I have snatched the questions from Tyger's blog as they seem to cover all the main bases :)
1) What have you been up to?
Work, mostly. And slowly, slowly filling out my Winter Session application. And a fair amount of church-stuff.
2) How goes home-age, and school-age, and other assorted '-ages'?
Home-age is pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself. I introduced weekly family check-ins after Naramata and I think it's been working wonders for our family dynamics. The general feeling in the house is just generally less stressful- ie: I don't feel like people are harbouring stress and resentment and are likely to explode/ have their own quiet breakdown, because people are actually talking about their feelings. Hooray!
School-age is non-existent, which is something I miss sometimes when I really think about it. But I almost never think about it.
Work-age is... a lot of things. First of all, the last two weeks have just been a lot in general- from learning how to get around the building (which has 8 floors and it takes three elevators to get from ground level to the top. It's built laterally up a hill, if that helps you make sense of this. It actually reminds me somewhat of Hogwarts, in that there are some stairwells that only go up and some that only go down and only one elevator that goes to the fourth floor and secret codes to get in and out of places and a giant courtyard-greenhouse thing in the centre of it all. Haha, I had this great time on the second day, trying to get from the cafeteria on the first floor back to the rec offices on the fifth. I tried taking the stairs, and actually thought I was trapped because the stairwell ended at an elevator that only went to parking and the doors to all the previous floors appeared to be locked [little did I know that I needed to press the little 'door release' button]. So I had to go back down to level one, take the elevator up to level three, walk to a stairwell I thought I could take, use a code to get into said stairwell, find out that the stairs in that stairwell only went down, walk around to another elevator which finally got me back to level 5 *huge tangent-ed*), to actually knowing what my job entails. And there has been a lot of getting used to what it's like to interact with dementia patients- it is surprisingly stressful to try and figure out how to respond to someone who answers a question like 'would you like to come to organ music?' with something that has nothing to do with the present situation, or to try and calm someone whose distress has its source in their own world, a world that I have no access to. Basically, long-term care is an environment that is totally different from anywhere I've spent any significant amount of time before and I'm learning loads.
And it turns out that I'm not so much 'assisting' the Rec therapists as running/ supporting all the programs on a particular unit, and helping out with centre-wide programming. So it's a bigger job than I thought, but also more self-directed, which I'm rather thankful for. Especially today, with it being my first day of not-shadowing others and I think I would have died of pressure if there was someone else there watching me who would know all the things I was doing wrong. From all I've heard from my co-workers, it's very much a learn-as-you-go type of deal, and I'm just glad that there's no one there to witness me learning by trial and error.
I'm trying not to think of TUXIS-age because I realise that I'm ready to not have it in my life anymore. It's not that TUXIS is bad, it's just that it's something I realise I've grown away from. I don't want to debate anymore, I don't want to be around tuxis-drama anymore, I don't want to feel this oppressive obligation to an organisation that does nothing for me at this point in my life. I just feel like there is all this stuff that I MUST do because I have a front bench position, but that, for the sake of my own sanity, I must not do. More than anything else, I really don't want to go to session this year because even being at conferences has been difficult for me- seeing that I have pretty much nothing in common with other tuxins, and in fact finding some of my core values in conflict with the way I see tuxis operating (not in a self-righteous way. Just in a 'I know that this matters to me more than it matters to you and I don't want to ask you to change anything just because I don't like it- but I don't think I can be around it anymore')- and I fear that 6 intensive days where heirarchy, patriarchal attitudes, unintentional exculsion and conservative religious and political views are quite prevalent will make me feel incredibly isolated as a fiercely egalitarian, gay, feminist, community-oriented, 'gaia-worshipping-wiccan-buddhist-christian' far-leftist . It also means that I likely won't be able to go to Regina for the third Christmas in a row. It's been so, so long since I've seen my extended family and the thought of spending even more time away hurts me a lot, and probably would hurt my grandparents even more.
3) What colour socks are you wearing right now?
Blue. They have sheepsies on them :)
4) Do you have any grand expedition plans in the works?
