I went to Office Depot this morning on my way home from school to get printer paper. I pulled into the parking lot, parked, and began quickly walking toward the door, full of coffee and a mind to get things off my to-do list as fast as possible. An older man stopped me on my way in the door to ask me if I remembered to post my handicap sticker; he pointed to my car with implied accusation. I told him that while those used to be handicap spaces, they were now painted over and I needed no such thing. He countered with "Oh, I just didn't want you to get a ticket," but it seems to me that he rather thought he'd caught me somehow doing something I ought not be doing. I rolled my eyes and went about my way, thinking, "and what the hell business is it of yours where and how I park my car?" The bottom line is, it's none of his business whatsoever. Even if I had parked in a handicap space - which, by the way, I would never do for even a moment - he can phone the police if he likes.
What makes people think they have the right to do such things? My mother is handicapped, but sometimes can walk on her own and at other times with a cane, and yet other times not at all. One day at King Soopers, some crotchety old fucker swore obscenities at my mother when she got out of her car (despite her handicapped license plates) and told her he hoped that someday she might actually need those plates and someone who didn't would take HER space. It was all I could do not to rip physically rip his head off and do you know what he said when I retorted with "my mother has MS, and it's none of your fucking business"? He snorted and walked away. No apology, no blush.
Sometimes it's difficult not to hate the entire world.
23 September 2008
21 September 2008
This aggression will not stand; the Dude MINDS.
Something about Christianity lately has me fascinated, and no, it's not the light of Jesus. The signs in front of churches have always been amusing to me. It's not that they're funny or even the slightest bit clever; what's hilarious is the assumption that whoever posted them thinks they're funny and clever. Down the street from my house, the tacky church sign reads "Salvation is a gift, will you accept?" but my absolute favorite one - in all its crackpot glory - reads, "Give God what's right, not what's left." My first reaction was to rant but instead, and perhaps for the first time EVER, the church sign made me think. Not about subscribing to their doctrine of whatever, but why it was infuriating in the first place. There's little need to mention the implication of the statement (right = Christian = good and left = non-Christian = bad), but where I get hung up is all this focus of late on labeling, taking sides, and enforcing discord among groups of people in shockingly new ways.
What I want to know is: why is political "right" necessarily associated with Christians (and it appears to be fundamentalist types) and "left" necessarily associated with whatever is not the aforementioned. Furthermore, why is this such a bad thing?
After the week I've had talking to people about my colleague's public disgrace in the media for daring to ask students to question Sarah Palin (long story...), it has become abundantly clear to me that not only is being "liberal" considered by many to be not only a bad thing, but that it's worth trying to ruin a person's life over. While my initial reaction is fury, it is equally mixed with confusion. I found an array of commentary across the blogosphere accusing colleges in general and liberal arts professors of being liberal and that we enforce our liberal bias to our students, and this is apparently offensive.
I completely understand conservatism, by the way, and here's how I understand it:
(1) generally these folks subscribe to a philosophy that provides tax breaks to the wealthy in the hopes that the prosperity will trickle down to those in lower brackets;
(2) that the separation of church and state is only applicable when it comes to anyone who isn't Christian;
(3) offshore drilling and raping of America is a viable alternative to getting oil from the middle east (despite the fact that a great deal of those elite wealthy, including the Bush family, get the bulk of their wealth from - uh, middle east oil);
(4) people who have money should keep their money and anyone who is poor should simply work harder;
(5) gun control means using both hands;
(6) Manifest Destiny is God's plan, not an ill-conceived notion of genocide for indigenous people;
and finally,
(7) that most of America is white, middle- or upper-class, churchgoing "normal" folk.
Despite my sarcasm, I actually understand some of these tenets, and perhaps if I lived in middle America, or a small town, or even in a wealthy suburb of a major city, and followed the cues from my parents to go to church each Sunday, get married, have babies, get a minivan, and enjoy things like soccer and football, I might believe these things to be worthy of putting my vote into just such a camp.
But here's the big secret as to why so many college professors - and particularly those at Metro State - are "liberals" and hope to encourage (not "indoctrinate") others to follow:
Are you ready? This is a big revelation...
