Battle of the Bulge

This is my last week of maternity leave, well, actually my last three days as I go back on Thursday - an event that I'm actually dreading a bit. It was my choosing, going back on Thursday instead of next Monday as originally planned (I didn't want to start on a Monday), but that doesn't escape the fact that my days spent snuggling my little boy all day long are over. To make matters worse, now my husband's new work schedule takes effect meaning that we will never again except by a fluke have a weekend together where neither of us is working. It's sad really. No family trips to the zoo, no more Sunday family dinners with my parents, not even family trips to the grocery store... Oh, the luxuries that money provides! If we had the money for only one of us to work, it would be great, but there is no use crying over something that is not even a remote possibility. Not without both of us changing jobs, which may end up happening anyway if we can't make our current schedules work. Alas, that is a topic that provides endless fodder for griping, and therefore I shall leave it at that for now.

What is really preoccupying my mind these days is trying to maintain my health. Since Owen's birth I've been hovering in a kind of nervous limbo state about when my symptoms will return, and going back to work just makes it more nerve-wracking. Due to the fact that I'm breastfeeding Owen, I am not on any medication since none are approved while pregnant or nursing. I'm already exhausted just from Owen's routine of frequent eating, diaper changes, and crying spells, and now I get to add working full time into the mix. To say that I'm nervous about relapsing is an understatement - I'm terrified. The only good thing if it happens this year is that my treatment would be free since I've already spent my deductible and my out-of-pocket maximum for my insurance. The particulars of dealing with a relapse are part of what worries me - I won't be able to hold my son with an IV in my arm for a week, let alone feed him, clothe him, change him. I'll most likely have to work that week in a drugged haze since all of my PTO has been used up on leave, and I can only hope that I'll be able to get something done one armed and drugged. And then there is the specter of not knowing what symptoms my relapse will be - it could be anything from tingling to blindness to paralysis!  Just thinking about it sends my stress level into dangerous territory, so on the whole I'm trying not to worry even though it is my default state.


The cause of my new worries. I'd say he's worth it.

To make matters worse, my husband keeps bugging me about the baby weight. I have maybe 10-15 pounds more than I did before, which is not that much, but it's apparently enough for me to be nagged about. Frankly, I'm not concerned as it took nine months to put on so I'm giving myself nine months to take it off - that means until March 2014. In the last three months I've lost 25 pounds, so it's not like I still look like I'm in the third trimester. Owen and I go for a walk around Green Lake (which round trip from our apartment is about 3 miles) once a week. I eat healthfully and in moderation, I'm trying to stay hydrated and well rested, and for me that is enough right now. I just wish it would be enough for him... Women get enough hounding about our bodies from society alone that we don't need our closest allies joining the chorus. It took a long time for me to be comfortable with my body and I don't need someone placing little seeds of self-doubt back into my head. I appreciate that it's done out of a position of caring about my health, but right now my neurological health and sanity are bigger issues. For my height I am considered overweight, but just barely (my current BMI is 26.6, overweight is considered 25-29.9). Before the pregnancy I was at the upper end of normal anyway. As part of recovering from the C-section, I not allowed to exercise for the first 6 weeks - which translates into 1.5 months! I just wish that he'd let me take the lead for now. If Owen's first birthday comes and I've not made any progress then he can bug me about it, but until then I just wish he'd keep his mouth shut on the subject.

Half Way Through

As I sit here writing, Owen is exactly 1.5 months old, which means that I am exactly half way through my maternity leave. At some points it seems like it will never end - like when I'm home alone with him and he won't stop screaming and it will be hours before I get any relief, while at other points it not surprisingly feels like it has flown by. I've definitely lost my mental acuity for things like what day it is, when I last fed or changed the baby, when I last took a shower, etc, and getting back to a more normal routine will be a welcome change if for no other reason than to have some more variety in my daily life. On the other hand, no parent worth their salt really enjoys being away from their child when they are growing and developing so rapidly. I'll be going back to work just as all the exciting firsts are about to happen - crawling, talking, eating solid foods. Owen has always been a very strong little boy, moving his head on his own since day 1, but head control (while an important building block to greater movements) is not the wow factor milestone. I have been here for his first non-bowel related smile and some of the first giggles, but I can't help but feel I'll be missing out.

For a country that likes to proclaim how pro-family our values are, as a society we do very little to support new families. Paid maternity leave is a rarity and paternity leave is even rarer. While well-child preventative care visits are generally paid for by insurance, the cost of that insurance is often overwhelming for young families. No shock that the majority of people on state assistance medical insurance are children as the young parents are not financially stable enough to self insure. Upon reflection of the costs of having a child, it seems as if we have decided to put as many economic pressures as possible on young people to dissuade them from reproducing. This tactic fails of course, but it does set up children for failure unless they come from well-to-do families, which in turn allows us to further denigrate the poor for making poor choices and furthering the poverty cycle.

As is the case in so many areas of societal life, we make rules and institutions that support our ideal circumstances at the expense of the reality. Take funding for the ever controversial Planned Parenthood. Many conservatives don't want it to receive any federal funding because they offer abortion services under the belief that funding it encourages it. I can understand that sentiment, but then you need to direct those funds to social services to 1) provide care to those women who are being denied safe abortions, 2) provide care for those children that are either abandoned into the system or taken away from unfit mothers, and 3) educated on pregnancy prevention in more ways than just abstinence. Sadly, none of these things happen because the argument is made that funding for women's health care in general will ultimately allow private funds to be diverted to cover the abortions. This only results in worse health care for women out of a fear that a perfectly legal procedure may be done. The same thing goes for mental health - it is as if funding it encourages instead of prevents. How does all of this relate back to paid maternity/paternity leave? Well, if we were to have federally mandated leave to allow bonding as a family, that would mean that all families are of equal value to society, instead of just those families with wealth and power. It is too egalitarian to treat each family unit as an asset; we instead see them as economic drains on society unless they are corporate elites.

The Son has Arrived!

It's been a little while since I've posted anything, mainly because nothing much was happening other than waiting around for the baby. Lucky for me, he decided to come early at 39 weeks. A healthy, happy, so far perfect little man with a full head of dark wavy hair. My husband was instantly smitten and has been super wonderful so far, grinning from ear to ear and willing to help out as much as possible. I ended up needing to have him via C-section and therefore haven't been too mobile after the surgery, so the new daddy has been the one to get up in the night to bring me the baby to nurse and to do all the heavy lifting (I'm restricted to no more than the baby's weight).

Stats: Owen Arthur Phillips, born May 1, 2013 at Swedish First Hill, 6 lbs 9oz at I believe 17.5 inches but I don't actually know that for sure.

Details of the labor if you want them:

What was supposed to be a minimal intervention labor and delivery turned into a C-section after labor stalled for 6 hours... which turned out to be a good thing in the end because there was a problem with the placenta that would have made a vaginal delivery almost impossible had we kept trying.

The labor itself didn't turn out how I had planned, but rarely do you have any real control over that sort of thing. Last Monday I went to the doctor because I had been seeing spots and had a headache. This resulted in some labs being drawn and me getting put on bed rest for the rest of the week, which bummed me out. It was supposed to be my last week at work and I didn't want to waste the PTO sitting at home watching tv. We went back to the doctor on Tuesday to go over the labs and to recheck my blood pressure, which was better but still high for me. I went home, put my feet up, and waited thinking it could be a long week ahead or more if the baby was late. Luckily I didn't have to wait that long. At about 6pm that night contractions started, getting to one ever 5 minutes or so by 10:30, and me vomiting with them by 11pm. That was our sign to head to the hospital. Our boy was on his way. We arrived by 11:30-11:45ish and prepared ourselves for the upcoming task.

