Baoninato! Diabetes and my latest escape plan.

So now I have diabetes. Baoninato! I told my sister I was "hyperglycemic," which sounds more annoying than scary. I told my mama the D-word, which made her really sad, which in turn made me sad. I had been angry at myself all week (and hungry) since the test result, but telling my mama made me want to cry.

So whatever, I went to see the nutritionist, who was ok with my current eating habits, except for three things: 1) eat out less, 2) no more orange juice, 3) count carbs.

She also told me to exercise, which was like, duh, but ever since then, I've set aside an hour a day. I'm actually less irritated by having to exercise than by having to wash my damn dishes all the time, since I have to stop eating out.

She gave me a bunch of pamphlets and showed me with some rubber food how to control my portions. Of course, it was baked chicken breast, a scoop of potatoes, and a pile of American broccoli, so immediately I loathe her skinny white ass. I need to find an Asian nutritionist. Or at least one that's not telling me about white American food. Sorry, white people; as an ethnicity, you have the most demoralizing health food.

I want me a Japanese nutritionist. Or a Lebanese nutritionist. I know that Italians and Koreans have nutritionists, will you talk to me? Can I go to Greece and talk to a nutritionist? or Brazil?

Or maybe I just have to contact the people that make rubber food....

Anyway, the RN is going to show me the joys of checking my glucose on Monday.

The trick is going to be figuring out how to control my blood sugar in China.

Let's talk about China. I'm absolutely going to Hangzhou this summer, I hope I learn hella Mandarin. Six weeks, no English. Then, it's back to Seattle.

I had a talk with my sister; I should follow my friends to Shanghai and get a job at an international school. The pay is better, the housing is free, and personal expenses are less than $400/month. According to my friend.

If that's the case, I would have enough money to invest, feed my retirement, and take my family on fabulous vacations. No mortgage, no rent, no car insurance, no car! I would have a house keeper and I'd speak Chinese every day. Wouldn't that be something?

What would I be leaving behind? First, my sister and my extended family. A few close friends. Beautiful, cosmopolitan, no-transit Seattle. A pretty sweet contract at work, molded around my personal strengths. My cool condo in Columbia City.

My sister is grown, she doesn't need me looking over her shoulder. I will be able to afford to come back to Seattle a few times a year to see family and friends, and hang out in Seattle. In the mean time, I will be having new adventures with a car-less life style, my carbon footprint will be much smaller. I'll probably end up teaching more classes than I want to, that will be a challenge. Finally, when I decide to move back to Seattle, I will be able to afford a place that is even cooler than the place I'm at now.

So that's my latest escape plan. I'll teach one more year in Seattle, and spend it trying to get a position at an international school, preferably where my friends are in Shanghai. Actually, any urban setting in Asia would be fine, but if I can get a job at the school where my friends teach, that would be sweet.

To be realistic, I've had many escape plans over the years, all of which involved periods of poverty; i.e., graduate school. The international school plan is different: it involves making more money, and right away. So this plan is going to work.

This post is going to be a shocker for some of my readers; major health problems and a major career discernment, all in one post. Maybe the next post will be musical.

Not a great day.

I haven't called back the sleep study people yet. Grr!

I went down to SPU today to see what was going on with my transcript. Once I get my transcript, I get my raise, right? And payroll is this week.

Well, they're doing construction, and to be fair, the AC is out in their office. And they're all young college students. Anyway, they were dressed like sexbots in their shorts, their small tshirts that they have to keep adjusting, and their flip flops. Nothing is more infuriating than flip flops when your raise is hanging in the balance. I just thought, of course they screwed up my transcript, they don't even wear shoes to work.

Well, the problem was with the language school, where everyone dresses well. They left my paperwork and my check in a pile somewhere. They called me with the good news that they had found my paperwork and check... but then I realized that the check was going to hit now! now! now! which would totally wipe me out.

So I called the credit union and asked them to spot me $500. They of course said, no way, you haven't paid your Master Card and you have three mortgages! Stupid refi was supposed to take care of all of that in August, dammit! The lady at the credit union said she would call back later and tell me my loan was denied.

