Hello everyone!
So much has changed since the last time I blogged on December 9, 2011. It's now almost the end of August, 2012. I have since moved in with my boyfriend, Tim, and have finally been reunited with my lovely cat, Alice. I've also changed my plans for the future: rather than a Master of Social Work, I am looking instead to a Master of Public Health or a Master of Health and Risk Communication. I have grown very much since my last post, and I hope to be a bit more consistent with my blog updates as my junior year of college begins.
In addition, I'm also going to have a blog called "Courtney's Crochet", where I will be posting photos of my projects and having them available for purchase. This fall I'll be doing my internship, and while I will have more free time, I will be making less due to the nature of my internship. While this new blog, which will be located at courtneyscrochet.blogspot.com, won't be strictly for making money, but more for documenting my growth as an artist and craftsman, I am definitely open to making some spare change on the side to supplement the materials I need to keep crocheting and designing my own patterns.
To avoid copyright infringement, I am going to do my best to only showcase designs that are my own, although I cannot escape the patterns that have shaped my style as an artist.
I hope that you will accompany me on this journey to deepening my understanding of my art. I know a lot of people dismiss crocheting or other forms of 'yarn art' as simple, or for 'old ladies', but I find crocheting to be an intricate and challenging art. I hope you learn to appreciate it as I do.
My biggest challenge as I go forth on this journey is dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome. I have been crocheting for nearly six years and have been experiencing symptoms consistent with carpal tunnel for about a year and a half. My other challenges include balancing time and maintaining commitment to my projects. As demonstrated by my inconsistent blogging, it is evident that I get distracted easily. This ends today.
If you have time, please check out my new blog at courtneyscrochet.blogspot.com. I'll still be posting my musings on all things here, but my crocheted projects will be exclusively on that particular site.
Have a lovely evening!
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Friday, December 9, 2011
Headaches
Today is the day of the week allocated for a headache. I wake up in the morning with the pain and it fails to diminish throughout the remainder of the day. Despite medication the headache persists. Eventually, I accept the pain and try to ignore it. When that fails, I give up entirely and go to sleep.
Occasionally, the headaches occur more often than just once a week. Sometimes, I don't wake up with them. Instead, at some point in the day, there's little alarm bells going off in my head; a constant drum alerting me that the pain is coming soon and to take preemptive action. There is never a false alarm. If I take something as soon as I feel this way, usually (blissfully) I can prevent the headache. But if I fail to do so, either from apathy or because I simply can't get the pills in time, the pain comes in one giant wave and sits in my head and no amount of pills can take away the pain. I try to ignore it, but, similarly to the headaches that are present when I awake, this particular brand is a stubborn one. Inevitably, I give in to the pain and try to escape it through sleep.
Experiencing this weekly, sometimes every other day, has become a part of my daily life. There is a bottle of Aleve in my car (just in case), a bottle of Ibuprofen in my purse (just in case), a bottle of naproxen sodium next to my bed (just in case). Always within reach is some little miracle of a pill that can prevent the pain. And if I wait too long, if I don't have the pills or can't finagle access to a pill, the pain will come.
The pain is not created equal. While I can predict that it will be frustrating, distracting, and mentally blocking, sometimes it is more severe. Always, there are side effects. Nausea is frequent, if not always, present. I get irritable, introverted, tired. So tired. It helps to sleep off the pain, but occasionally I will be in so much pain that even the dense tiredness I am experiencing cannot push the pain away enough to drift off into sleep. And sometimes the nausea is so awful I have to vomit. While that can actually help alleviate the pain (for a little while), I've never been a fan. It's also embarrassing.
I feel sometimes as though I am a slave to my headaches. As though, constantly, I am tethered to the fear that this afternoon, a headache will wiggle its way into my life again, or that perhaps tomorrow, I will wake up with a blaring headache as annoying as a constant horn going off in your peripheral vision and it will be present all day long. That was today's headache. This morning, I woke up with it in my head. Chugged an entire bottle of water and took two Ibuprofen. I even took a three hour nap. Still, twelve hours later, the pain persists. It is debilitating. I cannot concentrate very well, nor summon the energy to do a whole lot. Finals are next week and the concept of studying just makes my head hurt more. It's already hard enough to concentrate without the headache; with it, the task is almost impossible.
