Girl Friday's Adventures in the 'Real' World

I feel like I'm in a mad dash for the finish line.  I have 6 assignments left until I finish my master's degree.  I have applied to 12 jobs and I'm at home alone. 

Button's off in the city having radiation treatment he's going to be in the hospital until at least Thursday and unable to have any human contact until at least Tuesday.

Its going to be a long week alone worrying and trying to work because I know the best thing I can do is get work done now so that I have more time later.  But its hard.

I wish I had some real friends in town.  My family is far away and I have casual friends from class but no one I can really talk to when I'm sitting at home worried about my Button being sick and far away.  He really is my best friend as well as my partner and its hard to be without him.

I'm working on one of the last 14 assignments before I graduate with my Masters in Library and Information Sciences.  Its currently quite a tough one that I didn't find out about the details of until last week 6 weeks until the end of term. 

I'm trying to stay positive while dealing with assignments, applying for jobs and trying to figure out where I and my stuff are going to live in September.

On top of all of that Button has to go on this weird purge before he can have radiation treatment at the end of the month.  Basically he starts by cutting his daily hormone pill out of his life, which means his body has no thyroid hormones at all.  In practical terms his body thinks he is dead and so he has no energy his arms and legs start to tighten up and tingle and he is tired all the time.  Then after 2 weeks of this he has to go on a no iodine diet to purge all iodine from his system.  This doesn't sound bad until you realize that iodine is in everything!  Anything that has salt in it has iodine as well as a lot of other items that just naturally have iodine in them.  Most people who go on this diet the doctors tell to eat lots of sugary items because they don't have iodine, but Button is diabetic so he can't eat that either.

The culmination of all of this is a trip to the hospital for a radioactive iodine treatment that makes him unfit for human company for several days meaning he has to sit in a room with no visitors or bring in his computer or anything else that can't be decontaminated for radiation afterwards. 

Anyway, that's the end of my rant, I just wanted to complain a bit and say that currently life is not making things easy for me to stay positive.  Its rather difficult to see the point in another busy work assignment and all the other hoops I have to jump through but I just focus on what I want, a degree, a job and to be married to my sweetheart and try to keep working towards those goals.

I'm having a book crisis.  One of my courses in library school this summer is reader's advisory.  Basically we are learning how to help people find books that they would enjoy.  Its actually really interesting.  For our next assignment we have to pick 3 books that are "great summer reads" and do a booktalk, basically a 10 minute presentation on the book and what the good things about it are so that people have an idea if they would like to read it.

My main problem is that I can't decide which books to talk about there are so many!  I tried to limit it by only looking at books that I had already read (which is a long list) and ones that I have in my possession at the moment (a smaller sample) but I still have rather a large list.  So I thought that I would share my list with all of you and hopefully you can help me narrow it down.

The Phantom Tollbooth

Norton Juster

The Phantom Tollbooth is a short quick read that is on the surface a children's book but is in reality a play on language and idioms.  Milo jumps to Conclusions and actually ends up on the island of conclusions.  He meets a watchdog who's name is Tock but his body is an alarm clock that only makes Ticking sounds.  After travelling the world of Dictionopolis Milo has to save the princesses of Sweet Rhyme and Pure Reason to return order to the world.

Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book)

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash is a delicious cyber punk (science fiction) romp where Hiro Protagonist and his side kick Y.T. (Yours Truly) roam through a future where corporations have replaced nations and a computer virus that has started infecting computer hackers as well as computers. 

Little Women (Signet Classics)

Louisa May Alcott

Each of the March girls must struggle to overcome a major character flaw: Meg, vanity; Jo, a hot temper; Beth, shyness; and Amy, selfishness. The girls must work out these flaws in order to live up to their mother and father's high expectations as mothers, wives, sisters and citizens.

In the course of the novel, the girls become friends with their next-door neighbor, the teenage boy Laurie, who becomes a particular friend of Jo. As well as the more serious and sadder themes outlined above, the book describes the activities of the sisters and their friend, such as creating a newspaper and picnicking, and the various scrapes that Jo and Laurie (whose given name was "Theodore") get into. The story represents family relationships and explores family life thoroughly. It also reflects issues of feminism, as Jo consistently struggles with the boundaries 19th century society placed on females, including not being able to fight in a war, not being able to attend college and being pressured by her Aunt March to find a suitable husband to take care of her.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Marisha Pessl

The book is narrated by Blue van Meer, a brilliant young student who travels around the country with her father, a dashing professor of political scienc. Most of the book's business transpires in Blue's senior year of high school, as she attracts the interest of Hannah Schneider, the film teacher at her school, and is adopted into a clique of students close to Schneider known as the Bluebloods. As foreshadowed in the opening paragraphs, Hannah Schneider dies, seemingly by suicide. Blue is left to determine why.

