So I found a blog template that looks like the cliff walk in Mangawhai Heads, where we ran the hostel in New Zealand. I have really been missing New Zealand recently, particularly the sea and living in a less urban locale. We've ruled out going back in the immediate future, as it would be too much of a sacrifice to leave family and friends behind, but maybe someday.

Another thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is adopting kids. Becoming a mommy is still a few years off, but adopting is something that Dre is in favor of. From what I've heard, adopting from the United States is difficult, and adopting from overseas is expensive. I have been warming up to the idea of adopting internationally, but there's still a part of me that wants to have the whole 9 months pregnancy-birth-infant bonding experience. Sometimes I ask myself why I wouldn't adopt, since there are so many kids/ babies who need a family, and we'd be doing a lot of good. I don't know how I feel about it all for sure, I guess I'll have to do more research and let it all sink in.

Dre sent me an article about Pete Peterson, a billionaire using his fortune to set up a charity. Check it out if you have a chance.

Stand Up

Stand Up- The Flobots

Stand up
We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Stand up, we shall not be moved
Except by a woman dying from a loss of food
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

We still don't understand thunder and lightning
Flash back to when we didn't fund the dam
Didn't fund the dam levee? No wonder man
Now our whole damn city's torn asunder man
Under water but we still don't understand
We see hurricane spills overrun the land
Through gaps you couldn't fill with a 100 tons of sand
No we still don't understand
We've seen planes in the windows of buildings crumbled in
We've seen flames send the chills through London
And we've sent planes to kill them and some of them were children
But still we crumbling the building
Underfunded but we still don't understand
Under God but we kill like the son of Sam
But if you feel like I feel like about the son of man
We will overcome

So Stand up
We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Stand up we shall not be moved
Except by a woman dying from a loss of food
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

I said Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
Except by a woman dying from a loss of food
Except by a freedom fighter bleeding on a cross for you
We shall not be moved
Except by a system thats rotten through
Neglecting the victims and ordering the cops to shoot
High treason now we need to prosecute

So Stand up
We shall not be moved
And we won't fight a war for fossil fuel
Its times like this that you want to plot a coup
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
So Stand up
We shall not be moved
Unless were taking a route we have not pursued
So if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

I said Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up

Now shake, shake
A Polaroid dream
nightmare negatives develop on the screen
We sit back and wait for the government team
Criticize they but who the fuck are we
The people want peace but the leaders want war
Our neighbors don't speak, peek through the front door
House representatives preach "stay the course"
Time for a leap of faith
Once More

Put your hands up high if you haven't abandoned
Hope that the pen strokes stronger than the cannon
Balls to the wall, Nose to the grindstone
My interrogation techniques leave your mind blown
So Place your bets lets speak to the enemy
Don't let em pretend that we seek blood
And who's we anyways Kemo Sabe?
Mighty warlord wanna-be street thug
a threat for a threat leaves the whole world terrified
blow for blow never settles the score
word for word is time need clarify
We the people did not want war

So Stand up
We shall not be moved
Except By a child with no socks and shoes
If you've got more to give then you've got to prove
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Unless were taking a route we have not pursued
So if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up and I'll copy you

I said Put your hands up and I'll copy you
Put your hands up and I'll copy you
if you've got a dream and a lot to do
Put your hands up

Poly ticks= Many blood suckers

In November 2008 and the months beforehand, the words "hope" and "change" were swirling around like blue butterflies. Obama offered something that the other candidates did not: a promise that things would be different. I voted for him on that premise.

But seriously, how do you really know who you're voting for? Political consultants are paid millions of dollars to make candidates look good. News is slanted this way or that. They pay speechwriters to tell them what to say. People with lots of money rub elbows with those who make big decisions. How do you know the truth? How do you know what that candidate is really thinking, or whose interests they're concerned about?

I just watched a Bill Moyers documentary about single payer healthcare. He reviewed a speech by Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, in which Carter says about healthcare:

We've built a haphazard, unsound, undirected, inefficient non-system, which has left us unhealthy and unwealthy at the same time. So we must plan, and decisively phase in, simultaneous reform of services and refinancing of cost.