The vomiting at home should have been a sign that it wouldn't be the last. I threw up multiple times the first few hours until they had given me enough anti-nausea meds to make it stop and even then I felt on edge. Labor hastened for the next 3-4 hours, until it just seemed to stop progressing. We arrived at triage dilated to a 4/10, and at about 4 am had only made it to a 7/10. I was getting this intense burning sensation in my lower back and hips. I've been describing it as having to red hot pokers twisting in on either side. It just wouldn't relent, so I "gave in" at about 7 am and asked for an epidural, as the IV pain meds (fentanyl) was not doing the trick. Despite my reservations about it, in the end it was the right decision as it allowed us to see that there was another issue at work.

The epidural worked pretty quickly and completely for the first 2 hours; I could hardly tell I was even having contractions anymore. Things seemed to be working out better, that is until my blood pressure and the baby's blood pressure dropped. The time it took for them to stabilize the both of us used up the initial bolus of meds that was working so well. When that wore off and it was down to the pump, only half of me was numb. They had to readjust the catheter to fix it, but that only solved the problem of my pain - labor was still not progressing. They tried to hasten it by giving me some Pitocin to make the contractions stronger, but instead it just made baby's heart blood pressure and heart rate drop resulting me resting for two hours on my side with an oxygen mask to stabilize him.  Each time they tried again, or tried changing my position by rolling, baby's vitals would drop again. I was really hoping to avoid C-section but even I could see that it was necessary. So after being in labor for almost 18 hours, I was wheeled into the OR and 15 minutes later had a crying baby boy. It is surprising how fast the procedure is; it took longer to stitch me up than it did to release him.

The next 48 hours were spent confined to a hospital post partum recovery room - the first 24 of those confined to bed entirely. We had a steady stream of family visitors all coming to see our little cutie while I was all drugged out and disheveled in bed. Friday mid afternoon we were able to go home, which my husband was anxious to do. I, on the other hand, was not in as big of a rush. We made it home and through our first few nights alone as a new little family. Little Owen is now almost 6 days old and just as cute as can be. I'm slowing healing. The first day home I felt like someone had beaten me up on top of the surgical pain. Now most of the soreness has retreated but I'm still moving more than I should, which is resulting in the occasional abdominal twinge and grimace of pain. I just need to remind myself to rest and to not get so involved in trying to help out that I over do it.

 

Bumps in the Road

I try to not use this venue to just vent, but today feels like a good day to do so, so my apologies in advance. Things have been going pretty smoothly, for the most part, until this week when things sorta hit a wall.

Baby-wise, we're still doing just fine. Everything has been uneventful, which is what you want in pregnancy. Other than more swelling of my feet at the end of the day, my health and energy has been good and stable and I've been able to remain fairly active and mobile. We took our infant safety and CPR class, which was a little long but otherwise went well, and now we've just got baby showers to attend to and the big event itself! It's the rest of life that is producing hiccups in the smooth ride...

We had our meeting with the mortgage officer to try to get preapproved, or at least learn how far away we are from it, and left that meeting feeling confident. The only oddity was that only 2 of the 3 credit bureaus had reports on the hubby. Strange... and now in trying to solve that problem it seems a whole new ball of issues is coming forward. After some research, I learned that apparently back in 2008 there was a new set of rules for determining credit scores, called FICO 08, which didn't really catch on. Or at least that is what evey article I could find said... but my bank is using those newer rules and one of those rules is that they no longer report on the credit of authorized users on a credit card as they are not legally liable for the bill. This basically makes it pointless to have someone as an authorized user since it can really only hurt the primary borrower's score. If there is no benefit then why does the option even still exist?! It makes me mad, since the whole point of putting the hubby on my credit card as an authorized user was to buoy his scores... so now we have to switch him to being a co-borrower instead, which is essentially like applying for a new line of credit, which is what you are generally advised not to do within a year of trying to buy a house since it lowers your scores...  Grrr... so much for transparent credit rules... Granted that this doesn't seem to be a huge road block and that were are still not likely to make a purchase until the fall at the earliest, it does add to the the stress of the whole thing that seemed like it was going so well.

Dragon on a Viking ship - or a metaphor for flames shooting from the mouths enemies

And then there is work... I had a horrible day on friday - complete with a good two hour time span of crying and then trying to regain control and process my thoughts into a coherent fashion in order to find a solution. I'd like to blame the crying on pregnancy hormones but that would be disingenuous. They were out of frustation and anger that is resulting in a meeting with HR on Monday as I'm at my wits end at trying to solve the situation on my own. It is no secret that a coworker of mine and I do not get along well and basically never have. This relationship has only continued to deteriorate over the last several months to the point where communication is now virtually nonexistant - and what ever does happen tends to result in me getting yelled at by the other party. I understand that I can be difficult at times and that I don't always have the best tact, but when I already know that someone never responds well to something that I say I'm not going to intentionally behave in a way that makes things worse; that serves no purpose for anyone involved. It feels like the assumption they are operating under is that everything I say and do is done to undermine them, which is false. So far the solution has been avoidance, but when you work only a few feet from someone every day that strategy only lasts so long... hence why HR is being called in to hash out a different course of action. It is at the very least a hostile work enviroment and at times I would say verbally abusive, especially when my attempts to remedy whatever apparent mistep I took are met with verbal venom. I know I've only got four weeks left before maternity leave, but I don't want to come back to a hostile environment when I'm already going to be super stressed just due to the changes in my personal life. My only hope is that I can control the waterworks during the meeting as I don't want it to appear like I'm trying to manipulate the situation. 

As a result of the horrid friday, I came home, ate a whole box of cookies and laid in bed reading for the entire evening. My husband made dinner and entertained Pico all night, which allowed me to try to distract myself from the aweful task awaiting me on Monday. It still makes me all hot and bothered - and not in any of the perceived good ways. I am left feeling drained and underappreciated.  The hubby says I need to find a new job, and in some ways he is right - I could definately benefit from the mental stretching and a change of pace, but I don't feel like I can without him first having a full time job, especially in light of my health and especially in light of our soon to be born son. The stress of it all just makes me want to cry. Things are not supposed to be this complicated, and yet it seems like they almost always are.

These issues will find resolution; things will get better. I just wish that it didn't take such an emotional and mental toll while in the process of working itself out. Makes me want to go back to bed and start over.

T-Minus 9 weeks and counting

February flew by, as the shortest month of the year should I suppose, but holy cow it's already March! Luckily, we have not been idle since the end of January. In that time a few of the big uncertainties have been fleshed out. We picked up my family heirloom cradle to use for the first few months of impending child's life, bought a dresser of Craig's List that my parents are helping us repair and refinish, had our last ultrasound of the baby - he's looking very human and pretty much will just spend the next few weeks plumping up, and took our childbirth class. Pretty much every weekend has been filled with at least one major to-do item, which helps my stress level but doesn't leave too much chill time. I suspect though that down time will be in short supply for the next few months if not years.

