Current mood:	aggravated
Current music:	Dido - Here With Me

Personal Notes
Well, I've got nothing to say about the war, and haven't for a long time. The body count is up to 2000. The Bush administration has its first real scandal, now covered up with a Supreme Court nomination. What did Bill Maher say? "One guy got his dick sucked, the other guy outed a CIA agent. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!"

Anyhow, I just wanted to add a little personal note on teaching. In a former life, I was a public school teacher. I'm in the process of getting credentialed in Texas.

$7 for a copy of my transcripts to the Texas DOE.
$177 for Texas to do a review of my out of state credentials
$45 for fingerprints, BUT WAIT... Michigan's DOE doesn't issue qualification letters. Michigan issues certificates. So..
$125 for a provisional teaching certificate in Michigan
$Dunno to take Red Cross Adult / Child CPR course required by Michigan
$55 for a standard certificate in Texas.

That's over $400 just to get a piece of paper that should have come with my degree! Add onto that the $300 worth of tests I took back in 2003 in order to get certified, and you've got a nice chunk of change.

Now I can afford this, but PLEASE.. If I were working on a teacher's salary, this would be about a week's pay!

So now I have to get a credential in Michigan I'll probably never use, give it to the Texas DOE to be "reviewed" so they can issue a certificate in Texas.

I have to pay all this in order to be qualified to be hired into an ill-paying, dead-end job, and we're cutting food stamps to pay for war?

The Vogons can't get here fast enough.