honderus

[megapulse]

well, first i was looking into peru, then ethiopia and low and behold in the middle of a half snowy sunday honderus falls into my lap.

life is weird.

i've never been to honderus but i might be going this year for my birthday. i think it's a conspiracy to keep me from traveling alone to a third world country. it's like this big family intervention. no, she's the baby, she's not going alone! i'm kidding. it's just a weird coincidence. life is full of them.

a doctor dropped out of a trip that my mom and brother were planning on taking and mom just called and was like are you opposed to hiking and i said no, are they opposed to having someone with zero medical experience on the team, and she's like we'll see.

they recommend wearing scrubs. isn't that strange. i said i can't wear linen? shorts? my mom was like, no they said scrubs! you'll be on a mule!

they provide meds and shots to the folks there, and i'd get to work with teaching them a bit i think. although i really think the whole trip will teach me a lot more than what i could ever teach them. i'll possibly have to take pictures and be in charge of some of that, but i'm already feeling a bit jealous because my brother has been tasked with journaling. i'm like well now, they just haven't seen my fantastic talents . . . yet!

it's really weird because my dad was in the amazon building something or other when my brother was born, and now he's going to be at home while the three of us are off in honderus. life has a funny way of turning things around.

[megapulse]

it's official i can not spell. whatever talent i had i lost.

however, i'm going. i just got off the phone with the guy an hour ago. it's awesome.

it really is.

i'm happy, and i'm going.

i'm so excited that i can't sleep. but, i need to sleep because the trip is a month and a half away, sleeping between now and then might be a good thing.

pixie, i wish you were around to help me plan which scrubs to take. i never in my life thought i'd need to buy them and YOU ARE A NURSE -- Jeez, that just hit me

PIXIE GET YOUR TAIL BACK HERE NOW and help me figure out what the hell i need to get!!

[megapulse]

well, the scrubs are out. i've talked to several folks and perhaps those of you who exercise regularly have heard of the property known as wicking. evidentially this is something that some synthetic materials have that keeps sweat away from your body, so it was recommended that this is what i buy. i really didn't want to buy it, so i researched around, and what i found out is that hemp clothing has this same property, naturally.

it's a little more expensive, but to me it is worth it because hemp is good for the earth unlike these synthetic materials and even cotton. cotton, if it's not organic cotton, is the most chemically laden crop there is, i think. could be wrong, but i think it's actually worse than tobacco.

so i've ordered three hemp shirts, two tees and one tank, two pairs of hemp pants and a hemp back pack that seems really amazing; it is made of two parts so that i can take the top of it off for shorter trips out during the day. and part of it is made from recycled materials as well. it's very nice.

i told my mom about it, but i don't think she trusts it, i thought well, you never know until you try and i might as well because i know as little about the other synthetic stuff.

i am going to get a typhoid shot wednesday and hep a and b shots saturday. i also still have to register with the us embassy in honduras. but i was relieved to find my passport and see that it is still good for three more years because i honestly could not remember. it was sort of weird and sad.

i looked really young and happy in the passport picture and i realized i had gotten it right after i got married. it is weird how just a few years changes a person, but oh, well.

pixie, you said you are a nurse so any tips would be great any advice anything really, like i said a lot of these kids have never seen a doctor.

i'm thinking that if we're not setting up in tents and the facilities actually have walls or flat surfaces that i should take side-walk chalk as it would keep the kids occupied as they wait for their shots and vitamins.

the man i spoke with who is organizing this here said that once they took a jar of those dip stick bubbles and the kids were entertained for hours so i'll probably get some of those too.

[megapulse]

i also have a soundtrack in my head for my trip. i don't know if i'll be able to take along any music, but if not i've memorized the song that really says it all for me on this trip, it's by death cab, and i think, i really like it for this traveling story:


"Soul Meets Body"

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel, feel what its like to be new

Cause in my head there's a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they're far more suited than here

I cannot guess what we'll discover
We turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels
But I know our filthy hand can wash one another's
And not one speck will remain

I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body
Where soul meets body

I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

[megapulse]

it's odd my information about ethopia just came this weekend too. there are quite a few positions open; the one i'm really considering is for six weeks. i told my mom that i think honduras will help me decide if it's something i can really do.

she said that that is probably a good idea, two of the children on the cardiac trip died during surgery. she said, you do need to find out if this is something that you can handle before you commit to it.

i think she's pretty wise.

