Dad died one year ago today, and if this were 2010, at this moment he'd have about another hour and forty-some minutes left in him.
I know what I will be doing in an hour; I will be calling absent students, trying to get them to come to school. (Who wants to pay $2,000 to sit on their own couch? You can do that for free!) At this time last year I was in this room, probably doing approximately what I'm doing now. The sun hasn't set yet. When the nurse called last year and asked how far I was from the hospital, it was dark out. I immediately began cleaning the lab, desperate for it not to be such a dire situation. Anything, anything... I could've spitshined the room and it would've gleamed. It was almost over.
I am thinking about Naomi tonight. She was already there when I arrived at the hospital. I wonder what she's doing tonight? I should call.
T and I went to the cemetary this morning and visited. Ironically there was a funeral going on at the end of the row, one up. I will never forget that -- feeling our wistfulness, but reflecting on exactly what they were doing. At first we thought they were doing it in the rows behind Dad and we wouldn't be able to go over there. But, alas.. we watched from a distance. They did everything we did last year, including looking around at other graves. They did not toss roses in like we did, though. That funeral was near its end and the entire party sat on benches under the trees watching the workers dump the dirt. Dirt dumping is very final but I found it cathartic. T said his rose stuck in the middle, also. Down the lawn today, apparently there were some children in their group, who ran around playing after the burial. I liked that. It was a reminder that life continues.
While we were talking, I told T that I was often comforted by the parachutists that used the nearby airport for their landings. My dad had wanted to be a paratrooper in the military, but was too short or something. T said he often looks at the sun hitting the mountains in the distance. I do the same. He said he'd never seen the jumpers, then about six of them appeared before long in the sky. It was neat to see them; I thought at least one was going to miss the airport and land in the cemetary. Then as we were watching that, a huge monarch butterfly fluttered right near us. I was amazed to see that. It was brown and black and utterly beautiful. The symbolism was not lost on me and I told T about it. He sat, musing. We talked about the probability of a butterfly in a cemetary in the middle of the desert. T said they were attracted to the lawn and the trees probably, but I said, "Look around you... we're surrounded by desert on all sides." BC does have more grass probably than our valley, but still it was timing. T also told me he comes out to the cemetary sometimes late at night, and one time the lights on the runway came on randomly and no plane came to land. (He waited fifteen minutes.) Streetlights frequently came on or shut off in my dad's presence. Funny little things. I felt he was there with us. We miss him so much.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
Oddly enough, still... STILL! having trouble with T.
Last night we were discussing my employer, a for-profit vocational college, and its efforts to improve student retention and graduation rates. My sibling, the cynic, tried unsuccessfully several times to compare apples to peanuts between my employer and his alma mater. He then compared the university's blase approach to student retention to my school to his fitness gym. I had been telling him how the school had vastly improved its student absenteeism situation by text messaging students and instituting a so-called "first hour, first call" thing where they have someone actually call the absent student in the first hour of the missed class in order to get them into class before it's over. It's not always possible, but if they miss the first hour of a four hour class, they may be able to get over there with enough time left to make it. Contact works. It just DOES. My brother said he wouldn't have really cared for that approach at our school, and I agreed. But I also said that if they had bothered to do that, I would have gone to school even just to avoid that call. So then he said that if his GYM called him every time he missed a fitness class that he signed up for, he would be super-livid and would probably get rid of his membership. That would be his right. But why would you sign up for something that you have to pay for that you're not going to make an effort to see through? I have to hammer him again and again that the school wants to graduate students, not collect student loan money. They want asses in seats so that the students, yes, can pay back their loans, but also fulfill the doggone mission of the school, which is to GRADUATE STUDENTS and help them advance their LIVES. It's a little more involved than missing Bootcamp and being contacted about it.
