Working on Saturday

As if I'm not already grumpy enough about working on a Saturday...

1. My boss is puking her guts out. This may or may not be pregnancy related, but she's being obnoxious about it. I have a fair amount of patience for her most days, but today she's just in raging mode.

2. I'm fuming over starting an hour and a half late. We were supposed to start at 9 AM. We didn't. The co-worker who was going to pick up the peer educators didn't get them here until 9:30...and he had to make a second trip to get more of them. This means that even though we normally finish early, we're no going to today.

3. I've done homophobia and heterosexism training with high school kids before. I'm watching and listening to this presentation and thinking/wondering about how disorganized this one is, and realizing how confusing the statistics are when presented the way they were.

4. Argh argh argh! The speaker (a gay teen) just said something about "If it were a choice, I wouldn't choose it. I'd have chosen to be a normal person, with girlfriends and everything." Since when is gay not normal?

5. Disorganizitation in this training makes me crazy. The kids are doing an evaluation and they can't read. There's a huge amount of material that they need to be able to read. There's a whole entire binder. And I can't depend on peer educators who aren't going to be able to get through the materials they need. I can accept that these kids can't read, but I wonder if they're a good fit for this program...something I think my boss has no concept of. She can't certify peer educators who miss half the training, which she's going to do...etc. etc. etc.

6. Enough complaining. I have to teach STD 101 in a bit. And I should write more about everything else.

Of families and snipers and finally fall...

So, if you've been under a rock, there's a sniper around here. Right. Yesterday I was driving home, on a sidestreet just off 395, (Quaker Lane for those of you who are local) and along this street, there's always a line of parked cars, and two lanes of traffic. In the right lane, not far from the highway, was a stopped police car. With lights on. And the policeman was checking out a white van...it was a bit freaky. My mom has decided that she's going to send me money to make sure I get someone to pump my gas cause she knows I won't pay for it. She's also mentioned several times that I should "come back home until this is over." What a thing to come back to. The shooting yesterday was near 95 and Route 1. I live near 95 and Route 1-no where near the site of the shooting, but I had to make sure to call home to be sure that they knew that 1. I was fine and 2. the shooting was not close by. (That said, the site in Manassas, I do go near, when I run groups at one of the middle schools out there.) I'll be glad when it's over, the sniper thing is spooky. And totally random.

I spent eight days at home. The longest I'd been there in two years. It was incredible, painful at times, but a good thing. My parents appreciated my being there, I felt better being there-it was the right thing to do, from a family obligation and emotionally for myself. It's also the last time I'll likely see my little brother for a while, since he's moving to New Mexico later this month. I didn't see my sister, but she'll be home for Thanksgiving. I know this is only the beginning...that there will be more times when I have to do this. Suddenly, I'm thinking about using Family and Medical Leave...which they told me I could use to cover the time I took if I needed to. (I took it as vacation because I had to burn the time.) I'm glad to be back at my own place though. The time off did me good, although it wasn't particularly relaxing.


After several days of feeling style-less, and blah about my wardrobe, like the spunk and spirit of it was lacking, I got all kinds of compliments about what I was wearing to work this week, about my suit, my sweater, my blouse. I'm feeling a bit more inspired, but I think my wardrobe still needs some more intersting stuff.

And it's finally autumn. The trees are starting to change colors...I can't wait til I have to head out on 66 to see all the colors. I'm eating apples again. Sweaters, I've taken sweaters out, and openened windows, and turned off the air. It's getting dark earlier, I'm lighting more candles. I love the smells of autumn. The routine changes. It was still dark in the morning when I got up the other day. It's crisp and beautiful. And Halloween is coming.

Advise me, please....

S., my boss was reviewing the post-test for peer educator training. One of the questions is:

HIV can be treated with Anti-biotics....

It's a true/false question.


She said, "True...HIV can be treated, not cured with antibiotics."

This is in fact not accurate. Other infections, bacterial infections which sometimes people with HIV have are treated with antibiotics.

What should I do about this?