I suppose headaches are just going to become a constant in my life that I will just have to get used to. At practically twenty years old I am not looking forward to at least another fifty years of weekly pain. Hopefully, as medical and pharmaceutical technology advances, they'll land on some miracle drug that will cure this pain forever. One can only dream.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Problems with Defining Personhood
Tim's out fetching Icees from Quality Dairy, leaving me to wonder how many caffeine pills are too many. Whatever. Happily, I called into work tomorrow morning leaving me with a little bit more elbow room to finish this god-awful, worthless paper that will do nothing to improve me or my abilities to practice social work. I'll still have to get up at an ungodly hour to move my truck to prevent earning a ticket by the university, but at least it means once I do that I can gratefully return to bed.
Oh sleep. How I desire you right now, you filthy animal.
Ashley has asked me to include current events on here, because she isn't the type to frequently keep up with the news. While I am a news junkie, on the other hand, and she tends to agree with me politically, she's happy to earn her news from me. I guess I'll do my best to deliver, even though just a few hours ago in the first post I promised no political agendas. But whatever. This is my blog, after all. I am happy to participate in a good debate, even between friends. I find them both intellectually stimulating and enlightening and rarely suffer hard feelings afterwards. While I know not everyone walks away from a 'friendly' debate satisfied, I promise that I will not only respect any dissenting argument presented here, I will also consider its worth. I cannot say you will ever manage to persuade me to your side(although it isn't impossible, of course. I try to avoid stubbornness in light of rationality), but I am happy to entertain it. I wasn't debate team captain in high school for no reason!
I suppose one interesting piece from a current event that an alarmingly few people knew about (even pro-lifers that I know) was the Personhood Amendment that Mississippi entertained last month as a proposition. It essentially stated that a fertilized embryo was considered a human being, and therefore, entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and happy happy joy joy and whatnot. The implications of this are many: several types of birth control would be banned (any abortifacient birth control pills, ie, pills capable of abortion), abortion would obviously be illegal, and (while this hardly received any debate or spotlight, much to my surprise) embryonic stem cell research would be against the law. I was happy to see that this attempt to define personhood failed. Perhaps this comes as a surprise to you, considering my status as President of the Pro-Life group on campus, but actually, my reasoning makes perfect sense.
While many pro-lifers advocated the amendment, they failed to realize what possible disastrous effects could come out of its passing, namely, the fact that IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Why is this a big deal? If the Personhood Amendment had been passed by the Mississippi voting population, then it would have likely gone to the Supreme Court as it violated the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, which stated that states could not ban abortion within the first trimester. My fear is simply this: if the Personhood Amendment had passed, it would have gone to the Court, giving our Justices an opportunity to rethink abortion in the United States. It is unlikely that decision would be a pro-life one. Rather, the decision would have likely been one of a more pro-choice stance, perhaps broadening the state's responsibility when it comes to abortion, by allocating more tax dollars to funding abortion providers (such as Planned Parenthood) or even banning states from passing abortion restrictive laws.
While I am no longer sure about my position on the abortion stance spectrum, I will summarize it here. I am ideologically and morally against abortion. This is not a result of religious belief, but rather, of biological knowledge and my own sense of morals. Biologically, a fertilized embryo is a human being (I welcome your debate on this). I also believe abortion to be emotionally and physically harmful to women and emotionally harmful to men. Abortion has been tied to significant health problems, such as infertility, breast cancer, and depression. I think the ironic thing is that pro-choicers and pro-lifers both agree that abortion is not a positive act, but an act of destruction. The disagreement lies in the proper motivations and outcomes of an abortion. Personally, while I think that abortion is heinous and sad, I am hesitant to say it should be illegal. My point is, if there is no need for abortions, there wouldn't be any. Abortion is not an issue solved through legislative action, but a social issue that demands social change. Obviously, if a woman has to choose between her unborn child and herself to improve her life, that society has failed her.
