Book of Jamez

55 y/o malcontent, something of a writer

Category: School

  • Learning by Repetition

    In college I took Psychology as one of my classes, I didn’t really have any desire to be a psychologist I was just filling up class space with something that I could tolerate. I only wanted to take English classes, but somehow I had to take math, computer science and welcome to college too… It got me on the Deans list so I guess that’s ok.

    In preparation for my class I purchased my books ahead of time and then read a few chapters into each class before the first week of school – I wanted to be prepared. For my English class I don’t think we even referenced it the whole semester, but it was still good for me.  (more…)

  • Continuous Self-Improvement

    I was talking to my boss the other day about motivation, self-improvement, staff and such. We’ve discussed these topics before – I think we both agree these are important goals.

    He mentioned that he was reading the biography of Benjamin Franklin currently. Mr. Franklin didn’t finish school, he learned the hard way – because he wanted to. Benjamin would dedicate 5 hours each week to reading, not just anything either… he would read something different than what he was working on – so he didn’t just read about newspapers or how to discover electricity (they didn’t have “Discovering Electricity for Dummies back then) but things outside his regular wheelhouse.

    It’s a good idea – I read a lot actually but mostly stuff I love and work in. Insurance magazines, accessibility information, comic books… but it’s much better to expand my horizons and expose myself to something new once in a while.

    So I thought I’d start tonight to try some more continuous improvement – but not with books… I decided each day I’m going to watch at least one TED Talk.

    The tag line on TED.com is “ideas worth sharing”and I’ve watched a few over the years…

    • Amanda Palmer – The Art of Asking (a while ago, her husband talked about it on his Tumblr so I checked it out) interesting, I liked it
    • Stanley McChrystal – Listen, Learn… then lead – not what I was expecting but good lessons about leading, failing and not becoming failures
    • Paola Antonelli – Why I brought Pac-Man to MoMA video games as art, if you’ve any doubts about the beauty of video games subscribe to World of Warcraft for 30 days and see some amazing stuff… I’m sure there are other games just as beautiful

    I watched a few others that don’t stand out in my mind at the moment… but the bottom two were for tonight and I’m thinking I can watch at least one tomorrow too.. Let us see what these great minds can share with me.

    I’ll also likely pick up the biography as it sounds interesting. I had just read an article on Mr. Franklin’s schedule not that long ago and now RBU mentions it… so I think that’s a good indicator of what I should read next. Many moons ago several people talked to me about the Kite Runner in the same week so I read that, well worth it too.

    If I find some phenomenal TED talks I’ll share em here or on social media.

  • Can't Teach An Old Dog…

    During high school, well probably even as far back as elementary school – I had no desire to learn anything they wanted to teach me. It was boring. Time would have been better spent reading a comic book, watching tv or day dreaming about anything. I wasn’t engaged and didn’t see the purpose of learning. I loved reading stories though, loved my comics and the books I managed to get my hands on and thought deep down that someday I would be a writer.

    When I graduated high school with the bare minimum requirements everyone said “You have to go to college”. As a poor foster child there were many grants and available loans for me to choose from. I managed to get into the local college and signed up for astronomy, philosophy and some kind of statistics class as I think it was a mandatory class and I wanted to get it out-of-the-way. I didn’t want to be there at all and barely went to class on sober days, rarely on days when booze was available. Needless to say, I didn’t do well in 1989 in college and soon I was academic probation – so I left, not worth my time.

    Factory jobs for a few years and writing stories on an old Apple computer in my free time when I was stoned or drunk (made for some interesting plot holes). This was, I thought, what life was all about – a factory job, beer and not a care in the world. I was aiming pretty low at the time, but I would have been content at some level to just do that for the rest of my life – but alcoholism got in the way. (more…)

  • Sports

    I’ve never been a big fan of sports – I do though enjoy cheering against fanatics teams (Green Bay Packers and Washington Redskins for example) just to annoy the fans. The olympics don’t really ignite any flames for me, I think about all the money spent, the hours kids/young adults spend getting ready for their one chance to win a gold – a silver, a bronze just won’t do, it has to be gold… and if they fail the first time out the chances of a second win 4 years later is harder… unless you’re a doping cyclist or on an NBA super team.

    So how i ended up being the water boy for the girls high school basketball team in Whitehall eludes me.

