Rollercoaster Residency Ride

Ever since that fateful night last summer, when I was laying in my bed, trying to get to sleep. It was a futile effort, because of the partying going on in the house that Thursday night. I laid in bed, lights out, thinking about what I wanted to do. I didn't want to live in Tahoe for the rest of my life--I knew that before I moved to the beautiful lake. But what did I want to do? Where would I be the next summer?

I was 25, living with friendly, cool, but strangers. I always had thought that between 30 and 35 would be a good time to settle down, get married and start a family. I've still got ten years and plenty of time, so I'm not too worried about that aspect of my life. But what about career? I've never really gotten started on a career. I lived in Sacramento for a year, Portland for a year, and back down to Tahoe for most of a year. No regrets, but I also don't want to be in the first year of a new job when I start a family.

That night in Tahoe, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to give teaching a try. The more I thought about it over the next few days and weeks, the more I wanted to pursue it. I observed middle school classes in Tahoe, and the hesitant initial ice was broken by the first kid through the door asking, "Do we have a sub today?!!" Every moment in that first class observation made me want to be a teacher.

As the months passed by, I did a number of things to get myself in position to start the teaching program that begins tomorrow. I moved from Tahoe to Seattle, and I observed middle school classrooms for 60 hours in the Fall while taking classes at NSCC. I passed the West-B test, and made my way through the interviews at UW-Bothell. I got accepted into the program a month ago, and I was ecstatic!

I go to register for classes and find that I'm not able to register because my measles immunity form hasn't been sent in... shit. Two weeks until classes and I haven't registered. I get the form sent in, and a week later I'm able to register online. I register for the two classes in the teaching program, then throw in an additional 3-credit class to get the middle school endorsement. Once I'm done registering, I check out the tuition statement... $7,000. Wait a minute. $7,000 is the non-resident price, mine should be closer to $2,000. Shit.

Since my initial talks in June with the lady at UW about the teaching program, I've been told that in-state residency shouldn't be a problem. I've maintained a WA driver's license, kept my voter's registration in WA, and I've never lived anywhere else long enough to establish residency outside of WA state.

Just over a week ago, I emailed a lady in the UW admissions office and she suggested that I fill out a residency questionnaire and send it in, describing the situation I'm in. I did just that, didn't hear back, so I sent her an email last Wednesday wondering if she had gotten a chance to review my questionnaire. She had, and was sorry to say that I wouldn't be receiving residency status for a few reasons. One of the reasons was that I had submitted my current WA license and an old WA license that expired, but I didn't submit the one from 2002 to 2007. Now, I didn't need to provide the old license, but because I did, they expected the one in between (which I no longer have).

With a week to go between the start of classes, I started going into short-stack desperation mode. I had been looking forward to the teaching program for the past eight months, jumped through all the hoops, but I hit a brick wall. I can't afford the program on out-of-state tuition, it just simply isn't feasible for me. I emailed the lady back, asking what I could do to appeal again. She gave me the email address of her boss, who I exchanged a few lengthy emails with.

After reading my story, he felt like I had a strong case for residency, and wanted me to give him a time line of where I have lived for the past three years. I got that to him on Friday.

Today, I checked my tuition statement online and it went from $7,000 for Spring Quarter to $1,700. WAAAAAAAHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!