Insurance. Bah...humbug.

Okay, the more I have to deal with the mess of the medical system down here, the angrier I become. The claim from my nutrition course at the hospital (which, for the record, I did virtually with 6 other people)* just came through. In order to even sign up for the class I had to give the registration lady my credit card information over the phone. And even though I had verified that my insurance covered the class 100% this lady insisted that wasn't true.

It would be the case if I had already met my deductible (which by some miracle I haven't) and my out-of-pocket maximum (haven't hit that yet, either, though I trust by the end of the year we will). However, since I haven't met either of those two requirements I was responsible to cover the cost of the class. 

$420. 

Which, fine. 

I mean, it wasn't great timing to have to pay that fee because tuition had been due right around the same time (technically, my tuition has been waived as part of my compensation for working, but I was still responsible for paying fees, which are $$$), but we're solvent enough right now that while swallowing $420 for a stupid nutrition class wasn't fun, it didn't break the bank, either. 

But, as it turns out...my insurance paid for that class in full. 

So, as I mentioned, the hospital has put my $420 into their "credit" account for me, which is really fine because I know we'll end up paying them much more than that amount, anyway. According to my hospital's estimated price index, we could be facing bills like the following:

FETAL MONITORING DURING LABOR BY CONSULTING PHYSICIAN $609.00

TURNING OF FETUS FROM BREECH TO PRESENTING POSITION $1,902.00

FETAL NON-STRESS TEST $752.00

VAGINAL DELIVERY $4,048.00

LABOR HOURS $739.00 to $3,945.00

Naturally, these are just estimates and don't include what we've already paid our doctor. That's fine. Insurance will kick in 100% after we, you know, put down a couple grand. It's fine. And we're lucky to have insurance. I get that. 

But, like, here's the thing...

This cake is not about you

One of the best things that I've learned about life, which I'm probably still learning, is that the world isn't about me. Life isn't about me. 

People who do things typically aren't doing them to me. 

Most people in the world haven't considered me at all. 

And...that's okay. 

Considering others and how your actions influence them is important. But at the same time...everyone is just out there living their life and no one is living their life "at" you. No one is living their life "at" me. 

I'm good at some things and those things that I'm good at? I don't do those things "at" anybody else. I typically do them because they bring me joy and fulfillment. I don't think I should have to not do those things—or talk about those things—because other people feel threatened by them. 

International Women's Day

Yesterday was International Women's Day. 

I'm not sure when we got excited about celebrating this day. I think we—as a collective culture—are simply, suddenly more excited about celebrating things, about recognizing things. Or perhaps I'm simply more cognizant of it. I don't know. 

I first encountered International Women's Day in Russia on March 8, 2004. We had a big party at the church where the men presented the women with a rather terrible piece of artwork—a plaster hanging of the number 8. There was a talent show, which was wonderful to experience, lots of refreshments. And my little "host" brother, Alyosha recited a poem for me that he had learned at school: "My dearest, darling mother / I love you very much / I want you to be happy / on the 8th of March."

Wikipedia tells me that International Women's Day became a "mainstream global holiday following its adoption by the United Nations in 1977," but this does use of global doesn't actually include North America because it was largely not a thing here. I had never even heard of it until living in Russia. 

But it certainly is gaining traction here. I'm surprised at how many friends are joining in the celebration of women given the holiday's...uhhh...leftist...origins.

Yesterday was also my friend Holly's first day back at work after starting her (paid!) maternity leave eighteen months ago. When I saw her post a little collage of her sweet little baby—who she got to watch learn how to roll over and crawl and walk and talk, who she got to be with through multiple surgeries (clef lip), who she got to bond with and just be a mom with—I was so happy for her. I was nervous for her, too, because she's scared to go back to work, to leave him behind with a sitter, to be away. 

I was also seething mad.

Why don't we have anything like that in place here?

And curious.

Cute casts are costly

I had a series of Zoë stories lined up to share, one of which is how she found a toilet paper roll and put it on her arm like a cast (because she might be a teensy bit jealous/curious about her brother's cast). But instead of telling you about her cuteness I'm only going to share pictures of her with her cardboard cast and complain about the healthcare industry a little bit.

Medical Covfefe

Due to Benjamin's spontaneous premature delivery, I'm a marked woman. I fell into the high risk category with Zoë and I'm high risk this time around as well. There's no way around it, really.