Because our worlds don't look like the one I just described for you. Mine in fact did look like that for most of my life, but it doesn't now. A large percentage of my students seem "typical," but most are not. I encounter people from all walks of life in these classrooms - men and women of all shades of skin tone and from different countries, traditions, belief systems, and educational backgrounds. I know students who are homeless (or were), who are in halfway houses, ex-cons, on the run from abusive spouses, or trying to get their children out of the foster system. Some of my students have in fact been foster kids. Some are the offspring of illegal immigrants. They have been in (or still are) in gangs. They don't comprehend their worlds in any meaningful way. Many struggle to make their lives better and never will. They grapple with learning disabilities, money problems, families, children, full-time jobs, and how to get it all done and stay in school. They worry about how to pay for school and that mountain of student loan debt - their futures already mortgaged. Some can't afford to buy books or come to class hungry because they had to pay to park instead of eating. Some are confused, depressed, and suicidal. I lost a student in one of the very first classes I taught to suicide and I've never been the same.
The point is, it rocked my world to realize that not only was I blessed to be born into middle-class white existence in terms of privilege and education (let's face it, I'm not in the category of people who will ever socially suffer), but that a large percentage of the world I would encounter from now on does not know what this is like. They don't have the options I had and won't ever have them. I couldn't ignore this fact and just go on every day going into classrooms believing what I once did about my world and my country. Teachers see the world in ways that most people don't, and that creates a definition of liberal that looks something like this:
(1) Trickle-down economics is a great idea, but most people who exist waiting for the trickle only feel the sting of injustice for too long, and that's a fact;
(2) Perhaps prayer in school isn't such a bad thing if it applies to everyone equally, and the claims "the right" have to indoctrination should be turned a bit inwardly first - few people who consider themselves liberal care to indoctrinate anyone and the last time I checked, the right-wing folk are touting their Christianity specifically;
(3) Perhaps we could create jobs in America by exploring viable alternatives to and incentives for eco-friendly avenues to transportation, power, and infrastructure;
(4) Stem-cell research and abortion are not pleasant, but perhaps necessary, and should be left to individuals to decide for themselves to either participate in or not;
and finally for this list,
(5) I (and perhaps we) believe the above not because we're not good people, or because we're un-American, or because we don't believe in God or even Christianity itself. I am a so-called liberal because I can't see the world through middle-class white eyes. I have to look out into my classroom every single day with empathy because few of the people I encounter there meet with my expectation of what I thought the world looked like outside my happy little burg. Being liberal to me means that I simply understand that too large a percentage of Americans (who, frankly, so few refuse to acknowledge because they don't fit the mold) don't benefit from the older, conservative way of doing things.
I'm sick of the labels, and the petty squabbling about things that don't matter. Who cares if one is "conservative" or "liberal"? I still believe we all fall closer to the center of this polarization than anyone cares to acknowledge, and the truth is, no matter which side "wins," we all lose unless people are willing to engage this debate with honesty and open-mindedness. I'm waiting for that conversation.
What I want to know is: why is political "right" necessarily associated with Christians (and it appears to be fundamentalist types) and "left" necessarily associated with whatever is not the aforementioned. Furthermore, why is this such a bad thing?
After the week I've had talking to people about my colleague's public disgrace in the media for daring to ask students to question Sarah Palin (long story...), it has become abundantly clear to me that not only is being "liberal" considered by many to be not only a bad thing, but that it's worth trying to ruin a person's life over. While my initial reaction is fury, it is equally mixed with confusion. I found an array of commentary across the blogosphere accusing colleges in general and liberal arts professors of being liberal and that we enforce our liberal bias to our students, and this is apparently offensive.
I completely understand conservatism, by the way, and here's how I understand it:
(1) generally these folks subscribe to a philosophy that provides tax breaks to the wealthy in the hopes that the prosperity will trickle down to those in lower brackets;
(2) that the separation of church and state is only applicable when it comes to anyone who isn't Christian;
(3) offshore drilling and raping of America is a viable alternative to getting oil from the middle east (despite the fact that a great deal of those elite wealthy, including the Bush family, get the bulk of their wealth from - uh, middle east oil);
(4) people who have money should keep their money and anyone who is poor should simply work harder;
(5) gun control means using both hands;
(6) Manifest Destiny is God's plan, not an ill-conceived notion of genocide for indigenous people;
and finally,
(7) that most of America is white, middle- or upper-class, churchgoing "normal" folk.
Despite my sarcasm, I actually understand some of these tenets, and perhaps if I lived in middle America, or a small town, or even in a wealthy suburb of a major city, and followed the cues from my parents to go to church each Sunday, get married, have babies, get a minivan, and enjoy things like soccer and football, I might believe these things to be worthy of putting my vote into just such a camp.
