A Full Plate

This last week was overwhelming in so many ways.

1. Classes began at Chico State. I knew that the classes were going to be impacted because so many classes had been cancelled and the number of emails requesting to add my classes were more than I've ever received in the past. But nothing prepared me for the onslaught. I had waiting lists for every one of my classes. One waiting list was 12 people long. Students were showing up at my office hours (which never happens the first week) to request to add. A line formed down the hall. Each student had their own special sob story which was accompanied with various version of doe or puppy dog eyes. It was heart wrenching.
2. Because of the press from students to add classes, along with the usual anonymous dropping of classes, my head was in a constant state of confusion. How many students were in each class and how many openings were available kept changing hour by hour, which made giving students any kind of concrete answer virtually impossible. By Thursday I was no less clear on the status of my class rosters than I was on Monday.
3. In addition to dealing with the stressors at work, Chelsea was scheduled to take her driving test on Thursday. This event took on far more personal import than I ever could have imagined. It was so not about whether or not she would pass. It was about my child taking one more step toward independence and away from me. I had difficulty sleeping. I didn't know if I wanted her to pass or to fail. Of course, this was a purely selfish dilema. I did want her to pass, to experience the joy of success, but the selfish side of me wanted to hold her closer and failing would ensure that she would be tied to me just a little while longer. I wished that anyone but me would take her for her test. I feared that my nerves would some how affect her and get in the way of her doing well. But, she insisted that I be the one to take her, so I bucked up and did.
4. She passed. I knew before she came back into the DMV. She chose to park the car after her test right in front of the window that I was sitting by. I looked out, saw her look nervously and expectantly at the driving evaluator, and then I saw it...she threw both of her hands up, smiled bigger than I've ever seen, and let lose with a scream of joy (I couldn't hear it but I could see it). She came bounding, yes bounding into the DMV, stumbled over a poor woman who was between us and gave me the biggest hug and told me the news. I was so proud of her. I'm so glad that I didn't miss that moment.
5. Amid the stress at work, I received an email from the person who headed my dissertation committee. He edited the first Encylopedia of Creativity and apparently he is editing the 2nd edition now. He requested that I write the chapter on Creativity and Therapy. I had to read the email several times to make sure I was reading what I thought I was reading. Out of all the creativity researchers out there he wanted me to write the chapter? Wasn't there anyone else out there with a little more gravitas to ask? So, I emailed him and thanked him for the opportunity and accepted. In his return email he told me that he and Art Bohart, a man who I respect greatly in the field of counseling techniques (he was also on my dissertation committee) were planning on co-authoring a book on Creativity and Therapy and they wanted me to write a chapter for that as well. I was thrilled and honored. Now that I've accepted I have to dust off my dissertation and get to writing.
6. I was supposed to attend the March in Sacramento on Friday, however by the time the end of the week approached I felt so wrung out that the thought of being on a bus for most of the day, standing in the hot sun, and interacting with others was too much. Priorities have to be set. I had loads of work to do, plus class rosters to sort out, and kids who had things that needed attending to, so I chose not to go. I'm so glad I did. I was able to sort everything out and after school was able to take Chelsea to buy her first wallet (now that she has a license she's got to have a place to keep it) and went to the bank and opened up a checking and savings account. I thought it was important for her to start learning how to manage money now rather than waiting until she heads off to college. Yet another step toward independence. I've got to say that she really is rising to the occasion and I'm extremely proud of her.

While it was a full and stressful week, I find myself reflecting back with much gratitude. Every challenge had its object lesson. I learned a lot about myself this week. I found strength that I didn't know that I had. I was humbled beyond words. I was honored by visits from past students who wished to stay in contact. I have a great job that affords me the opportunity to interact and sometimes impact others. I have great children who have goals and who do not shrink away from obstacles and challenges that may get in their way as they move toward achieving their goals. They make me happy and proud.

Our Town Hall Meeting

Last Wednesday I decided to attend the congressional town hall meeting for our area. The location had been changed three times because public interest in attending the town hall was so great that they had to continue to look for a venue large enough to accommadate all who wanted to attend. The final location was the Neighborhood Church which is the largest church in Chico. It seats approximately 1500. Upon arrival I was surprised to see how many were waiting to get into the church. I parked my car and headed to the end of the line.
The line snakes around the perimeter of the church and I think this picture captures the number of people waiting to get in. The line moved quickly and as we approached the entrance we were greeted by numerous signs by those who are in favor of universal healthcare. The ACLU was there in force, grumpy faced and "patrolling" like they had any significant function there at all. About 90% of the people there were ordinary citizens who are highly interested in this issue. The other 10% were your garden variety picketers. Everyone behaved themselves, as I knew they would, so my declining the ACLU's offer to speak to our group about conducting ourselves respectfully was validated.

