Ambulances at School and Cranberry Hootycreeks

Another day, another recipe. This one is from last weekend -- I decided I needed a new type of cookie, and I remembered the ones I had in California, they amazing cranberry, oatmeal, white chocolate cookies with pecans in them...so I went on a quest to find the recipe. Let me tell you something -- it's amazing how many different recipes people have for cranberry cookies out there! Anyways...I ended up finding them after much searching (when I probably should have been lesson planning...but that's neither here nor there), and found out they're called...Cranberry Hootycreeks -- I'm not even kidding. I tried to figure out what a hootycreek actually was to no avail...but I gave up when the cookies were done, because well -- they were too tasty to leave just sitting there. I actually snarled at Tyler when he tried to eat one...anyways! Below is the recipe. 

Recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1 and 1/8 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans (or chopped walnuts are good too!)

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup butter (softened...NOT melted)

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream together butter, egg, and vanilla. Mix in the white sugar and the brown sugar. Add in the nuts, cranberries, white chocolate, and the baking soda. Mix in the flour and salt. 

Use spoons to make balls of dough and put them on a greased cookie sheet. Put it in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are brown. Any cookie dough that is left over...just roll it into a log and freeze -- you can have cookies all week! 

----

Anyways, while that's baking -- here's something interesting that happened this week. It was a relatively calm week. I taught the students about evolution/natural selection (one of my favorite topics) and I had relatively few outbursts...only 3-4 times did students either---

A. Start rapping about Jesus (my response: excellent, mail those lyrics to Drake!)

B. Get up and say "ADAM AND EVE WERE THE FIRST PEOPLE ON EARTH! SCIENCE DOESN'T BEAT THE BIBLE" (Yep, and if Adam and Eve were the first people on earth, all you need to know is that evidence suggest they were made in Africa.)

C. Sigh and say "Do we HAVE to know this if we don't believe in any of these science-lies?" (Yes, it's on the test.) 

But I was enjoying the week overall. Well...Friday rolls around, and I've only packed one enchilada in my lunch box to feed me during a work day where I burn 1900 calories on average...so you can assume I'm relatively grumpy because I'm hungry. My students come in after lunch just flipping out about this kid who got the "living shit beat out of him Miss!" as one of my students put it. Apparently one of our students had to be taken away in an ambulance because there was a bloody fight during lunch. After asking several students what happened and getting some crazy stories, I pieced together what happened...

Kid A wanted to fight Kid B, because Kid B punched Kid C in the eye the day before, and Kid C is Kid A's good friend. So Kid A came up to Kid B during lunch and said "You wanna fight me now or after school" and Kid B was smart enough to say "now" and in 20 second it was over. With a Kid B on the ground lying in his own blood, and Kid A being arrested. 

I say smart enough because if it was after school, god knows if that kid would have gone through it without serious permanent damage, or even if he'd be alive. As my students described to me what happened, that Kid B was hit "20 times in 20 seconds" I just couldn't help but be amazed by the cycle of violence. 

What's going to happen next? Are Kid B's friends gonna fuck up Kid A? Or maybe Kid A's brother? Or sister? When does it stop? How do you make it stop? For someone who really likes answers, I can't figure out one...What do we do, show them a video about non-violence? Create a mentoring program? Yell at the top of our lungs that if they just graduate and go to college things can be so much better?

It's what they see all around them...when the people around you aren't handling things with their brains, but their fists, what are you supposed to do? It takes amazing will power...strength of character, to not partake in that behavior, especially in the group of students I work with. 

I think you can teach students to handle situations with their brains, not their fists. Build their brains up, give them knowledge, tell them exactly what they need to do to get into college or whatever post-secondary career they want, show them how to do it. Push it ALL the time. They might be in school for less time than they're out in their communities, but there is a way to get the message across -- I know they have in other low-income districts. How though and why don't we as a society? I don't know. 

A woman was charged with a felony earlier this year for lying about where she was living to get her daughters into a better school, because she knew that not all public education was equal, and it's true. We can't stand for that. My students don't deserve any less of an education, or a chance at understanding why they need to use their brains and not their fists than the students in the Alamo Heights district. The only difference is money and skin color. 

