I am on the phone right now

I am on the phone with Cesar right now and feel so dirty I want to crawl out of my own skin.

Partly because I don't want to hear what he's saying and partly because I don't like how I'm responding.

I am a cooking machine

I did lots and lots of cooking tonight. I made walleye with brazillian spices. The recipe actually called for shrimp marinated in lime juice, cilantro, eighteen heads of garlic (8 cloves really) and crushed red pepper. I have come to this conclusion: I don't like fish. Shrimp is ok, scallops are good, lobster is GOOD. Fish, not so much, which is too bad seeing as it's so good for women to eat.

Second I made chicken stock. I keep looking at this corn starch I bought. Every time I open my cupboard I can hear it say to me "egg drop soup would be sooo good". And then sometimes I think about making rice but I lack the chicken stock to do it. So for now, problem solved.

And then I made guacamole. The guac is the highlight probably. I added salsa. I don't know if my feelings about tomatoes have been made clear. Raw tomatoes are very very bad, but salsa I could eat by the bucket. I have no explanation. It's really good, I ate about half of it. I'm full now. I hope it stays until tomorrow. It should, there's only like a cup of lime juice in it.

Every time I cook I think of Mark. I keep thinking about what I will do when I finish school. There are some days in Minnesota, usually when it's about -1o degrees, that Florida sounds really nice, particularly the keys. I wonder what would finally make me move from Minnesota to Florida. It's nice to think about but it seems like there needs to be some critical event that would actually force the decision. I have no idea what that would be.

Something to entertain me

I was on "My Yahoo" page and one of the things I get is the eHow column.

The topics are
How to make your parents love you for who you are
How to have a healthy relationship

Seriously, just like that.
Anyone else think this is funny?

It's still funny

I was re-reading this post from a long time ago: One of the funniest things I've written
And I have to say, I still think it's funny.

My latest out of body experience

I was sitting in Reserach Methods class today. The professor in there is generally not well liked by the students but I have been holidng out simply because he did his undergrad at UC in criminal justice like myself.

Since I was a hold out and didn't join in to the general sentiment that this was a bad professor, and also because the professor talks to me about UC all the time, people kept saying to me "you're Velmer's girlfriend". I am in grad school. These are social workers. I am not enjoying this.

Today we had a 40 question quiz which got absolutely screwed up due to a "copying error" with the answer sheet. In the end we got 10 points free for his mistake. I actually felt pretty bad for the guy until later on.

After the quiz we were sitting in class taking notes on sperious relationships. I looked up from my notes to see him looking at me as he was talking. I slowly turned bright red. He ended the sentence with "you know this, what's a sperious relationship?" My hand was not raised. I did not want to answer this question and I really didn't want to talk. Luckily someone else chimed in and answered the question.

But then I started paying more attention, just looking up from time to time noticing he was looking at me. I was absolutely red. I'm sure if I were in sandals my feet would have been red. I was so embarrased and so completely stressed I just wanted him to stop looking at me. And then I began to notice that everyone else was noticing him looking at me which just increased my level of redness and anxiety.

I had this total out of body experience when I could see him looking at me and see the other studnets seeing him looking at me and then they would look at me. I wanted out of my own skin so bad it hurt at that moment.

I am so mad I can barely see straight

My night all started when Cesar asked me if we could go out tonight. We saw a movie called Syriana... save your money if you have the option. Anyways, after the movie the opportunity to make out presented itself, and again I declined. It's always easier to go back to Minnesota not having made out with a guy here. After that we started talking, and talked for a really long time.

I can't remember all of the things we talked about. The biggest thing was that Cesar needs to be documented, the easiest way to do that is to marry a citizen. But Cesar would never marry me so he can get documented. But he needs to get documented...

Then he tells me that it's hard for him to see me because we live so far away from each other, which is true. The more I start talking to him, the more I miss him. The closer I get to seeing him again, the more I miss him. But, it's too hard so we shouldn't see each other at all.

I said, we need to continue this conversation but not tonight. Partly because I could feel my heart tearing open, partly becuase it was late and I have my Dad's car and I didn't want the parents to be worried. At this point, I'm not sure if I'm heart broken or mad as hell or a bit of both.

