Update from Samoa

I found this old email, and thought that I would pass it along as an update to my time in Samoa.  A sister of my Samoan mother wrote me to let me know that my Samoan grandmother, Fetu, passed away.  Although she was never officially diagnosed, Fetu suffered from Alzheimer's and was cared for at home by my Samoan family.

Hi There Kimberely,


My name is Tui Filemoni I am one of many daughter in-laws of Fetu. I was asked by Talosia Sini in Nuusuatia to get in contact with you to inform you of the family's sad loss of Fetu. Who sadly passed away in Samoa on the 11 January 2008. Talosia sends her sincere apologise for not being able to get in contact with you sooner, and also asked to send her love onto you. I do apologise myself for being the one to inform you of our mum, but am pleased my sister Talosia has asked me to do this for her as she expressed you had deep love for our mum. I am in contact with Talosia quite alot so if you wish for me to relay any message to her and the family back in Samoa, please do so, would love to repay the favor for you.


Many best wishes from the Fetu Filemoni family


Tui Filemoni


Dear Tui,

Thank you so much for writing. I was so sorry to hear that Fetu passed way. I actually work at a hospital and we get a lot of elderly patients, most of which have Alheimers like Fetu had. For these poor people, they live in nursing homes and they have no one to care for them. When they come to the hospital they are very confused, and many of them are screaming for help. I try to help them, but I know that what they really need is to be at home in a familiar place with people who love them.

And then I think of Fetu. I am pretty sure that she also had Alheimers, but unlike the poor, lost, scared souls at the hospital she was at home, and she was with people who loved her dearly, and that made me so happy. She was such a lucky person to have so much love in her life. Many times people with Alheimers will become confused-- they will swear, and hit-- but this is just the disease. When I think of Fetu lying in her fale, tapping the floor, singing and saying prayers, it always makes me smile and feel glad that she was able to have so much support for such a terrible disease. I remember that I would teach Anne songs on a flute and after hearing them a few times, Fetu would be singing and tapping away with us.

I know that it must have been so difficult for Talosia to care for her mother when her mother was so different, and I hope that Talosia knows that it was the disease that made her mother do strange things. But when I work with people who have the same sickness here, in America, I always wish for them what Fetu had. I wish for them that their families would show even a little of the care and respect that Fetu's family gave her. That is something that I always remember when I think back to Samoa and to my family in Niusuatia-- the love and devotion that is shown to each other-- even to me, a stranger. So although I am very sad that she died, it always makes me so happy to know that Fetu had so much love at a time when she needed it the most.

Please tell Talosia that I am living in Iowa, and that I am studying to be a nurse. This may sound a little crazy, but I think that I started thinking about being a nurse when Angel got sick right when I first got to Samoa. She was so hot, so sick. I guess that something like that is normal in a country like Samoa, but for me I had never seen a child so sick and it made me scared. I went to Apia and found some children's fever medication, and the next day when I got back from school Angel ran out of the house and threw herself into my arms, not a trace of fever left. Ever since then I always felt that I wanted to help children everywhere get better. I am going to a school in Sioux City, Iowa called St. Luke's College, and to pay for school I work as a nursing assistant at St. Luke's Hospital. It's a Methodist hospital. :) I have about a year and a half left, then a few years working in the states before I travel again.

After I left Samoa I went to Yemen, then Thailand. It was so hard to leave Samoa, but it was something that I had to do. I felt bad that I left so quickly, but I was offered a job that needed me right away. I am glad that I have had the chance to travel so much, but everywhere that I have been I have never found anyone who cared about me so much as my family in Niusuatia.

Tima

PS:
Did you know that you can see Talosia's house on Googlemaps?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=samoa&ie=UTF8&ll=-13.983696,-171.838735&spn=0.002415,0.00346&t=h&z=18

Nursing School: Check!!

My and my Dummy, who was my patient stand-in and helped my pass the CPNE. He is happy to return to his former job as my PJ's, a ski-mask from my Iowa days, and a few pillows.

Note: this blog entry could alternatively be titled "Jodi K can kiss my ass."  Yeah, you know what I be talkin' about.

Despite trials, tribulations, tears, and transfers I have finally completed nursing school, yes, about 6 months late.  8 months late if you include the obscene amount of time that they make you wait for your actual graduation date.  Anyway, you can read about the final test that I had to take to achieve this milestone here.  Basically, this was a hellish weekend in Albany, NY (no, not Albany OR, and yes, there is an Albany, OR) where I had to perform at my highest standards.  To pass this test you have to:

1. Complete for simulated lab stations: IV push, wound dressing, IV drip, SubQ/IM injection
2. Real-life "Patient Care Scenarios" where you have to provide care under the very watchful eyes of an instructor.

On each of these, you can fail once.  Most people fail for little things.  But really, this is an easy exam.  If you had to walk across the street at any time of your choosing and just do it for $25, then this exam would be a joke.  When you have to wait 4-6 months for a test date and need to cough up $2500 for the test, plane ticket, and lodgings, it becomes a little bigger of a deal.  And it's generally the only think that stands between you and the RN.  So I will just say that I was feeling pretty fuckin' good when I passed that.  I told everyone at Starbucks and killed my phone battery.

Today, I am suffering from post-CPNE syndrome.  I wake up panicked before I realize that I don't have to take the CPNE again.  I start to get restless if I don't check the CPNE bulletin boards after about a day.  I need to double check with my college to make sure that I really passed it.  The real scary thing was that after I got back from the CPNE, my body totally went to shit.  I was sick for a week.  My periods, which had been absent for about three months, suddenly came back with an angry vengeance.  It was all this that made me realize just what my body can do for me.

The good think about the CPNE is that it makes the NCLEX look like a pathetic joke in comparison.  Onwards!!

Old Friends, new friends?

(Kloro, it would be good to catch up, send me your email, you should be able to email me though my profile...)

My good friend Dylan suprised me with a visit yesterday, and we wandered around my 'hood a bit, got some Thai, et cetera.  It was good to see him again, and he asked me about Portland.  I had actually just been talking about that subject with one of my Portland friends... ahem, let me restate that, my ONLY Portland friend the night before.

Dylan asked me how I was liking Portland and I said that I liked it fine, however I have not been terribly sucessful is making friends.  Talking with Dylan made be realize just how much easier it was to make friends when I was younger-- why is that?  Have I changed, or have the people around me changed?

When I was younger, like when I was at Apple or Microsoft, I felt that I had a good number of friends, of course back then I worked in teams and had to deal with other people to meets goals.  In my current job at a call center, I really don't work with my co-workers all that much.  I think that it also has a lot to do with the fact that most people my age are involved with kids and families and are not really in that "lets make friends" place.

I can see why many people choose to stay in one place for thier entire lives.  It sucks when you are in your twenties, but then you get a little older and having a few familiar faces can make all the difference.

New Spiffy Blog Title and Look! Yeehaww!

I am going to start off my requesting that the person who left the comment that they met me in Santa Cruz please stand up and identify yourself. I have an idea who you are, but I am not sure, and it is drive me crazy.

Anyhoo, It's been a while since my last update. I have to say, it is hard to keep a blog when your life is nothing but work and you are not allowed to discuss your job outside of work. Had that problem when I worked at the hospital and I have that problem now.

Anyway, I am working at the Lions Eye Bank of Oregon as a Donor Coordinator. I love it, it's a great job!
All for now.  My next post will be all about PDX biking.

Get Picked up at the Supermarket

I got picked up at a Seattle supermarket, unfortunatly he turned out to be gay.

Just a Thought...

For those of you that forgot to get a birthday present, it isn't too late...

http://www.peterrivard.com/Pages/potter.html

Home Health Haikus

I work as a Home Health nurse while I am getting through the end of nursing school. During an twelve hour overnight job, I wrote the following haikus whilst trying to stay awake at 3AM which I feel are a rather poignet insight into my character:

The focused student
Learn! Because after the test
She'll forget this crap

Red roses in a vase
Starting to wilt and show age
What a waste of cash

Oh stupid black dog
Wake up the patient again
And YOU'LL need a nurse

Warm heater air blows
I drape my shirt on your vent
Oh such warm buttocks

Dumb empty Coke bottle
Laughing at my exhaustion
Laugh in the trash can

(This one is a bit darker, but keep in mind it was three in the morning:)
Diligent nurse
Watches her patient all night
"Just die! I want sleep"

Update, finally

Hello world, I am hailing from Portland, my new home. Anyway, I am here and am very happy to be out of Iowa. Very happy.

Anyway, a new friend just asked me why I haven't updated my blog in a while. He also seemed to express a bit of surprise over the fact that I hated my new (and please God, temporary) home health care job that I have. I hope to answer both of these queries in My New Rant (TM).

Ahem.

As you know, there is a a huge health care problem we face today. Too many sick people and not enough money. And as you also may have noticed, there is another problem which is less pressing where funeral homes get these poor people who have lost their loved ones to spend way to much money on their uptake.

I will connect these two in a minute. Grandma dies, and the family is either told or feels that their final act will indicate how much they loved Grandma. I mean, what cold hearted bastard is going to place her in a pine coffin and throw her in the sea? Even though she is dead and doesn't care, it just feels wrong to not do the best. Even when the best is a total waste of energy and time.

