seattlejo.com

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This looks like a tranquil scene doesnt it? So why does this place make me turn into Mr Furious?

(This being one of the tranquil fountains at North Seattle Community College)

The fight for services as an evening student is never ending. Last week it was a forwarded flyer about the wonderful Student Success Fair they were having from 10-1
The flyer read

Stressed over finals?
Need help paying tuition
Hear about the new programs?
Ready to transfer or graduate?

Come to the Student Success Fair!
Thursday February 21st
10-1pm

I emailed about it, and basically asked, why arent these sorts of events accessible for evening students? Is there really no interest in retaining us?
This week is Transfer Activities week. Guess how many events are available past 5pm?
None
Of course. Why would evening students be planning to transfer to a 4 year University.Registration problems

The final straw came yesterday. I was preparing to register for my spring classes and found there was a hold on my account. The generic message told me I was blocked from registering because of a hold. A call to the registrar’s office came first. “Does it say why you have a hold?” “Nope” “Are you sure?”
Why would I lie about it?
The registrar person came back after a few minutes. “It’s advising let me transfer you”

Advising asks “Why do you have a hold on your account?”
“I Don’t know it just says I cant register”
“Are you sure? ”
“Yes”
“Please hold”

She placed me on hold for 30 minutes. Well not really. more like 5 minutes but there is always a perception that you are on hold longer.

“What was your problem again?”
“I have a hold on my account placed by advising. Can I get it removed?”
“Oh, let me put you to Judy. ”
At this point I’ve had no confirmation of what the problem might be or how Judy is going to fix it.
“Ok, and she’ll help me remove the hold?”
“I think she’s in her office and will be able to help”

I was immediately transfered to voice mail.

“rage building, blood pressure climbing…”

I called back a couple of times to Judys voice mail and ultimately ended up emailing her.
Evidently I’d been placed on hold because I had over 45 credits and I needed to work with her to make a plan to finish my degree to be ready for my transfer.

Could I come in and meet ?

“rage building, blood pressure climbing…”

I love having to take time off of work to go to school. I love having a hold on my account when I try to apply for the last required class I have.

This is particularly frustrating because I’m busy working on my application for transfer for a university. This is due on Friday. What could she possibly encourage me to do for my last 2 quarters that would change my direction? I’ve gone into advising multiple times before and asked for assistance in planning. They usually shrug their shoulders tell me i’m doing fine and to just be careful of taking too many classes. Now that I’m almost done, 24 credits left, 1 actual requirement left I’m boggled. Shouldnt they have been more concerned Fall term when I met with them? Isn’t it too late now?

Thankfully Judy was able to work with me over email and the issue was resolved. I’m registered for the Communications class I needed and will be able to continue on with my plan for world domination.

Walking through the neighborhood this morning Miss Bit and I ran across this sign on the below car.
Evidently the car was feeling poorly  and couldnt move. (Perhaps it has that stomach bug thats going around) The owner in the polite Seattle manner posted the above sign and sure enough later in the afternoon, the car was gone.

Of course that doesn’t mean that all residents of Seattle are nice.
As we were reminded  at nearly 4 am.

Patrick’s car got smashed in last night, both the front drivers window and the rear hatch were smashed in, the car was tossed and the computer equipment inside was taken.  It’s a really shitty situation, involving his trip to an east of the mountains client and late night car packing.

I’m not a McDonalds kind of girl. For the most part I’m not a fast food kind of girl in general. I’ll usually opt for stopping at Safeway on the way home to pick up “real food” before I drop into McDonalds.

Then Miss Bit joined my life. Miss Bit is a bundle of energy. A bundle of vibrating 6 year old who’s got to go and do something now! She has all this energy that has to be worked out of her system. If I do a good job at this I’m lucky and she will sleep in beyond 7am the next morning. A poor job means she is up and raring to go sometime before what humans call morning.

The first weekend she was up here we went to the Fremont Troll. She played around exploring the ins and outs of this Seattle landmark as her Dad and I bounced around trying to stay warm. (The Chicago girl in me cries at the weather wuss I am.)  Anyway we gave up trying to stay warm and bundled Miss Bit off to a mall with an indoor play area.  Playing in a mall made me feel bad.

Last weekend I hit rock bottom. I took her too …. McDonalds Playland.  For 2 and a half hours straight she played while I read for class. I even paid the $2.85 for  a couple of hours of internet .

And I’ll do it again. To be honest, it was worth the cost of the crappy coffee to sit and work undisturbed while she  played her little heart out. And the next day? She slept till 9. What a luxury.

When’s the last time you had a piece of electronics repaired? Think about it. Your cell phone breaks, you replace it. Your camera breaks? replace it! When my dryer ceased working at our last rental, my landlord turned around and replaced both the washer and dryer, without even taking the time to see what was wrong with the dryer.

