Public Education Failure(s)

I just learned something about South Carolina public high schools. I was checking to see if school has been canceled for tomorrow. We got 2" of snow today and the whole district is closed. With low temps around 14° F tonight and wet roads, no school tomorrow. While on the local school district website I discovered this little tidbit of information:

Instruction

• Act 155 (H.3919) passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Nikki R. Haley on April 14, 2014, states in part "Beginning with the graduating class of 2015, students are no longer required to meet the exit examination requirements set forth in this section and State Regulation to earn a South Carolina high school diploma."

   

  A person who is no longer enrolled in a public school and who previously failed to receive a high school diploma or was denied graduation solely for failing to meet the exit exam requirements may petition the local school board to determine the student’s eligibility to receive a high school diploma. The elimination of the exit exam (BSAP, HSAP) requirement is retroactive to the graduating class of 1990.

   

  In order to facilitate the requirements of Act 155, Greenwood School District 50 has created a form that can be filled out by a petitioner who meets the requirements mentioned in the above paragraph. Please read the guidelines document and if you meet those qualifications, fill out the Petition form below and follow the directions for submission.

   

So it is now possible, with no checks on the system, to graduate from high school in South Carolina being functionally illiterate and innumerate. This does not bring me comfort.

No, I don't have any kids, or any connection to anyone employed in the school district. I check because I want to know if I'll run into school children when out and about. I saw some kids in our neighborhood today out running through the snow, looking for enough snow to build some kind of snow creature or make snow balls. They looked like they were having a blast. Makes me happy, as long as they aren't my kids, you know?

I took Superman to the doctor's office this morning. He's got some kind of non-flu virus cold thing and an ear infection. Snow on the trees, fences, fields looks so lovely. And the way snow (gentle snow, anyway) falls so silently - it's beautiful. The roads were clear, everything was fine. Most of the snow melted today, but with overnight temps so low, it'll be more dangerous tomorrow.

On my way back out the door to pick up Superman's medicine I slipped on the bottom step of our front stoop on the fluffy snow that had been packed down and iced over by our earlier tromp to the car. Slipped and fell on my ass, hit my mid-upper back on the brick step hard enough to give me a touch of road rash, and oh, my back! It's very twitchy. If I'm stationary it doesn't hurt much. If I move in certain directions, twist just wrong, Ouch! Have just taken another muscle relaxant and analgesic. Took some earlier and had a lovely nap. I'm tired anyway, so as soon as this stuff hits me I'm a goner.

Superman helped me get up off the ground. He recommended I come in to change clothes, but I was just going to the drug store and I don't give a shit. Also was already in the yard and didn't want to go back up the steps to try again. But while I was at the drug store I bought myself a red heart-shaped box of all dark chocolate covered assorted candies. Because poor poor pitiful me. Haven't opened them yet, and I just brushed my teeth, so I'll save 'em for another day.

Tired. Going to bed now. Goodnight.

The bitch is back

Wasn't that last post so nice and uplifting? Or something. This one is not like that one.

Diva is home from school today, suspended for the day. She only got one day this time, and only because she wouldn't go to the in-school suspension room yesterday. As I heard it, someone heard her say a cuss word in the cafeteria before school and reported her to the boogie man. She denies saying the cuss word. Yes, she said the sentence, but didn't put the cuss word in it that the witness claims was there. Knowing this child, I think she probably said the cuss word. Anyway, she feels wrongly accused, and refused to take the punishment. So she's home today to punish me. I hate this policy.

I'm trying to make her life miserable, though. OK, not completely, not specifically, not generally. I am, however, giving her chores to do and not acting very friendly. She's slamming stuff around, being aggressively angry toward stuff. Thankfully she isn't aggressive toward me. So far. She's pissing me off, though. I started the day pissed off simply because she is here instead of at school.

Coping strategies so far include surfing the web, writing this post, and eating two small dishes of chocolate pudding. In reserve I have drugs and booze. If it gets really bad I'll take my Ativan. If it's bad but not drug use bad, I'll drink a beer. Or two. Or three. Also, there may be a nap in my future.

Really uncomfortable cramps complicate the situation. Damn, I want to pinch her little head off. On the plus side, she swept and vacuumed the kitchen, living room, and halls. She did a mediocre job of it, but it's better than it was.

