Over the last few months I’ve been working on certification to sell real estate in Washington, mentally preparing to move (again), having three wisdom teeth removed (and discovering the joys of Oxycodone), hosting friends for a few days, trying new recipes and making business plans, and just generally staying busy.
The classes are delightful. Online forums are a big part of the class experience and I love that. There have been some touchy issues such as imminent domain and adverse possession (squatter’s rights, for the uninitiated) which are always fun to talk about. Some people, especially in the land of the free, home of the brave, are fiercely possessive of their hard won right to own and use land however they see fit. I include myself in that, but that fierce possessiveness leads to some intensely reactive ranting. People don’t like it when it is pointed out that they are reacting to a situation which is nearly impossible. That happened a few times: someone would answer the question of the week by posting a short rant about how they ‘can’t believe this still happens’ and ‘imagine that happening to you! how dare people?’ and I would reply with ‘you realize the amount of negligence necessary for this to happen, right? It’s fairly obvious you haven’t read the coursework for this discussion since it eliminates the situation you’re so angry about.’ and sit back and wait for…. nothing. No one replies because 1 they don’t have to and 2 there’s nothing dignified to be said to that. You find it all over the internet but in a class their grade relies on their behavior so there is at least some decorum. It did make that part of class more enjoyable.
Aside from feeling superior about myself in class (an unsavory habit, but hard to break :-P), I spent a lot of time learning really good stuff. I’m sure most of my readers are or have been homeowners so you already know all about qualifying for a mortgage, contingencies, liens, and all the minutiae that go along with property ownership and management. I’m hoping to have my license by the end of the year so I can start 2014 with a new plan and a new agenda.
There’s an interesting thing about free time I’ve noticed, that’s actually quite irritating when there are things to be done. Free time isn’t really relaxing until the things that need doing are done. Say I have an assignment due. The hour spent Redditing before completing the assignment is vastly inferior than the hour after the assignment is complete. This means that I don’t feel like I have as much free time as I actually do, because it takes two hours to get things done when they should take one. It makes me feel as though I’ve been far busier than I really have been. It’s also taken a long time to get back into the swing of school so I’m spending time catching up instead of getting ahead which can be problematic.
In the meantime I’ve been truly enjoying participating on the Review Board (www.thereviewboard.net) in some of the more recent discussions. I was ecstatic to see people encouraging each other to post reviews of new and local providers. The best way to encourage the kind of content you want to see is to post it in the first place. Maybe more of us local ladies should make a bigger deal out of reviews, the kind of reviews we want to read about ourselves. Perhaps a bottle of nice wine and some extra time for indulgence as a natural reward for public acknowledgement of our skills and talents. I think I may make that a policy once I have that incall space set up 😛 keep your eyes peeled for those kinds of updates.
I’m in a scattered mood at the moment so I apologize for the scattered nature of this little update.