So what happened? According to Moyers, the government backed down after the health insurance companies promised to voluntarily cut costs . . . and then costs soared. Thirty years later, we still have a "haphazard, unsound, undirected, inefficient non-system," and it's leaving the common person unhealthy and unwealthy while inflating the bank accounts of insurance company CEOs.

Fast forward to the Clinton era. "Universal coverage has to be the bottom line and do not let anybody tell you any differently," said Hillary Clinton. But do we have health coverage that makes sense now? Uhhh, no. In fact, a mere 1 in 14 people are satisfied with the way healthcare is run now. Is that representing the voice and desires of the people?

I'm not saying that Obama's doing a poor job. All I'm saying is that "change" seems so . . . idealistic sometimes. Is it really going to happen? Sometimes I think not. Obama still receives money from the insurance companies, and Democratic Senator Max Baucus (who is hosting a roundtable "discussion" on healthcare reform, attended by those more or less in favor of keeping things the way they are) is the third highest recipient of money from the insurance industry. Single payer advocates were not given a seat at the table. So where's the hope in that?

It's not just the healthcare industry. Our government is closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, but is planning on instituting a system of "prolonged detention," in which terrorism suspects are held in the United States without trial for an indefinite period of time. According to the article, "the concept of preventive detention is at the very boundary of American law, and legal experts say any new plan for the imprisonment of terrorism suspects without trial would seem inevitably bound for the Supreme Court." Maybe I missed something, but isn't this still keeping people locked up without a fair trial?

Again, it's not just the president I'm discouraged by. It's the entire system. Let's face it: one man can only do so much. I just wish that when politicians promised to advocate for common person, they would mean it. I make 8 bucks an hour working part time at a nursing home, and there have been times this past year when it feels like I'm just barely hanging on. I'm not a billionaire or a lobbyist. Who's out there fighting for me, and those like me?

I was just reading an article in the NY Times about death in birth in Tanzania. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the health of the mother and infant, such as the mother's state, her distance from the clinic, previous c-sections, etc. Plus, at the clinics, there is a shortage of trained healthcare workers. Even more, the reporter witnessed them washing and reusing bloody gauze.

I remember there was a lot of hullaballoo this past January about NBC refusing to air a Super Bowl anti-abortion ad put out by an organization called Fidelis. I tried to find the price tag of such an ad, and according to this site, it would have cost 1.5-1.8 million.

Consider this: In Tanzania, A normal birth at the hospital costs about $6, an emergency Caesarean $15. An excerpt from the NY Times article:

Only 20 percent of women in the area give birth at the hospital, and many do so only when they need Caesareans. Many women say they simply cannot afford the hospital. More than 50 percent stay home togive birth, and the rest go to local clinics that cannot handle emergencies or perform Caesareans. “We lost four or five babies this week,” the Rev. Isaac Y. Mgego, an Anglican priest and the hospital’s director, said in an interview in January. “Our doctors have to play with two bad things, to save the mother or save the child.”

Later on, Mr. Mgego says it costs about $200,000 a year to run Berega Hospital in Tanzania.

Imagine what 1.5 million American dollars could do for these women. It could build more clinics, train more health workers, pay for more prenatal care, treat malaria, repair fistulas, run Berege Hospital for 7 years . . . it could save lives.

I understand that some people place a lot of significance in making a point, such as with a Super Bowl ad or otherwise. But if I had 1.5 million dollars at my disposal, I don't think that's what I'd spend it on.

So I started my first graduate level class on Monday: Intro to Graduate Research. At first I wasn't too enthused about it, but I'm liking reading the education journal articles. To have research backing up different methods of teaching or running a classroom is valuable. It's an online class, the first I've ever taken, and so far so good.

My job at the preschool ended today, as it's summer break. I'm still working at the long term care place. I've made a few mistakes in the last few days, and whenever I make mistakes I have a hard time letting them go. I just hate messing up, but I guess it's going to happen . . .

