I'll pray for you..

You pray for me
I love you, I need you to survive".

I need you ~ Hezekiah Walker

Today, while talking to a dear friend, I said the most ungraceful thing a person could probably say. No, really. I told her that if one more person told me they would be praying for me, I would scream. Most likely inside my own head, as I'm too well-assimilated to realize that screaming at someone would be the faux-pas of the year down here in Dixieland, but still. A good God-fearing southern woman does not scream when someone offers to pray, not even inside her own perfectly coiffed head.

You see, the past couple of days have been a challenge, and definitely prayer-worthy. This is true. On Friday, Ozzie was admitted to the hospital with a vague stomach-ache, which quickly turned into appendicitis, which quickly turned into a ruptured appendix, which turned into somewhat of a nightmare involving infections, white blood counts, NG tubes, antibiotics, and fevers. While things are looking up at the moment, we're still waiting on some pathology results, and until then, I'm not breathing easy.

So, as anyone can imagine, our lives have been a maelstrom of madness since Friday night. Not in the least because it was the end of the semester for me, with lots of grading, finals, and deadlines, as well as the end of the semester for husband-dear (who is working on his master's), a promotion and the start of a new job for him on Monday, and the fact that, oh hey, we have a second kid who picked this very week to take the concept of "struggling in school" to a whole new level. Oh, and Tricare was being difficult. Per usual. So. To say we have been stressed out would be the understatement of the year. We take shifts at the hospital to be with Ozzie, confer with one another via phone and text messaging, when we've had the time to cook, we've cooked three meals at a time, because who knows when we might be near a stove again, and don't ask us anything, because we probably won't remember the question. Now we're all in good spirits, everything is working out, and we're getting done what needs to be done, but we're just really freaking busy. So busy that the pool cleaner got left in the pool all weekend because I didn't have 15 minutes to take it out (first world problems, I know), there are tumbleweeds of dog hairs in the kitchen, and our Christmas decorations are half up and half still in the boxes. The logistics of having a child in the hospital are just something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

But what do people tell you when you relate how your weekend was?
"I'll pray for you".
That's it.
They will pray. Now don't get me wrong, I think that's fantastic. If everyone who says they'll be praying actually is praying, Ozzie is covered.  The fact that people in our church are praying is wonderful.
But.
And here is my evil 'but'. The one that makes me blush in shame, yet it's there.
But at the same time, you know, I have enough faith in God to know that Ozzie is good. I pray, my husband prays, God listens, we're cool.
But.
We could have so used some real, practical help. Like with food. Or stupid simple chores. Or driving around. Yes, prayers are great. But you know what was really wonderful? When my neighbor (who, let the record state, does not go to church) called to ask me what night she could bring dinner. Or when two old friends who now live across the country got together and emailed us a gift card to a local restaurant. Those simple acts of kindness made me cry.

Look, I'm not perfect. Yes, I've cooked plenty of meals for people, but I've also not signed in on numerous meal trains. I would just be too busy to cook for anyone. I've refused to cook meals for people with babies who had half their grown in-laws visiting. I've complained about people who needed meals and then insisted you bring the food in containers they could keep. So, yes, I'm not perfect. But I also don't offer up, "I will pray" instead. If I can't help, I will tell you, and I will tell you why.

I realize we're all imperfect. In an imperfect world. I know this. But in a part of the world where people are so hell-bent on being Christian, on serving the Lord, on reminding you that "Jesus is the reason for the season", I guess I feel that prayer is all find and good, but shouldn't you want to put your money where your mouth is?

So, there's my rant for the day. While writing this, I've been interrupted by two nurses checking on Ozzie, adjusting IV drips and giving the poor kid shots in his abdomen, and so I'm not sure how offensive I've actually been. I do know that I love praying people, I love God, and I love the fact that tonight we don't have to worry about dinner, because we have a gift card from Olive Garden. And yes, I love you too :)

Bike versus car: No class today

There's a statement in my syllabus which goes something like this: "In the event of a class cancellation, an email will be sent out to the address you have on file in bannerweb. Make sure you check that email address regularly". Whenever we walk through the syllabus, on the first day of class, I always add, "But I don't think I've ever had to cancel class before, so don't worry about that," and all my students laugh half-heartedly, while I can read in their eyes that they wish the impossible-tough-as-nails Dr. D would cancel class. Just once. During major events such as homecoming, a general election, or major storms, some of them will even hopefully offer up the possibility of cancelling class, but it just never happens. Rain, high water, free food at the Student Union, landslide victories, and tornado watches, nothing has ever stopped my classes from happening.

If anything has ever proven that we all need to eat our words at times, that right there does, as today is the second day this week I've been unable to get up off the couch, and I do mean literally unable to get up off the couch. And it's not even my fault. Well, by earthly standards anyway.

This past Sunday, I went out for a short bike ride. I didn't want to go on the ride, but as I always do, I went anyway, because lately, if I go with my gut and only do what I want to do, I'd be doing very little indeed. As you might have surmised from my past few blogs, I have not been in the most loving, tolerant, go-with-the-flow kind of moods, which has extended from my work to pretty much everything else in my life. In fact, whenever I've been going on runs, swims, or bike rides, I have used that time to complain, either in my head, or out loud to God. I mean, what has He been thinking these past few months. Why has everything been so hard? Why can't I get a break? And, most importantly, why won't He answer me?

