The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Halloween at My University

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Halloween at My University: Hallooween is celbrated with intensity here. It's not merely a one-evening or even a twenty-four-hour celebration. The drunken revelry has ...

Halloween at My University

Hallooween is celbrated with intensity here. It's not merely a  one-evening or even a twenty-four-hour celebration. The drunken revelry has been going on for the better part of a week. Monday night it will supposedly escalate to the level of Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

My pseudoAunt's brother Timmy said he will take me so that I can at least see the celebration. He said we won't stay for long because the drunken revelry is somewhat dangerous, but that he will at least let me get a look at the parties. The closer one gets to the ocean, the more exciting the parties become. The very last street before the ocean is the rough equivalent to Bourbon Street. It's already in full celebration mode.

Timmy said no one sober enough to notice would be comfortable with me in attendance at his or her party because my youthful appearance would likely attract the attention of law enforcement personnel. still, he thinks we can pole our heads into a couple of exciting events during a thirty-minute-walk down Bourbon Street.

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Held Against My Will (sort of)

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Held Against My Will (sort of): My Pseudoaunt and Pseudouncle showed up at my house unexpectedly today. I wasn't expecting them, anyway. My mom apparently was. As soon as t...

Held Against My Will (sort of)

My Pseudoaunt and Pseudouncle showed up at my house unexpectedly today. I wasn't expecting them, anyway. My mom apparently was. As soon as they walked in the door and told me of their plans to kidnap me and keep me overnight, forcing me to miss four of my university classes tomorrow,  my mom handed to my Pseudoaunt a bag packed with what she thought I would need for an overnight trip. I attempted to politely decline the invitation, but my Pseudouncle used his size and strength to force me into their car.

Now we're at a hotel located close to an amusement park. Tomorrow morning, when I should be on campus attending class, I will be forced to visit an amusement park and ride roller coasters. Whoever heard of such a thing? If a kid screws up and gets a lousy grade in a course, which I've never exactly done, everyone in the world is angry with the kid. Once I did get a mid-quarter progress report that had a minus after the A. I lost computer privileges for three weeks until the teacher got around to letting my parents know that my average in the class was, with the extra credit that I did, back  up to 104.8%.  Now the people in charge of me are forcing me to miss an entire day's worth of classes.

The supposed reason for my adult-enforced instance of playing hooky is that I am now taking my studies too seriously and am stressing out over my courseload.  I'm taking 21 quarter units. What sane person wouldn't be stressed out?  The answer to my being stressed about classes and grades, they think, is to take me away from the courses and everything associated with them for a day. Won't my anxiety be even greater on Tuesday night, just before I have to return to the classes that I skip tomorrow? The logic, or lack thereof, displayed by certain people close to me is mind-boggling.

So tomorrow, while most of the world is toiling away, I will be engaged in the forced merriment of riding roller coasters in the name of mental health. Happy Monday, everyone.

Fairly Odd Professor

I've finished five of six mid-terms. My last one is on Friday. I continue to tell myself, "This, too, shall pass."

One of my professors, whose couse shall not be identified because one never knows for certain that she's not an insomniac googler, is weirder than hell. She rides her bicycle to class for each session, lugging her cat along in her cat carrier each time.  She then lets the cat out in the classroom; each time the door opens and another student enters, she shrieks, "Don't let the cat out!" The cat, clearly unhappy with the arrangement, paces the room meowing loudly and occasionally jumping onto a desk. Sometimes the cat hisses at the person on whose desk she jumped. One girl in the class is really freaked out by cats. She has to take Ativan, prescribed by some practitioner at the student health center, before each class. A guy in the class is quite allergic to cats. The doctor he saw at the health center wanted information regarding what professor was repeatedly bringing her cat to class when at least one of the students  has obvious issues with the presence of a cat. The guy would not tell the doctor because he feared retaliation; grading is generally subjective.

If bringing a cat to class were the only odd thing about this professor I could more or less ignore it, as I'm not personally affected either by cat anxiety or by allergies; however, this professor is a Tea Party proponent and a birther. How she ever got hired here is a mystery to me. My university is probably the number two bastion of liberality on the west coast, second only to U. C. Berkeley. A person who finds a way to work into her lecture each session a topic related to the foreign birth and, hence, illegal presidency of our nation's current president has some inherent gifts in creativity.  I cannot disclose the course name or description, but, believe me, it's not in any way related to U. S. government. The professor's briefcase bears a photo of Michelle Bachman crudely taped on with duct tape. If I were going to carry a briefcase with a picture of Michelle Bachman, which I wouldn't -- ever -- even if I were paid to do so, I would find a way to attach it that didn't involve silver metallic tape.

As strange as this professor herself is the product she peddles. None of my other professors uses class time to attempt to profit finacially from his or her students. Doing so would seem to pose a potential conflict of interest, or possibly even the hint of impropriety.This lady sells  essential oils.. I can't disclose the brand name here, but it's highly unlikely that you've ever heard of it; the FDA hasn't, either. The professor's cousin allegedly manufactures the supplements in her garage lab. I'm certainly not going to jeopardize my health, much less part with my hard-earned cash, for some dubiously produced and unapproved greasy substance, even though she guaranteed that I would grow two inches and gain twenty-six pounds if I used the crud. After the guy had his first allergic reaction to her cat, the professor tried to sell him a bottle of compound vitamins that she said would take care of his allergy in no time.  One would think she could have given him the stuff when her cat caused his allergic reaction, but the price she quoted to him ($29.95   for a single vial)  didn't seem to be even a discounted price. The allergic guy appears not to be a total idiot; he didn't buy the product.

We've only turned in one assignment for this course, which has not yet been returned to us even though it was four weeks ago that the assignment was due, and will take our first exam on Friday. If the professor's judgment in grading is as compromised as is the rest of her teaching style, I will be seriously upset. If not, I'll chalk this one up to experience and simply be glad when the experience is over.

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Confession

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: Confession: Among people who were not merely valedictorians [usually anyone 3.99 or above receives the dinstinction of being a co-valedictorian]but gra...

Confession

Among people who were not merely valedictorians [usually anyone 3.99 or above receives the dinstinction of being a co-valedictorian]but  graduated bona fide number one in their respective high school classes, I probably dislike studying as much as anyone. I don't mind reading the textbooks or other assigned literature, and I don't have any particular problem writing papers or doing other assignments.  What really geets to me is studying for exams. 

It's an incredibly open-ended process. How can one ever know when one has studied enough?  Sometimes I think I would be better off if I went into every test not having spent the previous night or weekend preparing for it. Of course I would have done the initial readings when they were assigned or before, and I certainly would have attended and would have taken copious notes from every lecture, and would have transcribed them into something more readable as soon as possible after having taken the notes. Such, I've found, is a major key to success in any challenging course. The purpose of transcribing the notes from the initial shorthand form in which they were taken to something more readable isn't actually so the notes can be read by myself or anyone else. It's more that the act of rewriting them into standard English does something to solidify the academic content in my mind.

