Job Hunt

So on my last post I had been waiting to confirm the teaching position that I was offered while on vacation in California. (PS go visit the Charles Schultz Museum!) The bad news is that I didn't get that job. The good news is that on the way home from California I got a call from an assistant principal asking me if I would be interested in teaching High School English so I made an appointment to interview while on the road home. The interview went very well and after the interview at a third school fell through I felt that it was time to pull the trigger. My next chore (pun intended) was to turn in my application for my license.

Easy right?

Not so fast... I needed a couple of things first before I could go down to the office and make everything official. I needed to get fingerprinted and I needed to get a money order for $161.00 for the license or so I thought. I also needed my transcripts of which I have plenty and I was off to the races. Now because I am cheap I went to one of those payday loan places that does not charge for money orders. There was one literally 3 minutes from my house so that's where I went first. Of course they moved their location down the street, about five miles from one end of Rancho to the other. So I track them down and then find out that you can no longer use your debit card for money orders so I head up the street to the bank pull out $180.00 and get my money order.

Only when she is counting the change that I realize that I should have pulled out $200.00 because the fee for the license is $161.00 so I am short a dollar for my fingerprinting. (which is why I teach English and not math) So I then head across town to the fingerprinting place aiming to hit the bank along the way to put in the $19.00 I have and withdraw $20.00 for the finger prints. Mind you the fingerprinting place is across the town from where I am and it's already 100 outside. I make my way across town find a bank and then get the proper amount for the fingerprints. Then I realize that I need gas and detour to make sure I don't have to spend the rest of the day walking. I finally (90 minutes later) hit the fingerprinting place and while waiting for my number to be called my daughter calls me up. Mind you she is watching my son so you can just imagine what's going through my mind when I see my home number pop up. I tell her I will call her back and when I finish my two sets of prints I call her back and breathe a sigh of relief when she wants to know how long to nuke a corn dog for my son.

So fingerprints in hand so to speak I hop into the mom-mobile (aka minivan) to drive across the valley again to the licensing office to get my license. I arrive at the location listed and don't see the office anywhere. After searching for a good 10 minutes I call them and find out they are on the second floor of the realty building (No there was no sign anywhere on the outside) park the mom-mobile and head up the stairs to the office. After a 20 minute wait it's my turn and I hand the clerk my paperwork, money order etc. She starts to type in my name and then stops when she sees that I still have a valid substitute license. She tells me that because I already have a license all I need to do is add the endorsement to that one and I am good to go. This was good news and bad news. The good news is that an additional endorsement costs a mere $50 and not $161. The bad news is that I have to get a money order for $50 not to mention the $20 I didn't need to spend on the fingerprinting. At that point I had already been on the road for 3 hours and I was at least 30 minutes from home so I decided to go home and finish up the next day.

So the next morning my son and I hop in the mom-mobile and drive to the bank for the cash (and deposit the $161 back in the bank) so we could then go get the money order so we could get my endorsement added to the license. That took about 2 hours so as a reward I took him to McDonald's for lunch.

Thank God that's over with!