I avoid my problems by sleeping. When I get emotionally stressed I get very, very sleepy. This used to happen all the time in the earlier years of our marriage when we'd visit his parents. Being around his mother put me to sleep, and not because she is a boring person. She isn't boring, but her idea of interesting is my idea of stress. My least favorite mode of interesting is criticizing the son and daughter-in-law and/or their children. To make matters worse, her other grandchildren, the daughters of her daughter and son-in-law, are perfect. The now-ex- son-in-law got lots of criticism, though. I spell it s-t-r-e-s-s.

I don't like the way these sentences go together in the paragraphs. There are sentences that do not belong with the others, but I'm too sleepy to fix them. In a further example, this is an art thing. Or a failure thing. For the past few days (weeks?) I have started some project or other and been frustrated with the outcome. I have the idea in my head, but the process of producing it gets messed up somewhere. A simple circle in a square becomes a rat's nest. A stack of blocks becomes entangled in string that isn't supposed to be there. Perhaps I'm too focused on the process and not the product, so the process gets in the way.

Well, that last paragraph was helpful. Thank you. I feel a bit less strung up.

Thursday stuff

Doesn't seem like Thursday to me. Actually, I'm disconnected from days right now. I had minor outpatient surgery two days ago. A small hernia repair that the doctors seemed to think was necessary. I blogged about that recently. The surgeon disabled my pop-up timer. Yeah, I'm sore. It's a localized soreness, there at my navel. I'm fine if I don't move. Also taking Lortab. Hydrocodone. So yeah, I'm disconnected from days and a few other things as well.

Just talked to an old friend of mine. Received a Christmas card from her yesterday with a brief update letter to let everyone know their house burned down!! About 2.5 weeks ago their house burned down. They've lived there 20 years, raised five kids in it. It was an old farmhouse, and evidently there was some electrical short or something in the living room wall that started the thing. No one was in the house, but she and her youngest daughter were on the property. Poor gals had to watch their house burn down. They got the pets out before it got too smokey. I'm freaking out about it, but hell, it wasn't my house. I talked to her for maybe 20 minutes, and she sounds numb. They're managing. Going to rebuild. Have received a lot of help from friends and neighbors and the Red Cross. They live close to us, the next county over. She does our taxes.

The young kids are home now, on winter break. Or Christmas break, whichever term seems appropriate. I don't care what it's called, I just care that they are home. So far it isn't too bad. Had my surgery the last day of school, so I've been drugged and out of it since they've been home. I'm leaving them alone and they're mostly getting along.

I'm supposed to drive to Charlotte to bring Twitch home for Christmas. Was going to do that tomorrow, but might need to wait until Saturday. My boo-boo needs a bit more healing time before I drive for five hours. Light is leaving Pennsylvania this evening to head this way. She'll take a nap at Twitch's place on her way down, then she's going to Charleston before coming home. The weather between western Pennsylvania and here is a bit dodgy right now, raining with snow in the forecast. Hopefully she'll be far enough south by the time the snow hits so as to avoid it. I'm worried about her driving so far under such conditions, but hell, I've done the same thing myself many times. So I'm going to pretend not to worry.

If there was anything else to say I have forgotten. Kinda spacey. Might be nap time again. Sleep helps the healing process, right? And it's a cool, rainy day, the kind that 's good for naps. Yeah. Nap.

Duuu-u-u-ude

Warning: this is going to ramble something awful.

So I did something to hurt my back. Strained a muscle or something. My right tenderloin ...

Website for this image

The beef tenderloin runs along both sides of the spine.

