Ke$ha Style Revenge at the Post-Op
I'll admit it. My pet peeves are plenty. But if there is one thing that absolutely drives me insane, it's waiting in a tiny room for a doctor forEVER. Today, my appointment with my ortho surgeon was at 1:45. I was the only person in the waiting room. The office staff was just back from lunch. There was no backlog of patients waiting to be seen. No emergencies busted in before me. And yet there I was, 20 minutes after my scheduled appointment, still waiting for a room.
When I was finally taken back to the room (with both girls in tow), I figured I'd be seen quickly. I figured wrong. At the 35 minute point, post appointment, I decided that if Lil C wanted to sing her heart out I was going to be ok with that. In fact, if Big I wanted to join her and if the two of them wanted to dance around, stomping like elephants, that would be cool too.
At 40 minutes post appointment time, the exam room concert began. Lil C started by standing in the center of the teeny room and clearing her throat. She then broke out in a near perfect version of Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold." When she forgot the rest of the words, she switched to her tried and true, Ke$ha's "Tik Tok." She knows every word to that song; she also knows that brushing your teeth with a bottle of Jack is a bad idea. She has motions to go with each line. At the end of every other line, she threw up some crazy side kick/roundhouse business. It was loud and it was awesome.
I sat on the exam table bopping my head to the beat. I encouraged her to continue singing and louder. Any doctor who's going to make me wait that long should have his office graced with little girl concert. It's called the patient's revenge and it's my right as a human being.
When he finally entered the room about 10 minutes later, Lil C was on her 6th round of "Tik Tok" and she was getting more and more energetic with each round. He walked in the room, and she backed up into the chair, crossed her arms and said, "You took WAY too long." This is the second time she has scolded him; and it is times like this that I swear that kid and I have a mental connection. I think it; she says it.
A few minutes later, as he was consulting my surgical notes, Lil C leaned forward in her chair and said, "Ok, ok, ok, so I have to know something. Can Mommy swim now or what?" Once again, mental connection. What I love about this surgeon is that he totally gets my kid. He turned to me and asked me if this drama was the norm for her. I nodded that it was and he told her that I was going to have to call my plastic surgeon to get the swimming answer for her. She didn't like that one bit.
I also didn't like being told that I have to wait two more weeks to do anything. In addition, I have to start going to physical therapy again next week. Until my flexion is back to normal, I'm not allowed to do any treadmill walking or running. I'm at about 75% of where I should be, but it's the last 25% that is always bite-your-pillow-and-swear-a-lot killer. I need to be going to PT appointments three times a week like I need a hole in the head. I just don't.
Once I'm allowed to exercise again, I have to be careful so as not to get a stress fracture right through my bone thanks to the huge hole the screw being removed left. He said I have a Level 1 PCL sprain still happening. So, no knee extensions, no squats, no breast stroke (Ugh-how does he think I can survive???). Once I can go back to the gym, I'm going to find a good trainer and get this atrophied leg whipped back into shape. The problem is that there are so many limitations.
Here's the good news though. My surgeon had me sit on the table with my legs hanging over the side. He grabbed my left leg, twisted it a bit and held it tight and asked me to pull it back towards the table. This has always caused me a ton of pain. Today, he grabbed the leg and watched my face for the grimace I've had each and every time I'm there. Today, there was nothing. The screw is gone and so is the pain associated with it. I just need some more time to heal. I am starting to believe I will really be better. . . finally.
And that feels almost as good as the Ke$ha revenge.
Today, I am speaking out at Violence Unsilenced. Check it out. There are also some great winning opportunities on The BBM Review. Check them out too!
Facebook and Mustard: The Answer Revealed
Today I got a call from a student on my cell phone, given to him by the registrar, I assume. First of all, he called me by my first name. He doesn't know me. He doesn't know what I normally go by in the classroom. Sure, there are plenty of people who use their first names in the classroom. However, I don't. Maybe it's the few years of teaching high school, but my students call me "Mrs. B." He should have assumed the more formal alternative. Right away, he went to the first name. Dude, we are not on a first name basis.
He then proceeded to tell me that he will miss the first week of class because he is going on vacation. He wanted to know, and I quote, if "I'll miss anything." Um, yeah, buddy, you're going to miss the first week of class. The first week of class is crucial. It's where I lay down the law, drive all that info on the syllabus into your head and then we get down to business and start working on first speeches. Yes, the first week. That's how I roll.
This reminds me of the student I had last year. In the middle of discussing my strict attendance policy, she shot her hand up in the air and said, "Um, yeah, I'm from far away. And if someone in my family gets sick or dies or something, I might not be here for like a whole week."