This is also my problem with the Republican Party. While Republicans tend to be very pro-life, they are typically against social welfare programs. My issue with this is that, while they desire you to have all these babies, they're not particularly interested in helping you raise them. I think that's a problem.
Also, as far as embryonic stem cell research goes, I think it pales in comparison to induced pluripotent stem cell research. Everyone's so hell bent on embryonic stem cell research though, which drives me nuts, as the latter one I mentioned is not only less controversial but also more likely to be effective. I'll be sure to give you a lesson on that in a later blog though, as this one has obviously ran a bit long.
Oh sleep. How I desire you right now, you filthy animal.
Ashley has asked me to include current events on here, because she isn't the type to frequently keep up with the news. While I am a news junkie, on the other hand, and she tends to agree with me politically, she's happy to earn her news from me. I guess I'll do my best to deliver, even though just a few hours ago in the first post I promised no political agendas. But whatever. This is my blog, after all. I am happy to participate in a good debate, even between friends. I find them both intellectually stimulating and enlightening and rarely suffer hard feelings afterwards. While I know not everyone walks away from a 'friendly' debate satisfied, I promise that I will not only respect any dissenting argument presented here, I will also consider its worth. I cannot say you will ever manage to persuade me to your side(although it isn't impossible, of course. I try to avoid stubbornness in light of rationality), but I am happy to entertain it. I wasn't debate team captain in high school for no reason!
I suppose one interesting piece from a current event that an alarmingly few people knew about (even pro-lifers that I know) was the Personhood Amendment that Mississippi entertained last month as a proposition. It essentially stated that a fertilized embryo was considered a human being, and therefore, entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and happy happy joy joy and whatnot. The implications of this are many: several types of birth control would be banned (any abortifacient birth control pills, ie, pills capable of abortion), abortion would obviously be illegal, and (while this hardly received any debate or spotlight, much to my surprise) embryonic stem cell research would be against the law. I was happy to see that this attempt to define personhood failed. Perhaps this comes as a surprise to you, considering my status as President of the Pro-Life group on campus, but actually, my reasoning makes perfect sense.
While many pro-lifers advocated the amendment, they failed to realize what possible disastrous effects could come out of its passing, namely, the fact that IT IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Why is this a big deal? If the Personhood Amendment had been passed by the Mississippi voting population, then it would have likely gone to the Supreme Court as it violated the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, which stated that states could not ban abortion within the first trimester. My fear is simply this: if the Personhood Amendment had passed, it would have gone to the Court, giving our Justices an opportunity to rethink abortion in the United States. It is unlikely that decision would be a pro-life one. Rather, the decision would have likely been one of a more pro-choice stance, perhaps broadening the state's responsibility when it comes to abortion, by allocating more tax dollars to funding abortion providers (such as Planned Parenthood) or even banning states from passing abortion restrictive laws.
While I am no longer sure about my position on the abortion stance spectrum, I will summarize it here. I am ideologically and morally against abortion. This is not a result of religious belief, but rather, of biological knowledge and my own sense of morals. Biologically, a fertilized embryo is a human being (I welcome your debate on this). I also believe abortion to be emotionally and physically harmful to women and emotionally harmful to men. Abortion has been tied to significant health problems, such as infertility, breast cancer, and depression. I think the ironic thing is that pro-choicers and pro-lifers both agree that abortion is not a positive act, but an act of destruction. The disagreement lies in the proper motivations and outcomes of an abortion. Personally, while I think that abortion is heinous and sad, I am hesitant to say it should be illegal. My point is, if there is no need for abortions, there wouldn't be any. Abortion is not an issue solved through legislative action, but a social issue that demands social change. Obviously, if a woman has to choose between her unborn child and herself to improve her life, that society has failed her.
