So camp has started.
A student of mine from last year, a very good student who apparently really enjoyed my class, is working at camp this summer. He works in the kitchen for my great friend Mark.
Mark and I have a kind of, okay agressively, flirty relationship. He's 50 and not at his best health and I am 30 and very active healthy, so it's all talk. It has become a staple of camp entertainment to listen to Mark and I go at it. The first one to blush looses... (No matter what you are imagining, I promise it's worse...) Yes, I usually win...
The kinds of things I say at camp in those situations are nothing a student would have ever heard me (or hopefully any other teacher) say at school. It's kind of freeing to be brazen like that at camp. It's safe, because they all know me, love me, accept me and know I am not in any way serious. See here's the thing...
I don't believe in sex outside of marriage, experiminting with drugs, being drunk, hurting people or lying. Or more correctly I believe they exisit, I simply try hard to live my life without those issues. I have always lived my life that way, always...
So, for me to be wanton and brazen and flirty like that at camp is really funny and I get to be completely outrageous.
The point is, this kid had been my student a bit over a year ago. When he got to camp, Mark told his entire staff, "what happens in camp, stays in camp." but he pulled this kid aside and especially explained to him that this was my safe place and most people wouldn't understand that and that he should keep anything he learns about me or sees to himself for the sake of my privacy as a teacher back at school. The kid seemed fine with that. He is actually still fine with that...
It's just that since then, Mark has delighted in dredging up stories of a couple of my really outrageous moments, just to watch this kid's eyes pop. It is rather funny, but I almost feel kind of bad about it. The funniest part was after Mark goes on and on a bit, another kid says (getting into the game and all)
"We know you just love Sandy for her pot." (I have a antique, cast iron, dutch oven that I have promised to give to Mark someday. He truly covets it...)
This poor kid went white as a sheet, turned his face to me in pure terror,
"YOU SMOKE POT TOO!?!?!?!?!?!"
We laughed for some time (after making sure he understood the statement for what it really meant.)
Several of the other staff have come to tell me that this kid was bragging about how he really knew me and he had been my student and I was his favorite teacher and they told him that unless he worked up here with me he didn't know me at all and poor boy, now they've convinced him.
It was terribly funny to see, though.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
The last of the school laments for this school year
Grades are finished. Every point counted, cataloged, organized and recorded. 75 lives, 85 if you count my team taught special education served children (and I do) all summed up with numbers and percentages. It's rather sad in a way.
My first and third periods did wonderfully well, as I imagined and hoped they would. My second period, my bane this semester, was another story. This class was my heartbreak this year. So much talent, ability and creativity. So much wasted.
Some I was able to "save" or reach or whatever you call it. Some at least did well enough that they can go to intersession... They do 30 hours of course work this summer and we bring their grade to passing. Kids that fail at that range most often do for lack of effort/work/discipline, so the tactic is useful and effective. Additionally kids who know the skills, but fail usually do worse the next time because they become even more bored and continue to fail.
The part that killed me today was one (okay there are a couple others, I'll get to them) young lady. Beautiful, talented, capable. She blew off work for the last six weeks. Even racing to catch up it was almost too little too late. Her standardized end of course test score however was so high she passed with a 72%. Didn't even have to do intersession. I spoke to her about my disappointment with her choices and my hopes for her. She was very apologetic, hugged me hard and was on her way for the summer. She didn't understand. She felt badly because I was upset with her, she doesn't see why I am upset. I fear the day she understands what she costs herself.
Another young man has had the year from hell. He was only just placed with foster parents this past month. Up until then, we had managed to keep him passing. This month however he realized that he would not pass enough of his classes to go on to 10th grade. So he gave up. Law requires that he come to school as a foster kid, but he stopped working. He was even up front about it. He plans to drop out at 16 and get GED (only four months away). He should have passed my class, but simply stopped.
Another boy spent the past year working hard to get himself out of special education. Now that he is, he stopped trying at all. So now, with no SpEd nets, (and he can't go back) he will/has failed 9th grade. Why?
These kids just absolutely wound me at moments like these. By this time next week, I'll be so busy at camp I'll not remember to remember and be bothered about it. But when school starts and I see some of the same faces again it will come back.
That question.
Was there something else I could have done to get through to them?
and
Please, God, isn't there someone who can?
My first and third periods did wonderfully well, as I imagined and hoped they would. My second period, my bane this semester, was another story. This class was my heartbreak this year. So much talent, ability and creativity. So much wasted.
Some I was able to "save" or reach or whatever you call it. Some at least did well enough that they can go to intersession... They do 30 hours of course work this summer and we bring their grade to passing. Kids that fail at that range most often do for lack of effort/work/discipline, so the tactic is useful and effective. Additionally kids who know the skills, but fail usually do worse the next time because they become even more bored and continue to fail.
The part that killed me today was one (okay there are a couple others, I'll get to them) young lady. Beautiful, talented, capable. She blew off work for the last six weeks. Even racing to catch up it was almost too little too late. Her standardized end of course test score however was so high she passed with a 72%. Didn't even have to do intersession. I spoke to her about my disappointment with her choices and my hopes for her. She was very apologetic, hugged me hard and was on her way for the summer. She didn't understand. She felt badly because I was upset with her, she doesn't see why I am upset. I fear the day she understands what she costs herself.
Another young man has had the year from hell. He was only just placed with foster parents this past month. Up until then, we had managed to keep him passing. This month however he realized that he would not pass enough of his classes to go on to 10th grade. So he gave up. Law requires that he come to school as a foster kid, but he stopped working. He was even up front about it. He plans to drop out at 16 and get GED (only four months away). He should have passed my class, but simply stopped.
Another boy spent the past year working hard to get himself out of special education. Now that he is, he stopped trying at all. So now, with no SpEd nets, (and he can't go back) he will/has failed 9th grade. Why?
These kids just absolutely wound me at moments like these. By this time next week, I'll be so busy at camp I'll not remember to remember and be bothered about it. But when school starts and I see some of the same faces again it will come back.
That question.
Was there something else I could have done to get through to them?
and
Please, God, isn't there someone who can?
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Tick Head!
So I'm standing outside, monitoring cars and I ran my hand through my short, newly chopped hair and I felt something. I squeezed with my fingers and it came out. Then I felt it move. I tried to pull it out of my hair completely, but when I got my fingers through it was gone.
I ran for the school nurse.
"Yep, there's a hole there. The good news is the head is out."
Then she checked my scalp to make sure it was the only one and/or that it hadn't replanted somewhere. We didn't find anything. Later I found the tick in my hair (because now I was compulsively running my fingers through it) and beat it to a pulp on my desk.
This morning the nurse again checked my scalp for a "bulls eye" or sign of infection. I'm clean.
I hate ticks.
I'm not even at camp yet.
What is up with that!?!
I ran for the school nurse.
"Yep, there's a hole there. The good news is the head is out."
Then she checked my scalp to make sure it was the only one and/or that it hadn't replanted somewhere. We didn't find anything. Later I found the tick in my hair (because now I was compulsively running my fingers through it) and beat it to a pulp on my desk.
This morning the nurse again checked my scalp for a "bulls eye" or sign of infection. I'm clean.
I hate ticks.
I'm not even at camp yet.
What is up with that!?!
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
This is all Bea's Fault. I'm going to bed now!
| You Should Be a Film Writer |
 You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen! |
Probably the last one...
| Your Hair Should Be Red |
 |
Indigo Girl (I've gone a little test happy)
| You Are Indigo |
 Of all the shades of blue, you are the most funky, unique, and independent. Expressing yourself and taking a leap of faith has always been easy for you. |
Say what?
As is tradition, I chopped my hair before ascending to camp. It is now slightly above my chin in long (golden red and occasional blonde) layers. Think Molly Ringwald in the Breakfast club, but no short bangs in front. The children were all in a tissy about it.
I figured it must look pretty good when the adorable single coach who uses my room fourth period not only said it looked nice, he stopped, stared and said it a couple of times...
Anyway. Not the point of the story...
My earlier referenced student, the one who called me an "undiscovered jem" wandered into class. Dropped his books. Ran over to me.
"Oh, Miss X! I love your hair. It is so immaculate!"
I asked him if he meant to say that. Did he know what immaculate meant.
"Oh, yes ma'am!"
"Clean and Pure?" (Yes, I know of other synonyms, these two were safest...)
"Oh yes, ma'am! It is so immaculate. I just love it!"
OK.
(Somewhere, my physics teacher, and his theory about my "Madonna Complex" is laughing himself hoarse. To be honest, I excused myself to the restroom, so this poor boy wouldn't be hurt, and did the same thing.)
I figured it must look pretty good when the adorable single coach who uses my room fourth period not only said it looked nice, he stopped, stared and said it a couple of times...
Anyway. Not the point of the story...
My earlier referenced student, the one who called me an "undiscovered jem" wandered into class. Dropped his books. Ran over to me.
"Oh, Miss X! I love your hair. It is so immaculate!"
I asked him if he meant to say that. Did he know what immaculate meant.
"Oh, yes ma'am!"
"Clean and Pure?" (Yes, I know of other synonyms, these two were safest...)
"Oh yes, ma'am! It is so immaculate. I just love it!"
OK.
(Somewhere, my physics teacher, and his theory about my "Madonna Complex" is laughing himself hoarse. To be honest, I excused myself to the restroom, so this poor boy wouldn't be hurt, and did the same thing.)
Not impressed
It is always upsetting to me to find out that something is not what I thought it was. Specifically when it pertains to people praying on others good intentions.
I'm hoping that this situation is not the case, but I have a bad feeling that it is. I admire this young lady for doing some homework. Even if it turns out she's wrong (which doing some homework myself, I have a bad feeling she isn't) the fact that she checked is admirable. It is also a shame because what does it say about our world when children need to be that kind of cynical and be admired for their ability to uncover dishonesty?
My team teacher donated to this group. A good friend of mine is about to. I hope they are very clear on what they are doing, what their options are and who they are helping. That is neither a statement for or against an organization, simply a hope that they make the best decision based on the most accurate info.
So, if you are completely confused about what I am talking about, go here.
What has the world come to?
I'm hoping that this situation is not the case, but I have a bad feeling that it is. I admire this young lady for doing some homework. Even if it turns out she's wrong (which doing some homework myself, I have a bad feeling she isn't) the fact that she checked is admirable. It is also a shame because what does it say about our world when children need to be that kind of cynical and be admired for their ability to uncover dishonesty?
My team teacher donated to this group. A good friend of mine is about to. I hope they are very clear on what they are doing, what their options are and who they are helping. That is neither a statement for or against an organization, simply a hope that they make the best decision based on the most accurate info.
So, if you are completely confused about what I am talking about, go here.
What has the world come to?
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
This was not what I was expecting... It's kind of depressing really....
| You Are a Glazed Donut |
 Okay, you know that you're plain - and you're cool with that. You prefer not to let anything distract from your sweetness. Your appeal is understated yet universal. Everyone digs you. And in a pinch, you'll probably get eaten. |
You can pick your friends...
So today is Tuesday and I only have to look at this particular set of angels for three more days. On a couple of them that may be three days too many.
Worse, I have to look at my face in the mirror.
I am breaking out like a 13 year old the day before her period. This is not good.
Normally my skin and I have a good relationship. I clean, buff and moisturizer regularly, though not compulsively and it glows and stays soft for me. I have huge pores on my nose and cheeks, but I can't do anything about that, and with make up they aren't so bad. Really, I have few if any complaints.
When I was younger I thought I had awful skin because it was so pale and freckled. I also had the big pore thing even then. My mom's skin (also with big pores) was actually rough to the touch and I figured I was headed that way too. So I complained about my skin and did not like it. Also, while I did not have acne, I would get at least one massive pimple a month that would take weeks to heal.
My perception changed in college for two reasons. 1) My brother had acne. The real kind. The pimples on top of pimples kind. He worked as the burger flipper at Wendy's which made it worse. I would come home to visit and when he hugged me I had to concentrate on how much I missed him and try not to think about the masses of bumps on his face. He was actually a good kid about it. He never picked or squeezed, so he only has scars under his chin and on his neck where you can't really see them. 2) A friend of mine took me to task for complaining about my skin when all the girls I hung out with were jealous of it.
That was a real moment for me. Apparently I was the only one who ever saw the zits (and yes, they were there, I didn't imagine them!) Also, as I was so careful about sun damage and did use a more consistent regimen than most, my skin was very soft and smooth. As to the pores, no one seems to care that they are there and they don't show up in pictures.
I hate it when thin girls complain about their bodies when I am struggling to simply stay below the grossly obese line (chubby, soft, curvy, I can handle those, it's just words like morbidly and gross that daunt me...). Suddenly I saw myself on the other side of that equation. I have therefore never complained about my skin out loud since.
Until this weekend. This is awful! I even tried to convince myself that again, no one could see it. No such luck. My step mother asked when I saw her on Saturday if I needed to blow my nose. I said no. Why? Well there's this thing under your nose. Then she offered to help me get the food off my face. Nope, Step-Mom, those are zits too. Thanks. I feel much more secure now.
It is a bit better today, and I hope it was just a stress/PMS/exercise reaction. Otherwise, this could be a long summer.
Yes, I know that this is all way more information than most of you wanted to hear. It was all I could think to write about as I have been obsessing about it for three days. I decided not to write yesterday. I figured you wouldn't want to know. But by today, it's still all that's on my mind, so....
Worse, I have to look at my face in the mirror.
I am breaking out like a 13 year old the day before her period. This is not good.
Normally my skin and I have a good relationship. I clean, buff and moisturizer regularly, though not compulsively and it glows and stays soft for me. I have huge pores on my nose and cheeks, but I can't do anything about that, and with make up they aren't so bad. Really, I have few if any complaints.
When I was younger I thought I had awful skin because it was so pale and freckled. I also had the big pore thing even then. My mom's skin (also with big pores) was actually rough to the touch and I figured I was headed that way too. So I complained about my skin and did not like it. Also, while I did not have acne, I would get at least one massive pimple a month that would take weeks to heal.
My perception changed in college for two reasons. 1) My brother had acne. The real kind. The pimples on top of pimples kind. He worked as the burger flipper at Wendy's which made it worse. I would come home to visit and when he hugged me I had to concentrate on how much I missed him and try not to think about the masses of bumps on his face. He was actually a good kid about it. He never picked or squeezed, so he only has scars under his chin and on his neck where you can't really see them. 2) A friend of mine took me to task for complaining about my skin when all the girls I hung out with were jealous of it.
That was a real moment for me. Apparently I was the only one who ever saw the zits (and yes, they were there, I didn't imagine them!) Also, as I was so careful about sun damage and did use a more consistent regimen than most, my skin was very soft and smooth. As to the pores, no one seems to care that they are there and they don't show up in pictures.
I hate it when thin girls complain about their bodies when I am struggling to simply stay below the grossly obese line (chubby, soft, curvy, I can handle those, it's just words like morbidly and gross that daunt me...). Suddenly I saw myself on the other side of that equation. I have therefore never complained about my skin out loud since.
Until this weekend. This is awful! I even tried to convince myself that again, no one could see it. No such luck. My step mother asked when I saw her on Saturday if I needed to blow my nose. I said no. Why? Well there's this thing under your nose. Then she offered to help me get the food off my face. Nope, Step-Mom, those are zits too. Thanks. I feel much more secure now.
It is a bit better today, and I hope it was just a stress/PMS/exercise reaction. Otherwise, this could be a long summer.
Yes, I know that this is all way more information than most of you wanted to hear. It was all I could think to write about as I have been obsessing about it for three days. I decided not to write yesterday. I figured you wouldn't want to know. But by today, it's still all that's on my mind, so....
Friday, May 19, 2006
Frustration Station
50% of my second period class is failing. This is not good. They are failing because they did not do their homework. It is not my fault. I warned them, I tried to help them, they did not fix the problem. This is not my fault.
But as their teacher, it makes me look bad. There is no way around that. Most of my heart wants them to fail so that they learn the consequences of bad choices. My head tells me, however, that I need to find a way for more of them to pass.
I went to see my administrator about it (he is the best I have ever worked for and a personal favorite/friend). I told him my dilemma. He said I needed to do what I needed to do. I pointed out that if the child was passing the end of course test, while I did not want to reward bad behavior, they would be better served to be moved onto the next level as the test indicated mastery of the class skills regardless of homework. I asked him if I should do that.
He told me it was my class and I needed to do what I thought needed to be done. (He wasn't being manipulative at all, he was telling me to be the teacher and make the decisions.)
So I said, "Do you trust me to make the right decision?"
He laughed and said, "If I didn't I'd call Nana and tell her to set you straight. If I was really worried I'd call your Daddy."
It was what I needed to hear. This is my job and I can do it.
If you have no money and I give you a million dollars in cash, but you choose to walk away from it, then it is your choice to be broke. These students are choosing to fail. A few of them may get bumped up slightly if they were really close and got a passing score on the end of course test, mandated by the state, but the rest, I will let fail.
And regardless of my speech, and emotional detachment, it will keep me up for a few nights.
