Accidentally Homeschooling...and beyond

I spent 24 hours last weekend in a class to prepare to take the Real Estate Salespersons licence exam. This was quite different from my normal weekends and I actually enjoyed myself. Twenty four hours of no cooking, cleaning, laundry and driving, need I say more?

Some of the things I gleaned this week were not real estate principles or new concepts. These were learning opportunities that, in my sheltered world as a homeschool Mama, I may not have stumbled upon all year.

1. The Importance of Promptness: Friday night before class , I wanted to have a nice dinner with my family. Because of this, I ended up arriving exactly as the class was starting, at 5:30. There was only one seat left. I had to endure four hours sitting next to the smelliest guy. All I could think of is "who would ever trust this man with one of the largest purchases of their life?" The lady on the other side of me had to ask me to get off her lap as I struggled to escape the pungent odors. O.K. a little exaggeration. My final coping method, just turn my head and breathe fresh air, then exhale in smelly's direction. Air flow was needed. I feigned shyness and didn't make eye contact with smelly, I didn't want to start a conversation. My flight instinct had kicked in.
2. Friends make everything nicer: A few weeks before the class, my friend Julie, decided to join me. We had time together this weekend without kids around us, event though we were in class, having her by my side was nice.
3. Exercise regularly: At our lunch breaks, I made a point to walk, sitting for 4 hours was very draining. This perked me up and relieved my guilt from the endless munching in class.
4. Be prepared for change: The last day, the instructor offered to let us out a little early, if we took a short lunch. It was no problem for me, I had enough food for 1/2 the class. 
5. Take notes even if you will never read them again: Just the act of writing something down, imprinted it on my three remaining brain cells. Like a great homeschooling mom, I used multiple learning styles. The visual, the auditory and kinestetic. 
6. Prayer is not optional. On Wednesday the middle of my four hour exam, I had an epiphany. I was hopeless. I did what I learned from day one as a Christian. I went to the bathroom and prayed. If I had prayed out loud in the test room, I would have been disqualified. After my foxhole prayers in the bathroom, I regained my confidence. 
7. People who create tests have a special place in hell. Well that's not really true. But! We all know Satan is a deceiver. I know he had his hand in creating the Real Estate Salesperson Licence exam. The questions were pure evil. There was no shortage of twisting and manipulating of words. I decided, I will be more sympathetic as my boys tackle the Stanford Achievement Tests in a few weeks.
8. Husband and wife sales teams are going to be challenging. As much as I am madly in love with the Gman, our relationship has already to been stretched. In the first two hours of our working together, we have experienced great stress. His crazy driving, because he forgot to put his tie on, almost made him a widower. I have decided, if we are going to to ride together, I will be doing the driving.
9. Try not to disagree in the car about dual agency, or about anything for that matter.  Our first discussion as agents resulted in a spike in his blood pressure  He swore he wasn't yelling, just raising his voice. Hypothetically, to him, I had lost thousands of dollars in a transaction that never existed. This little talk resulted in a distracted roll through a stop sign.
10. Dressing for success can have it's advantages. When the nice policeman pulled us over, we were coming from our photo shoot. We were looking sharp. I wanted to crack the famous joke. "Officer, I swear he didn't roll through that stop sign. He never breaks the rules when he has been drinking". I resisted. The Gman was polite and professional. We experienced grace in the form of only a warning. I think the outcome could have been different if we were in our regular clothes. Which reminds me of a new benefit of working with the Gman. I'll have to go clothes shopping, poor me.

Have a great weekend.