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My brain is stuck on over drive the past couple months and is making it nearly impossible to focus. From what I can Google, its possibly some form of ADHD, but that’s the best guess I got going for me right now. Simplest way to explain it is my mind just wants to zone out, and go on vacation to some distant dreamland.
So since I’m an Army veteran with health care through the VA, I thought I would make an appointment with mental health and see if they can help me. I’ve dealt with the VA before and there are some things to be desired, but overall I can’t really argue for free medical care. At the least I can talk to an advise nurse or someone to make an appointment. Not true with mental health. I’ve left multiple messages over the course of a month and never heard anything in return.
Nada…
Zip….
Nilch….
It’s almost as if this department doesn’t exist, or they want you bleeding from the wrist in order to see you.
I thought if they don’t want to do their job, well then I will go around them and get someone else to help me. This is where all those horror stories you hear about the VA start to come true. I get an operator, explain what I need, then before I can finish I hear ringing…. they apparently transfered me without any warning or the customary “please hold”.
By the time I’m done with all this VA bullshit and get to speak to someone I’ll need a separate mental health professional to deal with the stress related anxiety just from having to deal with them in the first place. Heaven forbid these people have someone who might be suicidal on their hands.
I’m going to be bald by the end of the week from stressing over this C++ class I am taking. I am assigned the following question and told to write a program for it… except I have no clue how since I’m not sure what this program is suppose to do. It’s not exactly clear what the output is supposed to be and I’m not allowed to use “cin” restricting any user input at all.
Here is the question:
Create a Road class. The class should have functions for setting the width of the road in feet and the length of the road in miles. It should also have functions for obtaining the width of the road and the length of the road. Remember that the class functions should not interact with the user of the program, either by proving output or by getting input. Crete a function called asphalt that will accept a road thickness as an input parameter; then, on the basis of the thickness, it will computer and return the number of cubic feet of asphalt needed to pace the road (1 mile = 5280 feet). Test each function of the class thoroughly with a driver.
I would love to sit here and cry about how my professor is insane or what not, but this is actually a question out of the book and most everyone else managed to complete it. Leaving the problem to be only myself! Or there is simply this one thing that I am completely missing which makes sense out of everything.
Either way, I’m stuck and if I don’t finish it by tomorrow the prof is going to drop me for falling behind.
(The book this question comes out of is “C++ Classes and Data Structures”, ISBN 0-13-158051-5 by Jeffrey S. Childs. #17 on page 23)
I’m seriously heated right now. I’m only 4 credits away from recieving my computer science degree, which would have been done next semester… or so that’s what I though until I got a phone call 20 minutes ago.
The school has decided to change the prerequisite requirements in order to get my degree, after I have started my degree. So instead I am being kicked out of a class which I don’t meet the prerequisite for based on the new requirements. However I did meet the requirements for this class in 2010.
I need 5 classes for a computer science degree… or I did (20 credits total).
Regardless I need:
110, 210, and 260
Then either
265 & 266 (C++ focused)
or
255 & 256 (Java focused).
The problem is 210. In 2010 the prerequisites were either 255 or 265. Now its only 265, meaning my enrollment in 255 is worthless and I have to take 265 regardless that my major has nothing to do with C++.
The big problem with this is, we are now at the end of the third week of classes, I can only add by the end of the 2nd week. So I can’t add the 265 class this semester, meaning I have to wait until next semester then I can’t take 210 until the following semester in Fall of 2012!!!!
As of right now I would be left with only 260 next semester and about 5 credits of some general ed… like a Physical Education credit. Which is also when my GI bill runs out.
I tried to appeal this based on the fact that I enrolled in the school and started pursuing this degree prior to the change, but I got stuck with this whore of a dean Rachel Westlake whom I’ve dealt with many times before. She’s never in her office, never answers her phone, and only reachable by e-mail which is great if you like your e-mails to go ignored for a month then followed up with a one line reply.
This is a two year school, I have 107 credits, and still can’t get a fucking diplomia because of their hypocritical greedy philosophies!