With Zoë they had me take 17P, a progesterone injection, to help relax my uterus (which can be quite cantankerous) and convince my body not to go into labour. Under its patented name, Makena, this injection is quite cost prohibitive—about $1000 per week for about 20 weeks!

(If you looked at that link, you'd see that each injection is only 1 mL, which costs only (haha) $767.98, but they send you an "extra" fifth mL in each monthly shipment just "in case" you mess up a dose, so it winds up being more expensive due to the fifth dose you aren't using every four weeks).

I have consistently had private insurance but my insurance wasn't willing to cover this medication with Zoë so we applied for medicaid, and medicaid covered it, and Zoë was born healthy at full term. Hooray.

Still, the whole story behind the cost of this medication makes me fuming mad.

Parenting in public is scary

I was so worried I was going to miss my flight coming home from Utah. Karen dropped me off at the curb and I walked through the doors of the airport (pushing a stroller and pulling two suitcases) straight into the line for the ticket counter. The line was so long that it was spilling out into the rest of the airport; I was lucky to walk through the doors when I did because I walked into the end of the line. More people lined up behind me. It was nuts!

I was texting Andrew, trying to hold back my tears (I cry when I get stressed out sometimes), as the line slowly inched forward. I made it to the ticket counter with less than fifteen minutes to go before boarding time and I still had to go through security, the line for which was ginormous, but there was nothing to be done except get in that ginormous line and pray that I would make it through in time.

Slowly, slowly, we inched our way forward and I thought about having to take the baby out of her seat, collapse her stroller, take off my shoes, take out my laptop, take out my liquids, go through the metal detector and set everything up again. Every minute that passed made me feel more and more sick to my stomach (sometimes I get sick to my stomach when I'm stressed out).

When I was about halfway through the line a TSA agent opened the retractable belt barrier and waved me through.

"This is your lucky day!" he said with a smile. "You and this fine young gentleman have been chosen for pre-check. Right this way!"

I was so happy I didn't even tell him that the fine young gentleman accompanying me was a girl (and that's why I usually put a bow on her head). When Patrick and Josie met her at the airport (when we first arrived in Utah) they declared that she looks like Winston Churchill. I was like, "You guys! She's my beautiful baby!"

But, you know what?

They. Had. A. Point.

Observe...

Love and Respect

Last night Andrew decided to check his "other" messages folder in Facebook—the one where all the junk mail goes to (or where messages from unknown contacts goes to)—and he found a 900+ word diatribe from someone whose profile is quite anonymous (just a picture of a girl wearing—of all things—a tank top (as Andrew said, "Um, shouldn't she be all Molly-Mormon? She's wearing a tank top!")). I realize that this person is just trolling, but it was still a troubling letter to receive.

The full text of the letter is at the end of this post and I don't even really know what to say about it other than:

When you assume...

I've been feeling sick of facebook lately, so today I'm going to share an article here (that admittedly I found on facebook (shared by two friends I knew in Cairo: Lindsey and Lydia)) about a "collapsable woven tent" designed by a Jordanian-Canadian (two places close to my heart).

The article my friends shared was written originally for The Green Prophet (a Middle Eastern sustainability news blog thing). Although the concept/design for the tents is certainly impressive, I wasn't entirely a fan of this article because of the following sentence: "Seikaly [the brains behind the operation], now living in Amman, Jordan is well poised to design a dwelling for refugees given that her ancestors in Jordan probably toggled between nomadic and sheltered life in the desert for centuries."

Excuse me?

Do you know what my ancestors did? They drove ox carts across the prairie. They spoke German. They grew sugar beets. A few were midwives.

Do you know what I can't do on account of having never done it? 

I can't drive an ox cart. I'm probably afraid of oxen. I don't know. I've never really been around them. 

I can't speak German. Bitte und danke.

I've never touched a sugar beet and on the whole my garden was a catastrophe last year. 

Although I've successfully delivered my own babies (with the help of various doctors and nurses) I don't feel qualified to deliver other women's babies. 

Obviously the occupation and lifestyle of my ancestors influences where I am today but not directly. Not really. I don't think today's sugar beet farmers would accept my advice on sugar beet farming simply because my grandpa was a sugar beet farmer (and his grandpa was a sugar beet farmer)—and they shouldn't because I would give them terrible advice!

That sentence just bothered me. It smacked of orientalism and I immediately assumed it was a Westerner who wrote it but it was actually written by an Iranian (though one admittedly raised outside of Iran (in South Africa and the US, to be specific)).