We have a little dirt patch in our backyard, and today I planted a tomato plant and some spinach. Hopefully the spinach comes up and the tomato survives. I also got some Coneflower/ Echinacea seeds for Teacher Appreciation Week, and I planted those in a pot on our front "porch." I'm finding I like working in our yard, even if it is small.

Moby has the all-clear to go on walks. We ordered him a thing called a Springer that we can use to take him on bike rides. We have to wait until he's 10 months old to use it, as his growth plates are still developing. At least now we can take him walking and he won't be so hard to live with.

I just heard about this website that tells you about the products/ brands/ companies being marketed to us. For example, I use Suave Sleek Shampoo, and it got a rating of 7 out of 10 (based on how the company treats its workers and the environment and the ingredients of the product, to name a few of the considerations).

Check it out if you get a chance.

Discouragement

If this article is correct, 15 people speaking out for single payer healthcare were arrested at a Senate round table discussion on the topic. An excerpt:

The protestors were stoic and respectful but direct. One by one they stood. One by one they asked why single payer reform was not “at the table” of 15 witnesses Senator Max Baucus and his finance Committee gathered to map out what sort of coverage Americans might expect in the Senate reform bill now being crafted. Sen. Baucus eventually spoke and indicated that he was respectful of those who believe in single payer – as he acknowledged many of his constituents in Montana do – but he made no attempt to explain why no single payer voice has been included in any Senate discussion to date. He urged any others in the audience who might have any designs on speaking up like the protestors did to not do so, and then he moved on to his round table discussion.

Karen Ignagni, head of the group American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), got a seat at the table. But why didn't these 15 people, and why were they arrested?

It's things like this that make me sick. If you can explain why these people were taken out, then please do, because I'm puzzled.

About a year ago I read The Essential 55, by Ron Clark. He is a teacher who has been decorated with various awards, and has taught elementary students in the South and in New York. They even made a movie about him with Matthew Perry. Anyway, the reason I'm bringing him up is that his 55 rules have begun to make a lot of sense to me. I've been working in a preschool now for about two months, and the skills Clark teaches are good for any student to know. Take a look at them if you get a chance.

Moby's been back from the hospital, and he has to stay on cage rest for about another 4 weeks. We have him tied up in the house so he can't run around, but he doesn't seem to know he's injured or had surgery. He barks and jumps around, tries to catch the cats, and has lately been more destructive than usual. We give him attention in the house, but it's not the same as a long walk or run. I'll be glad when he's "normal" again . . . it's hard to keep him tied up.

So we are going to be in Greeley for the next two years, until spring 2011, when I will be done at UNC. But what then? We've thought about moving to Denver, Springs, Fort Collins. But one thing that I can't stop thinking about is moving to New Zealand.

In my field (or what will be my field) of Early Childhood Education, there are opportunities for teachers. This is from TeachNZ:

Early childhood teachers (ECE) - new professional registration requirements for early childhood teachers in New Zealand, and the high participation rate in early childhood education are placing pressure on ECE teacher numbers. At this point there are no UK ECE qualifications that are equivalent to 3 -year NZ ECE diploma or degree.

I would have to provide originals of my Master's Degree and transcripts to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, then register with the New Zealand Teacher's Council. Then I'd have to get a work permit. The TeachNZ site says that for early childhood teachers, I only have to produce evidence of registration and a letter of a job offer in order to get a work visa. The visa would allow me to enter New Zealand where I would get a work permit.

In Auckland, the university is doing research that Dre is highly interested in, and we would be able to bring the cats and Moby with us. There are a lot of ECE jobs posted in the NZ Education Gazette. So what's holding us back? Leaving family behind, primarily. I would come back if my parents needed help, but I worry that I would feel huge guilt if they didn't get to see us and their grandkids a lot. That's really the main thing that I would need to resolve in my mind before we would go.