I'm not a fan of people who interrupt me to tell me their personal business, business that can be taken care of AFTER class, not during when it's wasting everyone's time including my own. I asked her if she had any sick and/or dying family members or friends. She said, "no." And then I told her that we should just go on and assume that everyone is going to stay healthy for now and that we'll deal with it, if and when that time comes.
I am fully aware that college students experience the death of a grandparent at least once per semester, every semester throughout their time at the university. But let's just deal with that when it happens. I can also now add that on the morning of my Grammon's funeral, I came and taught my class before going to the funeral.
Needless to say, I am a bit concerned about my students this semester. Each year I am a bit older and less tolerable. I always have some awesome kids; but the non-awesome ones can really overshadow those bright and shiny ones sometimes.
But, I've left you hanging enough. Here is how Facebook is like mustard. . .
"Yet it is paramount to understand that everything has its own pros and cons. Take mustard, for instance. It has barely any calories but that doesn't mean every dieter will find it delectable. While mustard is almost completely different from Facebook, my point remains solid. Facebook isn't for everyone."
I can't even begin to tell you how badly I want this student in my class. It is out of the box thinking like this that makes me think that there is hope. Bright, shiny, mustard-colored Facebooky hope.
How close were you to the right answer? I have to say, those ketchup responses were pretty funny.
Facebook is Like Mustard and Other Reasons I’m Not Ready for Fall Semester
I need to get my syllabus ready for the fall semester and I haven't done it yet. Procrastination becomes me. Here's the thing though. I have good reason for procrastinating and being a little bit scared of what's to come this semester.
Each summer, I spend several days during freshman orientation, reading abysmal essays that make me want to laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously. The good ones are few and far between. It's amazing how clueless students can be without an open word doc in front of them. Some of them have such horrible handwriting that it's not even possible to give the essay an accurate read. But I always leave each reading session with a list of "greatest hits" and I'd like to share some of them with you.
This year, students were asked to respond to one of three questions. One asked students to discuss Facebook and whether or not they feel Facebook needs a new code of conduct. Another question inquired about how students think the oil spill should be dealt with and handled by corporations. The last question asked students to discuss standardized testing and whether or not they feel tests are good representations of intelligence.
As I'm sure you can guess, most of our essays were about Facebook. We actually got to the point, during our third session, where we divided up the essays and tortured ourselves with the Facebook ones first. They lacked critical thinking; in fact, most lacked any and all semblance of thinking. Here are some of the "best of" examples:
Best use of two words that are not the actual words intended: "I was up hauled that Facebook didn't have a better code of conduct." Um-hmm, that would be appalled.
Best use of a misspelled rock: "Don't take anything for granit."
Best example of logical thinking: "One of the biggest dangers of online activity is that you might encounter some "unfriendly stalkers." Yeah, you don't really need to worry about the friendly stalkers, just those pesky unfriendly ones.
Best use of food to get point across: "I donut know how I feel about this issue." Someone was hungry.
Best invention of new time period: "I can't stand it when people act like a pre-Madonna." Hey, at least this student knew to capitalize Madonna. And for all of you who were not certain before, we have BC, AD and now PM (pre-Madonna) time periods.
Most startling revelation:"If Facebook were banned, people would have no way to connect with friends." True enough, because we don't have anything like phones or mailboxes where people could connect. And interaction in person? Nah, that wouldn't work.
Best first sentence: "To begin with, I am choosing essay number 3." The essays were lettered.
Best use of patriotism: "The attacks on 9/11 couldn't break our seals. Us Americans came together." Yep, our seals are patriotic animal folk. They rose above and helped "us Americans" by clapping those silly little flippers and barking us right back to normal.
Best person to write a new code of conduct for Facebook: "Facebook should make you don't write no threats." For real people.
Best way to get put in remedial English: Write a killer good essay and then on the front of your booklet, fill in where it says "subject" with the word: "writting."
Best invention of new words: nototion and vestate. Huh?
Best phonetic spelling (or something): suppost (supposed), sorce (source), awial (awhile), and pedafiles (pedophiles), precousious (precautious), oppurinity (opportunity). There were just too many awesome examples to choose only one.
Best combination of words: "everywhichway"
Best new inventive use for a word: "Facebook allows you to meet new people to a certain decent."
I have to say though, that my favorite essay of the entire summer, took a giant risk by comparing Facebook to mustard. Anyone want to guess how those two are alike? Go for it. Think like an incoming freshman and knock my socks off.
BlogHer Wrap-Up
I decided on Friday night that there was no way I was making it to 8 a.m. breakfast on Saturday. I needed sleep, first and foremost. After arriving back at the hotel after midnight, it just wasn't going to happen. I grabbed coffee from my room and figured I'd function on caffeine and a granola swag bar that found its way into my bag until lunch.