The thing about marriage and citizenship: I would never marry Cesar so he could be documented. I would marry Cesar because I love him. I don't really care if documentation is a part of that package or not. Cesar wont come to Minnesota, partly because his family is here and partly because traveling is really dangerous for him. Would I move back to Cincinnati? I don't know, but if Cesar and I actually were in a relationship that's a decision we get to make together. Tonight he basically said that I was up in Minnesota and it wouldn't work out. I don't know if that's true. He doesn't get to decide that, he get's to ask, and then we get to make the decision together.

I am seriously so mad and angry and upset... I'm glad I'm in Cincinnati and there's really good ice cream here. That's really the only thing keeping me going at this point.

Don't know what I was going to say

I was at a sexual harrasment training this morning for work. I had this great idea of what to write about, but I totally cona't remmeber.

I thought I'd just write a few lines in the hopes of remembering, but nothing is coming to me.

I'm going to write about all of the good things that happened today, and see if I can block out all of the bad. The team at the museum went up on the floor today, and they did really well. We made kaleidoscopes and "vocal chord" cups. Some of the new, and some of the old, did a really good job and totally impressed me. I was most impressed with people who I thought would be really quiet and shy, and they were totally what they needed to be.

Ok, then I downloaded some songs from singing fish which is a fantastic website. I am ok with the fact that I got a new kids on the block song. You know you used to listen to them too.

All of these things that I think about...

My dad is in town this weekend. He's actually asleep right now and going home tomorrow. We didn't really get much time togehter but we had a really nice meal tonight. I had ceviche which is my favorite food ever in life. It was really spicy though. I guess the next time I'll see my parents i sat thanksgiving.

I'm thinking about getting a PDA. There are all of these wild deals on Ebay. They look too good to be true. Anyone know if they erally are? Theyare some PDAs where the opening bid is like one penny or so. These are supposedly new, never opened items that should be selling for $300 or so. I'll give it a few days. I'm assuming the price will go up.

I'd like to have a PDA that can do wirelss, also so that I can have a calendar wherever I am. My life gets so screwed up when I just have my calendar on my computer at home.

Right now I'm watching the three musketeers. My DVD player is functioning for the moment. At some point I really should get it cleaned...

Somewhere in my future or past

I was reading tonight about child development, especially infants and toddlers. There was this section on SIDS that I just couldn't even read. It felt like I was retraumatizing myself, and the parts on children with developmental disabilities, physical disabilities, etc. was totally painful as well. I just couldn't read the SIDS one, it was too awful to think about having a baby and then having it die so little for no reason. Ugh.

Nothing has happened to me in this life that would bring about such a strong response, so I am wondering if in a past life, something awful happened and I was a part of it, possible the Mom or Dad that lost a kid all of a sudden.

Anyone else believe in this past life stuff, or am I all alone out here?

What my birthday means

Here's what my birthday means. Also, I got a bloody nose on the bus today. A real true bloody nose. It's not even winter yet. What is going on here?

Your Birthdate: June 21

Being born on the 21st day of the month (3 energy) is likely to add a good bit of vitality to your life. The energy of 3 allows you bounce back rapidly from setbacks, physical or mental. There is a restlessness in your nature, but you seem to be able to portray an easygoing, "couldn't care less" attitude. You have a natural ability to express yourself in public, and you always make a very good impression. Good with words, you excel in writing, speaking, and possibly singing. You are energetic and always a good conversationalist. You have a keen imagination, but you tend to scatter your energies and become involved with too may superficial matters. Your mind is practical and rational despite this tendency to jump about. You are affectionate and loving, but very sensitive. You are subject to rapid ups and downs.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

My life in a car

I drove to and from my internship this morning, and it was one of the better things I've done in a while. As I was in my car driving, I rmemebered how my life had had been before I started school. I remember thinking this was how my life was back when I was a normal person. I'm begining to understand why my mother was always making comments about not being a normal person during the school year. Imagine being a professor, that would be even worse because not having a normal life would be normal. It's all very wild.