After a bit of poking around I found Seikaly's website, which explains the shelter in more detail. No where on her website does she mention whether or not she descends from the Bedouin (nomadic tribes in Jordan (and elsewhere in the Middle East—like, oh, Iran)) and to assume that she does is...completely irrelevant. Unless, of course, as Andrew pointed out it was because of the author's own nomadic heritage that she was able to recognize the nomadic heritage of Seikaly.

Her shelter, though, looks awesome and practical, which is probably why it won an award.

Snow ranting

School let out early today due to the impending snow storm. This time, however, their predictions were correct. Instead of waiting 6–8 hours for the first flake to drop after Rachel got off the bus the flurries began within a half hour. And they weren't lying about how quickly it would accumulate, either. We got about an inch an hour for five hours. It's been pelting us with ice pellets for the past couple of hours and we're supposed to have a "wintery mix" all night long and all day tomorrow.

Andrew left campus as soon as he heard his classes were cancelled—he didn't want to get stuck in the traffic! We had friends stuck for hours in their cars—some up to five, even seven hours. It's nuts!

Now, I'm not sure this is necessarily due to the weather. A lot of it has to do with the general panic that ensues whenever it storms here. Granted, this is a big storm for these parts. However, it was seriously not that bad when we were out walking. I know the north has snowplows and other goodies like that but honestly, it's not like it snows and then snow plows magically take it all away.

Orem, for example, has fifteen snow plows for 529 lane-miles of road to maintain. It takes constant vigilance for 15 snow plows to keep the roads clear—and even then driving on unplowed roads isn't exactly unheard of.

During the last snow storm I search high and low for any other such document for any southern city—just for comparison's sake—but I gave up after a few futile searches. Tonight, however, I honed my search terms and found the "Snow Removal and Ice Control Policy" booklet for Burlington, North Carolina.

In which I rant about mathematics

So, I am going to talk about math for a minute because I went ahead and clicked on a link on another blog post about Common Core that brought me here: an article that there was "no input from early childhood experts or educators" when the idea of Common Core was being brainstormed and that the Common Core "will lead to serious harm for the nation's kindergarten through third grade students."

First of all, I don't think it's possible to overhaul the educational system without at least a handful of childhood experts or educators behind your back. I'm just saying.

I'm supposed to believe that no early childhood experts or educators were involved in the process. No one sought the opinion of a single early childhood expert or educator. Not one?

I really just can't wrap my mind around that. Because there's this little thing called the Congressional Research Service—which, by the way, Andrew was hoping on working for before starting this little PhD stint (and they actually called to offer him an internship just weeks after we accepted a spot in the PhD program here and were too emotionally committed to back out). Basically what the CRS is is a service that does research for congressy stuff.

Andrew knows the Middle East and was hoping to land a post at the Middle East "desk." They have "desks" for anything under the sun that someone might want researched. I'm going to bet that their educational desk is manned by smart people with backgrounds in pedagogy. But I might be going out on a limb there.

Common Core: Literacy

Sometimes I get really frustrated with things. One of those things is Common Core.

I think I have every conservative's attention now.

But wait until I say this: I don't hate it.

The educational system in the United States has needed an overhaul. We've got to try something. Why not this? If it helps—awesome! If it doesn't—back to the ol' drawing board! But certainly sticking with the status quo is not going to get us anywhere. As the adage goes, if you're not moving forward you're moving backward; there is no standing still. Okay, so that's not exactly how the adage goes. I paraphrased. Forgive me.

I just read a blog post lamenting the Common Core standards for literature found in this (transparent and open) PDF. S/he said they found it appalling that technical readings were included because Language Arts is an art! It should be about literature and poetry and learning to love books and language.

It still is. Trust me.

Let's take a look at the title page of the document, shall we?

Corner the market

When I moved to Alberta, my cousins introduced me to the game Pit! I remember playing it in my grandparents' basement, all crowded around the ping-pong table and yelling our guts out. My grandpa, who was a sugar beet farmer back in the day, and my uncle, who has grown wheat and canola and other things throughout his farming career, played with us. My grandpa didn't play many games by the time I came along—but he still had enough umph left in him to swing a trade with the shrewdest trader in a game of Pit!

My grandma would come downstairs to flutter around him every so often, putting blanket on his lap, wiping the Grandpa Glue off his chin, and telling us all to be quiet.

She preferred quiet, thoughtful games like Boggle and Scrabble—I like those games, too, but my grandpa didn't often play them with us because he was too shaky to manage a pen and paper or tiny alphabet tiles. Pit! is thoughtful in its own right, I suppose, because it's strategic, but that exclamation mark at the end of its name is no mistake—it's also rather frenetic.