As soon as class is over I am driving down home to visit my adopted family and my Dad. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll be calling parents on the drive and I am not looking forward to that.
Eight Days until I am at camp.
But as their teacher, it makes me look bad. There is no way around that. Most of my heart wants them to fail so that they learn the consequences of bad choices. My head tells me, however, that I need to find a way for more of them to pass.
I went to see my administrator about it (he is the best I have ever worked for and a personal favorite/friend). I told him my dilemma. He said I needed to do what I needed to do. I pointed out that if the child was passing the end of course test, while I did not want to reward bad behavior, they would be better served to be moved onto the next level as the test indicated mastery of the class skills regardless of homework. I asked him if I should do that.
He told me it was my class and I needed to do what I thought needed to be done. (He wasn't being manipulative at all, he was telling me to be the teacher and make the decisions.)
So I said, "Do you trust me to make the right decision?"
He laughed and said, "If I didn't I'd call Nana and tell her to set you straight. If I was really worried I'd call your Daddy."
It was what I needed to hear. This is my job and I can do it.
If you have no money and I give you a million dollars in cash, but you choose to walk away from it, then it is your choice to be broke. These students are choosing to fail. A few of them may get bumped up slightly if they were really close and got a passing score on the end of course test, mandated by the state, but the rest, I will let fail.
And regardless of my speech, and emotional detachment, it will keep me up for a few nights.
As soon as class is over I am driving down home to visit my adopted family and my Dad. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll be calling parents on the drive and I am not looking forward to that.
Eight Days until I am at camp.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
May Flowers from Showers
Today I am hosting the shower at school for two of my heavily pregnant co-workers. Bless their swollen bellies.
Teachers usually tend to have their children in the summer or at X-mas time. Occasionally you have a Spring Breaker. Or lives revolve around convenient ways to step out with out causing riots in our classrooms.
Our Assistant Principal gave birth this morning. Bless her... Well her you know, I imagine it hurts right now. She has had a rough pregnancy. This is her second (and last according to her). She was in a back and belly brace for the last two months. Also, and I promise to stop here, I thought hemorrhoids were only in one place. Apparently pregnant women can get them in two places. OMG! Ouch. So bless her.... Poor dear. But I've already seen the picture and what a beautiful little girl.
Do you really forget all about the pain? Somehow I can't imagine that is true. I have a very high threshold, but a very long memory.
My Dad was a terrific single parent, and I have met other terrific single parents (some who became that way through no fault of their own, others who chose that), but I guess I've always figured that the best set up is two parents.
Mother is fond of calling me and pointing out that my eggs are aging (I'm only 30 for crying out loud!) and there isn't nearly the stigma associated with children outside of wedlock that there used to be. I told my Dad that if I truly wanted to get my mom out of the bad situation she is in all I had to do was get pregnant and she'd move here in a heartbeat. Dad said she'd get here in time for the funeral.
Also, I find pregnancy fascinating. Really. It's been neat to have a close friend that I see everyday who is pregnant so I can almost live vicariously. Luckily she is very out going and open and loves me enough that she talks to me, lets me feel and tells me stuff without me even asking (or being afraid to ask) anymore. I would love to be pregnant. But here's the thing.
I wouldn't do it with out being married and being sure I was going to be able to stay married forever. Much to Mom's horror and despair. For a couple reasons.
1) Two parents are best. Already explained that. Moving on.
2) As a teacher I cannot justify the example of pregnancy outside of marriage. How can I teach or endorse abstinence for my students? Even if I went IVF, how would they know that? Granted now a days there are teachers that do and they can't be fired for it anymore, but if I had a daughter in a teacher's class and that happened, I'd ask my daughter to be pulled from that class. Also having said that I have many friends I love, adore and support who have gone this route. This is just a me thing, I think.
3) I'd be more comfortable being a parent if my mother was dead.
I imagine three makes me sound like a jerk and I won't explain, really, at least not today, but my brother is in about the same boat, though he and his wife plan to adopt, eventually, so it's not just me.
I do think about adopting. That's another kettle of fish. These are kids who have no one, so in their case, one parent is better than nothing. In this case I am also speaking of kids that are not necessarily infants. The kids that are hard to place. I could be a good mom to those kids. I imagine as a single woman they (as in the adoptive powers that be) might prefer I therefore was given a girl. That's fine. It is funny that I have more an affinity for boys, but I mentor several girls right now, so...
I figure when I'm 35, and still single, if Nana is squared a way, and I can also purchase a house, and am financially stable, I'll look into it. (And when I get a castle and a pony... to look at, not ride mind you... and date a rock star... There is no perfect time for kids, I know, I just know I am not ready now...)
But I'd still like to be pregnant, just to know what it's like.
My co-worker friend has also begun to terrorize me lately with the stories of her first two deliveries which followed no pattern, were not expected, and her water always broke in strange, public places. As her fellow teacher, I now live in fear. She says she is going to visit me at camp in late June (less than a month beofre due date). I want her to visit. We would have such fun, but I am the medic up there and the senarios flashing through my head are both humorous and terrifying. I do hope (and think) she will visit. Maybe we could scare the snot out of all those poor boys. The possibilities are endless.
Twenty year old (single) boys find pregnant women terrifying. Partly because they are afraid the fertility might rub off on them and then onto their girlfriends, partly because they have seen too many TV shows where babies were born in elevators and partly because well they are boys... Like I said, that would be fun to watch for a couple days.
Sorry, guess there was no point or direction to this blog, just brain wandering. I'll try to remember another one of my stupid and strange injuries and post again later.
Teachers usually tend to have their children in the summer or at X-mas time. Occasionally you have a Spring Breaker. Or lives revolve around convenient ways to step out with out causing riots in our classrooms.
Our Assistant Principal gave birth this morning. Bless her... Well her you know, I imagine it hurts right now. She has had a rough pregnancy. This is her second (and last according to her). She was in a back and belly brace for the last two months. Also, and I promise to stop here, I thought hemorrhoids were only in one place. Apparently pregnant women can get them in two places. OMG! Ouch. So bless her.... Poor dear. But I've already seen the picture and what a beautiful little girl.
Do you really forget all about the pain? Somehow I can't imagine that is true. I have a very high threshold, but a very long memory.
My Dad was a terrific single parent, and I have met other terrific single parents (some who became that way through no fault of their own, others who chose that), but I guess I've always figured that the best set up is two parents.
Mother is fond of calling me and pointing out that my eggs are aging (I'm only 30 for crying out loud!) and there isn't nearly the stigma associated with children outside of wedlock that there used to be. I told my Dad that if I truly wanted to get my mom out of the bad situation she is in all I had to do was get pregnant and she'd move here in a heartbeat. Dad said she'd get here in time for the funeral.
Also, I find pregnancy fascinating. Really. It's been neat to have a close friend that I see everyday who is pregnant so I can almost live vicariously. Luckily she is very out going and open and loves me enough that she talks to me, lets me feel and tells me stuff without me even asking (or being afraid to ask) anymore. I would love to be pregnant. But here's the thing.
I wouldn't do it with out being married and being sure I was going to be able to stay married forever. Much to Mom's horror and despair. For a couple reasons.
1) Two parents are best. Already explained that. Moving on.
2) As a teacher I cannot justify the example of pregnancy outside of marriage. How can I teach or endorse abstinence for my students? Even if I went IVF, how would they know that? Granted now a days there are teachers that do and they can't be fired for it anymore, but if I had a daughter in a teacher's class and that happened, I'd ask my daughter to be pulled from that class. Also having said that I have many friends I love, adore and support who have gone this route. This is just a me thing, I think.
3) I'd be more comfortable being a parent if my mother was dead.
I imagine three makes me sound like a jerk and I won't explain, really, at least not today, but my brother is in about the same boat, though he and his wife plan to adopt, eventually, so it's not just me.
I do think about adopting. That's another kettle of fish. These are kids who have no one, so in their case, one parent is better than nothing. In this case I am also speaking of kids that are not necessarily infants. The kids that are hard to place. I could be a good mom to those kids. I imagine as a single woman they (as in the adoptive powers that be) might prefer I therefore was given a girl. That's fine. It is funny that I have more an affinity for boys, but I mentor several girls right now, so...
I figure when I'm 35, and still single, if Nana is squared a way, and I can also purchase a house, and am financially stable, I'll look into it. (And when I get a castle and a pony... to look at, not ride mind you... and date a rock star... There is no perfect time for kids, I know, I just know I am not ready now...)
But I'd still like to be pregnant, just to know what it's like.
My co-worker friend has also begun to terrorize me lately with the stories of her first two deliveries which followed no pattern, were not expected, and her water always broke in strange, public places. As her fellow teacher, I now live in fear. She says she is going to visit me at camp in late June (less than a month beofre due date). I want her to visit. We would have such fun, but I am the medic up there and the senarios flashing through my head are both humorous and terrifying. I do hope (and think) she will visit. Maybe we could scare the snot out of all those poor boys. The possibilities are endless.
Twenty year old (single) boys find pregnant women terrifying. Partly because they are afraid the fertility might rub off on them and then onto their girlfriends, partly because they have seen too many TV shows where babies were born in elevators and partly because well they are boys... Like I said, that would be fun to watch for a couple days.
Sorry, guess there was no point or direction to this blog, just brain wandering. I'll try to remember another one of my stupid and strange injuries and post again later.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Another Story
The other most painful incident happened at camp two years ago this memorial day weekend. It was my first official day as camp medic.
We were in the dining hall finishing up really saucy wings for lunch and talking to the staff about nature safety.
Just that morning, I had been yanked from my files with the call, "Hey Sandy, come quick. Adam's been bitten by a snake and Bobby's out back trying to figure out whether it is poisonous or not." OK.
"What did the snake that bit him look like."
"This!" and a clear plastic bag full of a huge snake was held in front of me as I sat down to examine Adam's bite.
"You brought a dead, possibly poisonous snake into my medlodge?"
"Oh, it's not dead!" YIKES!
"Where were you when it bit you, Adam?"
"On my hands and knees reaching down into it's hole after it. I wanted it for our snake tank for reptile class."
Yeah. Thank God it wasn't poisonous. Anyway (this factors in to the story in a minute.)
So now it's lunch and the nature department is going over things to avoid, etc. I look over and see my friend Charles covered head to foot in BBQ sauce.
"I need a moist towellette" he laughs.
I, being the helpful young thing that I am, jumped up and ran into the kitchen to get him something to clean up with. I see a towel lying on the counter and a huge sink full of tepid, clear water. So I take the rag, plunge it and my arm, up to my elbow into the water.
Let me tell you about industrial kitchens. Cleaning dishes is a process. First you rinse and soap, then you wash again, then you clean rinse and then you sterilize. You can sterilize one of two ways. Cold water with chemicals or boiling water that is boiled by a mechanism in the sink. The water is maintained at minimum 180 degrees at all times.
Yes, I am that stupid.
The boiler had literally just been turned off and so because the water was still, there was less steam to alert me to the problem. Besides, I was in a hurry and not really paying attention.
The second my hand hit the water my attention became focused. Yea Gods, my attention was focused!
I jerked my arm back out and shook it off. For a split second I thought I might be OK. I ran for the faucet and turned on the cold water and held my hand and arm in the cool flow. Then I noticed my silver ring on my right ring finger. I yanked it off. It was still so hot I dropped it in the sink. Then the skin where the ring was began to bubble and the skin on the back of my hand began to wrinkle. One of the kitchen boys brought me a bucket full of ice and water and I plunged my hand into it. Then I grabbed the cooling towel off the floor, and walked back into the dining area. I handed the towel to Charles and sat down with my ice bucket. Charles and another friend Stephen, sitting next to him asked quietly if I was OK. I said, um, no and showed them my hand. I pointed with my chin toward the food prep area and I think they figured it out or something.
Then I hear,
"Sandy, is there anything else you want to add to today's comments, in light of the incident this morning."
"Uh, yeah, could would please not put our hands in places when we don't know what is actually down those holes..."
I got an attack of the giggles and sat down. Thirty minutes later I was in admin still dragging my bucket and the back of my hand now a mass of blisters up to my wrist.
My Dad called and I answered the phone. Eventually he asked me what was wrong, my voice sounded funny/tight to him, and I told him.
"And you aren't in the emergency room yet because?"
"It's only mild second degree Dad. Not much they can do about it anyway."
"What if this was one of the kids?"
"Well obviously I'd take them."
"So you aren't in the emergency room because?"
"Fine."
So I called Stephen down at the trading post and he came up and drove me to the ER. I was fine until they took my bucket away from me. Then they put the Silvadine Ointment on my hand. Now I was really not okay. The weight of the ointment was excruciating. Now I was sobbing in pain.
Poor Stephen. The whole way home he kept trying to cheer me up. Nothing was working. As we got closer to the camp I started trying to pull myself together, I figured I while we were going to be a couple minutes late to the nightly director's meeting at least we wouldn't miss all of it and I didn't want to walk in all weepy. Stephen watched this transformation like I had lost my mind.
At camp I am notorious for my ability to make the boys blush, especially Stephen. I heard later that he told another friend that he would take me and my ability to do that every day of the week and twice on Sunday over having to deal with me crying ever again. And yet it was the fact that I had a meeting that got me to pull it together.
Two years later, the pattern of my Celtic ring is still branded into that finger. I've worn a ring on that finger for over a decade as a symbol of a choice I made. I often worry about the fact that God burned it into my finger.
The staff still teases me everytime I walk though the dishwashing section of the kitchen.
"Now Sandy, I know this is gonna be hard, but please don't put your hand in the sterilizing sink."
Yeah, thanks.
We were in the dining hall finishing up really saucy wings for lunch and talking to the staff about nature safety.
Just that morning, I had been yanked from my files with the call, "Hey Sandy, come quick. Adam's been bitten by a snake and Bobby's out back trying to figure out whether it is poisonous or not." OK.
"What did the snake that bit him look like."
"This!" and a clear plastic bag full of a huge snake was held in front of me as I sat down to examine Adam's bite.
"You brought a dead, possibly poisonous snake into my medlodge?"
"Oh, it's not dead!" YIKES!
"Where were you when it bit you, Adam?"
"On my hands and knees reaching down into it's hole after it. I wanted it for our snake tank for reptile class."
Yeah. Thank God it wasn't poisonous. Anyway (this factors in to the story in a minute.)
So now it's lunch and the nature department is going over things to avoid, etc. I look over and see my friend Charles covered head to foot in BBQ sauce.
"I need a moist towellette" he laughs.
I, being the helpful young thing that I am, jumped up and ran into the kitchen to get him something to clean up with. I see a towel lying on the counter and a huge sink full of tepid, clear water. So I take the rag, plunge it and my arm, up to my elbow into the water.
Let me tell you about industrial kitchens. Cleaning dishes is a process. First you rinse and soap, then you wash again, then you clean rinse and then you sterilize. You can sterilize one of two ways. Cold water with chemicals or boiling water that is boiled by a mechanism in the sink. The water is maintained at minimum 180 degrees at all times.
Yes, I am that stupid.
The boiler had literally just been turned off and so because the water was still, there was less steam to alert me to the problem. Besides, I was in a hurry and not really paying attention.
The second my hand hit the water my attention became focused. Yea Gods, my attention was focused!
I jerked my arm back out and shook it off. For a split second I thought I might be OK. I ran for the faucet and turned on the cold water and held my hand and arm in the cool flow. Then I noticed my silver ring on my right ring finger. I yanked it off. It was still so hot I dropped it in the sink. Then the skin where the ring was began to bubble and the skin on the back of my hand began to wrinkle. One of the kitchen boys brought me a bucket full of ice and water and I plunged my hand into it. Then I grabbed the cooling towel off the floor, and walked back into the dining area. I handed the towel to Charles and sat down with my ice bucket. Charles and another friend Stephen, sitting next to him asked quietly if I was OK. I said, um, no and showed them my hand. I pointed with my chin toward the food prep area and I think they figured it out or something.
Then I hear,
"Sandy, is there anything else you want to add to today's comments, in light of the incident this morning."
"Uh, yeah, could would please not put our hands in places when we don't know what is actually down those holes..."
I got an attack of the giggles and sat down. Thirty minutes later I was in admin still dragging my bucket and the back of my hand now a mass of blisters up to my wrist.
My Dad called and I answered the phone. Eventually he asked me what was wrong, my voice sounded funny/tight to him, and I told him.
"And you aren't in the emergency room yet because?"
"It's only mild second degree Dad. Not much they can do about it anyway."
"What if this was one of the kids?"
"Well obviously I'd take them."
"So you aren't in the emergency room because?"
"Fine."
So I called Stephen down at the trading post and he came up and drove me to the ER. I was fine until they took my bucket away from me. Then they put the Silvadine Ointment on my hand. Now I was really not okay. The weight of the ointment was excruciating. Now I was sobbing in pain.
Poor Stephen. The whole way home he kept trying to cheer me up. Nothing was working. As we got closer to the camp I started trying to pull myself together, I figured I while we were going to be a couple minutes late to the nightly director's meeting at least we wouldn't miss all of it and I didn't want to walk in all weepy. Stephen watched this transformation like I had lost my mind.
