Born Into Brothels

Catching Up

I guess that's about it.
The biggest news is that hus-biance came home in late March. Even as we get to know each other again and plan for the future, we're keeping one rightly suspicious eye on the possibility of stop-loss. (Hmm. I guess we are each keeping an eye on that, for an n=2 eyes, but not 2 eyes from the same head.) Stop-loss is when you are supposed to get out, you've fulfilled your contract, but oops! Uncle Sam does have enough people to deploy and fight for oil aherm, establish Iraqi freedom (sectarian violence and insurgents of all stripes. They must feel so very free.)...uh, where was I? Okay, stop-loss is when you are supposed to get out but they make you stay in, then they ship you off to Iraq or Afghanistan for another year. It's the back-door draft Kerry was talking about. Yeah, he was right about it then and it continues to this day. Of added concern is that hus-iance is of medium rank, which is the void the Army needs to fill. (What, you don't want to re-enlist after 2-3 tours?)

In 10 days we leave for our Midwest oddyessy soujourn to visit both of our families. I am dreading this for several reasons:
- For leg 1, we will be staying with his parents. In their house. For 24 hours a day. I sooooooo don't want to do this, for reasons I won't entirely go into in this forum but also? Isn't it always awkward to stay with your in-laws? Especially if they may try to convert you?
- Leg 2 will be my family, and for all I know he may have the same concerns about staying with his in-laws. Except you can tell my family no.
- I have to be at the second destination for a full week, for a wedding and my sister's graduation. This means that...
- By the time I get home (he may have to fly home ahead of me), I will have been gone for just about a full 3 weeks. This will seriously derail my work progress (see sidebar.) I really heavily on momentum, which I now have and will have start from scratch after 3 weeks. My field season will be over but my raw data is a wild pony to tame. Actually, it requires much more monotony...my raw data is a hearty fungus to tame. It doesn't go anywhere, and yet it multiplies and multiplies such that the colony itself EXPANDS. Such data-whispering will take 3-4 weeks at least, which puts me into July before I start any actual analysis. I'm trying to finish in the fall, and I just don't like the way this timeline is shaping up. I can bring some of the wild fungus with me, but lets face it, that never works. I'm just way to high-strung about my work space, plus having really poor concentration, to mess with it.
- That was a digression.
- Finally, this will be my 4th trip to the hometown in 12 months. I can't afford so much running around, both financially and for the negative effects on my progression. To be fair, one of those trips was reversed. My Mom and sister were coming here until about a week before they bailed. To make up for it, Mom paid for my flight to go there. That was nice. However, because it was last minute, the school year and my teaching responsibilities were starting and I could only get away for 2.5 days. Hardly the best use of that airfare. Another trip was a family emergency. I do not in any way regret this trip. It was absolutely the only way to do things. And hopefully it will be the last time I buy a ticket 2.5 hours before the plane takes off.

So, the catching up has been on a very personal level, work level, and pretty soon the family level. Oh, and planning the wedding!

This last part is to remind me later of some posts I have planned:
-Police Officers Memorial week
-Violence in Entertainment
-Jealousy in the workplace
- In-laws: why they are not immediately your family and it shouldn't be forced!

International Women's Day

...was March 8th. I celebrated by inviting people over for food and the movie 'Iron-Jawed Angels,' a true-story dramatization of efforts of activists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. As someone born in the late 70's, it's painful to imagine an American society where women were so blatantly marginalized. Films like this are important for women and men to watch. The preview below is decent, but kind of...I don't know, frothy? The movie itself is intense and illuminating.

This may be gross to the uninitiated

Any parasitologists out there?

I had a disappointing doctors visit today. We didn't find what we were looking for, something that may or may not still be present. I was hoping we would find clear evidence, making it easy to treat.
(A) organism + (B) medication= (C)elebrating life without an intestinal parasite.

For those who don't know me personally, or from whom I've had enough tact to withhold this detail, allow me to put it this way:

I finally unpacked my last souvenir from my years abroad.
Unpacked it from my butt!

(Cue laughtrack.)

There was a worm. I saw it. And then I flushed it. So now the question is: is it gone? I keep turning in samples that come back negative. I have taken some medication, but it may not have been a strong enough dose to kill ....it. The only way to be certain is to, um, eliminate the organism (ga, enough with the vagueness- it was a tapeworm. A fricking tapeworm.)...where was I? Eliminate the scolex or head, which is how those guys latch on to intestines.

