Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Rodney, my gardener, called to ask if he could come tomorrow and if it would be alright with me if he dropped off his trailer today.
Judy spent about an hour visiting, not hanging out. She has a job driving cars for Turo drop-offs at the airport for my next-door neighbor. It's a dream job for Judy, and Judy is a dream employee for Mei. Judy lives two driveways away from Mei. There are often last-minute changes. Judy doesn't have to travel to get here. Her proximity makes her flexible. She comes to my house if she has a few minutes to less than an hour between drives.
I worked in the garden, trimming shrubs so the gardener could take the waste. I needed a shower. I did that while Judy took a call from her sister-in-law. I love having people make themselves at home in my house and hang out.
Yesterday, I tracked down the woman in charge of new hires for the middle school. I had completed my first application, which was mainly concerned with proof of my US citizenship. Then I got my TB test. I made an appointment the moment I was told to do it. When I picked up my results, I drove up from the clinic to drop them off at the school. I was expecting to be handed the next part of the application with the FBI fingerprint sheet to get my background check. But no. The woman who did that job would only be in after school. Yesterday, a week later, I called to ask when I could expect to get that application. Could I call her? No, she came to the middle school after 4 pm, when they shut down the phone system for the day. Fortunately, the secretary recognized my name and told me the woman in charge worked at the high school during the day. I could call her there. I did.
Denice, the woman in charge of applications, had no idea who I was. She asked if I was told I could apply for a job? Did I have my TB test? She either has a ton of applications or . . . . . . I convinced her I had done everything I was supposed to do. She would give Ginger a copy of the application at the middle school. I was to pick it up the next day today. That's what I did. I went to the middle school, found Ginger, and asked for the application.
Ginger didn't have a clue who I was and had no packet. I dropped the right names, and she believed I was supposed to get one. She said she would get one for me. She went into a side room and assembled papers. When she came out of the room, I approached her. She said, "This is my original. I have to make a Xerox copy." Jean, my hanai sister, called while I sat there. I spoke to her. No one objected. About 10 minutes later, Ginger handed me the packet. I had planned to go to the police station immediately to get my fingerprints for my background check. I looked through the packet and asked Ginger where the necessary sheet was. No, I couldn't get that sheet until I had filled out this packet. It was 17 single sheets, many double-sided. Some just had writing on them. This application procedure is draconian.
I was supposed to have Mama K's crew a 2 pm. I needed to reschedule for 2:30. She said, thank God, she was getting ready for her oldest son's birthday. I asked her if she wanted to cancel. Yes, yes, yes, thank you. I have this poor woman terrified of me. I thought she dissed me once and blew up at her. She doesn't dare cancel on me again. I tried to tell her I was more flexible than that, but it didn't seem to get through.
I had adolescent D after school. We continued talking about how his brain worked. I asked him if he could remember a sequence of letters without reading the word. He did very well. He quickly rattled off letters in the correct sequence from left to right and then from right to left. This is an exercise I learned from a Neurolinguistic Programming instructor. When I first did it, I couldn't do it. With practice, I've improved at holding a visual image of words in my head. D was good at it from the get-go.
He could tell me where he held the visual image. It was where I discovered it works the best, in the forehead area. When I made a sound, he could tell me that he held that one in the same place. Well, now we know why he is having problems. He was using his visual processing area to process sounds. I redirected him to use the best place for processing speech sounds. He tried, but nothing came through. We perceived his situation the same way. We also both felt that sound bounced off that area. A force field surrounded it. I had no idea how to fix this situation. Nothing came to me.
I talked to him about what he had to do to participate in solving this problem. He had to hold the question in his head, "What can I do to penetrate this force field?" I told him I would be holding the question when I slept, in every waking and sleeping minute. I held the question in my mind, hoping to find a solution to this problem. I told him he had to do this too. D is usually passive. Life washes over him, and he is completely helpless.
I don't teach my students that they have total control. They don't; no one does. But neither are they completely helpless. The answer to the question may not come for years, but you keep holding it. I don't mean you consciously hold the words in your head. You put it on automatic. This question isn't rhetorical when the answer is, "There's nothing you can do? You're a sitting duck." This is a real question that assumes there may be a solution. If the answer doesn't come easily, you still have to go on with life until you have exactly what you want. It's the AA prayer, "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." Isn't that the truth?
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Musing
Thoughts from the Elephant Whisperer. When your focus is on survival, all your attention is focused on the external world. The introspection of the industrial world makes no sense.
Just as zoo animals become anxious, so do we when we are removed from the threats and joys of the natural world. Am I recommending that we all forgo our indoor plumbing and return to cave living, where we are strongly bonded with all of nature and our fellow man? I guess it's a choice between anxiety and outright fear. I don't know about you, but I'm not prepared for a return to a primitive life. I'd rather learn to deal with my anxiety.
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