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five more weeks of uni.
as much as i'm enjoying these classes- and i am, i really am- i'll be SO glad not to be obligated outside the house 7 days a week. i really really like being home.
that said, i'm getting itchy feet again. my spring is going to be devoted to getting my finances and my body in even better shape. i've been working and saving, and i'm proud of what i've accomplished, but now come my student loans to pay off and that's going to be a change. also, i've been eating MUCH better than i have in years and years (and i was eating pretty ok, the last 3-4 years) but it's time to get regular exercise, find out what's going on with this hip, and work on being fit and having decent stamina by my 60th birthday (god, am i going to be 60 in 2011? hand me that calendar, will you? *stares*).
i ALSO have a bunch of non-uni reading to do, a rather large storage of useful-but-no-longer-necessary-to-me things to go through and pass on (yes! freecycle.org) and a garden to get going on.
i ran into one of my favorite instructors from the nursing program today. it seems i will have the record of taking the longest- maybe second-longest -length of time to graduate from the RN-to-BSN program at my uni of any student in its history to date. she said today she REALLY wants me to invite her to my graduation. i've been on the fence about walking graduation, but something she said gives me the confidence to do it.
funny, how the right word from someone i respect and know cares about how i do can change everything.
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This is what friends do, remind each other of this:
Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
~ralph waldo emerson
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ok. 8 weeks- no, 7 weeks, i think, of uni left. *whew*
class let out early today, so had the hip x-rays done. should find out within a week what's next, and if they show what's hurting. added fish oil and chondroitin/glucosamine/msm (which i now recall helping me with my knees some long years ago) (and thanks to ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) stormatdusk who reminded me of them), so we'll see.
in the meantime, the same-old same-old- work, uni, trying to get enough sleep. which i'm gonna go try and do right now. xoxo until later.
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Because so much of the time
You're airborne-
Between here and there
In body as well as in mind.
Rambling on, words coming within
Tongue's reach, fit this way and that
To make ideas, concepts,
Whole and something you can share.
You're generous like that,
Taking of your privacy-
And yet you're brave, too,
Keeping back some of yourself
For yourself.
For you- whether out of the plane's window
Or walking barefoot riverside-
You know it's beautiful here,
And each day is a gift all in itself.
Earth From Above, photographs of Yann Arthus-Bertrand. thanks to my T. for the heads-up about the photographer.
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so, it is autumn, even here, even in northern coastal-ish california, where there are still tomatoes on the vine and i have the temerity to start bok choy and peas, in case i can get a crop in before the real chill comes.
but it is autumn. the days are shorter, the nights darker-feeling. our election less than a month away, and it seems it will be a battle (i made phone calls for Obama last night).
still, i have hope. there are figs ripening on the trees at uni, and apples, and i have found two persimmon trees there as well; uni itself, the coursework, goes as well as it can, and the reading and movies continue to be both interesting and food for thought.
i know the economy world-wide is ricocheting off people's lives with little care for individuals. in my own mind, this is the 60-year cost-come-home for maintaining nuclear arsenals and living as consumers rather than producers, as creatures of habit and want instead of partners with nature and each other- but i find that, once i've used those ideas as a way to settle my own thoughts, i have to step back from them or i become arrogant, and judge, and i have no extra energy to devote to being right or condemnatory. i need to focus on keeping my personal economy honest and functioning as best i can, not giving my life energy over to this latest round of bread and circuses and sleight-of-hand.
i've mentioned it before, but i shall yet again: the ideas and practices in Your Money or Your Life have given me a way to live in this world and be of it, and yet not be completely at the mercy of prevailing winds of woe and upset. it's easy to find the book on www.alibris.com, used, for not very much- and support independent booksellers by buying it there- and it's worth the reading and taking your time but doing, eventually, the steps it takes to reach financial intelligence, financial integrity, and financial independence.
so. time for a nap before uni. then native american studies, come home for a bit, study, perhaps nap again, then work tonight at the lads.
be well, be gracious, be kind, be blessed. be excellent to one another.
ETA: The Kindness Offensive in London. *G*
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Everyone should have health insurance? I say everyone should have health care. I'm not selling insurance.
—Dennis Kucinich (from Perceval Press)
I'm not so inexperienced as to think that it's enough to say "Everyone, keep yourself healthy!" Or so negative as to think that it's someone's fault if I get sick, or so naive as to think that doctors should know everything or so cynical as to think all doctors (hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, nursing agencies) are only in it for the money.
But seriously.
I'm very interested- personally as well as professionally- in how health care reaches people, and what people expect "health care" to be. How do I, a registered nurse, make available my knowledge, skills, and experience, if I'm not going to do it within the confines of a hospital system, the state/federal public health system, or an agency? Can I charge for it? Barter for goods or services? What risk do I assume? What risk does someone I work with assume?
