Disappointment

There is a Music, Theatre and Dance department at my University and they give representations. I really enjoy arts and so I try to go and see as many shows as I can...it hasn't been too many so far, but it seems like every year, when the professional Modern dancers come to give a representation I babysit...which upsets me. So this time, I asked the mom of the kids (13 and 11 year old) if she thought that they would be interested in going to see the show with me. Even though I doubted that it would work, I thought that it was worth trying.

At about 3pm on Saturday afternoon the mom called me and asked me if I could still get tickets...I was really happy and ready to enjoy the show with the kids and being paid for it!

When I got to their house the parents told me that we would not go after all because one of the kids was working on a project and she would not be back on time....They probably noticed the disappointment on my face and asked me if it "messed up my plans!" which I thought was ironic since my original job was to babysit after all.

So once again I wasn't able to see the show...maybe I’ll get to see it next year...

Future

I had a discussion on Sunday with Husby that started when he asked me: "What do you think that you'll do once you graduate?" Excellent question!

I currently work in a little office of about 10 employees. I started working there 2 years ago. It is a great place for me right now because I don't need to use my brain too much, and since I go to school full time, I prefer to save my brain power for that. I really like all the people that I work with, which is great.

I am working on a business degree right now, and Husby is worried that I won't have much experience once I graduate, which is not good for my resume. My problem is that I am in the Business School, not because I love it, and I dream of working in an office for the rest of my life, and I just can't wait to start my own business, but because I didn't know that I wanted to into the health care field until I had already started. Don't get me wrong I don't hate it, I in fact enjoy learning all these things, but I just can't picture myself working in an office and be happy.

The first answer that came out was: "I'll just ask for a huge raise, and keep working there." I just picture myself not doing much and making lots of money, and doulaing on the side...not a bad thing is it? Then Husby mentionned Midwifery, and asked me when I thought that I would become a midwife. The thing is I don't think that it is feasible to be a midwife with young children at home. I don't mind waiting for a while before becoming a midwife; there are a lot of things that I could do in the mean time to keep me connected to the birth community, such as becoming a doula, a lactation consultant, a child birth educator...

What about being a nurse then? I could do a nursing degree soon after I graduate, which would allow me to learn a lot, and it will take me a step closer to becoming a midwife. But I have 2 issues:
- Could I handle being a nurse?
- Do I want to be a Registered Nurse Midwife or a Direct Entry Midwife?

Could I handle being a nurse? Two things worry me. First of all I am worried that as a nursing student I will end up in an ER, or some place where I'll see some terribly sad things...and I would just freak out. Ideally I would be a Labor and Delivery nurse, but I know that I would have to be exposed to all sorts of things before being able to choose my field. Then, when I do get to be a L&D nurse, I will still have to see uneccessary interventions being done to laboring women. This part is not as bad, as it would allow me to be the "good" one around the woman, the one who listens, answers questions, and tries to comfort her, but it would probably be REALLY frustrating.

Do I want to be a Direct Entry Midwife then, and only deal with heatlhy women who have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies? Being a Direct Entry Midwife would mean that I would not be able to practice in some states, it would probably mean that I would not have the exposure that comes with being a nurse.

There are good pros and cons to any decision to be made. I do have to think hard about that. One thing I know is that I am REALLY attracted by birth and everything around it. I know that I will be involved in it, somehow. I also know that my business degree is a great thing to fall back on, and to make money while I figure out exactly what path I will take.

Lots to think about...

End of Internet

I have found the end of the Internet!!

Overheard Discussion

I was at Wallmart yesterday after work, and I was walking through the aisles, I heard a lady saying: "21 hours...it took me 21 hours and after 18 hours I couldn't take it anymore." I knew right then and there what she was talking about. She kept going: "I asked for the epidural, but I got it too late and it didn't do anything." The lady who was talking was a Wallmart employee chatting with fellow employees. As I was walking away I heard her ask her co-worker: "Do you think that you would ask for the epidural?" At this moment I turned around to look at them, and it didn't seem like the lady who was asked this question was pregnant, I just heard a faint: "I don't know..."

Why do women feel the need to scare pregnant women about giving birth? I am aware of the fact that reality is only as real as our experiences, but why the need to add fear about what a first time mom is about to experience. I guess it's only natural to want to talk about our experiences. I do think though, that only good vibes should be allowed around pregnant women. Let them experience it. Talk about your traumatizing birthing experience with a non-pregnant woman...there are a lot of us!