I learned this when I when I was enrolled in Advanced Placement English Literature as a high school freshman. I was allowed by my guidance counselor  to enroll in this course, which was usually reserved for seniors or others who had completed all the lower English courses prior to their senior year by taking summer school, because it was the only period in my schedule that was open for English, and the lower course were full. I was a choir accompanist for $$$, which took up two periods.  (I took summer school  to clear those classes in my schedule that year.) The math course I was taking was only offered at the Advanced Placement level one period, and my science course didn't have much more flexibility.

We were told prior to one test by the teacher that it would be an open-book and open-notes exam. I recopied all my notes so that I wouldn't waste valuable time struggling to read what I had written in haste. Then, on the day of the exam, all but myself and two or three other students had the same set of notes, taken by one student and photocopied and sold to the rest of them during the break prior to the test. This wasn't explicitly cheating, as it wasn't a copy of the test that was distributed. Still the teacher was angered by the mass-produced notes. The few of us that didn't have them pleaded with her that we be allowed to use our own notes, but she was angry enough that she wasn't being reasonable. I had prepared for the test with the understanding that I would be allowed to use my notes, so when the privilege of using notes was suddenly revoked, I expected to have difficulty with the test. When I began reading and responding to the questions on the test, however, I much of what I had written while transcribing the notes came back to me, at the very least much more than it did for those who hadn't actually taken their own notes, much rewritten or retyped  them. From that point on, I made it a point to always rewrite or retype my notes.

Some people actually have to handwrite something to derive the same benefit; for me, it doesn't matter  whether I type or physically write something. Some teachers allowed computers during lectures; others didn't because many students, possibly even myself on occasion,  would have used them for all sorts of things more compelling than taking notes. If a teacher allowed computers for notes in a class, I usually brought mine. If computers weren't allowed, I would have been forced to handwrite them. It didn't seem to matter which way I took or transcribed the notes. I use my computer to take notes in my university courses.

My suspicion is that if I relied on my daily routines, I would do at least as well as I do with ruining an entire weekend before every test, and typically studying too late the night before.  I suspect this, but I don't know it from experience. What I probably need to do is to try it out in one class for one test.  Chances are that even if I blew a midterm, I wouldn't score so low that I couldn't overcome it with overachieving on other assignments and acing the final. Last weekend I already spent studying, so it's too late to test my hypothesis for this quarter, and the stakes are too high to try it for the first time on the final exam of any course this quarter. My experiment will have to wait until winter quarter.

At some point in late February or early March I'll report back on my findings.

I Don't Know If I can Do This Anymore

I don't like school. I never liked it. Even preschool I hated. For the most part I've kept kept my opinions to myself because I knew school was non-negotiable. I've reached the point where, even though I've still got a year and change before I turn eighteen, some parts are negotiable.

 The original plan was for me to hang around here for three years so that I could complete a double major in English and  music, but I'm considering totally ditching the music major and reevaluating whether the English major stands alone in terms of providing employment opportunities. I'm not totaaly burning bridges in terms of law school.  Just about any major -- even liberal arts will grant one admission to law school with sufficiently high GPA and LSAT. During my break between semesters, I plan to find a law school and get permission to sit in on a couple of classes to see if I think it's enough different from regular university courses
that I will be able to tolerate three additional years of schooling.

I have six midterms this week. I just completed my lfinal project assignment unless a professor throws something at us that isn't in the syllabus. I didn't really have to complete everything this early, but I can't sleep well when I have pending assignments even if they're not due for seven weeks. most of them are due within six weeks. Once I get through the mideterm exams, life should become a little more bearable.

If I don't go to law school, I have no idea what I will do in terms of a career. math comes easily to me, but i don't want to crunch numbers for a living. teaching is something I don't think I ever want to do. I've had enough poor teachers during my career so far as a student that I feel strongly about only those who feel called to it enter the teaching profession. one shouldn't become a teacher because one can't find anything else to do. period. The medical profession would require more schooling than the legal profession. Nursing, dental hygiene, and related fields don't appeal to me. If I wanted to work in the allied health fields, I would bite the bullet and  go to medical, dental, optometry, or pharmacy school. ti don't have a big problem with authority, but too many bosses ar not a good thing.

If my parents knew I am this stressed, they would insist that I see my therapist, but I don't have the time to do such a thing this week.. On the surface it would seem stupid to blog about it if I don't want them to know, but they're both really busy right now, so I have at least a week before either one will read the post or even take a call from someone else who might tell them about it.

When things slow down next week, I will reassess my situation. It is possible that my feelings will change when the midterms are history. At this point, however, I'm looking for ways to jump through this hoop in the most expeditious manner available.

Admittedly Odd Post

     Molestation has been a prevailing topic of recent blogs at the "Band Back Together" website. This has caused me to evaluate my own life. I have a confession to make. Other than my near miss on a sexual assault a year or so ago, no one has ever even attempted to molest me in my entire life. After reading some of the blogs at "Band Back Together," I realize just how lucky I am that such has never happened to me.

     My father is a doctor and he has treated me on occasion, which involves slightly more body exposure in the presence of the opposite sex parent than is typical once someone is beyond infancy, but he's always incredibly respectful and even apologetic about having to stick a stethoscope slightly under the neckline of my shirt or having to give me an injection. I could be the very last female on the planet and I would still be 100% safe with my father. As difficult as it is to imagine, such is apparently not always the case.

    I read somewhere that a mother's boyfriend is statistically the single most likely perpetrator of sexual abuse in a girl's life. If my mother has ever had a boyfriend since she married my dad, I certainly know nothing about it. I seriously doubt such could be the case anyway because she barely has enough energy for my dad. The next most likely person is an uncle, follwed very closely by a stepfather. I have no stepfather, which you know if you've read many of my blogs, but I have a whole slew of uncles. While several of them are weirder than hell, to the best of my knowledge, not one of them has any sort of attraction to underage females, related or unrelated. My dad's brother Steve is my doctor, but we have a fairly normal uncle/niece relationship when he's not treating me. He's certainly never violated any boundaries either when practicing medicine or when not practicing medicine. My Pseudouncle Scott, who has been one of my guardians during parts of the past four summers, is also a doctor and has treated me on a few occasions. It's a bit more awkward with him because he's much closer in age to me than any of my uncles or my dad, but he's always sort of like, "Would you get over it, Alexis? I'm not getting any more out of this than you are." Furthermore, he hasn't exactly examined me invasively.

    This post may seem somewhat pointless, but basically it's a shout-out to all the adults in my life, including relatives, teachers, coaches, and medical professionals, who may bug the hell out of me at times, but if you have any particular sexual perversions, you keep them far away from me. Thank you!

"House" Season Premiere

The new season of "House" premiered last night. My dad watched it with me. He hates the show because the entire premise of it -- a diagnostics department that usually has four doctors working exclusively  on a single case for days at a time -- jumps the shark in a major way. Each individual episode usually affronts reality at least ten times, but I don't care; I watch the show religiously.

My dad was particularly bothered that Dr. Wilson, an oncologist, was the primary physician for a patient who had suffered cancer in the past but whose manifesting illness was emphysema. A pulmonologist, my dad said, would have been the physician making the calls. I'm not sure exactly what my dad thinks gives him the right to criticize "House" for not having a pulmonologist treat an emphysema patient. My dad is an oncologist and hematologist   When my pseudoaunt was critically ill with multiple bleeding duodenal perforations on top of cystic fibrosis, my dad acted as  her primary care physician. I witness hypocrisy personified on a daily basis.