We also have been working to figure out our living situation. We can't stay in our apartment for a whole additional year (the floor plan doesn't suit it even though the square footag does) so we're moving forward simultaneously on both trying to get pre-approved for a mortgage and looking for new apartments. Our landlord has been gracious enough to let us go month-to-month for a little while since we can't move the month our lease is up due to the baby's arrival, plus he's not raising the rent. We just need to try to move out as soon as we can; my goal is by the end of the summer at the latest. Hopefully it will be into something purchased, but if we can't get approved for an amount that would put us in areas that work for us (ie don't force us to get a second car) then we'll look at renting a few years more and trying to save more money. We've got an appointment later in the month to go over our application, but I'm trying to not stress out over the outcome. It will happen eventually, so we'll just take what ever happens with a grain of salt and press forward.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I've been feeling pretty good up until the last week or so. We learned at the ultrasound that he's already head down, and it seems like once that change happened I've been a lot more uncomfortable and a lot less flexible. I'm even considering asking for a referral for a prenatal massage to see if that helps. With a good 2 months left to go if all goes according to plan, I'd prefer not to be in pain. It feels like I've pulled or strained a few muscles in my back trying to get up out of both bed and the couch, so I'm trying to stretch and use better body mechanics when moving. I'm not moving boxes any more at work, resulting in sitting more throughout the day which in turn is causing in more swelling of the feet and ankles by the end of the day due to being more stationary. I just hope that I can keep my activity level up and not get too tired. Riding the bus almost daily helps force me to move around, but I'd prefer to be a little more comfortable while doing so.

Umm.... I think that's really about it. We've got our infant safety class still to take, baby showers to attend, a few more doctors appointments and that pre-approval meeting I had mentioned, but otherwise all planned events are done and out of the way. We now just get to focus on waiting for the arrival of our little man. I just hope that I can handle it with as little intervention as possible just to speed recovery time; I don't do well just resting all day which I hear is the recommendation for about 2-6 weeks with a c-section. Let's just say that is not going to be realistic for our lifestyle... especially the whole part about avoiding going up and down stairs. Our basement apartment makes that a mandatory daily activity no matter what the doctors recommend.

Human Llama Racing to the Finish!

As of this week we are 25/40 weeks into this pregnancy and our food budget is feeling the pinch almost as much as my wardrobe. Between the hubby's non-stop grazing and my increased snacking and the odd craving or two, we are spending soooo much more money on food. For the most part it has been healthy, but there is always in the back of your mind this nagging voice saying "slow the heck down!" I work across the street from a PCC market, which is a high end local and organic co-op market, so the worst of the snack food isn't even an option, but even though I'm buying somewhat healthier snacks I'm still eating and spending a ton. This has got to stop, especially in light of trying to save money for the three months that I'm going to be on leave, for the eventual downpayment of a house, and for the third mouth to feed and clothe.

Llama chowing down. Sometimes I resemble this...

The first half of this pregnancy felt like it crawled by, and now it feels like I have hardly any time left! We've still got almost three months, but I'm crossing off the last month as usable time since I'm unsure how much energy and motivation I'm going to have. I want to get as much done now as possible without rushing things. We took our homebuyer's education seminar last week, are getting ready to open an IRA for the spouse's retirement future, deciding whether or not we're ready to start the pre-approval process for getting a mortgage knowing that there are things we are probably going to need to fix. I spent one night this week completely reorganizing our financial documents and getting ready to complete our taxes once we receive the last W-2. I always try to get them done in February just to get them out of the way.

All of the preparation for the future and examining finances makes it startlingly clear how easy it is to slide into poverty in this country. I refuse to sink into the cycle of only buying the cheapest food available as you will pay for that in the end with the health impacts, but that does mean reprioritzing to make it all work out. We're fine now, but things are definately going to get tighter as the year progresses. Trying to figure out if it is financially better for me to reduce hours to 32-25 instead of 40 after maternity leave to allow the hubs to work more or to basically leave him only the weekends for paid employment. Paying for childcare for an infant is somewhere in the range of $50-$100 more a week than a 1-year old (and even then it is still in the $150-$200 range), so if we can swing it by alternating our schedules for 9 months until his first birthday we'd save a ton, like almost $4000 over 9 months.

We still need to pick up the cradle from my cousin, find a dresser to use as a changing table, figure out clothe or disposable diapers, and look into breast pump rental; since we don't know how long my health will allow breastfeeding since no MS drug is approved for while breastfeeding it doesn't make since to purchase one and potentiall only be able to use it for 2-3 months. Plus there is the delayed christmas that we are having in February when the in-laws get back in the country from Asia - still need to finish the presents for that... 

And then there is work. I'm trying to not freak out since I'm not in a position of authority to control things at all, but I'm concerned about the state of things while I'm gone. We are going through a period of hiring new staff right now and  depending on how long that takes, the new lead at my location may or may not be up to snuff by the time I leave. When I've left in the past, such as for my periodic month off the continent every few years, it always takes me a few weeks to get things caught back up even with people covering my position while gone. That is not to say that my coworkers are incompetent, but there are always things that get over looked that I end up having to clean up once I get back. I'm resisting the urge to make a daily checklist for the position of what you are supposed to do for each task. I feel like my efficiency level is such that I could reduce my hours and get everything done, but I'm not so sure about others. It's probably just my ego talking, or at least I hope it is. I'd rather be proven wrong in this instance.

I suppose that it is perfectly normal to have a mid-pregnancy freak out and this is my month to have it. Luckily everything with the pregnancy itself is going well, although the next big test is coming up in 2 weeks - the dreaded gestational diabetes test. High hopes that it turns out normal, but seeing as how all predictions I've had about the pregnancy have been wrong I'm going to try to leave my expectations at the door.

A Year of Changes

For our little family, 2013 is bound to be different from 2012 for several reasons, some obvious, others not so much.

There is of course the most obvious - the impending birth of our first child this spring. This will no doubt change our lives for the better. Instead of the spouse and rabbit and I, we will now how another noiser mouth to feed, clothe, and cart around with us. I cannot express the level of excitement in the house as we slowly accumulate stuff for our new little man. And yes, that does mean that unless the US was really off, we're having a little boy. I'm still out numbered males to females in the house.

Our camera shy little guy finally gave a decent profile after over an hour

Other highly probable changes due to occur:
We move somewhere new to  accomodate the added human in the household. We're still unsure that we can afford to realistically buy a place in the areas we'd like before the little one is born, but we are trying to get our act together so that if the oppurtunity presents itself we will be able to pounce. We've signed up for a Homebuyers Education Seminar later this month which will earn us a certificate good for 2 years allowing access to lower interest and down payment rates than we'd be able to get without it. Even if we don't buy something, we'll still probably move to a larger rental somewhere hopefully nearby. I'd still like to avoid buying an additional car.

I start on a new MS medication. One big mystery for us is how my immune system will come back post-pardum. That will determine how quickly I need to get back on medication, but I assume that it will more than likely be about 6 months from birth, which would be this coming November. No MS drugs currently on the market are approved for while breastfeeding, so I'd like to avoid going back on something as long as possible but realize that could be anywhere from 3 weeks to 1 year. As a result I need to start researching medications again to try to find the most tolerable. I liked the results I was getting on what I was on previously, but that is no longer an option as I ran out of injection sites.

The hubs starts a new job. With the added mouth to feed, the spouse will most likely be finding either a second part time job or finding one full time job with better pay. This is very much so up in the air, and I have little to no control over any of it, so there's really not much more I can say. We'll see what he finds. I have high hopes for him, but every time I try to push or encourage one direction or another it seems to not really work, so we'll see what happens.

