student, to Lee (teacher): Hey, you're a nurse... how long does it take to get rid of a UTI?
Lee: Are you on antibiotics?
Student: No... mostly natural stuff, cranberry, you know...
Lee: *GIANT, AUDIBLE ELLIPSIS* I wish you the best of luck with that.

theoretically speaking, I'm taking Neurology right now, in massage school.

It's a three-week-long class; roughly 36 hours total, discounting breaks (with, more like 42).

delight has been talking to me about neurology terms for months, dumbed down enough for me to understand her without having to actually teach me neurology. that's cool; after all, I'm supposed to be taking this class, so she doesn't have to explain it!

Right now our teacher is alternating between talking again about CranioSacral Therapy (which has already been covered in this school) and showing small video clips from the internet without ever actually explaining which site he's pulling things from. (He gave us a list.)

There is a teacher here, Lee, who is a very good teacher. She's a former nurse who is now also a massage therapist, and she teaches Anatomy & Physiology, and she's a very good teacher! Apparently this guy, Harout, who is a chiropractor, had some sort of conflict in mid-November, early December, and so the last class that sat through Neurology had Lee teach it, instead.

I am so damn jealous right now. I can learn things from Lee. This guy is ...

He mumbles.

He reads off the page without clearly explaining why things are on the page.

Our first quiz is on Thursday morning, probably bright and early, when I am at my least functional. I told him straight up on the first day that I have ADD; while he was accepting of the fact that my attempts to pay attention to him sometimes masquerade as completely ignoring him, that doesn't mean he has any suggestions remotely as to how I can accommodate for the fact that he's a bad teacher for me and I can't learn from him! oddly enough.

I really, really desperately hope that I can somehow work out some other way of learning this stuff. I don't want to have to beg and cajole and blackmail Rue into teaching me neurology. It's not her job! It's this guy's job! I don't think he can do it for me!

I have my doubts that he can do it for the majority of the class, frankly! and have no idea why he doesn't have any assistants; this class is large enough, and the school constantly prides itself on having such a low student-teacher ratio, that most of our classes have three teachers (or, well, one and two assistants). Harout is all alone. And mumbling.

I think I just gave up on even pretending to pay attention to this class.

The thing that sucks the most is that I want to learn this information. I keep hearing that neurology is a goddamn fascinating subject! the tiny little pieces Rue has talked about have been fascinating! and this guy keeps putting me to sleep, even with stimulant drugs and coffee!

I have no idea what to do today.

"So basically, the fascial system is like the Tupperware of the body."

I really want this for my birthday, in the 16 fl oz. size.





... unfortunately my birthday was over a month ago. *unbearably sad*


In other news, as of November I'm going to end up with a surprise two-month break in school before taking afternoon classes instead of morning classes! This is an 80% good thing.

for the record, this is my advice:

when you know that your truck's windshield wipers aren't working, whether or not you know why they aren't working, and you leave for school and note that the sky is a semi-menacing grey and the lights are dim enough that your eyes aren't hurting from the sun, don't be surprised when it starts pouring on you.

go ahead and panic while you try to drive with 10% visibility, but don't be surprised.

(I made it to school fine, more or less, except for the massive stress; if it rains at all on the drive home, though, I am so fucking waiting it out.)

This is today, so far:

α.) Remembered at 7:55, while still in bed, that I had an appointment for a blood draw at 8:10.

β.) Despite this, and despite needing a shower, was only fifteen minutes late.

γ.) Got to school late, and used last currently-available grace. >:(

δ.) Originally unremarkable class (full-body integration! I think I'm the only one excited by this) became remarkable when Laura (the teacher) said, essentially, "uh, so Tara [Dean of Admissions] is making a Virtual Tour video to go on the website, and wants some people doing massages for the classroom tour. If you guys are willing, pack up and go downstairs to the South Classroom, okay?"

ε.) Managed successfully to squeeze a full-body massage into a single hour, without any big lapses or left-out bits, while being filmed for two separate takes. While wearing a piratical bandanna to keep sweat out of my eyes, no less!

ζ.) While leaving class, was caught up by Grayce [the office manager / receptionist], who said that Rue had called to say she was going to a Hazmat Issue at the YMCA, something vague about a chlorine fire? (Grayce looked so bewildered. Apparently she'd missed the fact that Rue is an EMT and also trained in hazmat.) Thanked Grayce, and explained this.

