I had a moment...then the cat saved the day (and my husband)

So I just finished reading this ridiculously good book - seriously, I didn't know authors even wrote this good anymore!  (If you ever want a good read, look up Carlos Ruiz Zafon - read The Shadows of the Wind first and then The Angel's Game, which is the one I just finished.) The end was really bittersweet and because I spent 531 pages with the very engaging characters, I naturally had a visceral reaction. Alex came home from his hockey game and I was BAWLING - not just a few tears, but a complete, all-out bawl-fest, snot and everything. Of course at first he thought something was really wrong, so I was trying to explain but every time I started talking I started bawling again - it was just so friggin' sad!!!  So when he finally figured out what was going on, he stared at me without blinking for a few seconds, then went out to his truck to bring in his gear. If you're missing the Y chromosome like I am, then you'll understand - his reaction pissed me off. No, I'm not just a hormonal female - I am, in fact, a passionate lover of good literature and I can't help it if I become completely immersed in a book. I won't apologize for it, either. So there.

I made one more unsuccessful attempt to get across the gravity of the novel in 500 words or less...and he rolled his eyes and went to take a shower (which was a blessing because he stunk like...you guessed it, nasty hockey gear).  Agitated as I was, I yelled through the bathroom door, "Well if YOU knew anything about passionately loving someone, you would understand!" Probably unfair given that he's a very good hubby who never neglects to remind me that he loves me. But I wallowed for awhile about how no one would do for me what the novel's hero did for the love of his life (despite the fact that she married his best friend).

I grumped around for awhile and still a little weepy, I sat on the floor where my cat was beckoning for a belly rub. As I indulged him, I looked him right in the eyes and he looked intently back at me as if to say, "Don't worry mom, I understand." Which is why animals make the best soulmates in the world. In the midst of their humans' bizarre reactions to literature and other seemingly inane stimuli, they understand that we are merely experiencing primal emotional instincts. That's what I think anyway, but I'm not the cat whisperer or anything so what do I know?

t.

A better kind of letter

June 2, 2010

Cedar Brook Animal Hospital

223 Cedarbrook Rd.

Sicklerville, NJ 08081

To the very friendly staff:

I LOVE YOU GUYS! Please allow me to elaborate.

Last night, I brought my big fat cat in for an annual visit and shots – my dog has already been to see you but this was a first-time visit for Sangha, who doesn’t generally take kindly to strangers. I was kind of nervous about changing vets because I’ve always taken him to the office where I adopted him, even though they nickel-and-dimed me until my wallet screamed for mercy.

No fewer than five staff members at CBAH interacted with us and I waited almost no time at all to see the vet. Everyone was super friendly and genuinely interested in my odder-than-odd feline. When his records were faxed over from the other vet’s office, both the tech and the vet reviewed them carefully with me. Once I mentioned that Sangha was allergic to allergy shots, the doctor made (and quadruple-highlighted) a note on the top of his chart so that he’s never accidentally given that medication. Even the vet he had been seeing for over four years forgot about his allergy every year, remembering only when I pointed out to her that I couldn’t afford another kitty-E.R. visit in the middle of the night.

Additionally, you’ve saved me big-time money – not only did you point out that since he’s an indoor cat, he only really needs to get shots every three years, but your office visit was really reasonably priced. Sangha’s previous vet had me buying him special food (from her, of course), special oil for his coat, flea/tick medicine (even though he has never willingly been outside), etc. Since I’m such a sucker for that cat, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Sangha’s life wasn’t easy before he adopted me – he was thrown out of a moving car because his “owner” no longer wanted him and when I got him, he was skinny and a little whiny. Of course his life since then has been spent in the lap of luxury, where he can be lazy and have intelligent conversations with someone who has learned feline lingo. He’s not so much whiny now as he is content to head-butt his family members when he wants attention, smack his dog in the face to remind her who’s boss, and talk about food.

Needless to say, we’ll be back for our annual visits. Thank you again!

