Blog Update

So, if you are actually still checking in here once in a while, you might have noticed that I have not posted in a while. I am not going to apologize, but wanted to let you all know where things stand and what is likely going to be happening.

1. I got a promotion and took on more duties at work, including advising the student newspaper. So I am swamped and really stressed out.
2. I also started a doctoral program. Going full-time. In addition to working more than full-time. So, I am having very little freetime, of which a large portion of it is currently enthralled with BSG.

If you feel like you need more than occasional blog updates from me, go friend me on Facebook. At least there is some chance at connection over there.

Otherwise, continue to watch this space. As I get adjusted to my new schedule and actually start to do some of my own writing instead of assignments, I will start to post some of my ideas, thoughts, etc., about my EdD program. Which, by the way, is in adult and higher education and where my dissertation is likely to be on some sort of obesity and higher ed issue.

A Great "Found" Poem



I am very fascinated by the concept of the "found" poem. Poems can be found in recipes, emails, letters, interviews in articles. They are just standard, everyday communications, but something about them lends themselves to arrangement, or they have a certain rhythm, or, well, something intangible. I have only in my life ever found one "found" poem. I arranged this in the mid 90s, using the words of Phan Thi Kim Phuc in an interview she gave to Time magazine. Phan was pictured in the iconic photo of napalm victims at Trang Bang in 1972.



Nong Qua/Too Hot

I see
the bombs. I run,

run, and run.
My feet are not
burned. My clothes ...

I tear them off. The burning
doesn't stop. I keep running.
I yelled - too
hot. Too hot.

I run, run, and
run.

My sister came to see
me. My mother
said, "Don't
cry. Don't cry anymore.
We can take care of everything

but
the pain. You alone
have to suffer it."
So I don't cry
anymore. I try.
I try. I run, run,
and run. I see
the bombs. I see

the fire.
Too hot.








I received a beautiful poem in an email yesterday. I don't think the sender intended it to be a poem, but it is... I post it here, and yet omit the author's name, to protect the guilty....

my phone is ringing

from off campus.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

I see a man in the water, arms flaying, . . .

Very Sick

Update: The triage nurse, after some new symptoms deevloped yesterday, is fairly certain I have salmonella. Joy! Boxer stopped at Walgreen's on the way home from work and got me some Pedialyte, which is surprisingly not horrid. And it seems to be working some. Pains in stomach is not as bad. And I am not living on the toilet, but, man, this is terrible. If this is a mild case, I can't imagine what a bad case is like. Must be like death!

Yours Truly is very sick. So sick that I called the triage nurse yesterday to see if I should go to the ER. Diarrhea, extreme bloating in my stomach, a killer headache, lack of appetite, and such pain in my entire abdomen - pain like I have never felt before, except for maybe after my gastric bypass when they, you know, cut my guts into multiple pieces. The pain was so bad I was thinking not stomach flu or anything mundane like that. I was thinking gall bladder attack, stomach rupture, ovarian cyst rupture, bowel obstruction, stomach stricture, appedicitis, something awful requiring surgery.

Well, the triage nurse, after making some snide comments about my medical knowledge ("Not many people know terms like "abdominal rigidty. Do you spend a lot of time at the doctor's office?"), seemed fairly certain I wasn't having any of those serious problems but she was worried about me becoming dehydrated and recommended I go home, have some flat ginger ale and perhaps some chickie soup, and rest, calling back if I spiked a temp or had any other symptoms indicating that I was, essentially, dying.

So, I managed to get home at 5:30 and went right to the store, thinking I would be home by 6, and so I didn;t leave a message for Boxer as to where I was.

Well, I didn't get home until almost 7 and Boxer was understandably worried, as he knew I was feeling really awful and didn;t think I should have gone into work at all yesterday.

I will admit to being a bad girlfriend, and I made sure to bring my cell with me to work today.

And yes, I am working today. Which is probably stupid. I am feeling better, although I am running a temp of 100.5 (my regular body temp is 97.8), but I can at least walk upright today without hunching over and my stomach doesn't hurt when touched gently. But I have a meeting this morning and 70 letters to get out and a letter of support to write, and then I can go home and rest. Maybe.

I am having a nervous breakdown. There is too much to do in too little time. Say a little mantra for me: If Heather can just get through Monday, everything will be fine, everything will be fine.

In the meantime, in the words of the great robot philosopher Bender, everyone who isn't already on my help list can just bite my shiny metal ass.