Our seat was fairly close to the stage. The entire church was filled and it was standing room only. Congressman Herger spoke for about 20 minutes about his views on healthcare and the remaining hour and 10 minutes was devoted to questions from the audience. More than half of the questions were from those in support of healthcare even though 3/4 of the audience were not supportive of government run healthcare. There was occasional jeering from the audience, mostly from the pro-healthcare contingent. All in all I was impressed with the event. I think it is safe to say that the electorate is no longer apathetic. We do care and we are communicating that with our attendance at events such as this. Our level of care will be loudly demonstrated this coming Friday, 8/28. There is going to be a very big march in Sacramento at the capitol. They are expecting anywhere from 50,000 - 100,000 people. We are protesting AB32, which is California's version of Cap and Trade. We've chartered a bus, which is sold out and I'm still fielding emails from people who want to go. We are considering chartering another bus. The Redding group has chartered a bus and that bus is full as well. There are busloads of people coming up from San Diego and Los Angeles. I'm taking one of my furlough days in order to be there. This is the biggest event that I've taken part in and I'm looking forward to the experience. I'll take lots of pictures and post them.

Hardball Has Begun

Wow, I'm am learning by the minute how naive I am regarding the world of politics. In the past 24 hours I've personally felt the sting of hate coming from those who are attacking tea partiers. Because my name figures prominently on our tea party groups social networking website, I've received an email from the ACLU and one of the opinion writers for our local paper has targeted our group and the accusations of racism, violence, and affiliation with the Republican Party have begun. As I scrolled through the comments in response to the op ed piece the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. The hatred was palpable. The email I received from the local ACLU asked to come and talk to our group prior to our congressman's town hall meeting and the stated purpose for this meeting was to ensure that we don't behave violently. WHAT? We have held three events thus far and our behavior has been exemplary. Most of the day and even as I type this I feel a low grade nausea. The hate that these people spew toward those of us who have chosen to voice our views is overwhelming. You have to ask yourself, why? Why are these people making personal attacks rather than entering into a reasoned discourse? Are these just random people who like to spend their time reading political postings and venting their anger and hatred or are these committed ideologues who's sole intent is to squash the opposition? I don't know, but it is not comfortable being in the cross hairs. My gut is telling me it is the later as these attacks are not only coming from the left, they are also coming from the right. It's a game. Both parties want to protect whatever power that they have. They don't care about what's best for this country. They care about what is best for their party.

I immediately went to our tea party website and removed my picture and created a phantom account that I will post events in the future to lessen the possibility of future contact with those who want to intimidate us. While I'm not willing to back down on my activist efforts, I'm learning that caution is needed. These people are serious and will do just about anything to shut us down. The lies just keep on coming and there is little that we can do to counter them other than document for ourselves what goes on at these events and use the internet to get an accurate portrayal of our actions out there. The fact that so many Americans are saying enough with both parties scares these people and they are playing hardball to shut us up. I pray that they don't win, because if they do, we all lose.

The Grind Begins

Wednesday was the first day of school for the kids. It just seems wrong to send the kids off to school on Aug. 12th. Anything prior to Labor Day seems too soon to me, but I'm a law abiding citizen so I insisted that they go to school.

Amazingingly when I asked them if I could take their "first day of school" picture, they both agreed. Chelsea, of course, had a precondition which I will share in just a second.
It's hard to believe that Cody is a sophomore and Chelsea is now a junior. It is beginning to feel a bit like a countdown. A countdown to their leaving home and beginning their adult lives. I try not to think about that too often. I simply banish it from my thoughts, but it does creep in every now and then, like when I remember that on Aug. 27th Chelsea will be taking her driving test for her driver's license and I will no longer be driving my kids to and from school. While I'll celebrate the lessened demand on my schedule, I'll miss the time together each morning and afternoon.

Now for the precondtion. Chelsea said I could take her picture if I didn't show her picture in my blog. I believe that I've stayed within the spirit of our agreement with the following picture...

See, you can't tell who it is in this picture. I could have googled images for a young headless woman and this is what I found. I could have!

I've been busy setting up my websites for my classes. While I've felt very pressured because of the short time I have until classes begin, I remind myself how fortunate I am to have a full schedule. They have posted the schedule and there are a couple of people who's names are sadly missing and many names who have less than their usual load. I recognize that I could have just as easily been given a smaller load, but was not.