One of the worse places to live in Sacramento as far as crime and poverty rates is most likely the Natomas area in the Northwest portion of Sacramento County. I’ve even heard people on the radio jest about a stolen car “Natomas? Well no wonder”. There are two sides to Natomas though, North & South. I live in North Natomas, a newly developed suburban community. Everything you might have heard badly about Natomas is in regards to South Natomas.
There is a wal-mart here which goes without words, although those who have written a review on it at Yelp have come fairly close to describing it, most of which with some added humor. Comments like “Ghetto as all hell” or “Worst of the worst” or better yet “you should lock your car if you’re just going to chill in your car. Total characters in the parking lot!”.
I’m content in my gated community up here in North Natomas, and simply avoid shopping at any place in South Natomas. If I need a wal-mart I drive 15 minutes to the one in West Sacramento. Overall living in North Natomas isn’t bad, but occasionally people from the ghetto wander over.
Now I say all of this because my daughter just started Kindergarten. Which because of the area we are in, me and my wife are afraid that at a public school she is going to be put in a class with a bunch of those kids with wandering parents. You know, those parents who think their responsibilities as a parent end with feeding the kids. We figured that a private school would be parents that take their responsibility that one step further than the rest.
Caring parents, respectable kids. Right? At least we hope the odds of this are better. The logic makes sense, and so far we haven’t had any problems with our daughter coming home claiming some kid (usually a boy, WTF?) pulled her hair, which had happened in her old pre-school. Instead we have a new problem, the school itself.
The teacher assigned to my daughter has a physical handicap where her arms are proportionally shorter than normal, by as much as half. This does put some limitations on what she is able to do, and I don’t have a problem with that. However she always acts so somber and depressed, I feel like she wants me to hug her so she can cry. I don’t know if this is because she is suicidal or just used to having everyone feel sorry for her. Whenever the kids play outside my daughter’s teacher stays inside and the other teachers pick up the slack. This makes sense, except when I show up to pick my daughter up she is all banged up and none of the other teachers really seem to care. After all, it’s not their student. And when I go to talk to the teacher I’m left screaming at someone who wasn’t even there, which makes me feel I have no right to scream. All she has to do is say, “I’m not sure I wasn’t there” and then I’m rather stuck with no one to blame and get answers from.
Yesterday she fell and scrapped her knee, enough to draw blood and warrant a phone call. We asked that they clean and bandage it and we will come pick her up. They said they are unable to clean it or use any antiseptics and only administer a Band-Aid. No Neosporin, no hydrogen peroxide, just a fucking band-aid! My daughter is bleeding and they just cover it up and forget about it??!? Seriously? It’s a school where the nurse?
I went to pick up my daughter several days earlier and she fell right in front of myself and two other teachers. She had scraped her knee and started screaming. Neither of the teachers came to see if she was OK, or at least show some compassion. One teacher, who looked like she was 18, said “oops” followed by a slight chuckle. Had I not been so concerned with comforting my daughter I would have likely ripped her a new one in front of everyone and asked her what is funny.
Overall the entire school seems to be very absent of compassion. At 5 years old, in a school specifically for young children ages 4-8 years old… my daughter gets laughed at when she draws blood? I got more compassion from my high school teachers at 18 years old.
The next thing is the level of professionalism. I get letter’s and flyer’s all the time telling me one thing and the next. Coming from an institution which is responsible for the education of children, I expect them to know the difference from things like there, their, and they’re. Or at least proof read so something makes sense.
Since it’s a private school my daughter has to wear a uniform. I asked to see a picture of these uniforms, and they gave me a xerox’d document with two boys and a girl on the front in black and white, which looked like it was originally 5 times smaller and they stretched it to make it fit their document. One of the boys was just a pixelated black silhouette of what a boy should be. Since this was of no help I grabbed a year book sitting on the counter and found a picture of the entire school. All the kids in the front, wearing nothing but their uniforms, the teachers in the back wearing jackets and scarves. I mention this to the principal and she says, “well we had to organize the photo and the kids were outside for only 5 minutes”. How does one organize a gaggle of school children to come outside near a playground, without said children? Stand there and say “yup, this is the playground”? This should have been my first clue.
Lastly is the nickel and diming me left and right. I pay $916 per month, since Kindergarten started on the 15th of the month, you would think that I would get that amount discounted or even the following month also due on the 15th. No, I have to pay that amount on August 15th, then again on September 1st. Which would be 100 times more acceptable if we knew before the 15th of August!