You see, I am not a advocate of the so-called "death panels", but I do feel that money would be better spent if we could figure out a way to put people who are in Hospice and have no quality of life out of their misery and spent that money, say, giving a five-year-old a new kidney. But of course going around and telling people to euthanize grandma is a step above telling people to just dump that corpse into a patch of forest that desperately needs fertilization. It isn't going to fly.

Keep in mind that I am talking about people who have no quality of life. People who don't know who they are, where they are, and who do not enjoy anything. People who can't get out of bed and have bedsores and people who are in constant pain and stress because of all the things that we are doing to them to "make them comfortable". When a person is screaming in pain as you roll them to clean up a BM or apply a dressing to an open bedsore, you really have to wonder what you are keeping them alive for.

I hope that I never see this. Someone please-- about 150 units on Insulin in my ass should really do the trick, thank you. Take the money that you would have used to keep me alive for another year and go feed Africa.

So why I hate my job-- well, although home health has a romantic ring to it-- helping the suffering, easing pain, yadda yadda yadda, most of the people that I see are pushed aside, forgotten. I mean, if you loved you sick little mother so much that you just had to keep her around for another year so that the two of you could bask in each other's glory-- even if she didn't recognise you-- would you really hire someone to take care of her for 10 bucks an hour and whose only job requirement was a GED? I mean, these aren't exactly the kid from Lorenzo's Oil that I am taking care of. Yeah, I am sure those patients exist, but most of what your average home health worker is seeing is a person that is forgotten. It's sad, and it's a waste of their time.

I think that Lorenzo from Lorenzo's Oil is a good example of why to keep someone around-- not that he kind of got better at the end, but that he had people who loved him enough to really take care of him. Had he been forgotten in a nursing home and neglected until his sacrum as pushing through the skin, I might have felt differently for the poor kid.

I also want to finish with a story from Thailand. My teenaged students refused to wear their helmits on thier motorbikes. I woudl bed, threaten, and bribe them to wear them, but the best I got was for them to take a helmit, wear it, and then take if off when they got around the bend. One day, a guy crashed outside our school and half the school watched as he was taken into a car and driven to the hospital, where he died of a brain hemorrhage. Most people knew of this poor guy. I fully intended to make a point about this man. The next lecture, I told the students sternly how sad this man-- a husband and a father-- had to die when all he had to do was wear a ten dollar helmet, which would have very likely saved his life. My class listened patiently and politely to my stern lecture and then one brave student raised his hand and asked "Teacher, why Americans afraid of die?" I was so taken aback by the question that I didn't even bother to correct his grammar. Why are we so afraid of death? And who is more afraid of death, the person facing it, or the ones they will leave behind?


Anyway, end of rant. I hope that I haven't offended anyone too much.

Yes, we DID!!!

See "Obama sweeps to victory as first black president"

I can't believe that I am actually tempted to get on the internet and email all my overseas buddies that I am proud to be an American for the first time in almost a decade. This from the girl who used to introduce herself to her English classes "Hi, I'm Kim, I am from America, sorry about that." I am so proud that the people of this country made such a brave and bold choice. I spent last night at a Democrat party watching the polls roll in. I don't think that I will ever forget the moment when my beloved West Coast came in and announced that Obama will be he next Commander-in-Chief. Thanks guys!!

(Look for me in the top right corner of that picture!)

Go Phillies!!!

I managed to win St. Luke's College's "Who Will Win the World Series" game by being the only person to correctly guess that the Phillies would win. This is very exciting to me as a) I don't think that I have ever really won anything, b) I don't follow sports and basically picked a team out of a hat and c) well, um, that's it really.

Please, get out and vote on Tuesday. A lot of lame people I live with are saying that there really isn't a difference between the candidates. I can't really respond to this as I have been to busy to watch the debates so I can't really give concrete examples of how they differ. I will say this however: this was the same BS that people were saying in 2000 about Bush and Gore. Eight years later, one man has started an illegal was that has killed hundreds of thousands, and the other has spearheaded the movement against annihilation of the planet though global warming. No difference my ass.

As they say in Chicago: "vote early, vote often!"

Nothing... nothing.... nothing... then I miss THIS?

Check this out:Man survives four-story plunge from apartment

Argonaut Apartments is where I live. The picture in the article is right outside my back door, where our laundy room is. No, I didn't know the guy that jumped out the window (I try to have as little to do with my neighbors as possible) but this story didn't really shock me. I am just praying this this happy family gets evicted.

I missed it because I went to see Prince Caspian. It was okay, but I would probably have been more amused by a guy jumping four stories out a window and surviving. The only good parts of the movie was when they didn't bother trying to follow the book-- like when the Narnians stormed the castle, a scene not penned by the great C.S. Lewis. Not that I don't like the book-- quite the opposite-- but I think that the scenes were better because they were designed to be in a movie, while the other scenes were designed to be in a book.

No matter how good her acting (which isn't really that good) the cinematic Lucy can never show how strong her love for Aslan is as the literary Lucy. This is why I pretty much feel that this movie proves that Hollywood (and Disney in particular) should make thier own damn movies instead of ripping off the plotlines of authors (unless the book happens to be Fight Club, but that's a different story.)

This includes Harry Potter (which finally got kids to read) and Lord of the Rings. Although I agree with Randal Graves (of Clerks 2 fame) on both the LOTR books and the movies: "Those fuckin' hobbit movies were boring as hell. All it was, was a bunch of people walking, three movies of people walking to a fucking volcano... Even the trees walked in those fuckin' movies."

Sioux City still sucks. I did have a good time at the Marti Gras festival yesterday (yes, I know it's July) where we had a "parade". I put "parade" in quotes because actually all it was was a bunch of guys in identical shirts throwing beads to the crowd. A few had large Macy-day type balloons which probably could have used a few more tanks of helium. The fun part was screaming out "Beads! Beads!" while clapping your hands like a deranged seal in the hopes that a necklace would be hurled your way.

A Sampling of Great Sioux City Minds

Seven percent Give Or Take
Overheard discussion on fashion models in a Briar Cliff University stairway:
Girl 1: ... are so unrealistic. I mean, no one looks that way.
Girl 2: Yeah, totally.
Girl 1: I mean, I bet that, like, less then 10% of women look like that.
Girl 2: I bet it's more then that. I bet it's like 7%.
Girl 1: Yeah, 7%.
Girl 3: I bet it's more then that. I mean, what about all the starving people in Ethiopia?
Girl 1: Oh yeah. Well, 7% plus them.


Vocabulary Building
Overheard discussion between family of four (mom, dad, 5 year old, baby in stroller) while walking to work:
Man: ... messed up. I mean, he won't be going anywhere near there again. I took that dude down! [unintelligible] ... some bitch.
5 year Old: Bitch! Bitch!
Mom: ...

Birth Control Really is a Lovely Thing
I was sitting next to a classmate that was moaning about the difficulty of a nursing class. She asked me if I thought that the class was hard.
Me: Well, I have an advantage. I don't have kids to distract me.
Her: You don't have kids at home?
Me: Nope.
Her: Do they live somewhere else?
Me: Uh, no. I don't have any kids.
Her: Grown kids? [Note: grown kids aren't uncommon for a 32-year-old here.]
Me: No, no kids at all.
Her: Wow. Don't you even have stepkids?
Me: No. I'm not married.
Her: Are you divorced?
Me: No, I've never been married.
Her: Never? How old are you?
Me: 32
Her: Are you still a virgin?

Water Water Everywhere

Actually, there isn't any flooding in Sioux City... we just got some really pretty thunderstorms and that was about it. The Little Sioux boy scout ranch is a ways away and we weren't hit.

I felt raelly guilty, actually. I was really hoping that something would strike down a lot closer. The hospital got put on a “Sky Alert” and I was disappointed that I wasn't there to help move everyone into the halls. When I heard about what happened the next day, however, talking to the doctors who helped really drove the point home that something like this isn't all excitement and is all tragedy. Because the hikers were kids who didn't carry any type of ID, notification of families was delayed and 12 horus later one boy's family still hadn't been told. That image really hit me hard-- of a mother who didn't know if her boy was alive or dead, or where he even was. So the next time that I look at a dark cloud it won't be with anticipatory excitement but with that image in my mind.

Funny to think that I used to be terrified of lightening and tornados. I guess I used to be afraid of a lot of things.

The flooding in the news is on the Eastern part of the state, and so we've only been affected in that a lot of our doctors and nurses are heading over there, leaving a shortage here. I wish that I could go and help-- the fact that I have classes sounds like a pretty lame excuse even to me.

Hey! Leave Them Streets Alone!

Nothing new to report, really.

A few weeks ago I was awoken by some yelling outside my window at around 6AM. I live in a rather "colorful" part of town and the yelling was "Hey! You're a @#$%ing drug dealer! Get out of here, you @#$%ing drug dealer!!" I peeked out my window to get a look at the @#$%ing drug dealer and saw that my car was the only one parked on the street. So thank you, Mr. @#$%ing Drug Dealer, you prevented my car from getting towed as an hour later there was no longer a street outside my apartment.

I spent the day watching the men tear things up. Now I am not one to oogle workmen (for more reasons then one) but it is an attestment to my geekhood that I found the machinery-- especially the Excavator very graceful. They were like huge dinosaurs tearing up the street, moving so smoothly that it was easy to forget that they were controlled by humans and a few gears. If you ever see one, you should stop and watch it for a bit.

