I had a busy day yesterday. I woke up early and went bird watching at Bolsa Chica with my Ornithology class at 7am. It was drizzling and windy when we first got there, but after about 45 minutes, the sun started to come out and it was beautiful. We got 46 different species, 47 if you count the Killdeer that we didn't see, but heard. I don't count it. Some cool birds that we actually saw were: Brown Pelicans, Great Blue Heron, Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Merlin Falcon (which Rafe, the professor, says he hadn't seen in 20 years!) and a Western Meadowlark. We got back a little after noon. I had some lunch, and got my stuff together for the RICA, and then went straight over there without much down time in between.

The RICA went well, I think. It's a standardized test that everyone in a teacher education program needs to take at some point. It assesses one's ability to give reading instruction. And since I took a class last semester on teaching reading, I thought it would be good to take this test as soon as possible. It consists of 70 multiple choice questions, 2 one-page essays, 2 two-page essays, and a 4-page essay. It took me exaclty 3 hours to finish it. Afterwards I was pretty tired. And hungry. But I think I did pretty well, since the reading class is designed to prepare one for the RICA. It's kind of funny: we learn in all of our education classes that standardized tests are not the best way to assess knowledge of subject matter. We also learn that it's really bad to "teach to the test." And then we have to take all these standardized tests. And we take classes to prepare us for exactly what's going to be on them. :-)

The best part was that when I got there, before they let anyone inside, I found a couple of Biola girls from one of my education classes this semester. And then another Biola girl came and waited with us. Pretty soon there were about 8 or 10 of us. I don't know any of them too terribly well, but it was really nice to see some familiar faces before going in. None of them were in my testing room, but I actually sat behind a lady who graduated from Biola a few years ago and who was in a class of mine during my first semester (which was her senior year). Having someone to talk to before the test started made me feel at ease.

And then after I got back, I went over to Jonathan's house and we had a really relaxing evening. We made dinner, and read some of Little House on the Prairie and talked. It was a great way to end a long, busy day.