On the larger scale, do we, as health care "consumers", have any obligation to stay as healthy as possible, to reduce the pressure on those who provide us with basic health care? When private industry takes over the municipal water supply or the garbage pick-up, how does a citizen ensure his or her neighborhood, town, city is safe and sanitary?
What is possible, at the overarching level of the State? How feasible is employer-based insurance? Insurance in general? What are the obligations of the individual-in terms of caring for oneself, for one's family, community, the organizations that provide care?
One of the things that came up at dinner tonight was that Kaiser Permanente has figured out that, with only 2 percent of medical students planning to go into primary care, it needs to take care of the primary care MDs it already has, since it "needs to make them last", as my friend put it. She is 63, had, 10 years ago, her own practice, which she had to give up when spiraling costs and sinking reimbursements made it impossible to continue and still pay off her medical school debt as well as care for her family.
You know what I'd like? If you would give me your experiences- good or bad, honest, I'm interested in all sides- with health care, lack of health care, health care access, health insurance (employer or government based, US or in another country)- how it's changed for you over time, or depending on your age, or status (student, military, married or not, employed or not, healthy or not, pre-existing condition or evolving condition). It feels to me like there's something in this- an article, or series of articles, at least, for one of the nursing magazines- and, in some paradise of enough time and energy and focus and luck, a book or two or three (perhaps one for nurses, one for the public, and those children's books I so want to write about being healthy, having a healthy community). But I can't write anything with only my own experience- so if you would be willing to share yours, or even point me in the direction of things you know or have experienced, but anonymously- I would appreciate it tremendously.
Of course, I would keep any confidences. That's my obligation as an RN- but more, it's my obligation to you as a person, one person to another.
And on that note... /ramble.
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may not have 'net at the lad's house for a bit (that'd affect Weds nights/Thurs mornings, and Sun nights/Mon mornings). no way to know until i get there, but his family's having a spot of bother with the bills, so...
anyway. will do uni reading if no 'net there. always a bright side, eh? text if you need me, i'll have the cell.
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Off to work at the girl's.
Laptop is DEFFO getting a tune-up and make-over on Tues- last night it slipped off the arm of the huge over-sized recliner in the lad's room two times, and now there's a dvd lodged in the slot and no little hole to put a paperclip in through to manually unlock it.
ah well, it needed the apostrophe key fixed anyway.
*sigh*
still 150 pages of reading for class to do. no papers yet for these classes, and made some small progress on Critical Thinking. (which would NOT be so damn hard if i were not so damn just-tired-enough-not-to-be-able-to-trudge-through-the-sludge-easily.)
anyway.
A month ago i wasn't sure I'd be working full-time, and by this time next week i should have my benefits back. life is good. essentially, yes. my life is good. *nods* i still have beloveds, i have plans, i have skills and talents and can use them, and aside from being tired am in pretty good health.
catch you on the flipside.
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5 hours broken once is not the same as 10 unbroken, but by God it works well enough to carry on with.
I would have made not such a good watch-standing sailor here in my middle-age. *sigh* *laugh*.
SO. off now to fee the household's cat, stop at the market and get greens and pita bread, buy gas, and head off to the lad's house. Have schoolbooks and study stuff packed and ready.
Catch you on the flipside.
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Native American Studies class is good, too. Interesting professor, lotta history of his own, plus engaging. *nods*
but what this all means now, is, not so much time in YIM or AIM (as if i spent much time there before, but yanno-), more time concentrating on the coursework -reading AND writing- and finishing up Critical Thinking. (I've figured out, I think, what i need to do with the paper I'm supposed to diagram and dissect for arguments. I will have to rewrite it by hand, sentence by sentence, to /feel/ where the writer was going with it. tedious, but then i will be done.)
so. Home. bag packed for work tonight. will take meds, take a bath, and in theory i have from now (just 4pm) until 10pm to sleep. we'll see. then bring the books and lappie to work tonight, and mostly read/take notes if possible (no table there, only two really oversized uncomfortable recliners, so note-taking not always do-able). come home in the am, garden while it's cool, and then go to bed. *nods*
and then we just see. good classes, though. glad i'm taking them. *kiss* g'night, all.
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| 2008-08-25 09:28 |
| hot. hot hot. PSA: brought to you by the letters TSSSSSSSssssss~~~~~ |
| Public |
| friends, sleep, uni, weather |
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supposed to be up in the high 80s, low 90s here this week.
of course, uni starts this week too.
and am trying to finish the big (interrupted by head last time) room re-arranging/junk-sorting project.
so if there is EVEN LESS slashfairy to go around, or if the slashfairy you encounter seems even MORE distracted and befuddled than usual, please douse her with some cool water (mind the textbooks and laptop, ta) and see that the note pinned to her shirt is legible, will you?
thanks ever so.