I spent my morning and afternoon floating in and out of sessions. They told us to "vote with our feet" so I did, often. I was really pumped about the Fitness Blogging session, but after investing 15 minutes, realized that this was a room full of a lot of women who wanted to talk about weight loss and plateaus. There's nothing wrong with that; but it wasn't what I was expecting so out I went.
I found myself in the Tragedy session where two of the speakers were Anissa and Peter Mayhew. Anissa suffered a massive stroke and her husband blogged her progress and the family's heartache in the days that followed. Listening to them speak was inspiring, especially after losing my grandmother to a massive stroke in April.
When it was over, I rushed out to the Humor Writing session. It was funny, but it was so packed and when I saw a message on twitter that the Small Blogs session was incredible, I walked again.
I walked into this room and looked around. This, the last session of the conference, was filled with women I had met and connected with during the conference. People talked about loving their small blogs, and using their blogs as writing exercise, not for ad revenue and shameless self-promotion. It was here that I had the guts to speak up (before the time was out-which had happened to me in another session). (By the way-here's a link to that post I mentioned in there.) I stood up and suggested that instead of all running off after the session was over, why not stay, exchange business/blog cards and get to know each other a little better? We may not have 50,000 followers on Twitter or write a blog that pays our mortgage, but couldn't we all help each other grow and at least expose our writing to other like-minded people?
The response was incredible. Instantly, Tricia turned around and handed me her card. I instantly saw "fighter" and knew we would hit it off. She teaches boxing of all things. With a blog called Left Hook, we were destined to be friends. Even though this looks more like a right back fist, she is legit. She's actually just showing off her new swag bracelet.
Then other women started moving over towards me and handing me their cards as well. This was a friendly group. By the time I left the room, about 20 minutes after the session had ended, I had met at least 15 new people and found some really interesting new blogs to read. Here's my collection of cards from the weekend.
When the final keynote of the day wrapped up, I returned to my room to get ready for the night. Armed with a cell phone full of blogger's phone numbers, I wasn't worried about arriving at parties by myself. As a crasher anyway, who didn't realize the importance of RSVPing or trying to get invites to private parties, I was relieved when Faiqa invited me to a Blogger Meet-up at The Volstead, for all the bloggers without parties to attend. Funny that I had no parties to attend, but still didn't know about the Blogger Meet-up. I sent text messages to all my new friends and they began filing in. It was one of the most relaxed environments all weekend and I had a blast while there.
Here I am with "Mrs. Smith," whom I will always think of as a great little sister. We had an absolute blast together.
It was after The Volstead that we went to Sparklecorn, which sounds cheesy and ridiculous, but it was easily one of the best parties I had ever been to. . .EVAH. This is the cake from said party, made by Charm City Cakes. You know, the Ace of Cakes people on The Food Network. I seriously love them and couldn't wait to try the cake. Each turret, unicorn, etc. was a different flavor. The one I had was banana and it was easily the best cake I have ever had. Mrs. Smith had a peanut butter slice and I was lucky enough to snag a bite of that one as well. It tasted like a Reese's Peanut Butter cup would if it was a cloud. In a word: incredible.
Then, standing right beside that amazing cake, I recognized one of the people I was determined to meet over the weekend. . . Amalah. One of the first blogs I ever read, I felt like I already knew her as I walked up, introduced myself and asked for a picture. The coolest part? She totally knew who I was, probably because as a newbie blogger I had tagged her in a meme just for fun. I never thought she'ddo it, but she did and the mad hits I had that day from Amalah blew this then-newbie blogger out of the water. She was gracious, warm and totally normal. What a relief.
Before heading out, "Green" and I posed for a picture and spent some time discussing our experiences at BlogHer. If you appear on her blog, you appear as a color and she promised me "teal." You guys all know how much I like my shades of blue and green around here.
With Sparklecorn wrapping up, Mrs. Smith and I headed over to CheeseburgHer. A so-called rite of BlogHer passage, I wasn't surprised to see so many people walking around with McDonald's bags on their heads. I had seen the pictures from last year. And then I saw Goon Squad Sarah! Buddies in my blogger fantasy football league for years, it was so nice to finally meet her.
After getting my fill of snack wraps and burgers, we decided enough was enough. All in all, I had a great time at BlogHer. There were some awkward moments; but overall, I made some great new friends, and found inspiration and writing advice that I needed. . .
If only I had met Lisa Stone (whose blog has clearly been neglected because she's been all busy running some site called BlogHer or something). . .
And there she was, in the gray dress right behind Mrs. Smith. If only I had known this before I downloaded my pictures after arriving at home. "Hi Lisa, wish we had met."
Finally, because you can't talk about BlogHer without talking about the swag, I'll show you this, a partial picture of all the swag because I had already loaded all the edible stuff into my pantry closet. I didn't attend the private parties with vacuum cleaners. I didn't have any clothing companies throwing free clothing at me. But I did make some nice connections with sponsors, and get some cool new stuff, my favorite being the Tempur-Pedic travel pillow that made my bumpy bus ride home a little more tolerable.