The streets in Sioux City are so bad that even George W. Bush-- who is in a bad position to complain about anything American-- pointed out that the city was wonderful but needed the potholes fixed. Like most statements made by Bush, I disagree. The only redeeming qualities that Sioux City has to offer are for the most part being dismantled by the Republicans (such as the library funding.)
Anyway, I am hoping that they take all summer to fix the street as while there isn't a street there aren't any drug dealers screaming up to people at my window. It's been a quiet summer.

The Sioux City Walking Tour

I thought that this weekend would be a good weekend for the Sioux City Walking Tour. At the museum, I found a few brochures that had maps and “historical areas” in Sioux City. It was cold at the time, so I filed them away for a sunny say. The weather finally turned decent recently-- after snow on April 25th, I was starting to wonder.

So I took the maps off the shelves, dusted them off, and had a look. My first thought was that wandering around looking at what really is a bunch of identical buildings wouldn't be very interesting. I looked at one in particular on the corner of Nebraska and 3rd and thought “Hey, wait a minute, I have been to this corner about a zillion times and I have never seen that building before.” It was then that I noticed the fine print: “Buildings in italics are no longer in existence.” Great. Of the 16 buildings that I am supposed to trek around the city to look at, only 5 of them exist and one of those is the warehouse district-- famous, yes-- famous for it's smell.

And let me give you a sample of the “historical” narrative that this pamphlet boasts. Here is the listing for one of the remaining buildings: The Warrior Hotel on the corner of 6th and Nebraska.

Warrior Hotel, 1955 Constructed as the Fontenelle Hotel in 1930, it was known as the Warrior Hotel by the time it opened in 1931. Omaha hotel magnate Eugene C. Eppley purchased the Warrior during the mid-1930's. Eppley hotels sold the Warrior to the Sheraton Corporation of America in 1956, after which time it was called the Sheraton-Warrior. In the late 1960s Sioux City contractors Jospeth and Frank Audino purchased the hotel and renamed it the Aventino Motor Inn. The building has been empty since 1972.

Oh sure, Kim, you are probably thinking, pick the most boring listing and of course it looks bad.Sadly, the rest of the listings are like this: a history of who bought and sold the building and a history of the various names and owners of the property. Some of the more exciting entries talk about elevators being rebuilt, but that really is the extent of it.

So, in other words, the best that Sioux City can do is to lead me on a tour of the city looking at where a bunch of rather drab and boring buildings used to be before they got torn down. Wonderful. Sign me up. Underground Tour, Seattle, watch out-- you've got some real competition here in Sioux City.

where the F@&! have u been?

That was the greeting that Sonia left on my Facebook wall this morning, Sonia having apparently forgotten the virtues of email. (True, I can't really talk.) It's a fair question, actually... A question that I have more or less been asking myself.

Sioux City continues to be a rather sizable disappointment. It's a living testament to why Wal-marts are a bad thing. Seriously, Micheal Moore should come here to shoot his next documentary on large-business centralization and the havoc that it can cause on the character of a town. After visiting the rather pathetic Sioux City museum, I picked up a few "walking maps" of the "historic" 4th and 6th streets. The fact that they are historic is really the only thing that is going for them, as every possible business has either closed or is in the process of closing as more and more people are getting into their cars and driving to the malls outside of town.

The social scene isn't much better. Walking home the other day, someone threw a rock or something at me while they were driving past. I keep falling on the ice and the bystanders keep watching with bored interest and no concern. Sarah pointed out that if we were 19 or had kids it might be different-- as things stand right now, people aren't quite sure what to do with us. And don't get me started on the dating scene. Since the men seem to have a tendency to knock their girlfriends up I have been sticking to girls, but all the lesbians here are catty, gossipy, and mean.

Another reason that I have been away is that work is hell. There is some sort of flu plague that has hit Sioux City and everyone and their grandmother seems to be landing on my floor at the hospital. I heard on NPR the other day that everyone who bothered getting a flu shot might have well been injected with water-- the strains that they predicted would strike this year were wrong and as a result we were all inoculated with the wrong dead virus. As a result, I've been forced to hand out about ten complete bed baths a morning as the hospital refused to crawl to a temp agency to give us a few more techs.

So, two years of nursing school (two years minus two months actually) and I am outta here. Sarah's trying to leave earlier then that-- she's a big help. I suggested that she dump her three year program and join me in my two year AAN program and get her BSN later and she just laughed at me.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you that wished me a happy b-day and demanded that I update my blog. I didn't think that my life was that interesting, and it's nice to know that you guys disagree.

Hey It's Beginning To Snow

The first words out of my mouth on this first day of December weren't “Rabbit Rabbit” but rather “Holy Crap” as I looked out my window and saw that about two inches of snow had fallen over the night. The first snow is always a surprise for me, even this time when the weather people had been talking about it all day yesterday. I was exciting, having not seen snow in such a long time, especially Midwest snow (the Seattle stuff hardly counts). In fact, I think that I am the only person in Iowa over twelve who was actually excited about the snow. On Friday, when I mentioned to a patient that we were getting snow the next she ordered me so sternly not to use four-letter-words at work that for a moment I thought that she was serious as was going to tell my boss.

The first day of snow comes with a tradition of taking the day off and sitting at home sipping cocoa and listening to Christmas carols. I had to forgo the tradition this year as, like Thanksgiving, people still get sick on the first day of snow. It's actually quite nice to have a job where the world might actually stop spinning (for one person, at least) if I don't show up for work that day. Although it's a lot of responsibility, it's nice to know that the work that I am doing actually needs to be done-- something that can't be said for snake handling, writing tools for video games and teaching English to people in non-English speaking villages that rely on elephants for transportation.

I haven't really talked about my job too much... I am a nursing assistant (or a nursing “tech”) at a local hospital, and I really love it. I give baths, change beds, provide comfort, help people around, take vitals (blood pressures, temperatures, and so on). I get to do tech stuff to, like take EKGs, bladder scans, and play with catheters. I am also generally the one that will be the first to note an emergency, and so the most important part of my job is to be alert for that. Basically I am a cross between an orderly and a nurse. I do all the things that nurses are generally credited with besides giving medications. What I like the most is that I am in a position to help a person who is scared, in pain, or upset. And the best part of my job is that when I go to sleep at night, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have done something that day to make the world a better place, and got paid for it too!

Kim is a CNA!!

It's been a while since my last update, mostly because I have been terribly busy. The first exciting piece of news is that, despite many setbacks and obstacles, I am a CNA, a certified nursing assistant. The obstacles that I speak of were all placed by Western Iowa Technical College (WIT) in Sioux City (I am hoping to get some Google hits on that lousy school-- if you are considering getting a CNA degree there do yourself a favour and email me first) who did everything in their power to prevent me from finishing the class. First they tried to cancel the class. Then they tried to push back clinicals for a week because someone was too lazy to call a nurse and get us medically cleared to volunteer in a nursing home. Then, come the day of the test, they didn't bother to sign us up. Although technically it was our fault because we were supposed to sign ourselves up, my entire class showed up at the test without having signed up, indicating that there was a breakdown in communication somewhere.
I had a cow. The reason behind my cow was that I was supposed to start orientation at a local hospital and my starting hinged on my passing the CNA test. I did manage to bully my way into the skills test, but I had to drive two hours to a different college to take my written because WIT was too lazy to sign me up themselves. It's a miracle that I passed my skills test. After fighting with administration they finally let me into the room although the rather unpleasant administrator commented that I was both lying about my employment and that "it wasn't right". She sat down and I realized with horror that she was the one administering the test. She was determined to fail me. I did a great job-- I did everything right, didn't forget a thing-- but I still got an 80%. Fine with me, I just needed a 70% to pass.
I remember working in Samoa and failing a student who didn't turn in a homework assignment on time. Although I was very clear about the due date and the consequences, she complained to administration and I was brought into the office and talked to be the dean. I showed her the syllabus and explained that I had been very clear about the due date. She listened to me, and then told me that the point of the class was for the students to learn, and that I needed to question that before all else. I admitted that the student had done the assignment correctly and reluctantly accepted it. At the time I thought that she was being unfair. Now I am glad that I got that lesson, and I was reminded f it during this CNA bullcrap. It's so easy to get wrapped up behind the red tape that you forget what you started to do. It's something that I need to try and remember as I do my job.
My job! I am working at a local hospital as a CNA. I really love it. It's hard to imagine that I would find something that is more satisfying then teaching, but working in a hospital is it. I pulled a 12-hour shift on Thanksgiving, and I have to say that although the patients and their families felt sorry that I had to work, it was actually one of the nicer Thanksgivings that I have had. I was working on rehab, where people who need to relearn basic skills after injury (how to walk, how to dress, how to make a bed, etc) have physical and occupational therapy. Maybe they had a broken bone, a stroke, or are learning to deal with a disability. All my patients have one thing in common-- they don't want to be here on Thanksgiving. I was thankful that I was able to help them, to talk to them, to hopefully make them feel a little less lonely. (It also gave me a chance to be thankful that I could walk. A nice way to put things in perspective.)
Anyway, I'll write more about my great job later. Until then, happy belated Thanksgiving and merry early Christmas!

The People of Sioux City Have Spoken...

The People of Sioux City have spoken... and they want change. Yesterday was the first mayoral race in 53 years (previously they'd been assigned by comittee) and incumbents were tossed out and replaced. It was a pretty pathetic election, actually-- the turnout was only 21%. The new mayor only won by 374 votes out of the 9212 votes cast.

