a place for me to write what I’m thinking
I pre-registered for fall classes. I will be taking Personnel Management and Microeconomics. I am quite excited about the Econ class, because I have so enjoyed the blog Marginal Revolution (linked at right), written by two economists with occasional guest bloggers.
This summer, I will take Organizational Communications. The final is the day before my niece’s wedding, so I’ll either need to take it early or skip the wedding. I hope the instructor will let me take it early.
Apparently, the potty gods smile on you when you volunteer to change diapers, rather than doing it only because it’s required. Not a single dirty diaper, and I’m getting more efficient, so I even had time to go outside and play with the kids when I was done.
According to the symptoms described at this page on foot.com I probably have inflamed achilles tendons. Yes, plural, because both of them are extremely painful. This hit my mother when she was about my age, I think, and now she’s being treated for a torn tendon (though not the achilles) in her foot.
I wonder if I’ll be able to buy a heel cup and a good arch support at Walmart? Maybe I’ll need to go to Walgreen’s, instead.
In any case, the pain is significantly less with activity and much, much worse first thing in the morning. Nothing like stabbing pain in the back of your ankle to get you going at 5:15 am!
Is there a need in the blogosphere for members of the Disaffected Mormon Underground to gang-post about our experiences with the church in a non-confrontational way, that will treat the believing Saints with respect, while at the same time not apologizing for our own lack of belief? Would anybody want to read such a thing? What would the writers write about? How could it keep from turning into the rant of the minute club?
I’ve got a great title in mind: “Behold the Fruits of Sin!” That’s sarcasm.
Probably would never work.
My feet hurt. It starts in my heels, and shoots up into my Achilles tendons. It’s because I’m Working Hard, at a job that requires me to be on my feet most of the day. I am a very Large Woman. My feet are not used to supporting my weight all day long. Mrs. Cheryl tells me that I can buy heel inserts at Wal-Mart that will make a huge positive impact on the problem. I will do so this weekend.
(Line from the joke Twenty things you’ll never hear a Southerner say: “I just couldn’t find a thing I needed at Wal-Mart.”)
One of the more charming customs I’ve found here in New Orleans (and maybe it’s not just a Louisiana thing, but a Southern thing) is the addressing of familiar adults by a title, and their given names. The teachers at Small Son’s school are Mrs. Cheryl, Mrs. Roz, Ms. Keisha, and Mrs. Daniels (whose either dislikes the custom, or whose given name is too difficult for small children, even small children with names like Mikayla, Mykonnen, and Jalashawn). Our next door neighbors are Mr. Joe and Miss Jan. Most women are honored with “Miss,” even if they are married and in their 80’s. I first became familiar with the custom when a guy I worked with kept calling me “Miss Ann.”
I think it’s a charming combination of familiarity and respect. I think it’s not unlike the old Mormon custom of calling people “Sister Ann” and “Sister Lawanna,” which contains not only the intimacy of family in both the use of “Sister” and the given name, but the formality of defining the relationship before God. Much better than the current LDS style of “Brother and Sister Porter,” or using a freaking title for everybody.
So, Dave, is that enough Mormon content to keep my blog linked? I’m sweating bullets here, man…
I started working at Small Son’s “school” yesterday. It’s a child care center affiliated with the university where my DH works. It’s a historically Black school, and most of the other children are African-American, as is all the staff (except me). Yesterday and today, I worked with the toddler class. They have 17 children in this class, aged 22 months through early three year-olds. There were three of us in this class, and two in the pre-K class, which is my son’s age group (threes and fours).
It is very hard work. I am a desk jockey. I sit at a computer and do stuff all day. I don’t lift, carry, haul, clean, or run. But that’s what I do at this job. What a change of pace!
It is also a whole lot of fun. I play all day! Well, except for changing diapers (yuck) and supervising meals. This afternoon, I played outside for an hour, from 3:30 until 4:30. They have wonderful play equipment for a facility in the middle of a pretty crappy neighborhood, in a big back yard play space. The little kids do lots of free play. I had a wonderful time.