And then there are all of the larger geo-political changes that are going on in the world around us, such as the financial mess caused by our elected officials and our culture of refusing to say no to our wants. It seems like we satisfy our wants while starving our needs. We want to have low taxes, but we also need to ensure that there is a social safety net for those who are unable for a variety of reasons to take care of themselves. Being poor is not a crime and we need to stop penalizing the less fortunate as if they are convicted criminals. The suggestion by many to have mandatory drug testing to receive government assistance won't solve the fraud issue (which when actually investigated is not nearly as rampant as some would have you believe); it will just serve to make people more distrustful of the system. We want to have access to all sorts of firearms as civilians, but we need to take a hard look at our culture of glorifying violence and the tools that allow people to live out those darker tendencies. A firearm may just be a tool for destruction and not in itself able to inflict harm, but the ramifications for those whose carelessness results in someone else taking their tool to commit atrocities are paultry. If I had my way, the registered owner of a weapon that is used for a crime should be able to be charged with aiding and abetting for not properly safeguarding their weapon. It is just a pipe dream of mine, but something has to change.

Life has a funny way of working itself out, and that is without our constant attempts at steering its course. May the new year bring many pleasant surprising and thought provoking challenges.

TV killed the holiday mood

Maybe its just a hold over from the political season that just ended, but I'm already sick of all the holiday adds that have now replaced the political ones. It's only 29 days until christmas and if you believe the adds on tv, all the good loot is nearly gone! Heaven forbid you actually have to budget out the holidays and not spend >$750 - which is supposed to be the per shopper average this year. Yeah... for all this talk of debt and fiscal crisis we sure are ready to spend money we really don't have on things we really don't need in the name of holiday sales. The worst was a Walmart commercial I saw where a man is trying to convince the woman that they need a new tv even though a)they already have one and b) it is too expensive. Sadly, the man wins under the premise of "we can put it on our Walmart credit card" which basically means you are paying for something you don't need with money you don't have. This made me physically sick that they be so blatant about the excess of it all. Additionally,  I was looking up the top toys this year for kids and they actually recommend you buy a five year old boy an ipad... Not happening in my household. If they want something that expensive they get to save their money and buy it themselves. Same thing goes for video games and anything else that is more than $50 and highly breakable.

I could blame it on hormones I suppose, but I haven't really felt that "crazy" so it wouldn't feel genuine. If the hubby hadn't unplugged my stereo for his Playstation, I would totally just put a cd on instead of the TV for noise. Intolerance of silence it the really driver behind all the  TV watching. The last three months of college when I didn't have cable or internet in my apartment were surprisingly easy to deal with and motivating. Instead of turning into a blob after work maybe I'd actually do more things, such as update this blog, read up on baby stuff, do christmas shopping/maybe even make gifts this year instead. After spending all day at work on the computer I usually try to avoid being on it at home if for no other reason than to save my eyes the added strain, but the tv is really not much better. Perhaps if it wasn't pitch black by the time I get home I'd be more motivated as well but short of moving somewhere farther south that won't be happening.

Besides, there are plenty of indoor things to do during the cold dark northern winters. For example, there are always more Pico songs to invent, more cleaning to be done, more reading of books that actually intellectually challenge you, more holiday baking, and definately more exercising and baby planning. I've got to embrace the quiet in these last few months, because who knows how loud this impending child will be. We're hoping it takes after my near muteness as a child (I've never seen the point in small talk), but the odds don't look good.

Lets hope that I can find a way to salvage the holiday cheer without breaking the bank or driving the hubby crazy with nonstop christmas music. There's about a 50% chance of success.

Things that go bump

Our annual pumpkin tradition - a pico inspired jack-o-lantern

First off, Happy Halloween! I can't believe it's already the end of October. I feel like a slacker who has been avoiding writing. Truth is, big changes are afoot.

By this time next week the election will finally be over. It has felt like this has drug on for the past year and a half at least, so it will be just grand to get it done and over with - no matter what the outcome. I'm hopeful that my preferences will have a winning shot, but you never know until  all the ballots are counted, so I'll resist predictions and analysis until afterwards. There are bound to be road bumps from both sides on multiple issues. I fully suspect at least one legal challenge to some election decision.

Secondly, the other thing thing that goes bump is my belly as Bryant and I are bound to be parents this coming spring. I'm just barely beginning to show and finally not so nauseated. The vomitting has subsided to only once ever 3-4 days instead of almost daily, which is a vast improvement. I'll be happier still when it leaves me for good, or at least once a month or more instead of weekly. We are both excited and a bit nervous (who wouldn't be?) and are slowly beginning to prepare for the incoming change. We have a tour of the hospital labor and delivery ward next week and will probably start looking at our living arrangement options pretty seriously in the coming weeks. We can last where we currently are until mystery baby is maybe six months old, but seeing as how our lease is up the month we're due, some decision will need to be made well before then. That launches us back into the rent vs try to buy scenario yet again.

It has felt for so long like progress has been put on hold, and now yet again everything is happening at once. I suppose slow and steady is not the way that life will be for us.  Grad school has been pushed off another year or two, depending on time, money, and energy; it's a good thing though, as the new health laws won't be finalized until 2014, so I've got a little time for things to smooth out on that front.

Seeing as how I don't really have details on anything at this point, I'll just have to leave it at this. I promise not to wait so long next time, if for no other reason than my own intellectual stimulation.

Cold War

It's election season and I can't stand it. It is if the country plunges into a political cold war between two disparate ideologies. There are so many things wrong with the way politics are carried out in this country, despite our lauding of the system and exportation of it to other countries. It helps to purpetuate some of the great lies in American culture (of which all cultures have, just to be clear).

Cannon left over from the US Civil War

What lies might those be? There is the great white washing of history, where we are told everyone came here of their own free will in pursuit of freedom and success. Well, sort of, except for all of those slaves that were imported, and all of the political exiles over the years, and what about the native populations that were already here... We are told that the country was found for religious freedoms, when in reality that was only a small segment of the early settlers, the rest were looking for economic gain both for themselves and their crown. We are told that the US has never lost a war, but what about the war of 1812, where we invaded Canada for not real reason other than our own expansionist ideals and were beaten back by the Canadians and the local Amerindians. That one has been expunged from our memory so much  that even if you read the Wikipedia entry about the war it tells of US victory, although not as triumphantly as other wars, when the reality is more complicated.  If Jefferson hadn't stated that the conquest of Canada would be a mere matter of marching, do we really think that just 40 years after our own independence we would feel competent enough to invade someone else? And these are just the historical fallicies that we pass down generation to generation as a matter of building patriotism. I find it sickening.

The worst of all the American cultural lies is the idea of supremecy over every other people on the planet. "We're #1" is the rallying cry of the brainwashed in this society, and it only gets worse during election season. How do the political parties try to make the opposition loose favor with the general populace? By showing them as making us less than the greatest by their standards of course. This politician is making us too european, and you don't want that because who would want to be like them? That politician will let all of the untrained, hapless rubbish from other countries that somehow managed to make it here citizens, which will dilute our greatness. The scapegoating of minorities gets to an all time high, whether it be ethnic or social minority makes no difference - if you are not part of mainstream consumerist USA you had better watch out or during election season the problems of the country will be placed squarely on your shoulders; by the way which is why we should limit your freedoms to preserve those of the mainstream. Or at least that is what the attack adds would have you believe.

