Semester's end

Ok, I did it. With this post, I will have kept up with blogs every week. Last semester in English Comp 1, it never failed, I would be clicking submit at 11:59pm every Friday night. This semester I only stayed up that late once, and sometimes even wrote one in the middle of the week! I guess all in all this semester didn't go too bad. I regret that I will be making my first B though. Anatomy and Physiology proved challenging along with my new night shift job and family. I am not sure what I will be making in The American Economy System either; most likely a B, but I still hold hope that I can pull of an A after the final on Tuesday. At least I enjoyed my anatomy class, that economy class might just be my new definition of hell! This English class has also been a good class. I think I have greatly improved my ability to put my thoughts into words, and it might have even helped me in writing that resume that recently got me a good paying job. I wish there were more literature classes taught by Holly Chism, but I checked, and I guess teaching 2 classes, and running around after little ones is enough. If there are suggestions for other good instructors, I still need area 2a (fine art)and area 2b (literature) for core requirements.

I hope everyone takes advantage of their few weeks out of class. I plan on taking my kids to the zoo and other unplanned locations on my break. We will also be moving into our new house in June, so that will keep us busy. I am relieved that I won't have to keep up with homework while trying to move, I already missed a lot of study time while spending most weekends looking at houses the last couple months. It will be a good time for my family, who I can tell is feeling neglected with all this schoolwork.

Well, with this being the last blog of the semester, I seem to have run out of words; I have been sucked dry. I just wrote 4 1 page extra credit papers for economy, and baked my son's birthday cake for tomorrow. I have to be at work at 11 pm tonight, which is my Saturday (my 6th day of work this week). And I have to find a balance of time tomorrow between decorating his cake, getting his party set up, and finding sleep...it's not going to happen. I am sooo ready for a break!

Male birth control

I found an article on "Where's the male birth control pill", that caught my attention. I guess there are many women who want a break from being the one in charge of preventing pregnancy. I never really thought of it before, but those shots do feel like a good punch to the arm, the pills are way too easy to forget, and a diaphragm??? I don't think so. Not to mention all the side effects and possible dangers that come with the drugs. I'm not big on drugs to begin with; I won't even take a cold or allergy pill unless I am really suffering. Being irritated with birth control isn't really the reason that title grabbed my attention though. I have 3 young boys, but they won't be young forever. If I had teenage girls, I could take them every 3 months and make sure they have their shot, along with all the sex education available, and begging them to wait until they are older. With boys, all I will be able to do is put a box of condoms where they can get to it without having to go through the embarrassment of asking me first. I don't think it's fair that most people think its the boys that need to be watched out for (thinking of the saying if you have a boy you only need to worry about 1, but if you have a girl, you have to worry about all of the boys) That's not a fair statement! It takes two to tango, many girls are just as frisky as guys. Anyway, the reason it is so difficult to come up with a male birth control is because men produce about 1 thousand sperm per second, while women only produce one egg per month. A woman only needs a hormone to convince her body it is pregnant to stop producing more. The birth control options for men that are being tested come out to be effective 2/3 of the time, or at max 90%; it is just nowhere near what it needs to be. If they do manage to master this though, the application is much easier than what women deal with. They simply rub a gel into their skin on their chest or even arms, and it gets absorbed through the skin.

For women, there are plenty of birth control options on the market. The combo pill can ease pre-menstrual symptoms, and it supposedly helps prevent ovarian and uterine cancer. In a recent study, the longer the pill is taken, the more protection it gives, protection against ovarian cancer is supposed to last about 30 years after a woman stops taking the pill; which can be taken all the way up to menopause. One of the best things I think they have done is making the morning after, or plan B pill available to young people with no trouble attached. I hope this will greatly lessen the number of abortions out there. A baby can start to feel at only 6 weeks, just because people don't want to acknowledge their responsibility shouldn't give them the right to kill a baby with feelings. There are so many options! If birth control is forgotten, use the morning after pill, if pregnancy occurs, there will be someone out there wanting to adopt a newborn baby. People are sickening!

There is a place in Joplin, LifeChoices, that helps young people, or anyone who needs help with pregnancy options, support and services such as ultrasounds, and volunteer doctors. They also give free std testing, and plan B pills.

scambled memories of mom

Seeing as how Mother's Day is just around the corner, It seems to me like a good time for memories of my childhood with my mom. Unfortunately, I was more of a daddy's girl, but still I was blessed with a wonderfully caring mother. It does take quite a woman to raise 6-8 girls in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house with minimal chaos and plenty of fun with little income. She used to find games for family bonding, like strip poker, yes, strip poker. Of course, before the game we would all put on several layers of cloths, and since I was the youngest one playing, they let me cheat and wear necklaces out of yarn that I could take off in place of an item of clothing. She also made sure we were all together as a family at the dinner table every night, and Friday nights were extra special; we all piled all over the living room floor to watch TGIF and eat mom's homemade caramel popcorn. Mom was usually the culprit at the bottom of the water fights started indoors! And the icing fight at my little sister's 2nd birthday. We were cleaning icing off of stuff for weeks afterward. No matter how little money we had, she always made sure we had at least 2 pairs of new school cloths and a new backpack to start the year off with. Which brings me to my introduction of the game of hooky. I was in 2nd grade, and I don't know why she was driving me to school that day, I usually walked those 5 blocks to Emerson, but on the way, she asked me if I wanted to play hooky. Well, since at that time we had been playing card games a lot, I thought it sounded like a card game, so I said "Sure, how do you play?". I thought it was odd that she would be introducing a card game on the way to school, since we wouldn't be playing til later...then she drove right by the school. She then brought up the agreement that if I didn't miss school, and was making good grades, I could take a free day off each semester. Another thing I remember is mom and her music. I was raised on Reba Macentire, Garth Brooks, Guns & Roses, and AC DC. On the weekends, when she was ready for us to wake up, she would have the music blasting, and on Sunday mornings, dad would be making waffles or pancakes, sausage or bacon, eggs, or biscuits and gravy.

She always made sure we had everything we needed plus some. She always knew how to make us smile, and wished the best for all of us. She treated dads previous 2 children no different than her own and dad did the same with her previous 2. I didn't know I had half sisters until I was 12, and it just doesn't mean anything to us. She even took in two other girls on top of the 6 there already was. She is the most motherly person I know, and I am glad to have been raised by her.