This is also my problem with the Republican Party. While Republicans tend to be very pro-life, they are typically against social welfare programs. My issue with this is that, while they desire you to have all these babies, they're not particularly interested in helping you raise them. I think that's a problem.
Also, as far as embryonic stem cell research goes, I think it pales in comparison to induced pluripotent stem cell research. Everyone's so hell bent on embryonic stem cell research though, which drives me nuts, as the latter one I mentioned is not only less controversial but also more likely to be effective. I'll be sure to give you a lesson on that in a later blog though, as this one has obviously ran a bit long.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
NDAA
Second post in one night. Hopefully that's not a sign. I've made significant process in my research paper. Only three pages remaining. There is hope.
I hear the train. That is one thing I miss from living in South Complex. Moving off campus was highly inconvenient but much cheaper. And that didn't even end up working out! While this has been an..interesting semester, living at home in the next few weeks will definitely make my pocketbook a little more aesthetically pleasing. Putting in my two weeks at McDonald's was definitely worth it. Speaking of that place, I believe I work in about...seven hours. Whoopee!
That's another thing. Working twenty hours a week while being a full-time student is about as much fun as walking on glass- that is to say, it's not a good time, or an easy one, for that matter. But John McClane could do it, so why can't I? (Then again, I'm nothing close to a badass cop from the NYPD.) Hopefully you got that reference. If not, your Christmas movie list is seriously in need of some editing.
The nice thing about the structure of this blog I think is that it's not supposed to be a record (yes, I am reiterating this, from my last and only other post). I hope this makes me feel less obligated to post something, and therefore more inclined. The amount of writing I have to do for my schoolwork alone is enough already. At least this is random humdrumming that isn't for a grade or whatnot.
I suppose I could talk about my random quirks. One thing that I do on an hourly basis, or perhaps, every other hour (that is, when I have access to a computer, am not working or sleeping) is check up on the news. I'm curious to hear what news sites people prefer. I tend to go between New York Times and CNN (I've actually managed to bypass the Times' 20 article max policy by running CCleaner whenever I can't read an article). I've found this to be a good mix, although sadly neither site reported on the National Defense Authorization Act (henceforth referred to as NDAA). According to many tweets (yes, I've started "tweeting", and only because of the Arab Spring. It's actually a very interesting concept, although the 140 character limit can get frustrating. My twitter name is Anjanette007, although I will go ahead and let you know that I probably only manage to tweet once a week, if not less than that), it's the result of a media blackout. Considering this bill passing the Senate is fairly recent news (just voted last week), and there has been little to no news articles published on any major news site, is fairly frustrating. The content is enough to send me to another country.
Debbie Stabenow voted for it. I guess I know who I won't be voting for in the next election year.
If you're not familiar with the NDAA, I'd recommend looking up information about through the ACLU or Amnesty International. I'd hate to sway your opinion on this (or make it for you), but I will say that the qualifications for being a potential 'terrorist' are very broad and simplistic, and in my mind, could jeopardize the safety of many Americans. In addition, the law also grants power to the federal government to arrest, detain, and torture indefinitely any individual believed to be affiliated with a terrorist organization. While the simplicity of this bill may be designed to target individuals who have yet to commit an act of terrorism, but seem extremely likely to do so (think KKK or the Michigan Militia), it could lead to a slippery slope of the government detaining whoever they like. Oh, and did I mention that simply criticizing the bill could be rationalized as an act of terrorism? Hopefully Obama will veto this.
I hear the train. That is one thing I miss from living in South Complex. Moving off campus was highly inconvenient but much cheaper. And that didn't even end up working out! While this has been an..interesting semester, living at home in the next few weeks will definitely make my pocketbook a little more aesthetically pleasing. Putting in my two weeks at McDonald's was definitely worth it. Speaking of that place, I believe I work in about...seven hours. Whoopee!
That's another thing. Working twenty hours a week while being a full-time student is about as much fun as walking on glass- that is to say, it's not a good time, or an easy one, for that matter. But John McClane could do it, so why can't I? (Then again, I'm nothing close to a badass cop from the NYPD.) Hopefully you got that reference. If not, your Christmas movie list is seriously in need of some editing.