This is the time of year that I avoid watching television because all you see during every commercial break is hatred and fearmongering. You rarely, if ever, see a positive  add for a candidate that does not denegrate the opposition. It speaks a lot to the depravity of the political parties that they refuse to admit that there are multiple good people for the job, or even multiple viable solutions to our problems. No one person and no one ideology will save us from self destructions, which is essentially the problem we are having right now. The economy is sluggish right now because we believe in the power of capitalism, but if the masses don't have the resources to buy things, capitalism can't keep surging our GDP upwards. The solution? Give people more money to buy things, either through tax cuts (which just makes our federal cash flow problem worse) or by raising minimum wages (which makes those with the money mad because they feel like they earned their millions and don't need to share it with the workers who helped them make their millions) or through incentives (buy this new car and receive tax credits for the purchase).

All this reminds me of my favorite Sting song, "Russians", and in particular, a certain line that floats about my head each time I hear political banter: "There is no monopoly of common sense on either side of the political fence." While written about the historical Cold War between Russia and the West, particularly the US, I find the sentiment applies to any political stalemate. If only the mass populace would see it, or be allowed to even broach the idea, it could have a lot of good. At the very least we may be able to have a rational, educated debate about our problems instead of resorting to hysteria and gut reactions. The rash of gun violence in this country? Maybe that means we need to reexamine our gun laws to see if there is something we are actively doing that is making the situation worse. The unemployment rates? Maybe cutting all of the education funding wasn't such a good idea as we now don't have enough training centers to get people retooled for the jobs available, and the ones we do have are overbooked and overpriced to the point that the unemployed can't afford to retrain. Immigration? Maybe if we started seeing those coming here as human beings instead of "illegals" we might take a different approach. That doesn't mean no punishment for breaking the law, but it also doesn't mean treating them less than human which is part of our current practice along the desert borders. Social security nets, such as medicaid and welfare? If would be nice if both sides would agree that being poor is not a crime - they are not leeches on society that need to be treated with the same reproach as parolees from prison with constant drug testing and supervision. They are people that have not being able to acheive the American ideal due to a variety of factors, including being born into poverty with no social ladders to get out of it.

As a nation and as a culture, we have real problems that need attention. It would be nice if we could stop infighting and admit that our diversity makes us stronger instead of being a liability. The more entrenched we become, the more rigid the battle lines, the more we will be torn apart. That is how nations fall - they get stuck in rigid programs with rigid decision making models that do not allow for change and adaptation. You fail to adapt you fail to survive. Simple evolution.

Swelter and Swoon

Hello August! This is supposed to be the warmest day of the year so far and I am on bunny patrol, ie making sure that our furry friend Pico doesn't succomb to the heat. Rabbits apparently can't get warmer than 85 degrees, and the forecast edging close to 90 today means that all the blinds and curtains are drawn, the lights and electronics off, and I spend the day in the dark all for the protection of Pico.

Desert wildflowers from Tucson this past March. They do much better in the heat than I.

I also have a high likelihood of swooning from the heat today as well. My health has taken another turn the past few weeks, and when I'm coming off of a symptomatic flare, everything seems heightened: I get vertigo again, my balance gets off, I'm more fatigued, etc. Some gelato or  frozen yogurt or something will be called for today, as well as salad for dinner to avoid turning on the oven. It makes me feel like a wuss. I've lived in the desert for crying out loud and now 90 is causing me to worry.

This is the first morning in two weeks where I actually awoke energized, as if all the steroids are finally working their way out of my system. There are bound to be more of them in the coming weeks, but it's nice to feel a modicum of normalcy again even for a little while. We have the unfortunate task of deciding what to do about my "treatment" in the coming days, as it looks like being on nothing is not working. I just wish there were options that didn't involve needles. Well, I exaggerate, there is one on the market, but it is generally agreed upon within the MS community that it wasn't really ready - they were just desperate to have an oral medication option. It can cause dramatically lowered heart rate and apparently some people have died on it. That doesn't leave me feeling too much in a hurry to get on it. There are some more promising meds in the pipeline, but clinical trials are always sooo slow, especially when you are one of the ones waiting for the benefits. Once they start getting better treatments out, maybe the prices can start to come down. As it is, even with insurance, medication costs are in the thousands for most patients. The sticker shock of it all is enough to swoon over.

Last week after my last neuro appointment, the hubby and I were talking under a tree outside of my work before I went back, and this man came over relating his sob story about not qualifing for care from a free clinic because he is on disability, but not having enough money to go to a regular clinic, and needing a few bucks to get a prescription filled. When we told him that we couldn't help because were we just discussing how expensive our own medical costs are, his entire countenance changed. He went from trying to sell is on helping him out to offering help to us on how to get DSHS and Social Security help. He was lost in the quagmire of technicalities of an inefficient system and we are standing at the brink of an equally inefficient system just run by different entities.

Health care as a fee-for-use system doesn't work. No research gets funded unless you have someone with resources get sick. Where are the advocates for the voiceless sick, those without the resources to mobilize the masses with charity drives? Where is my therapeutic Olympic horse? Oh wait, you mean that I have to drop everything to go to any appointment during the work week because in order to maintain the health insurance to pay for said appointments I have to be at work instead, so that's not feasible if you want to get paid. Fee-for-use works great for spot maintenance, such as when you broke your arm roller skating and need acute care. Everybody has a body, therefore everybody needs to pay into and be involved in the system. That way, when your child develops a high fever at 4 am on a saturday morning there are systems in place for you to be able to get treatment instead of waiting for it to get higher and be forced to go the ER (which is supposed to be a last resort, not your primary access point).

Bleh, I hate this issue. I just seems so clearly simple to me, but I never feel like it is articulated well and people are always arguing over it. Upfront costs vs delayed costs. I'll take upfront monthly payments to have something covered later over not paying anything now and being stuck with tens of thousands of dollars out of the blue. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if those who refuse to pay into the system through insurance actually put the money into a dedicated medical only spending account so that they have something when the unexpected arises. Instead they just spend it on other things and then beg the hospitals to lower their bills because they didn't plan for mishaps. It's irresponsible. You don't go to a restaurant and eat a large meal because you didn't eat earlier and then ask the restaurant to forgive the debt, and yet we think it's ok to act this way for medical care.

Time Marchs On

Oh wow, it's already mid July. As it always seems to go, once the good weather hits you loose track of time and then it is gone before you know it. It gets me thinking about all that I have yet to do, which leads me back to grad school... It's been 5.5 years since undergrad and I don't feel like I've accomplished much intellectually, which for someone whose identity has been wrapped around my intellectual persuits is pretty depressing. Life keeps feeling like it is putting up various detours, forcing the scenic route. Generally I prefer the scenic route as the journey is usually the point in life, but I'm getting impatient.

Pico trying to hide in the garden

It is almost like trying to herd a rabbit, or the more famility analogy of trying the herd cats - it doesn't ever seem to work out the way that you would think, no matter how much planning and forethought you invest. For instance, I keep scouting out jobs at all the Global Health (GH) companies in the area, since Seattle is a GH center, and I keep finding entry level jobs, but I just don't have enough experience to progress in the application process. I've looked for various volunteer oppurtunities around the city, but surprisingly most of them happen during the work week instead of the week end, making it impossible with my current work schedule. I've been trying to keep up on the latest anthropological and socially aware research, but without access to the industry publications I am reliant on whatever makes it mainstream. (On that front, there was an interesting story in Friday's Seattle Times about the peopling the the america's and the confirmation of there being multiple contemporaneous groups through coprolite dating in Oregon, but the hubby just found it funny how excited I got over fossilized poop...) These are all reminders about the work to be done and the knowledge yet to be elucidated.

