spring has sprung at Casa Fabulous. May Gray and June Gloom have lifted to reveal blue skies and a riot of flowers. I love summer! Having just taken my last final of spring yesterday, I’ll be spending the next six weeks with my nose buried in books for the summer intersession term. I’ll get my summer break around August, when school shuts its doors for a month.
There’s been a lot going on in the news lately, and of course the most important thing going on here in California is that the state is completely broke. Actually, we’re not just broke? We have a budget shortfall in the billions. As a result (thank you ever so, lawmakers in Sacramento) a lot of shit is about to hit a very big fan. Education has taken some hard hits, as have animal shelters, state parks, clinics, hospitals, daycare, welfare, state funded medical insurance for poor families, financial aid for college students, summer programs for underprivileged kids, or really anything that remotely improves the quality of life for anyone who isn’t independently wealthy, insured, Republican and male. But what does Das Governator care anyway? He’s got his royalties from Kindergarden Cop to live on and his kids go to private school on all that Kennedy money. The rest of us are on our own.
I consider myself lucky to be getting summer term at all as a lot of colleges have cut intersessions for the duration. My own school is cutting about 30% of sections and adjunct professors (sorry professors, sorry college students) starting in Fall. I guess this is ok though, because the state just stopped giving students new grants so nobody can afford to take the classes that are left. This does put a crimp in my timeline to get into nursing school, as critical courses that I need to take as prerequisites for other critical courses are not even being offered until next spring. Seats are so limited and competition is so fierce that I hear the school is going to institute a bikini jello wrestling lottery system for classes. If you want to get a seat, prepare to strip and humiliate yourself in a tub of strawberry flavored gelatin, baby.
There are so many students competing for so few seats that my lab partner from last semester is going to 4 different colleges to insure he gets the sections he needs to graduate. That’s a little bit ridiculous. We are insuring that everyone who grows up in California will be well qualified to flip burgers or work as a garbage collector. The governor wants to get rid of textbooks (really, I am not kidding) in schools to save money on public education, while simultaneously making it impossible to pay for colleges that no longer offer necessary classes in basic subjects.
In short, if you live in a state that still has money, graduate from college and then move here. You will be well served as the service industry is all that any of us will be able to qualify for. I, for one, look forward to slaving away at minimum wage for our new overlords from Ohio.
Enter private university. I’m applying to one for fall, to get my BS in Maternal Child Health. I’d planned to do that all along, after getting my RN, but the current state of classes has made that ridiculous. I’ll still work on knocking out those nursing school prerequisites concurrently as I can, with the aim of transferring to an accelerated BSN program after I finish BS #1 in lactation. I have no idea how we’re going to pay for it. Kid is in fancy private school (thank you Governator for making a hash of public education in CA), we’re still laid off and did I mention the state is no longer offering new grants to college students? But we’ll find a way. Where there’s a will and all, right? Wish me luck. I want this to work out.
And once I graduate? I’m moving to Portland OR, or some other state that still has money left to fund public health, so that I can pay rent, eat and buy premium cat food. Screw you, California.
While I applaud all your goals, I’d hold off on moving to Portland. They have something like a 10% unemployment rate right now. That’s where my best friend moved to. Beautiful city, fantastic yarn opportunities, Powells….Mmmmmm….Powells….Oh, but a lousy place to job hunt.
LA is currently at around 20% and most hospitals have instituted hiring freezes for nursing staff. :-/
Oh man. My family have been telling me CA is BAD but the CA I left was the wealthiest in the Union. I really just can’t imagine it. I send all hope that your will finds a brilliant way.
Every day I’m happier that I took my new job and got benefits, even if I am paying through the nose for our share. I’m determined to pay for it by working my second job, but there hasn’t been any work with them for a couple of months.
At the moment, we’re on Transitional Medi-Cal for the kids, but we just got a letter that they’re dropping everything but medical for people over 21 (no dental, no vision) so we would have been screwed had I not gotten the job. At this point, I’m just praying that Ahnold doesn’t scrap Healthy Families completely (he’s probably going to, though) or Obama does the public option thing and we can afford to buy in. I can put my kids on my plan at work in the new fiscal year, but then our share goes up to $600 a month. Just our share!!! It’s $400 now just for the grownups.
If Obama does not come through with a public option, I think we should march in the streets, just like in Iran. Show them that 70% of us want this, need this, that our small business cannot continue without this, that it would save the auto industry and save PEOPLE’S LIVES!! Can you tell this is my line in the sand?
20%?!?! Ugh. I’m obviously not paying that much attention. I THANKFULLY have a job with a firm that is pretty secure. They’ve always played it conservatively, so rather than hiring on the new staff we need, we’re holding off until times are better.
BTW, my aunt (and my mom, really) are nurses. One at Holy Cross in Granada Hills, and my mom is working in cancer research at UCLA. I know my mom is ALWAYS looking for nurses to help with the research. Let me know if you want more info.
And finally…you going to A Mano’s Big Goodbye Bad Girls tonight? I’m coming from Encino, so if you want to meet and go, I’m happy to drive. Email me. *grin*
Oh I will be happy to have you come this way. The downfall of the California educational system started with Reagan. California had a great educational system until then. It has gone sliding down hill ever since. It is so sad.