[TragicPixie]

yeah I couldn't find a brand of scrubs - but sometimes at malls or whatever they have those uniform stores that sometimes sell them. I just stole a lot from the hospitals I worked at ... and continue to swipe them from our biomedical engenering labs here (since I know a lot of BMEs)

... I'm not sure about the synthetic materials business. I always hate running in synth. stuff. It's tight and sticks to you and always makes me sweat more and then I feel like I'm smelly...

[TragicPixie]

main guidelines of nursing as I have experienced:
be patient. patient, patient, patient.
talk softly - but not too softly, to patients.
be Kind.
explain things in common terms

and remember your job is mainly to make them less afraid or nervous.

[megapulse]

thanks

"yeah I couldn't find a brand of scrubs - but sometimes at malls or whatever they have those uniform stores that sometimes sell them"

yes, and about the scrubs i got to thinking about it and thought, i lived on the gulf coast, how much hotter and more humid is it going to get? i moved in and out of two apartments in august -- it really is not going to be that big of a deal.

"... I'm not sure about the synthetic materials business. I always hate running in synth. stuff. It's tight and sticks to you and always makes me sweat more and then I feel like I'm smelly..."

but hemp, hemp is the answer, or bamboo, it's anti-fungal, anti-mildew, and does this miracle wicking thing, what ever that is, i think, it translates to no stinky for you and me!

the only problem is that it is illegal to grow in the united states right now, so it's expensive. maybe that'll change.

i talk to my friends about it and they are like, stop crusading, it'll happen or it won't, and i'm like number one i'm not crusading, i hardly think telling someone about it is much of a crusade and number two it's been legal to "research" it in our state since 1999, and no one really knows this or why nothing has been done. and ralph nader likes hemp, btw, he should be president, i'm telling ya, did a thing for farm aid years ago. i love ralph.

you'll have to excuse the digression, i'm a little annoyed. i just got back from taking this kid to the science museum and nanoworld was actually the name of the exhibit. i wanted to scream, morons! morons! (of course i was with a nine year old, and i don't think he would have understood that that wasn't directed at him or the other children in the room) anyway hemp is safe for folks and for the planet, and we could be using our textile mills to produce clothing from it, and yet we have an entire exhibit on nanotechnology not even a mile from the textile mill that is shutting down. it reminds me of the stories about communist russia where they'd spend a booty load on nails that came from god knows where when they were beside a nail factory or some such.

idiots!! this is why some days the hubby was like who is this freak i married!? where did my sane sweet wife go?

[TragicPixie]

haha it'll be nice to know the boy can't even have that thought ... I came insane
In fact - I came absolutely crashing down self-destructive to the point of worrying the people who weren't too worried when I declared I wasn't eating for a month - and then didn't ... and let it go on for two and three and four ... lol
haha... any boy who can love you when you're eating up to three pills of E a day and still love you after can never claim he fell in love with someone sane! Or even particularly reasonable. My favourite argument I remember was it was a record 100 something degrees and the house was hotter than hell but still he wouldn't turn the shower (cold water) on because he was afraid I would drown.

[megapulse]

"i came insane"

hahaha!

don't tell the rest of the world, but honestly i think we all do. the thing is at least you and your guy were honest about it.

who's not a little bit insane at least by someone else's standards?

like me calling the nano folks morons, to me the waste of natural resources, people, and opportunity here is insane. the legislators, politicians, city planners, powers that be etc. are insane for not trying to provide something that would utilize the farms and textile mills that are here instead of converting us into nanotech world and wasting what is here, insane!

see what i mean, there are lots of versions of crazy!!

to me, although i'm glad you're not hurting yourself, and your guy is super duper great to love you through that, you're not nearly as insane as some of the folks around here.

you just call a spade a spade. i like that.

[megapulse]

pixie, a few years ago a friend of mine got interested in biodiesel; he actually made a biodiesel car with his students and got, zero, nada, no press coverage for it -- unbelievable to me, but nothing.

high school aged kids made a car run off of biodiesel and no one cared, in fact they come from a "failing" school system, or at least one that hasn't been nearly as standardized test savvy as others, which is why living in the united states in the neck of the woods where i live, drives me crazy!!

kids who can't bubble in a sheet as well as others are not praised for making a car run off of biodiesel, and those who can't even make themselves a sandwich but can score well on a standardized tests are called a success.

something is rotten in denmark and it aint the french fry oil!

this is why many teachers hate, loathe, detest, abhor nclb!!

