friday, november 30, 2001
going blind!
warning: long entry zone ahead!

i'm baaaaaaaaaaack! and so glad to be you just would have no idea. i've missed whysper. and the best news is that i have lots to write about, and 99.9% of it is rocking good news. i mean, seriously, we have another light bulb go off somewhere or another good thing drop in our laps, i'll go blind! of course, the best news is that i only have 2 finals and a story to turn in next week and the quarter from hell is over. well, maybe not the best news, but it's up there! ;) there's so much other good stuff though that i hardly know where to start! since i mentioned this quarter ending, i'll start there.

back in the fall of 98, i had a class that i got an incomplete in. i was behind on reading and would have more than likely flunked the final because there was just no way to get caught up. with an incomplete, you must retake or finish off a class (according to what the instructor wants to do) within a year. or it becomes and 'f'. this quarter i got so sick that there was no way to pass one of my classes (because of the daily 5 point quiz) even if i aced everything for the last 2+ weeks. so i went in to do a retroactive withdrawal of the one and a drop after census for the other, and both were approved. this helps me immensely: i now have the 3.5 in english i need for the honors class i want to take (can't take it unless you have at least a 3.5 gpa), and it makes the transcripts look a little better for the mfa programs. w's aren't the best to have, but they are better than f's.

also along school lines, i got both classes i wanted for next quarter that have requirements: the english honors (which requires a 3.5) and approaches to imaginative writing (instructor approval if you're not a grad student). i've been wanting to take the last one since i first started going to the uni (before the loa). i am really looking forward to both classes. hopefully i'll have at least 2 classes next quarter that i will enjoy. :) approaches did freak me out when i checked on the books required for the class: there were TEN listed! i about had a heart attack! then i looked at the prices and they're all dover books, so they're really cheap. this quarter i will spend less on books than i've ever spent, less than $50! usually i spend about $250!

late last year i was diagnosed as adhd. the doctor i was seeing at the time was a total putz really; always gave me the brush off, what i had to say wasn't worth considering, almost always had me in and out of his office in 10 minutes. when i went in wanting to change or adjust my medication, he asked me about my grades; when i told him i was getting a's, he told me then i didn't need the medication adjusted or changed and walk out. umm...excuse me, but i was getting a;s before i was on medication. he also noticed i had a hyperactive frontal lobe and he asked me if i had ever had seizures or a concussion...then ignored it! ok, i personally think if you have to ask about seizures or concussions you'd do something to reassure the patient or look into it further. but not him. nor has he decided to tell me much of anything about my adhd (everybody is different and books can usually give you only generalities).

so it was very wonderful to find out some things about my adhd that put a few concerns to rest. i mean, light bulbs were flashing in my psych class folks! :) first of all, apparently adhd is related to an inactive (usually) frontal lobe. i mentioned to my instructor that one of my problems is almost literally thinking too much. when we discussed the adhd/frontal lobe connection, the instructor said, "that makes sense in light of your symptoms." whoa. my over active brain really is nothing to worry about! it's a part of my adhd. my head won't explode or something! ok, well, maybe that last one isn't quite true considering how much i think about at once, but i'm sure you get the picture. no seizures any time soon. ;)

another thing he (the prof) mentioned, was that people with adhd have trouble regulating emotions, so they tend to overreact to things. man, did a light bulb ever explode there! this whole time i thought my tendency to over react was ME and something i needed to fix. in a way it still is me, but it's related to a disorder i have no control over. i'm not saying this gives me the right to go off every time something happens, but...well, its just nice to know.

this was also the month to go see my neurologist. not wanting to see the jerk described above, i requested a new neurologist, and she ROCKS! she asked questions, not only about my childhood (that's all he asked about when we met, and there are some things that are symptoms for adults he never asked about at all) but things going on as an adult and my family and so on, and she took notes! it may sound silly, but i felt so much more comfortable knowing that what i had to say was important enough to take notes on it! we discussed changing my medication to ritalin, but then she decided, since i am tolerating the adderall without any nasty side effects, to increase the dosage of my current medication.

