Winter Break

Seeing as I still have green grass in my yard, is it still called winter break? At least the grass isn't growing.

I am finished with Spanish 101 and what a semester it has been. I still have to take my Lit final, and that is due Thursday, but for the most part I feel like a HUGE weight has been lifted off of my brain. But, I know that Spanish 105 is looming for next semester, so I guess I'd better enjoy this while it lasts. I am hoping that I can get a break from the migraines. I had 7 total this semester, more than I've had in the last two years combined. At least I know for sure one of my triggers is stress. I'm a bit better with the panic issues, but I think that will resurface next semester. One thing I've noticed is that the first half of a semester always makes me overwhelmed and on edge about how I'm going to do and what my grades are going to be. I'm sure everyone goes through that, and I just have to remind myself that it will be ok and to take a deep breath and let it take its course. No pun intended.

Why is it that when a person takes a test they get things wrong that they know for certain? In checking a few things after the Spanish final, I realize I answered questions wrong that I knew how to do correctly. And, while taking the test, I knew something was wrong with my constructions. But, I just couldn't figure out what. That's really irritating.

My husband bought me a Sony Walkman digital media player for Christmas. Now, while this isn't an Earth shattering present, I am still none the less impressed with it. My old mp3 player, which, really wasn't that old but stopped working, used an SD card and had no internal memory to it. It also had a joystick like button thingy that was VERY annoying. After four years of banging around in my backpack, it finally completely broke. Or, well, the card became corrupted actually. I suppose I could have tried a new card, but honestly, I really wanted a new player. My new player boasts 8GB of memory and I've filled 6 gigs already. The reason why I bring this up (besides being excited by fun technology)is that I'm old enough to remember when the first Walkmans came out. The cassette playing Walkmans that were available with or without an FM radio. And they were HUGE. About the size of a Michener paperback and twice the weight, these portable players are the distant ancestors of the tiny, lightweight, sparkly-red player that I'm currently listening to. I believe I was a Junior in high school when my friend got one for her birthday. And I remember thinking at the time, "who needs to listen to music outside of their home?" The concept of putting headphones on and blocking other people from talking to you was so foreign to me that I really didn't think the "craze" was going to catch on. Transistor radios had been around for ages, and they sometimes had those white, one-ear plug devices with them, but for the most part headphones were something that TV announcers and military people wore. Wow, was I wrong. Sorry Patti.

I don't normally discuss my music tastes, but I'm currently enthralled with an 11 year old by the name of Jackie Evancho. I had seen her on a TV talent show and couldn't believe that someone that young and that small could produce the voice she has. She's now everywhere, and for good reason, and I hope that her life path is very successful and she can avoid the downside to growing up public. She has a true talent and perfect pitch which is very rare. As someone who only sings alone in the car (for good reason) I find it encouraging that beauty in voice can still be found.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and I hope that for the coming new year 2012 will prove to be a happier and less contentious year. 2011 will not be one of my better years and while I'm thankful for what I have, Terry's death and seeing Jill through this will forever leave a scar. Again, one of the things humans collect as they grow older. As to the contentious part, I really would like our government to just "get along" and stop acting like spoiled children fighting in the sand box. Enough already.

Perspectives

I have a coworker who is, from my perspective, a pain in the rear. I would like to be more harsh but I try to keep the vulgarities out of my vocabulary. This person has a life perspective that she is the center of the universe. Now if she were 5 years old, I guess I could understand why she would think that as most 5 year olds generally do have the perspective that they are the center of the universe. As with most companies in the United States, my work decided to split her job and give half of it to me and then have her go to the main hospital campus for the second half of her day. Basically, I'm doing something called job-sharing. She is in-house and I'm retail, but because I come from in-house and am still a Certified Pharmacy Technician, I can do both jobs. And, apparently I will be starting Monday. I'm thankful to still be employed. CSM let over 300 people go in 2011, five of them from pharmacy including my direct manager and the department director back in June. I could have easily been one of them, but because I am the only person doing the billing for the retail pharmacies, there was no one who could do both my job and theirs. However, the powers that be decided that two techs in the same room were one-half too many and pulled this coworker back to the main campus for half-days on my non-school days.

Now, this wasn't my idea. I had nothing to do with it, I didn't suggest it, nor do I wish to have her job. But, from her perspective, this coworker has decided to tell everyone she meets that I am out to get her job, her personally, and that my goal is to get her fired. She sees this maneuver on CSM's part as something I orchestrated, not the bean-counters in finance who decided that I could do one and a half jobs while she is just being pulled back to the main hospital for 4 hours. The outpatient site I work at has a large pharmacy room that is locked with just us two inside of it. I have my "office" on one half of the room, and she is on the other half. And, it probably doesn't help that we have a mutual dislike for each other. She pretends to "like" me, and I don't pretend to like her. I can tolerate her and civilly answer any questions she poses, but, to be honest, I just don't like her. I knew her from way back in my Columbia days, and when I was a newbie tech she flat out told another tech that "she (myself) doesn't know anything". I was standing in the same room with them when she said and she made no attempt to apologize or rephrase her statement. At that point, I decided I had no use for her and to this day I don't. But, that doesn't help me when she is convinced that I'm the reason she is being persecuted. Again, she thinks she is the center of the universe and why wouldn't I want her job? She considers this the "end of her life" and an "attack on her". I told her she was being overly dramatic and that maybe she needs to re-evaluate her outlook on life and consider herself lucky she still has a decent paying job.

So, I now have a 60 hour work week (my full time and her part time) position crammed into 40 hours. It has not once occurred to her that maybe she got the better end of the deal. I am actually looking forward to her leaving for half the day even though it means I have to fill in for those four hours. Silence is golden, and her leaving so I don't have to hear about how this is all a conspiracy against her will indeed be golden.

This has been one of the more difficult semesters I have had since returning to school. Spanish has been incredibly elusive for me and a huge struggle to learn. I still haven't mastered my panic when taking tests and did very bad on the last test we took. Luckily, we get to drop one test score for our grade and that will be the one I drop. I still don't understand what is going on and why I panic so, but it must be a confidence issue. This panic is something new for me and I have a new perspective on people that suffer from it in their daily lives. I certainly see enough medication moving out the door to treat this issue, but I always had the thought in the back of my head that they should just be able to take a deep breath and calm down. I know differently now and will never make that assumption again. I have two finals for Spanish class and I am absolutely dreading both of them. One is an oral final and the other is a written final. And I've been doing a fair amount of freaking out about them. The interesting thing however, is that we had to write a one page composition on a movie we watched and that presented no emotional issues for me. I sat down, wrote it, and did a fair job of it. Why? Why am I able to do that, and not answer questions on a test? We weren't allowed to use translators, or outside help from Spanish speaking friends or family, and could only use our notes, handouts, text books, and a few words from the dictionary. Yet this presented no issues for me. No drama of panic, no hysterical excuses, and certainly no migraines. I have no answer.

Our perspectives constantly and continually change in life. For the most part I want to think that is a good thing because shouldn't our perspectives become more acute as we age? Isn't it the trade off for gray hair, wrinkles, and sore backs? As we experience life and all it offers or takes away we should be learning something from our passage of time. There is a lesson for me and my panic somewhere and all I need to do is figure out what it is. Then, maybe, just maybe I can get back to being the stealer of jobs and general all-around evil orchestrater of all things bad to my coworker. Because I have nothing better to do than to make my life more difficult and time-pressed than it already is. But, that's my perspective.