Then being told that everything else is taken care of with our $600 deposit, and we don’t have to buy anything like crayons, scissors, glue, etc… only to be surprised with mandatory scholastic magazine subscriptions, field trip t-shirts, monogrammed jackets and sweaters, and other things. Not that the $5 per year magazine subscription is going to bankrupt me, but telling me all the school supplies are covered in my deposit then coming at me for something that should have been included with that? It just makes me feel that they aren’t organized and their only priority is fattening their bank accounts.
I’m not asking for much. Just get your shit together and stop surprising me with something new to buy, at least pretend that you care about the welfare of my daughter, and before you contact me proof read…. twice! Look like someone I would be happy taking my money every month for the sake of my daughter.
Before I go off I want to make it clear that I’m drunk and have no clue why I am even here. Other than the fact that my incessant posting on twitter is likely pissing some people off and I’m sane (not necessarily sober) enough to know that I should be here instead of there. Or at least long enough for this buzz to subside for that rational thinking portion of my brain to regain consciousness. (Drunk as fuck and still using big words, go me [or go google for being an awesome spellcheck])
Now I am faced with the connundrum of finding something to write about. Something about this glowing device in front of me just engages me to the point of having to write. I can’t code for shit, I can’t draw to save my life, but when I write its like I’m possessed and I can’t stop. This sounds like a blessing, except I do it all on this confounded blog which is 100% public (except for a few IP addresses which insist I’m a faggot).
Why can’t I use this need to just… “GO!” towards something more productive. I’ve thought about writing a book, but never though about anything that could fill one. Its like a blessed curse that I have this ability to write in long-winded enough terms to go on with out any means of stopping, yet never really saying anything. Some call this free-writing, but I call it a troll magnet. It doesn’t matter if you write the ever so famous “roses are red” poem, you’re going to attract a troll. Someone who can’t seem to find anything better to say than something negative and hurtful.
Unfortunate to me, I’m softskinned and take everything to heart. I grew up going through highschool being bullied every single day, having my books and contents of my bag dumped and scattered across the locker alcove, and should be used to the abuse. Although sad to be… I’ve learned nothing. On a plus side though I do know how the internet works more than the average bear and can track that person down and at the very least find a real name and address. (or at least as long as they aren’t as smart as me)
I don’t want to rant about my past though. For the most part I’ve buried it. I’m just ranting long enough to come up with a real topic to write about… oddly I think i have one now. But it won’t be a public one, at least not yet.
Loving spotify and this new collection of dubstep MP3’s I downloaded from demonoid.
My English professor (who is also anti-war) asked me to write something about my experience in the Army, as a side project for a poetry thing she does. I gave her this:
I arrived in Korea straight out of my Army training, and wanting to explore this new world, I ventured out on my own and easily got lost my first week there. Trying to find my way back to familiar civilization an old man likely in his 80′s saw me and tried to talk to me. It took him a minute for him to stand and walk the few feet towards me, and the amount of effort he was putting into getting my attention, I was going to let him have it. He knew no English, and I knew no Korean. After a minute or two of trying to communicate, he holds his hands up as if he was holding a gun and made shooting noises followed by gestures as if I was the gun. Understanding that he was asking me if I was in the Army, I said yes and he started to cry, grabbed my hand and said “thank you”. Possibly the only English words he knew.
Several months later I went out with some friends to a Korean bar in the downtown area near our post. We were causing no problems and enjoying our time off with each others company. A group of men in their early 20′s saw us and made a b-line straight toward us. At first I thought they wanted to just poke and have some fun with us, then without any warning one of them slaps my friend in the face and screams “go home”.
There are two sides to war. The oppression and the violence. Those who argue about war, usually only argue regarding the violence, which makes sense to some degree. The irreplaceable is lost forever in war, such as people, artifacts, sometimes even culture. We also tend to think that these things only survive our own lifetimes. In 100 years we will be gone, yet freedom will still be here. War is tragic, I agree… but freedom is simply that important.
