I got a phone call and an email tonight letting me know that the training class will start Monday night! It will be for four nights. Then I can start putting some hours in! 
This is the insurance certificates processing job. (Not a scam - one of my housemates has worked for them since October/November.)
What this basically means is that I won't have to eat into my savings this summer just to survive - thanks to a dearth of tutoring students. God is good!
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I worked with my new student today. I'd heard he was really obnoxious and spoiled. He didn't give me any problems whatsoever. 
It may or may not last, but first impression at least is that he's a good kid.
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Have any of you heard about what is happening in Los Angeles? The LA school district has RIF'd (laid off) ALL 85 of it's school librarians. As if that isn't enough of an insult (and detriment to the kids educations!!), they are now making the librarians go to court and prove that they are teachers!!! The whole reason behind it is that if the ISD's lawyers can get the judge hearing the case to say that a school librarian is NOT a teacher, then they (the ISD) does not have to find them (the librarians) another position within the district.
Here is an impassioned blog post about it by one of the affected librarians:
Here is an article about it from the LA Times:
Disgraceful interrogation of L.A. school librarians
The bottom line to all this is unfortunately just that - the bottom line. Money. What these school district officials just don't see though is how these short term "savings" will have innumerous long term effects. There are numerous studies showing how a certified school librarian positively affects students test scores. CA also has a law where a library cannot operate without a certified librarian. So, in just one of the schools, the library has assets worth at least $1 million dollars. If the library is closed, that is a lot of assets going to waste. If the schools decide to circumvent the law and have non-certified personnel run it, or just leave it open for students and teachers to get materials at will, then chaos will surely rein and much loss of property will occur. (Not that anyone will mean for it to happen, but ...) The long term costs though are the most serious. Classroom teachers are already overwhelmed with everything they have to cover. Having a librarian there who can teach the necessary research skills to students, while connecting it with the curriculum, is invaluable. Having a librarian there who, as part of their job, keeps current with technology and passes that knowledge on to teachers and students, is invaluable.
The kids lose out today, and they lose out tomorrow.
Argh!!
June 3rd, 2011 at 01:26 am 1307064398
June 3rd, 2011 at 01:32 am 1307064741
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June 3rd, 2011 at 03:03 am 1307070235
Exactly. The US is already falling behind academically versus other similar countries. Our decline will only hasten.
MEC,
Yes! The internet is a terrific resource ... if one knows how to discern the chaff from the wheat. Too many people take the first Google result as *the* gospel truth without digging into it to see if it stands up to scrutiny. Then there are also a vast amount of fantastic databases with vetted articles ... that many people just don't know about or how to use. I've been an avid library user my whole life, and didn't learn about many of the resources till graduate school!
June 3rd, 2011 at 05:25 am 1307078715
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June 4th, 2011 at 02:43 pm 1307198633
June 10th, 2011 at 11:22 pm 1307748154
Jerry