Tonight I had to go pilot a survey with a group of inner-city youth (give the survey a test run for those of you non-researchers). I had never been so aware of my whiteness in my life. In a room of about 20, I was the only white person. It was fine though, and everyone was very nice.
I'm handing out the survey, and one girl asks how she is supposed to do it. I didn't understand her question, until her friend pointed out that she couldn't read. I later found out this girl is 12 years old. 12. And she can't read. Her friend helped her through it, but what is this world coming to when this girl, who is involved in an after-school community program, can't read? It was so sad.
Another boy in the same group started to say "what does this..." and I thought he was going to ask for clarification on a word (which is what I was there to find out). I said "I'll help you, what's your question" and he quickly said "nevermind." I pressed him, since my job there was to edit the survey to be as user-friendly as possible, and he thought for a second and clearly decided I was trustworthy and said "This question asks if we have a job for pay. Does workin' the streets count?" All I could think to respond was "Do you get paid?" and he said "Yes" so I told him to mark "yes." Now this very sweet and respectful young man (who keep cutely calling me "miss") who was about 13 years old, just told me he's a drug dealer. Not 2 minutes later he tells me that through his involvement with this after-school program, he helps do things that make neighborhoods better and more of a community. So when he's not dealing drugs, he's helping make his neighborhood a better place. I am struck by the reality of these kids' lives, and how impossibly different their childhood was from mine. I have no brilliant ideas about how to rectify this situation of young drug dealers and 12-year-olds that can't read, but man this was an eye-opening night for me.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Rochester in the fall
While I am happy to be going home and being back with everyone I love, I'm a bit sad about missing my favorite time of year in Rochester. I have just, in the past week, noticed the first few trees are starting to change color as the fall approaches. It's always the maple trees that start first. The few trees that are changing colors look so silly right now, because they will have one branch that is brilliantly orange and red, yet the rest of the tree is still green. It's as if the tree just isn't quite willing to give up the last bit of summer.
I also saw my first "locally grown" apples at Wegman's (the grocery store) last week. Upstate NY grows tons of apples, second only to Washington. Fall here to me signals the start of the blissful drink that is Kelly's Apple Cider. It is unpasturized goodness, just one step away from heaven. I have heard that there was a law recently passed in NY that all juice must be pasturized before it is consumed, but I also heard that you might be able to get away with it still if it is being purchased on site (i.e. not in a graocery store). Who knows, but by the time I get back here in January, apple season will be long over, and the tress will all be bare and brown. I'm sure it will be quite the shock coming back without the beautiful transition of fall. Ah well, there is always next year. And the bright side is I won't be around to have to do the raking :)
I also saw my first "locally grown" apples at Wegman's (the grocery store) last week. Upstate NY grows tons of apples, second only to Washington. Fall here to me signals the start of the blissful drink that is Kelly's Apple Cider. It is unpasturized goodness, just one step away from heaven. I have heard that there was a law recently passed in NY that all juice must be pasturized before it is consumed, but I also heard that you might be able to get away with it still if it is being purchased on site (i.e. not in a graocery store). Who knows, but by the time I get back here in January, apple season will be long over, and the tress will all be bare and brown. I'm sure it will be quite the shock coming back without the beautiful transition of fall. Ah well, there is always next year. And the bright side is I won't be around to have to do the raking :)
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Flowers and Snowflake
Before I left for Portland a couple of weeks ago, I was having fun taking pictures of flowers in my yard (or ones that hang into my yard). While I sadly have very few flowers, it's looking like I won't be adding more at least until spring. Here are a few of the pictures I liked.