The doctors in "House" hit each other far more than people with similar educational levels in real life actually do.  House punches Chase. Chase floors House with a nasty right hook. Wilson decks House. Even the new Asian fellow decked her previous attending physician off-camera. No one ever presses charges when these guys (or girls) cold-cock each other. It's the rough equivalent of a women's softball game in terms of the level of violence present.

Dr. Chases didn't appear in this episode, which greatly interfered with my enjoyment. I've read that he does show up in subsequent episodes, so I don't have to officially go into mourning. I would watch "House," though, even if Jesse Spencer never appeared again, just for the fun of torturing my father.

You're probably not going to believe this, but . . .

Then again, you've heard so much anecdotal evidence of the erratic behavior that occurs in my family that this next instance may not even come as a surprise to you. My Aunt Christelle and her husband, Uncle Mendel, who have been living and working in various places throughout Europe, are presently stationed in The Isle of Man. The latest news they've dropped on us is that Christelle is eight months pregnant with a baby girl. I understand why Christelle and Mendel sat on this news for a few weeks or months. With the number of pregnancies ending in miscarriage, I wouldn't choose to make the big announcement too erly, only to have to make nother announcement to the contrary a short time later. But why wait eight months before telling anyone? At that point, why not wait another month and announce the pregnancy and the birth at the same time? Mendel had some bizarre explanation relating to the horizontal and vertical symmetry of the number eight. Right. Exactly. Now we all understand perfectly.

You may remember Christelle and Mendel from their Wiccan wedding. They hear and saunter along to a beat that most of us wouldn't consider occurring regularly enough even to be considered anything resembling a beat. If you can think of a perfectly lucid action or normal way of handling a situation, Christelle and Mendel would choose the diametric opposite of what most of us would consider normal. Usually, what they would choose to do in a given situation is totally random to the point of chaos.

They plan for the baby to be born outdoors in a wooded area about ten miles from their house. Christelle has always has an image of giving birth on a bed of red rose petals. (Actually mendel just said rose petals, not red ones, but since they're going to end up red anyway by the time the baby and the placenta make their way out of there, the petals may as well start out red.) I talked briefly with Mendel on the phone about how he is going to manage this. If he buys the roses too early, the petals will dry out. If he risks buying them too late, the blessed event may occur sans rose petals. Christelle could go into labor this very night. Does Mendel have a butt load of rose petals on hand? Somehow I doubt it. I told Mendel that he's going to have to be the most generous husband around from now until the baby is born. He'll need to order a large (at least two-dozen in number) rose bouquet tonight, and replace it once a week until the child makes its entrance into the world.

I haven't checked The Isle of Man's weather report lately, but I can't imagine that it's going to be anything resmbling balmy there in the next month. I'll have to google it. Then I'll ask Mendel if he plans to build a fire or use an extension cord about a quarter-mile long so that he can plug an electric heater into the nearest house, or if Christelle plans to give birth in thermal underwear.

My dad was concerned about the medical practitioner involved in this rather unorthodox birth. Mendel stuttered and evaded the question before ultimately admitting that he and Christelle had been unable to find any doctor, or even a nurse/midwife, who was willing to go along with their vision of a birth.

That, apparently, is why they told my dad. (It really didn't hsve anything to do with either the horizontal or the vertical symmetry of the number eight. Mendel is totally full of shit.) They thought my dad might be willing to hang out in The Isle of Man for anywhere between the next day and the next seven weeks until nature takes its course. (It's not as though he has a job or a family to support or anything like that.) My dad gave them roughly fifteen thousand reason why this was not a good idea, starting with his lack of specialization in OB-GYN. Sure, he's delivered a few babies in recent years during his stints in the ER, in one case because the mother didn't know the difference between pregnancy and gall stones. My dad used the analogy that sometimes major league baseball games get so out of hand that a team runs out of pitching and doesn't want to put the next day's starter into the game when their team is down eighteen runs, so they bring the center fielder in to pitch because he pitched when he was in high school against other high school kids fifty bazillion years earlier. Dad said that if a lady shows up in obvious labor and there's not another MD within seventy miles, he'll probably scrub up and put on s pair of rubber gloves and help get the child out of there the best he can, but choosing him for the task is like if the Giants had started Nate Schierholtz at pitcher in Game One of the World Series. In a pinch you make do with what you have, but you plan your line-up assuming your number one starting pitcher is going to be available for the game.

My dad said he considered saying yes and showing up to deliver the baby even though he's not licensed to practice medicine in The Isle of Man just so that when the second or third contraction hit, he could announce that there were complications and immediately pull Christelle's ignorant butt off the bed of red rose petals and drop kick her to the nearest hospital's labor and delivery ward. Then he thought about Christelle and her pain tolerance level. A paper cut is a reason to take Vicodin as far as she is concerned. After the first contraction, she'll drive herself to the hospital if Mendel doesn't agree to take her. In fact, my dad said, for all their talk of letting nature take its course, he predicts a C-section delivery. There will be no babies born on rose petals in The Isle of Man at any point in the immediate future unless some couple with more resolve that Christelle and Mendel happens to have the same idea.

I forgot to tell you the name Mendel and Christelle have chosen for their baby. You'd think, since they kept the pregnancy a secret for so long, that Christelle and Mendel might hold on to that one last detail until the baby is actually here, but they're so damned proud of the concotion of a name they've brewed up that they're announcing it to everyone who will listen and some who would just as soon not. The baby will be named, and I swear I'm not making up a word of this, Chamomile Aphrodite.

The 1990's Revisited

My parents are officially in their new home, and I'm there with them. I can't honestly say that their taste in home decor is much the same as mine, but my room is just the way I want it to be, so nothing else really matters. If my friends visit, I'll ask them to close their eyes until they reach my room so I won't have to be embarrassed by my parents' failure to acknowledge that the year is no longer 1991. If anyone is ever feeling really nostalgic for the 90's, I'll tell you how to get to our new house. Five minutes in the living areas of the house will more than satisfy your longing for the days of yore.

Members of the Kingdom Animalia of Which I'm Not Particularly Fond

I hate mountain lions. Whether you call them pumas, panthers, or cougars, I still hate them. I don't like BYU very much either, and their mascot is the cougar. Perhaps it's more than just coincidence. Though I'm not rabid in this regard, I'm not fond of hunting as a sport. It was different when people needed to hunt in order to survive, and for some that remains the case, and so I give those people a pass. Anyway, since people who don't need to kill in order to sustain themselves are going to hunt whether I like it or not, I wish they would hunt mountain lions. Perhaps the mountain lions would win some of the battles and the hunters would win others, keeping the numbers of each to a more tolerable level. By the way, I read somewhere (if it was on the Internet, then it had to be true, right?) that mountain lions resemble the common household cat more closely in terms of DNA than they resemble any of the other large breeds of cats, which makes me think twice about having a cat as a pet.

I despise opossums almost as much as I hate mountain lions. If you ever have a chance to do so, examine an opossum really closely. I was responding to someone else's blog about this very subject. To me, it seems as though opossums ooze evil from every single pore of their ugly bodies. If God created all the animals that ever inhabited the Earth, Satan was helping Him when He came up with a few of them -- particularly mountain lions and opossums.