Well today naturally he sent me an article he found about the school that was negative. I replied and said, "Listen -- this article is out of date." Basically, no cheap shot points for you. Then he sent another article that said their stock on the NY Stock Exchange has fallen 90% recently because they have reduced enrollment and increased some of their standards for enrollment -- basically, they have responded to all the government audits and made required changes. I fail to see how that makes them a big, bad, money-grubbing corporation with no care toward the student population it serves.
It makes me wonder why he seems so invested in "proving" to me that my employer is bad news. Nevermind that I have worked for them for 3 1/2 years without incident and have benefited in many ways by the association. The corporation does have very good benefits. I have seen who makes up the company and how hard they work to give the students the best experience possible. A large part of the experience students have is up to them, but we have all had crappy, uninteresting instructors or had to deal with other lazy, ineffectual administrators or God forbid moronic loan people. The school has had to clean house occasionally but they have worked really hard to improve transparency, accountability and to meet and exceed audit issues and government requirements for loans and ETC. This is a good company intentionally serving a sketchy student population to, God forbid, as I say, HELP THEM HELP THEMSELVES. IMPROVE THEIR LIVES. INCREASE THEIR INCOMES. FIND THEM MEANINGFUL EMPLOYMENT FOR WHICH THEY ARE ACTUALLY QUALIFIED.
I did question why he seems to be investing himself in asserting my company is bad news. It could be a continuing passive-agressive effort to avoid fixing what's wrong in his life, the most obvious being the alcoholism and the required emotional work. He has been auditing every aspect of my life for a year now. I am beyond tired of it. Every aspect is up for his observation and critique, and who appointed him? He did. He doesn't care for my job, my employer, my car, my banking habits, my boyfriend or my friends. Now I fully expect him to give me a hard time about the house I am getting ready to buy, ignoring all of the good aspects in favor of the rather stiff HOA fee. I plan to rent out one of the bedrooms to offset the ultility costs, and maybe even pay the HOA fee out of their rent. In any case, don't you think you could handle $90/mo for fake rent in exchange for a 1500 sq ft townhouse that's PAID FOR? Yeah. I think I can handle it. Mind you, if you go a half mile up the hill, the HOA fee for the nearest townhome community jumps to $168/mo. HE WAS THE ONE WHO WANTED ME TO BUY A TOWNHOUSE! Stand-alone houses, if they have HOAs, have much lower fees, usually $30-50 depending on basically the whim of the management company I think. I turned the area upside down several times looking for what I wanted in square footage, and I could not find it for what I wanted to pay. I got lucky with this townhouse; the day I put in my offer, they happened to drop the price by $6,000. Hey, I'll take it.
So, long story short, I am feeling frustrated. I don't think it will be useful in the short- or long-term to react emotionally or hostilely to his niggling. I understand this may be an intention vs. action vs. consequence problem again. He is the type to not get the middle part, going back in his mind from the consequence of whatever stupid thing he's done, all the way back to his intention. It's like, the other person has no clue what your intention was, they only know what you did -- your action. An intention is an incomplete action. It almost doesn't matter. Action begets consequence. If intention and action are out of synch, you're going to get static back as the consequence. It seems simple superficially but it really isn't. I think this is why there are so many little boy/men out there. They really don't get it and then eventually they do something stupid enough to bring them to the attention of the police, then they may end up in the penal system and they may never work it out. Hopefully T will work it out at some point.
Last night we were discussing my employer, a for-profit vocational college, and its efforts to improve student retention and graduation rates. My sibling, the cynic, tried unsuccessfully several times to compare apples to peanuts between my employer and his alma mater. He then compared the university's blase approach to student retention to my school to his fitness gym. I had been telling him how the school had vastly improved its student absenteeism situation by text messaging students and instituting a so-called "first hour, first call" thing where they have someone actually call the absent student in the first hour of the missed class in order to get them into class before it's over. It's not always possible, but if they miss the first hour of a four hour class, they may be able to get over there with enough time left to make it. Contact works. It just DOES. My brother said he wouldn't have really cared for that approach at our school, and I agreed. But I also said that if they had bothered to do that, I would have gone to school even just to avoid that call. So then he said that if his GYM called him every time he missed a fitness class that he signed up for, he would be super-livid and would probably get rid of his membership. That would be his right. But why would you sign up for something that you have to pay for that you're not going to make an effort to see through? I have to hammer him again and again that the school wants to graduate students, not collect student loan money. They want asses in seats so that the students, yes, can pay back their loans, but also fulfill the doggone mission of the school, which is to GRADUATE STUDENTS and help them advance their LIVES. It's a little more involved than missing Bootcamp and being contacted about it.
