Everyone...

Meet Rousseau.

That's A New One

I was at work yesterday when the phone rang.
"Good evening, Tim Horton's, Haley speaking."

"Um, hi? I was wondering if you could check if there's a woman with long brown hair there?" The speaker is a young man.
I look and report back that there are only two women with gray hair and an elderly man in the store at the moment.
"Oh. Um. Okay. Well she should be in soon. When she does could you tell her that Harry asked if he could marry her? I'd really appreciate it."
Then he hung up. Didn't wait for a reply. How odd!

Firstly, "woman with long brown hair" is not much of a description. I'm not about to ask every woman with brown hair if she'll marry Harry, and secondly, even if I did, how is Harry supposed to know her reply? Assuming that the proposal was genuine (and I'm fully aware that it was likely a crank call on me), that's something that you'd think Harry would want to see in person.

It did rather amuse me for the rest of the night though!

A New Addition!

Once again there is something worth blogging about! Greg and I are adopting a kitten. There were many factors involved in the decision. Rumble has been lonely (and therefore annoying is his demand for attention), Greg and I both enjoy how two cats play together, and Greg had never had a kitten before - and of course I love kittens!

We decided to do a private adoption through an agency, rather than going to the humane society. This meant a lower cost: $145 for kitten +2 rounds of shots +spaying +flea/earmite/worm removal. It also meant a friendlier environment. There is nothing I hate more than visiting the humane society and having to leave behind all the meowing for attention kitties and wondering if they will ever find a home. Instead I got to go to a woman's home and sit in a room with the two kittens they had, and play with them in a low-key environment.

So that brings us to the kitten herself (yes, she's a 'she'). I don't have any pictures yet, as we don't get to take her home with us until the 29/30, after she's healed from the spaying, but I will describe her. She's 11 weeks old, and white, except for her head and her back, which is brown tabby. I keep saying that it's as if she was meant to be a white cat and someone just accidentally dropped tabby on her. She's very affectionate, much more so than her brother who was more interested in my shoelaces than me. And so, in just over a week, Rumble will have a little friend.

And her name? So far we think either Pandora or Nietzsche ("neet-cha"). Anyone have a preference?

A Nice Turn of Events

Good things are a-brewing. I convinced my manager to give me two 8-hour shifts on the weekend, thereby limiting the nights I have to work with crazy-racist-shift-leader to one a week. One is far better than three. One I can manage. One does not rob me of my soul.
I also found a new carpool arrangement. No more being so chronically late that I get letters for bad attendance. No more being called at 7:25 am to say the ride isn't coming (when college starts at 8:15, and is a 2 hour bus ride). No more being left at college because the other class got out early.
I now have one girl from my own term drive me in the morning, since doesn't it turn out that she drops her husband off at work 2 blocks from my house every morning. In the afternoons I get a ride home from a group of term one students that carpool together every day.
So Much Better!

And there may even be a visit from my former roomie in the works for later this week. Come, Jackie! Do come!

Developments

Midterms are done! I can now have a life again. I began my having a life again by reinstalling windows on my drugged-out computer, with much phone help from my little brother the computer genius. It's good to have him to fall back on when my computer tells me that
a) windows is corrupt and needs to be reinstalled
b) it can't reinstall windows because there is already an operating system installed (ie: windows)
I would have just been sitting on the floor crying without my brilliant brother calmly talking me through how to fix it. That he was able to do this while serving people beavertails at his job, dealing with customer questions, and doing some sort of inventory/ordering thing tells you just how brilliant he is.

That crisis over, I cleaned all the wood in the apartment with Murphy's Oil. Got to love that stuff. Now the beat up wood sliding doors on the (5) closets and the (4) room doors and the (12) cupboards and the dining room floor all look beat up AND shiny. An improvement over just beat up, I'll say. The whole apartment shines and stinks. The stink will fade, and hopefully the shine will stay.

The Tims I work at is finally out of the trailer. No being trapped in a 5'x5' square with a loudly racist supervisor. Now I can at least by 15' away from the racist supervisor at all times. It's an improvement, folks. Plus there are more things to do so I'm not bored out of my mind, and the heating works! Of course there is an incredibly loud water hammer thing that happens whenever we run the industrial dishwasher that makes it sound as though the store is coming down, but management says the plummer will be in later this week.

And now I have an evening with nothing to study, and no work. What a luxury. Mound of laundry, here I come!