At camp I am notorious for my ability to make the boys blush, especially Stephen. I heard later that he told another friend that he would take me and my ability to do that every day of the week and twice on Sunday over having to deal with me crying ever again. And yet it was the fact that I had a meeting that got me to pull it together.
Two years later, the pattern of my Celtic ring is still branded into that finger. I've worn a ring on that finger for over a decade as a symbol of a choice I made. I often worry about the fact that God burned it into my finger.
The staff still teases me everytime I walk though the dishwashing section of the kitchen.
"Now Sandy, I know this is gonna be hard, but please don't put your hand in the sterilizing sink."
Yeah, thanks.
Story Time! Why Sandy doesn't like horses.
I can tell that today is going to be a story day. The kids are working on a short story publishing project (for end of the year busy-ness) and as I listen to them talk as they work I think of stories. Most of them are true. Most of them happened to me. Most of them are ridiculous, but like I said, they happened to me.
To start. The story of how I broke my humorous.
Now normally I don't know dates on stories, just general seasons, etc, but this one I know exactly what day and year it happened. In a minute you'll see why.
The whole mess started on a Friday afternoon, January 31, 2003. This was the day before we lost the space shuttle over Texas that also carried the Israeli astronaut. (That incident is not actually related to the story, but it happened that same weekend...) My father's mother, G'ma as I called her, had been a widow just over five years and had been failing herself for the past two.
Now G'ma was a wonderful lady and I loved her dearly, but she was difficult at best. More often than not she was an onrey "steam roller" as Dad and I affectionately referred to her. As her oldest grandchild and the treasured girl she had been praying for after having only sons of her own, I was therefore her special project. My father was her oldest son, and since the death of his father, the person she most leaned on... or demanded care from. The problem was she really needed to go to an assisted living facility, but she wouldn't leave her house. More than that, considering how miserable she was physically (she was on oxygen the last two years because of lung problems and she coughed so hard her brittle ribs would break themselves regularly) I even thought and said out loud to my father (after a particularly nasty conversation she and I had about how if I would cut my hair, lose some weight and get rid of my dogs, maybe someone would marry me) that what she really needed was to "go home!"
Dad just smiled, and said that while that was true, until she decided to go or God decided to drag her kicking and screaming by her hair, we still needed to try and be respectful to her even if she was a cantankerous old bat. I did mention that we really did love her right?
Anyway, she had been getting worse lately, and we were finally getting her to go to a home. The day she checked in her health began to fail completely. So, that Friday Dad called me to let me know that it looked like God was showing up for the hair pulling and to prepare myself to most likely miss some school the next week for the funeral. I asked Dad if I needed to come home now, over the weekend and say goodbye. He said no, that I had visited her less than six months ago, we had spoken on the phone just a few days ago and that she knew I loved her. He further added that I most likely and she most definitely did not want me to remember her as anything other than the vibrant person she did not resemble right now. I knew he was right, so I went on with my plans for the weekend.
I went to a mission conference in Alabama with some friends of mine. It was a six hour drive, but not too bad and we were in a PT cruiser. Comfortable car. My friends and I spent some time praying for G'ma as we drove, her peace, comfort and her sons who were both with her. It was a beautiful weekend. Clear sky, crisp air, all the cliches.
The camp that the conference was held at was in the middle of nowhere and was actually, additionally a working horse and cow farm. We bunked down, went to some lectures, had dinner and got to bed about midnight in the bunk houses. The next morning I called Dad to check on G'ma. She was pretty out of it at that point and Dad said she had told him during her few moments of lucidness that she knew this was it, but that she knew where she was going, she wanted to be with her husband and she didn't want any of us to be worried or scared. She had further told him she was glad that she had gotten to see me a while ago, and happy that I had not come down now. Dad explained that she had not been awake since then and they expected her to pass in the next 24 hours and that the doctors were simply making her final moments comfortable. Oddly enough, I was not distraught at this point. As I said, I knew she needed to go home and she was so miserable here on earth. Dad also told me, in case no one had news or radio available there at the farm about the shuttle incident.
Now, recognizing that I was not distraught, but I was a bit down, my friend, Dot, who had been to the camp before asked what I thought I might like to do with the free time we were currently enjoying before lunch and afternoon lectures. I asked if we could see the horses. She suggested we ride them instead. I pointed out to her that I was not a small person and that might not be a good idea. She "pshawed" me and pulled me along to the coral. We waited our turn and then I was brought to a large quarter horse whose shoulder was about even with mine. I looked at the horse trainer holding his bridle and said, "I'm sure I'm too big to ride. I'll just wait here for my friend to take her turn."
"Nonsense. Get on the horse."
OK. So I climbed on. She horse actually bent his knees and swayed his backside. I looked at the trainer.
"He doesn't want me up here. This is a bad idea."
"He can carry you and he works for us, we don't work for him, it's fine."
OK. So I turned his head and pointed him toward the line of other horses waiting for us to join them at the bottom of the hill. Now these horses did this little trail in a single file line four or five times a day, which means I'm not really controlling them, they are simply playing follow the leader. Well today, there was a problem with the lead horse, or more specifically the second to lead horse.
The second to lead horse had decided that he wanted to be the lead horse and so he began biting the hind end of the lead horse. The lead horse reacted by speeding up to remove his hind end from the second horses teeth range. The second horse sped up to bring his teeth back into the range of the lead horses hind end and all the other horses began to run to keep up with this mess as well. Now, my saggy kneed horse, saw all the running and didn't want to be left behind and so, still sucking in his sides in an effort shake me loose, he ran down the hill. This was a very upsetting sensation to me. To say the least.
So I grabbed a tree to steady myself.
Yes I am that stupid.
This caused my center of gravity to shift to the non-moving tree instead of the moving horse. I tried to get the horse to stop so that I could re-balance correctly. How did I do that? Well holding onto the tree I couldn't really pull on the reigns so I tightened my legs around the horses body.
Raise your hand if you know this is actually the signal to horses to go faster?
Yes, I am that stupid.
At this point I got jerked backwards out of the saddle by my arm, however my foot was stuck in the stirrup. The horse glad to be rid of me continued to speed up. Now I am hyper extended between the horse and the tree. Also, to solidify this picture, if this horse was as high as my shoulder and I was sitting up straight on top of the horse and I grabbed the tree at my new shoulder height... Yep, I was suspended from this tree about nine feet off the ground. My foot popped out of the stirrup and I fell the distance to the ground, letting go of the tree just before I swung into it and snapping my arm back against my chest.
One of the two most physically painful moments of my adult life (the other is another story to be shared another time/blog).
Now we had a problem. There was no bruising, no swelling and no indication that I had broken it. Plus I was hours from home and well, I hate emergency rooms (which is funny because between being an EMT and my own personal ability to get injured I spend a lot of time in them). So I didn't go. When I talked to my Dad that night to get a G'ma update I didn't mention it to him. He had enough on his plate and it's not like he could do anything about it. I just slinged it and struggled through eating with my left hand.
The next morning, having slept only because I popped a bunk mate's Xanex (thanks again, Cindy, but if I had been thinking clearly I would have warned against the dangers of sharing narcotics with friends...), we left for home, my arm resting in a nest of ice and pillows, driving slowly so that I wouldn't scream every time we hit a bump.
Dad called to tell me that G'ma had in fact passed peacefully and was now with Granddaddy and that the funeral would be on Thursday, but I needed to drive down on Wednesday. As he was talking it hit me. My right arm was out of commission. It would be a six hour drive to get to G'ma's house. I drove a stick shift car with little shock absorbtion.
"Um, Dad, seeing as you will have to fly Lee down from Chicago, any chance I could fly too?"
"Is something wrong with your car?"
"Uh, no, I just had this rather unfortunate incident with a horse and um, well, my arm is kind of out of commission for a while."
"The doctor thinks you broke it? How bad."
"Well I didn't see a doctor, per say, there is no bruising or swelling, it just really hurts."
"Why no doctor?"
"Dad, it's not broken and they will just make me wait forever, pay for a bunch of X-Rays and then go home with nothing accomplished. Anyway, I'll figure something out. Don't worry, I'll be there on time."
Then my Dad laid the most amazing guilt line on me I have ever heard.
"Sandy, as soon as you get home, I need you to go to the emergency room. I am not worried or upset about my mother, I know exactly where she is and how she is doing. The only thing I am concerned about at all now, is your arm. Promise me you will go to the ER as soon as you get home."
Like I'm gonna tell him "no" the day his mother died?
So I went. They referred me to a orthopedist. Dad made plane reservations for me and my brother (Lee changed planes in Atlanta so we could even ride together on his last half). I went to school on Monday, all slinged and mildly drugged up (In needed the hard stuff to attempt to be able to sleep at night), having caught a cab into work and set up my classes for the next four days (one day for doctor's appointments, two days for funerals and one day for the Thespian Conference in DownTown Atlanta that I was chaperoning for the weekend). Tuesday the doc told me I had a torn rotator cuff, needed an MRI and orthagram to be able to plan the surgery and that I had 18 months of rehab ahead of me and would probably never have the full range of motion back again anyway. Wednesday I allowed myself to take some of the now prescribed narcotic painkillers only after I was fully in my brother's custody and we were off to G'ma's house. Thursday I made it through the funeral with only two people trying to shake my hand and only close family hugging me so hard I squeaked. I also apparently, according to my stepmother, proved that while my brother was the minister, I was the better public speaker when all four of us (me and bro and our two younger cousins) had to read bible verses for the funeral as per my grandmother's instructions before she died. Then I flew home. Friday I got up, caught a ride with a colleague and rode the bus into Atlanta with 75 hyperactive teenagers to join up with 5000 hyperactive teenagers for a Thespian Conference. By Sunday I was so tired I no longer needed the drugs to sleep and slept for 24 straight hours before getting up on Monday to go to work. Through all of this, every day, three times a day, I would walk my hand up the wall, taking my arm, screaming with it, because we had to make sure that the muscle did not tighten up as it healed. They told me this would get easier over time. It did not.
It took two more weeks to get the MRI and Orthagram done. An Orthagram is when they take a needle the width of a pickle, jam it into a joint and fill said joint with 16 oz of idionized fluid all while you are lying on top of the X-Ray machine. (No I am not making this up.) then you go to another room for the MRI where even though you can feel your shoulder sloshing you cannot move for an hour while they spin huge magnets over your head.
The next morning I did not go to school I was in so much pain from the trauma of the orthagram and MRI. I still could not drive and I had begun getting cramps in my lower arm, almost as painful as the injury to my upper arm, because of having to hold it so still all the time. Therefore I was home to get the call from my doctor.
"Stop walking your arm up the wall."
"But you said that was crucial to getting as much range of motion back as possible."
"I was wrong. Good news, your rotator cuff is intact, though clearly traumatized. No rehab and you should retrieve full range of motion."
"Then what's wrong with my arm?"
"It appears that you split the bone down the middle from the top of the shoulder to about 2/3 down your arm."
"So I need a cast?"
"No, it's hairline and seems to be healing on its own. Just stay in the sling two more weeks and no heavy lifting for six."
"Just to be clear, you are telling me I didn't tear my rotator cuff, I have split my humorous?"
"Yeah, isn't that funny?"
The upside of the whole thing was I learned that I can write effectively on the board with my left hand. My words are a bit wavy, but my printing was very clear. It only took me about 25% longer to write it as well. One student, (it was her first day in my class) watched me write the homework assignment slowly, carefully on the board. Then she looked at me and said, very seriously,
"So, Ms. X, did you go into teaching because of your learning disability?"
To start. The story of how I broke my humorous.
Now normally I don't know dates on stories, just general seasons, etc, but this one I know exactly what day and year it happened. In a minute you'll see why.
The whole mess started on a Friday afternoon, January 31, 2003. This was the day before we lost the space shuttle over Texas that also carried the Israeli astronaut. (That incident is not actually related to the story, but it happened that same weekend...) My father's mother, G'ma as I called her, had been a widow just over five years and had been failing herself for the past two.
Now G'ma was a wonderful lady and I loved her dearly, but she was difficult at best. More often than not she was an onrey "steam roller" as Dad and I affectionately referred to her. As her oldest grandchild and the treasured girl she had been praying for after having only sons of her own, I was therefore her special project. My father was her oldest son, and since the death of his father, the person she most leaned on... or demanded care from. The problem was she really needed to go to an assisted living facility, but she wouldn't leave her house. More than that, considering how miserable she was physically (she was on oxygen the last two years because of lung problems and she coughed so hard her brittle ribs would break themselves regularly) I even thought and said out loud to my father (after a particularly nasty conversation she and I had about how if I would cut my hair, lose some weight and get rid of my dogs, maybe someone would marry me) that what she really needed was to "go home!"
Dad just smiled, and said that while that was true, until she decided to go or God decided to drag her kicking and screaming by her hair, we still needed to try and be respectful to her even if she was a cantankerous old bat. I did mention that we really did love her right?
Anyway, she had been getting worse lately, and we were finally getting her to go to a home. The day she checked in her health began to fail completely. So, that Friday Dad called me to let me know that it looked like God was showing up for the hair pulling and to prepare myself to most likely miss some school the next week for the funeral. I asked Dad if I needed to come home now, over the weekend and say goodbye. He said no, that I had visited her less than six months ago, we had spoken on the phone just a few days ago and that she knew I loved her. He further added that I most likely and she most definitely did not want me to remember her as anything other than the vibrant person she did not resemble right now. I knew he was right, so I went on with my plans for the weekend.
I went to a mission conference in Alabama with some friends of mine. It was a six hour drive, but not too bad and we were in a PT cruiser. Comfortable car. My friends and I spent some time praying for G'ma as we drove, her peace, comfort and her sons who were both with her. It was a beautiful weekend. Clear sky, crisp air, all the cliches.
The camp that the conference was held at was in the middle of nowhere and was actually, additionally a working horse and cow farm. We bunked down, went to some lectures, had dinner and got to bed about midnight in the bunk houses. The next morning I called Dad to check on G'ma. She was pretty out of it at that point and Dad said she had told him during her few moments of lucidness that she knew this was it, but that she knew where she was going, she wanted to be with her husband and she didn't want any of us to be worried or scared. She had further told him she was glad that she had gotten to see me a while ago, and happy that I had not come down now. Dad explained that she had not been awake since then and they expected her to pass in the next 24 hours and that the doctors were simply making her final moments comfortable. Oddly enough, I was not distraught at this point. As I said, I knew she needed to go home and she was so miserable here on earth. Dad also told me, in case no one had news or radio available there at the farm about the shuttle incident.
Now, recognizing that I was not distraught, but I was a bit down, my friend, Dot, who had been to the camp before asked what I thought I might like to do with the free time we were currently enjoying before lunch and afternoon lectures. I asked if we could see the horses. She suggested we ride them instead. I pointed out to her that I was not a small person and that might not be a good idea. She "pshawed" me and pulled me along to the coral. We waited our turn and then I was brought to a large quarter horse whose shoulder was about even with mine. I looked at the horse trainer holding his bridle and said, "I'm sure I'm too big to ride. I'll just wait here for my friend to take her turn."
"Nonsense. Get on the horse."
OK. So I climbed on. She horse actually bent his knees and swayed his backside. I looked at the trainer.
"He doesn't want me up here. This is a bad idea."
"He can carry you and he works for us, we don't work for him, it's fine."
OK. So I turned his head and pointed him toward the line of other horses waiting for us to join them at the bottom of the hill. Now these horses did this little trail in a single file line four or five times a day, which means I'm not really controlling them, they are simply playing follow the leader. Well today, there was a problem with the lead horse, or more specifically the second to lead horse.
The second to lead horse had decided that he wanted to be the lead horse and so he began biting the hind end of the lead horse. The lead horse reacted by speeding up to remove his hind end from the second horses teeth range. The second horse sped up to bring his teeth back into the range of the lead horses hind end and all the other horses began to run to keep up with this mess as well. Now, my saggy kneed horse, saw all the running and didn't want to be left behind and so, still sucking in his sides in an effort shake me loose, he ran down the hill. This was a very upsetting sensation to me. To say the least.
So I grabbed a tree to steady myself.
Yes I am that stupid.
This caused my center of gravity to shift to the non-moving tree instead of the moving horse. I tried to get the horse to stop so that I could re-balance correctly. How did I do that? Well holding onto the tree I couldn't really pull on the reigns so I tightened my legs around the horses body.
Raise your hand if you know this is actually the signal to horses to go faster?
Yes, I am that stupid.
At this point I got jerked backwards out of the saddle by my arm, however my foot was stuck in the stirrup. The horse glad to be rid of me continued to speed up. Now I am hyper extended between the horse and the tree. Also, to solidify this picture, if this horse was as high as my shoulder and I was sitting up straight on top of the horse and I grabbed the tree at my new shoulder height... Yep, I was suspended from this tree about nine feet off the ground. My foot popped out of the stirrup and I fell the distance to the ground, letting go of the tree just before I swung into it and snapping my arm back against my chest.
