| the last two months. |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|07:15 pm] |
Well, it's been about two months off from this, and I think I'll pick it back up. A few things have happened in the interim, as one might expect. I suppose the advantage of occasional, rather than constant, posting is that I can summarize the interesting parts rather than racking my brain for something interesting that happened. (I could, of course, stop to ponder what it means that I need to do such racking on an ordinary day, but I'll tap-dance around that particular abyss for right now. No benefit there.)
A summary of what I remember as the important points of the last two months follows.
I think I've come out as nonreligious to my parents. It came up when I was trying to explain that I'd do poorly in politics for a number of reasons, and one of those is that atheists have a 53% handicap, at least in national elections. Talking about this with my parents made me quite uncomfortable, though I'd have a hard time explaining exactly why. It's not like I fear their disapproval--I did get an "I was in my twenties once" from my mother--but still, I felt strongly that I'd brought up something that's not generally talked about, and that I'd made a mistake in doing so.
Carin has gotten a full-time job as a jewelry salesperson. She's very good at it--she walks on water at the workplace--but it involves shifts such that we're out of the house from around 8:30 in the morning until 10:30 PM. This is by no means entirely a bad thing; I've taken to sitting outside her workplace and catching up on schoolwork or reading, and, of course, the money is a definite plus. Also, there's the self-respect she gets from a job well done. Nevertheless, it's been an adjustment; we see even less of each other than we did when she was working part-time and I was on vacation from school.
Ah, and speaking of school, I dodged a bullet at the end of the last quarter. I was stuck on projects for two of my classes, and missed the boat on the third--my group had completed the assignment without me by the time I popped in and asked what I could do to help. It was completely my fault, and I apologized to the class. When the instructor mailed me to ask what had happened, I explained that I had arrived late to the group through no one's fault but my own. Apparently my honesty was appreciated, and I was given partial credit on the final project (which I didn't ask for, and certainly didn't expect), pulling through the quarter without any particular outward signs of narrowly-avoided doom, despite spending about a week very stressed out about it.
I took a trip to Bear Mountain with the Cats, Eric, and a girl who the Cat was trying to hook up with Eric, or vice versa. I am surprisingly out of shape in that I excreted several liters of water through my skin on the hike, but in surprisingly good shape in that I didn't slow the rest of the group down much. On the way back, Eric suggested that we climb across some slippery, moss-covered rocks across which a stream was flowing, shown at right. I have no idea why I went; in retrospect, it was one of the stupidest things I'd ever done. We made it down across the stream and back up the side of the small gorge it had dug for itself, and I suddenly realized what a bunch of idiots we all were. But, of course, it's okay to blow it off now, since no one was injured.
I got that dental filling that I had needed; everything went smoothly, and I didn't need to get anything pulled or rooted. Because I have plenty of other bad teeth, and have for years, I tried to get a follow-up appointment to get a set of dental X-rays and so forth, being motivated by a desire not to have part of any other teeth snap off while eating. I called for an appointment, and was told that the schedule opens up only on Tuesdays. I called the following Tuesday, and was told that the people who do the dental X-rays were on vacation; try back next week. I called the following Tuesday, and was told that all appointments were booked already, and that I should call in the morning. I called the following Tuesday morning, and was told that no new patients would be seen until at least next year, and then only maybe; there's a waiting list.
So I used my privilege and went to the local dental office which doesn't take sliding-scale payments and charges about three times as much for their work. (I mention this not because I'm cheap--though I am cheap--but to remind myself of how my options differ from those of someone who doesn'thave my cash flow.) It boasted comfier waiting room chairs, well-decorated facilities, and most importantly of all, a shorter wait time. I called and got an appointment set up for about two weeks in the future; about two days later, I got a call saying that there was a cancellation that day, and would I like to come in? Carin was kind enough to accompany me, as I wasn't looking forward to it. She's been remarkably calm about me getting all this dental work done; I feel a bit ashamed, seeing as how she has such fantastically good teeth. The good news is that I can get away with a bunch of fillings; I need to get them done as soon as possible, and so they gave me an appointment for a week later (on the nineteenth). I was strongly encouraged to start flossing, which is taking some getting used to but has conferred upon me the benefit of non-bleeding gums (though that might have something to do with getting my teeth cleaned), which I appreciate.
The dentist, whose manner I found curiously reassuring (there's probably a name for this particular bias) took some pictures of my teeth with a sort of endoscope-pen thingy. And boy, do they ever look bad. Apparently--and I have no recollection of this--I had some dental work done previously, as the teeth are cored out in preparation for fillings, but there's no filling in them. Looking at them, I can't believe I can actually use them to chew. Props to Carin for having a strong stomach, and for not... well, I'm not sure what she would have done, but bad teeth are a convenient shorthand for one's social caste in this country, loaded with shame on top of the practical problems of not being able to eat easily. (In the context of national healthcare, there's a bit of interesting reading at "The Moral Hazard Myth", explaining why I'd eventually be pulling out my teeth with pliers if I couldn't afford a dentist.)
I should also add that I'm not enjoying work. About two months ago, I went to the office manager and asked if I could buy a stamp from her, as she had them. She said to just take one, I did, and mailed my letter. A month later, I had another letter to send, and didn't see her there. The Steve without the mustache asked what I was doing, I told him I was mailing a letter, and that was that. Just now, I went to try to mail a letter, and discovered that the stamps were missing. Brian informed me that they're locked up, and that furthermore, Steve without the mustache had yelled, yes, yelled at him for the total of eighty-two cents in postage I had taken from the office supplies. I am now bringing pens home.
Whose brilliant math was it that determined that the morale lost by chewing people out and treating them as if they're going to run off with the entire office is worth less than eighty-two cents?
I have a large stack of comments; it's not like I stopped dropping science while I was failing to update here. I'll figure out a way to make it readable, which will be necessary, as there's more than five hundred to post. |
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