Whoa, What A Weekend!

Well, this was the weekend I went to Dallas for the appraisal training. What have I gotten myself into? That stuff is hard!!!! Poor Jazz was sick to his stomach again last night and this morning so I decided to take him to the vet. I really hated to take him to be boarded when he was sick without doing anything for him. Anyway, Dr. Tipton said it was acute enteritis and gave him a shot for the nausea and some pills to coat his stomach to be taken twice per day. The girls at the kennel said they would take good care of him. I really hated to leave him but he seemed to be okay with it. I drove on to Dallas late Friday afternoon leaving late in order for the traffic to clear out a little. I missed my turn to Airport Freeway and didn't realize it until I had gone past Grapevine. I was able to turn around and backtrack and see my error and finally got to the Radisson around 7:00. I was stressed out and tired. It didn't help that it was raining in Dallas so that made the driving just that much worse. I didn't want to venture out again in the dark so ate dinner in the hotel. Me and one other lady were the only ones in the restaurant. After about an hour or two in the class I was wondering what the hell I was doing there. Only myself and one other person had no real estate experience whatsoever. All the stuff the instructor was glossing over was old to most everyone but sounded like a foreign language to me. My impression of the teacher was he was knowledgeable but totally unprepared to teach the class. He kept jumping around and didn't finish sentences. He couldn't read a lick, stumbling and fumbling over words but he spent half the afternoon reading a manual to us because he had not had time to finish the slides for his powerpoint. He offered a lot of tips and tricks but for someone who needed to know steps 1-2-3 about how to do an appraisal, it seemed useless to me. I did without my planned shopping trip to Grapevine Mills and stayed in my hotel room reading the booklet and trying to memorize the test questions and answers. No fun at all. Plus, I paid over $300 for the class and the only little booklet they gave us was riddled with errors and mistakes. Geeze, even the quiz had a wrong answer and we were told to answer it incorrectly or the computer would count it as a wrong answer. I think that is inexcusable and makes you wonder about the quality of the entire class. But, at least the instructor gave us most of the quiz questions and the answers so I feel confident I passed the test. I will know in about a week. Then, I have to spend more money subscribing to NADA and getting supplies of the forms, etc. I suppose I'll have to subscribe also to the MLS service so I can get my comps....that's another $100 or so. There seems to be no end to the need to spend money before I even get my first referral. Hopefully, I can start getting referrals and gain some experience so I won't feel so confused and can earn some extra money. Jazz was glad to see me when I picked him up this morning. He obviously feels much better. When we got home he rolled around on the floor and was so happy. He crawled onto his fleece bed and took a long nap while I was on the computer. Later this afternoon he ate most everything in his bowl and is napping again. Peggy has already called suggesting lunch. I stalled her until Wednesday.