So then I called my mortgage friend, and asked her to put a rush on the refi people. Then, scraping bottom, I asked my baby sister to float me a couple hundred so I could at least cover the HOA dues check I had just written and buy gas, since my car was already running on fumes.

I taught a class, went to rehearsal, and then helped out at a service fair. Then I left work, crammed some Wendy's into my Wendy's hole, brushed my teeth and was off to my orthodontist appointment. (Yes, I know I should not resort to Wendy's. It was an emergency. It won't happen again, believe me).

And I was bummed, because I wanted to round out my Bitch day with something clever.

Oh well.

On the way to the orthodontist, I saw that I had three messages. One that my baby sister had deposited $200 into my checking account. Thank God for my sister. Another message was from the credit union; they managed to approve my loan for $500. Another was a message from the title people; they were ready to go to docs with my refi. Sweet!

So I went to my ortho appointment, only 15 minutes late, because when I stopped for gas (remember, I was running on fumes) the 'system' at the gas station was mysteriously shut down! So I just went onto my appointment.

The orthodontist said I would need about 8 months of braces and then oral surgery to fix my bite. Wrong answer, man. My upper teeth are narrower than my lower teeth, they need to spread laterally. So besides the $8000 I have to come up with for the orthodontistry, I have to pay the oral surgeon, too, with whatever my medical doesn't cover. We'll see. I have a couple months to make a smart decision.

Still no word on the kidney biopsy.

I got a last minute invite to H and A's place, to meet their new Baby M. I brought a bottle of vino verde, a hunk of cheese, and a stuffed tigger. They are such nice, gracious people. Dinner was lamb meatballs in a spicy sauce, steamed eggs with soy sauce, steamed chard, cooked apples from their yard (!!!) salmon and tofu with garlic and soy sauce. It was totally delicous.

Baby M was a little scared of me at first, I was the first person, apparently to experience her stranger anxiety. She got over it after dinner.

And now I'm back home, and it's time to grade.

Not a great day. September 11th, 2006.

Qué día

Por favor, recemos por MJ, mamá de mi amiga A. Está muy enfermita.

Sigo recuperando de la biopsía de mi riñón derecha. Todavía me pica un poco, pero a veces no me doy cuenta.

Hoy me tocó una conversación electrónica muy interesante con el director. Antes del fin de semana pasado, nos había mandado a muchos el horario de supervisión en la cafetería, lo que a nosotros los profesores no nos apatece mucho. Yo le mandé un email diciendo que yo había pensado que en mi contrato estoy lleno, es decir que esto al 100% de tiempo completo, y que creía que a mí no debe tocar la prefectura.

Su primera respuesta fue que sí, JP, tú tienes que hacerlo como todos. Es muy patrocinador, muy condescendiente. Como si yo llorara que tuviera que hacer la puta prefectura.

Respiré un poco y le respodió que mi pregunta se trataba de mi FTE. Punto.

Muy en seguida él respondió con una esquematizacion de las horas que trabajo yo durante la semana. No el porcentage, como solemos expresar las tares, sino horas. Y claro, en su esquematización, me faltaba horas al tiempo completo, y por eso me da la prefectura.

¿Falto tiempo completo? En cuanto al porcentage, para nada, pero bajo su nuevo sistema, sí.

Le mandé un email diciendo que en el futuro, yo trabajaré menos. Yo hago un horario lleno, la música, y la dirección del gobierno estudiantil, pero porque la música y el gobierno estudiantil son apartes, por los cuales me dan una cantidad además de mi sueldo, yo sigo faltando horas. Entonces me exigen las prefecturas.

Y claro, esas prefecturas implican que en esas semanas no podré asistir a reuniones del gobierno estudiantil durante la hora del almuerzo. Es un conflicto de obligaciones.

Bueno yo recibo esta cantidad aparte para esas dos actividades. ¿Por qué la dirección no puede apoyar mi actividad del gobierno estudiantil dando me tiempo durante el día para hacerlo bien? A tomar por culo.

Entonces la dirección quiere dar me esas actividades y los sueldos que las acompañas, pero tiene la cara de decirme que no estoy a tiempo completo, que me faltan horas, y que no tienen ningún deseo de dejarme hacerlo.

