Interesting hypothesis about depression

I've frequently said that one of the problems I have with helping my students develop their writing skills is that they don't think. They don't contemplate. They don't act, they react. They don't plan. They don't delve into material. They skim, they skip, they look for the most obvious, and if they come to a challenge, they stop. They don't think through.

It's not their fault, although at times it seems they are being purposely obstinate. Rumination is simply not respected any more. It's hard to spend time thinking deeply when your cell phone is pinging with texts that interrupt your thoughts. When facebook is right there, begging you to update your status. When there are 1,589 channels you can flip to on tv. When kids are shuffled from one activity to the next, all day every day. When the answer to most questions is "google it."

Now, I'm not saying I'm against current technology. It's here. It's here to stay. It's just going to expand. I think people need to learn to deal with it. After all, at one point, with the invention of alphabets, the great thinkers were afraid that society would be ruined by being able to read and write.

Now, I do have issues with how attention is not trained and how the trend seems to be that in order to learn, everything has to be "fun" and "relevant" and "appeal to the now." That just makes no sense to me. Life isn't all about "now." Lots of what we learn is to get us through the future. And life is full of doing stuff that isn't "fun." Let's face it, doing taxes isn't fun. It may not be interesting. In fact, it might seem "stupid" and "boring" but it has to be done. To hear a lot of my kids' friends talk--and my students--if something is "stupid" and "boring," they won't do it, or they won't do it carefully. They certainly won't invest much effort into it.

Yet, why should I be surprised at this attitude (and I admit, it takes me by surprise time and time again). I'm really not that much more self disciplined. When that attitude rears its ugly head in my own children, I get totally irrational.

Yet, as a culture, we don't respect the slow process of thought, what might be called rumination. Let's face it, people who ruminate, who think, who contemplate, need both time and space to do so.

I think that I probably have a lot of friends--by virtue of where I live, what I do, what my friends do--who fall into this category. I have a lot of artistic friends. My community is full of academics. Those people get paid to contemplate and ruminate. Time and privacy are important values to many of us.

But, in general, these aren't values shared by a large portion of society. At least not in my experience.

What prompted me to have these thoughts today, though, is this article in the New York Times.

Whether the hypothesis is valid or not, it's clearly food for thought.

This gives me hope:)

I haven't really minded not having hair.

I'm over the novelty of it.

It's a tad chilly in the winter.

But I'm ready to have hair. I rather enjoyed the little bit that I had during my surgery break from chemo. I was actually more sad to see that pink fuzz go than I was to shave off all my hair in August.

This gives me hope. Maybe I'll do a photo journal starting with my last chemo.

Not out of the running yet...

...or at least not for missing the sign up for soccer.

Since Tynan was on the team in the fall, his paperwork is all OK for spring.

That's a relief.

It's also a relief to know that I haven't totally screwed up MOTY in the second month of the year. Now, whether we can get organized enough to make practices, find uniform pieces, cleats, etc....I might end up dropping out of the running soon, but at least not this soon.

I might even have managed to get Aidan on a spring team. I'd forgotten his birthday makes him still a legit U14 player, so the trapped 8th grade rule might not apply to him....that would be a big SCORE!

Add all that to the Teva shoes that originally retailed at $130 and I found, NWT, at Goodwill yesterday for $15 (the most expensive wearable item I've ever bought at Goodwill) that fit either big boy (and both like them), I just might start earning my keep around here.

Good Taste!

No, not my jokes. Those are frequently in bad taste. Not my dress. I really have no taste. No, I'm talking about my ability to taste.

It's crazy. I bet I'm tasting at about 25%.

Today I've been craving Muffaleta, sans the bread. OK, so just the olive relish/salad. Instead, I'm just eating green olives and kalamata olives straight from the jars. I can taste those.

I'm also craving grapefruit, actually a citrus fruit salad, but the taste isn't all there, making it really hard to go to the effort of making such a salad. Maybe I'll just peel and eat a grapefruit.

It's weird to not taste. Yet, because of the natural drive to foster cell growth and rejuvenation, I crave certain types of food. Even without an appetite, I have a drive to eat. Very little is satisfying, though. It's like I"m an eating machine in search of taste.

I'm off for a bag of tuna now, drenched in some high taste dressing. Maybe I should try Tynan's preschool age snack: bag of tuna with salsa and grape jelly added. He loved it when he was 3. It was at that age that he ate crushed garlic from the jar with a spoon and would request garlic pickles as his "treat" from the grocery store.

Or, maybe I'll just go eat more olives.

Creepy?

So, facebook offered this to me as something I might be interested in.

Now, why would I be interested in something that wore such dweeby pajamas?

Ewwww....gross

Think of all the places you have hair. It's not sursing I'm mostly bald. My leg hair is mostly gone. My eyebrows are thin. My eyelashes are starting to fall out. My arm hair is mostly gone.

But this morning, I blew my nose, and ewww.....

Who would have thought?

Why I might no longer be finding stuff so funny...

...in general, I think my family is falling apart.

