1. Working on feeling instead of avoiding. It’s hard work and it sucks but I have good support.
2. A work shift that involved all manner of craziness and hilarity.
3. A huge rain storm – awesome to watch and mercifully brief.
4. Ginger candies and ginger chews and mmmmm…
5. My husband who listens to me rant and rave and cry and flail and then, with the patience of a saint, helps me work through it.

I have never been a person with great self-esteem. I have always suffered from the ridiculous habit of negatively comparing myself to others and of picking at my own faults until they are enormous, bleeding, gashes of insecurity.

There are things at which I excel – I’m human, after all, and we all have talents and skills and things about us that are impressive within a variety of contexts. I can, when I’m not feeling particularly crappy, give you a list of things about me that I think are good, or neat, or even pretty awesome. There are instances in my life where I feel amazing – whether strong or smart or pretty or, well, whatever. Context.

But lately I am more aware of my faults than usual – and those faults seem to be growing in a way that’s unmanageable. I can’t seem to find compassion for them, either, nor an acceptance. I can’t seem to shrug them away. I can’t even do my usual trick of looking at other people, seeing faults, and thinking about how those faults are what make them interesting to know or to look at, depending.

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1. Antibiotics. Yes, still. Yes, definitely.
2. Flipping through the books Michelle sent me and grinning.
3. Pretty pink nail polish.
4. Pierogies for dinner.
5. Snuggling up to my husband at night, before sleep, and talking for a bit.

Sylvain is the one who encouraged me to post today. He is responsible for you now knowing about my urinary tract’s angst.

But.. wouldn’t it be nice if HE blogged a little? July 24th is his last entry, for pete’s sake!

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UPDATED: Oh! Lookie who posted a little somethin’ for us! Go tell him you’re still reading!

This morning I got a call from the supervisor of the group home where I was most recently trained. It’s a very independent home – the residents require very little in the way of practical support – and my job there is essentially to supervise the prep and clean-up of dinner.

Seriously, that’s the gist of it.

I make observations, of course, about what’s going on. I let the supervisor know if there are any issues of which she should be aware. I can also do some chores (like, say, clean the fridge) if I have the time or inclination to do so.

Anyway, with summer ending, supervisors are starting to look at schedules for the fall/winter. This particular supervisor called to ask if I would be interested in working every-other-Sunday for 2 hours. Yes! Yes, I would!

And could I do it ’til Christmas-ish time? Would that be ok?

Yes! Yes!

Now, admittedly, the pay that I’ll be bringing in for about 4 hours each month? Not awe-inspiring. But I’m keeping my foot in the proverbial door, here, and getting experience with the various group homes and programs in the agency. I like this!

The second group home at which I was trained has asked about my availability from September onward and I gave the supervisor a rough overview. I have no idea what’ll come of that – they have some short shifts, but mostly have people during the days.

And the first group home that I worked at has already been alerted to my school schedule – but also knows that I’ll try to pick up shifts whenever I can.

It’d be nice to graduate at the end of this year and have a job at this agency. I don’t imagine it’ll be a full-time job right away, but even part-time would be awesome. It doesn’t mean I’ll work there forever, but it’ll save me some angst if I have a place to go and use my diploma.

Two nights ago, I felt a little.. tingle.. when I peed before bed. I assumed this was due to some “adult activities” that had taken place and, so, I didn’t worry. I’ve had that feeling before, especially after enthusiastic events have taken place, and it’s been many, many years since I’ve had a urinary tract infection.

Yesterday I woke up with more than a tingle. If the kids hadn’t been home, I’d have screamed while peeing.

I made a doctor’s appointment.

On a side note, I’d like to say how glad I am that my doctor’s office has switched to “same day” appointments. If you call in the morning, they’ll fit you in. Doesn’t matter what the problem is. This makes infinitely more sense to me than calling your doctor while you’re sick and having to wait three weeks for an appointment – at which time you’re either dead or healed.

Since I was going to the office anyway, I decided to get my tetanus booster and my Hep-A+B vaccination done. I need the latter for my field placement and the former is just a good thing to keep up-to-date (or so Coffee told me while he was bullying me into getting it done).

At the appointment, the nurse did one needle in each arm. Then the doctor appeared, gave me the requisite cup in which to pee and, later, showed me the little pH strip that clearly indicated my urinary tract infection, complete with blood in my urine. AWESOME. He prescribed antibiotics.

At around noon, I took my first antibiotic tablet.

By 2pm, I had chills and a fever. I had a sore throat. I was beyond tired – I felt like I was wearing a lead suit. My joints ached. My skin ached. I was red-faced and hot. My appetite was non-existent and I was tired – so very, very tired.