I hate ants. Grizzly bears need them so that they can have formic acid in their diets. I'm willing to start a charity to provide the world's population of grizzly bears with formic acid supplements if we can get rid of ants. I hate mosquitoes about as much as I hate ants. I know frogs like them, but there are other bugs frogs could eat. Somehow I just don't think all the frogs in the world would cease to exist if we were successful at eliminating mosquitoes from the planet.

Finally, I absolutely detest head lice. I probably wouldn't particularly care for body lice or pubic lice, either, but I've heard less about them. As far as I know, no one I've ever met has ever been infested with body lice or pubic lice. Head lice are quite another matter. When I was in elementary school, it seems like we'd have an outbreak of the stupid pediculus humanus capitis at least once each school year. My brother and I managed somehow never to contract the pesky little bugs in our hair, but just the thought of it must have taken years off my eventual life span. When I get really stressed out, I still sometimes think I have head lice. I used to beg my mother to wash my hair with that lice shampoo stuff when i was little because if someone even said the word lice , that's all it would take to convince me I had them.

The sad thing about lice is that, in theory, they could be eradicated just like smallpox was thought to be until it was learned that someone saved a testube full of the stuff. I'm somewhat of an expert on the subject of head lice because when second graders had to write insect reports, I wrote a most in-depth study on pediculus humanus capitis. Once a nit hatches and becomes a nymph, it has a limited number of hours (roughly five) to get to a human host and feed, or it will not survive. If everyone in the world would use lice shampoo simultaneously and for about three weeks do all the cleaning procedures that go along with ridding one's premises of lice, pediculus humanus capitis would cease to exist on the planet. The problem is that people barely eking out an existence in third-world countries, even if they had the lice shampoo in their possession, probably wouldn't see the importance of using it and doing everything else to rid the planet of lice.

If I ever become truly a lady of leisure, in addition to starting a charity to supply grizzly bears with formic acid supplements, I'll start a foundation that would provide everyone in the world with pediculicide shampoo and at the same time educate them as to the need to clean their domiciles thoroughly to rid the world of nasty head lice. We could have a World-Wide Lice-Out Month, just like the Protestants have Worldwide Communion Sunday and Jerry Lewis has his muscular dystrophy telethon. Don't both of those sound like great ideas?

Judge Alex's Fans

Some of Judge Alex's fans have gone a bit rabid. They're using Sharpies to graffiti up restroom stalls across the nation for the purpose of advertising for Judge Alex. I'm curious as to how the judge feels about this, but we don't communicate much, so I'm not going to ask him about it.

I've been assured that the situation involving one of my attackers and the shange in the terms of the restraining order is being handled and that i do not need to e concerend about it. It's hard to just trust someone else to handle this for me, but I don't really have any choice. I have no legal say in the matter. My Uncle Scott called my Uncle Steve, who made a few phone calls in the area, and my Aunt Jillian sent a "cease and desist" letter with cc's to the Judge and D.A. My auntie told me that the only way I'll see any of my attackers is if I go to visit them, which I'll certainly not do.

Thanks to Matt, Amy, Becca, and Uncle Scott for moral support in regard to this matter.

Fear of Attackers

I wrote awhile ago about an attack on my body. It was a physical attack and a failed attempt at a sexual assault, although it was in a way a sexual assault, as one of the kicks I recieved was to a part of the body very closely tied to sex. I healed physically and tried but failed to heal on my own mentally. When I couldn't stop throwing up whenever I thought about it, and when my dreams grew more hellish with each passing night, my parents sought a treatment program for me. Mostly it has helped, but some things will be healed only by time if at all.

A condition of my attackers' probabtion is a restraining order that allows them to pass through the county of the university I now attend and even to get off the major highway to refuel or to have a meal, but otherwise not to linger anywhere in the county. (No party had any ties to this county at the time; if anything were to come up, such as a wedding held in this county, it was to be handled by the probation departemtn on a ase-by-case basis.) This provision is, for the most part, difficult to enforce. With all the crime occurring within a mile of my university, guaranteeing that all my attackers comply with the terms of their restraining orders is a reasonably low priority of local law enforcement officials. Chances are the restraining order has probably already been violated by all three attackers at one time or another, although their intent would not have been to harass or even to find me, so I haven't lost tons of sleep over the probability.

A new issue has arisen that is keeping me awake. One of the attackers -- the one who was least involved and most contrite, and whose family was the most apologetic of the three families -- has contacted me through her attorney. The attorney could easily have sent the letter to my parents' home in the community where we lived and from where my parents are moving next week. The communication would have reached my parents in plenty of time. Furthermore, I don't think, as a minor, that I actually have decision-making power in what the attacker is asking through her attorney for me to do. Beyond that, I'm reasonably certai the attorney must know this.

The attorney sent the letter to me at the university. Despite the twenty-two-thousand or so students enrolled in this university, the letter found me here. As I recognized the name of the attorney on the return address, it was with trepidation that I opened the letter. My trepidation was not ill-founded.

The attorney has advised me that my attacker, who pled guilty to felony assault, wishes to apply to my university. According to the terms of probation,she cannot do this until more than four years has passed without a change in the terms of the probation. Her lawyer considers that the simplest way to have the terms of the probabtion altered, thereby allowing her to attend the same university I currently attend, would be for me to appear in court to speak on her behalf, or, that failing, to send a letter in support of her request. at the very least, the attorney has asked me not to oppose this action in any way.

With more than twenty-two-thousand students spread out over I don't know how many acres, the attorney surmises that there is room for both of us on this campus, and that, as part of growing up, it is time for me to accept that what has been done is in the past, and that I should be ready to move on by now.

Perhaps a better person than I would be ready to move on by now, but I'm not at all certain that I am. Many possibilities exist within the scenario of my making a court appearance or writing a letter on the girl's behalf. First and foremost, even without the felony conviction that's on her record (she was just over eighteen when the assault occurred), academics never seemed to rank high on this young woman's list of priorities. I'd be seriously surprised if she were to gain acceptance into the university in question. Even if she were to be admitted, it really is a big campus; it's not heyond possibility that we could each spend whatever timme it took us to complete our degrees without ever once coming into contact.

Still, at night when I'm trying to sleep, my mind wanders to the more nefarious possibilities, and the nightmares have returned in full force. I see this person as a "sorority" type. For anyone among my 2.1 daily readers who happens to have or have had affiliation with the greek system, I apologize for stereotyping. My concern, however, is that were the girl to be accepted into both this university and into a sorority linked to the campus, I would have not just this girl about whom to worry but an entire sisterhood of perhaps not-terribly-nice people, with at least some of whom I would come into contact from time to time. It's not so much that I realistically fear that these sorority sisters would pin me down in school restrooms and step on my now-healed-but-still-tender leg or kick me both in mentionable and unmentionable places. My fear is more of the social and psychological damage the sorority sistera would do on a daily basis if this young woman were to become one of them.

Beyond just the matter of this one of my three attackers changing the terms of her probation, would this open a door for the restraining orders of all of them to be subject to renegotiation? I don't think I am yet ready to live with the possibility that any of these people could, with the law on their side, approach me at any time and place for any reason.