One Step Closer!

The date is set! October 21st, 2008, I take the trip to Toronto to take the practical examination (aka OSCE) set by the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario. The other exam is written, and I can't register for it until 2 weeks before my graduation. That one isn't such a rush though because you can write it at many different locations across the country. For the OSCE there are only 7 spots available for each time, and everyone has to go to Toronto to do it. It fills up fast.

So that's it. October 21st, I'll be doing the big exam. I'm already exited.

Neurology Does Not Spell "Good Time"

Tomorrow I have a neurology exam. As of now I can draw the major neurological pathways (aka: plexus...es? plexi?) of the body and name the innervation of almost every single muscle in the body. Even the tiny ones that nobody really cares about. We don't have to learn the ones for the face. I'm not sure really why that distinction is made. I know the innervations for the itty bitty neck muscles, and for the various parts of private anatomy, but the face? Don't need to know it.

Of course, one could argue that I don't need to know any of these at all! I mean really, what are the odds that someone is going to show up in my massage clinic complaining that they can't contract their deltoid to lift the arm? Surely if someone has noticed that they can't lift their arm or contract the muscle at all then they would be talking to their doctor about it, not their massage therapist. And if someone does come to me with that problem, or I happen to notice it during a routine shoulder massage, say, then do I really have to be able to tell them that the problem likely stems from the axillary nerve of the brachial plexus originating from the lower cervical vertebrae? Ah, no. In fact, I'm not qualified to give them any kind of diagnosis so even if that did happen and even if I did know what nerve was affected I would still be forced to say "I'm thinking that their might be something neurologically wrong here and I'm going to recommend that you see your GP about this". So what is the freaking point?

The answer: to pass the provincial board exams.

So off I go to stuff my brain with more muscle-nerve associations so that I can pass the board exams, become an RMT, and forget all about the brachial plexus.

Sigh

At my college each term is responsible for fund-raising enough money to have an after grad party. The college pays for the ceremony and the location, but if we want a dinner and dance, we have to cough up our own dough. Fair enough. Every term fund-raises throughout their time at the college in order to do this. Bear that in mind.

Scene: my term's fund-raising pancake breakfast. I am flipping pancakes at a bar line of griddles. Students are walking through, filling up plates and either staying or exiting to eat.

Enter Large Bossy Blonde who proceeds to make announcement of another term's fund-raising valentines. Exit Large Bossy Blonde.

30 minutes pass. Pancakes continue to be sold.

Re-enter LBB. Further loud announcements of the other fundraiser. From the location of the griddle I speak loudly:
"Have you bought any pancakes?"
"No. I'm on a diet. That's why."
I resume flipping. LBB leaves. The breakfast wraps up. We clean up. We go to our next class. I get hauled out of class by Super Student Services Lady. She feels she needs to have a talk with me about professionalism in the school. She heard a report that I was snappish and rude with one of the other students. She stresses that if I'm going to make a humorous remark that I need to ensure that it is more obviously humorous so as to not offend people. She restates the policy that more than one term can fund raise at the same time as long as it is not the same activity. She expresses how shocked she was that this report came against me since I'm so sweet. (The college only has 100 students, max - this woman knows me personally.)

Her sweetness is false, put-on, and stickily uncomfortable.
I want to squirm away.

It may be true that the college I attend has a fantastic reputation for graduates passing the provincial board exams, but I am becoming increasingly unimpressed with the amount of bureaucratic pickle-up-the-ass red tape. I mean, come on people. That was in no way aggressive or nasty. I said it with a smile on my face and in a friendly tone. If she's going to come into our fundraiser to try to get money for her term, then surely I have a right to ask her to contribute to ours! Yet student services comes and reprimands me without even pausing to consider my perspective? And is this going on my record?

Sigh.

And She's Job Hunting Again

I have incredible respect for people that work in the customer service industry. You know the ones. The people who put up with cranky customers who proclaim their rights to discounts and know all. The people who deal with an unstable work schedule, never sure if they will get 20 hours or 40 or 10. The people who handle supervisors and managers who angry and bitter and small. I have respect for these people. I am these people. I am also tired of being these people.

And that is why I started job hunting today. Today when my supervisor called to have me come in 4 hours early (with 20 minutes notice) - not to ASK me to come in, mind, but to TELL me to come in. When she was totally shocked that I had "dinner plans and couldn't do it" (never mind that my dinner plans were to make a salad, and watch Ellen). When she moaned and complained that her employees are unreliable. When I know that at 7pm tonight I will be standing there working beside her for 4 hours of her bitching and making passive aggressive comments (and I'm the employee she likes!)...