On the more positive note, I have managed to be fairly busy the past month and a half: went to the wedding of my cousin Kyle, had a large father's day dinner with too much food at Perche No in Wallingford, had a girls reunion trip to Austin and San Antonio, Texas with some friends from college, donated my old bike, investigated other Seattle neighborhoods that would be in our price range were we to stay in Seattle for grad school. See, it's not like I haven't had things to do, it just hasn't been what I was hoping for, and that is the stickler. Our own assumptions and expections should not be allowed to get us down, but that is the very basis of why the stock market is so volatile - investor concerns vs investor confidence.

 If only there was a way to take the reigns or helm our own ship so that the waves of uncertainty cease to toss us to and fro. The other option I suppose would be for someone to figure out how to slow down time without it slowing our progess down as well.  Good luck on that...

In Defense of Darwin

There are a few contentious ideas that come out of anthropology that can make people uncomfortable. The most well known are the result of a man named Charles Darwin. When we think of anthropology and Darwin, we instantly think evolution and the descendent from apes, and survival of the fittest. In general, what you know about them would be wrong. Here's why:

 1) Our current understanding of evolution has been much more influenced by the newer science of genetics than of Darwin.  In the 1830s, the only inkling of heredity came from simple mendelian genetics that I'm sure most of us have done in high school biology. He set out looking for evidence, for fact not myth. There is a lot of mythology in creation stories from around the world with small kernals of truth buried deep within. He did not set out to disprove the establish religiously based view of creation - in fact he held off on publishing "On the Origin of Species" for a solid twenty years after his expedition on the Beagle while he tried to reconcile his orthodox  views with the evidence he had amassed, which ultimately led to his transition from orthodoxy to agnosticism.

Descendence from apes is a tricky concept for many people because of our ingrained belief that human are elevated about all other life forms. The idea that we are not as different from the animals as we would like to think can be quite unsettling. When you look at the physical evidence (anatomy) it makes sense. As I am no where near as eloquent, here is the last paragraph from "Origin of Species" (of which you can find the entire text online):

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may give him hopes for a still higher destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

2) Survival of the fittest is not what we have been led to believe it is. It does not mean that the biggest, strongest, most aggressive survives, but that the one who can adapt the best will outlast all the rest. Our notions about social darwinism, a dog-eat-dog world, all came later and would have been considered deplorable by Darwin. Evolutionary fitness is defined by who has the most offspring survive. This is in direct conflict with social hierarchy stating that those at the top of the pyramid are the "fittest" and therefore deserving of our power and esteem. The octomom is evolutionarily more fit than Bill Gates. Shocking, and yet it makes sense. While not all of her children will survive and thrive to produce multiple children of their own by sheer statistics, her traits - both genetic and cultural - will have a much greater chance of conquering the world than Gates' three kids.

The public's understanding of the time-scale for evolution is all wrong. For those who don't know, evolution happens on a species level over many generations. Adaptation happens at the individual level. You cannot watch evolution happen, unless you are watching fruit flies or some other species with a super short rate of generational turnover.  At the time of Darwin, he posited that natural selection was just one of a variety of mechanisms leading the evolution. With the rise of genetics, it has been shown as the only viable means of evolution.

Change over time to adapt to pressure. That's it, the whole controversial concept. It's a very simple idea, one that to this day still gets people's feathers ruffled. Look no further than the continuing debates in schools about the teaching of evolution versus creationism. Science and religion are not antithetical by nature, they only become that way when people in power on either side feel threatened. In other words, they feel the need to fight for their ideology's survival, which is ideological survival of the fittest. It all comes full circle.

Darwin was a great naturalist of his time, who had made many important observations. For instance, it is because of Darwin that we understand how coral atolls form or how barnacles work. He wrote many books and some of his more interesting and innovative work is found in "The Descent of Man", which talks about sexual selection, and "The Expresssion of the Emotions", which is one of the founding works of psychology and hugely influential on Freud. His work has revolutionized science, indeed it helped lead to the development of scientists - as distinct from the more clerically trained naturalists. He was seen as both heretic and herald. You cannot have a complete understanding of how Homo sapiens are now without understanding the thought process that led us to start looking for clues about the world around us.

Anthropowhat now?

Lately it has come to my attention that unless you are trained in the social sciences you generally feel that they are worthless, especially in the country. The result of this short-sightedness is the collapse of our civilization. You are probably thinking that I'm exaggerating but alas I am not. Let me explain:

People snicker when you say you are going for a BA instead of a BS at university; they assume that you will either try to become a professor at some academic insitution (of which very few jobs actually exist), or will live with your parents until you are in your 30s because you can't get a "real job," and that your entire scholastic endeavour was a monumental waste of time and money. Little do these people know that the social sciences are training people to analyze people, social structures, all things that we take as innate aspects of functioning in a human world.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the social science trifecta consists of psychology (the study of the individual), sociology (the study of societal systems and structures, eg the education system), and my personal favorite anthropology (the study of people past, present, and future). In the US, only psychology has achieved a mild level of mainstream acceptance, primarily due to the national superiority complex and obsession with the individual. Sociology and anthopology have been largely ignored because of our cultural aversion to the idea that something other than our own agency affects our decision making processes. Some people argue that geography, economics and philosophy are also social sciences, but would argue that they fit under the aforementioned three.

As I was trained in anthropology, I will really only focus on it as that is where my experience lies. Most people really have no idea what an anthropologist does; some poor ignorant fools even think they study dinosaurs... It is the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities. To get a BA in anth, you receive one of the most interdisciplinary trainings out there - other than someone who triple majors or takes BIS (bachelor's in integerated studies, which is basically two minors with some classes to help you make them coalesce). Economics, agriculture, biology, geology, history, art, physiology and anatomy. Decision making models, natural resource management, political science, medicine, folklore, architecture and design. You name it and it applies to anth because anth studies all things human. Anthropology also instills a sense of scale to time, in that a decision today affects others for generations, as anthropologists study humans in the past and present to gain a perspective on the future.

Fasilidas' Bath, circa 17th century, Ethiopia

What makes people really unconfortable about anthropology is two-fold: Darwin's natural selection, and the implications of the concept of the other. As I've already covered Darwin thoroughly in another post, I will focus on the other, the us vs them that asks the difficult questions about our cultural biases.

The all scary OTHER, also known as orientalism. Briefly, anyone not of your culture is weird and different and wrong and therefore most often considered inferior. This is also known as "the west versus the rest" mentality.  As these others are so clearly different from you and your way of thinking, and since you are generally right because your way of thinking has worked so well for your people for a long time, then the others clearly must be wrong. This is a very dangerous concept for many reasons, not the least of which is the rise of "my way or the highway" autocrats. Part of what makes this concept so difficult for people to understand is that it forces us to acknowledge our own culture, something that Americans seem loathed to do. We pride ourselves on our heritage of immigrants and our tenacity, but the reality is that we give new immigrants a cold shoulder unless they are the best and brightest. This battle between us and them has been going on for centuries. It has driven us to wars, to eugenics, to genocides, to colonialism, but also to knowledge exchange, food exchange, learning and growth. The other affects how people react to conflict in that it forces is to behave in a way that maintains our difference but allows us to change as needed.


