The Golden Letter

Since nobody reads this blog anymore it is a good place to vent my anger regarding a crucial letter I needed that took me the better part of a year to get.

Let me run down the story for you. Since I knew my preliminary CA multiple-subject credential needed renewing/clearing by the end of December 2011 I started this whole process in May. The CTC told me that since I already had 2 years of out of state experience in Arizona nearly a decade ago, I needed to send them satisfactory performance evaluations from those two years (Which thankfully, I had managed to hang on to) and the following :

All you would need to do to apply based on the new regulations is to verify two or more years of full-time out-of-state (OOS) teaching experience. This is done by an original letter on school district letterhead. It must clearly state your employment was full-time and provide the dates of said employment. The letter must be signed by the district office such as Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, Director of HR or Personnel or their designee. It is not a recommendation letter nor should it be signed by the principal.

So that seems easy enough yes? So I emailed the superintendent of the tiny district where I worked in Arizona with this request, and this exact description. It was the same woman I had dealt with on a daily basis when I taught there. All I needed was basically a letter with a total of two sentences in it on district letterhead. Well my email was ignored.

So the next step, I called several times every few days for a while and was repeatedly told the superintendent was not available.

Ok the next step, I sent this same request with all the details in the mail with an SASE in it and spoonfed her as best I could to tell her what I needed. This was still June so I wasn't panicking yet.

With the summer and the school being closed most of the time I just sort of let it slide, and then decided to apply the pressure again in September. Calling every few days, finally getting through to the superintendent one time. She told me she had got the information but hadn't read it yet. I ran it all down for her, gave her my address, phone, email everything if she had any more questions. A week later or so I checked back and she said she didn't have my address to send it to me. I patiently gave it to her.

Then in October after all this I finally got the letter I needed in the mail. I looked through it, it was missing one of the things that needed to be on it. It didn't say anywhere on it that I was full-time. This after I had specifically told her it needed to be there. Well at this point I figured I had put in so much work, that the letter was close enough and the state would probably take it, perhaps they would call her if they needed more information. So I sent it off, not knowing that the stress hadn't even begun.

Then early December, shortly after we got a new kid and I had my arm's full with that, I got a letter back from CTC saying that my application was incomplete because the letter did not state 'full-time' on it, and that I had 60 days to send them a corrected letter or my application would be rejected. So it was coming up on the winter break for the school and I wanted to get this done with. I called them several times, stating what had happened. After asking for my address again for about the 4th time they just managed to get the letter off before they went on vacation on 12/16.

So Monday December 18th I got the new revised letter. On this new letter, I double checked it, and it now says full-time, thank goodness for that. But after reading through it more, I see that my name is spelled wrong on it, and they have the wrong dates that I worked there! So I give a call that day, and I reach straight to the superintendent. She says that the office is closed, she's the only one there and the letter is on the secretary's computer and she can't access it for two weeks. She says she will see if the secretary can come in special during the break to fix it.

Well needless to say, nothing happens until everybody gets back from the break in January. I give a call when they get back and ask the secretary about it, she hadn't been told anything about it by the superintendent of course, she apologizes and says she will get it off straight away. She tells me to email to her directly what should be in the letter again and my address. So I compose the entire letter for her and email it to her. I also asked her to reply when she has sent it off since I'm on a tight schedule and my current credential already expired on 12/31/11. I get no response so I call the next day, she said she didn't have my address and emailed me saying that. Well I hadn't got anything from here, and I had already sent or dictated my address to them at least 6 times since this started.

So in an attempt to end this story. I finally got the letter a week later. No errors, had everything in it that needed to be there. I sent it off to CTC and yesterday my credential was finally cleared. So thank goodness I never have to talk to anybody in that office ever again. Just imagine if the letter needed 3 sentences in it, that would of taken another few months.

The Miracle is that is is finally over.

For what it is worth, here are my thoughts on Season 4 of Torchwood.

As you may or may not know, I created the once popular Torchwood.TV blog the day the announcement for the Doctor WHO spinoff was announced. I walked away from that blog after season 2 since I really didn't like the show. Looking back, seasons 1 & 2 were masterpieces in comparison to Miracle Day.

I probably would have quit watching s04 after the first few episodes if I didn't have the prior connection with the show and hadn't loved the premise. I always liked the existential themes about death that Torchwood featured and this series was all about life and death. The premise however was completely wasted by the shoddy writing, disjointed plot, huge loopholes and undeveloped characters.

The acting for the most part was fine, the look of the show wasn't a problem, it was all let down by the story and scripts. It quickly turned into a big mess. Right away it was obvious they were going to try to appeal to the American market with long emotional melodramatic scenes which I probably could have accepted if the character development and themes were written properly.

If it would have been 5 episodes total, it could have stood a chance, but even then the finale didn't really pay off. This huge triad of powerful families who are able to wipe their name completely off the internet and infiltrate the CIA only bother to protect the center of their big operation with a chain-link fence which can be beaten with a pair of wire cutters?

The only thing that could have saved it would have been a complete re-write. Make the plot more efficient, scrap a lot of the unresolved and under-developed sub-plots. Last but not least, develop the core characters better and work on a better ending. Torchwood has hopefully now completely run it's course. To misquote Casablanca, "We'll always have Children of Earth." The show had one great season, that is more than some. It's time to leave.

We've all been waiting for Tim Minchin

Through the years we've obviously had some great atheist/skeptic speakers. We've had a few great comics here and there and we've even had a few atheist musicians over the years. But we've been lacking somebody who can put it all into one brilliant package. Welcome the amazing Tim Minchin, an Australian who fills the role nicely, and who hopefully doesn't need an introduction to the five readers of this blog.

It goes without saying he is a very welcome member into the barely-still standing "Skepticklish Hall of Fame" (Which I may update this summer once I'm unemployed again) but more importantly I wanted to put a link up on my site for his website and direct the uninitiated to his work. Share and Enjoy, and don't call me Ginger.

The Best Diet book out there

I'm skeptical about the nonsense that has passed for diet advice for the past several decades. I've lost about 40lbs in the past year by completely cutting out Sugar/Fructose and greatly reducing carbs and increasing fibre. It really works and this book by Gary Taubes tells you why. There is also a funny documentary about the whole issue called Fat Head which you can watch online. Just thought I would share since I do care about YOU, my only reader.

I miss WAMU. CHASE bank on my shit list.

Well I was with WAMU for many years, they were nothing amazing but now I really miss them. Chase bank bought them when they went under last year and I just stayed with them since I couldn't be bothered changing everything over. Well we recently made an overseas trip, before I left I called them to tell them I would be using their card overseas so it wouldn't be flagged. In the conversation I asked what the fee was to use the card overseas. They told me $3. Wasn't crazy about that, but didn't have enough time to set up a new account.

When I got back from the trip it turns out using an ATM overseas costs not only $3 plus 3% of the total! So that's $9 for a $200 withdrawal. What a rip-off, they lied to me on the phone and I'm done with them. Don't do business with the dishonest scumbags at CHASE!

That is all.