Christmas

Bah. Humbug.


I think Gage said it best in the comment on my last post. For me the best part of this Christmas is remembering last Christmas and spending the time in chairs next to Aud's hospital bed. I slept poor, I ate poorer, and our apartment became a cesspool. (note: not because Aud's the only one that cleans it, because the skunk was the only one in it to do anything at all most of the time).

This Christmas, we were both off of school, I attending and Aud teaching. Grades came in, as did a blizzard, and we just hung out, watched period comedies and Shakespeare movies. I'm really not THAT cultured, it just seemed to be what were were in the mood for. I cooked, we ate, and we speculated when it might actually stop snowing.

We got about a foot of snow, and lots and lots of ice. Other parts of Portland got twice as much. This is not a big deal to people from colder parts of the country, but bear in mind that Portland has no snow removal plan or infrastructure, so it was quite paralyzing. Most of my work hours were taken up with shoveling snow and clearing the property. In fact, all of my office hours this last week were pre-empted with snow clearing. It didn't matter, since no one is coming by to see the manager when they can scarcely get out of their own driveway. The skunks have loved having mom and dad home for over a week solid, though it's wintertime and they're spending more daytime sleeping... except when Tobias thinks he can wrangle food out of us, though Aroma doesn't care much.

All in all, we didn't do a lot for Christmas, and we didn't want to. I wanted to hang out with my wife and family, and see some friends. Most of my friends are busy with their own spouses and families, but 2 out of 3 isn't bad! I just have started to hate the retail aspect of the holiday, and I get a little tired of some of the cheesier religious aspects, so having a Christmas on our own terms has been a relief, and a welcome change.

Happy holidays to you, friend.

Thanksgiving.

So I cooked Thanksgiving dinner.

It was fun, I didn't do anything fancy. I got a young fresh turkey, and stuffed it with a traditional stuffing recipe. I made potatoes, bought some rolls, made gravy from the drippings, and made a pie from scratch. I made a simple pate brisée dough and snagged a recipe for pie filling. It was good, in the future I don't think I'll pre-bake the pie crust. It dried out a little more than I'd like.

I've made roast turkey before, so I wasn't afraid. The gravy turned out super good, though. I think it's because I layered bacon on the turkey while it roasted (not to eat, of course), and then had chopped onions in the drippings pan, so the turkey drippings and bacon drippings got freaky-deaky with the onions and resulted in a magnificent passport to deliciousness.

Grad school is not what I thought it would be.

I am never one for preconceived notions, preferring to let things be what they are. But it's impossible sometimes to not have a hope or an ideal. I guess it would be inaccurate to say I'm disappointed with graduate school, it's just not what I hoped it would be. There are many things to chalk this up to, the largest being that I'm in a brand new program, and my cohort is only the second to begin the program, but nevertheless, I'd be lying if I said there wasn't some disappointment.

First, the classes are still large (my smallest is about 25 other students, largest clocks in around 60). This pretty much returns me to the old undergrad days of observing a fractured discussion because nobody in a class that large wants to be monopolizing the conversation. It also means that people lag behind.

Second, it's easy The hardest part of grad school is managing work, family, and school... not the school work itself. I read articles, I write about them, I design lesson plans, I do projects, and none of it is much of a brain buster. My last year or two of college were challenging, but school has always been easy. I wish it were harder, because I don't like being bored.

Lastly, while all of my professors have copious amounts of teaching experience and school administration, making them experts in their field, many of them are teaching adults for the first time. It shows.

Did nothing change?

I watched the vice presidential "debate" last night online after I got home from class.

Are. You. Kidding. Me?

What a pathetic excuse for anything. They should have just had them record 10 minute commercials with easily accessible sound bites. The whole thing came off pathetically rehearsed, woefully short on actual information, actual plans or positions on issues were mostly absent beyond soundbite moralizing. Example, the war in Iraq (anyone actually remember we're at war?)

Biden's words:

"Barack Obama offered a clear plan. Shift responsibility to Iraqis over the next 16 months. Draw down our combat troops,"

This is vague, broad, general, and basically... a piss poor excuse for a "plan". I feel hesitant to call it a plan, until you contrast it with the other party in the debate.

That would be Sarah Palin, who, when asked to outline her ticket's plan for Iraq said:

"I know that the other ticket opposed this surge, in fact, even opposed funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Barack Obama voted against funding troops there after promising that he would not do so,"

This is, basically, no plan at all, choosing instead to attack your opponent's record. If you go to factcheck.org, you'll see that this attack was even innacurate and misleading, Obama opposed one funding bill in support of different funding bill for the millitary. McCain, by the way, opposed that funding bill, so by the same definitions and reasoning, McCain has also voted against funding our troops.