Bamboo

Do you see the bamboo? and the little yellow flower next to the title of this post? I didn't think so...I think that my template is broken :-(

Five Years

Today it has been 5 years since the first day I landed in this country! I had just arrived in New Jersey somewhere....in a hotel with about 200 other au pairs from all over the world. I had just left my family and my boyfriend of 5 years. I was really excited about what was going to happen next! We stayed at the hotel for 3 days where we had meetings after meetings to teach us as much as possible about the US and what was going to happen to us during the year ahead.

I met Husby less than 2 months after I arrived...the rest is history!! Coming here was a really good thing for me. On top of the fact that I met Husby, I started going to college. I was rather lost when I was in France. After graduating from high School I had no idea what studies I wanted to pursue (heck i'm still not sure!) Except that you can't just go with the flow in France and take General Education classes until something clicks and you make a decision. You have to know what you want to study when you get out of High School and start the program the next September. If you happen to realize that you don't like the program, you have just lost one whole year of studies, as the next "semester" will start the following September!

So I started working. I worked at McDonald's for a while, then I was a cashier in a huge grocery store...I was trying to figure what the heck I could do with my life and the idea of having a day care at home crossed my mind...as you can see I didn't have much enthusiasm. One day my boyfriend of the time asked me: "I know that you are not happy...what would make you happy? What would you like to do?" We knew a girl who had been au pair for a year in the US and she just loved it, so my answer was simple "I want to go to the US and be an au pair" He didn't expect that, but nonetheless let me fill up all the forms and get ready to leave.

I have to admit that I did not miss my family or my country at first. It was like a vacation and I was enjoying myself. The family that I worked for sucked, but other than that I was partying away and spending a LOT of time with Husby! When the end of the year came closer, I was ready to move on. I was done being an au pair, I felt like I was wasting my time. I started to go to a Community College as soon as I was done to start taking classes even though I was still not quite sure what I was heading toward.

I really have to acknowledge my in-laws without whom this would more than likely not have been possible. They agreed to sponsor me when I applied for an international student visa.

Husby has been really supportive and he instilled some values in me that I didn't have before meeting him. He pushes me to try harder and I now believe that I could probably achieve a lot of things that I set my mind to. I will be receiving my Bachelor degree in Management Information System a little after 5 years being in this country, which I can say that I am proud of, knowing that English is not my native language (It will have taken me exactly 4 years to graduate while working at least 35 hours a week the whole time....I'm proud of that!)

I am not by any mean saying that it was always easy. First of all being far from my family was fun for a while, but even though I made the decision to live abroad, I started missing them pretty quickly, and I wish I could live closer to them. The other thing that is hard is being a foreigner. I am happy about the fact that I never had any problems with anybody because of where I come from (except that my country was criticized by a professor and an entire class without them knowing that I was from there...but that's another story) even when there was tension between France and the US because of the was in Iraq. What I refer to when I say being a foreigner, is all the paperwork that has to be filled up, and all the extra money that I have to pay to take classes, and the couple of times when I couldn't leave the country because my paperwork was being processed...(while my green card was being processed I was "stuck" here for one year, while my family was just behind the borders in Canada!)

The last five years went by really quickly. I wonder what I would be up to if I hadn't had the courage to leave by myself to a foreign country...One thing is for sure, I am glad I did, I am happy to be where I am right now.

Latest Books

The two last books I have read are Jamais sans ma fille (in English: Not Without My Daughter) and Et si c'etait vrai (in English: If Only it Were True). I put the titles in both French and English because I read them in French.

"Jamais sans ma fille" by Betty Mahmoody is the true story of an American woman who married an Iranian Doctor. One day she agrees to go to Iran to visit her husband's family, even though she is worried that something bad will happen to her and her daughter. It was supposed to be a 10-day vacation, but her husband kept her and her daughter "prisoners". She could not ask for the help of the American Embassy, because she was regarded as Iranian since she had married an Iranian man. It took her a year and a half to find a way to go back to the US with her daughter.
This story was really interesting because it describes the way Iranian people live. I am aware of the fact that it is described by a woman who is there against her will so the description might be biased. It seems like their way of life is just so totally different from the Western way of life.

The story is also really stressful as it happens during the war between Iran and Irak. A lot of times, the alarms would sound in the city, and planes would start throwing bombs over people's head. It does help realize how lucky we are to be living in a place where we don't have to experience such traumatizing things. A couple of days after reading this book, I actualy dreamed that I was shot at while being in a car covered by a drape so I couldn't see where the shot was coming from....not a good dream!

The second book is definitely lighter. "Et si c'etait vrai" from Marc Levy, tells the story of a woman who has a car accident and ends up in the coma. But that's not it! Even though her body lies inert at the hospital, her soul travels around, and as she hangs out in the apartment where she lived before the accident, the new guy who rents the apartment sees her, and is the first and the only one to be able to see her.