Not at the moment. I've sort of been somewhat pondering how I might get to Victoria for New Year's Eve so that I might go to the summer staff '07 New Year's gathering. Which I would really, really love to get to, but I don't know if it would be possible, again, given that TUXIS is supposed to run from the 26th to the 31st of December. Bah.
5) What did you have for breakfast this morning?
Cheesy bread sticks that my mom made. They are delightful :)
6) Am I learning any new instruments this year?
Well, funny you should ask. My brother brought the recorders up from the basement just this evening, and I've almost re-mastered 'engine, engine number 9' *snickerwheeze*.
7) Is Mary still my flute teacher?
Yes. Only her name's not actually Mary. And she doesn't teach me the flute. Or any other musical instrument. She doesn't teach me anything at all, really.
8) Am I wearing underwear?
Yes. Wait...Yes.
9) Am I doing much besides school?
Well, I'm doing most everything BUT school. Only that's a lie, for at the moment I'm not doing really anything besides work. But I hope to change that, now that I'm a bit less shell-shocked.
10) Please spiel about the foods you have been building: Well, actually, the only food I think I've built in the last two weeks was Kraft Dinner on Sunday and I think a salad or two. Us offspring are doing shared meal preparation twice per week rather than singular meal preparation once per week, and since my shift ends at 5 pm most days and I don't get home till at least 6 or 6.30, there's been more 'sibling makes supper, Hannah cleans up' of late.
So writing all of this was probably not the most wise decision, for it is now past midnight, and I've really been needing my sleep these days. But it feels good to be in semi-contact with you folks. And I've been thinking an awful lot about calling you people- it's just been that I'm still getting accustomed to having only 4 or 5 hours of my own time after having days and weeks to myself- ie I keep accidentally wasting my evenings cause I'm not used to having them be so short. So anyway, I do hope that all of you are doing well, and I plan on talking to you soon :)
-Ratty
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1 comment:
Yay, Ratty is alive! I have been meaning to contact you in some way to see how le job is going but yess (hah, I could have gone to church and done that but I have these issues with getting up for it since Sunday is the only day that I don't have a time I need to wake up by) I appreciate it being like Hogwarts that sounds spectacular, minus the getting lost/stuck in scary stairwells (heh, I think that would have severely traumatized me seeing as the stairwells at the downtown library scare me)
And I think you aught to not go to Tuxis. Now this is coming from the person who can't make her own decisions worth poop, however I can give you plenty of spiel about why you shouldn't;
-it sounds like you have most certainly grown out of it so I think you would end up just being notsohappy there while you could be at home/Regina with family members and doing other things that you would muchly enjoy
-they do seem like the kind of people who would be relatively understanding about reasons of not being able to come (particularly that this one starts the day after Christmas, to me that is insane that anyone goes, but yes) even if you weren't to give them all the reasons
-family doesn't last forever, especially grandparents and I thinks it is tres important to spend time with them while you can (getting nice and spiely here but yes here goes: when me grandma was ill there was this time when she was in the hospital and was feeling rather sickly (as in dry-heaving etc. likely courtesy of elcruddo hospital food) and parents had to go out of the room for some period of time so they were wanting me to sit by her and make her feel better but I was all squirmy about the possibility of her getting sick etc.etc. so I wouldn't, I just sat at the window instead. Bah, I feel horrid about it now, I bed she felt bad because she knew that I didn't want to be by her but I really should have just sucked it up and gone over there or at least not been in the room. Anyways, I would like so very much to be able to go back and change things but I can't and that is very sad.) So yes, that means that I aught to live vicariously through you and your ability to still do stuff with grandparents/make them feel good.
But yes, you do get to make that decision, heh, but there is my opinion on it.
Ergy and yes I am not sure what to do with mentally disabled folks. At one place my grandpere was at all these people would kind of just accost you in the hallway and I never know what to do and am kind of scared of making them mad or not doing what they want etc.
But yes, this is probably the most insanely long winded comment ever so I shall stop now before it gets cut off (here's hoping it doesn't)
Hermy
P.S. Us city folks really aught to do something sometime.
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