So that's the election in a nutshell, folks. Questionable ideas versus no ideas at all. And once again we're reduced to choosing the evil of two lessers. I get why people choose their candidates. I even get why the candidates themselves spew that crap: we let them. Actually stating a definitive position on an issue makes you vulnerable to attack. I just don't understand why we put up with this crap and drivel. It's insulting to anyone with an IQ over 70. It's insulting to call yourself a "maverick" when you've voted in step with the administration of the last 8 years. It's insulting to repeatedly make promises of change with little to no actual statements of how you're going to change it.

I can't respect you, John McCain, you used to have some guts, now the same sad sacks who ran Bush appear to be running you. You're saying the exact same things he's been saying for 8 years, and I'm supposed to believe when you say that you'll be different? How stupid do you think I am?

I have a hard time respecting you, Barack Obama, because while you are saying things I can believe in, belief doesn't run a government. Policy does. Vague generalized statements don't bring change, plans do. Organized intelligent plans with capable leadership bring change. Obviously I like you and I guess you've got my vote, but I have doubts you can actually do anything you're saying. But at this point I think anything other than 4 more years of the same crap we've had for the last 8 would be better.

So yeah, I get it. You like your babies unaborted, want your guns, and think that wearing a flag pin and "supporting the troops" means you have to vote Republican. Or you think that any big business is out to exploit and harm the poor, or that it's the government's job to right any ill in our society, or you think that illegal immigrants are just oppressed people who are only here to work and find the American dream and that all means that you have to vote Democrat. Go for it.

Contrast in extremes and sensetivity

So, I was thinking about a conversation that I had once with a colleague when I was a social worker, and we talked about how that when you see horrific things people do to themselves and each other, you can obviously get a little desensitized. You have to, to be able to help people get past them, because a certain part of recovery is desensitization to the event. This is what most people call "getting over it". What was interesting is that even though we have seen and heard incredible things, we all had pet peeves among things we saw or were exposed to, that still effected us. What was interesting is that it wasn't things that we'd commonly expect. This topic was opened up to more people from my team at a lunch, and the trend continued. You'd expect obvious things like spousal abuse or drug addiction to be the pet peeves, but it wasn't the case. We also rarely saw any cases of child abuse, and when we did, we were on the phone to police and social services toot sweet (no messing around on that one), so that one didn't come up as much as you thought.

Instead, it was things like:

• People who choose not to clean. (I emphasize choose, not "be too ill to")
• People who talk and talk and talk about going to meetings, and talk about needing to change, but don't ever actually try.
• Video poker. There is some kind of wierd underground corellation between video poker in Oregon and meth addicts. I wish I knew what it was.
• County employees who can't return a phone call. There is some kind of county policy in place that you are not allowed to return phone or email messages.

As it turned out, and it surprised me a little, mine was animal abuse. Every now and then there were random occurances of it, and it royally pissed me off every time I was exposed to it. It only amplified when we got the skunks. I think for me, it's the knowledge that an animal is completely reliant on its owner and has no higher brain function. An animal can't ask for help, doesn't understand, and if you haven't bothered to train it or raise it right, it doesn't know any better. I guess it hits the same nerve for me that child abuse hits. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be a vegetarian or join PETA anytime soon, but I also know the difference between running a slaughterhouse and sadism ( http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/09/16/abused.pigs.ap/index.html ) I also know that there's a statistically high correlation between those that abuse animals and those that commit violent acts on people, to the point that it's a major red flag when it occurs in children.

So anyway. What's the point? There isn't one I guess. I just like animals, that's all.

I guess growing up in fairly middle class suburbia in the Pacific Northwest, I got the typical “You WILL go to college and become successful!” indoctrination as I grew up. I went to college, did the suit and nametag thing for two years, and dropped out. I went to work for a small software company doing bug testing and content for a company that made ESL teaching software. It was okay as entry level jobs go, but the company treated its bottom level employees like dirt, which I always thought was strange for a small company (only about 40 employees). I left that job to work at Novell, which treated their employees incredibly, with onsite banking, a subsidized cafeteria, great offices, and was right across from a golf course. Everyone working at Novell during the .com crash era walked around with this permanent shell-shocked look on their face, expecting layoffs around any corner. When mine came, I finally decided to go back to school, accomplishing the Tommy Boy plan of getting my bachelor’s in 8 years.

