True story. Iwasthisclose. Just wanted to let you know. What happened you ask? Well let me tell you. I have an LCSW. That's Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I worked my tail end off for 2 years and studied my brains out to get it. Then I quit work. I struggled a lot about whether to keep my license. Mr. Mayer even asked me why I keep it. Basic answer= I worked way to hard to get it to give it up. Even if I am not using it right now it gives me something to fall back on later. To maintain it I have to have 16 hours of CEU's (Continuing Education) every year. To obtain those 16 hours I am typically subjected to boring trainings and workshops. This past Sunday I went with a friend to OKC and attended an Ethics workshop. Let me tell you~there is nothing exciting about ethics. Normally I can breeze through these workshops and trainings with some degree of interest and not completely losing my brains. Then today happened and my near death experience. Let me set the stage: I'm a social worker through and through. My background and experience is child abuse. I could talk about child abuse until the cows come home. Because I have spent 10 years in child abuse and am currently on hiatus I decided that I would start taking some CEU classes outside of child abuse to broaden my horizons. Hmmph. I had a voucher for a free class through a website I use a lot, but it had to be used before March 31 of this year. So, I browsed the classes. I found one on Alzheimer's that I was really interested in. It was full and I couldn't get in. Then I found a class on Dyslexia. I don't know anything about Dyslexia. This might be interesting. I arrive this morning to the hotel. There is a table a few rows from the back. One woman is sitting at the table. There are 4 empty chairs. The speaker has already started so I am trying to be quiet. I start to sit in a chair and the ONE WOMAN at the table hisses 'Those seats are saved!!" Yikes. Excuuuuusssse me. My initial instinct was to sit down anyway, but there was an empty chair in the row in front of me. I politely take that seat. It's over an hour before Griselda's friends show up to take their 'saved' seats. Then they arrive like a freight train. Sheesh. The speaker is speaking. She's an older woman. She's been working with dyslexia for a very.long.time. It takes me about 30 minutes to realize that I am in wwwwaaaaayyyyyy over my head. I have no idea what this woman is talking about. I am sitting in a room full of Speech Pathologist and Reading Specialist. The speaker is rambling on about different tests to give dyslexic children and different phonetic issues. I am so lost. Then she makes us work with partners throughout the day on different worksheets. I apologize to my partner. She is a Speech Pathologist. I tell her up front I have no idea what is being discussed nor do I have a clue what an Advanced Decoding Skills Survey, KTEA, DAB, WJIII, etc. is or what to do with them. I think she is disappointed she got the class dunce for her partner. The day proceeds to eke along at a snails pace. I'm pretty sure I will not survive. I consider clawing my eyes out. It's horrible. It's on my short list of the very worst things I have ever done. I end up reading my book through most of the afternoon session because I am feeling so out of place I can't even pretend to keep up with the discussion anymore. The speakers condescending voice was not helping the situation. I don't think her tone was intentional. Maybe not. Anyway, it was obvious that she was a super genius on this topic and the rest of us were the village idiots. I am so relieved when the workshop is over that I nearly run for the door. I grab my certificate and make a hasty exit. I am certainly getting my 6 hours credit for this day. That is 6 hours of my life I will never get back. I am going to give a little more consideration to the workshops I choose from here on out. I may want to branch out, but maybe not so far out.
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