Seattle PI’s Under the Needle has another great article where they talk about a local TV repair shop going out of business. Why? Because we live in a disposable society. I remember in 2001 about 6 months after buying my first new laptop, a white dual USB ibook, I spilled coffee in it. It was a foolish foolish mistake. It was my fault. I took the laptop into a local Apple repair shop and asked them to run diagnostics. “Just replace it” Was the response I got. they were sure that the damage I had done was so extensive that it made more sense to pay another $2000 for a laptop. I took my little white laptop home in tears. It couldnt be that badly damaged. I wasn’t even asking them to tell me what was wrong on sight, just run diagnostics.

In the end, i waited another year, used the laptop as a desktop for most of that year, and ended up sending it away to MacResq who took me seriously and fixed the terminal board on my mac.

Why is the first instinct to  replace and take on more debt. Why not buy high quality  and invest in your belongings. We should give high quality gifts.  We should give toys to our children then can be passed on from generation to generation. We should invest in hardware that can be upgraded.

I don’t want to live in a disposable society.

First off. You should know something about me.

I’m fat.

Those of you who know me in person are not surprised by this revelation. For the past few months I’ve been reading fat acceptance blogs. On one hand it seems revolutionary. Accept my fat? Accept who I am? On the other hand it seems common sense. Of course I should accept myself for who I am. I’ve read the Rotund, Kate Harding, and I’ve joined the Fatshionistas on livejournal. Now this is a really tentative thing for me. I think the fat rights movement is socially challenging and deserves support. . But I’m not a bandwagon jumper. I’m more of a tentative looking at whats going on and thinking about how it affects me kind of person. I participate where appropriate for my level of comfort.

Last night a post came over Big Fat Blog that I wanted to comment on. I waited over night to see if someone else would make my point without having to create an account. No one did, so I stepped up and began to create an account. That’s when things got murky. I went through the basic information on the registration form, and got stuck on the “Please don’t register if” Section.

The ones that struck me were

• You are on a diet
• You are interested in losing weight now (or possibly in the future, maybe – like you’re actively planning on it.

See I understand that BFB is an activist site, and I now understand that they are trying to cultivate activists. But as a fat girl, I can not promise to never diet again. I can’t promise to be strong enough, I can’t promise that I’ll never think to myself, “Self losing 5million pounds before Christmas is a good idea , lets try that.” (Because we never make a plan to lose 5 lbs, it’s always 5million or more. ” All you have to do is Google Seattlejo and diet and you’ll see the trails of diets and lifestyles I’ve tried. As a fat girl it appears to be inevitable that at some point I’ll get tempted by some health scheme, that I’ll decide to alter my daily eating plan to see what it does to how I fit into my pants. It’s vanity. It’s the same vanity that has me buy BPAL, has me wear make up and has spend gobs of money new clothing. It’s not necessarily that i think I’m ugly as I am, it just means that I think I could look different.

So I backed out of the registration process and read through information on the FAQ. I now understand that the thrust of the site isnt to promote general discussion on the blog, but more of a cultivated garden of positive participants. A rallying point perhaps?

In the end the situation is interesting to me, nothing more, nothing less.

If you’ve not been playing along, you may have missed the big change in my  life. About a month ago  our household grew by one more member, my boyfriends 6 year old.
This is an adjustment for me. First off, unlike my experience with the 15 year old (Miss Thing)   I am an active Parent.  This means I take more responsibility in the day to day stuff, and help   with decisions and offer feedback. 

It’s a pretty big change in my life.  Not only do I have to be more responsible, but I have to have more forethought.   Its midwinter break and I’m already thinking about spring break and summer break care.    I’m thinking about girl scouts and daisies, thinking of lessons and classes and other activities that she might enjoy. I’m watching her interactions and am enjoying seeing how her brain works.  So far, the dirty list of things I’ve learned.

• We don’t have a butt, we have a bottom.  (and don’t me started on ass)
• I dont get to pee alone in public.
• Pooping is something to celebrate
• One can never have too many ponies.
• Pink is the default color for girls of the Kindergarten age.
• Not going to McDonalds is reason to cry
• She wants to help. All the time. 
• The natural history museum that you find to small and a little boring? She’ll love it.
• There is nothing better then reading Apples to Oregon and snuggling together in the big chair .

I respect step parents more now. Heck I respect parents more now. there is a lot that goes into sheparding this little person through life.  There are days that it is exhausting  to get up with her, run run run through the day, then get her ready for bed and get her to bed. It’s our responsibility to keep her engaged, and to be honest It’s a lot of fun doing so!     I  find myself often thinking of my former step-mothers and my step-father and wondering how they found it. What did Al think of when Jim and I climbed into bed with them, as Miss Bit does when she has bad dreams.  What did my step-mothers think in regards to keeping me busy and entertained on weekends my dad had custody. 

But anyway life is good, and I’m delighting in these changes in Seattlejo land.