It is a realy sweet and romantic comedy, that has a lot of interesting comments about life. One of my favorite part is when Lauren tells Arthur: "Imagine that you won a lottery, and the price would be what follows. Every morning a bank account would be open with $86,400 for you. But there are 2 rules to follow. The first one is that anything that you haven't spent during the day would disappear at night, you can't cheat, you can't transfer the money to another account, you can only spend it, but every morning when you wake up, there is a new account for you with $86,400 for the day. The second rule is that the bank can stop the game without telling you: at any time they can tell you that it's over, that they close the account, and that there will not be anymore money. What would you do?" After telling her what he would do with the money Lauren explains: "We all have this magic bank, it is time! Every morning when we wake up, we have a credit of 86,400 minutes for the day, and when we go to bed at night, what we didn't live during that day islost, yesterday has passed. Every morning this magic starts again, we have a credit of 86,400 seconds of life, and we play with this unbendable rule: the bank can close our account at any time, without warning us: at any time, life can stop." (I'm sorry it seems to be a recurring theme lately...)

I thought that the analogy was realy interesting, and so true. Trying to enjoy life as much as possible is a good goal to strive for I think.

Busy Week

I am e-x-h-a-u-s-t-e-d. I had a really busy week with 2 mid-terms and a few meetings with classmates to work on group projects. I litteraly have group projects with every single class this semester. As I am sure you know, group projects can be hard to handle, depending on your classmates. I am happy to report that it seems like the midterms went well.

Now I am going to pretend that I am awake all day at work, and just patiently wait for 5pm to arrive...wish me luck!

Worries

WARNING...NOT a happy post.

I just learned on Friday that my boss has a lump on his throat. His uncle got throat cancer at exactly my boss' age, and his father did to...needless to say the chances for the tumor being malignant are high. My boss is 38 and has a 10 year old step daughter, and a 2 year old daughter. He acts as if he's not concerned, he says that if God decided that he should go early, then so be it. I wonder how he really feels. I sure can't imagine how it feels to be in his shoes. He is going to have a biopsy next week. I am really worried.

Death scares me. Let me rephrase that, the idea of people close to me dying scare me. My father's death a year and a half ago has been really hard for me. It was totally unexpected, and I was far from him and wasn't able to go back to France on time for his funeral. I was really close to him. I miss him enormously.

Husby dreamed that he died about a month ago. It was not painful he said..he just realized that he had died. The feeling of emptiness that I felt when my father passed instantly came back to me. I could almost touch it. I became really upset, I had to calm myself down and remind myself that he was healthy and right there next to me. I also can't stand suspens when I am Instant Messaging anymore; yesterday my sister told me that she had something to tell me...that it was probably not the right time because it wasn't happy news...I was just dying..(no pun intended) What she told me was indeed not good since it was related to her grieving about my dad, but I thought "something happened to my mom, my brother, grandma...(fill in the blank)"

Death is as natural as birth, and I know that my dad is happier than he was when he was alive. But the feeling of loss is really hard.

I really hope that my boss is fine, I know that there is no need to worry until the diagnosis comes back since there is nothing that anybody can do at this point. Sorry for sounding so down...I'll put an update on his health status.

Missed Opportunity

You know how it feels when you didn't do something when you could have done it, and later regret not having done it? (I did learn that asking questions like that arouse the interest of the reader...I just need to practice and get better at it!)

Well today I was having lunch with Husby and a couple of friends and one of the ladies that I used to babysit for walked in the resaturant. I was kind of trying to hide from her and now that I think about it I don't really know why. Maybe I was shy? I haven't seen her in 3 years and seeing her reminded me of the time I spent with her son R. She also has a daughter, E, but I didn't really get along with her.

R was 3 years old when I started babysitting him. He has big brown eyes with dark hair, and some people thought that he was my son, since we have the same features. I had such a good connection with him. Many times he ran out of his house crying when I was backing up from the driveway, screaming "You didn't give me a kiss!!" He was the cutest and sweetest boy. I didn't babysit his sister as much because she was older and spent her days at school, while he only went to school until 11.30.

Their mom let me go because her husband changed his work schedule and could go pick the kids up from school everyday. She told me that I could still work until I found another job, and gave me the name of another lady whose children go to the same school as R and T.

The last time I saw R was at his school, while visiting with the other kids I was now babysitting. R was excited to see me, and he was as sweet as ever. It was prayer time in the Catholic school so I sat down on the floor with R on my lap. The teacher started her prayer saying "Thank you God for having all the moms, dads, sisters, and brothers reunited here with us today" and R to scream "and babysitters!!!"

So today I had the opportunity to ask about him, and I didn't. I feel so stupid and I am disappointed. I hope that if I ever run into his mom again I'll have the bright idea to stop and say hello...