/PSA
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Good night at work. Girl happy- her baby nephew's birthday today, she loves being Auntie and she loves birthdays. I had lovely company overnight online- thank you, pirates!- even though the wireless was still a bit iffy.
Left work intending to pick blueberries but it was already harkening 'too hot and too bright'- not a good combination when one's ultimate goal is to sleep during the day. So I stopped at the market- not 'my' market, but a big one- for a few supplies.
And got hit out of left field by such frustration with the whole 'hugeness' of modern industrialized food. Took me 20 damn minutes to find:
-- a 'bread item' that wasn't a pound-and-a-half in one package AND wasn't processed up the yin-yang
-- a block of feta cheese. Not crumbled, not spiced or herbed or some such. Just a block of plain feta cheese.
-- a jar of kalamata olives under 12 oz, without sugar (sugar? in olives) and added salt.
I came out of there so strongly possessed of the urge to drink. That's not happened in that way for years- I've been sober (with the exception of a sip of rum for one very special occasion) for 7+ years- but by fucking god, the urge to go right back in and get a bottle was so damn strong.
Instead I came home, made myself a tray of pita bread, olives, feta, watercress, and sliced apple, came upstairs, got in bed, got online, and got some support and lovin'.
And the urge to drink passed, my breakfast was delicious, and the friends saved my life.
Can't do better than that, really.
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Thank you all for the good wishes and good thoughts for 'my' girls and their family, and for me.
I'll update again when there is something to say- I need to respect the family's privacy- will only say that Hospice is involved, and with luck she will be at home when the time comes.
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I have, by virtue of making my arrangements for Europe 2008 (c), come into possession of a voucher allowing "Any BMI passenger and a guest" into the business or diamond club lounges in the airports of Belfast City, Brussels, Dublin, Durham Tees Valley, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London Heathrow terminal 1, and Manchester terminal 3.
The catch (c)? Valid until March 31. I'm not coming to UK until late June, and then on BA.
If you think you can use this, and I can get it to you in time, it's yours. I'm in California, so if you're overseas, add in what it'll cost for me to send it over to you posthaste.
Got to love the freebies. LOL.
In other news, I'm posting this from my shiny new macBook, at work! OMGod what a difference it makes to have lappie at work.
Am going swimming again after work this morning.
And then, unless I have a really good reason not to [you know who you are] I'm going to bed early. I spent more than a few hours wrangling some critical thinking problems when I should have been sleeping; there are only a handful of things that can tempt me to stay up much past eleven am today. [again you know who you are.]
That's it, I guess. Oh- and putting together a political campaign is a learned skill. Even if it's only for a midterm and only worth 25 points. That is all.
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First, just to say that my older boy was in a car accident Sunday. Not his fault: he was on a winding canyon road someplace down in LA [quite likely Malibu since they took him to St. Johns'] when someone crossed the line, hit him, then he was hit from behind. Broken ankle [surgery, good repair] and some strained ligaments [didn't say where but I'm suspecting right arm and shoulder]; physical therapy and rehab for while and he'll be ok.
We are all grateful that it happened as it did: right fender to right fender, left fender to rear; and when he spun, it was on a section of the road with actual strong barriers- there are other parts of the road that are a 150 foot drop straight down, but not where he was. Good EMT/Paramedic crew, excellent orthopedic surgery team, good nursing care and PT- all in all, the best that could have come of it. Your good wishes for him and appreciation of all the people caring for him from the road designers on up, much much appreciated by me.
( ex-husbandy stuff )
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Nearly a week in the new place.
So far, so good.
Sleep's been hard to come by but not because of the place, at least not that I can sort out from the soreness from moving/cleaning/putting away, work, and general stuff on my mind.
Have most stuff put away in room. Feels good!
Tomorrow, Sunday, is a picnic/60th birthday party for a very good friend. We're not always close, but we've always trusted each other. She's the only other nurse I've known since before she became a nurse- we were students in a Fourth Way group together, for a while, back in the 70's, then our kids went to school together, and then finally we became nurses [she 3 years after me].
My deepest connection with her, though, is that I lived in her house to take care of her with her last pregnancy, because if someone wasn't there she could easily have over-done, gone into premature labor again [had once after a car accident, at 5.5 months- that's when I and my son, her husband's foreman and HIS son, and her oldest son's best friend all moved in- to add some density and meat to the household, to keep things going so they could just all concentrate on being family] and lost both baby and herself [she suffers from EXTREME hyperemesis gravidarum- was on IV's all through the last three months of the pregnancy]. It worked- my god-daughter's in collge now!
So the picnic/party's from 3-6 tomorrow after noon. I'm excited to go see her, even if it's gonna cut into sleep- we've each worked every shift there is, so she'll understand if I get a ride, come late, leave early, all that.