(my kids, 8th graders, came up with their own recycling system at school that utilizes the facilities and classes that they have there, they needed zero outside help, two teachers and the rest kids and whammo we've got recycled paper, that they love to use; i mean it's looks like a crumpled paper towel, but they are like yes! i get to have the recycled paper today -- i'm like you want to write in magic marker, and they are like, alright!! this is so cool!!
of course it won't go through a scantron machine, so you know, it's not good enough)

anyway this guy introduced me to a website that really explains most of what i already thought and feel. so here is the reason that nano world drives me mad!


Technology, Poverty and the Future of the Developing World
http://www.itdg.org/html/whats_new/
technology_poverty_future_pr.htm

UNDP website for HDR
http://www.undp.org/hdro/

The United Nations Development Programme's "Human Development Report 2001 -- Making new technologies work for human development" attempts to address a key question for the 21st century: will technology entrench millions in even greater poverty -- or can it be used to eradicate poverty and suffering?

Revolutionary changes in technology are driving forwards globalisation. But globalisation is creating greater inequalities than at any time in history.

The Human Development Report 2001 (HDR) is a vital and powerful first contribution which can inform a new worldwide debate.

But it chooses the wrong challenge. The key issue is not "making new technologies work for human development". The challenge is enabling poor people to make technologies work for them.

The Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), with 35 years' hands-on experience with technology issues in poor countries, says the HDR reflects old thinking about new technologies. What is required is new thinking about all technologies which are of use to poor people -- whether those technologies are "old" or "new".

This means starting with poor people and what they need from technology -- not starting with technologies and "applying" them to "poverty".

[TragicPixie]

I agree with you ...

and I always thought the standardised tests were super dumb. I mean - I never found them difficult and I really, really resented knowing that a full day each month was taken out of school time to train us like monkeys to put the right answers down ...

That's not teaching you to think - which is what I think, though I understand is not the fact of the matter, - schools ought to be doing.

[megapulse]

yes, it's insanely stupid

and

"a full day each month was taken out of school time to train us like monkeys to put the right answers down ..."

you were lucky, you should see how much time and money is being spent on this shit now.

and nclb had bi-partisan support, so you know, pick your poison on that issue, both sides suck ass at representing the people whose lives they fuck up with stupid policies.

[megapulse]

one more thing about insanity of nanity

in our country we banned a theory because we didn't know if the theory was a fact, there was not a substantial amount of proof so we said, we can't expose children to it because we're not sure if it's good for their little minds to be exposed to a bunch of words called a theory which usually means not factual, hey we don't really know, it's sort of like the scientific word for an idea

yet in this same country we take children to science museums, and expose the same minds that we had to protect from the theory that we didn't have substantial proof of to an actual element that we have not thoroughly studied and proven to be good for them, we actually encourage them to be fond of something that may actually do physical harm to them and we allow them and their parents to buy this thing and rub it into their skins if they like, and it can harm them

in this country we will not expose young women to a vaccine that could potentially save them from cervical cancer because it might not be good for them, it might corrupt them, even though it's been test for quite a few years and found to be fairly effective we are not going to sell it to them

in this country we will not expose people to hemp even though our forefathers grew it, even though it can be used to produce environmentally healthy products, we think people might confuse it with crack cocaine and somehow die from using it, so we're going to keep it illegal


nanotechnology, bunches of super little particles, could possibly really hurt people = we want your children to love it so we promote it at your science museums and it's for sale!

hpv vaccine, a shot, could possibly really save lives = not open for discussion and not for sale!

hemp, a plant that was grown in the us, could really save a lot of jobs and help out the environment = not promoted as an alternative product and not even legal!

theory, bunches of words, can't really hurt anyone = banned!

anybody else want to think about the word crazy, i mean, really, think about it.

this country es loco!!

[TragicPixie]

at the moment the drunk frat boys outside are why I think this country is insane.
IT's cold. it's almost 5am... and I am struggling to keep my eyes open for the next 15 minutes while I am stuck at the desk.

They are drunk and doing ... uh... something. I don't get it.

They are insane.