"Paid As Any Other Sickness"

That's right, institutional insurance plan for students, scholars, researchers and dependents. Yes, it is, in fact, a medical school. Read it and weep.

Thanksgiving Message, From Our House to Yours

So I Let Go Now...

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I should follow the lead of many wonderful fellow bloggers and give thanks.

In the face of this year which, to be honest, has not been one of my favorites, I am thankful for love.

I am not only thankful for the love that I have been given, but for the love that I have witnessed and for the love that has been taken away.

I am thankful for the serenity in my home and the always honest and thoughtful criticality, humor and humanity of those who share it.

I am thankful for all of the year's circumstances that have served to remind me of who I am and who I want to be.

I am thankful for losses perhaps more than I am thankful for accomplishments. Dispossession continues to remind me of the importance hope.

Above all else, hope is the one thing for which I give the deepest thanks.

Wicker Man

Wow, what a great movie. An ethnographic account of paganism and the movie from which Burning Man was born, apparently.

During one ritualistic scene full of phallic representation (and the like) by way of the Maypole, The Kid says, "Pole dancing!"


"Um....noooo....not exactly," I say.
"Oh... Polish dancing!"
Okay. Close enough.

Bongwater & Blood

That guy next door is up on his roof smoking out again.
Have I mentioned him before?
One of these days he's going to fall and break something.
Bongwater and blood everywhere.

M A K E

If I had an ounce of artistic ability, I would do this.
Some of my favorites include 1/06/09: Anti-fingerboarding signs; 1/31/09: Rifle wrapped in yarn; 1/05/09: A Scene from the fictitious horror film, "Honey Bear, Sweet Honey Bear"; 2/16/09: horse; and of course 1/13/09: Lyrics Poster / The Smiths.
*Image from Laser Bread via flickr

For My Heart's a Boat in Tow

The Kid is pretty amazing... evidenced in this rendering of the human heart which he placed amongst my study materials as an illustrative reference. Check it out.

Happy Birthday, Erin J.

Invisible Costume

The Kid was so pissed this Halloween when no one knew who his costume was supposed to represent. What? Hasn't every other ten-year-old wanted to dress up as Claude Rains in the 1933 version of The Invisible Man?

Every time someone asked, "And what are you supposed to be?"
He just stared ahead blankly as if to say, "What is wrong with you people?"

Just a Body

The Kid is ten. Driving home from school last night we had this conversation: "See that dot on their license plate?" he asks, pointing to the car in front of us, "it means that guy's a donor."
"A what? Organ donor? No, they don't put it on your license plate. Someone needing a kidney might run you off the road... they put the dot on your driver's license."


"Oh... Are you a donor?"
"Yes, of course."
"What part of your body?"
"The whole thing."
"Well, that's good. They might as well take it all and help someone else. You won't be needing any of it anymore."
"Does it bother you?"
With some disdain, "No, mom... It's just a body."

WE CARE Solar

If you want to take a position on child birth, consider this. If you want to talk about injustice and what it means to work for women, imagine. If you want to take on a women's rights issue, this is it:

"Maternal mortality worldwide accounts for more than half a million deaths a year...that's the same as one woman dying every minute of every day, and that's an outrage. That should never be happening."
Laura E. Stachel MD, MPH, Founder of WE CARE Solar.

WE CARE Solar "reduces maternal mortality in developing regions by providing health workers with reliable lighting, blood bank refrigeration and mobile communication using solar electricity."

This organization needs, and deserves, your support.

Dweebs and Assholes

Yesterday, after a very pleasant telephone conversation with my former PI (read:boss) who happens to be a successful MD, I related part of our conversation to The Partner.

"So, the Doc said to me, 'I don't like to hang out with other docs. They're all dweebs and assholes'."

After having sat through a very painful weekly Ob/Gyn Grand Rounds that very morning, lead by a particularly unbearable female doc, I remarked, "It's true. Even the women are assholes." The Partner smartly decided that this would be the title of my upcoming tome on feminism:

"Even the Women Are Assholes: The Unthinkable Thoughts of a Feminist."

Illustration credit, obviously, goes to the late, great Kurt Vonnegut.

Song to the Siren

Now from his breast into his eyes the ache of longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, longed for as the sun warmed earth is longed for by a swimmer spent in rough water where his ship went down under Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea. Few men can keep alive through a big surf to crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beaches in joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind: and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband, her white arms round him pressed as though forever.