I really like how the contrast turned out in the picture with the blue berries. I have no idea how I did that, so it wasn't done using my amazing purposeful camera skills :)
Next up is the Blogger debut of Snowflake my foster cat. While she didn't come out of the basement for 2 weeks, she is now a very affectionate cat who likes to sleep on my bed and watch TV on the couch with me. Her downfall is that she hates other pets, is a bit skittish, and doesn't like to be picked up, so finding her a home is going to be difficult. If I could find a home like mine where she is allowed to adjust at her own pace, she would do very well. She now meows at me when I don't pay enough attention to her, which is starting to get a bit annoying and reminds me of Bryan's cat Penelope, minus the drooling! I was going to find her a new home when I come to Portland, but my roomie so cutely said "can you just transfer her to my name? I'm going to be lonely and she keeps me company." So thanks to Briana's kind heart, Snowflake will continued to be fostered here until she finds her forever home. She did not do so well during her first 3-day stint at Petco, probably because of the large number of barking dogs that come by, so she might be best adopted from Petfinder where someone can come here to meet her.
I really like how the contrast turned out in the picture with the blue berries. I have no idea how I did that, so it wasn't done using my amazing purposeful camera skills :)
Next up is the Blogger debut of Snowflake my foster cat. While she didn't come out of the basement for 2 weeks, she is now a very affectionate cat who likes to sleep on my bed and watch TV on the couch with me. Her downfall is that she hates other pets, is a bit skittish, and doesn't like to be picked up, so finding her a home is going to be difficult. If I could find a home like mine where she is allowed to adjust at her own pace, she would do very well. She now meows at me when I don't pay enough attention to her, which is starting to get a bit annoying and reminds me of Bryan's cat Penelope, minus the drooling! I was going to find her a new home when I come to Portland, but my roomie so cutely said "can you just transfer her to my name? I'm going to be lonely and she keeps me company." So thanks to Briana's kind heart, Snowflake will continued to be fostered here until she finds her forever home. She did not do so well during her first 3-day stint at Petco, probably because of the large number of barking dogs that come by, so she might be best adopted from Petfinder where someone can come here to meet her.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
9/18 update
Sorry for the lag in updates. I was so busy before I left that I just didn't find the time to sit down and write.
As of this afternoon, my dad was still in the ICU. The breathing tube was taken out on Saturday I think. While that's good because he can now talk to us in a barely audible whisper (due to the throat irritation of the tube), he is now cranky, in a lot of pain, and coughing with the most rattly chest I have ever heard. They are trying to wean him off of the epidural and onto oral pain meds, but they are making him very delusional.
He is having a moderately hard time breathing on his own, but that is to be expected with the pneumonia and the broken ribs. It was painful listening to him breathe, but hopefully the intense respiratory therapy they are giving him will help. My mom emailed me today and said my dad's latest thing is to pull out the nasal feeding tube. The nurses used to fight over who was going to care for him, but somehow I bet that isn't happening anymore! He is talking now and says himself that his own stupidity got him where he is, and he keeps asking my mom to take him home. He has an unknown length of time before that is even a possibility. I think next up for him is loads of rehab in the hospital once he is moved to the ward.
All in all, he is very slowly improving, although to us the last couple of days have seemed a bit worse since he is now awake and alert and realizing his pain. I am now back in Rochester, although not altogether with it since I flew back on a red-eye, went straight to work, and then taught tonight (which I absolutely loved for those who are wondering). The big news in my life (and don't tell my dad if you happen to visit him) is that I'm coming back to Portland for a couple of months to help care for my dad. I'm here getting things settled and I hope to be back in Portland within 2 weeks or so. I am blessed to have some amazing people in my life who have made coming back to Portland a possibility for me. I'm taking a leave of absence from school and I'll be telecommuting some for UR and filling in the rest with my old job at PRE in Portland. My dad is going to need an immense amount of care, and my mom just can't do it alone. I'll help care for him until he's doing much better, and I'll start classes again in January.
Thanks for all of your postive thoughts.
As of this afternoon, my dad was still in the ICU. The breathing tube was taken out on Saturday I think. While that's good because he can now talk to us in a barely audible whisper (due to the throat irritation of the tube), he is now cranky, in a lot of pain, and coughing with the most rattly chest I have ever heard. They are trying to wean him off of the epidural and onto oral pain meds, but they are making him very delusional.