θ.) Went to the DSS in order to resume foodstamps, since Rue was not ... at home ... at all. This mostly entailed sitting for half an hour and waiting for someone to remember I was there; during this time a man who wanted to evict people from one of his apartments (from what I gathered, DSS was paying their rent, and they kept trashing the apartment and causing a lot of damage he had to pay for, and he was sick of it) who also looked disturbingly like a cross between Bill Nighy and Donald Rumsfeld made racist statements at me! Very disparaging. I was straight-up all :| at him. I don't think he noticed, though, or the way that his "especially, pardon me, black people" was incredibly fucking offensive. Even though I'm not black. :|

η.) And then I tried to get health insurance, since I won't have any in mid-August (and will be utterly and totally fucked) if I don't do something about it. I was pretty sure I didn't qualify for Medicaid, so I wasn't going to apply for it, but the woman at the Family Health Plus office told me to go there first anyway, and bring prescriptions if I had any, because that way I wouldn't have to wait until August for an appointment. This was helpful information not subsequently provided by the woman in the Medicaid office. I now have a lot of paperwork to fill out and take back on Monday afternoon, and also on Monday have to go back to my doctor's office (which makes it, technically, four times in one week!) to get new prescriptions.

ι.) Mind you, I got prescriptions from him on Tuesday. And realized, last night while dropping them off at the drugstore, that I have refills for at least ten months for one of them, and probably at least six for the other. So I really, really feel fucking ridiculous asking for yet more prescriptions.

κ.) When I got home, I talked to Rue, who is still at the chlorine fire (and also still now, as I write this), very hungry, warning me not to go outside or let the outside in until she says it's okay (which means no open windows or, uh, the air conditioner, and it's about 80˚F out there today; thank fuck we only have north-facing windows), probably having more fun than she'll avoid feeling guilty for later. No area restaurants are helping the emergency services personnel by feeding them. I would go get food, but I can't afford to feed anyone but just her. :(

λ.) This list was not originally going to be numbered in this style, and then I decided to anyway.

μ.) I'm also very hungry, so despite the fact we have no toaster while I strongly desire toast, I will attempt to eat something light. (Because, after all, sooner or later Rue is going to need to be fed, too, and eating with her is polite and often tasty.)

today was supposed to be simple: school, then car insurance, then maybe DMV trip. all of this overwrote our invitation to see Hope, AJ and John and the girls, of course, along with writing off the barbecue, which I hope was delicious.

What was not delicious was the surpriez groupwork!!1 thrown at me in my last half-hour of class; I loathe group work. I never find it to be a good learning experience. I can use it as a teaching experience, maybe, but that only works if I want to teach at the time. I didn't. And this half-hour, which wasn't even all spent working (show of hands: who actually expected everyone to work straight through to the end of class? yeah, didn't think there were many), had me so supremely unbalanced and off-kilter that I did, in the end, call the teacher and tell her that I cannot be surprised by group work like that. I was very nearly crying at the time I was talking to her, actually, /TP*EURL /KREBLGT.

Fortunately, this school believes in being supportive the way very few other things do (corset companies and some bridge architects, maybe), and so she hastened to reassure me she would offer as much lead-in as she could, and I was always welcome to excuse myself from working in a group and find some other way of reviewing whatever it was we were supposed to review.

Unfortunately, while that helps in future, it didn't do anything to calm me the fuck down. And so I've been on or over the edge all afternoon, making poor Rue's life miserable (and probably her mother's, too). Meanwhile, Rue helped me get a good quote on car insurance this morning, and I can't actually apply for it yet because I don't know an answer about my parents' car insurance and I don't have the VIN for the truck. :|

I called my mother, and left a message, at something like... oh, just under seven hours ago, I'd guess.

More recently I called my father, to get his voice mail right away, and my mother, twice, to get her voicemail after delay and then again right away, and I also called twice to talk to Ben (the guy selling the truck) to find out when we were going to do the paperwork, since apparently it's not legal to sell the license plates along with the vehicle, and there's some pesky law about how your vehicle is supposed to have plates when you drive it around ...

Current projected monthly costs, for my records and if anyone's curious: $45.85/mo or $243 for six months for car insurance with Progressive; the DMV is going to have my ass a few times over, too, with a $20 use fee and a really unclear other charge for plates/registration ... I'm not sure how much because I have no idea what they class the truck's weight as. :|

I also don't know if I want to get commercial plates or passenger; the DMV does a better job of explaining the difference, which is mostly "in the long run, commercial plates are cheaper; in the short run, passenger plates let you stay on the parkways when you're downstate."

I'm just not sure which of those poses a bigger problem.

Other than that, and the fact that Dad and Mom and Ben have all still not called me back and I've been writing this off-and-on for about 45 minutes ... urrgh. I don't even know what to think.

I have no idea if I'm going to have this thing this weekend, although I need it. And I have ... well, far more of an idea, really, but in a negative light, about taking a Saturday trip to Ithaca. It would be fun; it would also be expensive, and I don't have food stamps outstanding in order to pay for my food without cash; I have never driven to Ithaca before in my life, although I think I may have been there once or twice; I should probably get used to the style of once-a-week-or-two stock-up grocery store trips anyway, before attempting to transfer food 300+ miles...

