Back at it, really

So, a new friend has inspired me to write in my blog again. I was thinking about it today as I walked out of Arabic class. I have had an inspiring week and geography is all coming back around.

I met some faculty that I will have privilege of working with when I begin nursing school in January. They are doing work in the former public housing neighborhoods of Chicago, the places where I did my Geography grad research. They are focusing on how young men perceive their relationships with their fathers (or lack thereof in many cases) in low income African American communities. They filmed the interviews in barber shops on the southside. This is a professor of nursing and public health, my two loves. I'm already psyched.

A faculty heard me talking about my experiences and she said she could see the passion and excitement on my face to work in emergency medicine. It's so awesome to hear.

Aside from that, I've been studying Arabic again. I did this before 6 years ago, but it's like starting over. The poor teacher listening to me read to him today like I was 4 years old. But, he's a great teacher and I feel like I've learned a lot. I want to continue.

I'm scheming on that ONE LAST trip before school begins. The Middle East seems most obvious, but today Cuba came to mind. Hmmm. You never know where the wind will blow this gal. It'll be somewhere, for those of you who know me.

And finally, I went to the library to day and checked out a stackful of books and videos, more so than I have since I was probably 10 years old. I felt as thrilled today as I did then. Ah, the library. My library has just joined forces with all neighboring suburbs and the Chicago system, so if I can't find it, well, I'll have to buy it. And there is one:
http://www.amazon.com/Land-Ayatollahs-Tupac-Shakur-King/dp/0955235928

I can't wait to read it.

I'll let you know how it all goes...I hope.

Anew

I'm starting a new semester this week-18 weeks of undergrad courses to get me into Nursing school and I am excited. I can't wait for Anatomy/Physiology. I wonder what life would be like if I took the same class at 19 years old. Quite frankly, I think I would not have cared, drank a Red, White and Blue and been done with it, but now I can't get enough.

I shadowed a nurse for 2 hours this week. I would've done it for 8 hours, but there were limits for them, of course. It was great. I saw what nurses really do-a lot of which I knew already and some stuff I didn't. A lot of time putting things into a computer (well at some of the better hospitals they do charting on a computer and not writing it onto a chart and they can see what is happening in house-the EHR is wonderful in that regard), the family interaction (which is one of the reasons I want to do this so much) and seeing people in their most vulnerable and fragile state. And they trust you. Wow. Unbelievable. I'm still in, wholeheartedly still in.

Oh yeah, my physiology class came in handy too. I look forward to lots of science classes and all that. I'm going to school 2 miles from where I grew up. My friend said to me today-you went to Marquette for undergrad, UW-Madison for graduate school and here you are a few blocks from home. What if you just stayed here and had done that to begin with. My response was, "I wouldn't have got here if I didn't do that first". The response was both sincere and a little joking because it's trite-"LIFE IS A JOURNEY". When put into the context it was, I wholeheartedly agreed.

I would be lying if I said that I wish I didn't know this at 19 years old and I would have done this. But, I never would have gone abroad to school and traveled, I would have met different people, who know what life would be like for me today. That's the thing about decisions. You are always faced with them and you can choose A or B. For the most part you won't be wrong (unless there's something violent or abusive in either choice), you are just choosing a path. You cannot wonder or look back if you chose another, because you didn't. You make a choice and your life moves forward.

I'm pretty sure if you look on Amazon you can find 59 books listed at $19.99 or less that will tell you what I just did last paragraph. You are welcome.

Oh, and trust me, I have plenty of other "what if" type issues...

National Parks

I am still attempting to get through the 200 hours of Ken Burns' National Parks special. I feel inspired when I watch this, it does make me pump up my chest a little and say, OK some Americans did have a good idea and saved something truly magnificent. I also feel a little foolish that I've seen so few of them. And, I had been awed at the topography of Turkey this summer only to realize that Yellowstone had similar calcium cliffs to Pamakkule.

I'm jealous of my friends who took the few weeks or months to do that Western trip. I've been to 41 states and missing include Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming. Yet, it rarely occurs to me to visit those states but rather to look overseas and beyond these borders. I'm not ashamed by that, I've experienced the world in different ways. However, hiking in Turkey over beautiful landscapes spoke to me, reminded me that there are things I enjoy that go beyond urban living. I'm still a city girl, and when I lived in Madison, all I wanted was to get back to the city. But maybe I have realized since then that taking time to admire nature rather than human structures might give me more fulfillment than I realized.