- Homer, The Odyssey

I'll See You in My Dreams

♥ S.L.M. ♥
December 17, 1929 - September 8, 2009

Anthropo Logic

A couple of weeks ago I was on my way to lunch with my former project manager, celebrating one year of liberation from social science and passing of the state boards. A now-doctoral-degree-holding colleague stopped by to say hello and commented that it was fun to keep up on facebook where we had recently become virtual friends. "But your profile picture... you're wearing and overcoat and standing on the street corner. You look a little like..."
"A prostitute?" I interjected.
She quickly corrected me, noting that the appropriate term is "sex worker".

The bias-free insult: how anthro-politcal!

Sudden Birth

So, this is a great video I wanted to keep around for posterity's sake. Labor and delivery instruction via the Berkeley Police Department and Alta Bates Medical Center, circa 1966.
If you decide to watch, just remember: "Keep calm. Keep calm. Keep calm..."

You Can That Heaven Here...

Viaticum

The Kid says, "Do you know why there are so many ghosts these days? Because no one ever places obol on the eyes of the dead anymore, so Charon won't let them into the underworld.

But don't worry, Mom. When you die, I'll leave you with two hundred dollars."

NCLEX Hex

Many weeks have passed since I sat for the dreaded nursing boards, (bka: NCLEX which is the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses). What a nightmare. Let me say that standardized tests are not my bag. I could say a lot about these tools, as a social scientist. But I won't. Not because I did well on the SAT -- as matriculating community college student I never had to endure them -- but because I have been privileged enough to do well enough on the GRE to get into gradate school, twice. Because, let's face it, it's not about what you know, but how you've learned to test -- and that is about factors that have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. Let me also point out that I passed with flying colors the qualifying examinations in my doctoral program... 72 hours of exams that did not even come close to the hell that is the NCLEX.

First of all, for anyone who has yet to experience this rite of passage, you will walk away thinking you've failed. Or at least normal people will think this... plenty of my colleagues walked away celebrating the 75 question blue screen moment, a kind of confidence that I will never know in this lifetime. I would have presumed failure. But not that this matters, as I sat through 265 questions and 5.5 hours, having left convinced that I did not answer a single question correctly. This means that never, not once, was I certain of an answer I was giving. That experience erodes confidence very quickly.

Because of laws governing the boards and the insanely detailed waiver I had to sign after being fingerprinted and photographed and finger printed again, I cannot give any hints about test content. But that is not really the useful or interesting part of the story. The interesting part is that this is a psychometric test, which creates a "passing standard" for all of those who sit for the boards. In simple terms this means that every person who takes the exam should get an equal percentage of questions correct and incorrect. As a person performs well, the questions become more difficult until a question is answered incorrectly. In that case, the next question will be slightly less difficult until the person is again answering correctly. Once a threshold is reached, wherein the test-taker has demonstrated that s/he is answering more difficult questions correctly than incorrectly, the the exam will end. This can be at 75 questions, or any arbitrary number in between, up to my 265. Likewise, if one is doing poorly, answering lower-level questions incorrectly more than 50% of the time, the exam will end. The clincher is that once the blue screen appears, you have to raise your hand, are escorted from the room, and then you have to wait up to two weeks for your results.

Many of my colleagues were able to log on to the BRN website and check to see if their names appeared in the permanent license verification system within the next two days, a kind of work-around for those waiting for results by mail. Personally, I took the test on a Friday, expected to see (or rather not see, given my commitment to failure) my name on the site on Tuesday. When my name didn't appear, I prepared for the studying process, again... but, on the advice of a friend, I called the BRN to be certain the documentation in my file was complete. Lo and behold, no transcripts had ever arrived from my institution. I dragged myself to the registrar, paid for transcripts (again) and waited.

One night before bed, about three weeks later, The Kid said, "Mom, I know you passed that test. You're a nurse now." With this bit of kismet, I woke the next morning and checked the BRN. There was my name. The card arrived the next day.

The moral of this long, long story is: never fear. It is a very difficult test for which to study, the questions are very hard to comprehend on first reading (and I am a native English speaker... bless all those who take it with English as a second language), it is difficult to gauge and it is not by any means an accurate judge of what kind of nurse you will be. I am not sure how well it even measures competence. It is, like many other standardized exams, a test of something determined to be a means to find a 'measurable' proficiency among candidates. This does not address ability nor knowledge. I suspect some of the best nurses are those that have to take it more than once. And anyone who has to sit through it more than once deserves a medal of honor.

Irony

The Kid said to me today:
"I hate irony....
when it's happening to me."