cher-homespun.blogspot.com

 is affected. It started hurting last week and I figured it would ease up in a couple of days. It still hurts, though, sometimes pretty bad. At Superman's suggestion I saw the doctor today. I had tried some of his (Superman's, not the doctor's) muscle relaxer, but it didn't do much at all. That's what I told the doc when he asked what I'd tried. So he gave me a prescription for a different muscle relaxer. This one does the trick! Ran by the pharmacy to get the scrip' filled, then took it when I got home. Bye bye see you next Tuesday, dudes! I slept from 11:00-ish until after 4:00. Took another pill about an hour ago and I can't seem to concentrate very well. Had to get spell check to help me spell "muscle" because I couldn't figure it out. 
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I'm supposed to be getting a job or something. Have I mentioned this before? It's so long between posting that I can't remember what I've said. Anyway, I'm looking for a job, but not very hard. The student loan payments have started, and without me making any money things are really tight. I need to make some money. Want to do something useful and meaningful, and want to work part time. I have many skills and talents. Haven't got a good resume, though. Don't know quite how to write one. I should put some effort into that, huh? Hey, maybe working from home would be a good idea. 
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The kitchen is coming along, though of course slowly. Superman has the big hole in the floor all covered up. Got the subfloor and underlayment down. He needs to take up the old vinyl in the undamaged areas of the kitchen so we can have new vinyl installed. Superman and I went to the home improvement store last weekend (I actually don't remember when, but it was within the past couple of weeks) to get plywood or something but discovered that the cabinets we want were on clearance sale. So we got them instead. I think we have all the cabinet we need. He did his measuring and figuring. There will be some spacers or something. I don't know. Anyway, the cabinets are sitting all cockeyed in the kitchen while we paint primer on them. I was going to help with that, because it is something I can do, but damn if my back doesn't hurt like hell. Maybe tomorrow.
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I didn't mention it in my last post, but I had a birthday last month. Am now 50 years old. It seems kind of old and also not so old, depending on how I think about it. Right now I can't think real clearly, so I won't. And I'm still 50. Yep, that's a big number.

And speaking of birthdays, what was formerly today (Feb 14th, when I began this post) is Twitch's 21st birthday. Boo-yah. I talked to him earlier. He has an early class tomorrow, so he didn't do anything special tonight, but he says he plans to tie one on (is that phrase still in use? I'm old, folks) this weekend. I'm pleased and proud for him, attaining the 21st anniversary of his birth. And also, I think mothers should be honored on their children's birthdays. Know what I mean? (Mothers who read this probably will.) I carried that boy for 9.5 months (I was about 2 weeks past my due dates giving birth to both of those babies) and suffered unaccountable miseries in the process. Woe is me. (I wish you could hear me say that. My Grandmama taught me how to make that phrase sound so woeful.)
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More about the kitchen: Superman decided that we want granite counters. We can't afford the solid one piece chunks, but we can swing the 12 inch tiles. Which he ordered. They look great - in the box. Of course we don't have the cabinets installed yet, much less the underlying counter support things (there's probably a name for that) upon which to affix the tiles. But I picked out the granite. There wasn't a whole lot of choice, and I want the kitchen to be fairly light, which narrowed the choice down to two. Eventually there will be pictures. Don't hold your collective breath.
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Earlier today (Tuesday) I contemplated writing this post. In doing so I had a few ideas about what to write. Most of it I cannot now remember.
Reducing the rest to bullet points:

• Still having some trouble sleeping, but it's better. This muscle relaxer will both help and hinder the process, if you know what I mean.
• I feel sort of artistic, but frustrated also. I'm not good at self motivation or self direction. Don't know what or how to do art right now. Possibilities abound, but here I sit. 
• Been struggling with depression a lot recently. That's one reason I haven't posted here much of late. Feeling a bit better this week, so far. 
• This sore back prevents me from driving in two ways. When I drive it aggravates the condition, and when I'm medicated, oh HELL no, I am in no condition to drive. Wooo hooo... I drove to the doctor's office this morning, though. Probably shouldn't have. eh. Not gonna drive tomorrow (Wednesday)
• This changing of the day in the middle of the night is annoying when I stay up this late. Wednesday is my tomorrow because I haven't gone to bed yet, but you are reading this on Wednesday (or much later, since no one checks my blog anymore, since I update so rarely). 
• There seems to be some profound realization lurking under the surface. The surface of this post?? I doubt it. The surface of my current existence? Yeah, I think so. As if I'm looking through a glass darkly. Ephemeral half-visions of something that looks vaguely like Truth. Or maybe it's the drugs. 
• It's getting weirder in here. Time to go to bed.  

I haven't forgotten you

And here we have some of my art. This is a piece from out first assignment, which was to make fertility figures or something suggestive of fertility. This here is supposed to be a pregnant pig with really big teats. The swirls give her visual interest and maybe suggest the curly tail, except that this curly tail has gone wild all over her body. I don't know, people. Sometimes these things come to me like that.