Not that I can take a real high moral ground here. To get me to the polls, not only did Sarah have to call me to remind me, but she also had to drive me, bribe me with Starbucks, and had to tell me who to vote for because I was too lazy to research the canidates myself. Aside from mayor, we had a coucilman to pick. We went for some guy named Rochester who, as Sarah put it, was "less anti-gay" then the guy currently in office. Slim pickings here in SUX City.

When I got to my class after the election and asked my classmates it they'd voted they looked at me like I was crazy and informed me that the elections were NEXT November.

Rabbit Rabbit

This morning was the first morning in my life that I said "Rabbit Rabbit" when I woke up. You are supposed to say that as the first thing that you say on the first day of a month, but I have never remembered. It's supposed to bring good luck, so this November is off too a positive start already.

You can read about the superstition here. Wikipedia says that "Some have also believed [the superstition] is representing a jumping into the future and moving ahead with life and happiness." Things are starting to look up for me and my nursing career, so I think that this is a good sign.

I had my first clinical on Tuesday, and it went really well. This was for my Certified Assistant Nursing course. This is just a 75-hour certification course that I am taking to work as a Nurses Aide in the hospital and get some nursing experience while I take courses. The class is almost done-- I aced the theory section, and now we get six “clincials” or classes in a practical setting-- in my case, a nursing home.

Even after just a few hours I have already learned so much. I as assigned to a gentleman who needed help eating. He did not speak, and I didn't know why. At first I was actually a little jealous of the other students who were assisting with the more vocal residents who gave animated feedback-- the only feedback that I got from “my guy” was to see if he opened his mouth when I brought food to his lips. If he didn't open his mouth, he didn't want it.

Eventually I started to talk to him. I told him about why I came to Sioux City, what I thought of nursing, what I thought of the town, what I thought about the food that he was eating. I blabbled on about how I was trying to drink more milk after reading about the benefits of calcium in my Anatomy and nutrition courses. I talked about the different food groups and told him what he was getting. Eventually I asked a rhetorical question and was shocked when he grunted in agreement. Up until that moment, I had assumed that since he didn't talk, he didn't listen and he didn't understand. Although as a student I had vowed that I wouldn't make that mistake (I was one of the few in the class that talked to the CPR dummies, or “Annies”) I had just made it. That was one of the best lessons that I learned in the class, and it came from a teacher with no degree.

Life Sux

(For those of you that are fortunate enough to not live in this god forsaken town, SUX is the airport and international code for Sioux City.)

No, things aren't going well but they've recently crossed the line into where they are going so badly it's funny. I had to find a new place, I'm flunking nutrition, I still can't find a job (although I have gotten a bunch of very lovely rejection letters from Mercy), my car is in the shop, and it's getting cold.

The place where I was staying didn't work out, and I wanted to try to find a new place before the end of the month. I looked at the ads and found a cheap furnished place near my school and went to check it out. When I got there, it took me a few seconds to pinpoint what was wrong with it-- no kitchen. I shrugged and thanked the nice man for his time and went to look at a few more places. But that little one-room "apartment" kept popping back into my mind. It was cheap, available, and actually quite well furnished with a bed, dresser, chairs and tables. It did have a fridge and a microwave. And all the utilities were paid, which in my mind translated nicely to three less things to remember every month. In the end, I decided to take it. I found a $9.99 single electric range at Walgreens and now I am all set, assuming that I can ignore the fact that I have to do my dishes in the bathtub. Fortunately I just got back from a place where food was cooked over open flame and I haven't had time to get picky.

Not only that, but I have irrefutable evidence that god hates me. It happened while I was driving to my new place. IO was in my car, everything I own in the backseat and was stopped at a light at the corner of my new place when I heard a loud pop. At first I thought that I was being shot at, but having lived in warzones I was enough of a gunshot connoisseur to know that the sound wasn't just right. My second thought was that something in my luggage was compressed and had exploded. I turned around to look at the back seat to check my stuff and I saw that my entire back windshield was completely shattered.

No, I have no idea how it happened. The people at the glass place are pretty clueless as well. The obvious answer is a rock, but rocks don't come flying at you on their own when you are at a standstill at a stoplight. This isn't Hogwarts. The light changed and I pulled into the apartment parking lot. I got out of the car, staring open-mouthed at what used to be my back window and was now a mass of spiderwebed glass. My one consolation was that the glass was still intact (thanks to the safety glass combined with the defrosting wiring) and that it would remain that way for a few days until I finished moving in. As I had this thought, I closed the driver side door and the entire window fell out of the frame into the backseat.

I'm starting to think that maybe I should have just stayed in Thailand.

You've Got To Be Kidding

After more then three weeks of waiting, I finally got an interview for a nursing position at a local big hospital. As being an Secretary/Energy Clerk/Temp Worker is getting old real quick (see next post) I placed a ton of hope on the interview. Three different outfits, two showers, and no less then fifteen minutes of practice in front of a mirror later, I finally got into the car and drove to the hospital's HR department.

I made a great, impression, if I do say so myself. My interviewer was a Peace Corps wanna-be and had a bunch of questions about my background. Everything that flew out of my mouth was perfect-- the fact that I was a nursing student didn't hurt none neither. Anyway, the interview quickly took a downturn when she discovered my full-time-student-status and came to understand that I couldn't work full time or weekdays. The nursing assistant position that I was interviewing for required that.

But never fear. The hospital is a big place, and while opening a thick file marked “open positions”, my interview told me that there were many opportunities. She glanced through my resume, looked at my work history, and flipped a few pages. Here, she told me, was a perfect opportunity. Part time, mostly weekends. Good pay. Challenging. Flexible. I was all excited until she closed the book and leaned towards me, completely serious...

“How does a Unit Secretary sound? With your computer skills you'd be perfect...”

Adventures of a Tyson Temp

My job continues on. It is still depressing, but now for a new reason. You see, as a job it's actually rather hard. I'd say about 75% of it is entering lists of numbers into different lists and that part is difficult in it's mindlessness and tedium. But when I am not doing that, I am doing work that really requires every bit of my critical thinking and logic skills-- which, if I do say so myself, are considerable. For example, I might have to enter a number. I don't know where the number is supposed to come from. So I have to go to the previous month, look at that number, and then pull the records from that month and hunt for the number. Sometimes I find the number-- that's the easy one. Usually, however, the number is actually two numbers added together, a number multiplied by another number (which can range from the easy: a 0.1 multiplier or the impossible, a 42 multiplier). Or sometimes the number is wrong. From what I am seeing, my predecessor was a real idiot and made lots of mistakes. Another part of my job is fixing all the mistakes that she made.

Every now and again I get a monthly report and a few of the numbers invariably don't match up with mine. At this point I have to go back into the weekly reports and find the wrong numbers. These numbers were taken from the difference in a meter reading, so I have to compare the start and end meter readings until I find one that was keyed in wrong. The meter readings are about 8 numbers long. (I am impressed, by the way, if you have managed to read this far.) The highlight of my day is when I find a mistake and I get to rip a new one into some poor meter-reading clerk in Texas or somewhere.

So why is this depressing? Well, I have determined that you need a college degree to be able to handle this job. The reason that it's depressing is that I know that the fifty or so people that sit around me are doing basically the same jobs. It depresses me to think that four years of college and lofty dreams and ambitions this is the best that they can do, and they are probably going to be stuck here for the rest of their lives, arguing with Texan energy clerks about broken meters and how many pounds of edible product where produced in the week ending 10/21/07. That's why I'm depressed. Those poor people.

I Just got the Clep

I just took a CLEP exam. CLEP stands for "College Level Examination Program" and is the new way to get out of college credits. English Composition was one of the courses that I needed and I flat out refused to take it after 3 years of teaching English. I figured that I would ace the exam but got books from the library anyway.

(Man, I love the library. I can't believe that before I left America I used to just take such a wonderful resource for granted. Take it from me, kids. Go and visit your local library today. And give them money. They probably deserve it.)

Anyway, I took the first practice test and got a 70%. That wasn't great, but not bad either. I did some studying and took another test and got a 67% More studying and testing later caused my grade to sink down to 61% I decided to just stop studying at that point and just take the damn test.

Let me give you an example of one of the evil little questions that the test offers. See if you can see the problem before moving on:

In today's modern world, it can be rather difficult to connect with friends, family, and peers.


Highlight for the answer: The answer is that modern should be struck as redundant. Now although I can certainly see why the test writer would feel that way, I think that it's a debatable point and standardized multiple-choice questions should not be debatable! Modern can mean "from today" or it can serve as an adjective-- the opposite of "classic". Jane is a classic dresser in jeans and a sweater, Electra is a modern dresser in a leather skirt and boots. They can be wearing clothes that were designed and made on the same day, just bought in different stores

Having said all that, I am actually a lot more amiable towards the exam since I scored a 71/80. The girl at the desk was pretty impressed, as the passing requirements were only set at 50. If only they had a test for Anatomy...

Welcome to the Jungle

Well, I finally got a job. I am working for Tyson Meats. No, I am not on the line slaughtering cows-- I'm not that desperate, although after two weeks of unemployment I was beginning to worry that it might come to that. The job market here is terrible!! I guess that Gateway (remember them?) took off and left a ton of computer workers here. So the skills that I thought would be very much in demand are actually a dime a dozen. Plus no computer biz wants to hire a nursing student, even if they did used to work for Microsoft. They know that they aren't going to get their 110%.