White, Western and Rich

I have been thinking about this, and spewing in my brain for awhile, but I am disgusted that so many TV shows glorify the things "we" criticize. Sure. I'm talking about the privileged cable shows that I pay for. By "we", I mean middle/upper class white people. Am I from that background? You betcha. Was I raised to be critical of stereotypes of any kind? You betcha.

I admit, I have never watched the TLC shows I refer to...

Jon and Kate Plus 8. I really don't give a crap about them as people and I have never seen the show. but TLC picked up on a vibe, or created it, about families that have 8 kids. And they got a big house and wardrobe and vacations and we read about them in magazines-well the mom and dad. What about the 8? What's going on with them? With their show canceled, who will pay for their clothes and food? What about 18 Children and Counting? Who are these people? Well, they're white and Christian. Thank God.

Hmm, but lemme think about this. We haven't heard about it as mainstream discussion since Reagan, but remember how awful "those" girls are that have all those babies? I mean, they are SO irresponsible. Just in class the other day, someone brought up the court mandated birth control to make sure women who couldn't afford it couldn't have kids. Did Jon and Kate have the funds? Is the TV show the way to pay for it? What African American single mother with children has a dedicated show? Do Jon or Kate have a job? OK, we did not give the Octamom any slack...

Meanwhile, we watch a show like Man vs. Food in the US. Each episode, the host eats exorbitant amounts of food. Tonight, I watched him eat 1.5 lbs. of meat and bread and 6 lbs. of milkshake. This show repeats again and again. People are cheering him on to finish his meals in under an hour. Do you know many people would dream of 7 lbs. of food intake in a week, a month? Disgusting. Do I eat more than the rest of the world? Yes, but this is gluttony and I'm not all about the 7 deadly sins and all that hooey.

Finally, I have been watching the cooking shows. I admit, I think they're fun. I think generally chefs are pretty lefty and open minded, but let's face it...it's gluttonous. How wonderful that you have $2000 for "this one meal challenge" that would feed a village or two this month.

Yeah, so how much money do I pay for cable to watch (or have the ability to watch) these shows? Enough to feed a village for a week or more...

When I travel, I try to downplay my Americanness because of stuff like this, but the truth is, I am from privilege compared to the world, I was born in a good place to be a woman. I'm not all about guilt, but we as a society are walking a fine line between what we criticize in others and what we glorify in ourselves.

ruminatin', not good?

As the first half of first semester of prereq's is over, the word "ruminating" has gotten frowns from my psych professor. Apparently, this is what anxious people do, they think about things over and over again and can't dispel the thoughts. Well, that may be partly true for me, but that's not the idea here-it's spilling up the guts (although I have done a fairly lousy job of that since this whole thing started). I have terrible sleep anxiety, I don't want to go to bed because I know that the rumination will happen as I try to fall asleep. I've had this since I was a little girl. In my adult life, melatonin (not to be confused with melanin which helps bronze your ass) has gotten me through this. But, I digress...

What's my point? None, I'm not thinking about things. Oh, I totally lie. I think about Turkey constantly. I think about skeletal bones all.the.time and most recently-while doing yardwork today all I could think about were the words, obdurator foramen.

Um, so what's the subject here? Maybe my name should be mo regurgitatin' but I bet that's a whole other issue my psych prof would want to deal with...

Cambodia

I watched last Sunday's Amazing Race-yeah, I know-I could do better (snobbery) and I was appalled that no one could pronounce Phnom Pehn correctly, or that the Killing Fields still doesn't get brought up, even though genocide there was happening in the 70s and we never learned about it because it was an ugly Vietnam stepsister (and the US flamed the fire). I've been there because it was a place I've always wanted to go-not because of Angkor Wat, which is incredible, but because of the movie "The Killing Fields" from the 1980s and because when I grew up, "Cambodian boat people" came to my school and because I remember seeing the distended bellys of young children, but having NO concept where Cambodia was in the 1970s...Africa-Ethiopia (I do want to go there).

So, yudos to Amazing Race to try to pump so dollars into a REALLY poor economy, but they've been there 2 seasons in a row with NO acknowledgment of the issues and the fact that the Khmer Rouge are slowing gaining a little bit again.

Delay

Well, I sort of failed at this blog stuff. I will write more later, I will...!