That's when I rewrote my resume. That's when I came up with a cover letter. That's when I sent in an online application to a local gym. That's when I made plans to go around to the other local gyms and hand in resumes there as well. Heck, I'm leaning all this anatomy and remedial exercise, I might as well be working in a place that is relevant! Just please, get me out of this food and beverage industry!

A New Social Low

I hate to sound like I'm getting old and jaded...but what is with kids these days?

At 22 years old, I honestly thought I was past being high school bullied. For those who don't know, I hated nearly every minute of high school. My experience of it was filled with pushy, bossy, cruel peers intent on tearing down every shred of self-confidence by both overt and sneaky, passive aggressive means. It was a world where everyone is equally as scared and insecure, and yet simultaneously believe that they are completely alone in their intimidation, and where many took to bringing down those around them in order to feel better about themselves (something I would later learn about as a "leveling mechanism" in anthropology and be fascinated by, hmm).

Having said all that, I thought I was done with it. Today I was proven wrong. Today as I walked from the bus stop to my house I passed the local high school which was just letting out for the day. City buses were sitting in front of it waiting for the hordes of students to organize themselves and get on, and there were probably about a hundred students milling about and doing student type things. I ignored them and kept walking up the sidewalk. Was that my mistake? Out of absolutely nowhere a guy standing with a group of other guys puts out his hand and deliberately shoves me sideways, causing me to side step to catch my balance, and land both feet sinking in to a giant muddy puddle. They laughed uproariously at my expense.

I was dumbstruck. I shot them a dirty look, and walked on, being too shocked by the experience and too poor at thinking on my feet to come up with a more appropriate response.

What would have been an appropriate response? How do you deal with someone who will arbitrarily assault a complete stranger?

Customer Service

Since the time I got my very first job (nigh on 7 years ago), I've been working in the service industry. Apart from the summer job I got once in a doctor's office, I've worked largely in coffee shops and restaurants - both in the kitchen and waitressing. Although it's certainly not what I want to do for the rest of my life (hence spending $30,000 on my education), there are some things that I quite like about it. I like that there are regulars who come in and like to chat with you. I like that I am able to temporarily brighten someone's day by not just serving them a cup of joe or a plate of fries, but by making a quick joke or flashing a brilliant smile. I have a soft spot for the single elderly people that come in obviously looking for human contact more than they are their medium black coffee, who linger at the counter or sit at the bar and talk to you whenever you walk by.

Much as I adore these sorts of interactions - and adore them I do - I have also had to deal with people who fall into a different category. People who also come to the coffee shop to enjoy a cup, and to feel better about themselves, but do so by going out of their way to make me, the captive audience and (in their mind) inferior counter girl, feel worse about myself. Take, for example, this interaction I had only last week:

A man came in, sat at the counter, and asked for a tea with milk. I took his money, served his change, poured the tea, and put it down in front of him. He immediately gave me a look of absolute scorn and informed me that he would not be drinking it. I peered at his tea with concern. The problem? There was the slightest bit of film along the top, as often happens when you mix cold milk with hot tea. While the science part of my brain understands the problem of adding a cold substance with a tendency to curdle to a slightly acidic hot beverage, the humanitarian part of my brain understands customer service and is slightly too nice. I apologized, cheerfully said that I would put on a new pot of tea for him, and smiled widely.

I served the new tea two minutes later when the tea was ready. I put it down in front of him, smiling once more, and said something to the effect of, "that looks much better, doesn't it", despite the fact that it looked the exact same to me (because it was, after all, just tea and milk). A very dour look settled on his face.
"May I ask you a serious question?", he asks. I say that he certainly may, hoping that it's a technical question about the tea brewing process.
"You saw how terrible that looked. Why did you serve it to me? You didn't expect that I would drink it." He pauses. I wait, knowing that this is not a question that he actually wants an answer to - my years of customer service have taught me to recognize that - and sure enough, he continues. "If I worked here, I would never serve something like that."

Ah yes, that line. I smile in what I hope will be seen as sympathy and respond: "Well then it is a shame that they aren't paying you to serve their beverages."

