I finished my first week of school last week, and felt extremely overwhelmed by the amount of work I have this semester.  Group projects and presentations in almost every class, tons of papers, and altogether too much thinking required.  I felt my stomach sink the first time I had to access the library database for research- shades of last semester’s research hell!

But two of my classes focus on a passion of mine: forensic psychology, and the role mental health issues play in the criminal justice system.  In the former I’ll be profiling a serial killer or rapist, in the latter class I’ll be playing the role of Public Defender to a depressed psychotic 16 yr. old boy with a personality disorder who molested a younger boy, but thought they were “just playing.”  I was assigned this role and will do my best, though I’m sure it won’t be popular.

I came up with a fun idea for the Coordinating Seminar presentation.  We’re going to film the nun’s story as a news broadcast; the co-anchors will be interviewing the nun and the bishop.  This is a more interesting way of presenting that issue to the class.  While the news broadcast is playing, the father (played by me) and daughter will watch it together, then get into their fight afterward.  From there the other group members will present the relevant psychological information and reasons for our choice of intervention.  We’ll wrap it up with the counselor and daughter meeting and implementing the intervention.  The prof encouraged us to get creative, so there you go.  I’ll slick back my hair, wear a mustache, sideburns, and a tie (in addition to other clothing, of course!), and just have fun with it.  The presentation is supposed to last 45-60 minutes.  I figure the skits will eat up some time.

In addition to school, I had to return to the doctor last week.  I have been diagnosed with gastroparesis.  In essence this means that my stomach (the organ, not the abdominal region) muscles aren’t working properly; my stomach isn’t emptying the way it should.  This is causing some of the pain I’ve been experiencing, and the fact that I can skip meals without feeling hungry.  There are other symptoms as well, but I didn’t get the one I wanted: weight loss.  Darn my body’s inability to react like other people’s!  I have to make some dietary changes because of my inability to digest some things.  Unfortunately, the only medication for the problem that has been okayed in the U.S. is Reglan.  This med has really nasty side effects, and is what triggered the major depressive episode I’ve just emerged from.  I’ve informed the doctor that I won’t take it.  I was told I have no choice.  I said “Oh yes I do, and  I’m not taking the Reglan.”  The upshot is that I’ll take it only when the pain is really bad, and only for as long as it takes for the medication to take effect.  I categorically refuse to take this on any sort of regular basis.  Stomach pain I can live with, suicide I cannot.  Obviously.

So that’s been my life in a nutshell.  School is going to be a challenge, but at least I’m interested in the subject matter.  I also have a name for my health problem, and a course of action for treating it.

Things progress.

Do you ever feel like there’s something that you really want to say, that you know ought to be said, but you simply don’t know what it is that you’re meant to say?  It tugs, it nags, it nibbles around the edge of consciousness, but it won’t be dragged into the light.  This is as close as I can come to saying it, I suppose.

I don’t often discuss politics on this blog, and this post isn’t about candidates of either party.  Instead, it’s about the system and a facet of it that disturbs me.

I’m a registered voter who never misses an election day.  Whether my single vote makes a difference or not, it’s my civic duty and, the way I see it, if I don’t vote, I lose any right to complain about the results.  The thing is this: I’m neither Republican nor Democrat; I’m Unaffiliated.

This shouldn’t be a problem.  Why should I identify solely with one party or the other when I don’t agree with either party line?  There was a time when other candidates were given a voice.  For over a decade now, though, parties other than The Big Two have been pushed aside, denied a part in debates.  In essence, they’ve been silenced or dismissed.  That, however, is another blog post.  What I want to address here is the position the current system places Unaffiliated voters in.

Because of the way the current system is run, we are given two candidates to choose from, but have no say in who those candidates will be; we are stuck with whomever the Democrats and Republicans nominate.  There may be someone we like for the job, but that person may well not make it past the primaries, and we have nothing to say about it.  We aren’t allowed more than two serious candidates, and we’re not given any say in who those candidates will be.  We are not allowed to vote.

On one hand, I can see their point.  If the person is going to represent “Democrats” or “Republicans,” those parties want to choose who that person will be.  It makes sense.

On the other hand, if the rest of us are to be saddled with Either/Or, we should be given some say as to who that Either/Or will be.  I should not be forced to register as a Democrat if I like a Democratic primary nominee, then forced to change parties in order to vote for a Republican nominee another year.  I won’t.  And what should I do if I like a Dem for one elected position, and a Republican for another?  I know many people who are, at heart, Unaffiliated, but who have been forced to register with a party in order to vote.  They often don’t stick with the party in the long run, nor are they guaranteed to vote along party lines; the parties cannot count on their votes anyway.

This is stupid.

Primaries should be run like the regular elections, with everyone allowed to cast their votes for primary nominees of either party.  Then whoever wins can start campaigning in earnest, and everyone can make their decision from amongst the winners.  At least then nobody is disenfranchised simply because they won’t be forced to pretend to something they’re not.  The system, as it stands now, does everyone- Unaffiliated, Republicans, and Democrats- a disservice.

In keeping with the whole returning-to-my-roots phase that I’ve been going through, I’m indulging the tomboy within today.  Hair pulled untidily back into a ponytail, baseball-style t-shirt, and paint-spattered jean cutoffs.  I’ve got Caladryl smeared on the poison ivy on my leg and dirty feet from hanging around outside barefooted.  Best of all – and this may creep some of you out – I saw a garden snake in my… you guessed it… garden!

How cool is that?!

I love snakes.

It was a little under a foot long, its girth tiny.  I followed it without crowding it until it slipped under our screened-in porch.  I called out excitedly to my mother to come see! She did but, though not afraid of snakes, was decidedly less enthusiastic than I was.

I don’t care.  I’m happy.

1.  I saw a headline that read: “Is Reality TV Romance Dead?” to which I respond: “Did it ever exist?” (I don’t think so)

2.  Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side?

3.  When I’m an old woman, can I still live in a shoe even if I don’t have so many children that I don’t know what to do?  I could adopt  lots of animals, you know…

4.  Fire-breathing, people/dwarf-eating habits aside, don’t you think it would have been cool to have a conversation with Smaug? (the dragon in “The Hobbit,” for those unfamiliar.)

5.  “…four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie…”  Dude- how big is that pie??

6.  If you possessed a hammer why, precisely, would you feel compelled to use it in the morning and the evening all over this land?  Do you, as it seems, intend to do this all in one day?  While you’d wrack up some serious frequent flier miles, it sounds like an exhausting waste of time if you ask me.  It’s also a bit troubling that you don’t mention what you would be using the hammer on.  And finally: if it is the hammer of justice, as you say at the end of the song, why would you only use it at the beginning and end of the day?  Is the middle part just a free-for-all then?

Not that this would surprise me.

7.  If Puss wears boots does that mean Rover wears Manolo Blahniks?  I would have thought it would be the other way around.

This is what happens when school is not in session to discipline my thoughts.