My mother is busy packing up our house for the move while she is in the process of passing her approximately three-hundredth renal calculus. I called her to tell her I have a problem and really need to talk about it. She told me it will have to wait until after next Thursday. The deadline the attorney has given me for responding is Wednesday. (After that, his letter said, no response is considered no objection to the proposed action.) I called both my therapist and my psyhiatrist, but neither had time to talk to me, and secretaries of both say they're booked solidly for the next three weeks. The assistant district attorney who handled my case said that he will talk to my parents but not to me. My father is at a convention in Toronto. The people with whom I am staying are very busy and stressed out by their own lives right now, and have no legal standing in this case, anyway.

I wrote a letter to the judge who handled my case expressing my concerns and explaining why I have been unable to lodge any official objections to the change in the terms of the probation. I sent it by next-day courier, and it was received at the courthouse, but who knows how long it will take the judge to see it, or if he will ever see it? He may be no longer handling the case and it may be the very least of his concerns.

My primary purpose for writing this is that one of my parents' spies will alert my parents or my psychiatrist that I have a serious concern that requires their attention. If you are not one of my parents' spies, do not be unduly concerned. These things usually have ways of working themselves out for the best.

Trailer Trash Barbie

When I was five and in first grade, my brother and I spent a few weeks of the fall in Utah. I stayed at my grandparents' home, but my Aunt Cristelle, who was a college freshman, was mostly in charge of taking care of us. My mom had been diagnosed with leukemia, and my father was flying all over the country with her, looking for the best treatment options.

We were in Utah for Halloween. In the area where we stayed, children didn't typically do the traditional trick-or-treat. Instead, members of wards (local LDS congregations) organized "Trunk-or-Treat" outings, where ward members would park their cars in the parking lot of a church building in a somewhat circular fashion, and little kids would go from one car to the next yelling "Trick-or-Treat!" and collecting loot. My brother and I were cynical even at the age of five. We knew that what we were doing was not really trick-or-treating, so we pointedly hollered "Trunk-or-Treat!" at each car. Some people thought it was cute. Others found it particularly obnoxious.

Our costumes weren't much of an issue at the Trunk-or-Treat gathering because it was quite dark. Afterwards, however, neighbors of my grandparents were having a Halloween party for their children and were kind enough to invite my brother and me. My brother was Darth Vader in a standard store-bought costume. My Aunt Cristelle wanted something a bit more creative for me. The little girls were asked to dress up as their favorite Barbie dolls. Someone was Ballerina Barbie. There were multiple Cheerleader Barbies and Cinderella Barbies. Someone else was Teacher Barbie. There was Gymnast Barbie, Veterinarian Barbie, Race Car Driver Barbie, Babysitter Barbie, and too many more to remember. I don't think anyone forgot my Barbie incarnation, though. I was the one and only Trailer Trash Barbie.

Cristelle needed a pair of jeans that she could cut off really short into Daisy Duke-length shorts for me. This wasn't easy, as I was considerably underweight and hadn't quite grown into size 3t clothing. My aunt finally found a pair of size 6-9 month jeans (remember, babies wear diapers under them) suitably tight on me to resemble Daisy Duke shorts, and she cut them very short. She took a T-shirt that my 2-year-old cousin had outgrown. She printed across the chest of it in vold letters, "Don't Stare! Grow some of your own!" Then she put a swim suit top on me and stuffed it liberally with facial tissues before putting the shirt on me. She found a package of candy cigarettes at a novelty store, which she rolled up in the sleeve of my t-shirt. She applied several fake tattoos to my skin, all pledging my true love forever to different boys. She did my hair and makeup a la Jonbenet, except with a pink tint to it. She found some tacky 3-inch heels in which I could barely walk. (My shoe size was six -- not size four like in small women's shoes, but baby size six.)

Predictably, almost everyone in attendance at the party was horrified. My grandparents had gone out to dinner, so they never even saw me in all my glory. People in the neighborhood and the ward probably murmured about it for weeks 9Mormons are big on murmuring), but no one had the nerve to actually ention anything to my grandparents, who were pillars of the church beyond the local level. My Uncle Michael, who lived at home while attending BYU just prior to getting married, snapped a few pictures of me in costume. Then all was forgotten.

A great deal happened in the following months. My mom got much sicker. I became ill. I was made well enough to donate bone marrow to her, but then got sick again, and I spent many months recovering under the care of my parents' closest friends, who lived in Florida and were an MD and nurse practitioner. Eventually both my mom and I were well again.

Maybe five years later, when we were attending a family reuinion in Utah with the relatives, someone put a DVD of old photographs into a computer projected onto a wall screen, which the adults were watching. Then out pops the picture of me as Trailer Trash Barbie. My parents at first didn't recognize me until my brother graciously pointed out that I was the little slut [his precise words]. My mom was speechless. My grandparents were practically apopleptic. My dad's face was ashen. Everyone wanted to know the how's, why's, and most importantly, the who's of the situation. As evil as I've always been considered by that half of the family, even they knew I had been incapable at the age of five of pulling off the Trailer Trash Barbie look unassisted. It was easy enough to blame Aunt Cristelle since it really was her doing, especially since she was over two thousand miles away.

Cristelle and her husband don't have any children, but my father swears that he will get even with her if she ever does. Even if she doesn't, my dad says, he will someday take a few extremely compromising pictures of her cocker spaniel.

They Make A Capella Sexy

I auditioned for an a capella group at my school. Their supposed claim to fame is that they make a capella sexy. Therein lies the problem as far as my association with this group. At this stage of my development, I appear sexy only to a pedophile.

I went to call-back, which is stage two of auditions. The group is university-sponsored, but is student-directed, -selected, and -governed. Those in charge of auditions were somewhat blunt in asking me about my age and physical development. They even asked if I had a syndrome, such as Turner Syndrome, that prevented sexual maturation. This is as I would have chosen for it to be. I'd rather disclose everything and be accepted or rejected based on the truth than have them ask me nothing and either reject me based on their partially false assumptions or accept me into their group, then find that it won't work.

Their first question was a logical one. I was asked my age. They were surprised to learn that I'm sixteen. I would not be the first sixteen-year-old to join the group, although the previous sixteen-year-old was approximately six inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than I. I also would not be the shortest person to have been in the group, and probably not even the shortest person in the present group were I to be extended and accept the invitation to join. It's a safe bet, though, that whoever is the shortest or youngest person in the group is leaps and bounds ahead of me in physical development.

I don't wish to give the wrong impression about the people in charge of this group. They're not being snobbish or exclusionary. Their concerns are very legitimate. This group is not merely a choir; it's a performing arts ensemble with choreography in addition to singing. The total visual effect matters. The question is this: can I be dressed and made up in a way that my appearance is not a distraction?

It all reminds me of the times I was forced to watch Lawrence Welk reruns at my grandparents' home. (If anyone else was ever forced by elderly relatives to watch Lawrence Welk reruns, I'm sure I have your sympathy just as you have mine.) In episodes of the great volume of Lawrence Welk chronology produced in the mid-to-late seventies, a group of sisters by the name of Semonski graced the screen. I don't think I can be sued for stating my opinion here, so I will, while attempting not to be unnecessarily unkind. Based on my limited viewing of the Lawrence Welk Show and on my parents' opinions, both of whom had the program force-fed to them far more than I did, the show lost a major source of talent when the Lennon Sisters left the program. Lawrence Welk attempted to recreate the Lennons' overall effect with different related and unrelated female groups of two or larger.