That, certainly, was not the answer he was expecting. I can read it in his face: was I being genuine? Was I mournful that the coffee shop isn't full of employees with such insight and dedication? Was I mocking him? He just can't decide. I shoot him another smile and move to the opposite end of the store where I busy myself cleaning out the toaster.

He sat there at the counter, glaring at me, for the better part of 20 minutes. I could feel the stare, but I didn't pay any heed. Truth be told, I pitied him. All this working in the service industry has made me feel very sad for the people whose lives are so small that they have nothing better to do than hold on to feelings of resentment against people such as me, who are just doing our jobs, although occasionally somewhat imperfectly.

Christmas Pranks

This is sheer brilliance, and, if I had that kind of money to throw around, something I would totally do.

Would you drive someone insane with postcards?

Convinced Me

Break Time at Last

I'm done exams! Nine of them in total, and I'm done. Phew. I'm officially on to term 3, half way done! It's hard to believe that in only 9 months I'll be a qualified massage therapist. Scary! The best way to celebrate being done exams? Getting a kicky new haircut using your birthday present from your awesome boyfriend! Greg got me a gift card to see the hair stylist that I adore, and here's what she and I decided to do:



I tried to get a good side profile, but it just wasn't happening. It's shorter in the back than the front, giving me, according to the stylist, a "fashion forward" look. She said I looked like Keira Knightly. Is it any wonder I love this woman? She's fantastic with curly hair and compares me positively to celebrities. Ha. It's also kind of funny going to the spa because while she's cutting my hair there's literally a stream of other stylists walking past going "oooh, look at the CURLS", "that looks so awesome!", "what a fantastic colour - natural?" and asking to touch my hair. I said to my stylist, "you pay them to do that, don't you?"

Anyways. New hair cut. Done exams. Now I work full time for 6 days straight and then I head to holiday mode! It's almost Christmas!

Blast from Television Past

As I kill time rather than study for my final tomorrow (but really, how hard can the written exam for a practical course be?), I'm remembering a kids show that I used to love. I seem to remember at one time also owning the dos-run computer game that went with it.


Does anyone else miss Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Warewolf Factor Aside...

Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

Just Like Monica on Friends

It had to happen eventually. Every massage therapist has at one point or another had to deal with it. With one of them. I suppose I'm lucky that my first happened while I was in the safety of the college clinic with my supervisor a mere towel-throw away.

We have very established rules and guidelines for this sort of thing. If you are unsure or uncomfortable about anything at all, you throw a towel out from under your cubicle curtain and your supervisor will check on you. If you feel at any time unsafe you leave, you talk to your supervisor, and they will (depending on the issue) find someone else to treat your client, treat your client themselves, or kick your client out of the clinic. Really, given all this, it was very lucky that I was at the student clinic for tonight's...experience.

My client arrives and I greet him in the front lobby. We walk back to the treatment room, and into my cubicle. He espouses stories about his hip and gluteal pain and problems. I do some basic postural assessment and orthopedic testing. I decide on a course of action. I explain my plan for treatment to him. He okays it. I leave. He gets on the table.

At this point I talk to my supervisor about techniques for the condition he presents with, she gives me some tips. I wash my hands. I announce myself. I reenter the cubicle. I arrange the pillows. I undrape his leg. I do some light compressions on his right glute. I begin with the knuckle kneading....and it happens. He lets out a sound. Not a polite expression of his enjoyment and comfort, but a full out loud right-from-the-bottom-of-his gut moan. The type of moan that, had it been sounded from your teenage bedroom, would have sent your parents racing up the stairs sure to find you in mid-coitus.

Oh. God.

Okay, wait, I'm a professional. I can handle this. Think back to professional development last term. I ignore it. I continue with the massage, and it continues to happen. After ten minutes of continued moaning I hear a choking sound from beyond the curtain where my team leader is sitting at a table with my supervisor. I hear muffled giggling. Someone is desperately trying to keeping from laughing uproariously at the moaning and now running commentary coming from my client. Because, yes, as if the moaning was not enough, he's decided to throw in delightful phrases such as "oh yes, just like that", and "don't stop doing that".

It's like a really tacky porno with absolutely no sex.

My supervisor calls out from beyond the curtain, "Haley, are you okay in there? Do you need any help with anything?" She clearly is concerned that my oh-so-verbal client has nefarious ideas or plans. I reply that I'm fine, because as simultaneously awkward and hilarious as the situation is, I am 110% sure that the 54 year old man lying on my massage table has no intention of giving off any sexual vibe. And, as it turns out, I am right: after an hour of moaning he gets off the table and leaves like any other client. Some people just let go of stress in different ways than the norm, and I am professional enough to allow him his safe space.