By second lunch, they wiped up all the blood from the floor, and my 7th period students came into the classroom, saying how they could have taken Kid B, or discussing what fight strategies they would have used. 

Yeah, we definitely have to find a way to stop it. Any ideas? 

Revamp + Update since 12/27/2010

So I haven't updated this blog since before break. I've been back in school for a couple of weeks now, so I figured it was time to actually update this thing based on how I've been and also the changes and not so change-y changes in my life.

First of all, on 12/27/2010, while in CA, T- asked me to marry him. It was beautiful, because the way he chose to do it was so us...and it just showed me again why I know he's right for me. He packed a wonderful meal, complete with french fries, and we went to the beach, all bundled up (me with my new snuggie), and right at sunset, he asked...at first it was just a sweet shpeal about how much he loves me, how I'm his best friend...then I saw the box, and it was all blurry from there. I just know that I don't think I could have been happier at any moment, and I'm still reeling from it. It was amazing, and it couldn't have been more wonderful.

On to the revamp! So I started thinking about all the things I loved the most (besides T-, and Jacques, and family)...and it's of course food. I love food, what else could motivate me to write? So, I present to you FOOD. I'm going to try and make every post include at least one recipe that I've recently made and hopefully pictures...and of course my thoughts, etc. So for today: Sweet Potato Pie.

So T- and I were going over to our friend Mi-'s house last Saturday for dinner. Since we've been in Texas for a while, I decided to get my "southern" on and make a sweet potato pie, because heck, I've never had one and the prospect of turning a potato into a pie was fascinating...what was once a potato is now a PIE...albeit with many more calories, less nutritional value, and much tastier...

Anyways, I thought it'd be ridiculously difficult, the whole potato-to-pie deal, but it's not. I whipped up the filling in about forty-five minutes (including potato baking time), with some basic ingredients. The pie was a success -- it tasted creamy, cinnamon-y, and yummy. If you're a fan of pumpkin pie -- you'll love this. It's:

1, 1 lb. sweet potato
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 a tsp. ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1 unbaked pie crust (I used a butter crust and it turned out fantastic)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Boil the sweet potato for about 30-40 minutes until it's mash-able soft. After it's done, pull it out a peel off the skin. Using a fork, break apart the sweet potato in a bowl, and add in the butter and blend it together with a hand blender. When it's a smooth texture, add in the milk, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Blend it together until it's super-smooth, and a pour-able consistency.  After that, just pour it into your pie crust and bake it at 350 for 50-55 minutes or until the filling puffs up and browns slightly around the edges.

Enjoy with vanilla ice cream! Until next time...enjoy the pie, and I'm going to enjoy my time with my new fiance :-)

Break! and dog sex.

Honestly, I can't express how overjoyed I am that it's break. I just finished my flipchart for Week 18, have my worksheets done, am spending time at home with my mom (and soon my dad), then jetting off to California to spend time with T-'s parents...man alive, it feels good to be on break!

T- is acting a little funny though, he's sneaking around doing "Christmas Magic" as he puts it, which leads me to believe that my lovely boyfriend is still in search of a gift for me. I, however, was amazing enough to plan an excellent Corpus Christi getaway :-) I even found a hotel that takes dogs -- so Jacques can come with us.

Speaking of dogs -- why is that even after dogs lose their balls, they still want to hump like monkies? For example, Jacques, he was de-manned at a young age, and we thought nope, he doesn't hump. Then one fine day at the dog park he meets a fine bitch (haha, get it?) and gets frisky with her for 30 minutes! All he does is chase and hump. If she runs away while he's trying to do her, he'll run after he -- humping the air the whole time. Then Miriam comes over that same evening and he humps her leg. Anyways, our cockapoo is a slut. And Krinkle, he lost his balls, but he still chases after Pebbles like a MAD-MAN. Although I will tell you, he still can't find the right hole, so he ends up just humping her back. I wonder if they  get some enjoyment out of it? fMRI a dogs brain while he's trying to do it. Yep -- my next research project.

