Christmas Plagues, Hurray!

I've been eagerly awaiting Christmas break for a good while now. I have an entire month off of my graduate program, and I have 17 days off of student teaching. Here's how I planned it out- I would leave school on Friday, December 16th, attend two Christmas parties, and then do some things for my teaching certification (I have to submit scads of paperwork and evidence, it's obnoxious). I figured I'd be disgustingly lazy on Saturday, sleeping in, screwing around on the internet, eating crappy food, reading books, squandering time like a champ. Sunday I would clean the house from top to bottom, do all my laundry, finish up my evidence submitting for school to the CDE, and then Mon/Tues/Wed I would do the semester planning, syllabus writing, lesson planning (a huge project). This would, theoretically, leave me with 10 straight days during which I had no worries, cares, responsibilities, or deadlines/projects looming over my head.

So, everything went according to plan until Sunday night. I went to bed, happy and tired from a productive day, ready to wake up early and hit the library. Instead, I woke up at 4 a.m. itchy and fuzzy headed. There was a huge welt on my elbow, and on my knee. I thought I had been bitten by something. Bobby told me it looked liked hives (which I've never had). I went back to sleep, only to be awoken at 6 a.m. to lumpy, swollen hives all over both of my arms, my side, and my leg. Here's an idea, just picture this, you know, all over-

I took this picture and sent it to my mom so she could tell me if I was going to die. I'm only kind of kidding.

 We decided to head to Urgent Care, which opened at 7 a.m. By the time we got there, most of them had faded. I chalked it up to the cleaner I had used the day before during Winter Clean-a-thon 2011, the doctor gave me some steroid cream, and I went along my way. Later that night, they came back with a vengeance, this time all over my upper body, with huge dinner plate sized welts covering my stomach. I chugged Benadryl and conked out, sleeping from 6 to midnight and then from midnight until ten a.m. Vacation was off to a GREAT start, lemmetellya. Tuesday I spent the day at the library in order to stay out of the house. I came home, and promptly broke out in the worst hives yet covering my entire body and making me feel like my skin was going to burst it was so swollen, prompting Bobby to say "I didn't know it was possible for hives to look like that". It was gross. At this point we decided that I needed to leave the house and go to a friends' place. In the time it took us to drive 10 minutes, half the hives were gone, and by the time I had been at their house for half an hour, I was hive free. Clearly, our apartment was trying to kill me.

Bobby spent about 7 hours re-cleaning the house from top to bottom to get rid of the cleaner, as well as buying new pillows/comforter/towels just in case it was some funky dust allergy. I came home to find our tree on the back porch, visible only through the safety of the sliding glass door.

Banished, for crimes against my skin and immune system

I was hive free, but I had wasted 4 nights and 3 days high on Benadryl, getting little to nothing done because my brain was on a puffy cloud of medicine, sleeping up to 15 hours out of 24, and being woken up two or three times a night by the return of the hives when the medicine wore off. To say it sucked would be a bit of an understatement. I was www.Grinch-fest.com.org.edu.screwchristmas after the first day, once the "this is ridiculous but what can you do other than laugh?" roll with it optimism wore off. Since Wednesday afternoon of last week I've been hive free, but, just to make up for it, I've had one day of a crushing sinus headache that lasted all day, and today I've been in bed after puking my guts up randomly this morning and then having chills and nausea all day. I am falling apart here, people! I read some David Sedaris to make me feel better about not having to work as a Christmas elf, and yeah, it helped a tiny little bit, but not much.

Good news is that the holiday weekend, including all day Friday, was great. Christmas Eve was spent with a good friend and Christmas Day proper was absolutely wonderful. So, I'm still grateful, if a bit bitter. It's like an 80/20 mix. I fully realize that having hives from a cleaning product and/or a totally unnecessary Christmas decoration in the form of a dead tree are pretty much standard first world problems, but hey, they're mine, and they tried to Grinch-snatch my Christmas vacation, so there it is.

Lowered Expectations and Absences, Illustrated via Cupcakes

I might need to adopt this kind of attitude to stay sane through this injury...

 I've either been in bed with my foot propped up on a pillow, or sitting at the table with my foot propped  up on a chair, for the last two weeks thanks to a stress fracture. I think stress fractures should be called "ninja injuries", or, to make it really roll off of the tongue, "ninjuries", because this thing came out of n.o.w.h.e.r.e. Seriously, I was strolling around the farmers' market on a beautiful Saturday, caressing heirloom tomatoes and shoving chard in my re-usable bags, after which we ate some lunch, came back to the apartment, and lazed around watching some shows on the computer. Nothing extraordinary, heck, I didn't even work out the week prior other than weight lifting- twice, instead of my usual three times.