So after that, I rode my bike to the 38th st station and bused from there to school. I'm actually feeling better that I have a decent way to get home tonight that doesn't rely on the buses running exactly perfectly on time.

One of the funniest things I've ever written

I was writing a paper tonight when I wrote what I think is one of the funniest things I've ever written. I'm going to post it, and we'll see if I think it's funny in a week, or if y'all think it's funny right now.

More broadly, there is a view in southern Ohio, particularly in Cincinnati, that anything that is educated, articulate and wearing shoes comes from Ohio. Anything that is backwards and chews tobacco with the two teeth it has left is from Kentucky.

Restorative Justice

I am on a restorative justice panel. Once a month or so, we meet with a person who has plead guilty to a crime, usually soliciting a prostitute. The person is able to make a contract with the panel about what he/she will do to repair the harm to the community. If they complete the terms of their contract, their record will be cleared.

The members of the panel are volunteers, mostly from the community. It's a very interesting panel. Most of the people on it are very cool, very chill people. They're really not looking to jam anyone up, or hurt anyone. They're not there to be vindictive or seek retribution. I am there because I see the value of the program and I like being involved in it. I like being involved because I see the value of the program.

A new volunteer showed up last night and sat on the same panel as me. What I got out of that experience was that it reaffirmed for me that I am not here to punish people. I am here to help people repair the community and then say, "you have done your part, the harm is repaid and you are welcome in my community any time". It also helped me clearly articulate that the goal of the panel is not to be retributive or punish people. I as a community member don't get anything out of making someone do more work just because I can. I as a community member see the value of having someone participate in my community by volunteering. I also learned that people of different cultures can have a bit of an identity thing happening, where they this one identity that's based on their cultural history and beliefs, and another identity based on what's happening in the environment where they live now. And I see now they both can be very real for a person, and it's helpful to see when that is going on, because both are happening and both experiences are true even though one is the total opposite of the other. This new person helped me see that.

I wonder what I'll think when I re-read this post, if I'll remember what else was happening. When I re-read my journal from Malawi, there's what I was saying which was fairly optimistic and what was going on in my head at the time which was not optimistic at all. I remember both when I look at those journals, but others who don't know the situation wouldn't get that from the journals at all. I'm wondering if I'll have the same experience with this post. Not that there's something I'm not telling you...

How Panic Attacks Make Everything OK

I haven't blogged in a really long time, since school started or before I would guess. School is keeping me amazingly busy, and what it's not doing for my schedule, work and the internhsip are.

I have this one class that's a seminar basically where we talk about everything that's going on in our field placements. The class is Wednesday (today is Friday so I already had it this week), and last Monday I had a crazy panic attack while I was trying to fall asleep. I really was not looking forward to going to this class because it's a "talk about your feelings" kind of class which is just not for me. I was also feeling uncomfortable because people in this class have a tendency to share way too much, and when it's my turn I don't want to be expected to share the same amount of information.

Monday night, I was thinking about this, and getting more and more freaked out the more I thought about it until I totally tensed up and started crying and knew that there was no hope of sleep even though it was midnight and I had to be somewhere at 7am the next day. I went out on the couch and turned a movie on and let the sound put me too sleep. At some point in the middle of the night I did successfully manage to crawl into bed and get some sleep.

The next day I was so worn out from having had that panic attack that at the very least, I wasn't worried about that stupid class so I could function the whole day. Wednesday, I was still pretty worn out, just totally drained from this panic attack so that I wasn't worried about the class.

My field instructor really wanted me to talk to the professor before hand and tell her how I was feeling, but I didn't want to. The FI wanted me to say that this seminar doesn't fit my learning style and group processing is not my thing. I didn't really want to say anything to the professor because it's not a "learning style" issue, it's an "I have OCD and anxiety" issue that I'm not ready to discuss with anyone here.

I didn't say anything to the professor bur I also didn't raise my hand to talk, and the thing I noticed is that she doesn't call on people, she really lets us talk on our own which I appreciate because most of the time I don't want to say anything so I don't have to. For now, I will not be disclosing my anxiety problems to the professor, which gets to be my choice, despite the advice from my FI which I appreciate.