Well today naturally he sent me an article he found about the school that was negative. I replied and said, "Listen -- this article is out of date." Basically, no cheap shot points for you. Then he sent another article that said their stock on the NY Stock Exchange has fallen 90% recently because they have reduced enrollment and increased some of their standards for enrollment -- basically, they have responded to all the government audits and made required changes. I fail to see how that makes them a big, bad, money-grubbing corporation with no care toward the student population it serves.
It makes me wonder why he seems so invested in "proving" to me that my employer is bad news. Nevermind that I have worked for them for 3 1/2 years without incident and have benefited in many ways by the association. The corporation does have very good benefits. I have seen who makes up the company and how hard they work to give the students the best experience possible. A large part of the experience students have is up to them, but we have all had crappy, uninteresting instructors or had to deal with other lazy, ineffectual administrators or God forbid moronic loan people. The school has had to clean house occasionally but they have worked really hard to improve transparency, accountability and to meet and exceed audit issues and government requirements for loans and ETC. This is a good company intentionally serving a sketchy student population to, God forbid, as I say, HELP THEM HELP THEMSELVES. IMPROVE THEIR LIVES. INCREASE THEIR INCOMES. FIND THEM MEANINGFUL EMPLOYMENT FOR WHICH THEY ARE ACTUALLY QUALIFIED.
I did question why he seems to be investing himself in asserting my company is bad news. It could be a continuing passive-agressive effort to avoid fixing what's wrong in his life, the most obvious being the alcoholism and the required emotional work. He has been auditing every aspect of my life for a year now. I am beyond tired of it. Every aspect is up for his observation and critique, and who appointed him? He did. He doesn't care for my job, my employer, my car, my banking habits, my boyfriend or my friends. Now I fully expect him to give me a hard time about the house I am getting ready to buy, ignoring all of the good aspects in favor of the rather stiff HOA fee. I plan to rent out one of the bedrooms to offset the ultility costs, and maybe even pay the HOA fee out of their rent. In any case, don't you think you could handle $90/mo for fake rent in exchange for a 1500 sq ft townhouse that's PAID FOR? Yeah. I think I can handle it. Mind you, if you go a half mile up the hill, the HOA fee for the nearest townhome community jumps to $168/mo. HE WAS THE ONE WHO WANTED ME TO BUY A TOWNHOUSE! Stand-alone houses, if they have HOAs, have much lower fees, usually $30-50 depending on basically the whim of the management company I think. I turned the area upside down several times looking for what I wanted in square footage, and I could not find it for what I wanted to pay. I got lucky with this townhouse; the day I put in my offer, they happened to drop the price by $6,000. Hey, I'll take it.
So, long story short, I am feeling frustrated. I don't think it will be useful in the short- or long-term to react emotionally or hostilely to his niggling. I understand this may be an intention vs. action vs. consequence problem again. He is the type to not get the middle part, going back in his mind from the consequence of whatever stupid thing he's done, all the way back to his intention. It's like, the other person has no clue what your intention was, they only know what you did -- your action. An intention is an incomplete action. It almost doesn't matter. Action begets consequence. If intention and action are out of synch, you're going to get static back as the consequence. It seems simple superficially but it really isn't. I think this is why there are so many little boy/men out there. They really don't get it and then eventually they do something stupid enough to bring them to the attention of the police, then they may end up in the penal system and they may never work it out. Hopefully T will work it out at some point.
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