2 yrs ago this month, my mother suddenly died.
18 months ago, my father-in-law died.
1 year ago, we put a bid in on this house.
Almost immediately after that, my husband's position at the university was eliminated.
He was forced to "bump" another employee, ultimately taking a job he was totally unsuited for.
My husband then tore a ligament in his "good" ankle.
He was forced to go on medical leave.
Our insurance refused to pay their share of his physical therapy.
We had to fight that.
We moved house.
One week later, I went out of town for work for a little over a week.
A week after I returned home, we started three week ends of soccer tournaments.
Squeezed in there, a wonderful visit with out of town company for a week.
I was diagnosed with cancer.
Tynan broke an ankle.
I started chemo.
We enrolled the kids in school full time, one of them the night before school started.
I started working full time while doing chemo.
We discover that BGHS is not a suitable place for the one child going there full time, but that there is probably NOT a better option for us in the area, plus he's not going to leave happily. So, for now, he's there.
Mess around trying to get a 504 plan in place, which happens easily. Getting it enforced, another story.
My husband got wind he was going to be fired, so went on medical leave.
My husband couldn't find a job.
My husband's position at the university was eliminated, again.
He found a job, which is tenuous at best, and earns significantly less than before with no retirement.
Total slap in the face come-to-Jesus understanding of age discrimination.
Upheaval on all levels at BGSU...especially regarding job security, which then leads to worries about kids' futures since job security *is* their college savings plan.
I find out I have to have even more chemo.
One child fails one class in high school and nearly fails another. May not be eligible for sports next year.
One kid almost blows his hand off and was lucky to NOT be turned in to homeland security for his foolishness.
One kid gets injured in soccer and spends 6 weeks on crutches and in physical therapy. May never play his position again.
A week after those two incidents (they happened less than a week apart), I have a bilateral mastectomy.
One of my kids gets arrested.
I start intermediate reconstruction.
We deal with legal issues in conjunction to the silly arrest for foolish, yet not harmful, behavior.
I start a new chemo regime, which is much harder than the last regime.
I want to exercise, but am told I can't until my compression sleeves come in. It is taking forever. I have to go to two different OT's to get it managed.
My arm swells off and on. Will this be something I deal with forever? Will it get worse?
I start to plan for radiation, which is more frightening than chemo....if something goes wrong with radiation, you die. It can't be fixed.
I wonder if the radiation will make the lymphedema worse than it is.
I even stress about the color of my lymphedema sleeves.

This is why I watch trash tv 24/7.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

Is it any wonder all of my kids are falling apart?

This must end, and it must end soon.

Yum!

Waka Waka Cake for dinner....gone before pics. Awesome!

Wasted 5 weeks and totally out of the running for Mother of the Year

The semester is already 1/2 over; it's nearly Spring Break; I'm not working; I've accomplished nothing.

I had great plans for personal improvement, and the whole lymphedema, sleeve fitting, appointment making, rigmarole has interfered with some of that; general malaise has interfered with other aspects; poor planning has made it so that I can't even find time to organize the bookshelves in the living room. Yet, I've watched a ton of trash TV and am doing a phenomenal job of keeping up with the Kardashians, the pregnant teens, the hoarders, the clean houses, and all those polygamist Mormons. Hmmmm....I'm seeing a correlation here.

Haven't worked on my writing. Haven't taken up a hobby. Haven't worked on the family room. In general, haven't done much of anything.

Haven't even really noticed that I'm not working.

On top of having accomplished nothing, I missed the deadline to sign Tynan up for Spring Soccer. Now, to explain to the child who already thinks we all have it in for him that he's out of soccer....any takers? Damn. There goes MOTY, once again. And it's only February.

Round 2, session 3, day 2

I have a love hate relationship with decadron, the steroids I take to combat nausea. Like all steroids of this sort, it causes sleeplessness, which may be the most immediately noticeable side effect (look at the posting time of this entry, for example....I'm not the least bit sleepy), increased and irrational appetite (and not for healthy foods...no one craves celery when poppin' in 'roids), and wildly racing brain. I've also noticed a decrease in my ability to be calm and rational....but I can blame that on so many things.

But I do so love not puking or feeling like I'm going to puke.

I hate the round face and chipmunk cheeks.

I hate the high blood pressure.

I hate the red face.

I only have to take it 5 more times...twice this session and three times in my final session, so that's all good.

However, what I'm noticing with this cocktail is that I get my smack-down hangover before I'm done with the steroids. With the last two infusions, the smackdown came on day 3, the middle of the steroids. Generally, the rule of thumb is it comes the day after finishing the steroids. And it lasts about a full week...hangover, flu-like symptoms. Last time it lasted 1 day of significant shite...and two days of just feeling under the weather. This time it is just generally worse all around.

Whatever. Nothing much I can do about it. I really hope, though, that I never have to go through this again. I'm not sure how much more fortitude I have.

I think I'd have more if it weren't February. I just want warmth radiating down on me. I'd kill to sit in the sun about now.