When you've won the game by collecting enough of any good to "corner the market" you have to yell above the melee, "CORNER ON WHEAT!" or "CORNER ON FLAX!" or whatever.

It's best to corner on wheat because wheat was worth the most points (100, I believe). That said, it was probably wiser to corner on flax quickly and end the round before anyone else collected enough wheat (or anything else) to beat you (I think flax was worth the least; I don't remember). Andrew would probably say that's like the prisoner's dilemma...kinda...or some sort of game theory. I dunno. I'm editing an important paper for him right now; obviously.

Anyway...

Aunthood

Grade three (1993-1994) was a very busy year for me.

First I became an aunt. Then I got a little sister.

All this before I turned nine years old.

As you can imagine, it was a very difficult year for my family—what with my mother and teenage sister expecting at the same time.

I don't remember much about my sister's baby. I know she went to live in a group home for unwed mothers because I think I remember visiting her there a few times. I think I even remember going to visit her at the hospital, though I never saw the baby. The baby was given up for adoption, which I'm sure was very hard on my sister, and we were told not to talk about it with others.

I was an aunt in theory but not in practice.

My little sister was born on April 7, 1994. My dad checked us out of school to go visit my mom and my sister at the hospital. I had always wanted a little sister and now I finally had one. And she was beautiful...and just a little bit squishy and weird-looking, like most newborns are.

I don't remember when my older sister disappeared again. She had been popping in and out of my life for a few years and, by the time I was nine, she was gone again.

The silent, sullen peoples

I'm reading The White Man's Burden right now and am just burning through it—as you can tell, because I'm all the way on chapter three and have been reading it for over a month now? Yeah. It's a good book but I do have other things that I'm reading and for some reason this book gets put on the back burner a lot. Anyway, in chapter three there's a section entitled, "I'm Hungry—Let's Invent Free Markets."

With a header like that you know it's going to be a good book, right?

In this section, William Easterly, who Andrew calls Bill because apparently they're tight like that, says, "The freedom of choice and of personal knowledge makes possible the great gains that come from specialization. If I were limited to my consuming only what I could make or do myself, the results would not be pretty. My cooking skills are limited, for example....Without markets, I would be forced to grow the wheat, beans, and rice myself, milk the cow, process the grains and beans into edible form, and make the cheese and pasta. (I have no clue how to do any of the above.) Instead, I trade on the free market my economist services...and get money in return. I use this money to select home cooking items and to order takeout" (pg. 72).

Oh, no you didn't say that about Lady Liberty!

There are a select number of people I enjoy discussing politics with—and you probably know who you are if you are one of them. There are far more people I don't enjoy discussing politics with, which is why more often than not I keep my opinions to myself. You'd be surprised at how often I hold my tongue. I learned to do that pretty quickly after moving to Utah when I was in my teens because I seem to be a somewhat original thinker for the area and if there's anything the majority doesn't like it's the minority.

To avoid conflict—and, more importantly, name-calling and far-flung accusations of my sanity and/or patriotism and/or testimony—I tend to bridle my tongue. Often.

Sometimes, though, I do feel justified in commenting politically and did so today.

The conversation took place on Facebook, which is an interesting but rather inadequate forum. One of my friends posted a little "forward" in their status.

On Revolutions, success, and failure

I think it's interesting when so many events in my life blur together.

I read the first book in The Hunger Games Trilogy in January and started reading Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea right after. It was amazing to see the similarities in the two books and realize that the world portrayed in The Hunger Games, a world I thought was too fictional to exist, exists. Minus the whole gaming part. But seriously, North Korea is in a bad way.

And while I was plotting in my little mind how to shout out to North Korea: Hey, you guys! There's a whole world out here! (And we have the internet!) You can be free! You all just need to join forces and pull down the regime. That's all...

(That's kind of where my message fizzled because I don't really know how to overthrow a powerful government so could offer North Korea no good advice on the matter.)

Anyway, while I was plotting in my little mind about how to overthrow North Korea, Egypt started its revolution. And I thought to myself, "If only North Korea could do this, too!" It seems that almost anyone who saw anything about the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, and who were fed up with being oppressed by tyrants, decided that overthrowing the government was the thing to do in 2011. If only North Korea knew about it; I'm sure they would have hopped on the band wagon, too.

