Sunshine on the horizon.

Now that I have two paper routes, I experience this strange phenomenon known as "sunrise."  It's odd.  I have never known why people like to watch the sun come up.  Don't they know that it's the Earth that's turning?  Either way, I get to see the sky get lighter every morning.

My wife and I have been talking finances over the past couple of weeks.  Now that we have the paper routes (plural), we might actually be able to stop hemorrhaging money.  We've got plans to budget almost everything, including family fun, monthly.  We have plans to blow up our route, or get people to subscribe, which will both get us a bonus for referring people and increase the income on the routes.  Two routes mean there are a lot of people to cover, and we're rather excited.

Also, my long-awaited teaching license has been posted by Virginia.  I finished the requirements a long time ago, but waiting for Liberty University to send paperwork to the state took forever.  I'm not shy about what I believe, and I think that hurt me in this case.  Liberty seemed to drag its feet, and so I didn't get a license until yesterday.  In fact, I still don't have my actual paper license.  That is (hopefully) in the mail.  This is a glorious thing!

On that note, however, is an executive order signed by President Obama.  I generally try to defend the president as the elected leader of our country, but this one strikes me as racial warfare.  The president wants to limit discipline for African American students.  As a future teacher, that makes me want to work with African American students less.  Which is a shame.  I went to a high school with 75% minorities and didn't notice.  Looking back, I dated a white girl, a Chinese girl, and was friends with a bunch of Indians and blacks.  I didn't notice, because they were just friends.  As a teacher, should I have to look at the exterior of a person before judging content?  As a result, in the coming round of school applications, I'll have to ask myself whether or not I want to work in predominantly African American schools, and I hate to think on those terms.  What a shame!

As a teacher, I want to help change the culture of my students for the better.  That, I believe, is the crux of the problem.  If we can change students' culture for the better, we can change society for the better.  Otherwise, we're all doomed.  I fear President Obama doesn't see things that way, and that's a shame.  I can't vote for such policies. 

...and to make a political decision based on racial qualities strikes me as anti-American, and that's a shame.