Whether or not the music produced by the Lennon Sisters was a person's first choice of musical genres (my father is more of the Queen, Journey, or Foreigner ilk, for example), most would admit that the Lennon Sisters had nice voices as individuals and had an uncanny sibling blend of harmony.
With the Osmonds, the Jacksons, and the Carpenters being a little out of Lawrence Welk's price range, not any other set of related, unrelated or combo related/unrelated singers the late Mr. Welk tossed onto the stage and told to sing was likely to come up with anything even resembling the sound the Lennon Sisters regularly produced.

Anyway, the Semonski Sisters were one of the later quasi-Lennon Sister imitations the late Mr. Welk foisted upon the public. From what I gathered, they were a group of six sisters of modest-at-best talent born to a working-class family in a span of eleven or so years. The oldest five appeared evenly matched in terms of age, though there were probably seven years separating the oldest and youngest of the five. Where the Semonski Sisters jumped the proverbial shark, however, was with the addition of Semonski Sister #6, Michelle. Michelle was more than four years younger than Sister #5, and was maximally-accessorized, sometimes with bows even larger than her oversized head, to appear even younger. It seemed that the Welk costumers were going for the "cute" effect. The cameramen were in on the conspiracy as well, zeroing in for close-ups of the almost demonic-appearing child incessantly mugging for the cameras. If this group had possessed any particular talent in the first place, the total diversion of attention from the rest of the group to young Michelle would have been practically a felony. As it was, the group was so mediocre that the Michelleization hid what little talent the sisters lacked, so perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea in the first place. The bottom line was that the old ladies of North America, who made up roughly 99.9 per cent of Welk's viewing audience by that time, were so taken with Michelle that if the late Mr. Welk had tried to replace her with anyone having actual talent, the female segment of the AARP would've marched en masse to the Rainbow Ballroom and waged some form of civil disobedience, or possibly even boycotted Geritol, Sominex, and Serutan, Welk's major sponsors.

By now anyone still reading is surely wondering what the hell Michelle Semonski and her sisters of utterly limited vocal talent could possibly have to do with my presence in or absence from the a capella group that makes a capella sexy. It's really quite simple: I do not wish to be the Michelle Semonski of the otherwise sexy a capella group. I've demonstrated that I can blend in with the mix quite well vocally, but if I cannot do so to some degree visually as well, I would prefer not to join the group at this time. I don't wish to be the "Toddlers and Tiaras" candidate who accidentally wandered onto the Miss Universe stage while the pageant was in progress.

The solution we've reached is this: the group is having a second call-back with just the group, including the two already selected new inductees, and me. The session will be video-recorded and photographed. A make-up artist will be present to try different looks for me. I've been told to bring three mature but not sexy outfits. Afterwards, the decision-makers in the group will view films and still photographs and will make the final choice.
I don't have to look as old as the others. I just cannot provide a Michelle-Semonski-calibre distraction.

The Secret to Getting Through College (ssshhhh!!!!)

Nightmares are once again interfering with my sleep, but I won't bore my 2.1 readers per day with the substance of my nightmares. Instead I will bore you with the substance of my university courses. My parents try to say that if I describe something as boring, it's a simplified way of saying I'm too lazy to try to understand it. I do not agree with them, and I shall cite a few reasons why.

Organic chemistry is my first course of the day tomorrow. Chapter three was the assigned reading. Chapters one and two were assigned in previous days. Chapter three deals with chemoselectivity, which pertains primarily to reactivity to one element or group in the presence of another element or group. Variations within the substances or groups on either side can and probably will alter the reaction. I think I could've handled this concept in pre-school. Overachiever that I am, I did not stop at the conclusion of chapter three. I've covered conjugated groups (which sound a whole lot more exciting than they really are), stereochemistry, stereoselectivity, regioselectivity (the preference of one direction of chemical bond-making or -breaking over all other possible directions) and spectrospocy. It moves on to chemical species (included but not limited to acetals, alcohols, alkanes, cycloalkanes, and alkenes; I could go on all night, but I'll spare you.) Trust me. There's much more in the text. Suffice it to say that the problem is not that I'm too lazy to learn about it.

I'm studying microbiology also this quarter. Microbiology constitutes the study of microorganisms, including eukaryotes (including fungi and protists) and prokaryotes) (including ammoebae, and some plants and animals. Virology and immunology, though not strictly within the domain of microbiology, are be covered. Microbiology has a slight advantage over organic chemistry, primarily because the professor looks like a very young [circa E. R.] George Clooney. I read the textbook materials by night and stare at the professor by day. I've already aced one test, so I think my technique is working.

Technical and Expository Writing is a relatively straightforward course. I wish I did not have to listen to the lectures, because they're delivered in an arid manner, and, thus far anyway, I've yet to hear anything that wasn't in the assigned readings. Hell, I could teach the course if all it involved was lecturing from the textbooks. In any event, the material in the textbooks is useful. There are times and places for technical and expository writing, and it is benficial to people in many professions to master both writing in each style and picking apart anything that is written in either style.

I'm studying Music Theory III. The university is not fond of admitting freshmen to this course. I had to take multiple tests and pass three interviews just to get into the door of the class. Once through the door, I only wished it would be half as easy to get out as it was to get in. The degree of difficulty of the course material is not perplexing. The ration of total bullshit in proportion to the musical substance is most perplexing. on Friday we sat listening to the professor explain how -- on a piano, no less -- a discerning ear can tell the difference between C-sharp and D-flat. They're played with the identical key. The gooblers sitting around me nodded their heads as though it was reasonable. On many instruments, pitch can be varied while a note is being played. On these instruments, in theory, C-sharp can sound higher than D-flat. Usually it doesn't, though, because music has become standardized to math pre-tuned instruments, such as pianos. It's mind boggling. I don't know whether the professor honestly believed the bullshit he was spouting or was seeing just whom he could get to agree with anything he said. He did notice that I was the only one who wouldn't agree with him, and also that I was the only one who could identify any note he played on the piano just from the sound. Sometimes professors respect absolute pitch, and other times they resent it. We'll see into which camp this professor falls.

My political geography class isn't highly interesting or unusual. It's another one of those classes where the job of a student is to discover ecactly what it is the professor wants to hear and to tell him precisely that in every composition and on every test. This is the primary skill needed to get through university. Why more people don't figure this out and just doit is a mystery to me. you have an entire lifetime to be true to your own beliefs. It can wait a few lousy years while you devote your time to being true to your professors' beliefs. Either butt your head against a wall for seven semesters before finally making peace with this concept, or go with the flow. If necessary, cross your fingers as you're typing each paper and writing each exam.

The Many Uses for Cardboard: 1. as pizza crust; 2. as dorm room walls so one can hear her next-door neighbor boinking someone she just met

I'm in a dorm room overnight all by myself for the first time ever. It's a new and exciting experience. Some of the more exciting aspects of the experience are wondering if the couple noisily having sex in the room next to me is using protection, hoping that the rather strange bugs I'm seeing aren't either bedbugs or termites, and hoping that whatever fool left popcorn in the microwave too long last night and caused the smoke alarm to go off at 3:00 a.m. suddenly grew a brain so as not to repeat the experience tonight.