the change was instantaneous. i mean, i really did feel more focused. i was even able to sit in the crowded lunch room with my head phones on and do homework. i haven't EVER been able to do that. on the first day i immediately realized that while the increased dose worked wonders in the a.m., it made me a bit hyper in the afternoon. so the next day i cut the second pill in half and it is great. i feel almost like i did before the anemia wiped me and everything that was me out! and it's wonderful to feel this way again! :)

in other news, the whole roommate resolved itself, and not pleasantly. the long and the short of it, she apparently deliberately didn't pay us for two months and we told her to leave. now, this floored me for a few reasons. she apparently told a mutual acquaintance that she did not understand how she could owe us over $300 even though she agreed to pay 25% of the living expenses when she moved in. we told her flat out from the beginning that we could not afford to pay for her and her son. supposedly she understood this. when her i.d. was stolen we agreed to help as long as she replaced it and repaid us. not only did she wait almost 2 months to replace it, she apparently had ways to cash her checks without it and STILL chose not to pay as agreed. when she moved out, she acted as if it was her decision, made because she "felt bad still living here when (she) couldn't pay" us. that's exactly what she said. so she used us for 2 months of free living (which makes me wonder about the other people who supposedly have done her wrong). and this woman has had the nerve to call me her "sister".

well she's out, and no sister of mine as far as i'm concerned. we've told the girls that her son is ok but to avoid her. and the house is once more much comfortable to live in. but she did leave us with a problem: a phone bill we couldn't pay and that she had made higher than usual. the money she should have paid us was going to cover that and i doubt we'll ever see it. so she really did leave us in a bind. then we got saved. :) unknown to us until wednesday, saxy has yet to be released by the doctor handling his knee surgery and, apparently, the insurance company handling the workman's comp case is required by law to keep paying him a certain, small percentage of what he would be earning if he were working as long as the doctor hasn't released him. so, wednesday night they called and told us that they were sending a $1200 check! we were both stunned! but, you know, even though i'm not into the eastern mysticism, in this case i can see some good karma came our way.

and, finally (yes, i'm getting there..aren't you glad?), as many of you know, we lost our cat mercedes awhile back. we had discussed getting a new one from the pound or a pet store or something, but had decided against it because we're technically not supposed to have pets here. and saxy's folks felt so bad about mercedes that they won't take another cat for us if we're caught again. so we just sorta dropped it. saxy mentioned it again a few weeks ago because he knows how much i love kitties and i have never lived anywhere without one. i know he wanted to give me something i would really love, but i told him, "no. we shouldn't risk it."

this week he noticed a new stray at his bus stop, and she noticed him. *g* unlike the other strays, she didn't run away when he went to her, but let him pet her and purred the whole time. so he picked her up and brought her home. our new baby is named deshae (she was my prof for my teaching class, and i adore her name) and is a purty little light orange tabby. she appears to be less than a year old. saxy went back and checked around to see if she belonged to anyone, but no one in the nearby houses had seen her before. so, as long as we don't get threatened with eviction, we have a new kitty. we managed to "hide" mercedes for almost 5 years, maybe we can do that with shae for the next 3. after that i'm working and we're outta here. :)

everything has been going so well since thanksgiving. and, yes, we had a wonderful weekend. we took the older girls to harry potter on wednesday and loved it. thanksgiving they were with dad and saxy and i had a perfect turkey dinner here at the house with his folks. friday his mother took us all out to monsters, inc. it has been nice to have things going my/our way for once. i even got insight as to why short stories are a problem for me - the way i read, nothing ends. it doesn't actually help me write any better, but it does help me understand why writing a short story is so difficult for me! lol even little stuff like that is wonderful.

i know this won't last, nothing in life ever does. but while it's raining good things in our direction, i'm going to enjoy it. after the quarter i've had, i really deserve a break or two like this. and i certainly won't mind a few more than that either.