    Ms Matchey (I think was her name), was the assistant coach and asked me and for some reason I said yes… me, the loner stoner, hanger-headed outcast participating in sports (not actively mind you, just on the sidelines). I filled their water bottles, cheered their points, watched the games with mild curiosity and actually began to understand it. These girls were very good, they were fast, strong and could make a basket, nothing I could claim myself. I was there for practices, games, and in the locker room (though this did nothing for me some people were jealous) they were always clothed when I was there. I’d pick up the wet towels, I’d make sure there were new towels… basketball

    (more…)

  • Up In Smoke

    Today there was a little mishap with someones lunch and the work microwave and pillars of smoke encompassed our small little office space. It was a terrible tragedy as the lunch didn’t survive

    very well done
    very well done

    The smell in the office was pretty bad though, one of our office mates sneezes around smoke as if someone doused her in sneezing powder, I felt sorry for her. The rest of us just ended up with our clothes, hair and skin smelling like burnt plastic. It was lovely. This wasn’t my first time smelling like burnt something or another…

    Back in 1985 (lets jump in the Way Back Machine Sherman!) I was living with Grandma in Whitehall. Every morning was the same routine with her, she’d wake me up and write in her journal and start singing some song or other and eventually get around to making herself breakfast. I wasn’t much of a breakfast person so I didn’t usually partake on school days, which this was.

    I just happened to be in the kitchen when something on the stove caught fire and there were high flames and billowing black smoke and Grandma yelling…

    “Don’t panic, don’t panic! I know what to do” and she grabbed an oven mitt and the lid to the pot and smothered it.

    Then she went on to explain that pouring water on it would have been a disaster and you should always know how to handle kitchen fires. At this point i would stop and wonder if she purposefully had the fire happen to teach me a lesson about putting them out, she was crafty like that. Nah, she wouldn’t… would she?

    Well the fire was out so I just left for school, never bothering to think that I might smell a little off… hell I was a smoker, didn’t I always smell like smoke?

    Well someone at the school thought it must be something else and before the end of first period I was called to the Principals office and asked if I’d been smoking pot. No really, apparently grease fires smell a lot like pot to people who don’t have a clue what pot smells like.

    At first I was outraged, HOW DARE THEY THINK I MIGHT BE SMOKING POT, I mean sure I might be… but how dare they… I always waited at least until lunch time – actually, I rarely had pot at school, why ruin a good high by being at school? (now if I had know about LSD back then, well … then that would have been a much better story).

    Anyway, I assured him that I hadn’t and explained about the grease fire, it actually took me a minute to remember that that’s what had happened that morning. It seemed insignificant in the grand scope of how to be a miserable teenager.

    So today I was taken for a little trip back to Whitehall WI and Grandma… and memories of stealing doorknobs to sell on the black-market… yeah, those were the good old days. And work, well I’m sure we’ll all be fine but I bet that smell lingers for a day or two.

     

  • Friends, Memories and Time

    In May of 1988 I graduated high school with a whole bunch of people I hardly knew. See I’d been at G-E-T High (that’s really the name of the school) for only 2 years after I’d been shipped off to foster care because I was a dirty rotten thief – actually, more of a petty thief or a snatch and grabber… To be fair, I can only recall a handful of the folks I went to school with in Whitehall also and I spent many years in elementary and high school with those folks.  – I think drugs did a lot to my memory….

    GET High
    GET High

    It was mentioned to me that it’d be nice to get together and I created a Facebook group and invited a bunch of the old gang. A year later we all actually showed up. Some of these people I hadn’t seen in 22 years. People get new jobs, join the military, marry, move a million times and disappear from our radar – one good thing about Facebook is the ability to find some of these folks again.

    We had a dinner Friday night at Wason’s Supper Club outside of Galesville and most of us were there, we quickly fell into old patterns of solving the worlds problems and rolling our eyes at one another. Time may have come and gone but we are all basically the same people – the same friends – we were back in school.

    Saturday we had a bar-b-q, and even with a few of us getting lost we all managed to find our way to the old cabin where we used to do all manner of things which young people do that they are encouraged not to :-). Someone found a radio station that played old 80s music and we all brought food and drinks.  Just being in the cabin stirred up all kinds of old memories:

    beer parties

    pot smoking

    don’t worry the alcohol will kill whatever is wrong with you, just take a sip

    warm fires in the cold winter

    getting snowed in for a few days and running out of booze – that was terrible, running out of booze is unforgivable

    the old nicknames: Burnout, Sleazy, Zeus… more I can’t recall

    I had to head out early and didn’t get to chat with all of my old friends as much as I would have liked, but it was nice to see them. They are people that help make me who I am today a million different ways and I’m glad I had them in my life them and hope that i’m lucky enough to have them in my life for however long I have.

  • summa cum laude

    Today something very special is happening – my best friend Suzanne is graduating Summa Cum Laude.