Most people have roommates in university dorms. My parents thought it would be an act of kindness to spare anyone else the misfortune of having me as a roommate. They actually felt so strongly about it that they bought a house nearby, since my dad's work location is flexible, and are planning on making me live at home this year because I'm only sixteen and becasue I have nightmares in which I wake up entire subdivisions. I only have this dorm room because my Godparents thought I needed a place to go between classes besides the library, so they sprung for it as my early birthday present. I usually won't be spending nights here, but I've been able to talk the people with whom I'm staying into letting me spend just two overnights here while not much is going on other than the couple next door having loud and passionate sex.

The cafeteria here is bad, but not as bad as an elementary or high school cafeteria. School pizza will inevitably taste like cardboard, and school jello will have the consistence of rubber, but at least I have a few choices besides cardboard and rubber, and there is usually ice cream.

Tomorrow is my final day off before classes. I'll go back to the house of my aunt and uncle and have forced merriment before I officially stop having fun until December.

For all you slackers out there who won't be carrying 21 quarter units, enjoy! Your time will come.

9/11 Personal Memories

On TV this week and at many websites I frequent, the topic for discussion is the events of 9/11. Sometimes the events themselves are recounted, while at other times, particularly on interactive websites, it's taken on more of a "Where were you when it all went down?" format. Of the major "Where were you?" events people still talk about, as in at least some of the people are still alive today when the event occurred, this is the only one during which I was alive. The others as I would consider them are Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, and the Challenger explosion (its significance faded, but my mom told me it was really big at the time and for years afterwards, and lost its significance mainly after it paled in the wake of the 911 aftermath). In retrospect, I'm a bit surprised the tearing down of the Berlin Wall doesn't carry more significance in the grand scheme of things.

Anyway, all of this talk jogs my memories of where I was on that Tuesday morning when our world changed, and not for the better. The prior day, my mom, my brother, and I had a day off from school on a day on which most schools were in session. (My dad can take a vacation day whenever he chooses.) A day off from school when most other students are in session = an excellent day to visit an amusement park. We had the three-day pass for Disneyland. We made the long trip down by car on Friday after school. We did Disneyland on Saturday and Sunday, but our real day to enjoy the park was Monday. Lines were short, even to the major attractions, and we had very short waits if any waits at all on rides. I had grown just tall enough that if I stood my very straightest, I could go on a few of the more exciting rides. It really didn't matter, anyway. My favorite ride was always Pirates of the Carribean, which -- I think -- didn't have a height limit, anyway.

Monday, September 10, was as close to a perfect day as I remember my family ever experiencing. My mother had been dealing with major health problems including leukemia, but her recovery was beginning to look promising, and she was feeling unusually strong that day. My brother and I, who usually couldn't agree on anything, seemed to have called an unspoken truce. It helped that, with my mom's returning health, one parent could accompany each child for part of the day and allow us each to ride the rides we wanted. Both parents carried cell phones at this point, and my dad didn't have to worry about my mom suddenly falling ill in another part of the park without him being aware there was a problem. A quick cellphone call would have immediately apprised him of the situation. I even remember that, when we were buying souveniers at the end of the day, I found a Tinkerbell dress that I really wanted, but was about three dollars short of the cash required. My parents were big on setting limits and not exceeding them. After my brother made his purchase, he had more than three dollars left, and he gave me the three dollars so that I could buy the Tinkerbell dress that I wanted. Moments like that between Matthew and me were rare at that time.

We left the park a little later than we should have, considering that my mom, my brother, and I all had school the next day. My dad planned to stay in the southern California area to work for about three days. My dad cautioned my mom that if she became too tired at any point, she should get a hotel room. If we all missed a day of school, the Earth would not cease to rotate on its axis. Matthew and I thought this sounded great, and were asking our mother roughly every seven minutes if she felt too tired to drive any further. She didn't feel too tired, however, and further, really wanted to make it back to school the next day.

So on we drove until the wee hours of the morning, making it home at about 2:00 a.m My mom said later that she felt guilty dragging us out of our beds after only about five hours of sleep, but she did it anyway. We slept slightly later than normal, so the radio and TV were not turned on in our home that morning. My mom had a CD in the car stereo from the night before, and when she turned on the car, it was still playing. She didn't bother to take it out, so we heard no news in the car, either.

Once we reached our school and were dropped off on our playground, I remember noticing less activity than normal. Attendance was down that day. Small groups were clustered randomly around the blacktop. Before I could join a cluster, the bell rang, and I hurried to line up.

That was one of my two years in Catholic school. In retrospect, if I had been one of the teachers or administrators in charge that day, I would've made it a religious experience of sorts and would have either held a mass or would have at least given each class an opportunity to pray in the adjacent church. We could see many parishioners coming to the church - many more than would show up on an ordinary school day. This only added to the state of agitation.

The teachers were apparently told to say nothing about the situation to their students. Children who already knew about it were told not to talk about it to others. The strategy seemed to be to adhere to routine and hope that normalcy would get us through the day. What we actually had was anything but normalcy and routine, though. My teacher, and I assume she was acting in a manner similar to the way all the teachers on the staff were conducting themselves, spent the school day parked in front of her computer, frantically switching from one news site to another. She turned her monitor as far as she could in order to obscure our view of the screen, but we still saw bits and pieces of images. When my teacher wasn't on her computer, she was on her phone. Work for us to do was posted on the board. Some students were doing it, while others weren't. No one was causing any particular mischief, but many students were blankly staring at walls, looking as closely as they could at the computer monitor, and silently writing notes to others. These were days before parents typically sent their six-  and seven-year-olds to school with cell phones of their own. If a similar thing happened today, many of the children would be armed with communication devices and would contact their parents.

Before much time had elapsed, the intercom began ringing, and children in our classroom were called one at a time to the office and told their parents were there to pick them up and that they would be leaving for the day. We started the day with only two-thirds or so of the class. After several of such calls, only nine students remained in the class of thirty-six students. It was determined by someone in charge that recess would be cancelled. We sat in the classroom -- seven other children of teachers and school administrators, my brother, and me. Our teacher paid very little attention to us. She continued to devote her attention to her computer and to her telephone.

I usually finished regular school assignments very quickly, then moved on to my extra projects that were designed to keep me productively occupied. I finished the regular work, but then put my head on my desk. The teacher noticed this, and called out my name. I think I had fallen asleep by that point. She probably thought that letting children sleep in class would not be conducive to maintaining the normal routine, so she rapped on my desk with a ruler to wake me. I sat up and stared blankly at her. My brother told her he thought I might be sick. "No one is allowed to be sick today," she answered him.