The nice thing about the structure of this blog I think is that it's not supposed to be a record (yes, I am reiterating this, from my last and only other post). I hope this makes me feel less obligated to post something, and therefore more inclined. The amount of writing I have to do for my schoolwork alone is enough already. At least this is random humdrumming that isn't for a grade or whatnot.
I suppose I could talk about my random quirks. One thing that I do on an hourly basis, or perhaps, every other hour (that is, when I have access to a computer, am not working or sleeping) is check up on the news. I'm curious to hear what news sites people prefer. I tend to go between New York Times and CNN (I've actually managed to bypass the Times' 20 article max policy by running CCleaner whenever I can't read an article). I've found this to be a good mix, although sadly neither site reported on the National Defense Authorization Act (henceforth referred to as NDAA). According to many tweets (yes, I've started "tweeting", and only because of the Arab Spring. It's actually a very interesting concept, although the 140 character limit can get frustrating. My twitter name is Anjanette007, although I will go ahead and let you know that I probably only manage to tweet once a week, if not less than that), it's the result of a media blackout. Considering this bill passing the Senate is fairly recent news (just voted last week), and there has been little to no news articles published on any major news site, is fairly frustrating. The content is enough to send me to another country.
Debbie Stabenow voted for it. I guess I know who I won't be voting for in the next election year.
If you're not familiar with the NDAA, I'd recommend looking up information about through the ACLU or Amnesty International. I'd hate to sway your opinion on this (or make it for you), but I will say that the qualifications for being a potential 'terrorist' are very broad and simplistic, and in my mind, could jeopardize the safety of many Americans. In addition, the law also grants power to the federal government to arrest, detain, and torture indefinitely any individual believed to be affiliated with a terrorist organization. While the simplicity of this bill may be designed to target individuals who have yet to commit an act of terrorism, but seem extremely likely to do so (think KKK or the Michigan Militia), it could lead to a slippery slope of the government detaining whoever they like. Oh, and did I mention that simply criticizing the bill could be rationalized as an act of terrorism? Hopefully Obama will veto this.
A Momentary Lapse of Reason
Hello, welcome to the typical me. My name is Courtney, and it is 9:47 PM, and tomorrow I have an eight-page paper due that I should probably be working on. But, woe is me. I suppose that this is much more interesting and therefore, much more worth my time as I was taught in my microeconomics class one year ago. The paper is for an IAH anyway.
I'm sitting in a lounge in a hall on my campus. The windows, each a panel roughly 5 ft x 3 ft in size, wrap around about half of this rectangular room. At night, they appear more as mirrors rather than windows, and I cannot help but feel vulnerable and exposed as I see my reflection in one pane of glass, knowing that anyone walking about in the courtyard outside can see me as if in a one-way mirror. But, my work must take priority, the window/mirror glass must be dismissed. (Or this blog, I suppose, since I am clearly not hard at work.)
Pink Floyd is playing in my ear- One Slip, more specifically, from their Momentary Lapse of Reason album. I'm a rather big Pink Floyd fan, really. Their lyrics and compositions really speak to me. Also, their music creates a great ambiance that is both stimulating and not too distracting. This helps during paper-writing and math problem-solving, neither of which I have gotten very far on tonight. Oh well.
This blog is not really supposed to be a journal, or a record of events. I'm not trying to prove anything either, including myself or any particularly political agenda. It is merely a depository of thoughts that I have. I suppose it is more prose than anything. It is an opportunity to sharpen my creativity and an outlet for nights like this when I am honestly considering overdosing on caffeine pills if it means I don't have to write this awful, awful paper that is due tomorrow. But, all irrationality aside, I am really a very driven person... It just seems, lately, that I have misplaced my drive.
On the Turning Away is playing now (same album, my favorite actually, in case you were wondering, which you probably weren't). If only Pink Floyd could be a constant soundtrack playing the back of my mind. I suppose an MP3 player would also suffice, but sadly, I cannot afford one.