Sincerely,

Tara Ronda

PS: Sorry about the shedding – he’s a hairy beast. Perhaps you can use it to create a little office cat that greets the patients or something J

A letter (and yes, it really is in the mail)

June 1, 2010

Sallie Mae, Inc.
ATTN: Correspondence
P O Box 9500
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18773-9500

Dear Sallie Mae,

I hate you. Please allow me to elaborate.

I have unfortunately been a customer for just about ten years and I would like to offer some evidence of your complete incompetence as a lender and manager of student loans. I am extremely frustrated and disgusted with the way that you provide “customer support.” I have critical questions about my existing student loans and there appears to be virtually no way for me to get them answered. Case in point: 

1. I sent an email. You ignored it. Or you just never got around to it because of what I’m sure is the sheer volume of students you’re “servicing.” 
2. I called. Your genius automated system has several notable limitations and was unable to answer what I thought were some pretty basic questions. (Really, is it too much to ask that you have one or two human beings staffing the phone once in awhile?) 
3. I didn’t bother writing a letter because I don’t have the luxury of time to wait for a response via Pony Express, which now that I think of it might have actually been faster than trying to reach you via email and phone.

Let’s face it – you’ve been on a downward slope for quite awhile and my friend, you are NOT in the business of teaching snowboarding lessons. The way I see it, you’re making a pant-load of money off of my debt and I deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect, not ignored when trying to get answers about the loans that I will be repaying for the remainder of my natural life. I have spent an unforgivable amount of my workday trying not to throw my phone AND my computer out the window. The only recourse I had was to write you a disgruntled letter – sad that it’s come to this, when we’ve got so much technology, don’t you think?

It is unfortunate that you care so little for your customers. So unfortunate, in fact, that you might as well consider this a Dear John letter. You’re not the only loan company in the sea, so I intend to consolidate elsewhere and make all our lives a little easier. I have worked in higher education for years; hence, I encounter lots and lots of students whose entire future is likely tied up in unscrupulous loan companies like yours. I also love writing angry letters to the editors of my favorite publications – what’s the point of writing a sappy love letter to an editor, after all? I’ll be sure to spread the good word of our breakup.  

Sincerely yours,

Tara N. Ronda

P.S. - If you haven't yet seen the Sallie Mae's Incompetence blog, I highly suggest it - it makes for some gooooood reading: http://www.imjosh.com/salliemae/.

Pies in the sky...and other tales

REASONS I AM INSANE
1. A teeny tiny little part of my brain actually thinks I can get into medical school.
2. An even teenier tinier little part of my brain thinks I can SURVIVE medical school, residency, and all that debt.
3. Although only .002% of my brain thinks I can do this, I'm still pushing ahead with a plan that is most likely unrational, unrealistic, and just plain dumb.

THINGS I WISH SOMEONE WOULD HAVE TOLD ME ABOUT HOME-OWNERSHIP
1. When things break, you have to fix them. Otherwise, they're bound to get worse.
2. You have to mow your lawn on a regular basis or it gets very scary walking into the backyard, where just about anything could be hiding.
3. Even though it's awfully nice to sit on your ass doing nothing all day, you won't get many opportunities to do that when the washer, dryer, and dishwasher are all full at the same time, the floors need to be mopped, and the spiders in the corner of the ceiling are living the high life in their mansion webs that seem to be getting bigger.
4. There are some things that should never...EVER...be put in the dishwasher.
5. The roof will only last so long...and when that goes, the septic system and well will both jump on the bandwagon, too.
6. Wheelbarrows with three wheels are much more useful than the crappy kind with one wheel on the front - but they're too expensive so you'll have to make do with the crappy one.
7. Don't get too comfortable getting comfortable. If you get used to it being 72 degrees in the winter and 62 in the summer, you'll be expecting that kind of luxury all the time - nope, better to wear layers...or nothing at all if given the right circumstances.

An update

1. Have decided to go into the pre-med program where I work - it's easier, will allow me to adjunct at ACCC, and requires less driving than the other programs. It's also A LOT cheaper.