I seriously felt worse than I have in a very, very long time.

I felt the same 4 hours later when Coffee got home from work.

Was it the Hep vaccine? The tetanus shot? The antibiotics?!

I need Coffee to hang out with me on the sofa. Just talking to me and listening to me whimper about the pain/fever/chills/sweating/whatever. And he did – and it helped.

The other thing that made me feel better was my friends’ comments on Facebook. Awesomely funny.

This morning I woke up to a light tingle while peeing. I’ve been chugging water all day and peeing and peeing and peeing. I took my antibiotics as directed. I’m still feeling exhaustedly tired but not as bad as yesterday.

But, maaaan, I can’t wait for the first non-tingly pee.

It’s good to have things to look forward to, right?

Sometimes I forget that, with my purple hair and mostly-black wardrobe, I look a little weird to people. And, along with that, sometimes I forget that people make assumptions based on appearances.

I recently worked an afternoon shift that involved another staff member. There are a few shifts at this particular group home that require two staff to work together; generally, one takes consumers for appointments or runs errands while the other stays in the house to make sure everything is running smoothly.

This other staff member and I had previously only said “hello” to each other during team meetings. I knew her name, and vice versa, but we didn’t know anything about each other. As we spent some time talking, however, it became quite clear that she had formed some opinions of me. I kept ‘surprising’ her with things like being in school and adopting kids and being married.

She later admitted that I wasn’t “at all” like she expected.

You’d probably (not) be surprised how often I hear that.

Sadly, no one ever wants to tell me what they expected. I realize that’s because their perception was probably leaning toward negative – and it’s hard to turn to someone and say, “I just figured you were a ne’er-do-well who snorts coke off of hooker’s asses on the weekends.”

It sorta’ makes me want to take that up.

I am not exactly nervous, or anxious, about returning to school this year. I know I’ll have the first day “eeek!” feeling when it rolls around, of course, but I’m positive it’ll be nothing like last year when, for the first few weeks, I regularly spent time sitting in the parking lot weeping.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say there was some trepidation, though. Second year of my program is focused on Group Work and ohgod, I hate group work. I think all control freaks hate group work, to be honest, because it means.. loss of control. People have different priorities than I do; some people are okay with a “C” across the board.

I have heard, too, that the first half of this year will be “brutal” in terms of the sheer volume of assignments. And since most of those involve groups… yeah.

Last year I had a few good experiences with groups. One came about because another group member was awesomely dedicated – and I was actually able to relax (and, on a few occasions, I even got a chance to slack as a result of her hard work!). Another occasion was when my group let me (or was too scared not to?) take full control of everything and dictate how things would go. And yet another occasion was when I worked in a small group with people who were all on the same wavelength in terms of what needed to be done and the standards we wanted to meet.

So there is some hope. At least, I’m trying to maintain some.

I keep reminding myself that I’m not in this to make friends. I am doing this so I can get my diploma and get a job that I like/enjoy/want. (I have made a few friends, of course.)

I’m nervous again about never having time to myself, or to spend with my husband, or to vacuum the living room. This year my schedule doesn’t have any weekdays off; I won’t have Fridays to run errands and clean up and do my laundry. I know I’ll be making some sacrifices and I also know I will get some time for myself on occasion.

I’m nervous about the workload again, with the endless writing and studying and trying to memorize acronyms.

Then again, I’m pleased with my new school supplies..

I dunno. We’ve firmly established that I worry more than I should about things that, in general, don’t require me to worry. The flip side is that I’m often more prepared for “things” than people who worry less – mainly because I’ve given the “thing” a shitload of consideration ahead of time.

(There’s a reason why some people can happily show up with a purse and I require a full backpack.)

Last year there was a significant amount of drama in my class – and ohgod, I don’t want to go through that again. There was Facebook drama, for god’s sake, over shit that I didn’t even know was happening (and yet, somehow, I got dragged into it by name?!) Classmates ‘unfriended’ me because they had ‘heard’ that I was part of it – the only thing I could do was laugh.

There was drama inside the class, too, with accusations of favouritism and people cheating and all manner of crap spewed around. I am thankful, though it sounds mean, that some of the people involved won’t be coming back this year (our class has decreased in size considerably from the original numbers).

Here is the truth: I like my program. I like my advisor. I like most of what I’m learning (and the rest is at least interesting). I like doing a good job on my assignments. I like getting good marks. I like being all nerdy about this shit. And I like school supplies.

So, I’m going back next week feeling wary – and tinged with hope. Hope that group work won’t suck my soul out of me, hope that my remaining classmates aren’t filled with drama, and hope that I’ll survive the year.

Stay tuned for impending hysteria.