The School Closing Conundrum

The part of Michigan that I grew up in, we rarely had snow days. I lived about five miles from Lake Michigan so we got a lovely thing called lake effect snow. The weather would have to be super bad for school to close.

Now I live in western NC and things are different here. Now I do realized that they don't have the amount of equipment that they do in Michigan, but sometimes the school closings seem a little bit of an overreaction. 

Emily is in her last year of going to school at our church. They follow the county next to us' school closings usually. Early this week, there was some icy roads in the mountains and parents took to Facebook to complain bitterly how the school system had put their kids in danger. 

This morning I wake up and Facebook lets me know there are school closings. I went and checked and the county schools were on there. 

Now it didn't snow here last night. It's windy and cold but that's not a reason, in my opinion, to close school. I honestly think that the school system didn't want to piss off anymore parents and just decided to close for today. Especially since it is Friday.

Thankfully, Emily's school decided not to close. It's PJ day in her class today and she was really looking forward to it. Todd bundled her up with her stuffy and blanket to have a fun day at school.

We are in the mountains so I do understand that it can be a conundrum. There can nothing where I live in the foothills but in the higher elevations there can be some ice and snow. It just seems so odd and almost silly to me, a Michigan girl, to look outside, see nothing on the ground or road, and have the possibility of no school for Emily.

The Med Merry Go Round

Merry go rounds were more fun as a kid

I've never done drugs of the illegal variety. A boyfriend in college wanted me to try pot - in part to see how loopy I'd get. But that never happened. The main reason I've never done illegal drugs is because the legal ones mess me up so badly.

I have a lot of drug allergies. Lots of hives and other bad reactions. I basically missed Spring Break my senior year because of being on the med merry go round and I just had something easy - the flu I think. I was woozy and really out of it because they kept changing the medicine they were treating me with.

When I was in college, I ended up in the hospital. I was home from Christmas break and it was that time of the month. I also had an upset stomach. So my mom gave me ibuprofen and Pepto Bismal. I broke out in hives from head to toe. I was so swollen that I had to wear slippers to the doctor's. He took one look at me and sent me to the hospital.

This was all before my chronic pain started. I was on the med merry go round for nine months at the beginning of my chronic headaches. In the end, nothing worked and I just found home remedies to help me.

But with the seizures, I can't not be on medicine. The first medicine that they gave me in the hospital was given to me because it was the only anti-seizure medicine that comes in IV form. But it's been making me feel really tired. So my neurologist put me on a new medicine, but I have to be on both for a bit to wean off the first stuff.

I really, really don't want to have anymore seizures so I willingly got back up on the med merry go round. And I feel like I'm on a literal merry go round. The first day I took it, I was so woozy I couldn't walk straight but my brain was really fogged up as well. I would try to talk or type and it wouldn't come out right.

That's gotten better but I'm still lurching around the house like a drunken pirate. I have a little under a week until I'm weaned off the first medicine. I hope and pray that it will make me less tired so I can get off the med merry go round.

All I want is to get back to some form of normal. I still have pain, but I'm used to that.

Skills I Use Learned in College

I was in college for seven years. It was mostly be being wishy washy what I wanted to with my life. I spent one year as music major. I quit that one because I realized that I wasn't not great at music so my only option would be to become a teacher. I knew I did not want to be a teacher.

For three years I was a computer science major. I wasn't great at that either. Computer science was a lot more math than I had anticipated. I struggled and struggled. But I did get a C in Calculus II, which was impressive to me. I don't have a good brain for numbers in advanced forms.

I finally gave up on that and switched to Broadcasting. I loved Broadcasting so much and I was pretty good at it. The writing, doing news on screen, video editing. It was a ton of fun and I wish I had realized that many years earlier.

My last start in Broadcasting and my dying mom who wanted to see me graduate meant that I had to hurry up and finish my degree. So I didn't get to explore it as fully as I would have liked and I didn't get a chance to even try for an internship.

But there are two things that I use on a regular basis that I learned in college. Kind of sad for seven years of college especially since they are kind of random.

Even though I left music as a major beyond after my first year, I stayed in the women's choir as long as my schedule would allow it. I love to sing and it was such a fun class to be able to take. One of the things I learned in there was to memorized the music as you go. We never used our music in performances so this was a must.

These days, I am a part the women's choir at church. Though because of my health issues, I'm sadly taking some time off from that. But I have noticed that as we practice, I am still in the habit of memorizing the music and the words as we go along. Kind of a funny skill to have but I still have it.

The other comes from my days as a Broadcasting major. One of the first classes I took was an intro class and one of the first things we learned was the 'broadcast voice." Even tone but pleasant but also firm and clear. This is a skill I use nearly every day at work. Keeping my voice even and pleasant is very important while dealing with hordes of unhappy customers.

I use a few other skills I'm sure but these two are the ones I use most. College was an interesting experience and I had a lot of fun. Someday maybe I'll use more the skills I gained!

The Need To Be Right

Image: becominghiseve.wordpress.com 

I come from an unique generation. Having been born in the late 70's, I spent my childhood without the internet. But when I hit college, I 'found' the internet and have been a fan ever since. The internet is a great thing but it has led to some odd behavior in people.

Because you aren't taking to someone in front of you, trolls came about. But not just trolls, normal people feel the need to argue a point to death in order to prove that they are 'right'.

Admittedly in my many years on the internet, I've done that a time or two. But as I've grow older, I haven't seen the point. Most of the arguments end in an impasse because both sides feel the need to be right. And sometimes the need to be right can transform a normal person into a troll.

I'm on a lot of different Facebook groups for all my different interests. One is for Christians who are all geeks, Someone posted there how they had been arguing with an atheist about the existence of God.

This seemed completely pointless to me. We Christians can't prove that God exists, it's a belief we have. We've felt His Hand in our lives. An atheist hasn't felt that so they believe firmly that there is no God. It's not something that they could even have found a middle ground on.

I have lots of atheist friends as well as friends of other religions. Trying to prove that I'm right and they are wrong seems like a way to lose friends. Sadly the internet, for all it's good things, fosters the want in some people to browbeat them into believing what they want.

Later that evening, I posted the start of my newest cross stitch project in the cross stitch group I'm in. It is a kit that I've been wanting to do forever and a friend gifted it to me.

I started it at the tippy top of the fabric because I've had issues with kits and running out of room. So I wanted to make sure that I had enough fabric. This is also the most complicated chart that I've ever done, so I've been putting off starting because I was intimidated by it.

After stitching a little bit, I posted on my cross stitch group. Basically a 'Yay I started' and a picture. And then I got the 'advice' I didn't want. Several people told me that I was doing it "wrong".

I told them that I was doing it this way, and while I appreciated the advice, I was going to do it this way. Most of them stopped with the advice, but a couple didn't. One in particular was very fervent in proving how wrong I was. It got to the point that I had to get the group owner involved.

As it's my project, I do have the right to stitch it they way I want, but this person's need to be right pushed her over into troll territory. Even after the owner stepped in and posted for them to leave me be, she had to continue trolling.

It's a strange internet phenomenon because you wouldn't scream at a person in real life about how wrong they are. It does happen over the phone, but it wouldn't generally if you were calling someone you knew.

Being right is nice, I suppose, but I think more people need to realized that there are other ways to do things, and other opinions. In our diverse world today, there are many things that aren't just right or wrong.