What have you been reading or watching lately (remembering spoiler warnings)? What are you proud of this week? What’s made your teeth itch? What’s going on in your part of the world? Got any questions for your fellow FWD commenters?
Today’s chatterday backcloth comes via The Daily Squee, and was captioned there “Hangin with mah online friends”.
Sorry short rant ahead:
I had the week of suckety Interwebs suck.
The usual suspects:
1.) I killed Freedom of Speech by banning trolls.
2.) I was ablesplained to death.
3.) Our old friend the Tone Argument said hello.
4.) Several feminists, oops I mean “feminists” showered me with tons of disablist shit, called me dumb, uneducated, too confused to get stuff, and treated me with mind-boggling condescension.
5.) Plus, general interwebs bullying.
Seriously, if it weren’t for you folks at FWD I’d really lose faith in humanity.
.-= Kowalski´s last blog ..Capital N Neurodiversity =-.
I lost my job. Well, technically, I was told that my district will not be able to renew my teaching contract for next year due to the state slashing our budget basically in half. I am irritated at the prospect of having to job search for the second time in as many years and worried about my students, who deserve better than being crammed 40 to a classroom.
Our state legislature, meanwhile, is busy passing a bill that would allow folks to carry concealed guns without permits.
I had an interesting (positive) experience at work. I was testing the metering systems on fuel tankers, which is an outdoors, all-day job that we normally do standing up. Since I can no longer stand for 4 hours at a stretch (or anything like it), I took along a folding camping chair.
And the difference was amazing. I still did the job – just proving it is mostly brain-work anyway – I still got up to take the details from the dataplates and to set up the tests, but just knowing I could sit down while the tests were running or while my assistants were changing the hose connections made the whole thing easy. And whereas before I would have come home exhausted and in pain – and probably wouldn’t have been able to stand up at all that night or the next day – I had no pain and still had a reasonable level of energy that evening.
I don’t know why I never thought of it before – it was just always a job we did standing up. But I’m definitely keeping a folding chair in the van from now on.
When I was younger I ran across problems with ‘giving orders while female’, because this is still quite a macho, male-dominated environment, so I did wonder if I’d run into trouble with ‘giving orders while seated’, or get comments about ‘sitting down on the job’, but the guys were actually great.
I’ve got some great news….
My health insurance worries for the next 4 years are gone. Along with them, finishing school “on time”.
Tricare is exempt from all the reforms because they’re jerks. There may be a separate bill to put some in place that they don’t already do (they never dropped my dad’s dependents – me, becky, mom – when we got sick and stayed sick for longer than 2 weeks) like cover dependent students til 26. That may happen before they drop me at 23. and it feels like a drop, the floor going woosh out from under you.
But hey. I have 2 parents. She doesn’t have Tricare. Her insurance company is not exempt. One quick phone call later, yes they’ll take you, P-ECs and all. With only a 30 day period of being uncovered.
And Dr Ego has thrown around potential diagnosis like words, which will help me file for disability this summer. Because in this economy who is going to hire somebody who can’t pass a drug test (for her 1st paying job, I might add)?
And the college searching continues. I’ve seen a few that I like, liberal arts colleges and such. I have really no idea what I want to do when I’m older, possibly be a writer, maybe even a lobbyist for some type of women’s organization. The only thing that has left me choice-less on this search is that I have found ZERO colleges/universities with services for the speech/communication impaired, or its not prominent enough to be put on their website. grr 🙁
I’m feeling a little burnt-out on the activist front. Sometimes I feel like every time I turn around there’s someone else saying that disability is inherently tragic.
But. It’s a beautiful day — the first coat-free day of the year. I have been to choir practice, and few things pick me up like choir practice.
–IP
Kowalski, sorry to hear you got so much ableist crap thrown at you this week, but congratulations on your superpower of killing the first amendment in a single mouse click.
