friday five

via Friday Five

1. What's your favorite vacation spot? Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

2. Where do you consider to be the biggest hell-hole on earth? Bryan/College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M 'University'.

3. What would be your dream vacation? Six months in the British Isles, with lots of time to visit little out of the way places, rent a thatched roof cottage, hear Welsh spoken in a pub, hear bagpipes (Irish and Scottish) played in their homelands. Shop in London, keeping an eye out for Patsy & Edina. ;)

4. If you could go on a road-trip with anyone, who would it be and why? Patricia, because she lives like there's no tomorrow and dances like there's nobody watching.

another milestone

Yesterday I got all my forms and test scores and things turned in to apply for the Summer start of the Paramedic program at ACC. I took a reading, writing, and math skills test that day, with no problems. It seemed really easy, but this extremely attractive young woman in my D&D class has failed the reading comprehension part 4 (four) times. I felt so sorry for her. She has thick dark rimmed glasses, so she looks wonderfully intelligent (and hot), and she sounds smart enough. She just can't score high enough to get into the Paramedic program. Reminds me of my sister, one of the smartest people I've ever met, who couldn't tell you which 'their' or they're' to use... written language is not her thing. Actually it is, though, because she writes just like she sounds, and she's very clever & witty, but the spelling is a little eccentric.

There are only 15 places for the class that begins this summer. I'll be getting a letter to let me know whether I'm in the Summer or Fall class. I want Summer because that's the night classes track, and I am such a night person.

I've been watching a lot of HBO the past couple of weeks. I've seen all but one of the episodes of Six Feet Under now. It's on in a few minutes. I love this show.

inspiring eulogy

In Memory of Stonewall Warrior Sylvia Rivera
A Woman for Her Time
by Riki Wilchins

'She may have been the prototypical Angry Queen. Unbowed, unbought, and virtually indigestible by a gay movement she helped birth, Stonewall warrior Sylvia Rivera died on February 19 of end-stage liver disease aggravated by too many years on alcohol and city streets.'

'In many ways, Sylvia was the Rosa Parks of the modern transgender movement'

Read the rest here.

this is creepy

Andrea Yates' husband has made a commemorative web site for the children his wife killed here: Yates Kids Home Page

See also the link to the judge's gag order.

sex offenders

They can't hide in Texas. A new policy has been enacted that will require all known sex offenders to renew their Drivers Licenses annually, instead of every 4 years. Letters are going out this week, according to Fox 7 News in Austin. This will help keep photos updated. The Texas Dept. of Public Safety has a searchable database here. You can search by zip code, city, name, or alias. Results include address, crime, age and sex of victim, and recent photos of offender. I have an astonishingly large number living in my zip code. There are over two dozen living in my mother's small town zip code, including one woman convicted of sex with a male minor, age 14.

now what's up?

I've been very absent from my blog these past several days. I'm studying and studying for our next test in A&P: skeleton and muscles. So many picky little details of structure, and I find myself having to slap myself into submission by reminding myself that I must study this and pass so that I can get on with the Paramedic program. It's quite painful.

Death & Dying is pretty neat, though. We went to the Funeral Home/Gardens on Thursday, and I have decided I don't want my ashes scattered, after all. I'm not sure where I want them buried. I want to keep my Mom's ashes, too, and not scatter them. You have to have some *place* to go to to remember people. I also want an open casket funeral for myself and my mother. That's supposed to be the best way for your relatives to have closure. Funerals run $5k to $10k these days, folks, and they're only going to get more expensive. When I get a decent job, I'm going to invest in mine before I need it. Plan what songs I want played and the parts of Kahlil Gibran I want read.

Death is so gross, though... what with the smells and all. I don't think I want to die for awhile. There were times when I did hope I got hit by a bus, but now is not one of those times. I just wish I didn't have to study all these stupid muscles. And who knows what fresh Hell they'll have in store for us next week. Oh, The Nervous System. It only gets worse.