He is having a moderately hard time breathing on his own, but that is to be expected with the pneumonia and the broken ribs. It was painful listening to him breathe, but hopefully the intense respiratory therapy they are giving him will help. My mom emailed me today and said my dad's latest thing is to pull out the nasal feeding tube. The nurses used to fight over who was going to care for him, but somehow I bet that isn't happening anymore! He is talking now and says himself that his own stupidity got him where he is, and he keeps asking my mom to take him home. He has an unknown length of time before that is even a possibility. I think next up for him is loads of rehab in the hospital once he is moved to the ward.
All in all, he is very slowly improving, although to us the last couple of days have seemed a bit worse since he is now awake and alert and realizing his pain. I am now back in Rochester, although not altogether with it since I flew back on a red-eye, went straight to work, and then taught tonight (which I absolutely loved for those who are wondering). The big news in my life (and don't tell my dad if you happen to visit him) is that I'm coming back to Portland for a couple of months to help care for my dad. I'm here getting things settled and I hope to be back in Portland within 2 weeks or so. I am blessed to have some amazing people in my life who have made coming back to Portland a possibility for me. I'm taking a leave of absence from school and I'll be telecommuting some for UR and filling in the rest with my old job at PRE in Portland. My dad is going to need an immense amount of care, and my mom just can't do it alone. I'll help care for him until he's doing much better, and I'll start classes again in January.
Thanks for all of your postive thoughts.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Update on my dad
For those of you that I haven't had a chance to contact yet, on Thursday my dad fell off the second story roof while cleaning off leaves. He is in trauma ICU at OHSU with 2 collapsed lungs, virtually all of his ribs are cracked or fractured, and a broken pelvis. He has been intubated (a tube is helping him breathe) and he is heavily sedated.
The good news-
Yesterday they took out the left chest tube, which means his left lung is doing well. They also switched his right lung from the bubbling filter to water suction, so if it drains less than 100 today that tube will come out as well. He is responding to us when we are there, even though it is only in the form of moving feet and hands. His sense of humor is clearly intact still though, because whenever my mom teases him his feet start moving rapidly :) When my mom and sister were there yesterday, they said he opened his eyes and was clearly paying attention to them.
He now (as of yesterday) has an epidural in his back that is basically numbing up his entire ribcage. The goal is that without all of the pain, he will breathe better and be able to taken off of the ventilator and the heavy sedation/pain meds.
The bad news-
We had hoped the ventilator would be taken out yesterday, but yesterday afternoon they told us he now has pneumonia. He spiked a high fever overnight and they have had to up the oxygen they give him and have the ventilator help him breathe a bit more. As of this morning his fever was very high again last night, so they have started some broad-spectrum antibiotics until the culture results come back. They said he is still responsive, and the antibiotics seem to be starting to work. It is looking unlikely that they will remove the ventilator before I leave on Sunday, which unfortunately means I won't get to talk to him.
As scary as all of this has been, the nurses and doctors assure us that things are going fairly well and that 60% of patients get pneumonia. They have no idea when he might get moved out of ICU and when (if all goes perfectly) he'd be back home. It's looking like it's going to be a few months though. Things are all still very touch-and-go, and we're hoping that the pneumonia gets under control quickly. We'll hopefully know more by this afternoon when the latest CT and x-ray results come back.
I'd like to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. It's amazing to see the outpouring of support...you never know how many people care about you until something like this happens and the phone rings off of the hook with people sending their good wishes. I'll try and keep you all updated as things change, but it's very slow going right now.
The good news-
Yesterday they took out the left chest tube, which means his left lung is doing well. They also switched his right lung from the bubbling filter to water suction, so if it drains less than 100 today that tube will come out as well. He is responding to us when we are there, even though it is only in the form of moving feet and hands. His sense of humor is clearly intact still though, because whenever my mom teases him his feet start moving rapidly :) When my mom and sister were there yesterday, they said he opened his eyes and was clearly paying attention to them.