A Christmas Carol Christmas

Last Sunday we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol at my parents' house. On Tuesday I went to A Christmas Carol at the Hale Center Theater. This Sunday we met at my parents' house for a birthday dinner for the two of them (their birthdays fall on the twelfth and fourteenth) and I stayed after dinner with the girls—we watched Mickey's Christmas Carol. 

It's been a rather Christmas Carol Christmas so I thought it altogether fitting and proper that I read the tale personally. 

I don't think I have ever read the original version. My brother gave me the Great Illustrated Classics edition for Christmas several years ago but it has been edited down to a third grade reading level so it doesn't count as being the original version. Furthermore since it's a third grade reading level that tells you just how many years have passed since I read it last. 

So I popped on over and "borrowed" a copy from Project Gutenberg. I finished it yesterday and I'm quite glad I read it though I'm not sure I have much to say about it right now.

On Monday evening we went to the Orem Public Library with my mom and sister to participate in a singing of Handel's Messiah—well, selections from it, anyway—hosted by the Utah Lyric Opera. They had a little chamber orchestra and real opera singers so the accompaniment and vocal solos were stellar. It was fun to do some Christmas caroling.

We're going to Antarctica

Last Tuesday it was -27°F (or about -33°C) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, making it the second coldest place on earth, next to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on Antarctica. It even made it to the news.

I used to live there and I don't really understand how I ever survived because when I went outside today here it was 27°F above zero (-3°C) and I was freezing. I bundled up my girls (and myself) with sweaters under their winter coats, snow boots, hats, and mittens. And we were only walking around the corner.

Today the coldest place on earth is Chandlar Lake, Alaska, where it's -42°F (-41°C). I'm very glad I don't live there today, though I have been in the negative forties. It's just no fun.

I really dislike winter.

In Egypt we would pass off everything and anything awful that happened with a little sigh, exclaiming, "Oh...Egypt." Today I'm feeling out of sorts with America. So many things have happened recently that are absolutely nettling and about which I don't share a common opinion with my "neighbours" and so I'm feeling glum. "Oh...America."

*sigh*

Sometimes I wonder why I'm here.

But then I remember that the only other "home" I have is akin to living on Antarctica—a place I swore I'd never go but now that I know that sometimes it's on par with places I've lived like (Russia and Canada) I may as well go. Hear that, Andrew, you win: we can go to Antarctica.

During Antarctica's summer, naturally.

Because I'm not setting foot anywhere near Antarctica during the winter.

Ever.

I don't think I could sigh, "Oh...Antarctica," effectively enough to communicate my feelings about Antarctic winters. Not that I know anything about Antarctic winters. But I can imagine.

Everyday the sun comes up

Last night Andrew and I watched Thirteen Days—it was part leisure, part homework. I think it's kind of funny that it was homework because the last movie Andrew was assigned to watch, for the same class, was Twelve Angry Men. If this pattern holds, the next movie we will watch for this class will be Fourteen Hours.

Thirteen Days is about the Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis and it was a fascinating watch. I don't want to give anything away or anything but in the end everything works out fine and the USSR doesn't use Cuba as a missile launch to blast the United States. Still, it was a rather intense movie. Our world leaders are under so much pressure. I've heard a lot of griping in the news about the president "taking a vacation" here and there. After watching this film all I have to say about that is "more power to him." I wanted to tell all those men to take their families and relax somewhere for a long time.

I was stressed out just watching the movie. Politics is hard.

Happy Halloween

Did you know that the average American family spends $40 on Halloween candy?

Did you know that the average worker in the Central African Republic earns $25 per month?

Did you know that nationwide, $6.9 billion will be spent on Halloween candy this year?

Did you know that nationwide, the Central African Republic brings in $3.2 billion annually?

Today you gave out candy to any child who asked.

Would you be willing to give the gift of clean water to a child in the CAR?

Did you know that a donation of $20 can give one person clean drinking water for 20 years?

Today I ran that half-marathon I've been talking about. And it was hard. And it was painful. But it was so, so worth it! On the clock I finished at 2:05, which is about five minutes behind my goal time. I'm waiting to see what my chip time is because the start line was so crowded it took us awhile to cross the starting line. I'll find out about that tomorrow.

In the meantime you can help me reach my goal of $2500 for that well in the CAR. I currently have $754 to go! Every little bit helps! Please go to http://mycharitywater.org/halloweenhalf to contribute anything from $2 on up. 100% of donations go directly to water projects and all donations are tax deductible.

Happy haunting, everybody!