I graduated, moved home with nothing in my pocket (fortunately, no student loans either, though). I got a job in my field of expertise, mental health. I worked in adolescent addictions, then corrections addictions, and finally case management in acute community mental health. People have heard plenty of my war stories about the highs and lows of working with the severely mentally ill. While I loved my jobs (still do), and I love the field, it’s a really bad industry to be in, at least out on the west coast. Companies are unstable at best and corrupt at worst, and the governmental agencies involved are inept and bloated. It’s a really broken system, and too volatile to depend on for a career.

So here I am about to go to grad school to make a career change. I’ve always enjoyed teaching, whether it was teaching missionaries Japanese or teaching groups in rehab or prison, so teaching high school didn’t seem like a huge leap, and something I could find rewarding. I realized when I did the thinking about making this move that I was doing it for these basic reasons:

1 – Job stability.
As a teacher, once you have tenure, I’d basically have to do drugs with or have sex with a student to lose my job. This appeals, as I’ve spent a good chunk of time in some pretty volatile industries.
2- Pay.
If I keep teaching, I will get paid more. I’ve never been huge on money. I like to travel, but I like to do it on the cheap. I’ve figured having an income in the 50-60k range would be alright as long as the cost of living wasn’t too high in my area of residence.
3- Enjoyment
I would enjoy what I do on a day to day basis. I don’t think anyone is happy all the time in their job. The two guys I know who “made it” to the NFL hated their “job”. There’s always something that we don’t like about our jobs. I know there will be things I don’t like about teaching, but the basic premise of discovery and learning and helping people through the learning process is something I’ve always loved.

That got me thinking again about the educational process, and the push in America to “go to college and become a success!”, and we’re fed a bunch of statistics about how people with college degrees make more in their lifetimes. I think perhaps those results are skewed, though. It doesn’t take into account how much you owe, as nearly everyone with an advanced degree is carrying 30k-120k in loan debt. You also have a statistically smaller sample size, with the bulk of the wealth in America concentrated in it. Sure I have a degree, but Mark Cuban’s billions are being averaged with mine, it makes my income look a lot more respectable than it is. I think if you’re going to college because you think that’s what you need to do to become successful, you’re making a mistake.

If your goal is to make money and support your family, I think a person’s initiative and intelligence will carry them a lot further than a BA in English will. Do you know how much a commercial electrician makes? Lots! A trim carpenter? Tons! A certified HVAC technician makes a heck of a lot more than I ever will, and they don’t even need a high school diploma!

Obviously, a degree is worth something and working to better one’s self is important, but I wonder when it was that we, as a society, stopped valuing actual work. Economically we sure as heck haven’t stopped valuing blue collar work (have you gotten your car repaired lately?). But somehow you’d be viewed as an underachiever if you went in to your guidance councilor and said “I wanna be an auto mechanic”, like it’s something that only dropouts go and do. Granted, we’ve all met some pretty stupid mechanics or drywall guys or whatever, but on the other hand, if you were someone who could read, write, communicate well, and actually responsibly keep a schedule, do you know how much of a killing you could make as a contractor? I’ve occasionally thought about just chucking the whole school thing and starting a contracting company (the motto: “We actually return a phone call and show up when we say we’re going to”)

I’m going into teaching because I’d enjoy what I do on a day to day basis, and I could pay the bills and hopefully someday buy a house. Most of the rest of my life goals lie outside of things that take money to do. Obviously I could come up with ways to spend a million bucks easily, I’m not Gandhi. But I guess one thing I missed when I was growing up was perspective. To understand why I’m doing what I do, and how the choices I make affect my ability to do what I wish. Now that I have a decent amount of it, I guess that makes me a grownup now. Who would have thought it of me?

Chrysalis

So, went to a friend's wedding this weekend. It was tons of fun, a joyous occasion, a celebration of love. It was also a chance to spend time with some dear friends whom I haven't gotten to see much of. Going to our friend Michelle's wedding meant getting to pal around Seattle with Emily and Paul, which resulted in nice long talks and periods of reflection. About who we are, who we were, what has changed, what hasn't. How we've been bridging the gap between becoming... and being. If you're one of my Portland friends, chances are you know some of the story. We were a merry band of misfits and artists, and we came together in a spirit of connection and camaraderie. We all went to the same church, which afforded us ample fodder for discussion, as well as easy outlets for social interaction.

Time passed.
Some of us got married (guilty).
Some of us got careers.
Some of us went and pursued additional education.
Some of us fled the country, in search of enlightenment, truth, or in search of Self.
Some of us found their lifestyle or beliefs incompatible with the religion we all shared, and don't go to the church we once all went to, and have found other outlets for spiritual discovery.

