I turned my Oomphaz cleric into a monk (eventually) in my first game. What I did to get around the wait time was simply to go play! Just kept her in the back of the crowd, and healed her when needed. And since it was her third or fourth class, she had plenty of HP and SP of her own...
Why an elephant monk? I read somewhere about a two-ton elephant drop-kicking your heiny, and it sounded kind of cool