4 Days and my brain

Today is Tuesday, December 14th. It's four more days until it's Friday, December 17th, and that's when a two week break from my munchkins starts.

I know I just got back from an extended sick "break" which, trust me, isn't really a break. It's hard to relax when you're coughing up phlegm that is reminiscent of rotten jello -- both in taste and texture. mmm, tasty.

Anyways, I'm leaving to go to Phoenix over break. We finally found someone to take Jacques, thank god, or else it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 buckos to board his fluffy ass. While I do love him, that's going to be half of my expected January paycheck because I missed so many days of school.

I feel like I seriously have some weird luck following me:

October -- forgot my lunch a lot, tire blew out, lost my iTunes giftcards, lost my camera charger
November -- fell deathly ill. Need I say more?
December -- made lovely handmade holiday cards, like I always do, wrote them all, sealed them, addressed them, and lost them. Brilliant, no?

T- thinks I need to slow down. My problem is I move to fast, I think about the next thing ahead of what I'm doing, before I've even finished what I'm doing. His sagacious words are exactly what my mom's been saying to me for years. The "stop and smell the roses" stuff. Basically, just calm down, focus on what you're doing, if you're leaving a room, focus on just leaving the room, not what you're going to do after you leave the room, what you're going to eat for dinner when you get home, who's going to make dinner, who's going to clean up dinner, what you have to do after dinner, what time you're going to go to bed, or any number of things that are constantly floating through my head.

So my goal: focus on the moment. Put my brain into what I'm doing right now.

I'm not sure how well this will go considering I do think I have a stick shoved up my bum with regards to planning and thinking ahead, and I'm generally uptight.

But I'm also a winner, so if I put my mind to it, I can do it. For example -- my proud note, my nails are somewhat long! I did it! I've been focusing on the fact that I have to interact with my students and touch them on the shoulder to redirect them, and I just think about how icky some of my students are (personal hygiene is a problem, not by choice for some of them, which is sad). But, the ickiness prevents me from wanting to put my fingers in my mouth. So far, it's working.

Anyways, I have to go actually prep for today. It's an A day, thank god.

Dead Miss X

OH! So I forgot to address the dead woman.

When I first got to the hospital, I was put into a semi-private room, which was like okay, whatever, I heard people come and go. One woman had an abscess on her foot and her husband? boyfriend? girlfriend? lover? was very VERY worried about it and didn't seem to understand the what the phrase, "I don't know any more about it!" meant.

But there was one woman, mid-forties, large, light brown hair, white, whose name I don't recall. When she came in, I was on one of my four-hour advil-induced highs, wherein I had no fever and overall felt relatively okay, so I was able to gather information (when you're in a hospital, you get bored easily, so pretending you're a spy listening in on conversations that nurses are having with other patients becomes inordinately interesting). She came in because her oncologist had said she was dehydrated, which for a patient with stage 3 colon cancer undergoing chemotherapy can be a big deal. She came in during the late-evening, probably around 7, and I never talked to her one-on-one, just saw her on one of my many trips to the bathroom to pee out the saline that was coursing through me (which, by the way, is so weird! I barely drank any water all day, but I had to pee like a incontinent racehorse). 

Anyways, from the moment she came into the room, she was wheezing heavily. She had some serious trouble moving air, which I assumed was from her enormous size, since she fared better sitting up. But, throughout the course of the night her wheezing just got worse, and even I thought that someone needed to help her, to put an oxygen mask on her or something, because she was clearly having difficulty. But med-techs came and left the room, just asking if she was in pain, but not really paying any heed to her wheezing. At about 7AM the day after she came in, a tech was in the room with a nurse because they were having trouble taking her vitals when I heard the following:

"Miss X's eyes rolled back into her head"
"What?"
"Her eyes! They rolled back into her head"
"Miss X! Miss X! Are you with us?? Oh god she's not moving air...get me the suction and oxygen...oh god she's coding! Pull the code line! Pull the code line!"
"The what? Where?? Where is it?"
"The blue line!! Pull it now! Get me oxygen"

*Tech pulls the line, about 50 seconds after asked to...has trouble finding it, mean while Tyler and I are still in the room, I am attached to a IV, which is attached to the wall**