Dre and I just got back from taking Moby to the vet. He was going to have surgery on 5/5, but we noticed this big bulge, like a tumor, on his side. We thought it was his faulty kidney getting bigger, so we took him in. However, it turned out to be just a fluid filled sac under his skin. Nothing to worry about, but the vets are going to do his surgery tomorrow instead.

The vet said that had we not discovered this kidney defect now, Moby would have started experiencing signs of kidney failure at about age three. I still hate that he had to get hit by a car to give reason for his abdominal xrays, but glad we're getting this taken care of ASAP. It ain't gonna be cheap, but he's our pup, and we'd do anything for him.

So how's this for crazy?

Our little pup got hit by a car when I was walking him this past Monday, and we immediately took him to the animal hospital. After a bunch of xrays they found out that he has a fracture in his pelvis (which will heal on its own), and they also discovered a kidney defect. Somehow his kidney isn't emptying, so it's filling with fluid; this could be bad if it ruptured. He's probably had it since birth, but they recommend we remove the kidney, which is happening in a few weeks. If not for the accident this probably would have gone undetected, crazy huh?

Anyway, I am enjoying my new job. Some aspects of it are difficult; a few days ago there was a woman who'd had a stroke, trying really hard to tell me something, but all I could say was, "I'm sorry, I don't understand." I try to be as reassuring and kind as I can, which I think is what the residents need from me. I know that someday I'll be their age, and I will want the same respect.

In any case, despite my puppy being hurt, I'm feeling a lot better than I have in a while. I finally feel productive, like I'm getting somewhere. I have a plan for school, an income, jobs. I need those things to feel validated. I'm excited for the future: someday having my own classroom, someday buying a house, learning Spanish, but for now continuing to enjoy life with Dre and our kitties and pup.

So what's new? A few things worth mentioning. I was fortunate enough to be hired for another job, as an activities assistant at a long term care facility. I trained this weekend in their Alzheimer's unit (where I'll be every other weekend), and I got good feedback on my skills from the person training me . . . so that was encouraging. This job is part time, so it meshes perfectly with my other part time job; plus, it will work well with my school schedule come fall. Hopefully I can soon secure a summer school position, and my weekly number of hours worked will stay constant.

I took the PLACE exam this weekend, which is required for admittance to the Early Childhood SPED grad program at UNC. I think I did well; I'll find out in two weeks.

Now, for the main reason I thought to post anything. An awful thing happened today, and I still don't know exactly how it did. I was taking Mobius for a walk, and somehow the leash detached from his collar. How this happened I do not know. He ran out in the street and got hit by a car, going about 25 mph. We took him to the vet and he has no broken bones, and his blood work came back ok. They're just worried about his kidney, which looked out of place on the xray. It could be the way it was since birth, or maybe the accident knocked it out of place. He's staying overnight to be observed. Hopefully we can bring him home tomorrow. It's shaken us up a bit . . . say a prayer he'll be ok.

About a month ago I submitted an online application to UNC for grad school, including the application fee. Fast forward to now. Apparently the app never got processed/ printed off, and the receipt of payment wasn't recorded (despite the fact that it's on our credit card statement). Kind of strange.

Somehow I seem to remember I have my blog when it would be a good time for an update. First things first: I managed to get a job. I'm working in a preschool classroom, with kids who have special needs and those who are more "mainstream." I'm assigned to one student in particular who has some behavioral issues. I've been on the job three weeks and I can see him improving already, so that's encouraging. Overall, it has been great; so great, in fact, it's convinced me to change my course of study from Speech to Early Childhood Special Education. There is a Master's program at UNC for this, and I've applied and have my letters of rec on the way. I'm starting some teacher's licensure classes in the summer, and I should be finished Spring 2011.

Although I still have a huge interest in Speech- Language, I'm ready to dive into grad level work. The speech program required I take a year of undergrad leveling courses, THEN apply to the grad school. I'm so so anxious to devote myself to something career-wise though, and I've been told that I'm "good at" special ed. I've found I like preschool because the kids still have such a sense of innocence, and it's a chance for me (or any teacher) to make the ultimate good first impression of the learning environment. Besides, in the end I'll still be helping kids, which was my goal along. It's the right decision.