One of the two most physically painful moments of my adult life (the other is another story to be shared another time/blog).
Now we had a problem. There was no bruising, no swelling and no indication that I had broken it. Plus I was hours from home and well, I hate emergency rooms (which is funny because between being an EMT and my own personal ability to get injured I spend a lot of time in them). So I didn't go. When I talked to my Dad that night to get a G'ma update I didn't mention it to him. He had enough on his plate and it's not like he could do anything about it. I just slinged it and struggled through eating with my left hand.
The next morning, having slept only because I popped a bunk mate's Xanex (thanks again, Cindy, but if I had been thinking clearly I would have warned against the dangers of sharing narcotics with friends...), we left for home, my arm resting in a nest of ice and pillows, driving slowly so that I wouldn't scream every time we hit a bump.
Dad called to tell me that G'ma had in fact passed peacefully and was now with Granddaddy and that the funeral would be on Thursday, but I needed to drive down on Wednesday. As he was talking it hit me. My right arm was out of commission. It would be a six hour drive to get to G'ma's house. I drove a stick shift car with little shock absorbtion.
"Um, Dad, seeing as you will have to fly Lee down from Chicago, any chance I could fly too?"
"Is something wrong with your car?"
"Uh, no, I just had this rather unfortunate incident with a horse and um, well, my arm is kind of out of commission for a while."
"The doctor thinks you broke it? How bad."
"Well I didn't see a doctor, per say, there is no bruising or swelling, it just really hurts."
"Why no doctor?"
"Dad, it's not broken and they will just make me wait forever, pay for a bunch of X-Rays and then go home with nothing accomplished. Anyway, I'll figure something out. Don't worry, I'll be there on time."
Then my Dad laid the most amazing guilt line on me I have ever heard.
"Sandy, as soon as you get home, I need you to go to the emergency room. I am not worried or upset about my mother, I know exactly where she is and how she is doing. The only thing I am concerned about at all now, is your arm. Promise me you will go to the ER as soon as you get home."
Like I'm gonna tell him "no" the day his mother died?
So I went. They referred me to a orthopedist. Dad made plane reservations for me and my brother (Lee changed planes in Atlanta so we could even ride together on his last half). I went to school on Monday, all slinged and mildly drugged up (In needed the hard stuff to attempt to be able to sleep at night), having caught a cab into work and set up my classes for the next four days (one day for doctor's appointments, two days for funerals and one day for the Thespian Conference in DownTown Atlanta that I was chaperoning for the weekend). Tuesday the doc told me I had a torn rotator cuff, needed an MRI and orthagram to be able to plan the surgery and that I had 18 months of rehab ahead of me and would probably never have the full range of motion back again anyway. Wednesday I allowed myself to take some of the now prescribed narcotic painkillers only after I was fully in my brother's custody and we were off to G'ma's house. Thursday I made it through the funeral with only two people trying to shake my hand and only close family hugging me so hard I squeaked. I also apparently, according to my stepmother, proved that while my brother was the minister, I was the better public speaker when all four of us (me and bro and our two younger cousins) had to read bible verses for the funeral as per my grandmother's instructions before she died. Then I flew home. Friday I got up, caught a ride with a colleague and rode the bus into Atlanta with 75 hyperactive teenagers to join up with 5000 hyperactive teenagers for a Thespian Conference. By Sunday I was so tired I no longer needed the drugs to sleep and slept for 24 straight hours before getting up on Monday to go to work. Through all of this, every day, three times a day, I would walk my hand up the wall, taking my arm, screaming with it, because we had to make sure that the muscle did not tighten up as it healed. They told me this would get easier over time. It did not.
It took two more weeks to get the MRI and Orthagram done. An Orthagram is when they take a needle the width of a pickle, jam it into a joint and fill said joint with 16 oz of idionized fluid all while you are lying on top of the X-Ray machine. (No I am not making this up.) then you go to another room for the MRI where even though you can feel your shoulder sloshing you cannot move for an hour while they spin huge magnets over your head.
The next morning I did not go to school I was in so much pain from the trauma of the orthagram and MRI. I still could not drive and I had begun getting cramps in my lower arm, almost as painful as the injury to my upper arm, because of having to hold it so still all the time. Therefore I was home to get the call from my doctor.
"Stop walking your arm up the wall."
"But you said that was crucial to getting as much range of motion back as possible."
"I was wrong. Good news, your rotator cuff is intact, though clearly traumatized. No rehab and you should retrieve full range of motion."
"Then what's wrong with my arm?"
"It appears that you split the bone down the middle from the top of the shoulder to about 2/3 down your arm."
"So I need a cast?"
"No, it's hairline and seems to be healing on its own. Just stay in the sling two more weeks and no heavy lifting for six."
"Just to be clear, you are telling me I didn't tear my rotator cuff, I have split my humorous?"
"Yeah, isn't that funny?"
The upside of the whole thing was I learned that I can write effectively on the board with my left hand. My words are a bit wavy, but my printing was very clear. It only took me about 25% longer to write it as well. One student, (it was her first day in my class) watched me write the homework assignment slowly, carefully on the board. Then she looked at me and said, very seriously,
"So, Ms. X, did you go into teaching because of your learning disability?"
What's your point?
(Sheepish Grin)
Having attacked people who walk up and state the blindingly obvious, I do have a small admission to make.
When I was in high school, there was a dear young man in my class who possessed a blue eye and a brown eye. One day as we were talking before class I found myself suddenly struck by this fact.
"You know, Jason, you have one blue eye and one green eye." I said to him.
"Really," he deadpanned, "I'd never noticed that. Next mirror I see I'll have to check on that. Thanks for letting me know." Then he smiled, rather oddly I might add, and walked away.
I found myself fighting an overwhelming urge to beat myself about the head and face with a rock.
Apparently the stupidly obvious and slightly obnoxious is unavoidable. We all have these moments. However, I have worked hard to train myself to keep it to myself since then. I would also never walk across a store, hall, mall or room just to make the statement to someone.
And if you are out there, Jason, I still cringe when I think about that. I'm sorry.
Oh, and did you ever find that mirror?
Having attacked people who walk up and state the blindingly obvious, I do have a small admission to make.
When I was in high school, there was a dear young man in my class who possessed a blue eye and a brown eye. One day as we were talking before class I found myself suddenly struck by this fact.
"You know, Jason, you have one blue eye and one green eye." I said to him.
"Really," he deadpanned, "I'd never noticed that. Next mirror I see I'll have to check on that. Thanks for letting me know." Then he smiled, rather oddly I might add, and walked away.
I found myself fighting an overwhelming urge to beat myself about the head and face with a rock.
Apparently the stupidly obvious and slightly obnoxious is unavoidable. We all have these moments. However, I have worked hard to train myself to keep it to myself since then. I would also never walk across a store, hall, mall or room just to make the statement to someone.
And if you are out there, Jason, I still cringe when I think about that. I'm sorry.
Oh, and did you ever find that mirror?
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Standing Corrected and Standing Tall
As usual I am humbled by my friend, Bea, and her insightful post. Check it out. She makes a good point about "Soul Mates." Based on her definition I do have several of those. They are truly great friends that endure beyond age, geography and anything and everything I can think of. They are the reason I make it though the day, actually. Trying to name them, explain them would be pointless, but humbled and corrected I acknowledge me error. Soul-Mates do exist, and I guess the dream would be to find one and be able to marry them. I would say though that Bea and I are talking about a type of friendship (which is love) that doesn't have to have anything to do with romantic love. So while I stand corrected, in terms of what most people refer to when they speak of soul-mates I still don't believe.
Now for something completely different.
This has happened before, and I may have mentioned it, but it is always so funny when it happens. In case anyone missed this fact, I am tall. Six feet, three and one half inches tall. I have been over six feet since I was twelve.
People seem to feel it is important to make sure that I know I am tall. They walk up and tell me all the time, just in case I had forgotten. Teenagers are notorious for this, but I have seen the best dressed and most sophisticated of adults point it out to me just as often as the most dense and inarticulate on earth with about the same amount finesse. There are several different answers I reply with, depending on their attitude, demeanor and my mood.
Then there is life now with Nana and the other statement/question that is second only to the you're tall comment.
Sometimes I answer,
Just to watch them scratch their head.
This question really ticks Nana off. She put up with it for about a year. Quietly. Now, Nana gets right in their face and says
You go Nana. Get 'em!
Now for something completely different.
This has happened before, and I may have mentioned it, but it is always so funny when it happens. In case anyone missed this fact, I am tall. Six feet, three and one half inches tall. I have been over six feet since I was twelve.
People seem to feel it is important to make sure that I know I am tall. They walk up and tell me all the time, just in case I had forgotten. Teenagers are notorious for this, but I have seen the best dressed and most sophisticated of adults point it out to me just as often as the most dense and inarticulate on earth with about the same amount finesse. There are several different answers I reply with, depending on their attitude, demeanor and my mood.
Wow, you're tall!
Shhh. It's a secret.
Oh my. You are one tall lady!
You know, no one has ever told me that before. Do you really think so?
You are really tall!
Oh my God, when did this happen? I was short when I left home this morning!
(That one is for special occasions. One time I scared a 10 year old so badly with my dramatics...You have to scream and sound horrified to carry the line off... He wet his pants. I now have an age limit on that response, only 16 and older.)
Then there is life now with Nana and the other statement/question that is second only to the you're tall comment.
How tall are you?
Sometimes I answer,
Four Eleven.
Just to watch them scratch their head.
This question really ticks Nana off. She put up with it for about a year. Quietly. Now, Nana gets right in their face and says
How much do you weigh?
You go Nana. Get 'em!
Ranting, Raving and Venting, with a bit of whining anger thrown in for good measure.
Today I am tired. Very tired. Last night was a hard night, most of it staring at the clock. I really hate those nights. Now before anyone makes any assumptions, let me tell you why. It may not be what you think.
Last night I watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. Overall, as television goes, not bad. I laughed at all the right spots and cried at all the right spots. Yesterday had been a good day. I had a nice talk with my dad, my mom finally got in touch with me and my students got a lot of good work done. Best of all I reached an all time record on the elliptical trainer during my training session yesterday, 1025 calories in 50 minutes. I never stopped and I kept it above 130 strides per minute. I maxed out on all my lifting; Pull Down Lats, 80 lbs 15 reps! Greg was proud of me and another lady called me a demon! So good day. Came home made Nana dinner, checked e-mail, finished my homework for gifted certification and then watched the president’s speech (which I think is a great idea, but unlikely to occur). Then it was time for Grey’s Anatomy. Like I said, riveting, entertaining television. Then I took a shower. In the shower I started crying and I was still crying when I got in bed.
I closed all my remaining E-Harmony Matches and requested to not be sent anymore for a while. I’ve decided to take the summer off, so to speak, and I may not go back at all. Three years is a long time to still not have a second date. At first it was kind of exciting and encouraging to see that there were still lots of possibilities out there, yet with every incompatible match (all of them so far) it has started to wear on me and is now rather discouraging. Worse, when I closed everything out I saw that I had gone through exactly Six Hundred, and Sixty Six Matches. I am not superstitious. While I believe that number will be bad in a specific situation, someday, (mark of the beast and all that), I don’t think of it as a cursed or evil number in itself. However, between that specific combination of numbers and just the sheer volume of the number itslef, it is rather disquieting, frustrating and generally disappointing. Add to that the last two matches of any kind of promise and merit have been particularly harrowing. Also, each month when I try to decide if I should put myself through this again, I get an e-mail saying I just need to persevere a bit longer and that my soul mate is just around the corner.
Let me just tell you, I don’t believe in soul mates. I never have. Two people are together because they choose to be together and choose to be committed. If it were all based on the initial good feeling of being in love, people wouldn’t stay together very often… Oh, that’s right, they don’t anymore! In love is not the destination, it is a point along the way to true, commited love. The real thing, where you have to work at it, but it is worth it. Obviously, I want to be in love, I have been before, twice, but that is not enough for marriage, by itself. I’m tired of this word soul mates being thrown around like if you find the right person it is no work at all. It also perpetuates the idea that there is one perfect person for everyone. This is not even close to possible. First, there are 6% more women in the world than men. (47%male, 53% female). Also, what if someone ends up with the wrong person, (because if there is only one perfect/right way for this to work it is a sure bet lots of us will get it wrong) then there is another person out there waiting for that right person who has been taken by the wrong person. Mostly I think we all just tell people who are single, “God has the perfect one for you, just be paitient.” Because it makes us feel better about whom we are with, and makes us feel better about the fact that we are with someone and they are not. Better yet are the helpful people who say things like, “God is still working on you about something. When you learn he will send the right person for you.” Therefore, that means that everyone that is happily married is done, perfect, and the spouse is the reward. How nice. Isn’t that sweet. In addition, it means that when the sweet married lady tells you that, she is actually saying she figures you are being punished for something and she is a better person than you are. Thanks. I feel much comfort.
OK, I am officially pissy today.
A while back I read a book by McCloud about how if we all just sit back, waiting for God to bring us the right person, we are all clearly expecting to marry the Fed-Ex delivery person. He recommended getting out, trying to meet people. He specifically encouraged dating services as a tool for busy professionals. So I took his advice. Three years later, the Fed Ex guy is starting to sound like a good idea.
The truth is this is end of the year let down, end of the year stress build up, stress because of camp starting (there is always a big flap right before camp starts with lots of pontificating, posturing and such.) exhaustion because of how hard I’m working out (I’m up to at least 1500 calories a workout, total) and just general caretaker ware from Nana (one of the reasons I need camp so badly). If I was honest, there is also a decent amount of hormone in this. I’m always haywire this time of year and currently I am literally surrounded by pregnant people, which is like just drinking female hormones for breakfast every morning. Weight loss also tends to trigger mood swings and while I refuse to step on a scale, I know I’ve lost over two inches in my thighs and hips alone in the past month. To add insult to injury the weight is not however coming out of my waist, which for the record is really starting to tick me off!
This weekend I am going to Florida to: visit one of my best friends; spend time with my adopted family (two blond haired girls and their blessed mother I really can’t wait to see… One to write with, one to talk with and one to just love me for who I am… Not to mention the other wonderful six members of the family, some of the most delightful men on earth); and then go spend an afternoon, evening and morning with my Dad before driving home on Sunday. Dad and I will work out, see a movie, go to dinner, talk (and talk and talk as my step-mother laughs) and then on Sunday morning I will go to his Sunday School class. Plus the five hours down, two hours over and five hours back up in the car will be peaceful.
The only thing better than that would be sleep, preferably without tears. Here’s hoping.
This too, like a huge barbed kidney stone, will pass. My next blog (maybe even again today) will be about something tremendously funny and/or uplifting, I promise!
Last night I watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy. Overall, as television goes, not bad. I laughed at all the right spots and cried at all the right spots. Yesterday had been a good day. I had a nice talk with my dad, my mom finally got in touch with me and my students got a lot of good work done. Best of all I reached an all time record on the elliptical trainer during my training session yesterday, 1025 calories in 50 minutes. I never stopped and I kept it above 130 strides per minute. I maxed out on all my lifting; Pull Down Lats, 80 lbs 15 reps! Greg was proud of me and another lady called me a demon! So good day. Came home made Nana dinner, checked e-mail, finished my homework for gifted certification and then watched the president’s speech (which I think is a great idea, but unlikely to occur). Then it was time for Grey’s Anatomy. Like I said, riveting, entertaining television. Then I took a shower. In the shower I started crying and I was still crying when I got in bed.
I closed all my remaining E-Harmony Matches and requested to not be sent anymore for a while. I’ve decided to take the summer off, so to speak, and I may not go back at all. Three years is a long time to still not have a second date. At first it was kind of exciting and encouraging to see that there were still lots of possibilities out there, yet with every incompatible match (all of them so far) it has started to wear on me and is now rather discouraging. Worse, when I closed everything out I saw that I had gone through exactly Six Hundred, and Sixty Six Matches. I am not superstitious. While I believe that number will be bad in a specific situation, someday, (mark of the beast and all that), I don’t think of it as a cursed or evil number in itself. However, between that specific combination of numbers and just the sheer volume of the number itslef, it is rather disquieting, frustrating and generally disappointing. Add to that the last two matches of any kind of promise and merit have been particularly harrowing. Also, each month when I try to decide if I should put myself through this again, I get an e-mail saying I just need to persevere a bit longer and that my soul mate is just around the corner.
