Where which way
Apr. 15th, 2009 11:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kazariSo, the gray cat of evil has gone senile and has both become magically nice and discovered human food. Suddenly around meals, especially those containing poultry or dairy products, she becomes super social and starts creeping in to sniff at our plates. This would be fine except she has a weak stomach and anxiety issues. Also, she weighs 5lbs. I made a grilled cheese sandwich and ate it with some of my father's "Olive Garden soup". The kitty started growling at me so I gave her a little bit of the cheese from inside the sandwich. She happily gobbled it up...and then puked three hours later. But, this keeps happening around meal times. I feel like Cartman trying to protect my food from a little gray cat. My father didn't understand what was so funny or why, despite eating sandwiches for lunch most days, I shoo away the cat with, "No, kitty, that's mah pot pie!"
My mother hates her job this week and there's nothing I can do for her and it's driving me nuts as much as it is her. She had her evaluation at work on Monday and her supervisor yelled at her for taking her little schedule of who visited the nurse's office, and the charts she has to put that nurse's office visit information into, home instead of finishing it immediately and staying at the school for hours. But, she didn't just say, "You shouldn't do that" or anything so sensible. She told my mother, "What if you died!" and gave a speech about even though they only get paid for 35 hours a week at a public school, she shouldn't think of it as a job, but as a mission and should spend all the early mornings and late nights at school that it takes to get the lengthy list of tasks she's required to do done. So now not only is my mother having a crisis over being reminded of her own fragile mortality, she's feeling intense guilt over her "mission" to help the kids at her school as the on staff health professional. Don't get me wrong. My mother does the work, she just writes up the details of each kid's visit on their public school medical chart after she gets home and eats dinner instead of at an empty school building after a long day of work. My father and I have been trying to discredit this woman's off hand, unfair comment all week to no avail.
Also, she got a visit from a former student at her school that made her even more depressed. This kid had a few medical conditions that warped her body in such a way that she needed to be cathed each day at school. So, my mother got to know her. One day she noticed blood in the girl's urine and suggested to her parents that they take her to the hospital to be tested for an infection as that happens when you have to cath regularly. Turns out the girl was raped by a family member. But, the girl was meek so she was too afraid to do anything more than tell who had done something to her. She wouldn't go into to detail what. So, they never were able to take the guy to court. It tore her family apart, this incident, and the girl was devastated by the abuse. As one would expect. She's not doing very well now, either. And, my mother is just killing herself with the guilt like she could have done something. She knows that her speaking up probably saved the girl from future abuse, but still. She's stared off into the distance and just stared repeating these stories several times this week.
She keeps talking about how, if my sibling can find a job as a hospital nurse, she'll be making more than my mother as a starting salary. What do you say to that? Maybe if the economy wasn't so bad there'd be options, but my sibling, despite her atrocious personality in social situations, is a pretty good student nurse. They say the medical profession is recession proof but that's a lie. Two of the hospitals she's interviewed at have drastically cut back their new hires and people are afraid to retire out of the system. But, pay isn't the only issue.
So... I don't know what to do for my mom, really. Most things I can think of, most things most people would think of doing for someone down like this, would actually cause her MORE stress and not less.
More than one person has rec'd TEFL Course Certifications/Degrees to me in the past month and I've been taking those comments very seriously. But, I'm having trouble finding one that's a good fit. There's a weekend course in April that's local and in person, but I have to go to my sibling's graduation and would miss a third of it. There's another in July, but that seems super far off. There are online courses that are reputable, but they lack the feedback and in-person practice I could get in a live course. I dunno. It feels good to have an alternate path now, though.
In KKM game news, I've spent a few hours translating/playing each day for the past few and have continued to enjoy it more than I should have for something so goofy. I'm thinking this will keep me entertained for months to come.
My mother hates her job this week and there's nothing I can do for her and it's driving me nuts as much as it is her. She had her evaluation at work on Monday and her supervisor yelled at her for taking her little schedule of who visited the nurse's office, and the charts she has to put that nurse's office visit information into, home instead of finishing it immediately and staying at the school for hours. But, she didn't just say, "You shouldn't do that" or anything so sensible. She told my mother, "What if you died!" and gave a speech about even though they only get paid for 35 hours a week at a public school, she shouldn't think of it as a job, but as a mission and should spend all the early mornings and late nights at school that it takes to get the lengthy list of tasks she's required to do done. So now not only is my mother having a crisis over being reminded of her own fragile mortality, she's feeling intense guilt over her "mission" to help the kids at her school as the on staff health professional. Don't get me wrong. My mother does the work, she just writes up the details of each kid's visit on their public school medical chart after she gets home and eats dinner instead of at an empty school building after a long day of work. My father and I have been trying to discredit this woman's off hand, unfair comment all week to no avail.
Also, she got a visit from a former student at her school that made her even more depressed. This kid had a few medical conditions that warped her body in such a way that she needed to be cathed each day at school. So, my mother got to know her. One day she noticed blood in the girl's urine and suggested to her parents that they take her to the hospital to be tested for an infection as that happens when you have to cath regularly. Turns out the girl was raped by a family member. But, the girl was meek so she was too afraid to do anything more than tell who had done something to her. She wouldn't go into to detail what. So, they never were able to take the guy to court. It tore her family apart, this incident, and the girl was devastated by the abuse. As one would expect. She's not doing very well now, either. And, my mother is just killing herself with the guilt like she could have done something. She knows that her speaking up probably saved the girl from future abuse, but still. She's stared off into the distance and just stared repeating these stories several times this week.
She keeps talking about how, if my sibling can find a job as a hospital nurse, she'll be making more than my mother as a starting salary. What do you say to that? Maybe if the economy wasn't so bad there'd be options, but my sibling, despite her atrocious personality in social situations, is a pretty good student nurse. They say the medical profession is recession proof but that's a lie. Two of the hospitals she's interviewed at have drastically cut back their new hires and people are afraid to retire out of the system. But, pay isn't the only issue.
So... I don't know what to do for my mom, really. Most things I can think of, most things most people would think of doing for someone down like this, would actually cause her MORE stress and not less.
More than one person has rec'd TEFL Course Certifications/Degrees to me in the past month and I've been taking those comments very seriously. But, I'm having trouble finding one that's a good fit. There's a weekend course in April that's local and in person, but I have to go to my sibling's graduation and would miss a third of it. There's another in July, but that seems super far off. There are online courses that are reputable, but they lack the feedback and in-person practice I could get in a live course. I dunno. It feels good to have an alternate path now, though.
In KKM game news, I've spent a few hours translating/playing each day for the past few and have continued to enjoy it more than I should have for something so goofy. I'm thinking this will keep me entertained for months to come.