So we were essentially flung to the four corners of the earth, or at least across a few states in this country. Some of us, most of us really, aren't as close as we used to be. This, as they say, is life. But going to Michelle's wedding with Paul and Emily brought together a cross section from our group of friends and got me to think about what's passed. As I am prone to do, I think many things about us and our various lifestyles and situations, but I think for once I'll put a few of these thoughts out there.

I realized that I don't particularly care so much about what people do, as long as they're being authentic and genuine with who they are and what they want. Michelle cut off contact with us for a long time. She did it in order to find herself and do what she needed to do to become the person she is now. I understood it then, I get it now, and while I was sad for a time that talking to Meesh was not going to be possible, I don't begrudge her the necessity of it. I got married during that time. I remembered on the drive up to Seattle that because of the circumstances of our lives, Meesh wasn't able to be there. Of course, Meesh brought this up at her rehearsal dinner with a certain degree of regret and sorrow. I don't regret it in the slightest, and I told her so. I fumbled about trying to explain why, and while I got my point across, I think I can say it a little more eloquently now.

We are, all of us, bridging the gap between becoming and being. This takes many forms. And while I don't agree with many decisions my friends make, I don't agree with all of the decisions I even make for myself, so how could I hold it against them? I don't begrudge the caterpillar it's cocoon, it has to have it to become a butterfly. I don't begrudge Paul leaving the church any more than I do Emily going to India, as long as the end result is authentic. Even our mistakes are necessary. I don't regret some of the stupider dating choices I've made, because if I hadn't made them, I couldn't be where I'm at now, in love and married. I celebrate the choices Meesh has made because spending time with her I saw a lot happier, peaceful, content, genuine Michelle than I ever saw when she was going to the same church as me and dating my gender. I've pretty much always felt this way about most things that people do. I tend to have problems when people say one thing, and do another (guilty). I tend to have problems when people make lifestyle choices that aren't about exploring and connecting to themselves, but doing something different because they think it'll make them happy.

If you're not happy and fulfilled now, getting married isn't going to make you happier. If you don't have a good marriage now, having kids isn't going to fix it. If you're lost and uncertain about your sexuality, going to a church to have them tell you what to do isn't going to help you find your way. I personally don't care what you do, as long as it's what you feel you must do to get to where you want to go. If you're my friend, it's because I think enough of who you are that I'm interested in what roads you take, where you're going, and what you think about it. I mean think about it. None of us are where we were 5 years ago when we all met. While we're all in vastly different places, physically, spiritually, and otherwise, I think it's pretty safe to say just about all of us are happier. That's not bad.

New Skunk!

We adopted a skunk from a close friend of ours who is moving out of the country. Her name is Aroma. She's a very pretty skunk.
So it's been a fun adjustment for all of us. Tobias has NOT enjoyed bringing another skunk into his territory, even if it's a pretty girl skunk. He spent a lot of time in his hidey hole under the bathroom sink sulking. Aroma has taken up residence under the living room couch. When mealtime rolls around, Aroma is obviously used to eating with other skunks, Toby is not. She completely kicked his ass the first couple times we've fed them, despite being quite a bit smaller than Tobias. She'll just body check him out of the way and then stand on top of the food and eat what's between her feet. We've had to separate them at meal times. Toby has caught on to her game, though, and now when we're preparing food, it's a skunk frenzy at our feet, stomping and snorting over who gets to be the next to beg. I can no longer eat snacks at my desk, they tussle under my chair.
So now Aroma has gotten used to us a bit, she's moved upstairs and taken residence in the office closet. Toby, not to be outdone, then claimed her spot for his own, to which Aroma responded by walking away and taking Toby's place under the sink. They really seem to have a "I want what YOU have!" thing going on. When Toby comes to bed for snuggle time, Aroma will come and climb up on the bed and sniff around. She will occasionally want to be picked up but isn't sleeping with us yet. I'm hopeful for the future though. Last night when we came home we found them both under the sink, curled up on opposite sides of the cabinet. Then again, Tobias has greatly increase his acting out and naughty behavior, acting very much the resentful only child. So time will tell.

Gas prices.

They need to make those "Truth" commercials for the gas companies.