Let me just tell you, I don’t believe in soul mates. I never have. Two people are together because they choose to be together and choose to be committed. If it were all based on the initial good feeling of being in love, people wouldn’t stay together very often… Oh, that’s right, they don’t anymore! In love is not the destination, it is a point along the way to true, commited love. The real thing, where you have to work at it, but it is worth it. Obviously, I want to be in love, I have been before, twice, but that is not enough for marriage, by itself. I’m tired of this word soul mates being thrown around like if you find the right person it is no work at all. It also perpetuates the idea that there is one perfect person for everyone. This is not even close to possible. First, there are 6% more women in the world than men. (47%male, 53% female). Also, what if someone ends up with the wrong person, (because if there is only one perfect/right way for this to work it is a sure bet lots of us will get it wrong) then there is another person out there waiting for that right person who has been taken by the wrong person. Mostly I think we all just tell people who are single, “God has the perfect one for you, just be paitient.” Because it makes us feel better about whom we are with, and makes us feel better about the fact that we are with someone and they are not. Better yet are the helpful people who say things like, “God is still working on you about something. When you learn he will send the right person for you.” Therefore, that means that everyone that is happily married is done, perfect, and the spouse is the reward. How nice. Isn’t that sweet. In addition, it means that when the sweet married lady tells you that, she is actually saying she figures you are being punished for something and she is a better person than you are. Thanks. I feel much comfort.
OK, I am officially pissy today.
A while back I read a book by McCloud about how if we all just sit back, waiting for God to bring us the right person, we are all clearly expecting to marry the Fed-Ex delivery person. He recommended getting out, trying to meet people. He specifically encouraged dating services as a tool for busy professionals. So I took his advice. Three years later, the Fed Ex guy is starting to sound like a good idea.
The truth is this is end of the year let down, end of the year stress build up, stress because of camp starting (there is always a big flap right before camp starts with lots of pontificating, posturing and such.) exhaustion because of how hard I’m working out (I’m up to at least 1500 calories a workout, total) and just general caretaker ware from Nana (one of the reasons I need camp so badly). If I was honest, there is also a decent amount of hormone in this. I’m always haywire this time of year and currently I am literally surrounded by pregnant people, which is like just drinking female hormones for breakfast every morning. Weight loss also tends to trigger mood swings and while I refuse to step on a scale, I know I’ve lost over two inches in my thighs and hips alone in the past month. To add insult to injury the weight is not however coming out of my waist, which for the record is really starting to tick me off!
This weekend I am going to Florida to: visit one of my best friends; spend time with my adopted family (two blond haired girls and their blessed mother I really can’t wait to see… One to write with, one to talk with and one to just love me for who I am… Not to mention the other wonderful six members of the family, some of the most delightful men on earth); and then go spend an afternoon, evening and morning with my Dad before driving home on Sunday. Dad and I will work out, see a movie, go to dinner, talk (and talk and talk as my step-mother laughs) and then on Sunday morning I will go to his Sunday School class. Plus the five hours down, two hours over and five hours back up in the car will be peaceful.
The only thing better than that would be sleep, preferably without tears. Here’s hoping.
This too, like a huge barbed kidney stone, will pass. My next blog (maybe even again today) will be about something tremendously funny and/or uplifting, I promise!
Monday, May 15, 2006
What was he thinking? Teacher Rant!
Okay. I am better today. Also, God and I hashed it out and I have a much better perspective. Frankly, I now have proof, for myself, that I am not so hell-bent on marriage that anything will do. That's an important thing to know. Anyway, sorry about the novel length post.
On to end of year craziness. I may have my moments, but this teacher takes the cake. Essays, something I consider very important, yet really hate teaching, especially are of interest to me. So when I saw this article I nearly died, no pun intended.
Check it out. Personally if I didn't fire the guy I'd have had him CAT scanned for a brain mass. This went beyond your basic lapse in judgment.
This reminds me of when I was in high school and someone came up with a "Ghetto Math Test" as a joke. It was word problems involving drug deals, prostitution, gun running and gang hits. It was very funny. Then a teacher at one of the local schools used it as his actual final. Let's just say something broke loose.
Now as a teacher myself, while I can see the inherent humor in some of these kinds of documents or assignments when they float through my inbox (we teachers do pass them to each other with a certain glee, dreaming about the chaos they would cause in real life...) it would never occur to me to use them. Add to that incidents in the recent past where students write journal entries planning horrific deaths for their teachers (couldn't find that article from this past fall, but it made my blood run cold) and why would someone with any amount of intelligence, education or professionalism do something like that?
And I thought I got loopy at the end of a school year.
On to end of year craziness. I may have my moments, but this teacher takes the cake. Essays, something I consider very important, yet really hate teaching, especially are of interest to me. So when I saw this article I nearly died, no pun intended.
Check it out. Personally if I didn't fire the guy I'd have had him CAT scanned for a brain mass. This went beyond your basic lapse in judgment.
This reminds me of when I was in high school and someone came up with a "Ghetto Math Test" as a joke. It was word problems involving drug deals, prostitution, gun running and gang hits. It was very funny. Then a teacher at one of the local schools used it as his actual final. Let's just say something broke loose.
Now as a teacher myself, while I can see the inherent humor in some of these kinds of documents or assignments when they float through my inbox (we teachers do pass them to each other with a certain glee, dreaming about the chaos they would cause in real life...) it would never occur to me to use them. Add to that incidents in the recent past where students write journal entries planning horrific deaths for their teachers (couldn't find that article from this past fall, but it made my blood run cold) and why would someone with any amount of intelligence, education or professionalism do something like that?
And I thought I got loopy at the end of a school year.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Secondary Drowning, when you've already been rescued, but you still feel like you can't breathe and they still have to pump your lungs...
Today is mother’s day, and I really could have used my mother today, but she wouldn’t answer her phone and even if she did I doubt she would have helped me much. So I’m just gonna blog this all out tonight before I go to bed, if ya’ll don’t mind. Mostly I want someone to hold me and tell me I did the right thing and didn’t make someone else’s life harder or that not only did I not make a mistake but that in making the mistake I might have helped someone instead of feeling like I hurt them. I know there isn’t anyone that could tell me that anyway, but what the heck, right?
This week I got a match on E-Harmony. Nice guy, father of two, taller than me, strong Christian. I initiated the match and he was game. Good. He did indicate he was a widower, and that it happened not that long ago, but being unsure of the circumstances initially I kept an open mind. So we started the process. Questions exchanged, lists exchanged, more complex questions. By then I knew what I should have seen in the beginning. His wife died after a very long (3 years) hard battle with cancer and she had only been gone 8.5 months. It was approaching mother’s day, his kids who were once home schooled were now getting ready to be home from public school for the summer and his step son (her son) just got married. This man was hurting, grieving and was looking for a replacement part. Not in the sense that his wife was replaceable, but in the sense that he is hurting in ways hopefully most of us can’t understand and he wants it to stop and he wants it to stop for his kids too and he was probably sitting alone one night after the kids went to bed and got a little desperate for the grief part to be over. Can anyone blame him? I’ve watched similar things before in my loved ones. I could see it here.
So I called my Dad. My dad, the Divorce Recovery Counselor, my best friend and my best advisor. I read him everything and I asked him what to do. He said that no one can truly know where someone else is, but that this man was not ready and that while Dad knew I had a big heart, a desire to rescue others and a real heart for parents and children that had been “left behind” because of what happened in our family, that I was not the person to get involved with this and I needed to close the match. So what did I do?
I used the question space to explain to this man, whom I don’t know, that from my own personal experiences I knew his kids were not ready for this and that he and I could not date, BUT… if he wanted a friend, we could e-mail. Obviously this was not what my Dad told me to do.
The man replied, jumping on the bone I threw. He asked me how long it took my dad to heal. He asked how he would know that his kids were ready. He asked what he could do to get through this. He asked if I could be his friend and would I talk to him. He thanked me for my honesty and concern for his kids. He asked me what I would need to know to know that he was ready. I believe that what he was asking me was what would he need to say to convince the next match that this was a good idea, though I doubt he knew that was what he was actually asking. Now I saw what my Dad was trying to tell me about the desperation that comes in being lonely. Now I knew I was really in trouble.
So, this morning I went to speak to my pastor. This is a great man who himself has suffered loss. I told him everything and I confessed my error. He blessed me for my intention and told me the same thing Dad did. He told me to close the match, though he said I could explain why and suggest the man talk to his pastor and or a counselor to deal with his grief. So I came home and agonized over the letter. I sent it and he replied and closed the match for me.
I am so conflicted right now. For several reasons. One, what if I hurt this man? Two, what if I judged him, and judged him incorrectly? Three, if I did this right, why do I hurt? Four, is there any possibility I was simply running away from attempting a real relationship be picking someone who was in a bad place so I knew it wouldn’t work and if so what does this say about me? My physics teacher in high school used to call me Madonna. He said I purposefully picked people who were unattainable to love because that way I insured that I stayed “safe” and “pure.” If that is the case, the other questions are worse, because that means I added my issues to someone who already had a full load. To be fair, as soon as I figured out where this man was my interest in him as anything other than someone who needed help evaporated. Frankly that is what I like about E-harmony, you can be objective with out getting your heart really involved. When things don’t work you are disappointed, not heart broken…
I won’t post what this man wrote to me, that wouldn’t be fair, but I can post what I wrote to him as a final letter. He replied with thanks, again for my honesty and integrity and said he would pray about and think on what I had said. A close friend says that what I wrote this man was good, and fair and kind, but I still feel torn. This is my letter.
I appreciate the fact that you replied. I can also appreciate how much pain you must be in. Grief is a powerful thing. There are many different kinds of grief and even more ways that it plays out, but the constant is that it is a loss and it must be suffered fully to be healed. Not very comforting, but unfortunately completely true.
From my personal experiences, I can only have an idea of what your kids are going through. I have never been married; therefore I only have second hand experience with your situation. That is why I did not comment directly on your position, though in terms of my opinion I would doubt that you are anywhere near a good place to consider a romantic relationship.
So as to what I can speak to. I'll be more specific.
My parents met in college, married the day after they graduated and the same day my father received his commission in the United States Navy. They were married for twenty years. During the second half of their marriage problems developed. Initially problems they were both responsible for. My father was emotionally (and physically) absent and he didn't give his family the attention it warranted. He was raised with the idea that if he was successful at work the other stuff took care of itself. Mom was a homemaker until I turned 9. Then she started going to nursing school, rather than deal with the issues between her and my dad. Initially my brother and I were still her priority, but that changed. Eventually, Mom decided she wanted out. She left (or more accurately we moved and she didn't go with us). For one year she lived with us having announced she was leaving us (and that there was someone else in the picture) for that year and the year after while they were legally separated Dad tried to get her to change her mind. The divorce became final when I was 16 and my brother was 13. This all happened while my father's career was crashing down around him as well. Growing up my brother and I had been closer to our mom, but we revered, feared and adored our father. Watching him crumble to a defeated wretch was beyond horrific.
However, from the beginning Dad saw that he had fallen away from God and that his only hope and our only hope was in God/Christ and that my brother and I needed to have a real relationship with God to make it through. So he got his life right with God (not an overnight process) so that he could lead my brother and I on the same path. Through his persevering faith my brother and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and as a family we came through that darkness together. Dad had to work full time and there were struggles and hurdles to work out there (and no family near by to help) but Dad was honest with my brother and I, we talked it out, worked it out and got it done. Dad was especially worried about me having an adult female role model and my brother having a real understanding that he was loved. Interesting thing. Dad began to pray and things began to happen.
God placed in my life several amazing women over the next several years (and even later) that have become mentors to me in a way I could have never dreamed. My brother also developed some terrific mentors who really showed him that he was of value, even if his mother abandoned him. Through all of this my brother and I have retained a relationship with our mother, but it is a shadow or remnant of what was. Yet, through God, we have more now than we would have otherwise, in terms of role models and "second mothers". None of those relationships has anything to do with my father's remarriage, though my stepmother is a very godly woman and has been a good influence on both of us.
Dad did meet someone. At church. When he wasn't looking. She was a servicewoman in the Navy as well. Dad wanted to introduce her to me as I was planning (And originally did in college) a career in the Navy. However I was visiting my mother that summer and so when they began talking, seeing each other in church, it grew to more. They were both divorced, both coming off bad marriages (her husband was abusive) and both consulted their pastors, each other's pastors and prayer partners. When I got off the plane in San Francisco, home from my visit with mother, I knew Dad had found the right person, before he even said a word. I even knew who it was. We laugh now about my intuition on that. It was as if God had prepared my heart as much as he had prepared Dad's. Now, there were many struggles during the yearlong engagement and even early in the marriage when my brother was at home (I was almost graduated from high school when they married), but my brother and I were okay with it, ready for it, because my Dad was. I am reticent to give you a specific time, because there is no clock for this. I will say it was much, much more than nine months before they even began dating.
Even believing it was God's will they marry and be together (they had actually met on the phone almost a year prior and didn't even make that connection until well after they started dating... she called to try and get his job, that he had just started!) even now, I believe they should have taken it a bit slower.
Dad went to counseling with a real psychiatrist, a pastor and was a part of Divorce Recovery Workshop, an eight-week program for people dealing in marital loss (including widow/ers) three times before becoming a counselor himself. All this was before he started dating my stepmother. My brother and I went to counseling, including family counseling with Dad (and much later, when she entered the picture, stepmother) before and after our parent's divorce and Dad's remarriage. We spent a huge amount of time talking, praying, grieving and listening. This was not a fast thing and there are still things almost twenty years later from the beginning of the whole mess that are still healing. Non of us took drugs (anti-depressants) though Dad had some prescribed sleeping pills for about one month before he decided that was no good and none of us found any other quick answers for this. It simply took time, faith in God and our love of each other. There was shouting, crying, accusations, anger, mourning, and oddly enough laughter in copious amounts through this long process. It was a process.
I spent a lot of time in prayer about this (you and I talking) last night and then on the phone with my Dad and then in a meeting this morning with my Pastor (Pastor is a grief counselor who has lost a child, Dad as I said is a Divorce Recovery Facilitator and Deacon). I made a mistake when I said we could talk as friends. I see now that it would be a bad idea. It wouldn’t be fair to you and both of us could get hurt. You need to see a pastoral counselor or grief counselor and work through your grief (9 months isn't enough time). The same goes for your kids, though it may not be the same form. I owe you an apology for making the offer. My heart so goes out to you and your kids because of my own experiences. But even on the idea that we would only talk on e-mail I am the wrong person to help you and it could create real problems for both of us. You seem like a wonderful man who greatly loves his wife and his children and misses her terribly and the life that you had with her. Finding someone new won’t fix that. It will just bring more pain into your world and unneeded pain into hers and your children’s (right now, later it would be a good thing). My father would be the first to tell you being with the wrong person (even for the right reasons) is worse than being alone. From what I’ve seen I agree. I wish I had met you a year from now. I think we could have been great friends, or something more. Who knows? God works thing out that were meant to be. In the mean time I hope you will stay away from E-Harmony and other such sites and give yourself the time to heal and find the tools that can help in that. Though I also know this is essentially none of my business. You and your children wills stay in my prayers. I hope you will close this match after you read this letter, (or reply briefly and close it soon after if you feel you need to). Otherwise I will close it in the next few days myself.
Lastly I would say, that if you continue looking right now, I am confidant you will find someone. No question. Several of my father's friends at church have lost their partner to cancer and my mom is a oncology nurse practitioner. I've seen the quick remarriage scenarios. They are not God's best for your life. As I said, this is really none of my business, but I do have an acute empathy for where your kids are. This will not help them, or frankly, you.I am so sorry for making this any harder.
God Bless,
~Sandy
So tonight I am crying because I don’t have the ability to communicate with my mother and I could really use her, or more specifically the person she was when I was a little girl, though I know that person no longer exists. Yet tonight two children I have never met and will never meet are probably crying because they have no mother at all. Their father is probably crying tonight too, and I may well have added to his tears.
I don’t even have a neat, clever, insightful ending to this blog. I just want to stop feeling awful. I imagine I’ll be okay in a day or two. That poor family might take years. I guess I am asking that people who read this (and I have no idea if there are all that many, but every bit helps) to pray for that family. Maybe that is some good that can come out of this. Maybe that is how God can turn my mistake in all this around?
This week I got a match on E-Harmony. Nice guy, father of two, taller than me, strong Christian. I initiated the match and he was game. Good. He did indicate he was a widower, and that it happened not that long ago, but being unsure of the circumstances initially I kept an open mind. So we started the process. Questions exchanged, lists exchanged, more complex questions. By then I knew what I should have seen in the beginning. His wife died after a very long (3 years) hard battle with cancer and she had only been gone 8.5 months. It was approaching mother’s day, his kids who were once home schooled were now getting ready to be home from public school for the summer and his step son (her son) just got married. This man was hurting, grieving and was looking for a replacement part. Not in the sense that his wife was replaceable, but in the sense that he is hurting in ways hopefully most of us can’t understand and he wants it to stop and he wants it to stop for his kids too and he was probably sitting alone one night after the kids went to bed and got a little desperate for the grief part to be over. Can anyone blame him? I’ve watched similar things before in my loved ones. I could see it here.
So I called my Dad. My dad, the Divorce Recovery Counselor, my best friend and my best advisor. I read him everything and I asked him what to do. He said that no one can truly know where someone else is, but that this man was not ready and that while Dad knew I had a big heart, a desire to rescue others and a real heart for parents and children that had been “left behind” because of what happened in our family, that I was not the person to get involved with this and I needed to close the match. So what did I do?