**Three more nurses run in, with a doctor asking to be briefed, chest compressions start, frantic movement around the room, another doctor comes in asking to be briefed**

**Another nurse pops over, notices me sitting there in horror, listening to this woman die, unsure of what to do and how to exit the room. She asks Tyler to leave, which he was already getting ready to do, and says they'll send a wheel chair for me**

**Some time passes and they continue to work on Miss X. Another doctor comes in, the room seems to be frantic and in chaos, people not really sure what to do during a code. I am still in the room**

**Miss X's body suddenly starts to fart a lot, and there are weird noises**

**Finally a nurse seems me trying to unplug my own IV because Miss X's bodily death-functions are starting to really frighten me...so she helps me up and out, muttering about how people should have gotten me out right away**


So I end up outside, sitting in the nurses station, with one shoe on, in a patient gown, slightly frightened at the incompetency I heard/saw in the room. Questions swirled: Why hadn't they taken me out right away? Why didn't they know where the code line was? Why did it seem like mass chaos instead of an organized well-oiled machine? Wasn't that what was needed to save a life, not the bumbling that occurred in there? Why hadn't the woman been helped with her breathing earlier?

All of these questions continue to bother me. Particularly, I am frightened by the complete shock I heard at this woman coding. I feel that hospitals need to run like practiced machines: while it may not be common for people to code in that hospital, the staff should be prepared through practice runs to handle it when it does happen. Precious seconds are important at that time.

Honestly, she probably would have died sooner than later with a cancer that bad (from what I gathered from the not-so-subtle nurses), but she didn't have to die like that. She was in distress for a while, and people wasted the time they should have been using to save her, bumbling about trying to find an oxygen machine.

Therefore, I have a couple of resolutions:

--When I am a doctor, I will work at a teaching hospital, one where you are constantly kept on your toes by residents and interns who have just learned the material, and nurses who constantly have to be on their toes to correct the mistakes made by those residents and interns, and too cocky attendings.

--I will not be satisfied with mediocrity in my career. Being satisfied with mediocrity leads to general absentmindedness. When you are a healthcare professional at any level, RN, tech, LPN, doctor, you cannot afford that, peoples lives are in your hands. That sounds so ridiculous, but it's true, and I felt that no one questioned this woman's seriously distressed breathing, and that is settling, and thinking someone else would deal with it.

Maybe she would have died anyways, I don't know, but what I saw at the hospital, her death, and so many other problems, very much bothered me, and made me even more sure that when I am a doctor, I will not let myself become complacent. I will be constantly meticulous and work in an area where I am forced to stay so.

Okay, now I'm off to play video games.

M

Sick and stuff

So it's been over a month since I've posted and here are some things that have happened:

1. It became November
2. The new Harry Potter came out
3. I almost visited my friend, Sam. Almost.
4. I missed a week of school.
5. Oh yeah, I got Pneumonia
6. I heard a woman die.

So last week, on Friday, T-'s dad came and I felt like crap. My head was hurting, as were my eyes, I was exhausted, my body ached, and I was nauseous. However I assumed I had a day or two virus/illness. Saturday it got worse, but I went out, stubborn as I am. I went to the farmer's market, whole foods, and HEB with T- and his dad, and got home with a fever of 102.5 and vigorous chills. My mom suggested I go to the hospital, she was very worried I had a bacterial pneumonia, but again I argued: No mom, I have a short-term flu, I'll be fine.

T-'s dad left on Sunday, and I felt worse and began throwing up. My fever went up, it was not 103.4. So we went to urgent care since I didn't want to wait for hours in the emergency room at the hospital. They gave me an IV, advil, and a butt-shot of Rosefin (an antibiotic). They also took a chest x-ray, and confirmed the first of many things my mom was right about: I had a lower right lobe Pneumonia, small but present.

When my mom heard this she said she WAS coming down to SA because she knew I was seriously, seriously ill (something I thought was over zealous and over-reacting, however I would soon find I needed to thank my lucky stars my mom came down).

