap in a spot of sunshine on the couch while Zaydeh went about his business of shredding documents, piddling around on his Blackberry, and reading the newspaper. I awoke feeling like a human being again, and joined in the shredding and organizing of documents. Now I am in the middle of becoming a resident of Seattle and Washington State… I’d say I’m halfway there (livin’ on a prayer). Zaydeh then told me a story about how he obtained a kindle starting with, “I had just started up an account with HBSC in Guam in 1947…” and ended with, “and that’s how I ended up with not one, but TWO kindles.”

The evening was spent in lovely Fremont, the Center of the Universe. Megan and I met Sarah and Ian – champions of platonic love, for a Thai dinner. I was chided for my preference of American coca cola to Japanese coca cola (unfairly). After dinner, we ate some of Megan’s epic red velvet cheesecake on the pristine terrace of Sarah and Ian’s new building. It’s the perfect place to stuff one’s mouth with sugar and butter. Speaking of, Megan wants Paula Deen to have a butter named, “Butter, Y’all”. I’d buy that. She and Sarah bonded over their delight of kitchens decorated with chickens. Fowl play may soon conquer the Raegan Institute of Poultry (or whatever we end up naming our apartment). Megan and I then decided to go home as it was getting dark and we needed to catch our buses.

Coming from an area where I had a car and it was particularly safe at night, I felt fairly frightened walking the dusky Seattle streets of downtown. To get down to the quiet waterfront area, one must cross 1st-3rd avenues and head towards Eliot Bay. However, these avenues have some shady characters after dark, so walking is a little intimidating on one’s own (especially when one is Rachel and a giant fraidy cat). Regardless of my paranoia, I made it home without a scratch and promptly wrote this blog and went to sleep. Hopefully this night will end some of the leftover jet lag and I will be able to enjoy the weekend like a normal person. Tomorrow’s plan : monorail and Arab Festival at the Seattle Center!