I used the question space to explain to this man, whom I don’t know, that from my own personal experiences I knew his kids were not ready for this and that he and I could not date, BUT… if he wanted a friend, we could e-mail. Obviously this was not what my Dad told me to do.
The man replied, jumping on the bone I threw. He asked me how long it took my dad to heal. He asked how he would know that his kids were ready. He asked what he could do to get through this. He asked if I could be his friend and would I talk to him. He thanked me for my honesty and concern for his kids. He asked me what I would need to know to know that he was ready. I believe that what he was asking me was what would he need to say to convince the next match that this was a good idea, though I doubt he knew that was what he was actually asking. Now I saw what my Dad was trying to tell me about the desperation that comes in being lonely. Now I knew I was really in trouble.
So, this morning I went to speak to my pastor. This is a great man who himself has suffered loss. I told him everything and I confessed my error. He blessed me for my intention and told me the same thing Dad did. He told me to close the match, though he said I could explain why and suggest the man talk to his pastor and or a counselor to deal with his grief. So I came home and agonized over the letter. I sent it and he replied and closed the match for me.
I am so conflicted right now. For several reasons. One, what if I hurt this man? Two, what if I judged him, and judged him incorrectly? Three, if I did this right, why do I hurt? Four, is there any possibility I was simply running away from attempting a real relationship be picking someone who was in a bad place so I knew it wouldn’t work and if so what does this say about me? My physics teacher in high school used to call me Madonna. He said I purposefully picked people who were unattainable to love because that way I insured that I stayed “safe” and “pure.” If that is the case, the other questions are worse, because that means I added my issues to someone who already had a full load. To be fair, as soon as I figured out where this man was my interest in him as anything other than someone who needed help evaporated. Frankly that is what I like about E-harmony, you can be objective with out getting your heart really involved. When things don’t work you are disappointed, not heart broken…
I won’t post what this man wrote to me, that wouldn’t be fair, but I can post what I wrote to him as a final letter. He replied with thanks, again for my honesty and integrity and said he would pray about and think on what I had said. A close friend says that what I wrote this man was good, and fair and kind, but I still feel torn. This is my letter.
I appreciate the fact that you replied. I can also appreciate how much pain you must be in. Grief is a powerful thing. There are many different kinds of grief and even more ways that it plays out, but the constant is that it is a loss and it must be suffered fully to be healed. Not very comforting, but unfortunately completely true.
From my personal experiences, I can only have an idea of what your kids are going through. I have never been married; therefore I only have second hand experience with your situation. That is why I did not comment directly on your position, though in terms of my opinion I would doubt that you are anywhere near a good place to consider a romantic relationship.
So as to what I can speak to. I'll be more specific.
My parents met in college, married the day after they graduated and the same day my father received his commission in the United States Navy. They were married for twenty years. During the second half of their marriage problems developed. Initially problems they were both responsible for. My father was emotionally (and physically) absent and he didn't give his family the attention it warranted. He was raised with the idea that if he was successful at work the other stuff took care of itself. Mom was a homemaker until I turned 9. Then she started going to nursing school, rather than deal with the issues between her and my dad. Initially my brother and I were still her priority, but that changed. Eventually, Mom decided she wanted out. She left (or more accurately we moved and she didn't go with us). For one year she lived with us having announced she was leaving us (and that there was someone else in the picture) for that year and the year after while they were legally separated Dad tried to get her to change her mind. The divorce became final when I was 16 and my brother was 13. This all happened while my father's career was crashing down around him as well. Growing up my brother and I had been closer to our mom, but we revered, feared and adored our father. Watching him crumble to a defeated wretch was beyond horrific.
However, from the beginning Dad saw that he had fallen away from God and that his only hope and our only hope was in God/Christ and that my brother and I needed to have a real relationship with God to make it through. So he got his life right with God (not an overnight process) so that he could lead my brother and I on the same path. Through his persevering faith my brother and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and as a family we came through that darkness together. Dad had to work full time and there were struggles and hurdles to work out there (and no family near by to help) but Dad was honest with my brother and I, we talked it out, worked it out and got it done. Dad was especially worried about me having an adult female role model and my brother having a real understanding that he was loved. Interesting thing. Dad began to pray and things began to happen.
God placed in my life several amazing women over the next several years (and even later) that have become mentors to me in a way I could have never dreamed. My brother also developed some terrific mentors who really showed him that he was of value, even if his mother abandoned him. Through all of this my brother and I have retained a relationship with our mother, but it is a shadow or remnant of what was. Yet, through God, we have more now than we would have otherwise, in terms of role models and "second mothers". None of those relationships has anything to do with my father's remarriage, though my stepmother is a very godly woman and has been a good influence on both of us.
Dad did meet someone. At church. When he wasn't looking. She was a servicewoman in the Navy as well. Dad wanted to introduce her to me as I was planning (And originally did in college) a career in the Navy. However I was visiting my mother that summer and so when they began talking, seeing each other in church, it grew to more. They were both divorced, both coming off bad marriages (her husband was abusive) and both consulted their pastors, each other's pastors and prayer partners. When I got off the plane in San Francisco, home from my visit with mother, I knew Dad had found the right person, before he even said a word. I even knew who it was. We laugh now about my intuition on that. It was as if God had prepared my heart as much as he had prepared Dad's. Now, there were many struggles during the yearlong engagement and even early in the marriage when my brother was at home (I was almost graduated from high school when they married), but my brother and I were okay with it, ready for it, because my Dad was. I am reticent to give you a specific time, because there is no clock for this. I will say it was much, much more than nine months before they even began dating.
Even believing it was God's will they marry and be together (they had actually met on the phone almost a year prior and didn't even make that connection until well after they started dating... she called to try and get his job, that he had just started!) even now, I believe they should have taken it a bit slower.
Dad went to counseling with a real psychiatrist, a pastor and was a part of Divorce Recovery Workshop, an eight-week program for people dealing in marital loss (including widow/ers) three times before becoming a counselor himself. All this was before he started dating my stepmother. My brother and I went to counseling, including family counseling with Dad (and much later, when she entered the picture, stepmother) before and after our parent's divorce and Dad's remarriage. We spent a huge amount of time talking, praying, grieving and listening. This was not a fast thing and there are still things almost twenty years later from the beginning of the whole mess that are still healing. Non of us took drugs (anti-depressants) though Dad had some prescribed sleeping pills for about one month before he decided that was no good and none of us found any other quick answers for this. It simply took time, faith in God and our love of each other. There was shouting, crying, accusations, anger, mourning, and oddly enough laughter in copious amounts through this long process. It was a process.
I spent a lot of time in prayer about this (you and I talking) last night and then on the phone with my Dad and then in a meeting this morning with my Pastor (Pastor is a grief counselor who has lost a child, Dad as I said is a Divorce Recovery Facilitator and Deacon). I made a mistake when I said we could talk as friends. I see now that it would be a bad idea. It wouldn’t be fair to you and both of us could get hurt. You need to see a pastoral counselor or grief counselor and work through your grief (9 months isn't enough time). The same goes for your kids, though it may not be the same form. I owe you an apology for making the offer. My heart so goes out to you and your kids because of my own experiences. But even on the idea that we would only talk on e-mail I am the wrong person to help you and it could create real problems for both of us. You seem like a wonderful man who greatly loves his wife and his children and misses her terribly and the life that you had with her. Finding someone new won’t fix that. It will just bring more pain into your world and unneeded pain into hers and your children’s (right now, later it would be a good thing). My father would be the first to tell you being with the wrong person (even for the right reasons) is worse than being alone. From what I’ve seen I agree. I wish I had met you a year from now. I think we could have been great friends, or something more. Who knows? God works thing out that were meant to be. In the mean time I hope you will stay away from E-Harmony and other such sites and give yourself the time to heal and find the tools that can help in that. Though I also know this is essentially none of my business. You and your children wills stay in my prayers. I hope you will close this match after you read this letter, (or reply briefly and close it soon after if you feel you need to). Otherwise I will close it in the next few days myself.
Lastly I would say, that if you continue looking right now, I am confidant you will find someone. No question. Several of my father's friends at church have lost their partner to cancer and my mom is a oncology nurse practitioner. I've seen the quick remarriage scenarios. They are not God's best for your life. As I said, this is really none of my business, but I do have an acute empathy for where your kids are. This will not help them, or frankly, you.I am so sorry for making this any harder.
God Bless,
~Sandy
So tonight I am crying because I don’t have the ability to communicate with my mother and I could really use her, or more specifically the person she was when I was a little girl, though I know that person no longer exists. Yet tonight two children I have never met and will never meet are probably crying because they have no mother at all. Their father is probably crying tonight too, and I may well have added to his tears.
I don’t even have a neat, clever, insightful ending to this blog. I just want to stop feeling awful. I imagine I’ll be okay in a day or two. That poor family might take years. I guess I am asking that people who read this (and I have no idea if there are all that many, but every bit helps) to pray for that family. Maybe that is some good that can come out of this. Maybe that is how God can turn my mistake in all this around?
Friday, May 12, 2006
"I hate you!"
First, Thanks everyone for the kind words to Nana. I passed on your birthday wishes. She had a very nice day and she is thrilled with her butterfly balloons. As I said, her joy tends to be humbling.
Now for more end of the school year ranting.
A student walked into my class yesterday and said, "You know, Ms. X, lots of students really don't like you."
"Yes, well, I know 2nd period isn't happy with me right now, they didn't do their assignments so I'm making them write 20 essays instead of a single short story. But that was their choice. They were warned for over a week."
"Well, yeah, they aren't happy, but there were people last semester who didn't like you either."
"Thanks for letting me know."
"No problem."
Honestly, while on a personal/emotional level having the affection of my students is an attractive thought, I've never really cared. If a kid hates me more than Satan, but passes my class, I'm thrilled. The part that ticked me off yesterday, is that this kid, who professes to enjoy my class, tried to get a rise out of me. He didn't offer support, defense or even (have the guts to...) explanation. He just walks in and brings it up.
However, when I laughed and told him how little I cared, he looked disappointed...
Like I have mentioned earlier, emotion is a dangerous thing in education. And something best avoided and minimized. Isn't it funny that the occupation that involves the shaping of children needs to appear warm and yet for sake of health and safety must be in some ways the most cold. Most of us that teach love our jobs and our kids (God knows we don't love money...) but by definition we must separate ourselves from personal feelings, and agendas when we teach or we would spontaneously combust or even more likely get fired pretty quick.
Honestly, I don't "care" how students perceive me or feel about me as long as they learn something of value in my room. Considering how emotionally transparent I am as a person it is really a rather odd thing. ( In the real world, people always see right through me, in a classroom I am all smoke and mirrors) Yet at the same time that I don't "care" I still love them (as a group, not necessarily individuals).
Anyway, I guess I don't really have a point I just wanted to say that this kid made me nuts yesterday, but not for the reasons he thought or wanted to...
Oh, and as a teacher, my students have always either loved me or hated me. It's always been that way. I guess I'm just one of those kinds of people.
Now for more end of the school year ranting.
A student walked into my class yesterday and said, "You know, Ms. X, lots of students really don't like you."
"Yes, well, I know 2nd period isn't happy with me right now, they didn't do their assignments so I'm making them write 20 essays instead of a single short story. But that was their choice. They were warned for over a week."
"Well, yeah, they aren't happy, but there were people last semester who didn't like you either."
"Thanks for letting me know."
"No problem."
Honestly, while on a personal/emotional level having the affection of my students is an attractive thought, I've never really cared. If a kid hates me more than Satan, but passes my class, I'm thrilled. The part that ticked me off yesterday, is that this kid, who professes to enjoy my class, tried to get a rise out of me. He didn't offer support, defense or even (have the guts to...) explanation. He just walks in and brings it up.
However, when I laughed and told him how little I cared, he looked disappointed...
Like I have mentioned earlier, emotion is a dangerous thing in education. And something best avoided and minimized. Isn't it funny that the occupation that involves the shaping of children needs to appear warm and yet for sake of health and safety must be in some ways the most cold. Most of us that teach love our jobs and our kids (God knows we don't love money...) but by definition we must separate ourselves from personal feelings, and agendas when we teach or we would spontaneously combust or even more likely get fired pretty quick.
Honestly, I don't "care" how students perceive me or feel about me as long as they learn something of value in my room. Considering how emotionally transparent I am as a person it is really a rather odd thing. ( In the real world, people always see right through me, in a classroom I am all smoke and mirrors) Yet at the same time that I don't "care" I still love them (as a group, not necessarily individuals).
Anyway, I guess I don't really have a point I just wanted to say that this kid made me nuts yesterday, but not for the reasons he thought or wanted to...
Oh, and as a teacher, my students have always either loved me or hated me. It's always been that way. I guess I'm just one of those kinds of people.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
82
My dearest friend Beathechemist had a run in with a senior citizen yesterday that echoes my life so much. Check her story on the Spitting Eyes. This is the flip side of Nana's "I'll flake away to nothing!" rant I get everytime I try to push her to take a shower more than once a week.
One time I was treating a patient (as an EMT intern in the ER) from a nursing home. Her skin was so dry that as I helped her out of her clothes and rolled her over onto a clean bed so much dry skin flew up in the air around us that I coughed, gagged and sneezed all at once. You couldn't see through the stuff!
Speaking of old. Today is Nana's 82nd birthday. To celebrate we are going to a doctor appointment and then dinner at a friend's. This morning as I woke her up with singing (Happy Birthday to you) she clapped and said, "Today is my lucky day because I get to live with my Sister Sandy!" (She often calls me sister.) So I started my morning in tears. The good kind, for all that they still mess up my mascara.
Nana has seen so much. Done so much. Loved so much. She really is a special lady. Everyone thinks so. Really, everyone. She has already gotten cards and flowers and calls. She said to me last night as I made our dinner that she didn't want me to get her a present, that the party was enough. That's the thing about Nana. To her everything is a treasure, a gift and a joy. I bring home vanilla icecream as a surprise one day and you'd think I gave her diamonds. I take her to see a school play and you'd think I got her Radio City Music Hall tickets. I am humbled by how easy it is to make her smile, to make her happy. She provides her own joy.
Honestly, each morning I hold my breath for just a moment when I wake her, until she opens her eyes, smiles at me and says (every blessed morning!) "Is it really 5:30 already?" (One of these days I'm gonna get her up at 2:00AM just so I can say, "No, go back to bed, just checking your reflexes!). Yesterday morning she was particularly peaceful and I paused. Obviously I will miss her when she is gone. But in her case, she's had such a good life, I want her to simply go to sleep one night and pass peacefully into paradise. She deserves that. By the same token even though I know she's tired and might even like to lay her burden down I have become so jealous of this time I have with her. I want as much as I can have. There would be such a hole with out her in my days... I paused afraid to wake her up and afraid to let her sleep. Isn't that strange?
I think I will get her butterfly balloons that I saw at Kroger for her birthday. Let me tell you about Nana and butterflies.
Eight years ago, I called her in Kansas and said, "Nana, you goose! Answer your phone!" She called back and left this message on my machine. "I'm not a goose! I'm a butterfly!"
I've never forgotten that. She is a butterfly, a beautiful, colorful butterfly!
Happy Birthday, Nana. May God continue to bless you as richly as you bless those around you with your joy, your laughter and your wide eyed innocence. I love you.
One time I was treating a patient (as an EMT intern in the ER) from a nursing home. Her skin was so dry that as I helped her out of her clothes and rolled her over onto a clean bed so much dry skin flew up in the air around us that I coughed, gagged and sneezed all at once. You couldn't see through the stuff!
Speaking of old. Today is Nana's 82nd birthday. To celebrate we are going to a doctor appointment and then dinner at a friend's. This morning as I woke her up with singing (Happy Birthday to you) she clapped and said, "Today is my lucky day because I get to live with my Sister Sandy!" (She often calls me sister.) So I started my morning in tears. The good kind, for all that they still mess up my mascara.
Nana has seen so much. Done so much. Loved so much. She really is a special lady. Everyone thinks so. Really, everyone. She has already gotten cards and flowers and calls. She said to me last night as I made our dinner that she didn't want me to get her a present, that the party was enough. That's the thing about Nana. To her everything is a treasure, a gift and a joy. I bring home vanilla icecream as a surprise one day and you'd think I gave her diamonds. I take her to see a school play and you'd think I got her Radio City Music Hall tickets. I am humbled by how easy it is to make her smile, to make her happy. She provides her own joy.
Honestly, each morning I hold my breath for just a moment when I wake her, until she opens her eyes, smiles at me and says (every blessed morning!) "Is it really 5:30 already?" (One of these days I'm gonna get her up at 2:00AM just so I can say, "No, go back to bed, just checking your reflexes!). Yesterday morning she was particularly peaceful and I paused. Obviously I will miss her when she is gone. But in her case, she's had such a good life, I want her to simply go to sleep one night and pass peacefully into paradise. She deserves that. By the same token even though I know she's tired and might even like to lay her burden down I have become so jealous of this time I have with her. I want as much as I can have. There would be such a hole with out her in my days... I paused afraid to wake her up and afraid to let her sleep. Isn't that strange?