Yet somehow I woke up on the very next day to a throbbing in my right foot that hurt so badly I was whimpering and crying. Upon inspection, it was swollen to twice the size of the left foot, so much so that even the sheet rubbing against it caused pain. Lots of ice and ibuprofen got me through Sunday, and a doctor's appointment on Monday confirmed a stress fracture. I was pretty heartbroken about missing out on all of the hiking, camping, and biking to be had in the last month of summer/first part of fall when I was told that October 1st was when I would be back in commission. Now, I know that a broken foot has nothing to do with my hands, and my hands are all I need to blog- especially given the inordinate amount of time I have spent sitting/sprawling around- but honestly it just really bummed me out and I kind of spent the last two weeks pouting about how my summer was ruined. I had planned on doing Warrior Dash but had to stay home last weekend instead, and right now, as I type these words, Bobby is at Red Rocks seeing Death Cab for Cutie with a girl from work because I just couldn't crutch my way up to row 42. So, yes, a bit of a bummer. But I'm shaking off the funk, looking on the bright side and all that jazz.

Please, on my behalf, get out and hike and bike and walk around the neighborhood and swim and play in the park as much as you can. Know that someone is very jealous of you. That someone is me. Just to clarify.

Show Me the Country

I haven't been feeling very chatty lately, in terms of blog posting. Mostly because so much of what I'm feeling lately is anger, revolving around the debate about spending and the solutions to our problem. So many things are being said that appall me, that make me ashamed, that frustrate me, that make me want to scream I'm so angry. I'd rather not drag it all out here on my blog, but I think it's gotten to the point where I'm just going to throw it all out there, because it's making me nuts.

First of all, I'm incredibly saddened that many people want to go so far as to get rid of public schools in the interest of a small government so that we'll have "more liberty". I suppose I'm starting to realize that utopia for a lot of people for some reason strongly resembles an unstable country in Africa. No social safety nets, no welfare of any kind, no public schools, very low taxes, and a government with little power that stays out of the citizen's business. I wonder if they consider that all of those things usually come with civil unrest, hordes of poor, desperate people, and the "luxury" of living in a walled compound with security guards to protect you if you happen to somehow find a way to be rich? Probably not.

I'm sure that getting rid of public schools, eliminating all social safety nets, lowering taxes further, and eliminating Medicare and SS for the elderly are exactly what will "make our nation great" again. I'm wondering how awesome they think being rich will be if every time you leave your walled compound you're greeted with shanty towns, squalor, and a teeming mass of desperate poor people who might, at any moment, turn on your ass and storm the compound for some food and money. Or, how great of a business they'll be able to build without having access to an educated workforce. These people need to travel more. Or, I don't know, read a book. Hell, they could even read a history book of their own country and see how awesome it really was for people before America instituted safety nets. Just go back and study the Great Depression/Dust Bowl. Trust me, not ONE of those small government/get rid of public schools/abolish all government aid people would be saying "Oh, no, it's fine, Government, please don't help me! I shall starve to death in the streets, because I am so committed to my political ideology of small government". Yeah. Right.

More than anything, I'd LOVE it if anyone arguing that the way to make America great is to get rid of all social safety nets, public schools, and Medicare/SS could give me just ONE example- JUST ONE- of a modern country that has 0 social safety nets and no public school and also has a healthy, vibrant economy, that is a global player in international economics, that has a stable society with a respected currency, and that has created a political and economic culture that allows people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to be successful. Just one. There are almost 200 countries in this world of ours, I would think that if the Ayn Rand based fantasies of a perfect country with 0 safety nets and a simultaneously thriving economy and stable society were possible in reality, at least one of those almost 200 countries would bear testimony to it. 'Cause I gotta be honest, ya'll, when I look at the countries that have 0 social safety nets, and no public school, and no Plan B for those who fall on hard times or are unfortunate enough to be born into them... well, those aren't the kind of places that I see anyone lining up to move to, or invest in, or start a business in, either. Those are usually the places people want to leave behind, places full of civil unrest and starvation and huge divides between the wealthy in walled compounds and the poor living in the streets or in shanty towns, or herded into refugee camps because their government isn't strong enough to protect them from roving bands of killers and rapists who are trying to wipe them out on a whim. But ok, sure, if that's the plan for making America great- just give me one example of it working out. I'm a facts and figures kinda gal, so I'll be waiting. I've posed this question several times over the last few weeks, and no one has given me one example. Because in my studies, all the countries that meet these Ayn Rand fueled fantasies are in shambles.

So, here's what I'm thinking- I'm thinking it's because that country simply doesn't exist. I'm thinking it's because people realize that everyone benefits by investing back in our society, by educating children, by having social safety nets so that when things get tough we don't have masses of hungry, desperate people roaming the streets, willing to take a chance with jail time if it means a bit of cash and some food. Here's a mental exercise- tell me, how awesome do you think our crime rate would be if, during these last several years of epic unemployment, we had no unemployment benefits, no food stamps, no TANF, no housing subsidies, etc. Think about that. Where would those people have gone? What would they have done? Just curled up and politely starved, homeless, in an out of the way corner of society? I'm thinking not. Trust me, I'd rather pay my money in taxes and invest it in our society than take my chances on the streets with double digit unemployment creating a substantial number of stressed out, hopeless people with no light at the end of the tunnel. Desperation is not the predominant emotion I want a significant sector of our society to have.