But here's the big secret as to why so many college professors - and particularly those at Metro State - are "liberals" and hope to encourage (not "indoctrinate") others to follow:
Are you ready? This is a big revelation...
Because our worlds don't look like the one I just described for you. Mine in fact did look like that for most of my life, but it doesn't now. A large percentage of my students seem "typical," but most are not. I encounter people from all walks of life in these classrooms - men and women of all shades of skin tone and from different countries, traditions, belief systems, and educational backgrounds. I know students who are homeless (or were), who are in halfway houses, ex-cons, on the run from abusive spouses, or trying to get their children out of the foster system. Some of my students have in fact been foster kids. Some are the offspring of illegal immigrants. They have been in (or still are) in gangs. They don't comprehend their worlds in any meaningful way. Many struggle to make their lives better and never will. They grapple with learning disabilities, money problems, families, children, full-time jobs, and how to get it all done and stay in school. They worry about how to pay for school and that mountain of student loan debt - their futures already mortgaged. Some can't afford to buy books or come to class hungry because they had to pay to park instead of eating. Some are confused, depressed, and suicidal. I lost a student in one of the very first classes I taught to suicide and I've never been the same.
The point is, it rocked my world to realize that not only was I blessed to be born into middle-class white existence in terms of privilege and education (let's face it, I'm not in the category of people who will ever socially suffer), but that a large percentage of the world I would encounter from now on does not know what this is like. They don't have the options I had and won't ever have them. I couldn't ignore this fact and just go on every day going into classrooms believing what I once did about my world and my country. Teachers see the world in ways that most people don't, and that creates a definition of liberal that looks something like this:
(1) Trickle-down economics is a great idea, but most people who exist waiting for the trickle only feel the sting of injustice for too long, and that's a fact;
(2) Perhaps prayer in school isn't such a bad thing if it applies to everyone equally, and the claims "the right" have to indoctrination should be turned a bit inwardly first - few people who consider themselves liberal care to indoctrinate anyone and the last time I checked, the right-wing folk are touting their Christianity specifically;
(3) Perhaps we could create jobs in America by exploring viable alternatives to and incentives for eco-friendly avenues to transportation, power, and infrastructure;
(4) Stem-cell research and abortion are not pleasant, but perhaps necessary, and should be left to individuals to decide for themselves to either participate in or not;
and finally for this list,
(5) I (and perhaps we) believe the above not because we're not good people, or because we're un-American, or because we don't believe in God or even Christianity itself. I am a so-called liberal because I can't see the world through middle-class white eyes. I have to look out into my classroom every single day with empathy because few of the people I encounter there meet with my expectation of what I thought the world looked like outside my happy little burg. Being liberal to me means that I simply understand that too large a percentage of Americans (who, frankly, so few refuse to acknowledge because they don't fit the mold) don't benefit from the older, conservative way of doing things.
I'm sick of the labels, and the petty squabbling about things that don't matter. Who cares if one is "conservative" or "liberal"? I still believe we all fall closer to the center of this polarization than anyone cares to acknowledge, and the truth is, no matter which side "wins," we all lose unless people are willing to engage this debate with honesty and open-mindedness. I'm waiting for that conversation.
16 September 2008
Read at your own risk; I assume no responsibility for offense caused by the following
Some things never cease to amaze me: how a mass of cells can turn into human consciousness, the infinity of outer space, whether or not god(s) exist(s), how cell phones work, and the perpetual mystery of why there always seems to be room for Jell-o.
But none of these things mystifies me more than how in the holy fuck Sarah Palin can manage to have such a fervent cult following that we're not allowed to say anything about her publicly without the fear of swift retribution? Why does it suddenly feel like Big Brother is listening in, ready to ferret out those who oppose this dimwitted, gun-toting, woman-hating fool whose every word sounds like she just popped in from a dairy farm in East Jesus, Wis-cahn-suhn. I wouldn't be at all surprised to get a knock on my door tomorrow from men in dark glasses "asking" me to stop mentioning her name before they break my knee caps. The woman can't answer simple questions in a simple interview that she had time to PREP for, for crying out loud. It's not like Charlie Gibson caught her on her way into Macy's and asked her what her thoughts on the Bush doctrine were and she fumbled. Oh no, in an interview she prepared for - that I'm certain the proper people tutored her for hours if not days for - she couldn't answer a question that I could answer right now, off the cuff.