I think I will get her butterfly balloons that I saw at Kroger for her birthday. Let me tell you about Nana and butterflies.
Eight years ago, I called her in Kansas and said, "Nana, you goose! Answer your phone!" She called back and left this message on my machine. "I'm not a goose! I'm a butterfly!"
I've never forgotten that. She is a butterfly, a beautiful, colorful butterfly!
Happy Birthday, Nana. May God continue to bless you as richly as you bless those around you with your joy, your laughter and your wide eyed innocence. I love you.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Oprah and Marriage
First, if you have not read Dreaming Again's Post today, do so. It was awesome. Here.
Yesterday, while working out, I caught Oprah. Not something I usually do, but the music in the gym was not it's best that day, so... Anyway. The show was about marriage. It talked about how many women lose themselves, their identity in marriage and that is why the marriage fails.
(Now, as I make these statements, I know I am not married, so this is slightly judgmental)
It is important to be a whole and complete person before you get married. Identity is important. However as I listened to these women talk about past marriages and possible future ones the word I kept hear was "I" and "me" and when they were being talked to (often with their fiance next to them) the buzz word was "you"as though the men weren't even there. Being yourself is well and good, important even. It is worth spending time on. But while I agree these women should not have been married (or not be getting married) it is for a different reason than identity. If your only focus is self, there is no way you can ever be happy.
You shouldn't get married because you want to be married (as in you want the institution, rather than a particular person) or because you want to make this other person happy or you think it will fulfill you as a person. You get married because as you are running this game of life you notice that there is a person running beside you who is headed in the same direction and you are good for each other. You support each other, help each other. Identity is important, crucial even, but self should not be the focus. The other person as an individual should not be the focus exactly either, but I still don't think it should be all about "me."
It frightens me the amount that people focus on themselves these days. I think there is a real crisis in our nation, in western culture. It is the focus on self. Oddly enough, for all that some of what was being said on the show made sense, I don't think it will help the divorce rate any.
Yesterday, while working out, I caught Oprah. Not something I usually do, but the music in the gym was not it's best that day, so... Anyway. The show was about marriage. It talked about how many women lose themselves, their identity in marriage and that is why the marriage fails.
(Now, as I make these statements, I know I am not married, so this is slightly judgmental)
It is important to be a whole and complete person before you get married. Identity is important. However as I listened to these women talk about past marriages and possible future ones the word I kept hear was "I" and "me" and when they were being talked to (often with their fiance next to them) the buzz word was "you"as though the men weren't even there. Being yourself is well and good, important even. It is worth spending time on. But while I agree these women should not have been married (or not be getting married) it is for a different reason than identity. If your only focus is self, there is no way you can ever be happy.
You shouldn't get married because you want to be married (as in you want the institution, rather than a particular person) or because you want to make this other person happy or you think it will fulfill you as a person. You get married because as you are running this game of life you notice that there is a person running beside you who is headed in the same direction and you are good for each other. You support each other, help each other. Identity is important, crucial even, but self should not be the focus. The other person as an individual should not be the focus exactly either, but I still don't think it should be all about "me."
It frightens me the amount that people focus on themselves these days. I think there is a real crisis in our nation, in western culture. It is the focus on self. Oddly enough, for all that some of what was being said on the show made sense, I don't think it will help the divorce rate any.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Camp is coming!
Less than three weeks to go before camp starts. The excitement of that beginning almost overtakes the excitement of this school year ending. It is quite a balancing act to maintain both levels and finish strong at school while adequately preparing for camp. A big part is memories of camp.
Camp is a kind of bizarre phenomenon in my life. Most people think it singles me out as truly odd. I think the list of things making me odd is much stranger and complicated than that and if you think camp is what puts me over the top you are not paying attention. Let me explain how I got involved in camp.
About seven years ago, when I lived in Florida, I found that while I needed the break from teaching, I couldn't do nothing all summer break long. I just needed to do something. Also, Florida teachers get their salary for the summer in a lump sum at the beginning of the summer and I imagine money might get tight. So I took a job as an office aid for a YMCA for the summer. The YMCA ran backyard summer camp programs for six weeks each summer and needed an extra person to answer phones and help deal with issues created by the extra workload for the week before, the six weeks of and the week after. It was easy 9 to 4 work, in air-conditioning and I could read and work on other projects if there was nothing else I needed to do. The first summer, on my first day, they fired the office manager for something and with the exception of deposits I took over her job for the summer. The next summer they called me and I came back and did it again even though they had a new office manager. I liked it. It was fun, simple, and while it gave me purpose was not too stressful. Also, apparently I was good at putting out fires, fixing sudden problems and organizing things.
Then I moved here and had no summer plans. Except the school I was working at had a guy (whom I became friends with) that worked at a boy scout summer camp. He had worked there for the past ten years and really loved it. Now, the people that worked for this summer camp lived there, but other than that, it sounded like a neat opportunity. One Saturday in October I went up there with him for the weekend and fell in love with the mountain. It was like being in the palm of God's hand in a physical, visceral way. So I applied for their office aid position.
The camp had traditionally staffed that position with 16 year old boys and referred to the position as the office monkey. On the day of the interview I said, "Considering my age, education, size and maturity, could I be referred to as the office ape instead of monkey. It sounds much more evolved." They hired me on the spot. That first summer I made the office aid into the office manager and turned the office around. It was fun, but a lot of work and I became fascinated with the people I met, the stories and of course the love affair with the landscape and mountain air continued. The interesting thing was that I spent almost as much time assisting the medic as I did my own job. He was a nice guy, though a bit odd, he was just a little distracted by his ex-girlfriend that was at camp and who he was still seeing behind the back of his current girlfriend who wasn't at camp and the ex-girlfriend that was having his baby.
The point was, I seemed to have a knack for the medic thing. So I decided to go to night school and become an EMT. Turns out I was decent at that too and I really liked it. Three quarters later I had my national certification. That next summer I became the camp medic (the other guy didn't come back) and this summer will be my third summer at that post. I figure I'll do this summer and then one more and then I may need to move on the other things, like PhD's. Anyway. So, when I go up to camp I will be able to share the off the wall stories of the weird ways kids injure themselves, try to rationalize home sick issues and the bizarre dramas that play out at camp. It should be interesting. Only 17 days to go until camp starts.
It's gonna be a beautiful summer.
Camp is a kind of bizarre phenomenon in my life. Most people think it singles me out as truly odd. I think the list of things making me odd is much stranger and complicated than that and if you think camp is what puts me over the top you are not paying attention. Let me explain how I got involved in camp.
About seven years ago, when I lived in Florida, I found that while I needed the break from teaching, I couldn't do nothing all summer break long. I just needed to do something. Also, Florida teachers get their salary for the summer in a lump sum at the beginning of the summer and I imagine money might get tight. So I took a job as an office aid for a YMCA for the summer. The YMCA ran backyard summer camp programs for six weeks each summer and needed an extra person to answer phones and help deal with issues created by the extra workload for the week before, the six weeks of and the week after. It was easy 9 to 4 work, in air-conditioning and I could read and work on other projects if there was nothing else I needed to do. The first summer, on my first day, they fired the office manager for something and with the exception of deposits I took over her job for the summer. The next summer they called me and I came back and did it again even though they had a new office manager. I liked it. It was fun, simple, and while it gave me purpose was not too stressful. Also, apparently I was good at putting out fires, fixing sudden problems and organizing things.
Then I moved here and had no summer plans. Except the school I was working at had a guy (whom I became friends with) that worked at a boy scout summer camp. He had worked there for the past ten years and really loved it. Now, the people that worked for this summer camp lived there, but other than that, it sounded like a neat opportunity. One Saturday in October I went up there with him for the weekend and fell in love with the mountain. It was like being in the palm of God's hand in a physical, visceral way. So I applied for their office aid position.
The camp had traditionally staffed that position with 16 year old boys and referred to the position as the office monkey. On the day of the interview I said, "Considering my age, education, size and maturity, could I be referred to as the office ape instead of monkey. It sounds much more evolved." They hired me on the spot. That first summer I made the office aid into the office manager and turned the office around. It was fun, but a lot of work and I became fascinated with the people I met, the stories and of course the love affair with the landscape and mountain air continued. The interesting thing was that I spent almost as much time assisting the medic as I did my own job. He was a nice guy, though a bit odd, he was just a little distracted by his ex-girlfriend that was at camp and who he was still seeing behind the back of his current girlfriend who wasn't at camp and the ex-girlfriend that was having his baby.
The point was, I seemed to have a knack for the medic thing. So I decided to go to night school and become an EMT. Turns out I was decent at that too and I really liked it. Three quarters later I had my national certification. That next summer I became the camp medic (the other guy didn't come back) and this summer will be my third summer at that post. I figure I'll do this summer and then one more and then I may need to move on the other things, like PhD's. Anyway. So, when I go up to camp I will be able to share the off the wall stories of the weird ways kids injure themselves, try to rationalize home sick issues and the bizarre dramas that play out at camp. It should be interesting. Only 17 days to go until camp starts.
It's gonna be a beautiful summer.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Scary and Damaged
Last night on Grey’s Anatomy (A show on at 10PM Sunday Night after Desperate Housewives which I DO NOT watch.), the main character, Meredith Grey is sitting in the home of a gentleman she is dating (played by the adorable, happily married, father of four, Chris O’Donnell) and he says to her, “So why are you scary and damaged?” She laughs and won’t answer him. He asks about her parents, she won’t answer. He asks about her last relationship, she won’t answer. We, as the audience, know that her parents are very dysfunctional and her mother is a famous surgeon (who wrote THE Grey’s Anatomy). Said mother now suffers from Alzheimer’s. We know that Meredith’s last real relationship ended very badly and she tried to deal with it by sleeping with a lot of people and feels like a used newspaper (as anyone who made that kind of mistake would). This guy is a vet who practices out of his house, and while they have been on four dates, she hasn’t even kissed him and he, being a terrific and sensitive guy is just waiting and watching her, not pushing, but today he has asked her this question. “Why are you scary and damaged?” It was not a cruel question, just an invitation for her to let him in.
At the end of the episode, he tells her that his mother died when he was a kid after a horrific battle with cancer. His father is a drunk who died emotionally with his wife. He then explains that his last relationship was with his wife who is also now dead; killed in a car crash. He then ends by saying, “Just because I asked you, doesn’t mean I’m not scary and damaged too.” Then they kiss softly, gently, and briefly. It’s a very romantic little moment and very touching.
(The whole thing is even a bit more complicated than this, and if you saw the episode you know that, but if not, I hope I have explained the gist sufficiently to preface what I’m thinking about today.)
Here is my answer to the question, “Why are you scary and damaged?”
(This is not going to be a massively perky or hysterical post. However, it is not actually depressing as much as cathartic, but it will be starkly honest, so consider yourself warned.)
My parents are divorced. My mom decided after 20 years with my father that she not only didn’t want to be with him, she didn’t want to be with men at all. She came out of the closet with my brothers third grade teacher (yes, she was the room mother; insert your own joke here). Further she decided that being a mother was not her priority and so my brother and went to live with our dad who was emotionally destroyed when both his wife left him and his career disintegrated underneath him in the same two years. Mother has continued to display quirks of her diagnosed, borderline personality disorder and goes on and off disability. Dad at least remarried happily. I can’t really tell you about my last relationship. There has never been a real one. I’ve had many guy friends (who would never consider dating me), but never a boyfriend. At camp I am the flirtatious belle of ball, but only because there is no possibility on earth of a real relationship and therefore I feel safe enough to be the kind of girl I envied in high school and as the boys would never actually consider me a possibility (and considering they are ten years my junior I am not insulted) they flirt back because it is harmless (and I’m the only girl around anyway). I have been on a few dates in the past year or so, but they were all only first dates, and a couple were complete disasters. In three years on eHarmony I have closed/been rejected by over 600 matches. My mother thinks I am simply too fussy and that I should consider dating outside my religion, and/or casual sex (No!). My dad seems to feel that watching him and my mother verbally assault each other may have destroyed my ability to ever be married, and he may be right. The only people who have ever been the least bit interested in me are always creepy/disturbed. (Sometime I should tell you about the guy who tried to pick me up in front of the meat counter at Publix, I was too naive to even realize that he was hitting on me until he had given up, but it was still strange…) Now at 30 I face the fact that I am either too smart, too tall, too ugly, too fat, too religious, too assertive, too educated or too committed (as the mother of an 82 year old), or some combination thereof to be attractive to anyone suitable (25-45, male, gainfully employed, real Christian, kind, and straight) of the opposite sex anytime before my biological clock unwinds and decomposes to dust. Oddly enough, I am okay with this, I’ve had 30 years to accept it and mostly I’m too busy to really let the loneliness get to me.
So, now having answered the question “Why am I scary and damaged?” where is my cute, sweet, sensitive veterinarian who will love me anyway and make me dinner?
Yeah, I figured it only worked on TV, but you can’t blame me for trying.
At the end of the episode, he tells her that his mother died when he was a kid after a horrific battle with cancer. His father is a drunk who died emotionally with his wife. He then explains that his last relationship was with his wife who is also now dead; killed in a car crash. He then ends by saying, “Just because I asked you, doesn’t mean I’m not scary and damaged too.” Then they kiss softly, gently, and briefly. It’s a very romantic little moment and very touching.
(The whole thing is even a bit more complicated than this, and if you saw the episode you know that, but if not, I hope I have explained the gist sufficiently to preface what I’m thinking about today.)
Here is my answer to the question, “Why are you scary and damaged?”
(This is not going to be a massively perky or hysterical post. However, it is not actually depressing as much as cathartic, but it will be starkly honest, so consider yourself warned.)
My parents are divorced. My mom decided after 20 years with my father that she not only didn’t want to be with him, she didn’t want to be with men at all. She came out of the closet with my brothers third grade teacher (yes, she was the room mother; insert your own joke here). Further she decided that being a mother was not her priority and so my brother and went to live with our dad who was emotionally destroyed when both his wife left him and his career disintegrated underneath him in the same two years. Mother has continued to display quirks of her diagnosed, borderline personality disorder and goes on and off disability. Dad at least remarried happily. I can’t really tell you about my last relationship. There has never been a real one. I’ve had many guy friends (who would never consider dating me), but never a boyfriend. At camp I am the flirtatious belle of ball, but only because there is no possibility on earth of a real relationship and therefore I feel safe enough to be the kind of girl I envied in high school and as the boys would never actually consider me a possibility (and considering they are ten years my junior I am not insulted) they flirt back because it is harmless (and I’m the only girl around anyway). I have been on a few dates in the past year or so, but they were all only first dates, and a couple were complete disasters. In three years on eHarmony I have closed/been rejected by over 600 matches. My mother thinks I am simply too fussy and that I should consider dating outside my religion, and/or casual sex (No!). My dad seems to feel that watching him and my mother verbally assault each other may have destroyed my ability to ever be married, and he may be right. The only people who have ever been the least bit interested in me are always creepy/disturbed. (Sometime I should tell you about the guy who tried to pick me up in front of the meat counter at Publix, I was too naive to even realize that he was hitting on me until he had given up, but it was still strange…) Now at 30 I face the fact that I am either too smart, too tall, too ugly, too fat, too religious, too assertive, too educated or too committed (as the mother of an 82 year old), or some combination thereof to be attractive to anyone suitable (25-45, male, gainfully employed, real Christian, kind, and straight) of the opposite sex anytime before my biological clock unwinds and decomposes to dust. Oddly enough, I am okay with this, I’ve had 30 years to accept it and mostly I’m too busy to really let the loneliness get to me.
So, now having answered the question “Why am I scary and damaged?” where is my cute, sweet, sensitive veterinarian who will love me anyway and make me dinner?
Yeah, I figured it only worked on TV, but you can’t blame me for trying.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Only in my world
My world is a strange and twisted one. Let me give you an example.
I have a student, actually he's not really mine, he's just in my class as part of inclusion. He is labeled Emotionally Behaviorally disturbed. Up until now he has been a massive discipline problem in every class he is ever in. Not mine. This is where it gets really funny. In my class he is the kid who always has his hand up. Except the question/comment is always off topic, stating the already stated obvious or an attempt to correct me. Further he was the one yesterday who tried the "It's not fair" tack with me. He comes into class before everyone else, waits until I sit at my computer to work on something and chirps "Hi, Miss X. How was your day yesterday, I love that dress you are wearing, it looks very nice on you. What are we going to study in class today..." and on like a magpie, completely oblivious to the fact that I am busy. For the first month when I would take him aside, to explain this verbal diarrhea problem, he went home and told his mom I didn't like him. Later I met with his mother and as the only regular ed teacher that endorsed her son as well behaved (in my class he is not really disruptive, just a bit annoying on occasion) she and I talked for an hour. We covered some of the behaviors that needed improvement. When I was shown his discipline file (almost 8 inches thick) I was appropriately astounded as I couldn't see this as the same kid who attended my class. I'm not sure what she told him about that meeting, but since then, he now seems to think that the more irritated I get with him for talking out of turn, interrupting or (and this is his favorite thing) questioning my ability, authority or accuracy publicly in class, that the more I must like him. Though occasionally he still asks if there is a reason I am mad at him.