Well, the second lesson of this blog is that you gotta be careful what you wish for, because this past Sunday God not so much spoke to me as He gave me a big old smack on the ass. Literally. Only He used a car to do so. A white Honda, if I remember correctly.

While I was cycling down a parkway near our house, a beautiful straight four-lane highway with wide shoulders and kvetching about the crazy wind, my tired legs (unacceptable! I'd only ran nine miles the day before! C'mon!), the fact that it was Sunday which meant tomorrow was Monday, and goodness knows whatever else, life suddenly slowed down. At first there was the nose of a car that edged up to within an inch of leg. Then there was a deafening crack, and after a moment of utter silence an intense pain in my side told me that crack had been something hitting my body. I remember managing to unclip my feet from my paddles, and tumbling into the grass, where I lay wondering who was screaming. That would have been me. I looked over, and saw a white car screeching to a stop. A woman came running up to me, in tears, her cell phone in her hand, "I'm calling 911, are you OK? I'm a nurse, are you OK?"

For one second, I stopped. Was I OK? Well, obviously, I wasn't dying, I was breathing, my limbs appeared to all be working, and aside from the stinging pain in my side, I was OK. My mind, the same one that talked me into running a half marathon with two injured knees, the one that keeps me going after an eighty hour work week and twenty hours of sleep, started to pipe up, and tell me I could just get up and get home. I mean, yeah, you just got hit by a car, but you're not bleeding, you're not dying, so seriously, man up, and get your ass up off the grass.

You will all be delighted to know that for the first time in a very, very long time, I told my mind to can it. My hip was killing me, I'd been hit by a car going 55 mph, I could tell my bike was bent up, and I was not OK. I was not going to pretend to be superwoman here, lying on the side of the road.

So I told the lady my hip was hurting really badly, and it needed to be checked out. The lady relayed this information to the 911 operator, and as my breathing finally settled down, she started to get more and more upset, "I didn't see you! I was talking to the kids in the car, and I didn't see you. But look at you, how could I have not seen you (I always ride in a neon yellow jersey). I am so sorry, oh God..."
What happened to me then is what happens to me a lot when I'm upset, but people around me are even more upset, I become this really calm person. Not sure where it comes from, or why I can't conjure that woman up more often, but there she was. Patting the woman's hand, I told her I was not dying, and was probably going to be OK. I told her stuff like this just happens, and it's not as though she did it on purpose.

The ambulance showed up at the same time as about four police cars, as well as a fire truck. Apparently, our county doesn't take chances with accidents involving cyclists, and pulls out all the stops. Well, that, and the fact that, according to the EMTs, it had been a slow Sunday afternoon, probably helped to bring everyone out too. Information was taken down, and one police officer was dispatched to notify husband-dear of my accident. And it wasn't until the EMTs pulled the stretcher up to push it into the back of ambulance, when I saw all the traffic backed up on the parkway, and the broken mirror lying on the side of the road, that it hit me, I have just been in a car accident. And I'm still conscious to talk about it. What a miracle.

Anyway, the next two hours were spent in the ER, talking to doctors, nurses, police officers, and assuring the boys (as well as husband-dear) that I really was going to be OK. And I am. Nothing was broken, I was diagnosed with a "severe contusion" (as well as a case of really stinking good luck), and sent home with some wicked pain killers.

So I've spent the past day on the couch, on my right side, occasionally shifting the pillows I use to prop myself up around, and requesting a fresh ice pack. The outline of the mirror that hit me is slowly starting to show up on my behind, and the bulge means I've only been able to wear shorts or sweatpants.

While I think my back will feel good enough to go back to work tomorrow, being forced into two days of bed rest has been somewhat nice. Painful, but nice. Just note that you really do need to be careful what you wish for

The woes of education

Although I like to grip about life in the south, I'd like to think that my concerns are mostly trivial, exaggerated, and definitely things that can be overcome. I mean, yes, although it's annoying that southern drivers feel that they must come to a complete stop before making any sort of turn, it's definitely not something that is going to impact my life or that of my children. Neither will the fact that the bugs here are the size of small babies, nor will people's inability to say no. But every great once in a while, I hear or read about something that is really does worry me. In other words, something that makes me pick up the phone, dial husband-dear's number, and beg him to please take us all far, far away.

On Wednesday I heard just such a story on NPR. A recent study that investigated states' performance on a national reading test, found that Georgia's 8th graders scored lower than pretty much every other state in the country. To quote the news broadcast, "A Georgia 8th grader found proficient in reading could move to almost any other state and fail state reading tests there". Reassuring news, when you have two kids in Georgia schools, wouldn't you agree?

I would say something like how this explains why my students, at times, have a hard time following directions, if it weren't such dire news. I mean, I knew that Georgia wasn't exactly at the top of the list when it came to student performance on reading, writing, and math, but sheesh people, we're apparently producing middle school students who struggle reading with the back of cereal boxes.

