Get money, get paid.

So for anyone that has been under a rock this past week, I am almost EMPLOYED.

Literally the first interview after the job at the church fell through. The job will be working with people, preschoolers to old people, that have learning disabilities or are advanced and want to reach their potential. We would teach them how to learn, but not specific subjects like tutoring. It’s called brain training and it’s really taking off here. This is the website if you are curious and it explains it a lot better than I do. Unfortunately it costs a butt load and a lot of people can’t afford it, but hopefully it will be able to reach more. Students that go through the program improve their IQ by 15 points and improve their social skills as well. Students are assigned to different trainers (I would be a trainer) for a minimum of 12 weeks. We will do a lot of games and mental activities and things during that time that help them. In the interview we had to do crazy tests so they could make sure we had the capabilities to implement all these activites.

The interview was so long and I ended up getting interviewed at 10:00PM (reminder: bring book to future interviews). First they gave us a paper with b’s, d’s, p’s, q’s and told us really quickly one time that we had to circle one, triangle another, underline another, and cross out another. MIND NUMBING. We had 2 minutes to do the whole page and most people didn’t even hear the directions right. Then I went in a room with a lady who told me I had to replace certain sounds with different ones and finally she would say a word and I would have to say it backwards. CRAZY. I got all of them right except when she said FINE and I said ‘NIF’ and it should have been KNIFE because of the long “I” sound…OH MY BAD. Then next I went in a room with a girl who set up a metronome and I had to clap every other beat while telling her about myself. Then I had to clap every 3rd beat. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to do that without having played violin because I had to use one at my violin lesson every week, back in the day. HATE THAT THING. Then she pulled out a sheet of words that said different colors, but the colors of the word were different than the word. So the word ‘yellow’ would be blue. So I had to say the color the word was while clapping every other beat, every third beat, and then while the lady was distracting me. Then the final part of that was clapping every other beat and saying the color of the first word, the word of the next word, the color of the next word, the word of the next word, all while she was distracting me. AHHHHHHH!!!! They want to see that you can focus your attention on one thing. It was crazy and I thought for sure I got something wrong after all of it (it felt like an eye exam after awhile) but she said I got everything right. Then the last part was the interview with the boss lady who was super nice. She ended up being a pastor’s wife and completely understood my previous situation with the church. I was so relieved and felt God’s hand over that situation, as I was worried about how to explain that I was in process of getting hired at a church but it didn’t work out. To someone non-familiar with the church, that would just sound like “oh, she did something wrong and wasn’t good enough to get hired” but she understood the process so I was so thankful for that. She asked me a few tough questions (I am so bad at answering interview questions on the spot) but it went well obviously. So that’s it! It’s crazy and it’s in Orange so that commute sucks but I might move that way come June, depending on if the job is solid enough. I have to move out of Long Beach come the end of May anyways so I have to start thinking about it. I HATE MOVING. I need to hire someone to move for me next time because it sucked.

I went to training this past weekend and will observe sessions this week. We do all the brain activities in training and it is HARD. You have to be fast, you have to be correct, and you have to multi task. And we all take turns demonstrating the activities in front of the group. IT SUCKS but everyone supports each other when we mess up as we are all learning. I have made a friend too, she goes to Biola of course and we laugh our way through training together. Anyways, training lasts all through March with the certification test taking place at the beginning of April. It sucks that I have to wait that long to start working but that would be the case with any job I went and interviewed for right now. Prayers are appreciated that I will do my best and that I will pass the certification test, and that if I do get hired the hours are solid and the job is great. So far everything is looking good and I am super stoked.

God is good. I love thinking about how he had me looking at the church job for 2 months to stall me, so that I could be able to take this job opening and that maybe this is where I am supposed to be. Maybe later on I will get promoted or be able to take this program to the public schools. Maybe this training will be a factor in a future job I get. I don’t know what the future holds, but I know everything happens for a reason.