long time, no bloggie...

Greetings to my faithful follower(s?). I realized this morning that I haven't made an entry in quite a while (I can't look at exactly when that was because of the filters at work, but it's been a while). What's been keeping me away? Is everything suddenly going perfectly? Not exactly. So why no updates? I'm exhausted. Burned out. This is my next-to-last semester at WSU and I'm in the hardest "class" I've ever been in- a writing internship. (Next semester will be a class about making wine- I'm not stressing that at all). Very long story kept ridiculously short: at every turn I've run into roadblocks and hurdles. Out of 10 weeks this semester I've lost nearly 4 to these issues. And I have to submit about 150 hours worth of work. So you go from an ideal of 10 hours per week (150 hours/15 weeks) to an idealized 13.6 hours per week (150/11) and include the normal pace of a corporation and we're looking at a lot of hours worrying about whether this is going to even happen. As it stands, I'm looking at needing to do 1.94 hours per day, every day, just to get to the goal.   It doesn't sound like a lot, does it? But then figure in that I don't have a lot of stuff to work on. Those breaks in work don't count toward my internship hours (it's not like my REAL 40 hours/week job where I'm still getting paid when a server goes down). Then there are all the back-and-forth emails: get this from the server>I have server access?>Well it's the secure website>how do I get there? No one told me I about a login/password>Check with so-and-so, or I can just PDF them to you>PDF sounds easier>[crickets].... So I'm not getting credit for waiting.   Plus I have another class that's only rigorous because it's a philosophy class and philosophers don't speak good English. They like to convolute things unnecessarily- I like to say thry use $5 phrases for 50cent ideas. But I still have to make the conversion so I'm not always spending an extra $4.50 every time I read this stuff.   Work. School. Internship. Massive yard work (I need to tear up the front yard to replace the lawn- old tree roots make the yard hazardous for everyone). Trying to find time to relax... My fuse is blown. I don't even get mad at my stupid coworkers anymore- I just don't have the energy.   Apologies to those who enjoyed my missives. I'll try to write more when it doesn't involve something that might affect my job or ability to get funding for grad school :)

Proving Citizenship Status...

I was listening to NPR this morning on my way to work. They were discussing inequality in schools, particularly public high schools, and one of the issues they brought up was that Mexican families are having to disclose their citizenship status before they can enroll students in classes. So what? They made it sound like it was some huge racist conspiracy to keep kids out of schools. And in fact, it probably IS an effort to keep undocumented kids out of schools and lunch programs.  Here's the deal, I can't take a crap without showing someone my social security number. You know what a social security number is? It's documentation about my citizenship status. I'm sorry if you think you're being singled out because of the color of your skin, but maybe you just need to get used to the way things are done in this country. Want a car loan? Produce YOUR social security number (not your kid's- that happened to a friend of mine and it's a huge mess every time he tries to do anything). Want to enroll in college? Produce you social security number. Want cable/cell service/a cerdit card? Produce your social security number. Want to rent an apartment? SS# please. Want a job? Soc # right below your DOB.   So, I can't feel bad for you about this because you're not special. And instead of the federal dept of edu getting involved to the point where they're going to investigate these school districts, why not just explain to these families how our system works?