That hasn't happened yet so I just don't have confidence. This is quite understandable, considering I played host for at least 3 years before I was clued in. There's no way to tell if the medication was strong enough without properly diagnosing the species of tapeworm. And yet nothing shows up in the samples. My doctor suggested that the earlier medications may have been effective, killed it, and then my body absorbed it/ it disintegrated pre-elimination. Yet, some possible symptoms persist: lethargy, skin problems, digestive issues.

At what point do I give up and pursue other possibilities for my symptoms? Or do I keep pushing and look for a third opinion? I WANT TO BE SURE THAT IT IS GONE.

Has anyone out there ever dealt with this issue?

Yes, we can

I have various and sundry items in the posterior receptacle.

Or, as one of my students so helpfully noted, "they had junk in the trunk."

Yessiree, it's that time of year! Fall student evaluations have been processed and handed back to the instructors. There's always a gem or five in the batch. My first semester teaching, unstable problem student said I was "the most miserable person alive." Yes, the evaluations are completely anonymous, and typed by a third party so teachers can't identify handwriting, handed back after grades are in, the whole shebang. But, only unstable problem student (who ended the semester by standing in my office doorway screaming at me) would say something like that. The other gems from that semester were the pair who said I should "get a personality and stop talking like Ben Stein." I'm sorry, precious little snowflakes, that I failed to make cell division and osmosis *sparkle and gleam* to your stringent standards.

Anyway, this semester on the whole I was pleased with the feedback I received. A fair number of my students thought that I was enthusiastic, well-prepared, and approachable. In each of my four sections the students who began the course as 'having no interest in the subject at all,' had at least upgraded to 'have a minor interest in the subject.' I attribute this to Super David Attenborough, who was in several of the YouTube videos I showed the class. "Yes, mitosis may not be exciting, but you haven't seen strangler figs! Rapid cell division and growth, yeah baby yeah!'

But of course, when dealing with young adults of variable maturity, there must be one gem, one precious, glittering emerald, one pinnacle of character who must say, when asked if the course or instructor could be improved:

"They had junk in the trunk."

Pronoun issues aside, I must point out that if these evals were not anonymous, we'd undoubtedly discover this person had handily earned a D or F.

Mostly it's funny, but the part that makes me mad, (aside from them not paying homage to my glorious rack:)), is that a comment like that, reducing me to my fabulous ass, would never show up on the evals of my male colleuagues.

Here we go, always with the too much of the information

I may have just created negative consequence for myself. For the past 2 summers, I have taught a summer intensive as part of an enrichment program for high school students. It's only a month long and classes are in the am, so it fits in well with other activities. Until this summer, possibly. For reasons unknown this morning I was trying to figure out my summer employment. I'd like to request a teaching assistantship in my department for this summer. I have seniority and am trying to finish up my thesis, which are usually the requirements to get this position. Unfortunately, the term which I would request overlaps with the last week of the high school program. I talked to my boss who oversees the labs and TA's to find out the requirements. Turns out, with the sections on the schedule right now, I would have one morning class so no, I could not do both.

Thing is, I could have just asked about the scheduling and teaching load, and have all the information I need. But, me being me, I had to go and explain and explicitly state that I would be trying to do both. I have a pretty good rapport with my boss and don't entirely think this would go against me. And it might not. But then she asked if I had to pick, which one would I pick, and when I honestly answered that it depended on money...

then I remembered, too late, that that could be used against me. A lot of people request a summer TA and they might not want to give one to someone who is enetertaining other options. And I think employers don't like to think of their employees working other jobs because of the possibility of shoddy work. At least I knew enough to point out that I wanted to teach at high school program because I already have all the lesson plans and it would be easy. I know I could easily handle both; the overlap is only for a week.

Another grad student in the department lost funding last fall for being too honest. She told the chair that she was interviewing for outside jobs, and he used that as a reason- "due to your job prospects"- to give her TA to a new incoming student. Is this the same kind of thing? I guess one difference is that this is so far in advance. It's not even time to request TA's yet, so I can still request a TA and make it clear that that it is my preference. And, there's a chance they will add sections, which would make it possible for me to do both because I maybe wouldn't have that one am class to teach on the lab side. And, the other grad student in mention had also dropped some balls the previous year, so there might have been another logic at hand.

Still, I could have avoided all the worry if I had just answered "Oh, of course I would rather work here..." Which, actually is true.