    I had to look up Summa Cum Laude to know what it meant  and I found the following:

    “with highest honor”

    or

    “with highest distinction”

    I’m incredibly proud of her. There were times when she was studying and struggling when she’d think about dropping a class or doubt herself. But I never doubted her, I’ve seen  her overcome some really big things in life and I knew a little thing like school couldn’t stand in her way.

    She is my example time and time again of what I could strive to be if I push myself hard and don’t give up. When I’m about to give up I think of her and know she’d solider on.

    I regret that I can’t be there today to see it – I wish I could because I know she’s be beaming that bright smile and radiating that happiness she takes with her everywhere…

    Suzanne, congratulations – I’m so very proud of you and will be thinking of you all day long.

    Love

    Jamez

  • Career and Locale Change #changes

    For the last few months I’ve been taking classes at night a couple times a week (Tuesday and Thursdays) to learn to be a phlebotomist and yesterday afternoon I took the final exam and am now certified and set to begin my new journey. My instructors at Because We Care here in DC were just so amazing and helpful and made the whole thing seem so easy – I know it’s because they were so good at training us. 

    A phlebotomist, in case you didn’t know is a technician that collects blood for testing and for transfusions, labeling the different samples, and keeping on top of all documentation. You’ve probably had a phlebotomist take your blood during your last doctor visit and didn’t even know they were anything besides a nurse. It’s very technical and specialized, I had to work for long hours figuring out the best ways to slip the syringe-needle with minimal discomfort on the patient. I’m actually getting a little turned on by wearing the rubber gloves so sometimes I might spend a little extra time just making sure they are “just right” before I begin.

    I had quite a few slips ups during my training and knew when the patient had gone that it would either bruise or at minimum sting for a little bit. But now I’m much more confident and have learned to distract the patient a little bit before I slip it in – mostly I just strike them up in casual conversation; ask them about their families or where they’ve vacationed lately. In my cubicle at the school lab I placed two posters for them to look at to help, one of the posters is a beautiful mountaintop covered in snow with a a couple of skiers on what looks like a milk run – boy does that scene make me wish I was out there this moment enjoying the powder. The other poster is just a couple of kittens, some people are into that I guess. I’ve learned that sometimes you have to go out of your way to please other people – especially if it helps them to relax, I’m all about small talk, but sometimes other distractions work.

    In anticipation of this certification I have been putting out feelers discretely for work in places that I’d like to live, you all know the list as I’ve talked about it so many times before but I think I’ve finally settled on Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I’ve sent my resume into St. Boniface hospital there and have already been asked to come in for an interview. My friend Nathan has assured me that I can crash at his house for the interview and if I get the job then I could even crash there until I get on my feet. Wow, I’m finally going to have free health care and I will only have to move out of the “land of the free” to get it. Crazy right? These Canadians not only have free health care, they are getting rid of their penny and have a porn channel… a porn channel! can you imagine? And the winters there I hear are comparable to what we have in the DC area so I’ll be fine.

    I’m flying out Monday for the interview and hope to have a job offer this week and if so I’ll be giving notice at my job then packing up and heading for Winnipeg! During my visit in September of last year I just fell in love with the place, the people, the poutine it’s everything I ever wanted and more. They’ve have good quality AA, beefy men and the Blue Bombers – Canada’s best football team and you know I’m a big football fan so I belong in this city. Once I’m settled in I hope a lot of you have the opportunity to visit – especially in January you really want to experience the snow and ice blanketing the city – it’s stunning.

    The thought of working in a hospital environment collecting bodily fluids for testing and labeling is just very fulfilling. I look forward to sucking… er drawing the blood out of Canadians for many years to come. I hope that you will all also have the opportunity to feel this fulfilled about a career change as I do.

    Becoming a certified phlebotomist is a life long dream I’ve had for a couple of months now and it’s finally becoming a reality.

    If you’re late to the party, this was my April Fools Day Post – I pass out around needles and blood, detest snow and cold weather and don’t do “small talk”.

  • Tales of Old Re-Read Anew

    In 1985, I was either a Freshman or Sophomore in Whitehall Memorial High School (who was it a Memorial to? I have no idea) and we were required to go to the school library to attend the R.I.F. event. [The library was not one of my favorite places anyway, learning the dewey decimal system was required – yeah, that’ll get me interested in books or suicide, lets risk it.] We’d been having R.I.F. events at school each year, maybe twice a year and I was never really interested in the speel they’d give before they let us pick a book or even the books that were available to us. At this particular R.I.F. event I was there with my friend Ted and after the opening remarks we started looking at the books, not too hopeful at all that there would be anything good.