In other news, been reading my fellow authors over at potc_fest and continue to be impressed. From the light and humorous to the deep and searching there's been some good work posted there.
Ok, all. off I go to work. I hope for a real nap tonight, but if not, it's all good. I'm glad 'my' girl continues to get the good care she deserves, and I'm happy to be there for her sister.
Be well, take care, all.
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From The Scotsman, today
( US calls in the anthropologists to beat the Taliban )
It's so crucial, to my mind anyway, to first know and then understand the history of peoples where they live. Where is it that things are for them, how is it that they perceive things got that way? And how/where is it they expect things to be, now and in future?
Good questions to ask ourselves, whether Brits or Americans, Israelis or Palestinians, religious or not, immigrants or 6th generation or 60th generation.
My current reading includes Assembling California by John McPhee, a look at the intersection of geologic time and human time, specifically (though not explicitly until very late in the book) the 1989 "Loma Prieta" Earthquake in Northern California. To get there Mr. McPhee takes us up and down California, back and forth from San Francisco to Tahoe, via Cyprus (Sri Lanka) and Pangaea, the courses of rivers and the movement of tectonic plates, until not only the current geography of California is formed in our minds but to the extent possible the events and activities prior that have created the California I lived in that day, the day of that earthquake.
In this book he references Leonardo Seeber's use of the idea of the "Principle of Least Astonishment":
"Our direct view of geologic phenomena has been severely limited by the relatively short span of history and by the relatively small vertical extent of outcrops. ... In many respects we only have a two-dimensional snapshot view of the geologic process. Moreover, the interpretation of geologic data was probably influenced by the psychologic need to view the earth as a stable environment. Manifestations of current tectonism were often perceived as the last gasps of a geologically active past. Thus, subjected to the principle of least astonishment, geologic science has always tended to adopt the most static interpretation allowed by the data."
on page 279, quoting from a 1983 paper by Leonardo Seeber titled "Large Scale Thin-Skin Tectonics"( From a Zhurnal.net review, which also references that this book can be slow reading- another example of geologic time intersecting with human time, right in the little bark of these pages.) How does that tie in with this article about anthropologists in Afghanistan? It seems to me that we, or at least I, follow the principle of least astonishment when relating to others: are they not now, here and now as I meet them, as they have always been? whereas to themselves they are where they have gotten to at the moment with all their pasts, lived and unlived, behind them. What right do I have to be astonished if someone is not who I imagined them to be? well, the astonishment may be a mechanism of how human beings are, but any consequent anger, fear, outrage, disgust, etc. need to be measured against what I know about them, these other people, not what I imagine. Thus, anthropologists working with the military: take a deep breath, soldier, and wait one more moment before you shoot, and let's see if this is a threat, a risk, a situation, or a person.
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| 2007-10-01 13:25 |
| MOVED! [now for the cleaning! lolz] |
| Public |
| friends, move |
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But yes! moved! the things I wanted to take with me all fit, over there, the room is going to work well for what i need, the things that went to storage all fit like I wanted them to so that I can go down there for an hour or so at a time and take out some boxes, go through them, sort them on to the [empty] shelves, repack or make ready to pass on or to toss out- but there's space and time now for that and there hasn't been that for YEARS and years. So that end is all good.
Now comes the cleaning. wood walls to vacuum and wipe down with vinegar water, wood floors to mop and oil, carpet to vacuum and vacuum again and maybe [hope not] shampoo; washed the curtains already and vacuumed the closet so that's done.
And of course the 'chowder' to take down to the car. the last lamps, the dirty bedclothes stripped off and abandoned under a counter for moving, the boxes of stuff that relate to Europe 2008 [only two, and all important- papers, stuff for traveling with- didn't want to 'lose' them in the move].
And a shower to be had, and food, and cleaning. and then- and then, moved.
oh. my god.
msilverstar said it: seven years is a long time.
Thank you all for being here, and going on about your lives. Keeps me grounded and focused and not all about me, to have you here.
Blessings on your heads.
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computer continues to play up. self-diagnostic indicates HD needs repair, but i can't keep it on long enough to do anything for it.
software guy is out of town until 28th. cryo, boy, do i wish i could fly you out here!
so. will see if hardware fella can back up data for me, then will try rebooting from disk. if that don't work, well, it'll be uni before and after work, and getting behind on email, lj, and everything else except packing to move.
mixed blessings.
OTOH, inspiredlife, PARCEL OMG perfect timing, honey. perfect timing.
poetic_self my wishes for you to have a wonderful time with company and travel, continuing your adventures.
pferde, sorry. freaking bad timing on my part. text, email, leave me notes here- my love and support. let me know what happens eh?
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