It's going to be an interesting conversation on Tuesday when I tell my FI that I didn't talk to the professor. She's going to give me a really hard time about it. I really do appreciate her input and acknowledge that she's got some experience in this, but this also gets to be my decision about what I share with people, who I share it with, and how that information is shared.

The other thing that will never come up after today is ADD/ADHD and that whole diagnosis. The professors around here seem to make a lot of jokes about that. I don't want them to know I have ADD because of those jokes, and because I think they might feel uncomfortable having made those jokes once they know my whole situation. (At least they really should feel uncomfortable having made those jokes because some of them were very unkind and made me feel pretty uncomfortable).

My life is seven years

The last game we played today was too imgaine my life in seven years. I think I did the worst on this one, or it was the most metaphoric.

I was sitting at home with a baby just hanging out. It was my baby, and I realized it was Deb's home where I was two or three days ago. I liked the baby and I actually liked my husband. I don't know why I'm always surprised in dreams when I like my husband, and always encouraged by it too I guess.

I kept going with it, couldn't tell whether I had one kid or two, I think just one. But I liked my husband and Amanda and Kelly were still around. Amanda was much better with the little baby than Kelly, that's more a memory I had than something that I saw in the dream, but Kelly is the person whose temper I would want around a child.

Anyways, I'm never sure in these things if the kids I see are realy kids or if they are a metaphor for something. The bummer is that the husband who I liked could have been a metaphor too. And the house, I liked the house, all the stuff in it was new, I thought, this is a good place to be.

The last thing we had to do was ask the future self a question, like how they got there. I couldn't really tell myself how I got to this place where I had a little baby and all of these people I liked being around, even though I asked. The future me just sort of sat there speechless. I thought, "oh yea, this is for real". I'm sure that was just what I wanted to see my life as.

Why Alicia Keeps Showing Up

One of the other games we played togay was the psychic game, where somebody asks one quesiton, something they want to know the answer to, and then a second question. The answer to the first question is in the second question.

So for the second question, I had to picture myself in a place, then a person was coming and that person handing me soemthing who was the person and what did they hand me. Obviously, I was in a cave with bats. I had my headlight on my head but not my helmet, which means I was bat netting but not caving. Anyways, I tend to let bats fly around my head, no problem. Then someone was coming towards me, who is it? Alicia, it's always Alicia in these things. She showed me something that was on a piece of paper, I think it was something Jackie had written for us, really good news because we were both excited about it.

Anyways, I had to a game like this once before and I was in a scary place, and it asks me who I see, and it was Alicia then too.

If I ever have to do these games, I will in a cave or with a bat and Alicia will be coming to help me. I'm always in a cave and Alicia is always coming to get me.

I think a horse helped me out one time

I went to this thing today about Edgar Cayce and the Akashik Record. The Akashik record is basically a record of everything that's ever happened, from how the universe was created to what I did in my previous life. It's pretty wild.

Anyways, one of the excercises is to think of a past life and figure out who was in the life and what was going on. I pictured myself in the mountains out west, maybe the black hills by a stream. I was this young Indian with my hair in two braids, which is probably why I don't wear my hair in braids ever, and there was this horse there with me. I liked to ride him bear back. I was looking at my reflection in the water, I was really happy about something. I had just come from somewhere, and I was really happy about something that had happened there, and really happy the horse was there with me. That horse was a friend of mine I think.

Then we were supposed to think of that life as a child and who was there with me, and I was in a teepee sitting on someone's lap. Probably my gramma or grandpa I don't know. I didn't really know anyone who was there, but I didn't really think about it either.

The thing I remember about that life too was that I was sort of seperate from everyone else, sort of withdrawn which is exactly how I am now. I have a few friends but even they don't get to be super super close to me. I never really minded being a little outside the group, doing things a little differently, and I really liked that horse.

Every time I see horses now, even on TV, I think they're being overworked or we ask too much out of horses. Dr. Quinn is a favorite TV show of mine, and I think about how in that time they made horses run many many miles a day because we can't and I always feel bad for the horses like they're being overworked. I think I still feel grateful to that horse, I liked him.

Why I'm a Bad Child

I don't really want to write about this right now, but I know it'll make me feel better.