Es un tipo de explotación. O él quiere explotarme o yo me estoy explotando, trabajando como un burro para unos centavos. Y ¿Qué quiere decir con los dos sistemas de calcular el tiempo completo? Huele a explotación. Entonces yo le mande un email diciendo que el año que viene ya no haré la música.

Sí no me van a ayudar, ¿por qué les dejaría yo que me exploten? Mejor simplificar la vida.

Sunday Afternoon: House is Still Clean

So I indeed scouted that church I was talking about; it was BIG and way out there. There was carpet on the floor, which I think helps the sound in a amphitheater-style church. The piano sounded WET, but I was told they don't start doing music for real until next week.

Of course I saw A's sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. The priest was a Jesuit who celebrates his 73rd birthday on Wednesday. The Gospel was the one about how the disciples didn't wash their hands as per Jewish law. During the homily, Father Birthday told an admittedly far-fetched anecdote about how a Rabbi who landed in jail once had to be taken to the hospital for dehydration because he used his water ration for ritual cleansing instead of drinking. We were supposed to snicker about the Rabbi who risks his own health for the sake of ritual, but I was snickering at the racist law enforcement who don't respect the cultural and religious differences of their clients.

I'll go again next week to see if I want to apply for the director job.

So yesterday A was looking for a parking spot near Tutta Bella, and J and I pointed out that she had just passed a spot, the last spot before the intersection. (btw, some neighborhood intersections in Seattle have a big round planter in the center, making an instant traffic circle).

So upon seeing the parking spot, A put on the brakes and waved the traffic behind her. A very angry motorcycle rider then started yelling at her, calling her very bad names for having stopped in front of him at an intersection; legally, by the way... an intersection in Seattle without stop signs is a four-way stop! So anyway, Angry Biker is so mad and he keeps swearing at A, and I'm starting to get mad, but then I remembered my recent renal biopsy, and I pictured my sister lecturing me about getting into a fight the day after getting my kidneys tagged. So wisely, J said, go go go, and A stepped on the gas, as Angry Biker falls off his bike.

So let's recap; Angry Biker is in the intersection, under his bike, cursing A for stopping legally.

We parked somewhere else, laughed smuggly, and then forgot all about him.

Music Ministers are Judgemental.

Plenty of stories, don't feel like tellin' 'em. Here's the bullet.

1) Don't pick your wedding songs without hearing them first. If you don't have the luxury of hearing them first, ask the musician if the song is gross. Last weekend we sang a song that sounded like it was given as an exercise in composition class: create a hideous, frustrating melody with no resolution, not even at the end.

2) Don't add music to the Mass. Don't add a song for your unity candle or for after your vows. You will be standing up there for three minutes listening, wondering what you should do with your hands, wondering why you scheduled extra music.

3) Do you really have to rent tuxes and matchy matchy dresses and make everyone couple-parade down the aisle? Does the parade and the resulting photo echelon help you? Some of you will answer yes, we need the pagentry. So then my follow up question is this: I understand that the Catholics want the pagentry and the white dress and the sixty minute Mass... because that's us.

But what about you kids that want the 15 minute ceremony? You people that bitch about not wanting the "whole Catholic Mass" why do you even bother with the white dress and the tuxes? Seriously, you should just schedule a photo shoot, and an afterparty, then everyone wins. Then you don't have to hire me to sing "There is Love" or "In this Very Room." You don't want to hear it; I don't want to sing it!

I mean, really, I thought that one of the GOALS of being Protestant is specifically to get away from Catholic pagentry.

Oh well.
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So at Mass yesterday the priest asked us to sign a petition respecting the pharmacists' first amendment right to refuse to fill a prescription that s/he doesn't like. I almost lost it. You know where this is going.

First of all PLAN B IS NOT ABORTION, DUMBASS. Plan B is emergency contraception; it keeps the egg from making it's debut in a sperm-rich uterus. You know that's where this one was going.

Second, the doctor and I make my medical decisions, not the pharmacist, not the lawmakers, and CERTAINLY not the priest!

Third, quit pretending you give a shit about the poor pharmacists' first amendment rights. You don't care about them. All you care about is showing everyone how pious you are.

Keep your piety out of my health care.