He now (as of yesterday) has an epidural in his back that is basically numbing up his entire ribcage. The goal is that without all of the pain, he will breathe better and be able to taken off of the ventilator and the heavy sedation/pain meds.
The bad news-
We had hoped the ventilator would be taken out yesterday, but yesterday afternoon they told us he now has pneumonia. He spiked a high fever overnight and they have had to up the oxygen they give him and have the ventilator help him breathe a bit more. As of this morning his fever was very high again last night, so they have started some broad-spectrum antibiotics until the culture results come back. They said he is still responsive, and the antibiotics seem to be starting to work. It is looking unlikely that they will remove the ventilator before I leave on Sunday, which unfortunately means I won't get to talk to him.
As scary as all of this has been, the nurses and doctors assure us that things are going fairly well and that 60% of patients get pneumonia. They have no idea when he might get moved out of ICU and when (if all goes perfectly) he'd be back home. It's looking like it's going to be a few months though. Things are all still very touch-and-go, and we're hoping that the pneumonia gets under control quickly. We'll hopefully know more by this afternoon when the latest CT and x-ray results come back.
I'd like to thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. It's amazing to see the outpouring of support...you never know how many people care about you until something like this happens and the phone rings off of the hook with people sending their good wishes. I'll try and keep you all updated as things change, but it's very slow going right now.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
There's no place like home
A little less than 2 weeks before Labor Day, I decided that for my own mental health I needed to go home over the long holiday weekend. I found a decently priced flight and decided to risk the two layovers of less than 40 minutes. Thankfully all ended up being fine.
Being home was both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful because I remembered all that I love about Portland and got to spend time with people I love (my apologies again for the happy hour confusion). Terrible because it made it all the worse to come back here, and had it not been 4am when I left (and the brain not working all that well), I probably would have stayed. Portland is such a great city with so many amazing people and great things to do. I realized that this weekend was the first time since I left that I genuinely laughed. Sad.
That said, I crammed a lot of things into a great weekend. Spent Friday with my parents, then yummy Lebonese dinner with Bryan, and drinks and dessert later with my sister and her cousin and his girlfriend. The chocolate dessert at Tabla is to die for! They were eating outside when I arrived, and it was a beautiful night for being outside. I took this picture of the sunset on my way there. It's not the best and hardly represents how beautiful it was, but it's hard to take pictures while driving!
Saturday was spent being relatively mellow because poor Bryan was sick :( We did go out to drinks with some friends of his, which is always fun. Sunday we got up and my personal chef made me some delicious crepes (every girl should have a man who cooks...it's great!). We then strolled along Hawthorne, me finding happiness in browsing Powells, and then we went to Pho with my parents. I really miss the food of Portland! That night we went to Rimsky Korsakoffee and had a lovely chat and dessert, despite it being 150 degress in there! I've only been back a few days, and I miss my Portland life already.
But back to Rochester news, I had to keep myself busy until midnight in order to catch Bryan's unlimited cell minutes, so I finally got the kitchen all cleaned and organized.
Tonight is my first night of classes. I'm actually dreading it, mostly due to the whopping SIX hours I'll spend sitting tonight (4:30pm-10:30pm) since both of my classes are on Wednesday. Ugh. I'll be sure to post how they go. Don't expect much exciting news besides "my life will now be spent reading every piece of literature that seems to exist on education" :)
I got my first foster cat here. An adult long haired white cat. She was friendly enough when the people brought her over, but she quickly found the cat door to the basement and hasn't come out yet. Every time I go down there I find her hiding behind the washing machine. I'll give her a few days and then drag her out for her Blogger debut.
Being home was both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful because I remembered all that I love about Portland and got to spend time with people I love (my apologies again for the happy hour confusion). Terrible because it made it all the worse to come back here, and had it not been 4am when I left (and the brain not working all that well), I probably would have stayed. Portland is such a great city with so many amazing people and great things to do. I realized that this weekend was the first time since I left that I genuinely laughed. Sad.