It's just 16 hours a week, which might actually work well for me since I am taking three classes (Nursing Assistant, Developmental Psychology, and Nutrition). I basically sit at a desk all day and enter data from the individual plants into spreadsheets while wondering why they just don't network all the systems so that the data gets automatically entered the first time that it is entered in. I thought about suggesting this but then thought better when I realized that such a change will cost me my job. I am taking a measly $9 and hour, which is the highest paid job that I have had in three years and only the third-lowest paying job that I have had in my life.

It is rather depressing, however. The first item that goes into the spreadsheet is "Heads Slaughtered" followed by a very big number. I spent eight hours today cataloging all the thousands cows and pigs were killed to allow me to earn my $9 an hour. The detached way that they were listed as slaughtered, processed, and turned into "lbs. of product" seemed so cold, especially when I considered that aside from me there was probably no one else who stopped to think that it was a shame that cow #6734 out of 214,539 cows had to die.

Other then that things are slow. Went to get my physical for nursing school and was amazed that the long and somewhat uncomfortable method of taking a temperature from when I was a kid has been basically reduced to waving a wand over the forehead. Was also amazed that they managed to somehow make the TB test even more uncomfortable then it already was. The things that change after three years overseas...

Basic Life Support

Nursing goes well on Garretson Ave. Sarah finished her CNA course, loved it, and I will be starting it in about a week. CNA stand for "Certified Nursing Aide". A CNA generally works in a long-term care facility (like a nursing home) to provide care for the residents. Not exactly in my long term plan, but I think that working as a CNA will provide me with clinical experience that will help me a lot in my nursing courses.

Every little bit helps. Although it was MORE then 10 years ago (ack!) my limited stunt as an EMT is actually really turning out to help me. In the EMT course and working I probably took about 100 blood pressures, and the techniques that I used helped Sarah a lot in that part of her skills exam. It also helped me ace my BLS course that I took yesterday.

BLS, "Basic Life Support" is what most people think of general CPR. This class that I took yesterday was a bit terrifying. Things have changed since I left for Samoa-- they now teach us how to use AED (Automated External Defibrillator) but was really worrisome is how much they dumbed down the procedures. Although we were told that the new guidelines were just as effective, I really felt that they simply simplified the steps to a point where a trained service dog could probably be taught to give CPR. Which is great in that more people can give CPR-- but since effective CPR will break ribs and likely cause internal damage, is this really something that you want ANYONE to be able to do?

The instructor walked in an immediately assured the students that there was nothing to worry about in the class. She told us that the point of the class was to help us pass the test. "Don't worry, we WANT you to pass!" This alone got the red lights flashing in my brain-- I thought that the point was to learn how to save lives. Oh well, minor point. The new system is actually improved in that you spend a majority of time watching videos and practicing and lectures are actually cut down to almost nothing. The test is also better-- more common sense and "what do you do next" questions. Still, I seem to remember in the last BLS class I took in Seattle there was a lot more information and the skills were a lot more complex.

But the most important difference was that back then you didn't get the card unless you really knew what you were doing. We had one woman who didn't even pass the test and the instructor went over her wrong answers and made her do it again. Eek! I hope I don't collapse in front of her!

If you ask me, it's this results-oriented rather then process-oriented approach to problem solving that is ripping our society apart.

My Triumphant Arrival

Finally got the hell out of Chiang Mai and said goodbye to Thailand. My journey home was surreal... it was only about 15 hours by the watch. I left on the 12th and managed to travel back in time while in the air to the 11th just to have the 12th roll around again.

Anyway I am touched that you guys have been bugging me to keep up my blog even though I am in boring old America. Sioux City Iowa is truly scary in it's lack of anything to do... thank god that Sarah is here. Today we went to a chili bake off. Half of the free weekend paper is devoted to chili-based debates (beans or no beans?) and so I guess that's it's a pretty big deal here. Sure you guys want me to keep up this blog?

Why I Hate Chiang Mai

Well, I decided to "treat" myself by spending a few days in Chiang Mai before I left. Big mistake. I had forgetten how much I hate this town. In fact I think that the last 24 hours can be summerized as following: WAAHHH!! I WANNA GO HOME!!!

Rudeness persists. When I got to the guesthouse that I was supposed to stay at the woman did everything in her power to not let me stay. She saw my many bags and told me that she didn't have a room on the first floor. I told her that was fine, any floor was fine. She said that had a room on the 3rd floor. I sighed but then said that the third floor was fine. Wait, there wasn't a room on the third floor. Whatever, I said, just give me any room. She informed me that there was no bathroom in the room. Okay, I said. She told me that I would have to go across the hall to the shared bathroom if I wanted to take a shower. Great, I said, and I pulled out my wallet but she sighed loudly insisted that I look at the room first. I got the feeling that she was hoping I would change my mind. I was sweaty and tired but I didn't feel like arguing so I went upstairs, unlocked the door, looked inside, and came down with money in hand. When it was obvious that she wasn't going to get rid of my she reluctantly gave me a key and took my money, including a 100 baht deposit. She told that I could go to the room and take a shower. Yes, I got the hint. She also said that I could carry one bag, then come down and carry another. I smiled and thanked her as graciously as I could for the advice, which I then proceeded to follow. She watched me like a hawk, I guess to make sure that I indeed carried everything one at a time.

The good news is that I went to the dentist and was told that I have no cavities. I was happy and proud until she pointed out that due to the number of fillings that I have there are no more places for cavities to hide. I celebreated with a mocha smoothy (extra sugar) anyway.

Then I went to NES (The New Zealand English School) in Chiang Mai to try to claim the 5000 baht that was owed me. (I wasn't able to pick it in March since I had to leave so quickly.) Things went pretty fast downhill from there and I remembered why it will be a cold day in hell before I ever teach English again for cash. The director, Paul Chan, came out of his office and yelled at me, then told me that I should ask another teacher who spoke English, despite the fact that his English was fine. The receptionist told me that I should visit the office that I worked at. So, I went there and pretty much learned that they keep no available records and the time card was lost. I didn't really beleive this and pressed them a bit, and the director came in and came in to speak to me. He asked me what I wanted him to do. I asked him if there was a record that I worked there. At this point he started yelling and cursing at me saying that "he didn't give a fuck" and finally told me that he was going to get me "tied up and kicked out of Thailand". I asked him where this was coming from and two police came in that he'd apparently called before he came to talk to me. At this point I relized that I wasn't getting paid.

I sat in the office with the police wondering if it was possible for me to enter a country and not get arrested for something. The manager Paul Chan was screaming at them in Thai and it occured to me that for all I knew he could be saying that killed someone or stole something. I broke in, asking for a policeman who could speak English. A call to the tourist police got this. I was told what I already knew... I was free to go, I was not going to be tied up, and I wasn't getting paid since it was basically my word agaist to the director, who told me to "kiss my ass". I have never seen someone go so far to avoid paying someone.

I was pissed, but there's nothing I can do. I mean, it's only about $150, but damn it-- it was MY $150 that I worked damn hard for sitting in a hot classroom for 20 hours with a group of students that frankly were the worst I ever came across in my brief (and OVER, thank god) teaching career.

I wanna go home.

Goodbye CLC...

Well here it is, the last email that I will write from CLC's powerful and rather strange (but much appreciated) satilite dish. Tomorrow morning at 6AM I will hop onto a bus that will take to me to a bus that will take me to Chiang Mai. I decided to spend a few days days there. Among other things, I want to see the famous Wat Dai Sutup (or something like that) which is apparently the "thing to see" thing in Northern Thailand. (I am not too hopeful as I have yet to meet a tourist who talks up the temple more then they talk up getting wasted in Pai.) Early Wednesday morning I will hop on a plane and get back to America to start my new nursing adventure. Stay tuned!

Thanks everyone for following me around Thailand... see you on the flip side...

It's my party... I'll pass on the crying.

Kyaw Hlu Sien made the students throw me a goodbye party which unfortunately turned out to be an awkward affair. Despite the fact that I has specifically asked for no party, he told them to throw one anyway and didn't even bother to tell me-- I found out secondhand from a student. The food was great, but the entire time I sat there wishing that I had just taken off a week early and announced my departure with a note.

The Karenni Math teacher, Soray, ran the thing like a business meeting. He stood up and said stuff like "we don't have an agenda" and "this meeting is to thank our teacher, uh--" he stumbled over my name-- "Kim, and say goodbye." He asked the students to make speeches. Class 1, who I didn't have this year, get into an argument over who would have to do it. Yoom lost and stood up and said some forgettable things. Class 2 and 3 were better prepared and had their speeches written. Their speeches were a lot more thought out but unfortunately they didn't write them. Nee Eh could barely make it through hers, so peppered was it with new words. I appreciated the time that they had put into them but would have liked a speech that was made of their own words, even if there were mistakes.