The other good news is I'm totally healed from surgery. I just survived a battle with laryngitis, two ear infections and two eyes full of conjunctivitis, so I'm feeling like a trooper health-wise. Dre and I are going down to Springs for Easter next week, and Moby will get to play with my parents' dog. Good times all around.

I've been reading about this woman, Marie Douglas-David, who is poor-me-ing about not receiving enough in her divorce settlement.

Apparently $43 million isn't enough to maintain her ho-hum lifestyle. According to an article in USA Today, "Douglas-David has filed court papers saying she has more than $53,800 in weekly expenses, including maintaining a Park Avenue apartment and three residences in Sweden. Also among her weekly expenses: $700 for limousine service, $4,500 for clothes, $1,000 for hair and skin treatments, $1,500 for restaurants and entertainment, and $8,000 for travel."

At church last week, we had a representative for Food for the Poor come and speak about his ministry. This organization provides water pumps, food, and housing for the poorest of the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America. According to the pamphlet, a donation of $2600 would build a house, $170 would provide a village with a water pump, and $21 would provide a meal for 420 children.

I can't help but think of these people when I read about the extravagances of the sickeningly rich. $4,500, which this Douglas-Davis diva spends on clothes each week, could almost build two houses for slum dwellers in Haiti. We're talking about sewage filled, trash strewn slums where people fight over garbage. They could have an escape.

How does that compute? I've been reading about what Jesus directed his followers to do, and one of his main messages was to advocate for and help the poor. What would he say about this woman? It almost brings me to tears to think of what this $43 million could really do.

So, we adopted a 2 month old pup, a red heeler, from the humane society. He's sleeping right now, but at 6:00 am he was up and wanted to play. We have some old ski poles downstairs that he likes to herd, and he loves to fetch his toy rope. After about 30 minutes of playing he conks out, but when he wakes up again his battery is recharged and it's wildness all over again.

He's had his first Parvovirus/ distemper vaccine, and he gets a booster next week. After that we can take him out walking on sidewalks; Parvo is deadly, and spread through feces, so we're going to hold off on the parks for a while. It's hard to exercise an active puppy when he has to stay inside, so I'm looking forward to being able to go out with him.

In other news, still looking for work, but I have some promising leads. Here's hoping . . .

Right now, I'm sitting in the UNC computer lab, and there are people complaining about their professor copying a 40 page reading sideways. There are also grumblings about him giving a quiz on a 22 page reading, and a girl's finger that gets tired as it flips through a long powerpoint.

This makes me think of two things: 1) How much we take things (like a chance at education) for granted, and 2) How do our educational standards compare to those of other countries?

As for the second point, I've read different accounts that say the US is falling behind in education, like this one: http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52 . An excerpt:

In both studies, Finland, Australia, Belgium, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands and the United Kingdom beat the United States, while the Asian nations of South Korea, Japan and Singapore ranked first through third, respectively.

Why is that? Is it because we're becoming too lax, or lazy? Is it because solid education just isn't as important as it used to be? I couldn't tell you, but I have to wonder if students in South Korea would be acting the way I just observed.

Sorry for the bitterness of the last post. Sometimes I feel like I have so much to offer, and I'm being forced to keep it all bottled up and stored away. I worry that it will get dusty or spoiled by age. On a good note, I have some interviews coming up, so I'm more hopeful.

We are looking at getting a dog; it's sooner than we expected but we both agree this is a good time. The humane society has the sweetest 2 month old red heeler, and he might soon be ours . . .

Sometimes I think my major was a joke. I've been turned down for job after job after job. After I graduated from CSU in May 2007 I applied for all the social work jobs I could find, and I interviewed for all that contacted me. Not one came through, and I ended up working at a bakery and coffee shop, serving wine and cheese to rich people.

One time an older guy came into the bakery and asked me if I was going to school, etc. I said I graduated with a social work degree. "Then what are you doing here?" People don't understand.

What makes the people who do get hired so much better than me?