Of course, as soon as he leaves I burst into laughter and have to hop up and down shaking off the creepy residual feeling. My supervisor catches me in mid shake-off and smiling and shaking her head says, "well, I guess you know that he really enjoyed his massage".

And I suppose that's rather satisfying, isn't it?

Who Sent You?!?

Clinic outreach again today at the nursing home. I had a woman who only spoke Spanish the first block, which was a stretch for my limited Spanish vocabulary. Compound this with the fact that she has Alzheimer's and isn't always completely lucid, and you make for an interesting time. The following is our conversation. Me speaking in Spanish is red, me speaking in English is blue. All of her speech was in Spanish.

Hi, my name is Haley, I only speak a little Spanish, understand?
blank stare
Is it okay if I massage you? (Let's face it, that phrase is beyond my translation capabilities)
blank stare
Have you any pain?
blank stare, followed by a shift of the head so she was looking away from me, and falling asleep. After about 10 minutes of massage she woke, obviously confused, with rapid breathing and wide eyes staring at me.
It's okay. You're okay. I'm Haley.
She looked puzzled. I wonder, is this language barriers, or the Alzheimer's? She went back to sleep. Ten minutes later she woke up again, obviously upset.
You're okay.
Her forceful reply: "Who sent you here?
Your family.
Her reply: "Get out."

Teehee. She wasn't angry or forceful, just to the point. I cheerfully quipped a "See you later" and headed out. Now I wonder, was she just done with the procedure, or does she dislike her family? "My family sent you? Get out!" She still got 20 minutes of her allotted 30 minutes of massage, so it's not the end of the world.

Minutes Jam-Packed with Hours

This week has flown by. Greg and I went to a wedding last weekend for one of the guys that he used to live with. It was a great weekend, and a nice wedding. It was certainly nice to get out of the city for a while. We stayed with Greg's grandparents who have a beautiful house on the lake near where the wedding was. This is one from the wedding of us:

Then this week was nuts for me for massage. Because we left for the wedding weekend on Friday (Greg had a rehearsal dinner - he was in the wedding party), I had to get one of the girls to cover my clinic shift that night, meaning that I picked one up for her on Tuesday. So Tuesday I had clinic, Wednesday I had outreach, Thursday I worked, Friday I had clinic, and Saturday I had clinic. Today I did nothing. Ha!

Outreach is really cool. Last week was the first one I'd done. The college makes a bunch of them available and we sign up for ones that interest us. Each one is a different kind of massage and a different length of time commitment. We have to complete 8 hours of sports and 24 hours of hospital (two categories of outreach) by the time we graduate. If you do 50 hours of either you get a certificate of specialization.

The outreach I picked runs every Wednesday afternoon all this month, and is at a local nursing home. Both my clients this week had dementia and were nonverbal. It's a challenge ethically, because you're not dealing with people who can give their own consent, and their family who've requested the massage aren't there when you get there. It was a very different setting than I've worked in before, and I really enjoyed it. I think I'm going to try to get my certificate of specialization in hospital. Sports massage doesn't interest me really, but this work in the nursing home is really fulfilling.

Even the conversation I had with one of the residents in the lobby was fantastic. I sat down to wait for my supervisor at the end of the night and he asked me if his son had sent me to visit with him. It was mildly heartbreaking, and we talked for about 10 minutes. His memory was gone, and by the end of it he'd decided that I was born in the UK and came to Canada just like him. He said that it was a pretty good place to come live because everyone spoke English.

Just a Short Delay

Getting in to see a doctor is, to say the least, tricky. Never mind the fact that I don't have a family doctor of my own, finding one who will see me for little things within my class schedule is tough. I managed to make an appointment for during my lunch break today though. I got there, and was seen relatively promptly (only 15 minutes late - pretty good for a doctor). I got weighed and measured, and then in to the little room and onto the table and covered with one of those little sheet things, and I waited. And I waited. And then the nurse came in. "Um, Haley? The doctor had to go perform an emergency C-section, would you mind waiting 45 minutes?"

Two and a half hours later I got my appointment, which lasted all of 3 minutes.

Sigh. Well okay, I guess you can't predict birth. My neurology class sacrificed for someone else's little miracle.