The Host: A Novel

Stephenie Meyer

Melanie Stryder is one of few "wild" humans - rebels who have evaded the alien souls that have taken over the Earth. With her younger brother Jamie and the man she loves, Jared Howe, Mel is on the run from souls who hunt down host bodies for use. Souls are creatures that rely upon host bodies to survive. After insertion, they erase any mental presence of the being there prior and establish a claim over the body and mind. Earth is Wanderer's ninth planet, and Mel is her ninth host body. Upon waking inside her new body, she is shocked not only by the vividness of human emotions, memories, and senses, but quickly learns that Melanie Stryder is not willing to give up the entirety of her mind.

The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Mary Lennox is a sickly, sour-faced little girl born in India to wealthy British parents who have very little interest in her, leaving her in the care of an Ayah from birth. Orphaned by an outbreak of cholera, she is sent back to England to the legal guardianship of her only remaining relative.  Craven is still mourning his wife, Lilias, who died ten years ago. To escape his sad memories, he constantly travels abroad, leaving Mary finds out about a walled garden that was the late Mrs. Craven's favorite place. No one has entered the garden since she died.  Mary goes exploring and discovers her uncle's son, Colin, a lonely, bedridden boy as petulant and disagreeable as Mary used to be.  Colin accepts Mary and insists on her visiting him often, but as spring approaches, Colin becomes jealous that Mary is spending more time out in the garden. Mary shocks him out of his hysteria by screaming back at him. They bring Colin outside in a wheelchair so he can see his mother's garden. As the garden revives and flourishes, so does Colin. He resolves to walk and run like a normal boy by the next time his father returns home.

What do you think I should use for my assignment?  Or do you have a different book that you think of as a great summer read?

I've had a great birthday so far.  The great things I've gotten/had happen this week:

• I went to baseball game with Button, he got me a jersey and a hat before hand so I looked very into it while I in fact know very little about the major leagues but I had a tonne of fun; the home team won and we (well Button) caught a foul ball, we were sitting right behind home plate and it was great.  Plus we found out where they hide all the healthy/good food at the ballgame which was a good bonus.
  
• I got a trip to Lush to buy fancy soaps and creams;  which I Love!  I had a lovely bath with a fizzy vanilla bath bomb, a new solid vegan/organic shampoo bar, and loads of other lotions and potions.
  
• I had a lovely dinner out with my sweetie before we left to visit family for the weekend, it was at our favorite little Italian trattoria, I like when we get out on 'dates', even though we now live together school makes it hard for us to spend a lot of time together since even when we're not in class we should be reading or writing for something.  So I appreciate when we get some couple time.
  
• Button's appointment with the doctor went well and he cleared him for surgery so now we're just waiting to hear from the surgeon's office about the date so we are again on our way! (Although Button was annoyed because after all of that work to get his blood sugar exactly right and to record his levels for 2 weeks etc, they didn't even check his blood or monitor to make sure that he was telling the truth so it all seemed a bit useless)
  
• my future mother-in-law took me out to get our nails done and I got a mani pedi with sky blue nails and cute little daisy like flowers on my thumbs (I'm not a big girly girl so this is different for me)
• I went to a giant bookstore downtown and spent a bit more of my Christmas giftcard getting 3 more fun books to read during my school break: The Timetraveller's Wife and two fantasy books in a series I like Kushiel's Chosen  & Kusiel's Avatar 
• Later today I'll go to my parent's with Button's family, my god-parents and grandparents and have an epic wonderful birthday dinner of zuppa de peche (Italian fish soup that my future mother-in-law makes),  spinach and feta balls, with my mom's homemade carrot cake for desert and m-i-l's canolis too.  So all sorts of good food.

All in all its been a great week and I'm enjoying my birthday celebrations a lot.  I hope that everyone else is enjoying their weekends too!

Its my birthday next Saturday.  I usually try to avoid a fuss over my birthday since getting what I want is usually impossible and makes various people unhappy in the process and it seems to make more sense to just avoid everything with as minimal amount of attention as possible.  People always ask what I want for my birthday but all the things I really want don't come in a box.

Impossible things I want this year:

• Button's surgery to be miraculously scheduled at a time when I can be with him for the week and he doesn't have to miss school.
• Button's appointment to go well on Thursday so we don't have to wait another month to get him seen by a doctor.
• A maid service to clean and keep cleaning my house
• To relax instead of anxiously awaiting the next disaster
  

I have one more paper due tomorrow by midnight before I am officially done with this term.  I have written half of the length but more than half of what I wanted to say.  I don't know what else to do.  I haven't really been thinking about school recently and its hard to get my head in the game. 