I think that the worst bit, however, was when it came time for the teachers to give speeches. My expat compatriots couldn't do better then yelling out "Kim Rocks!" which was hardly moving. Soray, however, proved that this was indeed better then something. He alluded to something during our last meeting and I was pretty shocked by the event that he'd picked-- during the meeting Soray asked the teachers to come up with a schedule for testing. We'd already been in the meeting for an hour and I was getting tired. After some hmming and hawing I finally jumped up and the room watched in silence as a drew up a schedule for the week that allowed the classes to take their tests. After I sat down Soray told me that "this wasn't the way it was done here" and drew up a new schedule which I felt was lacking since it involved one teacher having three exams at once. "Then why did you bother asking me?" I wanted to say. I was surprised and hurt when Soray talked about this as the event that apparently defined my experience as a teacher ere. He said something about "cultures coming together" and I realized suddenly that the event was actually rather telling of my time here-- my opinion is asked then ignored because "it's not the way things are done here." Then why am I here? Good question. Throughout the three years one of the things that I am bothered by the most is being shown off as the resident American. I guess I am expected to just be white and be quiet.

Unfortunately, I am leaving way too late. I should have probably left about a month ago when I realized that teaching English was no longer something that I wanted to do. I have been really unhappy and I think that I will miss teaching about as I will miss shaking cockroaches out of my clothes in the orning. I just wish that I wasn't ending this whole thing on such a sour note.

Why'd it have to be snakes?

Note: This is a picture from the web: this is NOT my picture! I was watching over my class as they worked on a writing assignment today when I heard my cat calling for me. I poked my head outside and called to him so that he could find me, and he came running. At the same time, I looked down and saw a black snake about the size of my arm. Length-wise, that is, it wasn't as thick as my arm. In fact, it wasn't all that thick it all which told me that it was too skinney to be a constrictor and too big to survive on small animals like mice-- therefore, it was most likely poisonous. I darted forward to intercept the cat but was too late. Fortunately, the cat was too focused on my to notice the snake and it crawled away, but not before I noticed it's neck flatten out briefly. Good god, this snake was a cobra! I had no idea that they even existed in Thailand, so I did a quick search and found that they are actually quite common and quite poisonous. I am pretty sure that what I saw was an Indochinese Spitting Cobra, or Naja siamensis. Note that the picture is NOT the snake that I saw, but rather a picture that I found on the internet. I found out that "Naja siamensis possesses a deadly poison. In addition, the spitting of poison can lead to damage to the corneas." It then drove the point home by adding a triple skull-and-crossbones. Pretty cool, huh?

Everyone who knows me knows that snakes have never bothered me, but that isn't true for all other critters. I am really proud of how far I have come since I started traveling. True, I screamed at a spider the other day but only because it was about the size of my palm and crawling up my leg while I was reading. Another spider (black and yellow) ambushed me in bed and I just pounded on it with my fist and went back to my book. I remember when I first got to Samoa and found my first giant cockroach. I screamed and ran out of the room and got one of the boys to kill it and afterwards would have to spend ten minutes psyching myself up to enter the bathroom. Yesterday, when I was packing, a comparable bug crawled into my bag. I felt around picked it up by a wing, yelled at it, then tossed the thing outside. I wonder how long it will be after I get to the states until I go back to my old, arachnophobic self?

HELLOOO Nurse!!!

Sadly, my international adventure is about to come to a close after three years, but a new and more exciting one is about to start. I have just been accepted into St. Luke's nursing program in Sioux City, Iowa, to start in January. It's been a slow, long and difficult process and I can't believe that I finally found a program that will accept me.

After I get my degree, I am planning on heading out right away. I am thinking of re-joining the Peace Corps, then taking a position with Doctors without Borders or Care. But as my old Arabic teacher used to say, "small steps, Kim!" Let's see if I can get through the program first.

I can't believe that I am going back to Iowa!

Hormonal Problem Anyone?

Hey guys, I am working on an assignment for my Anatomy and Physiology and I need to talk 2 people who have a hormonal problem and 3 people who have a problem with the digestive system (I am looking at you here, Ram). If you can help he, shoot me an email and I will send you some questions. If you can't help me but can bullshit something real good, then shoot me an email anyway.

Back at CLC

Well, I'm back at CLC. My trip back from Mae Sot was uneventful. I managed to snag the front seat of the songtow to avoid seasickness, which was nice. I felt bad for the driver who was obviously used to having his passenger keep him amused for the six-hour trip. I was too tired to try and patch together a conversation made up of our 20-word shared vocabulary so I politely offered him some of my breakfast and then pointedly put on a pair of headphones.

About halfway between Mae Sot and Mae Sariang, there is a massive refugee camp. I am sorry that I don't have pictures, but my camera isn't working. It's huge, and every possible place is taken by makeshift houses with leaf roofs and bamboo floors. Some of the houses have walls, many don't even have that. This is the closest that I will get into a camp, as foreigners aren't allowed. This makes me angry-- if Thailand is ashamed of the camps, then they should fix them so that are are livable to the point where they can show them off to the press. Anyway, we picked up a man and two small kids (about 4 or 5 years old) and they were removed from the truck as we left the camp. As the man was led away with the two scared-looking kids, I noticed that he was missing a leg-- probably from stepping on a mine-- and was fitted with a prosthetic. Hopefully he was just returned to the camp, but I wanted badly to yell at the guard that took him away.

The police were very paranoid on the way up to Mae Sot-- every one of them took my passport and examined it. Perhaps this is because of the new law that would require them to wear a "Hello Kitty" armband if they break a minor law like overlooking a foreigner. On the way back they were calmer and only one asked for my passport-- of course, it could be that they were the same guards and they simple remembered me.

Back at CLC, very little had changed. No classes Thursday or Monday, which is fine with me because I am behind in my own classes. Friday was a speedbump between a day off and a long weekend and so one one really wanted to work. Monday is the Queen's birthday, and most Thais celebrate my treating it as a mother's day. So I had some of the classes make Mother's Day cards. This was a bit of a gamble as many of the poor kids either don't know who their mother it, or have a mother who is passed on or a refugee in another country. Some of the kids don't even know their parents names, and have no foster families to take a missing parent's place.

Visa'ed Up

Well, I got my visa and I am good to go until November although it's hard to say where I will be I will be when time for renewal comes up again.

I was a bit nervous about going through. Thailand has a law that says that you can only be in for 90 days at a time on a tourist visa. Now, I came in for 90 days on a tourist visa, and now I am on a new visa, so I am not sure if I am breaking the law or not. I don't think so, but if my name came up in their computer and they decided that I wasn't allowed to come back in there isn't much, as I learned back in March, that I can do about it!

So a little background for those unfamiliar with Thai visa laws: you can either get a 30 day or 90 day visa-- I have a 90 day. This means that every 30/90 days you have to leave Thailand and come back in, this is called a "border run". It's really, really stupid if you ask me. Most people just go to Mae Sai or Mae Sot, cross into Burma, get the enter and the exit stamp, and then cross back into Thailand-- a process that takes about 15 minutes, not including travel time.

It's particularly silly to me because my school is about 10km from the border, but I still have to travel 400km to get to one of the official checkpoints! Too bad the Kareni Army, who patrols the border, doesn't have visa stamps. The other annoying thing is that I have to fork over 500 baht to the Burmese government whenever I do this. I would much rather give the money to the Thais, and I don't know why they don't change their laws so that they can keep the money.

Heading to Mae Sot for a border run is always a little bit of a risk because they close the Mae Sot border so much. Mae Sot is considered "little Burma" and most of the signs are in Burmese. There are a lot of refugees, migrant workers, and illegals here, and it's also the flashpoint for protests and the hang out for NGOS and illegitimate aid organizations (illegitimate meaning that they are not recognized by the Thai government and operate under wraps, but also do most of the best work.) Anyway, all these means that there is a lot of potential for trouble, and when this happens they shut down the border and you can't get a visa.

Anyway, everything went fine. I left the country and decided to hang out in Burma for an hour. Myawaddy is a little border town that you can't leave (except to go back to Thailand). They actually don't let you in with your passport, you have to leave it at the office and they give you a temp. I took a quick hike around. I had tea in a real Burmese Teahouse with it's squat tables and what I imagined was political conversation at the next table (probably not). It was pretty chill except for a backfire or a firework or something that was very loud and gunshotish. I took a sip of my coffee and looked around to see if I should be alarmed, and all the patrons were staring at the farang to see what she would do. Sorry guys, no hysterics here.

The teahouse was really nice, and the guy who ran it was a cutie with a wide smile who I think accidentally almost way undercharged me for my coffee. It was clean and well put together. Outside, it was filthy and depressing, and I know that Myawaddy is probably one of the nicer Burmese towns because so many tourists have to see it. Dogs wandered around with their uteruses hanging to the sidewalk. Everyone was dressed in torn rags and spat bettlenut. The bridge was full of beggars, most of which were missing legs and arms. It was pretty appalling and depressing. Manners were low too, I got more "hey babies" in walking around for an hour then my entire 6 months in Mae Hong Son.

Back at the border, chatted with a nice Canadian couple that were getting thier visas renewed as well. The poor woman (a student of Thai) was a day late on her visa, and the Thai authorities really do a number of you as they hand out thier guilt. After the glares, you get a special stamp on your passport and have to fill out about three different forms, the entire time the office is staring at you like you committed some horrendous crime. I actually was three days late when I left Thailand last time and I thought that the Border guy was going to start crying at my apparent lack of respect for Thai law. Then you hand over 500 baht (about 15 bucks) a day for you subordinance.

I’m in Mae Sot for one more night, then I am taking the long trip home, but I think that I am going to break it into two days rather then one.