Oh, let's not get started on the list of things I cannot afford.
I'm trying to break 500 words (there's five more, does a number count? I suppose I could write it out as 'five-hundred' and that would be two more). Eventually, I would hope this amount of words would come to me quickly. If anything, I hope to use this blog as an opportunity to expand my vocabulary, improve sentence structure, and understand myself. Longevity and succinctness are important too; I hope to also sharpen those skills as well.
Terminal Frost is playing now. What's striking to me is that my music player (on my computer, as I said earlier, no MP3 player) is on shuffle and yet the past few songs have all been off one album (I own their entire discography, of course). I suppose that's okay, though. Time to get to work. I'm writing a research paper on Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. While I haven't exactly settled on a research question yet, I am probably going to discuss oppression of women in the mid-nineteenth century and how this affected the central female character in Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary, the wife who desired an extravagant and glamorous lifestyle but had none, and in her grief sought out men to sleep with, believing the act of adultery as a thrilling and exciting one. Flaubert's novel was considered immoral about the times of its publication (Flaubert was even sued for publishing it, due to its morally-poisoning story-line), but obviously it seems fairly tame in today's terms.
I'm sitting in a lounge in a hall on my campus. The windows, each a panel roughly 5 ft x 3 ft in size, wrap around about half of this rectangular room. At night, they appear more as mirrors rather than windows, and I cannot help but feel vulnerable and exposed as I see my reflection in one pane of glass, knowing that anyone walking about in the courtyard outside can see me as if in a one-way mirror. But, my work must take priority, the window/mirror glass must be dismissed. (Or this blog, I suppose, since I am clearly not hard at work.)
Pink Floyd is playing in my ear- One Slip, more specifically, from their Momentary Lapse of Reason album. I'm a rather big Pink Floyd fan, really. Their lyrics and compositions really speak to me. Also, their music creates a great ambiance that is both stimulating and not too distracting. This helps during paper-writing and math problem-solving, neither of which I have gotten very far on tonight. Oh well.
This blog is not really supposed to be a journal, or a record of events. I'm not trying to prove anything either, including myself or any particularly political agenda. It is merely a depository of thoughts that I have. I suppose it is more prose than anything. It is an opportunity to sharpen my creativity and an outlet for nights like this when I am honestly considering overdosing on caffeine pills if it means I don't have to write this awful, awful paper that is due tomorrow. But, all irrationality aside, I am really a very driven person... It just seems, lately, that I have misplaced my drive.
On the Turning Away is playing now (same album, my favorite actually, in case you were wondering, which you probably weren't). If only Pink Floyd could be a constant soundtrack playing the back of my mind. I suppose an MP3 player would also suffice, but sadly, I cannot afford one.
Oh, let's not get started on the list of things I cannot afford.
I'm trying to break 500 words (there's five more, does a number count? I suppose I could write it out as 'five-hundred' and that would be two more). Eventually, I would hope this amount of words would come to me quickly. If anything, I hope to use this blog as an opportunity to expand my vocabulary, improve sentence structure, and understand myself. Longevity and succinctness are important too; I hope to also sharpen those skills as well.
Terminal Frost is playing now. What's striking to me is that my music player (on my computer, as I said earlier, no MP3 player) is on shuffle and yet the past few songs have all been off one album (I own their entire discography, of course). I suppose that's okay, though. Time to get to work. I'm writing a research paper on Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary. While I haven't exactly settled on a research question yet, I am probably going to discuss oppression of women in the mid-nineteenth century and how this affected the central female character in Madame Bovary, Emma Bovary, the wife who desired an extravagant and glamorous lifestyle but had none, and in her grief sought out men to sleep with, believing the act of adultery as a thrilling and exciting one. Flaubert's novel was considered immoral about the times of its publication (Flaubert was even sued for publishing it, due to its morally-poisoning story-line), but obviously it seems fairly tame in today's terms.
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