Well, I've successfully relocated to my ancestral homeland--Stearns County, Minnesota. I left my husband in Aurora to mind the homestead and try to graduate. Hopefully he'll join us (me and Zora) by Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, I'm living in an apartment twice the size of our Aurora condo furnished with a twin bed, 2 folding tables and a pair of folding chairs. I'm trying to buy furniture. On the right there is Zora testing out upholstery. She doesn't seem to have a specific preference, though she clearly prefers the samples over plain carpet. While typically saying, "Zora's helping" is a nice way of saying "the cat is in the way," this time she actually is helping, since one of the deciding factors will be how well the fabric repels/hides cat hair. Though my job officially starts Monday, I visited the school last week, met the department chair and (more importantly, because she is The One Who Gets Things Done) the office manager. I checked out my new office, picked up my contract (finally!) and the text books for the courses I'm teaching. That was 4 days ago, and the books are still unopened--I'm thinking of getting started any time now with lesson plans and stuff. The problem is, I actually have no training in this sort of thing. Sure, I have a Ph.D., and should be able to master (through re-learning) the material for a couple of non-majors courses, but that shouldn't mean I'm qualified to teach. Don't get me wrong, I am qualified--well, at least as qualified as any other post-doc, but what kind of screwed up system marks people with no training as teachers as qualified to teach?