A week in the life of...

Wow! I never would have imagined how busy my life could get, but it is definitely busy! Between work, school, and family, I am always on the go.

I am not breastfeeding anymore so that kind of relieves me of one time sink, but I also miss it. Unfortunately, I started drying up recently and I decided to go ahead and stop fighting it. I don't think Boo really misses it, and I was able to keep it up for 11 months so I think I did pretty good.

Derek is still job hunting, but not having much luck. Sadly, he's not getting a lot of job interviews and when he does he's not getting the jobs. It's frustrating because there is nothing I can do to help him.

The kids are keeping us busy with their school and sports stuff. It seems like there are always things that have to be done or that we need to go do. I think that's just part of having kids though.

I will start teaching @ the end of April for the online school I was hired on with. I am a bit nervous but I think it will work out. I will have to manage the workload before I go to work and after I get home for short periods, but I think that is doable. I guess we will see. The first class is a mentorship, so I will having someone helping me along the way which is GREAT!

I will also begin my volunteer work next month. I will have one on-call weekend. That also makes me a bit nervous, but I think once I become more familiar with the expectations I will be fine. I was asked to be the alternate for the lady who handles the whole program, but I had to tell her no. I have WAY too many things going on to do a good job of that.

I took my Comprehensive Final for my Security Management Master's. How did I do? Well, I think I did alright. I don't know that I will pass with Honors, but I think I will pass, at least that's what I hope. I won't know for a week or two. That's the worst part, waiting. The test was comprised of four essay questions that I had to handwrite the answers too. It was set up to be taken online, but I wasn't able too because the place I was taking it did not have a computer for me to use. I ended up with writer's cramp because I ended writing 15 pages. Actually 17 becuase I threw two out. I did that in 3 hours too. I had 6 1/2 hours, so I probably should have used the extra time to script my answers and THEN write them. Oh well, hind sight is 20/20.

Profound thoughts

I don't have them!

Seriously, I talked about the presidential race recently and I am finding myself liking the Democratic candidates less and less over time. It's not even about their stances, it's about the nasty sniping and high school backstabbing.

Granted, things got nasty between McCain and Bush several years ago, and then Bush and Kerry which really made me NOT want to vote AT ALL, but I did, and I will vote this year. I will not vote along party lines (I don't belong to one) or becuase one candidate strikes me as more attractive, though I think that will play into it since it's a proven fact that we choose leaders and people who we see as important based at least in part on their attractiveness, either physically or beliefs.

That being said, I currently liek McCain and think he's going to live to be 100.

The family is fine. Derek STILL hasn't found a job which is REALLY stressing us out, but he's still trying. I am TRYING (though not successfully) to not push, but I am feeling very overburdened. I have no self-control, I guess.

I am still BUSY! I take the comprehensive final for Security Management Master's next week. I am working on the ACSC Master's, I am taking of Flight COmmand in May, I start teaching, probably in April, and the bills seem to keep going up. I know I missed something, but I am not sure what. I expect I will start doing on-call duty for Victim's advocate next month so that will be neat. One coolo thing is that the person in charge of advocates asked if I would be willing to do a monologue at a conference she is putting together. I guess I really impressed her with my acting abilities. It's been a while, but it still gets me wound up and I am glad I can make a difference.

Keeping it interesting

You know how I like to keep busy, so this week I am taking the 40 hours of training required to be a Victim's Advocate for the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator on base. I have done some research on my own so I have heard a lot of these statistics before, but they are still striking, especially when you put them into context. 1 of 4 women have been a victim of some for of sexual assault. 1 in 6-10 men have. Almost all sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone the victim KNOWS! Of these, the majority (80-90%) involve alcohol (or drugs). Have I shocked you enough? One more thing to add, the group that is attacked the most is from 14-23! Do you know anyone in the age group? I do! I have two that live with me! I am NOT a crazy mother, I have seen and heard too much about what can happen. I know that life is not always easy or safe and that people do bad things.

I do NOT believe that a woman/girl EVER asks for it!
I do NOT believe that there is EVER justification for NOT stopping.
I do NOT believe a woman is being coy or a tease when she changes her mind!

And I could go on. Sadly, I knew all of these things before and they have hit me just as hard in the past, but I have gotten caught up in life and not always put the importance on this that it needs.

I am looking forward to this opportunity to help people and hopefully get them through something that they didn't ask for. I can only guess how difficult it will be for them to pick up their life and go on after the trauma.