I know that the actions of fighting and killing is bad. But I couldn’t be more proud to have served, despite all the negative feedback I’ve seen. Maybe its the mentality that they install in me during basic training or the “team spirit” I developed on my own along the way. Regardless of what it is, I will never forget that old man struggling to tell me “thank you”.
From everything that I have read online, past experience, and some slight observation I thought my poison ivy was getting better. Severe cases I’ve seen have included large boils and my lesions were starting to subside. Yesterday morning changed all that when I woke up at about 3am with my entire face swollen to the point that I could barely see. I had only gone to bed a few hours early so I thought it might be a response to the allergy medicine “Claritin” which I had taken early for the first time ever. Wouldn’t that be ironic, being allergic to an allergy medicine. Although I wouldn’t be the first and my symptoms do match common allergy reactions to Claritin. I had also put some new lotion on my face which I thought could have been rubbed off by the pillow and redeposited in my eyes during my sleep.
[caption id=”attachment_1877” align=”alignleft” width=”135” caption=”3am comparison shot”][/caption]
I took a shower, snapped a pic of my face for comparison later, and went to sleep on the sofa with a clean blanket. The follow morning showed no change and after closer examination to the rest of me, I had a rash breaking out across almost my entire body now. My arms being just as bad as my face, swollen to the point where my skin felt stretched to its limit, almost like my wife’s stomach when she was pregnant.
My wife is Korean, and my daughter who is only 5 years old made the distinction that my eyes look like hers. My wife also poked fun at this as she had been telling me all week to go to the hospital and I refused until I woke up like this, then insisted. She claimed that there is nothing wrong with my eyes and that she always has her eyes this far open.
After finally dealing with all the racial jokes, I managed to find the nearest VA hospital which was in Mather, about 45 minutes for me. For all my experience with VA clinics in general, they very refreshing. It felt like a real hospital that had no affiliation with the military.
[caption id=”attachment_1878” align=”alignright” width=”158” caption=”My wife holding my hand”]
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The only thing that showed any relation to the military was when the nurse made a comment about how my IV works I told him I knew all about it and he immediately asked if I had taken the “Combat Lifesaver” course in the military, which I have. It’s not a fancy course, takes about a week and really only teaches you some basics and how to bandage a sucking chest wound and give an IV. We give IV’s to each other and I got pair with some guy that was so nervous it took 6 tries before he was successful.
I had my own room, although it was roughly the size of my bedroom closet. Every time the nurse came in he had to kick my wife into the hall and take her chair with her. As far as a visit to the ER and despite the other circumstances involved it was one of my nicer visits.
I had about 8 files of blood taken. 2 of them were done through a vein on my hand during a second visit an hour or so after the first. I got a shot of Benedryl (maybe) in my ass. An large bag of saline through IV. And a very small amount of steroids, which I never want again. Within seconds of the steroids entering my body I felt a pins and needle surge through out my entire body that lasted only a few seconds, but was unusually painful. I also think he may have given me some prednisone, but not sure. There were a lot of things going around to keep tract very well, and he had to have about a dozen or so syringes, viles, and little jars of medicine.
Overall the visit was about 6 hours, with maybe a 1-2 hour wait. I passed out for most of it, which I’m told was due to the Benedryl. I even think my wife got a little sleep but I was so groggy its hard to tell. She was a sweetheart and held my hand most of the time…. then I introduced her to Angry Birds on her iPhone.
I left with two prescriptions, prednisone (3 pills, 3 times a day) and diphenhydramine (1 pill, three times a day). After 3 days I reduce the prednisone to 2 pills for 3 more days, then one pill. So 9 days total, which I hope does the trick because I have summer classes starting exactly one week from today.
Below you can see that the swelling in my face has gone down dramatically. For starters you can see my eyes, although it still looks like I got punched. My skin is also starting to peel, mainly around where I shave so it looks like nasty face dandruff. Either case is enough to keep me home, and my wife has already made arrangements for her mother to send our daughter to school instead of me. Bottom line, no more camping for me, and getting myself a big poster to help me learn how to identify poison ivy/oak.
[caption id=”attachment_1879” align=”alignnone” width=”225” caption=”The morning after”]
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Over the Memorial Day weekend I took the family camping. For my daughter it was her first camping trip, while the wife says she went camping in Korea with the girl scouts, I’m claiming this is her first camping trip as well. Other than dealing with some douchebag driver on the way there. It went rather smoothly.