I don't know if I should just give up sleep and get up extra early tomorrow to make a fresh start of it.  I really just need to get through this paper then I can take a breather.  Clean up my room and the house.  Sleep in.  Get focused.  Maybe read a book.

I just need to pull it together for 4 more pages, 1,000 words.  Its nothing compared to everything I've done this term.  I just finished writing 13 pages for my paper due today and it wasn't this hard.  I just can't fall apart, not when I'm this close.

I don't know where I am going to get the motivation/inspiration to pull this one out but I'll have to find it somewhere.

There is no try there is only do or do not.  Right?

Button and I had a rather epic weekend.  On Thursday we went into the city for B to have his pre-op meeting for his surgery on the 16th.  They have a good set-up the patient gets a room and all the people, doctors, techs etc who have to clear you for surgery or explain things.  So we get in our little room we see the nurse/in-take person they took his history, did an ECG, took some blood for tests, saw the repository specialist and the anesthesiologist.

That is where the trouble began.  Button has diabetes.  This was not a big deal when he had his last surgery, they wrote it on his sheet so the meals he got where balanced  they checked his blood glucose levels before and after meals and that was that.

Well, apparently that wasn't good enough for this anesthesiologist.  He wanted to be sure Button's levels were good.  Okay I thought take the levels now, or from all the bloodwork he's had done over the last few months.  Not good enough.  They need specific tests and they want a doctor to be monitoring his levels specifically while he's in hospital as well as being familiar with his case to clear him to get into surgery in the first place.

Alright, I think then they should be able to get someone down to meet us.  We've already seen a parade of people and you've taken 5 vials of blood so no problem.

Oh wait, no.  Apparently no one from internal medicine has any free time that day.  Alright, we'll come back.  Nope. 

We wait some more the anesthesiologist comes back and starts apologizing.  We're still confused.  Then he says the magic phrase, "I'm so sorry . . .we'll have to delay the surgery until we can get this worked out"

Button's oncologist said he should have this surgery before last Thanksgiving.  Its now Easter and you want to postpone it even longer?  The doctor apologizes again but says that Button is a cancer patient and so he'll be a priority therefore it should only be a few days of delay.

Alright, we think not ideal but we can deal with a small delay.

Finally, they've cleared us for all the other tests so we head upstairs to see Button's surgeon's secretary to see when we might get this appointment to get things cleared up.

Well possibly because of the fact that it was 15 minutes to closing or the fact that all this meant more work for her, but the secretary was rather snappy with us and said that a) the booking time for an appointment for internal medicine was at least 2 weeks and until Button has that appointment and is cleared she can't rebook the surgery.  So its at least two weeks plus however long in the future they're booking surgeries at that point!

We were obviously upset, and now our lives are going to be even more complicated as we wait for news.  Not an ideal start to the Easter holiday weekend.  

So Button has his pre-op meeting with the doctor on Thursday then its one week before he goes in.  We're both trying to finish all of our school work before we go so its essays and projects galore.  I have my digital library assignment and two major essays to do also I'd like to clean the house up before we go so that when we get home I'm not worrying about the mess while helping Button recover.

Luckily my classes don't start up again until May 11th so I have lots of time on my hands to take care of him before I get started on the stress of the new term.

I'm feeling a bit under pressure.  We'll be staying with Button's parents for at least a week.  They live near the hospital he's going to so I'll be staying with them when he's in the hospital and until he gets his stiches out after his release since he won't be up for sitting in a car for the long drive back to our place for a while.

I'm a bit worried about spending that much time with his parents alone but they're going to be my in-law's soon so I should learn to deal with them I guess.  I'm just a bit intimidated by his parents so I'm not very good at asserting myself and I know that I'm going to be extra stressed with Button being in surgery for at least 4 hours and then recovering for several days in hospital.  *sigh*

My best idea so far is that I bought a lot of yarn and a new crochet hook so that I can bring something with me to the hospital and his parents house so that I can keep my hands busy and hide a bit.

At some point I will just have to grow a backbone. 

I fixed my problems on my assignment!  With no help, I actually found a way to force it to do what I wanted.  Now I have a week to make it look pretty and maybe add some more to it if I have time but the part about getting it to actually work was the most important/hardest.

Somedays I can't think of a single thing of learned in grad school, but today is not one of those days! lol  I just had to tell someone about my success since working on this problem has been dragging me down for a while.

I talked to my prof and while he had nothing useful to contribute, I presented a different way of working around the problem and he seemed to accept it so that's my next plan.

But this will only work if I can get the stupid thing to preview my changes.  I will just have to keep hoping.