Run For The Border!

Remember those old Taco Bell commertials? "Make a run for the border! BOONG!!!" Well, that's what I am doing. Can't believe that it's been three months already and my visa is about to expire!

I am taking this as a minivacation which I dearly need. For about a week I am not thinking about classes, students who arn't learning the present tense, Anatomy and Physiology, Chemestry... you name it, I'm not thinking about it. I am in the happen' town of Mae Sot. I don't remember this place being so dingy! Mae Hong Son is a lot nicer, maybe I should have taken a vacation up there. The creepest thing about this place are the expats. I don't know where the volenteers hang out, all I see is fat white guys who have swanky buisnesses in town that are generally the cover for something else, or scary looking guys with a Burmese wife and baby in tow, looking like they are almost done with a plan to escape this place, probably leaving the new baby behind. I am already starting to miss my safe harbour of Mae Hong Son-- clean, friendly, and for the most part creep-free.

I will be going to Burma tomarrow. If the weather holds up, I think that I will hit Myawaddy, which is a small Burmese down set up for tourest crossing from Mae Sot. 100 baht says I will hate it.

Midterm Blues

They tell you in the Peace Corps to prepare for a feeling of sadness in the middle of your service, and that this is a pretty common feeling halfway though. I am finding that this is true whether you are serving for two years or one year or six months. Unfortunately for me, the condition is made worse by the fact that I already have a disposition towards depression.

I have had a good time with teaching, but I am getting ready to move on. For me, teaching comes easy. But the enthusiasm that is needed does not. For me, the hardest part of teaching is the feeling that I get when I am standing in a class that the students don't want to be there, and I feel a bit like an entertainment director on a slave ship. One of the classes is always demanding songs and games, but it's frustrating because the games that I come up with feel like work. I actually managed to even ruin Uno for the class by hiding the discarded card and making them play the game completely orally. (That is, you had to say "red three" and the next person would have to listen and put down either a red or a three.) This "jailkeeper" feeling has been difficult for me from the first day that I started teaching in Samoa. And I feel that were I a better teacher then my students would want to be there. I try to think of my best teachers and remind myself that even with them I only wanted to be in class about 40% of the time. I tell myself that I am holding myself to unrealistic goals, but it doesn't help too much.

My next career move will hopefully be in nursing where the object of my job will be to get rid of people so that I never have to see them again, rather then holding them hostage with an English book for an hour. I am really excited about this and have loved the three classes that I am taking. However, I haven't been hearing back from the school, which is also frustrating and depressing. This makes me upset with myself for being impatient, and the whole thing starts again. Still, I have a feeling that this will work out for the best, I just have to be patient.

The students this year are an incredible bunch, and they really are the only thing that is keeping me here. Whenever I think about leaving my students flash before my eyes and I put it off for another month.

Happy Buddhist Lent

Betcha didn't know that Buddhists have Lent, did you? I'm giving up cigarettes and alcohol. Which shouldn't be hard since I've basically given up on both anyway. But it's important to acknowledge the fact that I have given them up. Sort of a positive feed back loop (A&P term, Sarah gets it). Anyway, it's easier then giving up coffee.

We went to the temple to walk around the big thingy but it turned out that this was supposed to happen the next day. The next day the kids were too tired from picking bamboo shoots (or "shoot bamboo") to head back, and I was too tired from my run. So I guess we are all crappy Buddhists who will be reincarnated as chickens.

Poor kids had to rummage in the forest looking for bamboo to eat because I guess there isn't any other food here. Yesterday they had to kill one of the chickens.

Ignorance Was Bliss

I was reading through some of my old blog entries of Yemen and Samoa and realized that my life isn't as exciting at it was when I lived there. No being attacked by goons with firecrackers, no near-miss kidnaps in Marib, no students writing about the color of their panties. I think that a lot of this can be blamed on the fact that Sonia isn't here with me and she stubbornly refuses to come. I think that Thailand is too rugged for the little princess anyway.

It might SEEM like my life is boring, but I assure you it is not. As I read more of my Anatomy and Physiology book every day, it turns out that my life is really in high mortal peril every minute. It turns out that moving, my heart's continous beating, breathing, and other processes that keep me alive basically all boil down to a few measly Ca+ ions being in the right place in the right time!

Yes, I am learning how even the slightest movement requires a plethora of chemical reactions to happens, ions released and collected, and neurotransmitters being produced and reuptaken. Makes me want to lie on my bed and not move to introduce as little stress as possible and save any space Ca+ ions for the pumping of my heart and the contractions of my diaphragm.

But that's no good, according to the book, because if I don't move then my muscles will atrophy into little puddles. So instead I thought that maybe I should just move as little as possible-- like when I absolutely have to get up to eat, teach class, or make coffee. Which is convenient, because that's pretty much what I do anyway.

No good either. The book has informed me that unless I take in at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, my bones and muscles will decompose into little piles of dust by the time I am 35. Now I've heard all this before, but unlike the previous carriers of this message, I am not being offered a chance to join a gym or buy the latest slim-fast craze. No, my book simply offers in excruciating molecule-by-molecule detail how this decomposition will happen.

So, as a result, I have been jogging every day. Not an easy feat in tropical Thai weather, let me tell you. But I feel better about this workout program then ones in the past. For starters, I don't have to get up to do it, which was the doom of past attempts. I jog at dusk, when I am starting to burn out slightly and even running for 30 minutes seems more appealing then another chapter of physiology. Plus, that's the time that the mosquitoes come out, and I don't think that they are very good at hitting a moving target.

Dang!

My new favorite student 'o the week is Ms. Dang. Dang is pretty incredible. She came here and not only did she not speak a word of English, she was also illiterate in her own language, Thai. She couldn't read or write. (She could, however, say "chocolate". A woman after my own heart.) Talk to her in English and she'd just repeat what you said. Today, she can respond to most pleasantries such as "how are you" or "where's Emmett?" or "is this stuff spicy?" and even "I'm thirsty/hungry/angry/tired." She's worked her butt off and it shows.

Meanwhile, I have been really busy. I have been studying Thai and also working on my prereqs for nursing school. I got my 1100 page Anatomy and Physiology book in the mail (thanks, Sarah!) and I am also taking Chemistry and Psychology. A&P is nearly impossible! During a Thai lesson, Dang sat with us, fascinated, interjecting long strings of Thai. She could not understand that just because I could say "Hello, I am hungry" I couldn't understand long rapid 30-second monologues. To get rid of her, I finally opened my A&P book to the cut-outs of pregnant women and developing fetuses and shoved it at her. That shut her up for the rest of the lesson, flipping through the pages in wonder. She couldn't read the words, obviously, but she was quick to pick up that the drawn pictures of cut-away vaginas and GI tracts were part of her body. I was impressed. Now, whenever I am sitting at the table she'll come up and demand to see the "baby book".

Today she found the section on breathing and circulation and so I taught her how to use my stethoscope to listen to her own lungs and heart. After listening to her heart and mine she went running to her house to listen to the hearts and lungs of all the other girls. I taught her about her pulse and she ran around checking that too. Then I tried to explain to her through gestures about how the cirulation system works (not easy, you try it!) and she got the basic idea. I explained (or gestured, rather) that the heart sped up through lots of movement. She leapt up and started to jump and jog in place so that she could hear her heart go fast. Then she put the stethoscope around her neck and announced that she was a doctor. The pictures are her reading the A&P book and wearing the stethoscope.

Unfortunately, I don't really know what her story is. She only finished 3rd grade, and she speaks Thai, not Burmese. I don't know why she didn't to school-- she should have been able to go to the Thai school. Her family, like all families around here, isn't rich but do seem to have enough money to provide her with a cell phone and nice clothes. They should have been able to handle the school fees. When I asked the others what she was doing while not going to school they said that she was cleaning the house. Cinderella incarnate, I guess.

And the bug of the week is *ba ba bum* FROGS! Yes I know that they aren't bugs but they are everywhere. Little guys the size of a fingernail. Walking around campus I have to watch the ground constantly so that I won't step on them. I can't take a picture because they are too small to focus on. They are adorable and step up from last week, which was large hand-sized spiders.

What are the kids listening to today?

So, once upon I time I worked for this great startup called MongoMusic. They allowed you to make music lists and would then recommend music based on what you liked. It worked really well and I found some of my favorite music at the time there. Then we got bought out by Microsoft. Microsoft promised us that they wouldn't touch a thing about our online radio and then proceeded to not only gut the functionality of the startup but the people who'd they relocated from California to Seattle and proceeded to then fire when they started getting comfortable. (Disgustingly, this plan to "rehire" the people into other places at Microsoft-- because a music analyst is such a hot commodity there-- was announced on 9/11/2001.)

But the radio was still pretty good until they finally threw out the MongoMusic one (whose code, I am proud to say, was given a major overhaul by yours truly and then viewed by thousands daily) and then I left the country and didn't revisit the site since.

I went there today out of curiosity and found that the music radio that had been written by a startup and removed and replaced by some Microsoft creation had then been removed and replaced with code written by another startup. Makes perfect sense, don't you think?

So I've been sampling some of the music clips off Amazon to find something that's worth spending my money on and I'm pretty shocked to discover that all my favorite bands now suck. The Indigo Girl's new album contains not only recycled musical themes from Rites of Passage but actually contains recycled lyrics as well. The latest Sarah McLauchlan album is a *blah* Christmas Album! WTF?!? Even Suzanne Vega let me down.