See, the amazing thing about my mom -- she's a genius. I'm not lying, my mom has her faults, as we all do, and we are both stubborn women which can cause head-butting some times, but I cannot deny that my mom is a brilliant doctor and an awesome mom. When she got there, she took my temperature: 103.7. She stomped her foot and said "M-, you're very very sick, you need to go to the hospital" so she took me to the ER. She thought I was very sick, I thought she was over-reacting.

Long story short -- she was right, right about everything. Over the next 4 nights, I was kept in the hospital. For the first three days, they gave me antibiotic after antibiotic, changed my IV three times, gave me IV morphine, innumerable doses of advil and tylenol, and watched my vitals -- trying to see if my fever would go down, and nothing happened. The antibiotics didn't seem to be having an effect, advil worked for four hours, breaking my fever, but it came back like clockwork, higher and worse than ever usually: 104. I had chills, meaning I was septic (meaning I had bacteria in my blood).

Worst of all, my body was not producing its own antibodies. I had a massive illness and my white count was normal. NORMAL.  And my protein levels were those of a "malnourished HIV patient" to quote my brother. Apparently, I got so caught up in TFA and teaching, that I forgot to eat, for several weeks. I had noticed my weight drop dramatically, but I didn't really pay attention to it. I was too lazy to make food for myself, so I just ate random stuff around the house, not taking in enough protein. So they pumped all this medicine into me, because I couldn't make my own antibodies...but it didn't seem to be working.

Eventually on the fourth day, it seemed to take affect, my fever only went up to 100.2, and then the next day, I didn't have a fever at all.

So far it's been a little less than a week that I haven't had a fever, and I'm loving it. I'm still coughing a lot, I get tired very easily, I need to drink tons of water, and oh yeah, I'm still on tons of antibiotics, but no fever so far.

I'm disappointed in myself. When I got out of the hospital, everyone told me that I was life-threateningly ill, primarily because my body was too weak to fight off illness. I didn't take care of myself, so I had to have other people come and take care of me. I'm not trying to sound melodramatic, but it's disappointing.

My mom is old, she's not well, and I should be taking care of her. Instead she's down here taking care of me. So a new rule: my job with TFA takes a back seat to my health. I love my students, I love that I'm helping some of them, I love that I heard that some of them were worried about where I was, but I need to look after number 1, and that's me.

If I can't take care of myself, I can't help other people. Because of my foolishness and bad luck, I will have to miss a good deal of school because I will be too weak to really go and give it my all with my students, and really -- with my kids I need to be giving it my all. So now, I take care of myself.

Going to go play video games --

M

"Real" real life

It's weird to think about life post-TFA, and going through the steps to fulfill my dreams post-TFA. My principal asked me a few days ago asked me if I was going to stay on past the two years. That question started me thinking about my life post-TFA. The "real" real life.

Recently, and by that I mean since June, I have been so wrapped up in the teaching world, that I forgot there was a world out there that had to do with what I ultimately want to pursue: medicine.

So tonight, after I spent a bit of time planning week 12 and finishing a few worksheets for wk 11 (next week), I decided to open up that good old MSAR book and look at what schools I wanted to apply to. Doing this sort of took me down a reflective path -- I thought about college and what I did, and what I could have done differently.

I loved college. I didn't know that you could "make" a sister out of your best friend, I didn't know you could become best friends with someone who you worried about frequently, and I definitely didn't think you could fall in love with a boy that would eventually become the man you still loved over 3.5 years later. College was a whirl-wind of experiences, both academic and social.

Socially -- I would not change a thing. Academically -- I could have done better my first 2 years in college. But I was finding myself, finding my own study skills, trying to see what would work, realizing that you must "sacrifice for success" to copy SHHS's saying. So it took me those 2 years to learn the self-control I have now, the self-control I pride myself on.


So now I'm going through the MSAR book, looking at the GPAs and MCAT scores that are the average at most schools woefully, but when I step back -- I'm happy with how my life has turned out so far, and I wouldn't trade it. So, I'm taking a deep breath, I'm sure a medical school will accept me based on the fact that it is clear that I will be an excellent doctor, rather than my not-super-stellar numbers.

Good night :-)