When it was time for lunch, instead of walking in line to the cafeteria at the appointed time, we stayed in the classroom. Lunch trays were delivered to our classroom. In our haste earlier that morning, my mom had forgotten to pack a lunch for me. I never ate school lunches because there was usually nothing on the tray that I would eat. A lunch had not been ordered for me, which would have been a problem on an ordinary day, but since so many students for whom lunch had been ordered were no longer at school, lunch trays filled with something masquerading as food were plentiful. My teacher put a tray on my desk in front of me and told me that my mother could pay for it the next day. As I looked at the lunch tray, my skin probably took on a tone somewhere between alabaster and gray. "Just eat it and be thankful," my teaacher ordered. The tray held half an egg salad sandwich, a pickle, and coleslaw. A carton of 4% milk took up the remaining indented spot on the styrofoam tray. We drank 1% milk at home. Egg salad and cole slaw were both on my Donner Party list. Pickles hadn't made it there just because they were something we never had around the house, anyway. Neither of my parents must have cared for pickles.

Even sitting at a desk with that tray in front of me was more of a challenge than I could manage. Actually taking a bite of the food was beyond question. I opened the milk and inserted the straw, taking a few small sips. Four per cent milk was far too rich for me, but it was easily the least of the evils of what sat before me, and I certainly didn't want to call anyone's attention to my lack of eating. At our school, we were expected to eat what was in front of us, whether our parents sent it or the school prepared it. Catholic schools have certain prerogatives that public schools don't. Forcing children to eat is one of them.

My brother looked at me sympathetically. He was eating the food from a tray as well because that's what he did every day. He wasn't a problem eater, and it was easier for my mom to pay the school to prepare lunch for him than to make a second sack lunch. He understood that I wasn't picky because I wanted to be; I was just born that way. If he had sat closer to me, he might have eaten the lunch for me.

There was nowhere to hide the food, and I couldn't hide, either, so I stared straight ahead and hoped that our teacher was too engrossed in her computer and phone calls to notice the full tray of food that continued to sit in front of me on my desk. After what must have been most of the lunch period, her eyes zeroed in on me. She walked to where I was seated, pulling her wheeled chair with her. "You must eat your lunch!" she said in a quiet but firm tone. She picked up the sandwich and held it to my mouth. My lips remained sealed and my teeth were firmly clamped inside. She next picked up my spork and filled it with coleslaw. She held it to my mouth and commanded, "Open you mouth, Alexis." I did, and she forced the slimily coated pieces of cabbage into my mouth.

I don't remember the exact order of what happened. I held the food in my mouth and tried to swallow, but couldn't. Tears came to my eyes. Then my gag reflex kicked in. I covered my mouth and stood to somehow make it to the trash can. The teacher held onto my arms and wouldn't allow me to proceed. My brother, sensing looming disaster, got up, picked up the trash can, and brought it to me, placing it directly under my mouth. I opened my mouth, and in the next several seconds, out came the coleslaw, the milk, and most of what I had eaten for breakfast hours earlier. I then fainted.

I remember the teacher kneeling over me while blotting my face with damp paper towels. "Oh, dear," she said. "You probably really are sick, but the office has informed us that there are to be no sick children today." The teacher lifted me from the floor back to my chair. "Your mother can't come get you or she would already have picked you up," she commented.

This alarmed my brother Matthew. He later said he though it meant mom wouldn't be able to come get us at the end of the day and that we were possibly doomed to spend the whole night in the school. He, too, began to cry -- not loudly, but tears ran down his cheeks.

"Not you, too, Matthew," the teacher sighed in an exasperated manner. The teacher of this class wasn't an unkind person, but she wasn't ideally suited to working with young children, and patience wasn't a quality she possessed in abundance.

Following lunch, we again were not allowed out for the usual recess that would take place at that time. I'll never know for certain, but I don't believe that the teachers and administration were worried for our safety on the playground. They were more concerned that the children who came to school with any knowledge of what had happened before school would share their knowledge with the rest of us, and they would have mass hysteria on their hands. So they confined us to classrooms for one more recess.

Somehow we got through the remainder of the afternoon. The teacher finally conceded that it was at least OK for me to put my head down on my desk as she went from her computer to her phone. The dismissal bell rang. Matthew and I gathered our belongings and headed toward the room where our after-school child care program was held each day. Usually our Aunt Victoria would pick us up as soon as she had finished whatever diary business that she needed to do, typically about thirty minutes after school ended. We were met by our mother on the way. "Mommy!" we exclaimed in unison as we threw ourselves at her.

My mother apologized for not being able to leave her work earlier to pick us up, and said that Daddy had been driving continuously since ten-thirty a.m. and tried hard to make it home in time to pick us up early, but that traffic was heavy and he would still be on the road for a bit. My mother looked wan and weak, but still she carried me to the car.

When we got home, Mom got out maps of the United States and explained in simple terms what had happened where with each of the four planes. She didn't turn on the television. She put soft music on the stereo, laid me on the sofa with a blanket, and took Matthew into the kitchen with her to prepare a light meal of soup, crackers, and jello. I could hear Matthew telling her about our day and asking questions, and could hear her answers.

Daddy got home a few minutes before dinner. He lifted me off the sofa and sat with me on his lap in the rocker-recliner until dinner. We prayed together before dinner, as we always do, but a little longer and a little more specific to the events of the day. We ate dinner together, with some conversation, but no one said a lot, and with no one forcing me to eat anything,

I can remember worrying about my Uncle Patrick on my mom's side, who is an airline pilot, and about my Uncle David, who was and still is in the Air Force. More than anything, I remember feeling much relief about the distance between our home and the places where the incidents had taken place, although with the ever-present awareness that no one among us could know where the terrorists might next strike. I recall having bad dreams that night; at some point, both Matthew and I ended up in our parents' bed with them for the rest of the night.

The next day we stayed home with both parents, I because I was still weak and shaky, and Matthew probably because my parents just felt like keeping him at home with them.

At some point in the next few days, both of my parents spoke with school personnel. My mom's concern was that, with the very best of intentions, in their desire to insulate and protect us form all that was happening, the school personnel had instead left us confused and all the more terrorized. Sometimes it's better to know the very basics of a situation, however horrific it is, than to be left with nothing but one's imagination to determine what might be the cause of all the commotion. My dad's concern was with the  "no children are allowed to be sick" policy, and that I had remained at school without being assessed by a health professional or even a paraprofessional, and no attempt had been made at parent contact when I was sick. He expressed that in the future, if either of his children showed signs of illness, a parent needed to be contacted. If a parent could not come to get the one of us who was sick, arrangements would be made for someone else to come.

I didn't see a great deal of the television coverage, so most of it that I saw on the television news programs in this past week I was seeing for the very first time. In retrospect, if I had seen it at the time, in a limited amount, with sensible adult commentary to what I was witnessing, it would have answered some of the questions in my mind.

The thought of Osama Bin Laden hiding somewhere in the world --anywhere, basically, as in perhaps behind the handball courts at school or even in the girls' restroom -- was very daunting. That aspect of the situation might have been addressed and explained in a more edifying and calming way.

Overall, the school, presumably with good intentions, turned the day into one filled with terror. Only when my mother arrived, and later my father, were our needs considered and met in any way. Only then were we actually taken care of with regard to the situation. I hope that my former school and others who handled the crisis equally poorly, or even worse, have learned something about children and crisis and how best to mitigate inevitable damage. Though the fullness of the terrorists' plans was at that point unknown, we were thousands of miles way from the places where the events happened. I hate to think of how my school would have coped with the situation had they been located blocks from ground zero, literally in the shadow of the fallout.