That said, I crammed a lot of things into a great weekend. Spent Friday with my parents, then yummy Lebonese dinner with Bryan, and drinks and dessert later with my sister and her cousin and his girlfriend. The chocolate dessert at Tabla is to die for! They were eating outside when I arrived, and it was a beautiful night for being outside. I took this picture of the sunset on my way there. It's not the best and hardly represents how beautiful it was, but it's hard to take pictures while driving!
Saturday was spent being relatively mellow because poor Bryan was sick :( We did go out to drinks with some friends of his, which is always fun. Sunday we got up and my personal chef made me some delicious crepes (every girl should have a man who cooks...it's great!). We then strolled along Hawthorne, me finding happiness in browsing Powells, and then we went to Pho with my parents. I really miss the food of Portland! That night we went to Rimsky Korsakoffee and had a lovely chat and dessert, despite it being 150 degress in there! I've only been back a few days, and I miss my Portland life already.But back to Rochester news, I had to keep myself busy until midnight in order to catch Bryan's unlimited cell minutes, so I finally got the kitchen all cleaned and organized.
Tonight is my first night of classes. I'm actually dreading it, mostly due to the whopping SIX hours I'll spend sitting tonight (4:30pm-10:30pm) since both of my classes are on Wednesday. Ugh. I'll be sure to post how they go. Don't expect much exciting news besides "my life will now be spent reading every piece of literature that seems to exist on education" :)
I got my first foster cat here. An adult long haired white cat. She was friendly enough when the people brought her over, but she quickly found the cat door to the basement and hasn't come out yet. Every time I go down there I find her hiding behind the washing machine. I'll give her a few days and then drag her out for her Blogger debut.
NY State Fair
Two weekends ago the girls and I went to the state fair in Syracuse (about 1.5 hours away). They are just the cutest little things, and we had a great time! Lani's approach was to eat her way through the fair, and I was all about that (although she could even out junk-food me!). Between pizza, funnel cakes, ice cream, and lemonade, we spent most of the 4 hours there eating, but we also managed to see an assortment of animals (chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, guinea pigs, cows, sheep, goats, pigs), feed some animals (goats, llamas, deer, donkeys, and a camel), and watch the horse riding and judging.
Cassie feeding a goat. I wish I would have gotten a picture of me feeding the camel. I told the girls I would go first, since they were a bit intimidated by its size. The thing bent over to eat out of my hand and I let out a squeal that made everyone turn and look at me. The camel was SO spitty that it scared me! He pulled away his mouth and left this huge disgusting trail of spit and slobber on my arm. A guy who was watching me started laughing hysterically. Needless to say the girls went back to feeding the goats!
Cassie posing in the cut-out bunny.
Us at the end of the rainy day. It was just drizzly, so it wasn't too bad, and the temperature was about 70, so it wasn't cold.
Loving sisters :) Too bad Lani's eyes are closed because this is an adorable picture. All-in-all, we had a great time and the girls were so well-behaved. It was less than 10 minutes out of the parking lot before they were both asleep! I guess I wore them out :)
Cassie feeding a goat. I wish I would have gotten a picture of me feeding the camel. I told the girls I would go first, since they were a bit intimidated by its size. The thing bent over to eat out of my hand and I let out a squeal that made everyone turn and look at me. The camel was SO spitty that it scared me! He pulled away his mouth and left this huge disgusting trail of spit and slobber on my arm. A guy who was watching me started laughing hysterically. Needless to say the girls went back to feeding the goats! 
Cassie posing in the cut-out bunny.
Us at the end of the rainy day. It was just drizzly, so it wasn't too bad, and the temperature was about 70, so it wasn't cold.
Loving sisters :) Too bad Lani's eyes are closed because this is an adorable picture. All-in-all, we had a great time and the girls were so well-behaved. It was less than 10 minutes out of the parking lot before they were both asleep! I guess I wore them out :)
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