Madame Pig from the other side. She's about the size of a small fist. Oh, and pay no attention to the time stamp on the photo. I accidently changed it and haven't fixed it yet.
This fertility figure is more a maternity figure, I suppose. The form is supposed to suggest a mama bear, and there are her two little cubs. The one lying down looks like a baby gerbil to me, but I meant for it to be a small bear cub.
Mama bear's back is all dressed up with a symbol signifying what she eats (salmon) and where she lives (Pacific Northwest)
Here they are snuggled all together in the protection of Mama's embrace.
There are more figures from this assignment, one pretty boring and the other amazing. I'm too tired to load them now. Remind me if I forget later. Tomorrow in class I will take more pictures of the latest completed assignment. I may also photograph my current work in progress. I'll try to get some pics posted here.

I'm quite busy this semester, as I've mentioned. And that's all I have to say about that. Today I am amazingly sleepy. Almost time for my next nap.

We had a lovely Samhain (Halloween) celebration over here last night. A core group of young people, C and N's closest friends, came over and we had a feast and celebration. I cooked a lot of food! I didn't realize that I was doing most of the cooking, but when the table was set, there was all this food that I made. Superman fixed some of those really skinny steaks, I can't remember what they're called. That was our emergency back-up meat. The guys bought a very nice pork loin, but for complicated reasons it did not start cooking as early as it should have. It was finally finished when everything was over around 1:00 this morning. I just had a piece of the pork loin for lunch. It's amazingly good! We may have to do that again, only plan it better next time.

Late last night I had an attack of the blues. That so doesn't describe it, though. An attack of the black? I was overcome by a painful sadness, a mourning of what I don't know. I felt closer to crazy than I have in a while. It was a familiar feeling. Maybe that's what I was sad about, that it was so familiar. I don't know.

One of the elements of our celebration was masks. We had been instructed to bring a mask to wear. Last weekend I drew out some sketches for a mask I had in mind, and yesterday afternoon I made it. Thing about my mask, though, in concept it was less of a mask and more of an unmask. C is the only one who understood the significance of it, simply because he knows me so well. I used a piece of black craft foam, the thin lightweight stuff that is easy to cut into shapes, but stays stiff enough to not fold up under its own weight, mostly. I dunno. Look it up. Anyway, I used this piece of black craft foam, cut into a shape similar to that of Robin's mask. Instead of being smooth across the bottom, I cut it so that there were extensions from the outside of the eye area that ran down the outsides of my cheeks, sort of. One on each side, sort of curling out around my cheeks. The top of the mask above the eyes went up, forming the apex of a semicircle that surrounded my forehead, from the temples, up over the forehead, then back to the other temple. Don't know if I've described it well.

But on to the concept of the mask. The two pieces that ran down around my cheeks I covered with a line of clear rhinestones, diamond-like in appearance. Those were my tears, tracking down my face to my chin. This was a sorrowful mask. Recently, I'd say over the last few months I've been pretty happy. There haven't been many of those sorrowful days. However, the sorrow and pain are always with me, usually not far from the surface. Deep enough these days that it isn't too obvious to most people. My mask unmasked those feelings, and though the celebration was going along very well and I was tired but happy, suddenly the sorrow rammed into me. I sat on the ground for a while, then moved to the lawn chair and sat for a long time after everyone else went inside. C and N came out to sit with me. C held my hand and asked me those questions that must be asked. Do you intend to hurt yourself? Are you planning to kill yourself? He's a good friend and I love him very deeply. And no, I had no intentions of doing myself in. We discussed taking a very small number of pills to calm my raging emotions/nerves, and that is what I decided to do.

Before they came out to sit with me I had figured out what I needed to do. I had to burn the mask. I removed it, held it in my hands for a while watching as the light from our campfire illuminated the rhinestones. C followed me as I walked over to the fire to drop the damned mask in. Funny how different things burn. That mask curled up on itself, burst into flames, and quickly melted to nothing. I think I felt better. So I came inside, took some aleve for my headache and 1 mg of benzodiazapine. Then I washed my face and went to bed. I felt better immediately. I assume I did, having no recollection of what transpired from then until I woke up at 9 or so this morning.

Today is obviously a sleep day. I've had one nap already, and keep nodding off while typing this. I'm going to take another nap now.

Happy Halloween, Happy Samhain, and Happy New Year to all.