My parents and I have been on vacation with three friends of theirs. I was the youngest person on the trip by a generation or two. Anyways, my parents and I just got back to Minneapolis. My Mom and I were going to pick out a movie and my Dad asked me to get him a six pack on the way. I said ok at the time, but I realized I didn't want to get him a six pack at all.

I talked to Mom about it and asked if I could just not get him anything. The compromise was to get him non-alcoholic beer. I knew not getting him the beer was the right thing to do, but I was sort of dreading telling him when I got home, which went almost as badly as I expected.

This whole vacation has sort of been rocky between my Dad and I. I really don't like to watch him drink, so while I made the decision for the right reasons, it just looks like an extension of us not getting along so well right now. It's like being back in highschool. I just don't want to be around him and apparently I only like my Mother. It's all very strange.

Ok, that's all I can stand for now. I hate typing when my fingernails are this long, it just feels wrong.

Just hanging out

I am just hanging out at work at this point. It's only kind of silly. Yesterday my big project was making an excel sheet that can calculate a person's SSI payment if they return to work. I also learned to lock documents and unlock cells that can be changed.

Today, I did a crossword, playfour, and a cryptogram. I also went to a training where I learned that everything I had ever done was wrong for a certain program at work. It's really a funding stream that I'm not going to name. It's not so much finding out that I was doing everything wrong as the manner it was presented in, and the ridiculousness of not being taught correctly in the begining.

We have a person at work who's sole job is professional education. A most unfortunate side effect of this position is that it's made this person think she knows more than the rest of us. I feel very condescended to when I'm around her. That was ok in the begining when I really didn't know that much, but now it's hard not to feel insulted by it.

The positive side effect of this is that no one wants to deal with our professional ed person, so we use our co-workers as professional resources to a much greater degree, we get to know each other better, and have a much greater respect for people's skills and abilities.

The other thing that's happened at work is another co-worker of mine talks to me a lot. That in itself is not a bad thing. I think I just like to talk about different things than her. She's much more of a "J" than I am. I mean I'm mostly a J but I have my P moments when I'm hanging out with people I know having a good time or relaxing.

J and P are personality measures from the meyers-briggs type indicator, which if you've never taken, you should. If you have taken it, I'm an INFJ most of the time and an INTJ the rest.

It still feels like getting kicked in the stomach

I got a letter from a girl who lived in Malawi with me. She left after a few months. She was telling me about all our firends there and what they're doing. It still feels like getting kicked in the stomach every time I think about not being there. It still feels like a loss that's fresh in my mind.

The thing about Malawi was I never knew people as open and accepting as lived there. I only went once to the community I was supposed to live in but I never doubted that I'd fit in there. I never once worried about that.

I spent a lot of time worrying about the Minibuses, which are really a 1984 toyota minivan with balding tires packed with twenty people and live stock. I was always worried that one was going to flip and I was going to loose a limb and have to deal with that the rest of my life. I also worried about rampaging elephants and lions maiming not. I really didn't worry about dying, I worried about winding up with these horrible disfigurements as a reminder of this choice to go to Africa against my better judgement and my parents and my friends.

It was interesting in her email to me that she said it made her crazy as well. I'm thinking there's more to that malaria mediciation than meets the eye. I have OCD (although not officially diagnosed), and so I have bad anxiety sometimes. Usually I have anxiety about things I can control, like did I lock the door, did I fill out that form correctly, etc. This was the weirdest anxiety because it was about things I should be anxious about, minibuses do crash, and an elephant was shot in my village because it got loose, but it wasn't anything I could control.

It was the worst anxiety I'd ever felt in my life, and I didn't know how to control it. It was awful. Eventually the only thing left for me to do was leave, which relieved some anxiety. Since then, and it's been over a year, I've learned a lot about what's going on with me and OCD and how to deal with it. But I still think about the things and the people I lost, and what I would have if I stayed there.

I was talking to someone the other day who told me that she was sorry I had such a short time in Africa, and I told her without really thinking about it that I had exactly the right time in Africa. Interesting. I'd go back in a heartbeat if there were different malaria drugs that didn't make me nuts.