So it's finally starting to hit me that I'll be going back to school in the fall. Objectively, I had accepted it as soon as I got my admissions letter, but I hadn't thought about the realities of it. The chief reality, of course, is an overwhelming feeling of intellectual inferiority. The more educated I get, the stupider I feel. Which I suppose is a sign that I'm becoming more objective and intellectual, as the true intellectual is able to admit they know nothing. Or something like that. I'm back to the way I felt 2 years ago when I started my masters, namely "what the fuck am I doing here, and who the fuck let me in here in the first place?" Pardonnez-moi pour le francais, but you get my drift. I wish the other people I know doing doctorates weren't so smart. Why can't there be some ditzes getting PhD's so I don't feel so alone? I mean, I can't be the only mental klutz to pursue higher education. (And good God, am I mentally clumsy. For example, my to-do list for the afternoon went as follows:
1) Follow up with financial aid office.
2) Look over list of required courses.
3) Pick courses.
4) Realize the courses I picked are all held at the same time.
5) Pick different courses I don't care about, such as "Theology and Hermeneutics".
6) Find a dictionary. Look up "hermeneutics".
7) Realize I can't sign up for courses until I pay my enrollment deposit.
8) Look at bank balance. Bang head on desk, burst into tears.)
Is it just me, or are these not the actions of someone who deserves to be called "doctor"? Maybe I'll just change my first name to doctor, then everyone will be forced to call me that and I won't have to spend the next 5 years feeling like the brainless wonder.
(Sidebar: I use the "change my first name to doctor" pun all the time. It always gets a laugh. I'm waiting for the day that someone finally realizes it's a quote from "Sleepless in Seattle", and that I am not only not witty, but don't even pick obscure movies from which to steal puns.)
Please tell me someone else out there feels as mentally unequipped for higher education as I do.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Playing That Funky Music
I'm in a funk today. (Nothing like the funk I was in last fall, thank God!) But still. I'm playing that funky music, white boy. I think more than anything I just miss having a group of friends. Don't get me wrong-I've got friends here. And I've got Matt, which is amazing. But I don't have a solid group of friends who always hang out together and think of each other as family. I think this might be the first time in my life I haven't had that. I totally get why people say it's so hard to make friends after you graduate. Everyone works, gets tired early, and wants to go home to their significant other. And I'm DEFINITELY no exception to that. I know once I start school again, things will be better. True, there are only four incoming students in my program, but I can always join the graduate students' association or something. And I'll be auditioning for the shows that Georgetown Law School puts on every year. And I'll be flying to Miami once or twice a month to choreograph a show. (P.S. I got hired to choreograph Chicago in Miami...way excited about that!) So I'm sure it will get better. But right now, I just wish I were with my friends.
I wish I was in Miami helping Manny move, and helping Shana plan her wedding, and helping Arianne and Kevin get ready for their little girl to arrive. I wish I was in Dublin sitting around with Fiona watching Supernatural and drinking wine, and in London eating burgers with Adnan, and drinking with Clovis, and dancing with Chris, and eating ice cream with Alicia and Joe, and sitting on the couch in PJs watching a movie with Alicia Crane. I wish I was in Tennessee with Grace helping her babysit Parker. And in a million other places with a million other friends. It makes me sad that I can't be all these places at once. I wish they would just perfect teleporting, already!
I wish I was in Miami helping Manny move, and helping Shana plan her wedding, and helping Arianne and Kevin get ready for their little girl to arrive. I wish I was in Dublin sitting around with Fiona watching Supernatural and drinking wine, and in London eating burgers with Adnan, and drinking with Clovis, and dancing with Chris, and eating ice cream with Alicia and Joe, and sitting on the couch in PJs watching a movie with Alicia Crane. I wish I was in Tennessee with Grace helping her babysit Parker. And in a million other places with a million other friends. It makes me sad that I can't be all these places at once. I wish they would just perfect teleporting, already!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Doughnut Hole
So this one's been coming for a while. Yes, friends, it is time for a rant about US health care.
I never realized how horrendously awful health care in the US was until I moved to another country. Now, I know the NHS has some problems, but the point is that every citizen (or visitor) to a country has a fundamental right to at least basic and emergency health care. I thought the US had a decent system in place. I really did. (Chalk it up to upper-middle-class naivete.) I was under my parents' insurance until I graduated college, and then I immediately got a full-time job with health benefits, after which I moved to another country where I didn't need insurance. Then I moved back to the US.
Before I rant, I will say this-I understand how a person could not see the problems with the health care system in this country. Much of the population is working-class union members. Mr. Bob Everyman who joined the Steel Worker's Union (or whatever) right out of high school, worked for 40 years, retired, and had union insurance for when Mrs. Everyman got pregnant, little Johnny Everyman fell off his bike, and little Suzie Everyman had her tonsils out, probably sees no problem with the system. And I get that. It works for most people.
But then there's the doughnut hole-the 16% of US citizens who receive no health benefits and are ineligible for government aid. I am a prime example. I work 3 jobs at upwards of 65 hours a week, but as they're all part-time, offer me no insurance. I applied for private insurance, which is slightly cost-prohibitive, but I am fortunate enough that I can afford to pay for basic insurance. Like most people, I am a generally healthy adult-I have asthma, which is an easily managed and fairly inexpensive condition. Otherwise, I have no health problems to speak of. I just need insurance to get 2 monthly prescriptions and see my doctor twice a year. Sounds simple, right?