Where I am going with this:
The reason that I went back to MSNMusic was that I was hoping that they'd finally turned on MongoMusic's recommendation service because I desperately need some new, modern, music. My old heroes have let me down. So please tell me, what are the kids listening to nowadays? If you were a fan of the alternative Cranberries/Sarah McLachlan/Melissa Etheridge type then please shoot me a line to let me know what the hell you are listening to now.

Life's Small Victories

Some of my hard work has finally paid off. After weeks of harassment, my students have finally started to wear their motorcycle helmets. I got two of the male students to wear helmets for a 2km trip to Nai Soi without any fight as all (usually the students just laugh at me when I insist on wearing helmets for this trip) and one of my students, Wanna, knocked on my door to ask if she could borrow a helmet to go to Mae Hong Son. I was so surprised when she made the request that I thought I must have misheard her!

It's just plain common sense. The director of the school has had his health greatly compromised because he wasn't wearing a helmet and was caught in a landslide when driving to town. I would have thought that that would be enough to get them to protect their heads, but they still insisted that helmets aren't needed. I gave them a rather gory and exaggerated version of my own accident and I figured that they were just laughing the silly white girl behind their concerned faces. Apparently not!

"Mr. Malaria" Tun is still symptom free but now he is plagued by some sort of stomach thing. Took me ten minutes and the help of five other students to determine if he was having regular bowel movements or not. I was able to see for myself that his appetite hadn't changed much, but what happens at the other end I could not be a witness to. I'm not too worried because he's eating and other stuff on a regular basis so it's not an obstructed gut. I spent another ten minutes trying to determine it it was a stabbing pain, a cramping pain or a dull ache. After a while Tun just started to just say "yes" to all my questions which pretty much wrapped up my interview. If he's not better by tomorrow we're sending him along with 100 baht to the clinic to let those poor people deal with him.

Fly Away Butterfly

The students interrupted me during class to inform me that a butterfly had gotten caught in a spider web while I was teaching in one of the quasi-open-air classrooms. They coached me as I borrowed an umbrella and cheered when the butterfly flew away. That's really what I love about the school-- the respect for life. The only things that really get killed with a vengeance around here are the mosquitoes. This morning the cats followed me into the classroom and lounged on the students desks. Rather then kicking them off, they carefully placed their notebooks out of the way of the sleeping felines.

Butterflies were the bug of the week about two weeks ago, now it is ants. Ants is a decided step-down, but still an improvement over the previous weeks of the wasps and the termites before that. My favorite remains the few days of the fireflies where sometimes my room would be lit up so brightly by them that I could read in the dark.

Having a few low-key minor crisises. They are irrigating the rice paddies around the school and I am pretty sure that this is causing the water to get shut off from the school. We have large water tanks that hold about four or five days of water and they are getting pretty low. Fortunately it's also been really cool as we head into the real rainy season (what we had before was just practice) so one shower a day is adequate. In addition, we haven't had cell phone coverage in Nai Soi for about two days now. One of the students, Yoom, explained to me that this is because we've had rain for a few days and the cell signals can't get through the clouds. Since we don't have this problem in Seattle I am a bit skeptical of this technological explanation.

The student's language skills are quickly improving and I am trying to get more of a gist of their past histories. I've been focusing on the four boys from Lak Thai. They were here last year and either were, are, or will be Shan soldiers. (Hopefully this will be more clear when they finally nail down the different tenses.) I am just starting to learn about their situations. Tun, the kid with malaria, is a 19-year-old who apparently left his entire family in Burma and hasn't seen them in three years. The kids aren't terribly shy about talking about their families. Yee told me that his father died a year ago because he was old. When I asked him about it he started to laugh and another kid laughed with him, saying “he thinks it's funny that his father is dead”.

And the rains starts up again.

Malaria Shamaria!

Emmett, can I use your shower? And by "shower", I mean a bucketful of malaria water."

- Kevin, one of the new volunteers

Things have pretty much returned to normal. My malaria case, Tun, is up and about and running around like nothing ever happened and doesn't seem to be relapsing or showing any signs whatsoever that less then a week ago he was suffering from a possibly fatal disease. The other three Laktai boys (Aung, Lu, and On) are being closely watched since the four of them celebrated their brotherhood by giving each other tatoos with the same machine-- Tun going first, before he got malaria. So far, so good.

I have decided not to go on antimalarials. Sarah found a really great drug which wasn't hell on your liver and kicks in in two days. The drug is one of the few that is good for the strains of Malaria found in this area, but ironically it can't be bought here. I would ask for someone to send it but with the way that the mail goes here it will be the cold season by the time it shows up. I am still waiting for a chemistry textbook that I ordered six weeks ago. I have had about as much luck with the mail in my travels as Hilter had in Russia.

I did have my first major motorcycle accident and walked away rather miraculously with nothing more then a briused knee. I'm sort of glad that I got this out of the way as it was an inevitiable event. I was heading through an intersecion that had neither stop light nor heavy traffic when a car came out of the mysterous nowhere. I jammed on my brakes but forgot that I was supposed to use the footbreak. Years of riding bycycles and mopeds had trained by reflects badly for a motorcycle. The bike didn't stop and I was faced with the choice of trying to swerve around the car or taking my chances with the curb. I picked the curb. Fortunatly, when I flew off my bike I fell into a think bunch of Thai soft jungle bushes. God did punish me by giving them thorns. I couldn't believe that the bike was okay, with the exception of a broken fuel gauge and a flat tire. Check that one off the list.

Malaria stalks CLC

Today one of my favorite students, Tun, was diagnosed with malaria. The poor kid is burning up and there isn't much that I can do for him. We have him on strong drugs and I can only pray that they are the right ones for him to take (the labels are in Thai.) He's being brave as hell.

It was surprising how sudden the whole thing was. Tun was in my class and doing his normal good work when he suddenly said quietly "Teacher, I'm cold." I thought at first that he was just trying out the grammar point that we've been working on and I was about to say "Very good, Tun! Who else is cold? Lu, are you cold?" when I noticed that he had his shoulders hunched and his hands clenched between his thighs. I touched his forehead and immediately sent him to bed with two Tylenols. When I checked on him about 30 minutes later, he was wrapped up in the 90 degree Thai heat in a winter blanket.

They got his blood tested and gave him some drugs. The label is in Thai but he only speaks Chan. I assigned a smart Thai-Chan speaking interpreter (Yee) and demanded that he take all the pills and get lots of rest and water.

The thing that I love about Tun is that he really smiles with his whole face. He managed to smile at me when I sent him to his room, smiled at me when I made him wear a helmet to go to the clinic, and then smiled at me when he came back from the doctor, so it really broke my heart when he was too sleepy and sick to smile when I checked on him this evening (although he did manage a small one when I asked for my name to check that he wasn't delirious.) I'll try to get a better picture up of him when he gets better, but until then I hope that you keep him in your thoughts.

As for me, I'm debating whether I should go on antimalarials or not.

Hello, Nurse!

How the Hell did you get back here? I flushed you down the toilet two hours ago!

- Me, this morning

Charlotte the giant St. John's Cross spider has vanished. I think that she's dead. The reason I think this is that I have found a bunch of baby St. John's Cross spiders around my room. They are not following in the footsteps of their namesakes by jumping off to parts unknown on little webbed parachutes-- no, these seem to prefer to build their webs in my clothes. When I find them I don't exactly do a somersault and give them a name like Wilber did-- the lucky ones gets tossed outside.

After my week of teaching Health to the class one students, I more or less have become the official CLC nurse. Injured students will either seek me out or avoid me depending on the nature of their injury. One of the volunteers has pinkeye [insert South Park joke here]. One student, Laulang, came to me with what he claimed was a “sick” or sprained wrist. Not broken or terribly swollen, I diagnosed it as a minor sprain and told him not to move it. When he seemed unhappy with my diagnosis I offered to splint it for him with bamboo and tape. He turned me down but still looked so unhappy that I went against the advice in “Where There Is No Doctor” and tried to interest him in a Tylenol, but that was turned down as well.

Sigh came into class with huge sores on his leg from God knows what but I was more concerned about the massive amounts of purple gunk around the wound. After class I marched him down to the shower hole and got him to wash it throughly while trying to find out what he'd put on it. Two bandaids and I pronounced him cured, telling him not to think of putting anything else on the spot. Two hours later, the bandaids were gone and he had no clue what I was talking about when I asked him why he'd taken them off. This time he got bandaids and some bright red electrical tape wrapped around his legs. That seems to have done the trick.

Her Happy Ear

One of my students wrote on her present simple assignment: "My teacher's name is Kim. She is a very smil[e]. She is a tall. She teaches my happy ear."

Yes, her English needs work but that really is one of the nicer things that anyone has said about me.

The school year is in full swing. The boys that were supposed to have ditched us to join up with the army decided to come back after all. Hopefully this was their choice. Most of the girls have gone, and we are left with just two living in the girls house. The boys, sadly, brought back their guitars but fortunately they seen to do work in the morning and save the guitar playing for after dinner when I am not working.

The bugs are still swarming, but I've gotten used to it. Lights go off and the gameboy goes on. They just fly around for about an hour having sex, and their wings come off and then go away as quickly as they appear. I actually sort of look forward to it, isn't an excuse not to do work.