2. Finally realized that I need to get a social life again. I've been such a hermit for so long, holing myself up with my dog, cat, and husband (granted, not an entirely bad thing), but I had a blasty blast at the concert last weekend. Which made me realize I need to get out more. How sad is that?

3. I've lost some weight...or at least some inches. I'm almost back to my pre-married-life skinny. It helps that I'm not eating chocolate nonstop anymore. Whew! - it's good to be fab again :)

4. I'm crazy in love with my house. Sometimes I have these moments when I'm standing in the living room thinking, "OMG, we're actually homeowners!" It's definitely cool to know that you've worked for what you have, you can paint the walls whatever color you want (even...gulp!...orchid corsage), and the plants are yours to kill...er, water...at will.

5. Related to the wonders of homeownership, I often worry that we'll end up bankrupt and homeless one day. Not a problem I had with renting. Hubby works in a construction-type field and has been seriously klutzy over the last couple of years - half the time, not even at work. Like a few weeks ago, he pulled his MCL playing hockey (he's a goalie) and I panicked 'cause all I could think was, "How long is he gonna be out of work THIS time?" I need to get him insured :)

6. It's HUMP DAY!

t.

A little self-reflection...

After five days of being down with a cold, I'm bouncing back up and suffering only the residual effects (mostly a sore nose). My state of mind, however, could use a little boost so I thought some self-reflection might do the trick.

Over the last 24 hours, I finally came to the conclusion that life is not worth living when it's situated only within the frame of someone else's view - that is to say, if someone else is holding MY camera and taking the picture on which I base my actions, something needs rearranging. Here's a (completely hypothetical, of course) example:

• Let's say that I have worked somewhere for, oh I don't know, about nine and a half years and during that time, I've found it next to impossible to get the financial support I need to do the job I'm being asked to do. Then, imagine that about eight and a half years into that job, the institution for which I work hires one or two OTHER people to do jobs very similar to mine and pays them about 1.5 to 2 times what I make annually. You can imagine my (completely hypothetical) frustration when I see that resources are being poured into two new positions that recreate the wheel on which I've been steadily devoting my energy into shaping for nearly a decade, because I know that with 1/3 of those resources, I could have brought my work to a new level, thereby impacting many more people in a positive way. The frustration would (hypothetically) eat away at me, wouldn't it? It would probably make me feel run down, unappreciated, ineffective, and in some ways worthless - but ONLY if I viewed myself through the lens of the person who made those decisions. I would probably go through a phase in which I blamed the wrong people and pettily denied their right to their jobs, although they had done nothing but defer to me time and time again because at least they recognize that what I'm doing is valuable. But I would only be making the situation harder on myself if I allowed this situation to shape my response to my coworkers, friends, and place of employment. I would effectively be denying myself the right to be as happy as possible and get as much done as possible with what I have.

Good example, right? For me, it demonstrates just exactly how powerful someone else can be when you lend them your camera - even worse, when you outright give them your camera, let them do the shooting, and then hang their portraits up on the wall, where you can admire them day after day after day. You'd lose a little of yourself in the process, wouldn't you?

I've finally matured enough to accept the fact that some things can't be changed and certainly won't be changed by allowing myself to become a bitter, unhappy old coot. This, I think, is what the Buddha meant when he talked about mindfulness. This must have been what the monks who self-immolated during the Vietnam War knew all along - that you can immerse yourself in a truth so deep and encompassing that it surpasses the physical pain of living in the corporeal world, a pain that is caused by nothing more than allowing your camera to get into the wrong hands. They must have known that the wrong-intentioned world powers who were so hungry for personal gain that they would sacrifice the good of the whole were not real and could, in fact, be denied by demonstrating their un-realness.