    We stumbled upon a book or two that had dragons on the cover and in the title. Both were from the same series Dragonlance Chronicles and were the 2nd and 3rd in the series. Ted grabbed Dragons of Winter Night and I grabbed Dragons of Spring Dawning and agreed to read what we could and talk about them with one another. Ted and I were already talking about comic books regularly and all that was going on there so this was a natural progression I suppose. I don’t know why the first book wasn’t available nor why I didn’t seem to grasp the whole idea of a story progressing from one book to another…

     

     

    Over the next few weeks Ted and I would share what we were reading and became enthralled with the characters of the books and the story that was happening. Being on the third book I was really rather lost as to what was going on and the significance of the characters as they related to the whole story. But it was still a good story that kept me reading from one page to the next – Ted too. At some point we switched up the two books. Fortunately for Ted he was following the progression, but I was a bit confused and tried to piece it all together. Later on when we found the first book, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, we’d both be in the same boat. After starting at the middle and the end we both re-read the books from the beginning to the end and really appreciated them all the more. We loved the story, the characters the ideas that stretched our imagination.

     

     

    Most importantly, we kept reading other things – so R.I.F. was successful for us. It got two guys that mostly only cared about comic books to read other things. It didn’t mean either of us put our comics away or that we were only going to read about stories with dragons and wizards, but it did mean that we actually came to find the enjoyment only a book can offer.

    Recently these titles have become available for the Kindle and I just finished re-reading the first book and fell in love with the characters and story all over again. In moving and aging somehow I lost my original books to this series, I have a collected works that has all these books in one large volume, the cover and first few pages have come off and it’s aged and yellow. I really love this old story and reading it again.

    Thank you Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Margaret McNamara and the 1975 U.S. Congress for helping me find something I enjoy so much.

     

  • Finding a Safe Harbor for Children

    Last night on Twitter I saw more than a few tweets asking “is no place  safe to leave children with adults alone”. These questions came out in response to the Penn State Scandal where a respected coach was preying on young boys and the firings as a result.

    The answer to the question of “is no place safe to leave children with adults alone” is probably no. Not as we currently function as a society anyway. There are monsters and predators in all walks of life that have every job imaginable, we can focus on the ones in the churches and the schools but children are taken advantage of every day by people in all different fields of work.

    As a victim – I hate that word so lets start over.

    As someone who was sexually molested when I was younger I was thinking last night what could have prevented it from happening? Was there something my parents could have said or done to keep me safe? Would it have been better if I’d been secluded from others for all of my growing years so I couldn’t get hurt? Was there a magic word that wasn’t uttered? a prayer? None of those things would have mattered. Some parents are child predators, some relatives, and keeping me locked away from the rest of the world would only serve to make me that more vulnerable when I was released.

    What might have helped, and I’m just speculating on hindsight here, is a better understanding of sex. That sounds a bit out there I know, but when I was molested I hadn’t even had “health education” class yet and the only things I knew about sex were from the photos I saw in some dirty magazines one of my Mom’s friends or an uncle had in the basement (none of which were male on male sex). I was completely ignorant about all of it so when it was happening at the beginning I was mostly just confused. Pedophiles are very good at convincing the child of a few things, some work by coercion some by seduction, but they all get what they want out of it – the innocence of the child.

    For me, I was conned into thinking he actually loved me and that’s why he wanted to do those things to me. It never occurred to me that if he loved only me why was he doing it to the other 15 boys in town. He was smart, after the first night he fondled me, before working up to more sexual things he had a cover story that he fed my Mom that she bought – in her defense it was a pretty good story – and I was there when he told her and had learned early on that I wasn’t to contradict adults.

    I’ve digressed here a bit I think. I’m not a parent, but things that might have helped me I’ll list below.

    I think if we want to have our children be safer out there in a world with monsters we need to talk to them more about sex earlier – let them know we’re open to talk with them about anything weird that’s going on. Let them know that any naked secrets are bad secrets and any time they feel uncomfortable they should feel free to talk to us. We need to communicate with them and understand what’s going on in their world regularly. I don’t think kids should be left alone with an adult for a long period of time or at several different times over a long period. Children shouldn’t spend the majority of their free time with someone older than them.

    We also need adults that don’t turn a blind eye when a question is raised. Just because that person is from the military, church, school, or hospital doesn’t make them incapable of doing horrible things. If your kids pull away, start acting differently, bring up reasons to not hang out with someone – there might be something deeper there.

    What happened to me and has happened to millions of other kids in the world doesn’t have to happen. But if it does happen, those kids need real heroes to be there and stop the monsters. Be a real hero.

    Resources:

    Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline  1-800-4-A-CHILD

    Child Abuse Prevention Association: http://www.childabuseprevention.org/

    National Child Abuse Hotlines: http://reportchildabusenow.com/

    Adult Survivors of Child Abuse: http://www.ascasupport.org/