Think again. First and foremost, the fact that there is no government health program for people who earn too much for welfare is a huge problem. As the insurance companies are independent, they can do things like what was recently done to me: I applied for insurance. A full month later, I was approved. Then, a week after I had already paid my first installment, I received a letter telling me that due to my health condition, the cost of my insurance would multiply by 4. A week after that, I received another letter saying that the insurance would still cost 4x the amount originally quoted to me, but they would not cover any syptoms or medications related to asthma, allergies, pulminary disease, chest pain, or cold and flu. Namely, all the symptoms and dangers I need insurance for. Now tell me-how can that possibly be legal?
I stated above that I understand how some people cannot see the problems with health insurance. But the fact that cases like this (and infinitely worse) have come to light in the news time and time again, and the GOP refuses to acknowledge the problem, claiming that a public health care option is "socialism"? Give me a #$%&ing break! There's a difference between socialism and caring for your citizens. Buy a bleeping dictionary and look up "socialism", for God's sake! Because the GOP refuses to allow Obama to pass a public option bill, I now have to drive 3 hours and back to see someone for 10 minutes so that they will write me a prescription, and then pay upwards of $200/month just to get a couple of inhalers. And I'm lucky-the only reason I was able to find a doctor at all was because my boyfriend's mother works in a doctor's office and could get me in without either insurance or having to pay a few hundred dollars for the privilege of having a prescription written for me. Imagine if I wasn't so fortunate!
Something else that rankled me-yesterday Congress overturned a law stating that an employee who is fired or layed off can remain on the company's health insurance for 6 months. Their reason? There is no system in place to help the unemployed, and it's unfair for a guy who's fired to have insurance while his neighbor next door who can't find a job in the first place has no access to health care. So the solution is not to give aid to the guy without, but to take away the benefits of the other guy? What are we, kids on a playground fighting over a piece of chalk?!?!?!
Am I the only one who is seriously pissed off about all this?
I never realized how horrendously awful health care in the US was until I moved to another country. Now, I know the NHS has some problems, but the point is that every citizen (or visitor) to a country has a fundamental right to at least basic and emergency health care. I thought the US had a decent system in place. I really did. (Chalk it up to upper-middle-class naivete.) I was under my parents' insurance until I graduated college, and then I immediately got a full-time job with health benefits, after which I moved to another country where I didn't need insurance. Then I moved back to the US.
Before I rant, I will say this-I understand how a person could not see the problems with the health care system in this country. Much of the population is working-class union members. Mr. Bob Everyman who joined the Steel Worker's Union (or whatever) right out of high school, worked for 40 years, retired, and had union insurance for when Mrs. Everyman got pregnant, little Johnny Everyman fell off his bike, and little Suzie Everyman had her tonsils out, probably sees no problem with the system. And I get that. It works for most people.
But then there's the doughnut hole-the 16% of US citizens who receive no health benefits and are ineligible for government aid. I am a prime example. I work 3 jobs at upwards of 65 hours a week, but as they're all part-time, offer me no insurance. I applied for private insurance, which is slightly cost-prohibitive, but I am fortunate enough that I can afford to pay for basic insurance. Like most people, I am a generally healthy adult-I have asthma, which is an easily managed and fairly inexpensive condition. Otherwise, I have no health problems to speak of. I just need insurance to get 2 monthly prescriptions and see my doctor twice a year. Sounds simple, right?
Think again. First and foremost, the fact that there is no government health program for people who earn too much for welfare is a huge problem. As the insurance companies are independent, they can do things like what was recently done to me: I applied for insurance. A full month later, I was approved. Then, a week after I had already paid my first installment, I received a letter telling me that due to my health condition, the cost of my insurance would multiply by 4. A week after that, I received another letter saying that the insurance would still cost 4x the amount originally quoted to me, but they would not cover any syptoms or medications related to asthma, allergies, pulminary disease, chest pain, or cold and flu. Namely, all the symptoms and dangers I need insurance for. Now tell me-how can that possibly be legal?
I stated above that I understand how some people cannot see the problems with health insurance. But the fact that cases like this (and infinitely worse) have come to light in the news time and time again, and the GOP refuses to acknowledge the problem, claiming that a public health care option is "socialism"? Give me a #$%&ing break! There's a difference between socialism and caring for your citizens. Buy a bleeping dictionary and look up "socialism", for God's sake! Because the GOP refuses to allow Obama to pass a public option bill, I now have to drive 3 hours and back to see someone for 10 minutes so that they will write me a prescription, and then pay upwards of $200/month just to get a couple of inhalers. And I'm lucky-the only reason I was able to find a doctor at all was because my boyfriend's mother works in a doctor's office and could get me in without either insurance or having to pay a few hundred dollars for the privilege of having a prescription written for me. Imagine if I wasn't so fortunate!
Something else that rankled me-yesterday Congress overturned a law stating that an employee who is fired or layed off can remain on the company's health insurance for 6 months. Their reason? There is no system in place to help the unemployed, and it's unfair for a guy who's fired to have insurance while his neighbor next door who can't find a job in the first place has no access to health care. So the solution is not to give aid to the guy without, but to take away the benefits of the other guy? What are we, kids on a playground fighting over a piece of chalk?!?!?!
Am I the only one who is seriously pissed off about all this?
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