It reminds me of the TV show Bones, where a rather geeky young man feels that the cool FBI agent ignoring him is actually a male bonding thing. When the FBI guy actually tried to be nice to him the kid was hurt. This is the same relationship I have developed with this student. It really is strange. Today he turned in an essay about his favorite teachers. This was the paragraph he wrote about me.
My 9th grade Literature teacher is the number one weirdest teacher that I have ever met. A newly discovered Jem, she is one of the rarest persons in the world. She speaks her mind and says what she feels, even if its not what you are trying to hear. Even still she is a sweet, wonderful, amazing creature at heart. I haven't quite learned everything about her yet, but from what I have learned she would be the ideal friend, teacher and bodyguard!
Like I said, only in my life.
I have a student, actually he's not really mine, he's just in my class as part of inclusion. He is labeled Emotionally Behaviorally disturbed. Up until now he has been a massive discipline problem in every class he is ever in. Not mine. This is where it gets really funny. In my class he is the kid who always has his hand up. Except the question/comment is always off topic, stating the already stated obvious or an attempt to correct me. Further he was the one yesterday who tried the "It's not fair" tack with me. He comes into class before everyone else, waits until I sit at my computer to work on something and chirps "Hi, Miss X. How was your day yesterday, I love that dress you are wearing, it looks very nice on you. What are we going to study in class today..." and on like a magpie, completely oblivious to the fact that I am busy. For the first month when I would take him aside, to explain this verbal diarrhea problem, he went home and told his mom I didn't like him. Later I met with his mother and as the only regular ed teacher that endorsed her son as well behaved (in my class he is not really disruptive, just a bit annoying on occasion) she and I talked for an hour. We covered some of the behaviors that needed improvement. When I was shown his discipline file (almost 8 inches thick) I was appropriately astounded as I couldn't see this as the same kid who attended my class. I'm not sure what she told him about that meeting, but since then, he now seems to think that the more irritated I get with him for talking out of turn, interrupting or (and this is his favorite thing) questioning my ability, authority or accuracy publicly in class, that the more I must like him. Though occasionally he still asks if there is a reason I am mad at him.
It reminds me of the TV show Bones, where a rather geeky young man feels that the cool FBI agent ignoring him is actually a male bonding thing. When the FBI guy actually tried to be nice to him the kid was hurt. This is the same relationship I have developed with this student. It really is strange. Today he turned in an essay about his favorite teachers. This was the paragraph he wrote about me.
My 9th grade Literature teacher is the number one weirdest teacher that I have ever met. A newly discovered Jem, she is one of the rarest persons in the world. She speaks her mind and says what she feels, even if its not what you are trying to hear. Even still she is a sweet, wonderful, amazing creature at heart. I haven't quite learned everything about her yet, but from what I have learned she would be the ideal friend, teacher and bodyguard!
Like I said, only in my life.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
It's not fair!
"So here's the deal. If 90% of the class or more gets in their homework by Friday, the last three weeks of school we will do this really cool project where we write and bind our own books. If not, seeing as I didn't get the homework, and can't be sure of your mastery of this skill, I'll have to do a complete, 3 week, essay unit in which case the class will write aprox 15-20 essays at 10 points a piece."
"But Miss X, what if 89% of the class gets their homework in, will you still make us all do the essays."
"Yes, no question. I've set the bar, it's 90%, no exceptions."
"But that's not fair!"
The whole class went deathly quiet and many students put their heads down on their desks, already mourning this poor boy being charred to death with my laser beam eye rays of death.
"What did you say?"
"That's not fair." Said the poor boy, carelessly walking into the pit.
"Define fair for me, please."
"Well, um, fair, um means that um, you get what you deserve."
"Ah, well, then seeing as these assignments were actually due last week, and I'm giving you extra time, you don't deserve this chance at all. So, essay unit everyone?"
"Wait, but you said... This isn't f...." The words were drowned out by the four boys that tackled the kid to shut him up before things got worse.
I hate that phrase, "It's not fair." People use it to mean it's not what they want. Even if life was fair, which it isn't, we rarely get what we deserve. Students usually get much more. I imagine this young man was absent the first week of school when I warned the class about telling me something wasn't fair.
When I was a teen, that was always the point when I lost the argument with Dad, when I said, "but that's not fair." Dad would ask for me to define fair. I kept thinking I was getting the definition wrong and that with the right definition I would win the argument. The problem was even with the right definition you still loose. Because in the end Life is never fair. What I always missed, as did this young man today is that often, that's a good thing.
Also, on a teacher's note, if 89% had it in by Friday, I would probably move the deadline back one more day as an effort was being made, but seeing as I should expect 100% of homework turned in, if I backed down from the 90% to 89% what was to stop the slide to 88% all the way down to 50% which was what we already had to begin with. Kids don't get that in the real world, there are not always percents, more like pass or fail and the cut off is that sharp. It is often one of the most frustrating things about life. It almost makes me think, dare I say it,
"That's not fair!"
"But Miss X, what if 89% of the class gets their homework in, will you still make us all do the essays."
"Yes, no question. I've set the bar, it's 90%, no exceptions."
"But that's not fair!"
The whole class went deathly quiet and many students put their heads down on their desks, already mourning this poor boy being charred to death with my laser beam eye rays of death.
"What did you say?"
"That's not fair." Said the poor boy, carelessly walking into the pit.
"Define fair for me, please."
"Well, um, fair, um means that um, you get what you deserve."
"Ah, well, then seeing as these assignments were actually due last week, and I'm giving you extra time, you don't deserve this chance at all. So, essay unit everyone?"
"Wait, but you said... This isn't f...." The words were drowned out by the four boys that tackled the kid to shut him up before things got worse.
I hate that phrase, "It's not fair." People use it to mean it's not what they want. Even if life was fair, which it isn't, we rarely get what we deserve. Students usually get much more. I imagine this young man was absent the first week of school when I warned the class about telling me something wasn't fair.
When I was a teen, that was always the point when I lost the argument with Dad, when I said, "but that's not fair." Dad would ask for me to define fair. I kept thinking I was getting the definition wrong and that with the right definition I would win the argument. The problem was even with the right definition you still loose. Because in the end Life is never fair. What I always missed, as did this young man today is that often, that's a good thing.
Also, on a teacher's note, if 89% had it in by Friday, I would probably move the deadline back one more day as an effort was being made, but seeing as I should expect 100% of homework turned in, if I backed down from the 90% to 89% what was to stop the slide to 88% all the way down to 50% which was what we already had to begin with. Kids don't get that in the real world, there are not always percents, more like pass or fail and the cut off is that sharp. It is often one of the most frustrating things about life. It almost makes me think, dare I say it,
"That's not fair!"
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Odds and Ends
Today I discovered that the blog I've been hopefully awaiting each day, Big Mama Doc, was delayed because Big Mama had a stroke. She is away from home in a hospital with minimal use of her left extremities, if I understand the post correctly. When I saw this I was struck by two things. 1) technically I have never met this woman, but I feel like I know her and I feel grief for her and her situation. Blogging is an amazing thing that I can feel that for someone I have never met, spoken to personally or watched on television. 2) What a terrific lady that she still took the time to let her little (not really so little) internet support group in on the situation. While obviously we are all including her in our sincere prayers, I honestly feel she let us know so we would be less worried than we were. We hadn't heard from her and we noticed. I admire that in her, that she let us know. My prayers continue to be with her and her family.
Yesterday Nana, Lindsey and I went to Outback for dinner. I had a real craving for the Coconut Shrimp. We all ordered, and had just gotten our salad when Lindsey squeaked, then Nana squeaked and then I squeaked and we all got out of the booth. A Cockroach had emerged from the side of the table (by the window ledge) and run across the table. First at Lindsey, then Nana and then me, hence the order of squeaks. A Waitress saw it, and as we got out of the booth she ran for the manager. He appeared quickly and apologized profusely. Poor guy. It was his second day as manager. They moved us to another table and paid for our dinner. We left a substantial tip for the waitress and we will go back there. Clearly the roach came from outside, and frankly this part of the country, that's just life. If it had been on the plate, in the food or if we had been close to the kitchen my feeling would have been different, but really it was no big deal over all. The thing that struck me was that they seemed to feel we were being really nice about it. We didn't scream, we didn't threaten and for the most part we did not make a scene. Kind of made me think about what more would have been accomplished if I had carried on. If I'd left in a huff, I would have had to pay for my meal somewhere else and wouldn't have gotten my shrimp. If I'd carried on but stayed, my meal still would have been paid for, but they would have resented me and it's hard to go back to having a nice time with family and friends if you are all worked up. Getting mad and acting mad are not always bad things, but so often times they are not necessary to the situation and often make it worse. For the most part, I feel bad for that poor young manager. He looked like he took it personally. We have been going to that restaurant for two years, that won't change.
I still have not seen hide nor hair of the male new possibility. I refuse to contact him though. To quote John Crichton in Farscape, "It's a question of balls, ball's in his court." I plan to stick firm to this. I imagine if I called or e-mailed we would be talking up a storm again, but I refuse to settle. It is sad to me that people do not meet commitments. A dear friend of mine consoled me the other day that my generation and those after are different than those of my fathers' and grandfathers'. He seems to think I will get called. Like my brother he says that to many, even with a specific time commitment stated, time is a more elastic concept. Another friend of mine says she hopes I tell this gentleman (if) when he calls that he hurt my feelings by his behavior. I pointed out to her that if in our first phone conversation I went after him about a lack of commitment I would be guaranteeing it would be our last phone call. Mostly, for whatever reason, I guess I am just disappointed, I thought there was some real potential in this one. Life goes on.
Camp starts in less than four weeks. This means several things. 1) my sleep is going to become a rare and unnatural occurrence. 2) I get two months off of my old life in exchange for a completely different one. 3) I get to wear scrubs everyday and don't have to worry about looking professional or polished beyond that (the scrubs are always clean, have a logo on them and therefore are the simplest apparel set-up I've ever know). 4) No TV for 8 weeks. As it's rerun season, I don't mind, plus I find each year after camp I consistently watch less and less TV anyway. It's kind of a weaning thing. 5) I will have to once again immerse myself in the world that is male psychology.
This is the best and worst thing about camp. In so many ways guys are so much more simple than girls. I've often explained that dealing with girls is often like a one-month miniseries. Two hours every night, each episode building on the last and we all cry when it's over. Boys are sitcoms. Thirty Minutes of stand alone comedy and we laugh all the way through. For the most part that's true. You can have a screaming fit with one of my boys one day and the next day it's like nothing happened. Some people might see this a shallow, I see this as efficient. We get it out of our system and move on. Occasionally real issues/dramas occur, but they are the exception nto the rule. If someone doesn't say hi to you in passing you don't stress about what their agenda is or if they are avoiding you. We don't tend to keep records on favors. You either help or you don't and we all just get stuff done. Now, on the other hand, when I am having a bad day, no one gets it. If I think someone was insensitive about something, no one really is concerned. The same reason that they are easy to get along with makes it hard to explain to them why I feel the way I do about things sometimes. This summer, according to the current plan, I will be only one of six females on staff. A 35 year old woman (who will run the office, the job I had three years ago before becoming medic), two high school girls who work in the kitchen (one is autistic and has some hygiene issues that I will be in charge of addressing this year), another high school girl for regular program staff and a college student who may be in charge of a program department. The four girls will live in a house together, the other woman lives in a house with her husband and I live in the administration building in the clinic. I'm starting to get pumped about this summer. Wait till y'all hear the stories. It is one of the reasons I am most excited about blogging.
Today was the last day of End of Course Tests for my subject. I hate standardized tests. Now the fun projects can begin for the last three weeks. It should be good. Further, we only have 17 days of school left!
Yesterday Nana, Lindsey and I went to Outback for dinner. I had a real craving for the Coconut Shrimp. We all ordered, and had just gotten our salad when Lindsey squeaked, then Nana squeaked and then I squeaked and we all got out of the booth. A Cockroach had emerged from the side of the table (by the window ledge) and run across the table. First at Lindsey, then Nana and then me, hence the order of squeaks. A Waitress saw it, and as we got out of the booth she ran for the manager. He appeared quickly and apologized profusely. Poor guy. It was his second day as manager. They moved us to another table and paid for our dinner. We left a substantial tip for the waitress and we will go back there. Clearly the roach came from outside, and frankly this part of the country, that's just life. If it had been on the plate, in the food or if we had been close to the kitchen my feeling would have been different, but really it was no big deal over all. The thing that struck me was that they seemed to feel we were being really nice about it. We didn't scream, we didn't threaten and for the most part we did not make a scene. Kind of made me think about what more would have been accomplished if I had carried on. If I'd left in a huff, I would have had to pay for my meal somewhere else and wouldn't have gotten my shrimp. If I'd carried on but stayed, my meal still would have been paid for, but they would have resented me and it's hard to go back to having a nice time with family and friends if you are all worked up. Getting mad and acting mad are not always bad things, but so often times they are not necessary to the situation and often make it worse. For the most part, I feel bad for that poor young manager. He looked like he took it personally. We have been going to that restaurant for two years, that won't change.
I still have not seen hide nor hair of the male new possibility. I refuse to contact him though. To quote John Crichton in Farscape, "It's a question of balls, ball's in his court." I plan to stick firm to this. I imagine if I called or e-mailed we would be talking up a storm again, but I refuse to settle. It is sad to me that people do not meet commitments. A dear friend of mine consoled me the other day that my generation and those after are different than those of my fathers' and grandfathers'. He seems to think I will get called. Like my brother he says that to many, even with a specific time commitment stated, time is a more elastic concept. Another friend of mine says she hopes I tell this gentleman (if) when he calls that he hurt my feelings by his behavior. I pointed out to her that if in our first phone conversation I went after him about a lack of commitment I would be guaranteeing it would be our last phone call. Mostly, for whatever reason, I guess I am just disappointed, I thought there was some real potential in this one. Life goes on.
Camp starts in less than four weeks. This means several things. 1) my sleep is going to become a rare and unnatural occurrence. 2) I get two months off of my old life in exchange for a completely different one. 3) I get to wear scrubs everyday and don't have to worry about looking professional or polished beyond that (the scrubs are always clean, have a logo on them and therefore are the simplest apparel set-up I've ever know). 4) No TV for 8 weeks. As it's rerun season, I don't mind, plus I find each year after camp I consistently watch less and less TV anyway. It's kind of a weaning thing. 5) I will have to once again immerse myself in the world that is male psychology.
This is the best and worst thing about camp. In so many ways guys are so much more simple than girls. I've often explained that dealing with girls is often like a one-month miniseries. Two hours every night, each episode building on the last and we all cry when it's over. Boys are sitcoms. Thirty Minutes of stand alone comedy and we laugh all the way through. For the most part that's true. You can have a screaming fit with one of my boys one day and the next day it's like nothing happened. Some people might see this a shallow, I see this as efficient. We get it out of our system and move on. Occasionally real issues/dramas occur, but they are the exception nto the rule. If someone doesn't say hi to you in passing you don't stress about what their agenda is or if they are avoiding you. We don't tend to keep records on favors. You either help or you don't and we all just get stuff done. Now, on the other hand, when I am having a bad day, no one gets it. If I think someone was insensitive about something, no one really is concerned. The same reason that they are easy to get along with makes it hard to explain to them why I feel the way I do about things sometimes. This summer, according to the current plan, I will be only one of six females on staff. A 35 year old woman (who will run the office, the job I had three years ago before becoming medic), two high school girls who work in the kitchen (one is autistic and has some hygiene issues that I will be in charge of addressing this year), another high school girl for regular program staff and a college student who may be in charge of a program department. The four girls will live in a house together, the other woman lives in a house with her husband and I live in the administration building in the clinic. I'm starting to get pumped about this summer. Wait till y'all hear the stories. It is one of the reasons I am most excited about blogging.
Today was the last day of End of Course Tests for my subject. I hate standardized tests. Now the fun projects can begin for the last three weeks. It should be good. Further, we only have 17 days of school left!
Monday, May 01, 2006
Gender Confusion
So the new guy says, "I'll call you before I leave for vacation or while I'm enroute." (He was going away for the weekend) Then he never calls or e-mails or texts. Should I be offended? My brother, the minister, seems to think it is a female thing to take those kind of statements literally. He says if a guy says that it is actually a much bigger time frame and I will probably hear from this new, possible guy in a few days. I think if my father says he is going to call someone and specifies a time frame he meets the commitment. My brother says that is still a feminine trait and that Dad is not typical. What ever happened to being as solid as your word? Now, if I'd volunteered my number (which I would never do!) and he had said generally, "Yeah, I'll call ya'" then I wouldn't be flustered or confused right now. But he gave his number, I took it, but then gave mine and said, "I'm old fashioned, I prefer the gentleman to call the lady, at least at first." He responded with a commitment to call and specified a time. So why wouldn't he meet it? Yes, I am 30, yes I spend more of my time with males than females, but I still don't get this. Anyone want to let me in on the secret?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