The Nissan is probably going to have fuel economy that is at least as good as the old New Yorker. That doesn't mean it's near as good as the Corolla, and all three of them are blown out of the water by a Prius... so I understand why they like going, and certainly the food that results is far and away the best quality I've met up here outside of, idk, Chez Sophie or whatever – as it goes, though, this Saturday's probably out for us after all.

And at ANY MOMENT, Rue could shake me awake on a Sunday and tell me that she's being judged and pinned to the examining board RIGHT NOW, and then I will flail a lot, try not to freak her out, and hope that she is her normal outstanding self, one of the best trauma assessors in the state (five stars! from the guy who designed the system!), and anyway just like every other time I've told her she'll do great, she'll prove me wrong by being OUTFUCKINGSTANDING instead.

So there.


Apologies for the disjointed nature of this post. I now return you to your regularly scheduled reading list.

I woke up this morning in a flare, or at least in flare-like symptoms.

I have taken 200mg of tramadol in the last twelve hours alone. :|

In happier news, I got a DailyBooth. So far I haven't forgotten to take pictures.

Today we are somehow mysteriously combining a trip to Planned Parenthood so I can stop poisoning myself with estrogen as the lesser of two evils, possibly a massage so that on Friday I will have enough logs to turn in, and dinner with invisionary, passerine and esteleth. I believe Rue is also making cookies, although that might end up changing if her health doesn't get better than mine.

edit: and I forgot that she was taking some part of a shift today, too, so I really have no idea when anything's happening but that might put the massage off until tomorrow.

( school complaints )

I really love having a Dreamwidth account, and have a tendency to keep up on my read list a lot more thoroughly than I do my LJ flist. At the same time, I really wish I had more people here, or more people who would update more frequently. I always end up very sad when the only thing on my read list in the morning is people's automatic Twitter posts from the night before – not because I hate Twitter, although I drastically cut my follow list on Twitter last night as I was spending way too much time looking at it and I don't have a cell phone now anyway, but just because... there's a level of carelessness to a Twitter aggregate that isn't usually there, in an actual crafted post.

Write moar!

(I feel as though I should have brought crochet or knitting to class today. I would feel productive, which is important because I really, really can't comprehend anything that's being said out loud today.)

It is really just amazing how noisy a class of about forty people can be when they try. :|

Brachialis has been the most popular muscle so far today; I don't know when everyone else is supposed to present them, since only ... not even a quarter of the class has gone so far. Maybe on Monday, I don't know.

The midterm is next Tuesday, and is worth 30% of the grade in the class. There are 60 multi-choice questions which I will probably not fail, 10-12 fill-ins which I probably will due to stress and fog, 10-15 diagram items which will probably count as fill-in and also fail, and four application questions worth four times as many points each.

We are not done for the day, once done with the test; there's only being done until 11:20, and then spending ... most of an hour, apparently, going over the test afterwards, and a meditation to calm down everyone who has given themselves conniptions over the test.

Today I realized, in trying to draw pterygoids and temporalis muscles on the diagram provided, that the diagram was a piece of shit. The skull was entirely cartoonish instead of being anatomically relevant, and I don't know about you but I'm pretty sure that I won't ever be able to learn the placement of a muscle in reality if I have only memorized its place on Elmer Fudd. (For example.)

Apparently this means I need to spend a fair amount of time with a copier and papercrafting supplies, in order to fix this.

While I could be wrong, I'm pretty sure that that dream I just had involved Lexie writing fic in which Toby Ziegler and Sarah Palin had a tumultous, historical affair on the streets of Manhattan, because he'd been in charge of keeping her parents/family in long-term powerful positions in the conservative government of New York City.

I'll let you take that one in.

(Other dreams: waking up so that Marcus and Linnet could go to our favorite diner, which is not open 24 hours, at about 3 AM; Marcus sitting on Linnet's flowers after the grocery store clerk kept groping all her customers so that she could stay awake and be sure they were real; getting into an argument with Rue about whether she was driving my car home from Ben & Jerry's – verdict was no, and as soon as we got home I realized I shouldn't have been driving because it was in fact 3 AM, no matter how light it was out, and therefore I hadn't slept enough to be driving ...

The most terrifying thing about these dreams is the way they flow so seamlessly into each other. After we got home, I still couldn't "sleep" and ended up reading Lexie's fic. And then we ended up at WPI mocking a frat house that looked like a church, and one of my massage school classmates who's dropped out of the program was back, because apparently we had a field trip or something because class was being held in front of the frat house church that day ...)

... don't judge me, I forgot to take my Ambien last night. :(

(I've never even watched The West Wing...)