My daughter carried around a bag of marshmallows the entire time and couldn’t wait to break them open. So I set off on a short hike to get a couple sticks suitable to roast them over the fire. I did this on Sunday night, and everything is fine until Tuesday morning. I’m guessing (mainly cause I’m the only one) that gathering those sticks I encountered some poison ivy. Or poison oak, why I haven’t learned the difference is beyond me, as this also isn’t my first encounter.
This isn’t my first encounter, but it is possibly the worse. Reading several other websites it sounds like your body becomes more and more allergic as you get exposed to it more often. Apparently the first time your skin come in contact you have no reaction at all. The allergy is developed over time.
Below I will record my progress. I know some of you believe that I should go to the hospital, but I feel that they can’t do much more than I am already doing, and with poison ivy its mostly a waiting game. My medical is also through the VA right now and because I make to much money I still have to pay something although supposedly discounted. Free or not, the VA is not the best place to go for something like this. I went for an ear infection a couple years ago and was forced to wait 6 hours for them to give me some ear drops.
At the moment I am using Technu Extreme scrub, which is AWESOME! Mainly because it’s like mechanic’s soap and has tiny grains of sand which is almost like scratching. So if it gets to the point where I can’t bear the itch and have to scratch I break this bottle out and give myself a treatment. From there I have a small tube of Aveeno 1% Hydrocortisone, anti-itch cream.
I’ve heard that taking allergy medication such as Claritin or Benadryl allergy will also help with the recovery time. Which I’ve already spent over $20 all of this and don’t want to spend much more. Wife is already disgusted with the amount of over-the-counter drugs we have in the house, especially since they don’t exist in Korea. Even Tylenol is a prescription in Korea. So not sure if I’m going to pick some up later or not.
[no pic was taken]
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[caption id=”attachment_1858” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Left Arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1859” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Right arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1860” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”My Nose”] |
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[caption id=”attachment_1861” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Left Arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1862” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Right Arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1863” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”My Nose”] |
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[caption id=”attachment_1861” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Left Arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1862” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Right Arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1863” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”My Nose”] |
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[caption id=”attachment_1861” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Left Arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1862” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”Right Arm”] |
[caption id=”attachment_1863” align=”alignnone” width=”152” caption=”My Entire Face Now”] |
More to come as this progresses.
This just has awesome written all over it on a number of levels. The concept isn’t new, but they way they incorporated it into this piece you would think that it was.
I’m not much for the whole weeaboo Japanese scene, but this video did blow my mind. The audio does bother me a little, and wish they had put the camera closer to the projector which would have made the 1080p worth while. Then again in the format it is in does give you a better understanding of how it was created and that its not just a bunch of “Hollywood flair”.
I have tried a few Korean dishes in the past and most are pretty simple so not much of a challenge. Today I will be making bibimbap (비 빔밥), translation - mix rice. The recipe I will be following will be the one in the video below.
Those that want to know more about what bibimbap is, here is the wikipedia on it. (With a few revisions of my own)
Bibimbap is a popular Korean dish. The word literally means “mixed rice.” Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables) and gochujang (chili pepper paste). A fried egg and sliced meat (usually beef) are common additions. The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating. It can be served either cold or hot.
Vegetables commonly used in bibimbap include julienned cucumber, zucchini, mu (daikon), mushrooms, doraji (bellflower root), and gim, as well as spinach, soybean sprouts, and gosari (bracken fern stems). Dubu (tofu), either plain or sautéed, or a leaf of lettuce may be added, or chicken or seafood may be substituted for beef. For visual appeal, the vegetables are often placed so that adjacent colors complement each other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibimbap
I will update this post throughout the day to progress my status with it. As of right now…. I need to visit the Korean market!
* Cooked rice
* a package of bean sprouts
* a bunch of spinach
* 2 small size of zucchinis
* 5-7 Shiitake mushrooms
* fern brakes (kosari)
* 200 grams of ground beef (about half a pound)
* 1 small carrot, eggs
* soy sauce, hot pepper paste, garlic, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and vegetable oil