I learned many things at BlogHer this past weekend. First, I love this blog and I should be more proud of it and promote my writing and my work more often instead of worrying that people will be offended by something I might write one day. Second, some bloggers can be downright odd. I should have expected this, but I guess not everyone has a healthy balance between their online lives and the ones they tend to write about. And finally, there are some amazing people out there; and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to attend a function where I could meet so many of them.
I would like to thank my neighbor Amy, for letting me borrow some beautiful jewelry pieces for the trip. Thank you Amy!
Owning Your Title, Derogatory or Not
Filed under: Board of Directors, Things that get my gi all in a bunch
There is something disturbing about a woman who's pushing 85, sitting just three seats away from you at a table during a meeting, mouthing the words "She's a bitch" to another one of her cronies while you're speaking. I guess I'm happy I found this out many hours after the meeting had ended, because I'm afraid that if I saw her doing it during the meeting, I might have become an even bigger one.
It is absolutely amazing to me that a generation of women who fought so hard for equality would try even harder to keep one of their own down. We may have 50 or 60 years between us, but we were both born with ovaries.
It's difficult for me to understand their line of thinking because I was blessed so many years with a grandmother who was quite progressive. She chose to wait until the age of 27 to get married. She was the one who made the first move to pick up my Pop-Pop in a bar. Forget the old-fashioned courting; she knew what she wanted. She spent all of her young life working in factories to support her family. She was a classy woman, but she was no one's doormat. She wasn't your typical woman of that era; she was that and so much more. It's times like this that I miss her even more than usual, because I know she would be clicking her tongue, shaking her head in disgust and preparing to go to battle for me.
Historically, ladies auxiliary groups were formed in support of an organization, because women were not allowed to be on the Board of Directors. They weren't permitted to have any type of influence other than a role that supported a club or group, almost like a charity within the group. Now, there are women in positions of leadership in corporations and groups worldwide. Our own board of directors has five women out of 15 positions; and two of the four executive committee members are women. One would think that this would be a real positive for the women at the club who have been there for decades, but more times than not, it seems their only interest is in self-preservation and keeping one of their own down. . .
"I didn't have that opportunity, so you shouldn't either."
It puts a 30-some-year old woman in quite a conundrum. Raised to respect my elders, what does one do in this situation? When a woman 50 years your senior is treating you no better than that catty 8th grader who was ticked that Joey asked you to dance instead of her, what should you do?
What's even more disturbing about the entire situation is that during this meeting, there were several men who were much more outspoken than I was, yet no derogatory comments were uttered about any of them. It was during my two minutes of professional but stern questioning about a legitimate issue, that I reinforced my title of "bitch." If you are an outspoken man, you're a leader; but if you're an outspoken woman, you're a bitch.
It's a double standard that I've learned to accept, because it's been that way as long as I can remember. The troubling thing for me is that this stereotype isn't perpetuated by a man in this case, it's by a group of older ladies, our country club's equivalent to an unruly biker gang. Our "biker gang" doesn't go out and start fights in bars; they just want their tuna melts served piping hot or else all hell is going to break loose. And for the love of God, can someone please put duck back on the menu?
I guess I should be happy because I have held several titles during my months on the board. I started out as the "little blonde," moved quickly to "scary blonde" despite the fact that I had dyed my hair brown for a bit, and now I guess I should feel that I've arrived. Bitch it is. At least they're now noticing me for what I say and do, not my hair color. That has to be a positive.
The shame of it is that there are some wonderful women in this group; they are just overshadowed and out-voiced by a few who have given their entire organization a reputation fraught with negativity.
To that sub-set of women though, I'd just like to point out that resorting to the word "bitch" when your back is against a wall, because that "bitch" just so happens to have called you on the carpet, doesn't hurt my feelings. It just makes me realize how outdated the whole "respect your elders" standard really happens to be. I'll respect those who respect me. Age doesn't give an individual carte blanche to say whatever you want and do whatever you please; and frankly, I think your mothers and their mothers would be ashamed of you. I know my grandmother is, and I'm pretty sure Susan B. Anthony would think more of the same.
As far as my "title" goes, I'm going to own it. To me, it says I'm doing a good job of speaking out instead of shrinking into the background. It says I'm making people uncomfortable, as well they should be, when they've done something reprehensible. Frankly, having them call me names and hate me so much is affirmation that I'm the opposite of them, doing the right and smart thing, and that alone is enough to satisfy me. A good friend of mine says, "people either love you or hate you and there's no money in the middle." I don't think anyone has ever accused me of hanging out in the middle. Now, that is something that would offend me.
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