Lately it has come to my attention that unless you are trained in the social sciences you generally feel that they are worthless, especially in the country. The result of this short-sightedness is the collapse of our civilization. You are probably thinking that I'm exaggerating but alas I am not. Let me explain:

People snicker when you say you are going for a BA instead of a BS at university; they assume that you will either try to become a professor at some academic insitution (of which very few jobs actually exist), or will live with your parents until you are in your 30s because you can't get a "real job," and that your entire scholastic endeavour was a monumental waste of time and money. Little do these people know that the social sciences are training people to analyze people, social structures, all things that we take as innate aspects of functioning in a human world.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the social science trifecta consists of psychology (the study of the individual), sociology (the study of societal systems and structures, eg the education system), and my personal favorite anthropology (the study of people past, present, and future). In the US, only psychology has achieved a mild level of mainstream acceptance, primarily due to the national superiority complex and obsession with the individual. Sociology and anthopology have been largely ignored due to our cultural aversion to the idea that something other than our own agency affects our decision making processes.

As I was trained in anthropology, I will really only focus on it as that is where my experience lies. Most people really have no idea what an anthropologist does; some poor ignorant fools even think they study dinosaurs... To get a BA in anth, you receive one of the most interdisciplinary trainings out there - other than someone who takes BIS (bachelor's in integerated studies, which is basically two minors with some classes to help you make them coalesce). Economics, agriculture, biology, geology, history, art, physiology and anatomy. Decision making models, natural resource management, political science, medicine, folklore, architecture and design. You name it and it applies to anth because anth studies all things human.


Now, how does lack of recognition for all of this lead to the collapse of our civilization? By refusing the legitimize the social sciences and how they allow us to analyze ourselves and the people from other cultures that we interact with and how we interact with them, we refuse to admit the plethora of learning oppurtunities that surround us - such as from history, from the other, from prehistory. This leads to tunnelvision, which in turn leads to short sighted decisions. Once you've made too many short sighted decisions it becomes too hard to change or adapt with emerging problems. When you fail to adapt, you fail to survive. Simple.



Broken heiroglyics from a fallen civilization

The solution? Hire more social scientists. Value them, as they hold the mirror up for self/systemic/cultural reflection.

Wascally Wabbit

So, this was supposed to be a blog about philosophical musings of the current happenings in my life. Other than some things that make me really furious about american society and culture (which are two seperate and distinct beasts) there has not been that much preoccupying my mind. Well, except for the mystery of how the rabbit keeps escaping his hutch... I swear that I'm locking it at night and yet he has now twice broken free...

I can only see a few possible scenarios:
1) I'm getting really absent minded and routinely forgetting to lock his hutch.
2) He's getting smarter and has figured out how to undo the latch from within his hutch without the benefits of opposible thumbs.
3) The apartment is haunted, by Harvey - the giant imaginary rabbit, who desires that all other rabbits to be free like him.

As much as I hate to admit it, I think that the most probable answer is #1 - I'm loosing it. Maybe I'm working too much. Do you think that they'd give me time off for rabbit sanity? Probably not, especially with the baby boom that is about to explode this summer. It must be my disease addled brain rebelling. Alas, that too seems an improbable answer.

Maybe he is escaping due to the humiliation that I impose upon him whilst shnuggling...

Looks like this will be a question similar to the tootsie pop dilemma: the world may never know.

And behold, Spring!

Looks like I've been slacking, but in reality March was busy for a variety of reasons. One, the weather was super stormy which turns me into a recluse, holed up inside under a blanket trying to pretend that it is something more than 40 degrees outside. Two, we escaped for a weekend to sunny Arizona - the state that I will return to probably my entire life despite it's high purportion of crazies. And three, my MS flared up resulting in me being very drugged the last week of the month.

Desert Wildflowers with Prickly Pear Cactus

But through the drug induced fog we emerge to April and the glories of Spring! The daffodils braved the cold and rain of March, bringing cheer and levity to the hearts of many in the Seattle area! Trees are flowering in a riot of pink and white blossoms! The Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon is up in full glory for the next month! It is actually warm enough, on occasion, to not wear a winter jacket! The sun has come at last... which in turn means that traffic and parking in my neighborhood of Green Lake for the next six months will be horrid as swarms of people descend on the city park to attempt to shed their winter weight and keep it off. One small grippe about that: if you are coming to the park to exercise, park at the Park and Ride a block farther from the park instead of crowding out the residents! One more block after your three mile loop won't kill you.

Now that Passover and Easter are upon us rabbit decor is everywhere; this is Pico's time to shine. He gets to frollick and click his heels as he runs through the yard eating all of the fresh plants trying to live. But it is all in good fun, for who but the most hard hearted doesn't like the visage of a happy flop-eared bunny playing the in the flower beds. Now is the time to go out and weed the garden (for we don't want a forest of oak trees in our backyard, as much as I love trees) and to contemplate planting some veggies. Nothing is better than home grown carrots, peas, and radishes! It just takes planning to get them in the ground in time, or in our case, into pots.

Hurray for naturally getting my vitamin D!

Will Spring be Sprung already!?

Dear Spring,

I miss you. Please hurry up and return; life needs more color. Thanks!

Ange

It is the last weekend in February and it is threatening to snow. This is unacceptable to those of us who grew up with memories of the rare snow day a year, if you were lucky. The bulbs we planted in the yard last fall are begining to sprout, our blueberry plants are budding, and the multitude of strawberries are leafing anew. And yet it is only the high thirties... I love the Pacific Northwest, but our winters suck. Three to four months of solid gray and drizzle can make the most die-hard Seattlite forelorn.

Luckily, we have things like the Spring Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon every year to welcome the new season with vibrant floral goodness. To be fair, once you have gone once you do not really need to go again, but it is always nice to know that every year there will be field of colorful field of flowers, each one a different hue. We haven't gone in four or five years now, and yet the pictures left a lasting impression. What better way to strick away at the gray of the preceeding months than technicolor flowers. If only our yards would catch up to those fields.

At least it is only about three more weeks until winter is officially over. And it just started to hail...

Perhaps Some School Pride?

In my never ending search for a graduate program that not only interests but excites me, I went back to the website of my alma mater, the School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC) at Arizona State University. Now, ASU is often derided as being a party school, so easy to get into that there is no prestige, but ASU has come a long way under current president Michael Crowe. They have embraced the idea that academic rigor and exclusivity are not bound to each other. The idea that you can have a school where practically anyone can not only be admitted but afford to go and that also academically challenges the students seems to be unique in the landscape of American academia. Now, I'm not the most spirited person in terms of school pride or whatever you want to call it, but in this one area ASU continues to make me proud. It seems that the detractors are those who remember ASU like it used to be and do not realize what it has become. Take, for instance, the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

Grady Gammage Performance Hall at ASU Tempe

Most universities and colleges have an Anthropology program, but none compares in excitement or in the depth of interdisciplinarian focus about the field than ASU. Most schools try to make it into the stodgy old study of dead cultures and the belittling study of the last remaining tribal cultures. There is such a cultural emphasis on specialization in academia that little effort is placed on studying how interconnected the varying aspects of life are - except from what I've seen of ASU's anthropology program. They seem to be the only ones who understand how vital it is, for not only the interconnected global culture that is developing but also for the microcosm of American culture, to understand how such broad ranging disciplines as economics, health, politics, biology, theology, and the arts all interact and feed off one another. It is enough to make me wish that I was a few years younger and still in the program. The formation of SHESC happen during the end of my junior year, and therefore most of the newer advancements (the global health BA and MA programs, vast expansion of its field schools, new requirements for study abroad and internships, etc) happened just after I left. I am extremely jealous. One of the things I think should be mandatory for graduation from college is a cultural exchange to a non-first-world country as a way of showing students the vast diversity of the world as well as the consequences of their business decisions; it is exciting to see undergraduate programs, like ASU's Global Health BA, independently requiring this. When I was at ASU, the field schools were limited to physical anthropology and archaeology digs in the midwest or in Africa and one ethnographic field school in Mexico - none if which I was interested in.