While we're on the subject of paying now or paying later, and how I'd like to pay- I'd rather pay out some welfare, or pay more into schools, or give unemployment benefits, or give job training than pay for more police on the street to quell riots, or pay upwards of $30K a year to house and feed someone for several years in prison. So there's that, too. Pro-active is my mantra, not reactive. Especially because reactive usually costs way more than just helping out in the first damned place. And we usually all benefit from proactive, while reactive doesn't serve to accomplish anything more than a hasty tit for tat.


Oh, but wait, back to my question- show me that country. This idyllic bastion of liberty where the government stays the hell out, doesn't meddle with things like educating all children, or regulating our food and drugs, and lets people get sick and die if they commit the infraction of losing a job, or being born poor, or falling ill. And if that country is so damned great, why isn't it an international player? Why haven't I heard of this utopia of liberty? And if such a country exists, why aren't all the people who want to model America after it calling it out by name and location, and pointing excitedly to its success to bolster their argument?


All cards on the table- I'm a product of welfare. There you go. Despite two working parents, we qualified for every damn one of those "shameful" entitlement programs. And I worked, too, from 14 on, and then full time all through college while studying full time to keep my sholarship- and guess what? I still needed Pell Grants to get through. Yes, that's right, free money that I "didn't deserve". I shudder to think how my potential would have been utterly wasted if there were 0 social safety nets. I am of far greater benefit to my country as an educated person than I would have been if I was tossed by the wayside due to the circumstance of birth. And I have far more pride in my country when it chooses to be compassionate and considerate of the hard blows people receive in this life than when it tries to play detached, strategic economist with flesh and blood living beings. Especially when the predominant evidence for the validity of such a strategy hinges on a theoretical country that doesn't even exist in this world.

Well, That Was 4 Weeks of Wasted Time....

This afternoon I took the PLACE English exam for teacher certification in Colorado. As I mentioned previously, I was stoked to get a study guide via the inter-library loan system and I was confident in my baseline knowledge of the subject matter. I studied for about 5 weeks, although the first week was just reviewing and figuring out a plan of attack for studying, so basically 4 full weeks of studying took place. By yesterday I had read the book cover to cover four times, researched online for practice tests, made study guides, and pretty much memorized a 6 page foldout by SparkNotes on Literature (terms, periods, literary criticism, etc.). After all was said and done, I had pretty much memorized the book and every date, literary period, influential author, and grammar rule under the sun (most I already knew, but it was all a great review).

I was confident going into the test this afternoon. By 5 questions in, I was pretty certain I had no idea if I was going to pass it or fail it. I've taken a LOT of standardized tests in my day. And I can safely say that the PLACE English exam is the most poorly written one I have ever had the dubious "opportunity" to try and decipher. The questions were badly worded and ambiguous, the answers were subjective and seemingly unrelated to the questions...I would have laughed out loud if it wasn't so damned frustrating. On top of the terrible test format, guess what? Oh, nothing I studied in the PLACE study guide was actually, you know, on the test, with the exception of giving speeches. Related to that, strangely fully half of the test was over advertising and the media, and giving and writing speeches. Only about 5 questions were about grammar and punctuation. Some of the questions were almost suspiciously subjective, with very clear morals and values being promoted or denigrated....overall, it was the worst testing experience I have ever had, hands down, in my entire life. I'm good at taking standardized tests, I know how to work them- I made a 29 on my ACT, a 1450 on my PSAT, and a 1370 on my SAT. I say that not to brag, but to reinforce that this is not just that I'm a poor test taker, but that the test was a glaring anomaly in my long history, from high school through grad school, of generally kicking ass at tests. I have truly no idea if I aced it or failed miserably. I have never had such a confusing, frustrating experience with a test. There have been times when I have known I gave the wrong answer, but fully a third of the questions were so subjective and strange that I couldn't even place bets as to whether or not I answered them correctly. I felt like there was some sort of general philosophy, or ideology, that I was being tested on, that I was unaware I would be tested on until I got into the exam room. 


I got home and googled around a bit, and it seems that many people have had the same experience. All I know is that I literally wasted 4 weeks of studying, because none of it prepared me for what I had to wade through and interpret today. I want to reiterate that the questions were NOT hard- it wasn't a matter of a question referencing a specific literary period and asking me to identify an author from it, or asking for the definition of a term that I simply didn't know- the questions were flat out obtuse and nonsensical. I had to make conjectures as to what the question was asking, and then I had further theorize as to what rambling, pointlessly detailed answer was the most relevant to the question. 


I truly have no idea how that test is any kind of reliably predictive indicator of who will make an effective teacher. I get my results in April, and if I fail it I will be equal parts pissed off and embarrassed. I'll also be annoyed because I'll have to take two summer school classes so that I can meet the college credit requirement, so June will be spent taking two intensive classes, 6 days a week, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. for a month. 


I really, really hope I passed.