A little too esoteric, perhaps...it's early on a Monday morning and I've probably had too much coffee. Still, I think there's some truth to the idea of just letting go of the many insidious ways I've allowed other people to get in my head and under my skin. I guess I'm reclaiming my head and my skin as my own - not a bad way to start the week :)

All those "urgent" voicemails that people left while I was laid up in bed for three days last week, all those hundreds of emails that gathered in my inbox...not critical. And in fact, while I was reading an issue of Oprah's magazine - oh, smirk if you must - there was an interesting article about this New Age-y woman named Byron Katie, who counters every self-important question with four of her own, the first of which is, "Is it true?" Thus, if I closely examine the initial thought that all these people who leave multiple messages and send multiple emails really need me, I will most likely find that it's not true. No one will die without me. And it feels pretty good to admit that.

I guess the trick is to balance your own peace of mind with the needs of others so that you don't completely devalue what someone else finds important. But at the same time, people are just so self-important, aren't we? We really believe that there's no one else who can do the job like we can, that each of us is a "unique snowflake" (Fight Club, anyone?).

Well, short of the left parenthese on my keyboard, which does not seem to be working and poses quite the problem when I'm trying to type a treatise like this one, I don't need anything just now and no one needs me. Ain't it a beautiful world?

t.

Decisions, decisions...

I'm home sick today - what I thought was a nasty bout of allergies was actually the hints of a cold...I think. Not a head cold, more like a bronchitis type of thing (though I hope it's not that bad). So I've been working a little from home and now I'm thinking even more about some new decisions I have to make.

CONUNDRUM #1: If you read my FB profile at all, you know I was accepted into LaSalle's pre-med program. Very exciting...but a little bit of a bummer because I just realized they only offer daytime courses. (DUH! That's definitely the kind of thing I should have looked at before applying.)

• PROS: It's a good program at a great school that happens to be close to the city's best teaching hospitals. Plus they have some really good experiential learning opportunities that would definitely add to the credibility of my med school app.
• CONS: I'd be missing a significant amount of work (because there's almost no way to make up those missed hours since the classes are typically 3-4 days). And it's definitely a lot of drive time.

CONUNDRUM #2: Still haven't heard back from Stockton re: acceptance or rejection into their pre-med program. I think they'll accept me, but even if they do, more decisions to make.

• PROS: I work there so I'd get a decent tuition discount, plus fitting classes into my schedule wouldn't be too difficult. I like the faculty and because I wouldn't spend a lot of wasted time driving, I'd have more time to study. (On a side note, I recently got an adjunct teaching position with Atlantic Cape Community College in Atlantic City for the fall, which wouldn't really be feasible for me if I were traveling to and from Philly all the time.)
• CONS: Inaccessible to Philly hospitals where I could get great learning/volunteer experiences. Also, being a student where I work has posed some challenges in the past - it's awkward to be sitting in class with your own students and my student personality is VERY different from my work personality.

CONUNDRUM #3: I've recently been rethinking my decision to apply to Drexel's Evening Post-Baccalaureate Pre-Med Program. I still have some materials to get in but I keep second-guessing myself.

• PROS: It's a great program within an actual School of Medicine, not to mention the fact that it's also near all the city hospitals. It's an evening program designed for the full-time working professional like me, and the curriculum is right up my alley. It's a straight two-year program with a basic course structure and all the courses are specifically for students in the program, so I wouldn't be taking undergrad courses like in the other programs. Plus, I can easily add undergrad classes into the mix for areas in which I feel a little weak (like anatomy and physiology).
• CONS: It also requires lots of driving (although probably not as much as the LaSalle program) and is more competitive to get accepted into, which means that I may wait and wait for a response only to find out it's a NO. Not that this is a huge con, but it's also situated in a very M.D.-focused school as opposed to the D.O. focus I'd like to take, so I'm unsure if there would be any inherent conflicts there.

Ultimately, I believe you make what you can out of your own education - it doesn't necessarily matter if you're not accepted into the best and most expensive program available to you, as long as you work hard and GO AFTER opportunities rather than waiting for someone to hand them to you. So I suppose wherever I end up will be where I'm meant to be and because of my commitment to this goal, I'll get a good experience wherever I go. But there is still the question of whether time and money should be my focus or location and experience should be my focus, because I don't think I'm going to get both, no matter where I end up.

Ideas?

t.