On a political note, our tea party organization is growing and strategizing for the 2010 election, in addition to keeping the pressure on healthcare and cap and trade. It is very frustrating and sad to see our efforts dismissed and denegrated by this administration and most of the press. This movement is real, comprised of people just like me, who have stayed passive for all of their political lives and for the first time ever we are engaged and active. One really good thing that is coming out of all of this is that I have never seen a more non-apathetic citizenry. Our local congressman has had to change the venue for his town hall meeting twice to accommodate the number of people who wish to attend. I, along with many of my fellow tea partiers, will be at the meeting next Wed. I'm taking my video camera and may have some footage to post. It is important that we document for ourselves the reasonable, yet passionate, questions that are being asked of our representatives, while the press cherry picks the most emotional questioners and spins the footage as examples of the "angry mob." The internet is proving to be our best solution to this problem as we have the ability to show what is really going on at these town hall meetings by posting our own videos.

Good News

I have a job. This morning I still hadn't heard anything. Out of frustration I called the department office. When one of the wonderful secretaries answered the phone, I said, "I'm sure you've been getting a lot of calls about this, but do you know anything about the schedule?" Her immediate reply was that she would get my boss on the phone. I nervously waited until I heard his kind voice, "Cindy?" He didn't sound like he had something bad to relay to me. So, I immediately relaxed. I asked, "I know how busy you must be dealing with this mess, but is there anything you can tell me about the schedule?" He told me that he has been prevented by the provost to communicate with any of his lecturers until one final issue is dealt with, however, since I called him, he could tell me that I was going to be assigned the schedule that I had before they took all lecturers off the schedule. He then proceeded to tell me that when making my syllabi that I had to build into it 9 days of NO CLASS (the furlough days the union voted for). This is in addition to Labor Day, Veteran's Day, and Thanksgiving Break. That's a lot of missed classes! This means that I'm going to have to pare down all my powerpoints and lecture notes to accommodate this change and I have to do this in 12 days. I guess I'll be a little busy, but I am incredibly grateful as my boss told me that he's had to make a few calls telling people that they are not needed. My thoughts go out to those people.

We're Making Progress

Because I have no work to do right now because I STILL DON'T KNOW IF I HAVE A JOB (I'm taking a deep breath and recentering myself) I've been able to fill my time with my activist work. After a bit of a upheaval in the leadership structure of our tea party group, we've regrouped and have brought together a group of kick ass people (I humbly include myself in this group). I volunteered to get the website up and running. I crossed my fingers and began clicking away and before I knew it I had the website up and running. I'm very proud and pleased with how it is turning out. Here's the link: http://chicoteaparty.ning.com/. Go check it out. There are some pretty impressive videos of the town halls around the country. The number of people who are showing up at these town hall meetings is far greater than is being presented in the press. While these people often show a great deal of passion, they are no where close the to "manufactured angry mobs who spew hate" that they are being portrayed as by the media and the administration.

The next big event for our local tea party group is a nationwide protest on August 28th in Sacramento at the State Capitol. They are projecting between 50,000 - 100,000 people will participate. The focus of the march is on AB32 which is California's version of Cap and Trade which was passed 3 years ago, but is coming into effect now. The effects of this bill on agriculture, mining, transportation, commercial trucking, and the timber industry is devastating. We will also be protesting the cut off of access to water to farmers in central and northern California by a federal judge in order to protect a fish (minnow). The lack of water flow is causing hundreds of thousands of acreage to become fallow. In some central California towns the unemployment rate has reached 48%. Our tea party group is chartering a bus. I'm impressed that we have enough people who want to participate that we will fill a bus. Even more amazing is that we are considering chartering a second bus if we continue to get the positive response that we are getting. We really are starting to have an impact. We may be scoffed at, disparaged, and dismissed by those who disagree with us, but we are a sleeping giant that has awakened from a very long sleep. We've lots of energy, are highly motivated, and very talented. We will be victorious. Check out the following audio video of a song put out by a European rock group with libertarian leanings. Europe is ahead of us politically regarding this socialist issue and they are getting a clue and beginnning to say no more. Here's the link for the audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1viGgpwSY0&eurl=http://stereogum.com/archives/album_art/new-muse-uprising_082681.html&feature=player_embedded

Left Hanging

I still don't know if I have a job or not! They have only had the past two months to figure all of this out and they still can't say which classes are cancelled and which lecturers will or will not return. The fall semester starts in 3 weeks. I've spoken with other lecturers and none of us are willing to do any class prep knowing that the work may never be compensated. One girlfriend has a new text and even if she were to know today that she would be teaching next semester, she doesn't have enough time to prepare using the new text. Bottom line...government run ANYTHING leads to mediocre (at best) results. My frustration knows no bounds!