English, baseball, vegetables & Uniforms

2 more weeks of summer classes! My intensive writing class isn’t turning out to be too bad even though I still don’t like to write. Switching from MLA to APA documentation was a bit of a pain, but I think APA is actually easier. At least I haven’t found it as painstaking a process. I finished my last reading log today that has to be handed in tomorrow morning. Then I have to start drafting my final research paper. I’ve pretty well finished the research process. I’ve already handed in my annotated bibliography, and I’ve got a vague outline in my head of how I want to construct it. I did my outline as I was researching so I wouldn’t forget the ideas I had as I was reading. I was glad I did that because it turned out that when we turned in our annotated bibliographies, we had to give a presentation to the class on our topic. Basically, it was just verbal outlining with some major fleshing out. It helped me organize my thoughts a little more. Now it’s just a matter of sitting down and drafting it. I’ve got to have my first draft done by Tuesday. My professor is big on peer review, so everything we’ve done so far has been peer reviewed to the extreme from our reading logs to our bibliographies. I’ll admit that I enjoyed hearing everybody else’s presentation, and it was fun to see some of these people who just had vague ideas of what they were doing get more focused by the questions and discussions of the class on the topic.

Last week I went to a Lookouts game with one of my friends. The Lookouts are AA baseball affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds and the only professional sports team here in Chattanooga. Well, I have to take that back. We have a professional women’s football team. I’ll admit—I’d like to see that. I only know about it because one of the women at work was a member of the team. I don’t think she is anymore because she broke her hand really badly in a game. Besides, she is now pregnant or just had her baby. It’s the first time I’ve been to a pro game of any kind, but it wasn’t nearly as big a deal as the UK basketball games are.

That day in particular, it was so hot that a lot of people couldn’t take it. I could tell I was getting burned, but I didn’t realize just how bad it was until later. At one point, I felt like I was going to pass out. The blood was just pounding in my head. So I went up into the shaded breezeway for a few minutes. After the game, we went to get something to eat in a cool restaurant. By the time I got home, my forehead was already starting to blister. I looked like a lobster, and for 3 days my face felt like a tight puffy mask with the oozing blisters forming a crusty surface on my skin. When it inevitably started peeling about the fourth day, I actually had some bloody patches under those slabs of skin and it was very tender. I have a feeling I came pretty close to some second degree burns in patches. It was definitely one of my dumber moments, and sun block is on my list of things to take the next time.

Being in a position of speaking to almost everybody at work, if I had to explain my face once, I had to explain it a hundred times. No exaggeration there—I work with 300 people. I think it would be amusing to try to recount all the different advice I got—from applying vinegar to aloe vera; from taking an umbrella for shade to wearing a big floppy sun hat. And one of my co-supervisors told me I had forgotten I was a white girl—he being a black man.

Speaking of dumb moments, I pulled a real doozy the other day. I was navigating through downtown which is always a real adventure when I’m trying out new routes. I was sitting at a red light squinting a few blocks up to see if that was possibly the street I would want to turn on. The light at that street was also red as was the one before that. The light between that street and my street turned green, and I took off. I happened to glance in my rear view mirror and noticed that nobody else was coming. Much to my dismay the light I had just left was still red. My body was instantly suffused with a rush of horror and adrenaline at my absolute idiocy.

I think I’ve solved my uniform dilemma. After much agonizing, praying, and conferring and with the approval of my pastor, I proposed to one of the professors in the nursing department that I would make a navy skirt to wear with the white polo shirt that is supposed to go with navy scrub pants. I told her that my beliefs of modesty would not accommodate the wearing of pants. She was very supportive and said they didn’t want to put any barriers in front of me. Of course, we had a discussion on Mennonites and their beliefs since they aren’t so prevalent around here. She advised me to go ahead and make the skirts and then talk to the people in charge at orientation. She didn’t think it would be a problem as long as the fabric matched the depth and hue of color and was made in a crisp uniform fashion. Do you know how many shades of navy there are? I eyeballed it then bought some fabric. After the fact, I decided that was a foolish thing to do. I should have taken a sample back to the uniform store and see if it matched. So I took a sample of the fabric I bought over. It was a little brighter. So the lady at the store, who was quite sympathetic to my plight, suggested I buy a pair of the pants and go match it to the fabric then return the pants for full credit. I was amazed to find what seems to be the identical fabric the pants are made of. Coincidentally it was on a rack of fabric of various hues commonly seen as scrubs in the hospitals including prints with stethoscopes and bandages, etc. So, though I’m not officially in the clear, at least it seems like a good indication of where things will fall.

Yesterday I got a real hankering for fresh vegetables, preferably “Amish” vegetables. So last night after work, I got myself some frozen vegetables, some tomatoes, and some squash at Wal-Mart. It’s not the same, but at least they still taste good. What I really crave is some corn on the cob and some new potatoes and some fresh out of the garden tomatoes. I had tomato sandwiches for lunch and mixed vegetables for supper. I think I’ll make myself an orange smoothie for my snack in a little while. Wal-Mart has this smoothie mix that’s really easy to make. You just dump the powder, 2 cups of OJ, and some ice in a blender and voila! You can also get the mix for strawberries and bananas (bananas is one of those words that’s a real pain to type—you actually have to think about it!).

