Month: December 2009

oh hell

some of you know that i taught for many years at a school with a primarily hmong population.  most of my students and their parents, and some of my colleagues, had spent years in the refugee camps in thailand.  their stories on how they escaped TO thailand are harrowing.  i have a story cloth made by the aunt of one of my students that tells the story.

i admit i haven’t given much thought to them (as a large group – i’ve thought often of individuals) in recent years, but a quick glance at the bbc front page website today showed me this:

** In pictures: Forced expulsion of the Hmong **
How the forced repatriation by the Thai military of 4,000 ethnic Hmong to Laos unfolded, despite international condemnation.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/in_pictures/8434973.stm >

early morning vacation week blues

so… i took this week off work because i had expendable vacation days. i intended to sleep in a lot, catch up on miscellaneous personal things, and generally enjoy the week to myself. instead, i would like to say that rather than being asleep right now at 8:40am, i’ve been awake since 6:45 because the work has begun on the roof. there is a great deal of thumping, which i can hear all the way down here on the 1st floor. i’m sure my neighbors are thrilled. astrid and i removed her plant stuff from her side of the roof yesterday and i warned her that this would be an early morning. she’s smart- she’d already made plans to sleep somewhere else all week. i had to be here to give them the keys today, but after today i’m sleeping elsewhere. it’s going to be a long week. i almost wish i were going to work. hahahahahah!

i’ve spent my morning time researching good questions to ask a prospective gp. i’ve decided this is medical week, and have an appointment today to have a weird thing removed from my knee, then an appointment tomorrow with a possible new doctor, and have already made a list of 4 more doctors i’ll make appointments with asap. and i made an appointment with a dentist, although that will be next week.

story is this: i have a doctor, but i never particularly liked him. he never seems to know anything, and comes very quickly to *often wrong* assumptions without listening to my descriptions adequately, or taking into account my personal history. there are a couple things i like about him: his availability via email and mobile phone, and his willingness to prescribe things. but sometimes i’d rather he weren’t so quick to prescribe, and instead considered a little more. by the time, for example, i was referred to a dermatologist at the VU, i had a cabinet full of miscellaneous creams that were prescribed, none of which had any effect. the dermatologists had me throw them all away. it’s wasteful. if you don’t know what something is, why not accept it and send me sooner to a specialist?

anyway.

Illuminated Hosting Radio

So the best solstice present I got was from Matt’s mom (via Matt’s choice): a logitech squeezebox, so that i can listen to any of the music stored on our hard drive, or internet radio, or a series of apps, etc… wirelessly wherever in my house i want to.

last night i was randomly flipping through the internet radio choices, and because they were playing ministry, stopped on illuminated hosting radio, which proceeded to switch genres back and forth and give me lots of pleasant surprises and generally entertain me for hours.

so… big thanks to whoever does illuminated hosting radio. good fun!

sinterklaas

i was planning on sleeping in today (much needed), but sinterklaas, zwarte piet, a horde of kids and a fucking accordian walked up and down the street not once, not twice, but 3 times.

it started at around 8am. it’s 9:40 now and they’ve been finished for a few minutes. i was interrupted in this post by the dishwasher repairman, who also showed up much earlier than expected.

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

Click here to yum…