I don't know how to summarize what's been going on. Things at work have been gradually declining for the last 6 months, getting hairier and nastier. About 6 weeks ago the COO was fired, well known to be the CEO's chief axeman (axewoman, as the case may be). Without any buffers between the board and the CEO, a lot of the scummier rumors as to some of the corporate mismanagement were proved to be true. About four weeks ago the CEO "resigned" (actual conditions of leaving the company uncertain, rumors abound). A week after that it turns out we were days from bankruptcy. Our company told us none of this until after it was in the papers and on the news.

Then things at work really started to change. We had two teams of 9 clinicians on each team covering 200ish clients. One clinician left a bit before this started, finding greener pastures. Then the company fired three clinicians on the other team for unknown reasons, whispers of productivity quotas were going around. Then the supervisor and assistant supervisor from the other team left as well. Since they were down to 3 people, they compressed the two teams into one. All our caseloads, already full, went up by 50%, few of them with Medicare-compliant case files. We have had little choice but to keep plugging away. Every day we check our email hoping for some news or some kind of leadership or direction, and each day, nada. We'll probably find out the ship's finally sunk on the news.

So our company defaulted on a 2 million dollar loan back in January (again, no one knew till we read it in the papers). The county and state bailed the company out and loaned the company an additional 2.5 million dollars two weeks later to keep the company afloat. That money should probably last until the end of the month, after which who knows. The county and state didn't really have a choice, since this company serves about 20,000 of the city's mentally ill, the vast majority of whom would suddenly be without services. So they really didn't have a choice but to keep this company afloat, and have since taken over the finances and are (reportedly) desperately trying to divvy out the various programs and sites to other mental healthcare providers, none of whom are large enough, or foolish enough to take on contracts that don't pay enough to keep a company afloat.

So this week our program director resigned as well. That pretty much leaves my supervisor running the program I work for, with a suitcase load of promises that she'll get the support she needs, trying to cover two team's worth of people with one team. History has shown that promises of the corporate side of our company to be pretty worthless.

It's funny being in the middle of this situation. Our company was blatantly and unprofessionally mismanaged and deserves to be razed and sewn under with salt. Amusingly enough, the clowns who perpetrated this disaster have secured themselves a golden parachute and will be working somewhere else a few months from now. We're left trying to hold things together with spit and baling wire. My situation is unique, with my future in a new career already lined up. Whatever happens here, I'm fine and good and okay, which is the main reason why I'm not emotionally attached to the outcome. If this were my career here, I'd be close to going postal. It's pretty grim at work, but we're all working as hard as humanly possible, hoping something comes together for the clients.

Why do we stay? Various reasons I suppose. Some people are pretty codependent on their job, some don't have any other employment options. Mostly we stay for the clients. We were entrusted with the care of these people, many of whom are pretty vulnerable, and if we weren't here, it just wouldn't happen. So some of us are sticking to see this through.

So here's the thing.

Procrastination takes on a life of it's own. And when it comes to my blog it becomes this sort of cyber still life where events are frozen in time and it'll always be August 7th, or July 23rd if you want it to be.

Obviously life does not get a pause button as well. So while my blog has stayed frozen in time, time has goose stepped on whether I liked it or not. And unfortunately most of my thoughts have been rooted in the day to day grind and not blog fodder. So... yeah.

My company appears to be going down the tubes. You can read about it here:
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=120959946472928400
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1209527715247440.xml&coll=7
http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/04/county_scrambles_to_cover_as_m.html

Looks like we'll be open tomorrow though, and hopefully there will be paychecks. Make no mistake about it, work has been a holy nightmare over the last month, and on a consistant downhill trend for months before that.

And yet despite the hurricane, I'm as cool as a cucumber. Why, you may ask. Aside from my typically stoic nature, I'm fairly detached from the proceedings, because I came to the conclusion a few months back that mental health was not a good career field for me (an opinion that has obviously been vindicated through recent events). Too dependant on political whim or vulnerable to mismanagment, too fiscally unviable; not so much my pay, as the industry as a whole. So I looked at what I liked, what I wanted, and I applied to graduate school.

And I got in.

This fall I will be attending Marylhurst University and getting my Master's in teaching. Like Aud, I'm going to be a high school teacher. Not too surprising... we were working in the same field when we got together and now that similarity will continue. I'm excited for a new beginning and a career in teaching. So like the cockroach, with disaster falling all around me, I have found a place to scurry and forge on. Huzzah! So there it is, faithful reader. My life has been a rollercoaster not unlike this post. Still, while I could definitely be less stressed, I couldn't be happier. Like Bob Marley sang, "Every little thing's gonna be alright!" More on the how's and why's later.

Did you know...

Did you know, the most common hallucination is an olfactory one?