Nice dinner and Lots of Books!

I feel bad that I haven't updated the Internet about my birthday, I was too busy getting free Textbooks*.

To start the evening I went with my co-workers for Happy hour in a bar/restaurant close to the office. It was a lot of fun. I am very lucky to work with such a crazy crowd...it is a small office and they really feel like friends rather than co-workers (well most of the time anyway).

Later dear Husby took me to the Whitney for my birthday! It is an old mansion that was turned into a nice restaurant in downtown Detroit. It was like having dinner in a museum. I had never been in a restaurant where the waiter takes the napkin from the table and sets it on your lap! Really fancy, with a lot of antic furniture and old paintings and sculptures. We were so full after dinner that we ordered a Creme Brulee to go. We laughed when we opened the package later on and the creme brulee looked like it had been set on a timer to explode, and...well the timer had went off! The creme was all flat and sideways, but Ohhh so good! It had some berries on top and a lot of caramel...

Then on Saturday we went to my in-laws and since I had told them previously that I would like a book they asked me which book I would like. So I opened my Amazon WishList and told them the ones that I would really like to have...my Father-in-Law ended up giving me a check for the amount that would allow me to buy ALL the books that I really want. I thought that that was so very sweet of him.

Needless to say that I am very happy, I had a very nice 25th birthday, thanks everybody for being so nice.

*I received the second highest score for my stats mid-term, and my professor gave me a Statistics Textbook to congratulate me....I AM OFFICIALLY A NERD! ( Although I am probably going to resell it...I am not nerdy enough to read a Statistics textbook for fun!)

Happy Birthday to Me!!

Yes, you are right, I am so conceded that I wish myself a Happy Birthday! And I would like to thank my mom for the pain that she endured to bring me into this world 25 years ago, and making me into this wonderful woman that I am...(hey it's my birthday somebody has to do the job!)
I am looking forward to see where Husby will be taking me tonight. I trust that it will be great, because he really knows how to make me feel special.

Gotta go, I have a special day to enjoy!

Louna!

Here she is! This is our Louna.

We have had her for a year now, and she is really the sweetest thing. She loves to cuddle, and give kisses. She is really independent, and she has escaped a few times. The best thing about her is that she can be really active if we take her to the dog park, and run around with other dogs for hours, or when a lazy day occurs, she is happy to just lay and cuddle all day.
She is the best, and we love her very much...how could you not?

Lego

Thanks to Kyra I created my own mini lego! I made it so that it has some of my characteristics:
The purple hair is for my craziness...Husby can attest.
The horns for my bitchiness....see above.
The paint and brush for my artistic side.
The stethoscope for my Midwifery dreams.
And the skirt for my sexiness!!
Go try it out at mini-mizer.

Damn Squats!

I am taking an African Dance class, and I really like it. Sunday was the second time I went and now I can barely get up from a chair, even less from a toilet seat (I had never really noticed how much lower the toilet seats are compare to a chair).

I have to admit that it was my own stupid fault though. The skinny teacher showed us a move that required doing a squat. She was not just doing a little bending of the legs nuuuuuuu, she was going all the way down to the floor and back up. So with my quest to perfection, I started to do like exactly her: go all the doooooown to the floor, and back up. After doing that for about 1,000 times, I couldn't walk anymore and I felt realy stupid, especially today at work, when you could hear a little painful moan everytime I had to stand up.

I did learn something though, it's that it is a lot easier to go to the bathroom for a man after doing squats, than for a woman!

SRPB

I started having really bad headaches everytime I woke up during the week-end about a year ago. At that time i lived at my in-laws. I can tell you that it is not nice to wake up every Saturday morning and feel like your head is going to explode! So I went to see my doctor and I had a CAT scan of my head done, to make sure that everything was ok in there, and the results came back negative (their machines are not strong enough I tell you...how can they possibly say that everything is fine in my brain??!) The doctor didn't think that they were migraines, so she prescribed me some pills to take when my head hurt.

Then suddenly they stopped. It so happened that they stopped not too long after we moved out from the in-laws, and I have to admit that I thought there might have been a relationship...Well guess what....they have come back, and the ONLY thing that has changed between the time that I had them, to the time that I didnt' have them, to now is... school. See, I took the summer off from school and my headaches stopped right away. I, of course, didn't make the connection until I went back to school and the headaches started again. The other symptom is that I am absolutely drained. I get home at 5pm on Friday night and I just want to sleep, which was not the case when I wasn't going to school.

So I have a case of SRPB (School Related Pain in the Brain). It is not the most pleasant disease, and I am pretty sure that I am the only one known to have contracted it. I guess it'll go away eventually...when I graduate...