There is more animosity in the classroom lately than ever about this subject too. I wish I could elaborate here, but I cannot. Suffice it to say that the first student of mine who decides to start shit with me about my open disgust with this woman better fucking look out. I'm meaner than I look and I won't walk around on eggshells around anyone because someone's church told them that voting Republican is the only Christian thing to do. If you're stupid enough to do anything because your church tells you to, then I can only hope you choose not to breed, but sadly, these are the same people who would have 17-year-olds marry their boyfriends and have babies rather than make a decision best fitting to all involved - most importantly that "blessed" child. So when whats-her-whore Spears has a baby at 17, she's a perfect slut and her mother is publicly condemned. If the mother of a similar pregnant teen is Sarah Palin, it's honorable, and what's even more shocking and leaves me in a state of jaw-on-the-floor awe is how many women I've heard say that they admire how this family is "doing the right thing." Is this 1950?
I'm also not normally a conspiracy theorist, but damn, there has got to be something going on in this election that is at least akin to conspiracy - it seems like such a no-brainer that the majority of Americans would reject this crackpot from the sticks of Alaska almost out of hand. It seems intuitive to not trust a person who supports women paying for their own rape kits, who doesn't think abortion should happen for anyone - not even rape victims - and thinks that "winning" in Iraq is somehow God's will. I can't help thinking that if God is out there somewhere, he isn't also rolling his eyes in complete annoyance of this glorified bimbo doing anything at all in his name. The fact that these things seem so obvious and yet aren't disturbs me on some deep level that furthers the kind of cynicism about the world I try to keep at bay. I simply refuse to believe that this country will continue to be controlled by the foolish and the stupid. It's foolish and stupid to believe in whatever this illusion of patriotic vision is that espouses that we should all be Christian, gun-toting, pro-life ignoramii who continue to be the butt of jokes throughout the world. Look who even gets to be close in the running to run the country - or who HAS been running the country, and it becomes immediately apparent why the rest of the world doesn't like us, or even openly hates us. If judged by the leaders we choose, we deserve the ridicule.
But none of these things mystifies me more than how in the holy fuck Sarah Palin can manage to have such a fervent cult following that we're not allowed to say anything about her publicly without the fear of swift retribution? Why does it suddenly feel like Big Brother is listening in, ready to ferret out those who oppose this dimwitted, gun-toting, woman-hating fool whose every word sounds like she just popped in from a dairy farm in East Jesus, Wis-cahn-suhn. I wouldn't be at all surprised to get a knock on my door tomorrow from men in dark glasses "asking" me to stop mentioning her name before they break my knee caps. The woman can't answer simple questions in a simple interview that she had time to PREP for, for crying out loud. It's not like Charlie Gibson caught her on her way into Macy's and asked her what her thoughts on the Bush doctrine were and she fumbled. Oh no, in an interview she prepared for - that I'm certain the proper people tutored her for hours if not days for - she couldn't answer a question that I could answer right now, off the cuff.
There is more animosity in the classroom lately than ever about this subject too. I wish I could elaborate here, but I cannot. Suffice it to say that the first student of mine who decides to start shit with me about my open disgust with this woman better fucking look out. I'm meaner than I look and I won't walk around on eggshells around anyone because someone's church told them that voting Republican is the only Christian thing to do. If you're stupid enough to do anything because your church tells you to, then I can only hope you choose not to breed, but sadly, these are the same people who would have 17-year-olds marry their boyfriends and have babies rather than make a decision best fitting to all involved - most importantly that "blessed" child. So when whats-her-whore Spears has a baby at 17, she's a perfect slut and her mother is publicly condemned. If the mother of a similar pregnant teen is Sarah Palin, it's honorable, and what's even more shocking and leaves me in a state of jaw-on-the-floor awe is how many women I've heard say that they admire how this family is "doing the right thing." Is this 1950?
I'm also not normally a conspiracy theorist, but damn, there has got to be something going on in this election that is at least akin to conspiracy - it seems like such a no-brainer that the majority of Americans would reject this crackpot from the sticks of Alaska almost out of hand. It seems intuitive to not trust a person who supports women paying for their own rape kits, who doesn't think abortion should happen for anyone - not even rape victims - and thinks that "winning" in Iraq is somehow God's will. I can't help thinking that if God is out there somewhere, he isn't also rolling his eyes in complete annoyance of this glorified bimbo doing anything at all in his name. The fact that these things seem so obvious and yet aren't disturbs me on some deep level that furthers the kind of cynicism about the world I try to keep at bay. I simply refuse to believe that this country will continue to be controlled by the foolish and the stupid. It's foolish and stupid to believe in whatever this illusion of patriotic vision is that espouses that we should all be Christian, gun-toting, pro-life ignoramii who continue to be the butt of jokes throughout the world. Look who even gets to be close in the running to run the country - or who HAS been running the country, and it becomes immediately apparent why the rest of the world doesn't like us, or even openly hates us. If judged by the leaders we choose, we deserve the ridicule.