I had a sort of good experience today. I attended a talk about palliative care given by one of the most perceptive physicians I know. He spoke about meeting a patient who uses a home ventilator due to muscular dystrophy and was trying to convey to us the wonder and marvel that a person could have a “good quality of life” (a loaded term, I know) with a tracheostomy and a vent and needing home nursing. I was pleased my colleague had reached this realization but also saddened that for him, it had to be a realization and not a given that such a life was possible to be considered a good one. Why am I constantly the only person in medical settings who isn’t surprised by this notion?
@Irrational Point, yeah that can really grind on one’s nerves. If you get different kinds of shit from people it’s at least fodder for angry blog rants but the same shit different day?
It’s like talking to a wall.
@Dogged, interesting. Maybe your confidence that you broke the rule to do it your way impressed them?
@Tori, sorry to hear! 🙁
@Astrid, thanks, I do what I can! 😛
.-= Kowalski´s last blog ..Weekend Linkfest: Undesirables =-.
Kowalski – who knew you could bring down the government with a mouse click? I thought that only happened in ’80s movies! 😛
Keep an eye on your comp, make sure it doesn’t decide to start wars for S&Gs.
I’ve got a case of the sillies and I’m going to watch Paa (a Bollywood movie with Amitabh Bachchan playing a kid who has progeria. (stunt casting – his RL son plays his filmi father)
Anyways, I’m going to watch a serious movie dealing with a rare disability IF I can ever stop watching this video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slAtAdceDrI
No subs, it’s in Hindi, but it’s HQ and omg Hrithik… he could have been a flop, just some movie guy’s son, but he can act (according to people who judge that) and the boy is made out of rubber when he dances (and does movie fights). Also, shiny. (His entrance makes me swoon.)
Avoid Paa!!!!
Abhi and Vidya are amazing, as always, and it’s great to see Paresh in a non-comedic role.
But the movie is a mishmash of politics – national and family.
And then there’s the Progeria… and Vidya’s character INSISTING that a couple get pregnant right now, or the woman will suffer horrible pain if she doesn’t. It’s set in 2009.
I ended up in the er friday night for a migraine that wouldn’t react to any of my migraines meds (or keep them down). Best er experience I have had, but I wish I would stop feeling dizzy and nauseas and the things they gave me in IVs would work their way out a little quicker.
Assiya – “Best er experience I have had”
That is terrible, that you’ve got enough ER experience to rank them.
(I do too – best was when I was 14 and had just started the calcium and wouldn’t stop barfing long after food had left my belly and mom was all worried about my just recently stable calcium, what if this barfing continues what about my baby?! So we went to the ER. They really don’t like it when people barf in the waiting room, so I was whisked away but unlike the 1st time (kidney stones – barfing and lying on the floor) I actually got seen quickly. An IV to replace nutrients and a knock-out from the anti-emetic.)
I’m sorry the IVs aren’t working quickly. Or do you mean leave your body quicker? “work their way out” has me muddled. (And I don’t know anything about migraines.)
Question for those who suffer from allergies (and it is suffering, and not noble – snot everywhere or inflamed skin just isn’t as pretty as wasting away from consumption. Sigh.) seasonal or otherwise – what are your coping methods?
Did/do you have to change your methods because of your disability?
I’m worried about taking an antihistamine and a pain pill, but I’m also worried about scratching my skin off and bleeding all over my impossible to wash comforter. (My blankets and sheets have blood everywhere, but unlike other girls, most is from allergic irritation and the itching that follows. I remember one night screaming and hopping in the shower, searing hot then freezing cold, get this skin off of me!!!)
My allergies to the dogs are okay – the first day/night back, keep the benadryl close. But I’ve adjusted to their allergens – Dixie’s been here since ’97 – so within a few days I’m fine. As long as I don’t sit in the grass with said babies.
And I was doing so well on the skin/allergy front – no problems with the endless winter and heaters… spring has sprung (80 F today) and I’m a mess.
Prednisone shot tomorrow, I hope. Those have been good at stopping the rashes, and I’ve been quite good and am not covered in scabs, no blood under the fingernails. I itch!