Byvshyj CCCP

[ Thursday, February 27, 2003 ]

 
Arabic class was actually good tonight. Our teacher is back from the Hajj and rested up. Actually, I missed her recounting the trip when I went to the party on Tuesday.

She showed us how to write our names in Arabic. The other teacher had written out names for some of the students (I was late that day) but this one showed us how to sound it out before transliterating it.

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Dad's left to take Matt to the Armory. I don't know why we were told yesterday was his day to report.

Nik and Matt joined us for chinese yesterday.
S [10:26 PM]

[ Wednesday, February 26, 2003 ]

 
Niki had a going away party tonight for Matt, his unit is being activated tomorrow. It's not clear where he'll be stationed but it's out of country.

Family and neighbors attended. I took a few minutes of video, a lot of it was Trent and his cousin Mikey.

This is going to be such a burden for Niki. She's pregnant and finishing the last semester of nursing classes.

Also, I've been designated Trent's guardian if something should happen to his parents. That will tint my thinking about the future.
S [12:36 AM]

[ Sunday, February 23, 2003 ]

 
At our house we got 6". Just a few miles away in Wyandotte, along the river, they got 10". So I didn't expect to see at church the elderly couple who live there, but they made it. We had thirty-some people at church, normally it's a hundred more.

The neighbor's son came over to snowblow the driveway shortly before I departed for church. I had shoveled the drive a 11p when we had half our total, so there was less for him and me to work on this morning. I blew off catechism because I didn't figure anyone would make it. Only one showed up on time (and he doesn't read the assignments), so not much harm done.
S [2:06 PM]

[ Saturday, February 22, 2003 ]

 
I got in some good study time for Arabic today. I usually give it short shrift because I'm so disappointed in the way class is taught.

Although I have memorized the alphabet, I'm still learning how to string letters together to form words (Arabic letters have different forms depending on whether they're at the beginning, middle, end, or standing alone). It doesn't help that handwriting differs from type-face or that there are variations in form depending on what's combined.

I've realized it will be a long time before this is a productive language for me. I'll maintain it as an interest but can't invest a great deal of time. I need to revitalize my Russian the way I have French. I shouldn't have let it slide but I swear Cyrillic causes eye-strain and that subtly steers me from picking up a book in Russian. It isn't that I don't have reading material. Eh bien.

S [10:20 PM]

 
A couple days ago Mom found the missing Azmacort canister under the computer table. Huh.

I didn't have to cajole the 'health care providers' to get a prescription without a visit. The doc wrote it right away. Not that I've spent money to fill it....
S [3:55 PM]

 
Those clubs. Can you believe? Twenty one squeezed to death in Chicago and _ninety six_ dead in Rhode Island. These reports sound like they should be from a second/third world country, not the U.S. of A.

I was amazed to see there was footage of the blaze as it developed in the club. A cameraman was there to do a story on club safety: a most bitter irony. One of the patrons is heard to say, "it's like Chicago."

I always wonder when two tragedies in a similar vein follow one another, "did those people think of the previous event as they readied for theirs? While dressing, while driving, while standing in line?" In this instance, did any walk in and look for alternate exits? The lights went out soon after the fire got going, so that couldn't have helped.

It was natural for people to exit they way they entered. At places I've been several times I know at least one extra exit just from casually circulating. But if it's my first time I don't necessarily look for them. From now on I will.

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We're due for an awful snow storm today, six inches or more. The rain and sleet were already here.

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Matt is finally being activated with the Marines. Everyone at the Armory is doing final preparations, some stayed the night, as he did. The signed orders will come in the next couple days, then they have 72 hours to settle their personal lives.

S [3:32 PM]

[ Sunday, February 16, 2003 ]

 
Listened to part of the Blogosphere talk last night. Neat to hear the voices of some famous people, web-famous, that is.
S [2:39 PM]

[ Monday, February 03, 2003 ]

 
I feel like I'm being poked in the right lung. The asthma is acting up in a disappointing, if entirely predictable, way.

In the haze of flu-recovery, I somehow allowed the cannister of Azmacort to slip out of its plastic inhaler. I had two weeks of doses remaining on it. Just two days before, I was pleased with myself for making a note to get the perscription renewed, a process I don't look forward to. It will mean a trip to the doctor, because he's already renewed it once by phone for me and Henry Ford Health System's guidelines won't let him do it again without seeing me. This consultation--brief will cost me $50. That's better than consultation--intermediate for $75 or consultation--extensive for $125. But not by much. The most he'll do is ask me how I am and listen to my lungs. They're fine when I have medicine. I'll still try not to go in. Can I wheedle the nurse with "I don't have insurance. I'm not even working" as she takes my prescription info over the phone?

When I do get a script in hand it will either run $75 a chain pharmacy or $58 (when I take three at a time) from one I found in Detroit. The last round is still sitting on my credit card.

But we don't need national health care in this country. Only a communist would want that. :p
S [5:34 PM]

[ Saturday, February 01, 2003 ]

 
I had hoped the loss of a shuttle was a one-time event. Sad.

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I was sick Thursday night/Friday morning with the "flu." The on-set was quick. Around dinnertime I felt something strange in my chest, I thought the asthma was acting up. On the way home from Arabic class (8 o'clock) I felt nauseous. I shouldn't have bothered to eat once at home because it all came back up over the next few hours, accompanied by chills and fever. It was debilitating but brief. The fever broke by 3:30a and I had a drink box. It felt like it stayed in the stomach for hours, rather than being passed on.

I spent yesterday reading King Leopold's Ghost, a look at the Belgian king's creation of a brutal colony in the Congo.
S [5:44 PM]