I probably wouldn’t do it for free, and the pay is pretty lousy, but I get free day care while I’m working there. My unemployment ran out on 04/03, so this is bridging a gap. I’m pleasantly surprised that I’m enjoying it as much as I am. And it’s only for two weeks, so even if I start disliking it, I can handle it until the assignment is up.
I think it’s interesting that I’m actually not qualified to fill this job. It requires an AA in Early Childhood Education.
I had worried that my whiteness might be a problem. In the past, the staff has been very deferential to me, and that bothered me somewhat. But now that I’m low man on the totem pole, I get stuck changing diapers more than they do, so I don’t think I need to worry about being “deferred to.”
On April 4 (04/04/04) my computer became infected with a virus. Not sure if it was at 04:04 a.m. or not. The form this virus took was to hijack our home pages and send them to the website findjizz dot com. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds. It did not differentiate among the different users; my 17 year-old was directed there, as were my four year-old, my husband, and me.
I ran Spybot Search and Destroy. It found many problems, but did not get rid of the virus. Adaware found things that Spybot did not, but it, also, did not get rid of the virus. Norton Anti-Virus did not detect the virus. A visit to the web site computercops.biz gave a tantalizing hint: “Delete the file winlogon.exe from \documents and settings\all users.” This file does not belong there, and I deleted it. But it didn’t help.
After several hours of fruitless running of spyware programs, I baked a pie. I then returned to the project with renewed dedication. I was not done! If my 17 year-old wants to look at graphic porn, he can do it in secret, like other guys his age!
I booted in safe mode, then ran Norton (again) and Adaware (again). I then ran Spybot for each user. I ran Hijack This! for each user and cleaned out just a few things (not much was there in safe mode). I deleted software I’m no longer using, and even removed my treasured Google Toolbar, which blocks so many ugly popups. Then, I restarted. The problem recurred. I knew that I had cleaned out everything the software was going to be able to find on its own. I looked carefully at Hijack This! and saw a cmd.exe running on startup. Could this be it? I found the file, and it was hiding in the “All Users” Startup group. I deleted it. I rebooted.
It worked! I’m clean! I practically danced into the family room. I am still patting myself on the back. What a joyous thing! I have validated myself as a nerd. I’m not just a nerd. I’m a nerd warrior! Viruses tremble before me!
That’s why I didn’t do any writing yesterday.
I got lost in the internet today. I had done a google search yesterday on “gay agenda” and found a great entry in the blog “Just Write.” I went there (it’s linked) and started reading and lost an hour or so. Tonight, I was reading A Penny For… and wandered into Worthwhile (linked) and Fast Company (linked). I did do some stuff for the French version of the GED, but truth be told, I accomplished little.
As I was wandering back to take a shower this morning, I gave some thought to what I contribute here at home. And it ain’t much. In the almost-seven years we’ve been married, I’ve only worked full time for about three; the rest of the time has been part-time or (the last six months) unemployed entirely. And for none of those three years did I actually go to a workplace for an eight hour day, every day, five days per week. I worked at home some of the time, and did a consulting gig for a couple of years where my only commute was to the office in my basement or living room.
I’ll be glad to be working next week (and the week after), even if it’s a difficult job with severe yuckiness (diapers…shudder…) and lousy pay. Because I need to do a better job holding up my end.
I think it was a good couple of days. I even was able to read some blogs and post some things. But I got other stuff done, too. Maybe I will try to make it a habit.
My unemployment ran out Sunday, so I’ve officially become desperate. And lo, a very strange opportunity presents itself. I am going to substitute at my little boy’s pre-school for two weeks starting next Monday. In addition to being paid (probably not much more than minimum wage, but whatever…) he can attend “school” for free those two weeks.
In a more normal job outing, I have a second interview with a company I interviewed with last year, before Thanksgiving. They did not fill the position at the time, and now they are moving forward with hiring again. This is a Good Job. Good pay, paid parking downtown and paid health insurance. The latter is a huge thing for us; we pay several hundreds of dollars each month to insure me. It would be very good not to have to do that.
I also went to a temp service today and “signed up.” I still need to take Word and Excel tests (maybe I should just send them the link to my exam scores), and I probably won’t have anything to do before next week.
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