And why is this, you ask? Well, I'm not entirely sure myself either. I would love to argue that it's because our educators make so little money the state struggles to keep good people employed, but according to these two reports, the opposite is actually true. I suppose it could be the endless budget cuts, or the fact that our apparently less than mediocre 8th grade students don't exactly make the best education majors either, but neither one of these reasons compute either, if you consider that other states face the exact same budget cuts and combination of good and not-so-good universities.

So that leaves two possible reasons, both of which are infinitely more depressing than the reasons offered above. First, it could be that Georgians suffer from an overall lower social cultural capital. Without boring you all to tears with Bourdieu's theory, the idea behind his writings is that people from a higher social economic background usually possess more cultural/social capital (e.g., read more books, newspapers, go to museums and theaters), which allows them to better prepare their children for success in school. The lower one's social and cultural capital, the less likely one's children are to perform well in school. In short, it could be that Georgia's enthusiastic dislike of museums, out-of the-box books is in fact what is hurting students' performance.

A second possibility is that people just don't appreciate education, i.e., they think books and studying are not half as important as, say, learning how to play football, or win the first chair in the concert band, or make it to state with the marching band, or get the lead in the school musical, or win prom queen or the junior beauty pageant. So it could very well be that all those kids who would fail the 8th grade reading states in any of the 49 other states, are awesome wide receivers, cheerleading captains, Broadway stars-in-the-bud, and the next Ms. America. Although this is great news for uga-the-bulldog, Glee, and any of the million reality shows on TLC , it's possibly not so good for educators statewide.

The bottom line is, I don't know. But I do know that this is Not Good and Must Be Fixed.

Private school anyone?

Idiocracy

The other day I finally realized what drives me crazy about this town. It's the level of idiocy. I realize this might come across as a little blunt. I'm sorry. What I mean to say is that what can, from time to time, drive me crazy about this part of the world is that there are people who don't appear to think. You know, like, at all.

Now I'm not going to try to argue that there are places that are free of such people. I am realistic enough that there aren't. So I'm not so much bothered by the fact that there are idiots, excuse me, people who appear to eschew thinking as much as possible, but the high level of concentration of such people in this specific area. I mean seriously folks, just skim through the content of my blog. There's inattentive drivers, ultra-dogmatic conservatives, people who dump dogs in complete strangers' driveways, women who believe that sweatpants are appropriate outerwear for all occasions, and a very odd understanding of what comprises rude behavior.

But, in all honesty, those are only minor examples of idiocy. The other day I had the opportunity to witness such a blatant example of stupidity, it really made everything else fade in comparison. It started innocuously enough - I was visiting Mary at her store. We talked for a little bit, when a man who works at a neighboring store, let's call him Bruce, walked in. Mary's co-worker, let's call her Sue, who until then had been ignoring us and playing with her cell phone, immediately came to life. And the ensuing conversation between these two people just blew me away.

It started when Sue complained about how hard it was to pay for college. No problems there. It is.
But immediately afterward, the conversation took a left turn and didn't so much go downhill as crash into the ravine. I'm not sure who started it, but either Sue or Bruce mentioned how much easier it was for African Americans to get into college and get financial aid.

Uhm. Really? Because I don't think that my students, who are not only 99% African American, but also hold an average of 2.4 jobs per student as well as a fair share of student loans got that memo.

But it got worse.
Sue then managed to argue that African Americans actually went to college at the expense of white people. I'm not sure what her reasoning was based on, as it sounded something like this to me, "Yeah, so like, just 'cause, y'know I'm white, I can't get into college. And they can. So yeah. If I were black, I wouldn't have that problem".
Please don't pin me down exactly on what she said, but it was something pretty much as idiotic as the above statement.

I'm not sure how long it took me to close my mouth and organize my thoughts after this incredibly profound and well though-out statement (insert sarcasm here), but once I did, I tried to make Sue see how incredibly, terribly, embarrassingly wrong she was. Really, people, really. Do I even need to make my case here?

I didn't think so.

But it was to no avail. And Bruce didn't help either, as fortunately for Sue (and I am trying to say this in the most sarcastic way possible), as Bruce decided to add his two cents, and posited that if racism still existed, which, by the way, he seriously doubted, African Americans obviously brought this upon myself by the way they acted.

Excuse me?
Excuse the holy guacamole (insert appropriate cuss words here) me?!

At this point, Mary and I exchanged a glance, and I did the absolutely unthinkable. I interrupted the two and said, "You know what? You guys are being incredibly dumb, and I am checking out of this conversation right now. Bye Mary."
And I left.

I know I joke around a lot on this blog. Most of the time I am not serious, and I hope that all of you know to take complaining should really be taken with a grain of salt, as half the time I really don't care that much. But this, this is not acceptable. Ever.
Ever.
It's the dumbest, most idiotic and ignorant moment of the past four years here in the south. In fact, it may have just the won the prize of the decade.

Now excuse me while I go take a few really deep breaths to get rid of this incredible desire to throw something across the room.