By the way, this Wal-Mart happens to be the same one that one of the guys at work was held up at the week before last. He went there after work to get some groceries and a guy came up to him with a knife demanding his money. The would-be thief tried to convince this guy that $20 wasn’t worth his life. The victim just argued back that $20 wasn’t worth going to jail over either. They continued in this fashion until the guy finally gave up and drove off with some buddies waiting in a car. I find it quite amazing this guy had the guts to stand there and argue with him knowing that he is the same guy who was so upset when President Reagan died that he just didn’t think he could stay at work very long. He always has some kind of physical or mental disturbance going on that hinders his ability to stay at work. He was, of course, so shaken by the incident that he wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to work.

And so I go on living and learning in Chattanooga…..

Sara

A castle kind of vacation

Sadly, my vacation time is over for the year. I hope I'll be able to go home for Thanksgiving weekend, but I haven't looked into it yet. I've also got 2 weeks in August between my summer semesters and fall semester during which I may take a day or two off to do some various things that need doing before classes begin again. My vacation week was spent going to class in the morning, catching up some of my domestic chores that needed attention, and helping L. look for an apartment. Her bad credit kept her from even having the option at most places, but she finally found one. I'm so glad she's finally cut herself loose from her boyfriend. Things are finally starting to fall in place for her now. The best part of my escape from work was going to the Mennonite student college retreat hosted by Faith Builders in PA. We stayed at a castle in Franklin, PA that was built by Joseph Sibley in 1913 after a distinguished political career. Life Ministries acquired it in 1969 and it serves primarily as a retreat/conference ministry. This place had enough bedrooms that everybody got a bed and we didn't even fill it up. Some of the rooms were set up as dorms with bunks, and others had just one bed.

The theme of the conference was based on the struggles we as Mennonites face in the conflicts between home (church/community) and college. It was quite interesting listening to the different situations others face. I can't say I've ever faced real conflicts with my professors because they've all been very respectful of the fact that my beliefs are more conservative than the norm. In fact, one of my English professors told me privately that if we discuss issues or if she gives assignments that I'm uncomfortable with, I should just let her know, and we would work something out. Some of the other Mennonite students weren't as fortunate as I have been so far. A panel discussion addressed the question whether we should view our education experience as "getting in there, taking the class, and getting out" or if we should try to develop relationships and make an impact. There were opposing views, of course. I find my own experience to be a bit of a mixture. My busy schedule doesn’t allow for much relationship building so I’m probably a little more on the getting in/getting out end of things. I have made a few connections though that I’ve found to be very beneficial. I can also see how getting really involved in the social aspect of college could validate the typical Mennonite concern against higher education—if you go to college, you won’t stay Mennonite.

On the home aspect of our struggles, we discussed the role of the educated woman in the Mennonite setting. Not only is going to college not the norm in our circles, it’s even more exceptional for a female to do it. Although, it was interesting to note there were more females at this college retreat than there were males. One young lady voiced a concern that was shared by others: does going to college basically mean you’re giving up on the possibility of marriage? How many Mennonite men are going to want to marry a woman who is more educated than they are? And as one young lady so impishly put it: “I’m not sure I want to marry a man less educated than I am.” And then there’s the old salvo we often get, “What’s the point in going to college if you’re just going to get married?” One that was brought up that we didn’t have time to discuss was the issue of men making more money than women doing the same job. This was particularly relevant to the education field. Given my own 7 years of experience in that, I was a bit disappointed we couldn’t discuss it.

Along that line of reasoning was another question that a few major-specific people get: “What are you going to do with that major?” This is a particular frustration to some of the music majors among us. Mennonites are ever the practical people, and if doesn’t appear to be useful to them, what’s the point? Never mind that it happens to be what the person loves and is passionate about.

I thoroughly enjoyed being around “my own kind” having intellectual discussions or just comparing notes. I was amazed at the variety of majors there. By far the most prevalent were the nursing majors like myself, but I think only one was going for a BSN, and none that I know of were planning for graduate school. We had 3 in various stages en route to being medical doctors and 1 thinking about it. 1 majoring in optometry and 1 was in veterinary school. 2 were going for accounting, 1 for finance, and 1 for healthcare administration. At least 3 were going for English. 1 was majoring in chemistry (God bless her!). We had 1 dairy science major and 1 geography major. There were 3 music majors—2 vocal, and 1 instrumental. That’s all I can think of right off the top of my head.

We had several main sessions which involved everybody then we broke up into small groups to discuss things on a more personal level. One of the main sessions was the panel discussion referred to earlier. In another one we did some role playing/skits about our experiences at school or home. They were quite funny, and we may even have some budding actors/actresses or possibly even comedians in our realm.