If I stood a chance of getting in, I would apply. At the time of graduation, I remember asking one of my professors about the ASU graduate school and the answer was to be expected - they do not often admit their own graduates as they want a diversity of educational experiences. From what I've heard, that is pretty standard across public universities. For those of us who have watched the program they graduated from change so drastically that you could argue that I've not really been a part of the program. Alas, the bigger hurdle would be the hubby not wanting to move back to Phoenix. Every time I look at schools, ASU just keeps coming to mind. I went there as an undergraduate on a whim, and now I feel like a tractor beam is pullling me back. I love the Pacific Northwest, and I love the idea of going somewhere new, but these other schools just do not know how to sell their programs like ASU does.

Crossroads are always befuddling

It seems like the new year is upon us and we can not avoid making some life changing decisions this year; they have been put off long enough. The short version is: save money to buy a house versus save money to go to graduate school, both complicated by health care and employment questions. As the old saying goes, as a door closes a window opens, but who really wants to be the one to close that door themselves?

Here's the breakdown of the options:

 (a) Buy a House - As all the newspapers, radio, and television broadcasts are apt to remind you, now is a great time to buy a house if you can afford to as prices are at record lows, interest rates are at record lows, and the selection is still pretty good to get into a good neighborhood. Everything says that now is the time to move, but realistically the soonest that will happen for us is in about 1-2 years since we need to save roughly $500 a month to afford a down payment. It is doable, although it will not be all that easy. It will mean bringing lunch to work daily for a year for both of us, not going out to eat - which we already rarely do, taking the bus/cycling/walking as many places as possible, and not incurring any large bills along the way. We've already begun to build our credit through the socially deplorable credit card system (that is worth a whole other entry about the decrepitude of credit cards) and through paying down my student loans. While setting a decent financial standing for ourselves is a good start, it will still be a stretch to get into the areas that we'd want to buy in, especially considering that we are trying to avoid buying a second car. In order to avoid that additional purchase, we would need to move within the Seattle metropolitan area that is readily connected by transit and light rail to the downtown core. It's better for our health and pocket book to live somewhere that is not car dependent.

(b) Go to Graduate School - This is not necessarily in conflict with buying a house, but that is very dependent on where I can find a program that is a good fit. The public health progam at the University of Washington will definately be applied to, but the main problem there is that the faculty does not focus on what I would like to focus on, meaning that while I could go through the program and graduate and get into the field I long for, my field of expertise would be different than what I'm currently most interested in. Graduate School, like all post-secondary education, is an innately selfish thing to do - it is all about you. The programs that interest me most are on the otherside of the country, as the west only has a handful of accredited programs. This would mean a complete change in our lives that I'm not entirely sure we want to do. I've always said that the Seattle area is one area that if you don't leave when you are young you will never leave, and it feels like we are getting enough roots down here that moving will be more difficult than it would have been a few years ago. It is not impossible, but with all of my doctors here, most of our family here, and the hubby finally beginning to get some work experience, it doesn't feel like a good time to leave. Graduate school is something that I feel I must do, but the timing of it is less certain.

(c) Health Considerations - The past year we have been lucky in that I've been pretty healthy, except when it comes to side effects from the medication I was one. Now that that has been stopped, we get to choose between the other possible options - all with worse side effects, or not going on any and taking the chance of a relapse. Plus there is the whole family planning issue, as none of the approved medications are safe for pregnancy and require washout periods for the medication to leave your system before even starting. In addition, none of the other possible medications are approved by my insurance, meaning that we'd be paying much higher monthly just to received the meds. Health maintenance is expensive once you have a "pre-existing condition;" as a result I need to maintain health coverage through an employer while going to grad school because it will be near impossible for me to afford to self-insure for the two years it would take to get the degree. Most jobs grant insurance benefits at 30 hours a week. Being a full time student while working 30 hours a week sounds really taxing from my current perspective. The hubby is currently self-insured, meaning we also have to pay for his health coverage unless he gets a good full-time job with benefits. It is situations like this that make me long for nationalized health care. The stress of how we can manage to keep ourselves covered is enough to make us not want to pursue our passions.

(d) Career Considerations - As has probably become clear, neither the hubby or I are currently in the fields we would ultimately like to build a career in. We'd like to do something that is both creative and intellectually fulfilling; I'd like to travel more and feel like I'm working for a higher mission than just making profit. I can't pursue my interests without going back to school. He can't pursue his without drastically retooling his skills as the field of journalism has changed dramatically since he graduated from college.  We both can't leave our current situations at once, as we need an income to survive on. I'd have to say that the vast majority of people we know from our graduating classes are either unemployed or under-employed due to the current economic mess.  That does not inspire us to cut all safety nets of our current jobs to pursue a career, and yet we are both frustrated by our situations. 

Basically, one of these issues is going to have to be decided upon in the next few weeks in order to move forward. It just feels like we are stuck in a holding pattern, like our choices are few, which is not really the case. Maybe I'm just overthinking everything again. It makes me anxious to contemplate stepping out of my safe job in my safe community to do something selfish like go to school. I should be lucky that I am even in the position to make such decisions, especially as a woman in a first world country.  If only there was a way to have the path elucidated without such animosity and uncertainty - makes me feel like a wuss sometimes.

Time to Get Professional

After a thorough review of our photo inventory, it has been discovered that I don't have any professional demenour photos of myself. In otherwords, I'm always making a goofy face, holding the rabbit, or am with someone else. The only ones that are mildly passable in this regard are from the wedding, and I'm not going to use a wedding photo for a professional identifier. This simply will not do, especially if I plan on gearing up to promote myself. It may stem from lifelong self-image issues, but as the hubby loves to tell me, I have a pretty bad fake smile - or should I say forced smile. I don't like showing my teeth as it feels a bit too chimp like.

Proof that I never make normal faces, even for my husband

I've decided that I need more mental stimulization, which is one of the motivating factors of this blog, so I'm yet again scanning through available jobs of interest to see what kind of further training I would need to obtain one of them. So far the answer seems pretty self explanitory: masters in public health or social work. It is something that I have suspected and now known  for a few months now, but it still leaves me floundering a bit when I come to that conclusion. If only if didn't cost so much time and money to achieve. School was always easy and usually energizing for me, and now that I've been away for 5 years to the day tomorrow, it seems difficult to get the wheels turning again. At times I wish I had never stopped, even though I understand and still agree with the reasons. Several friends have recently graduated from graduate school with their advanced degrees and I can't help but feel a twinge of envy. 

Back in the summer of 2006 I was in Switzerland with the future hubby's family. We were up in the Alps hiking down from the Schilthorn (the famous revolving restaurant of James Bond movie fame) when we stopped at a cliff side meadow for a short break. I remember sitting on the edge of the cliff looking over, completely unafraid while getting scolded for doing something so potentially perilous. At times I wish the hestency that comes with getting older and having more responsibilities didn't exist. Had I never worked within the medical field I would potentially not have so much paranoia about medical costs or a fear of being without health insurance which keeps me from being truly ambitious. I've become very skiddish about certain things over time, or perhaps I was always this way - hyper rational and now at the point where its becoming a hinderance. Well, there's no use of pouting about it now.  I guess that I'll just have to make the hubby take some more professional photos of me.