13 September 2008
Things are shaping up to be pretty odd
Whew. What a week. So many times I sat down to write and couldn't because there's always a distraction - a phone call, a student stopping by, an eye-rolling, hip-shifting teenage daughter, a grumpy hubby, or the perpetual lure of Facebook.
I went last night to my good friend Sarah's birthday party; she's a whopping 30 and while I contend that age is but a number, I looked at the pictures of myself from said party, and for perhaps the first time in my life, I appeared old and this disturbed me. Still disturbs me. I have no intention whatsoever of growing old gracefully - Botox and plastic surgery are in my future and I make no apology for it. Nevertheless, what strikes me at the same time is that I feel as though I've lived so many entire lives in the space of my life that I should in fact be much older than I am. One of Sarah's friends is a guy named Anton, whom I recognized immediately as a person from my hazy past. He's the friend and former roommate of a group of people I ran with six or so years ago when I was in the post-asshole, post-MA, what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life phase. No one ever tells you that what you are going to "do" with your life is a perpetual re-negotiation process, no matter what your education level.
We hung out at in a dive bar on Colfax, and while I told myself at the time I was doing it in order to write a story, there was also part of me that was just plain slumming, and I won't lie - it was fun to hang out with a bunch of drunks and aimless individuals who talked about nothing and whose only goals were to make enough money during the day (legally or not) to spend the evening at said bar. Quite the contrast to the pretention of graduate school, let me tell you. I guess I dated Anton's friend - but it wasn't really dating so much as it was hanging out and having sex occasionally because I never felt a single thing for him other than pity for his wasted intelligence and nowhere life. Funny thing is, that part of my life ended abruptly and went on to other matters, like Jamison and new friends, and a new graduate program. I closed the book on them - all of them - because after a bit we had nothing to talk about. Every once in a while I will get a random phone call and it feels strange, like a past life coming to call. Seeing Anton was no different, except that seeing him is not and was not the issue.
My friend Sarah is the inspiration for a character in my current novel project. Even though the character is also named Sarah, it's important that I distinguish it's only loosely based on the real Sarah. The stories that I wrote about that group of people in that bar years ago were recently excavated from an old hard drive and I discovered that I really liked some of the pieces. I assigned them to the character Sarah because it seemed like a good fit for her subplot. I'm happy with it and so on, but the odd thing is that Anton is one of the characters in those stories and now so is Sarah, and last night I found out that they are good friends in real life. How strange is that?
Of course I know that Denver is a small town comparatively, but the fact that it shrinks almost around me at times is unnerving. Like the person I know in London who is married to a Scotsman who dated one of my good friends a decade ago and I'd never met her. Or how Jamison spent nearly nine years working and living only steps away from me in a host of places and we never met, but once we did, it was instant and permanent for us to be together. Six degrees of separation? It's more like two at any given moment in my world, it seems. I guess the one nice thing was that Anton didn't recognize me even when I said I knew him - it was much later when he approached me and said he remembered, but that it wasn't fair to him that I had changed so much. He said "every single thing I remember about you is different" and I'm certain he had no idea what a compliment it was to me, but when I commented on the fact that I'd changed my hair and glasses, and so on, he interjected with "but you look really great. And happy." From a person who knew me (even if only on a superficial level) at one of the lowest points of my life to date to say this has given me a solid sense of joy today. Go figure.
I went last night to my good friend Sarah's birthday party; she's a whopping 30 and while I contend that age is but a number, I looked at the pictures of myself from said party, and for perhaps the first time in my life, I appeared old and this disturbed me. Still disturbs me. I have no intention whatsoever of growing old gracefully - Botox and plastic surgery are in my future and I make no apology for it. Nevertheless, what strikes me at the same time is that I feel as though I've lived so many entire lives in the space of my life that I should in fact be much older than I am. One of Sarah's friends is a guy named Anton, whom I recognized immediately as a person from my hazy past. He's the friend and former roommate of a group of people I ran with six or so years ago when I was in the post-asshole, post-MA, what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life phase. No one ever tells you that what you are going to "do" with your life is a perpetual re-negotiation process, no matter what your education level.
We hung out at in a dive bar on Colfax, and while I told myself at the time I was doing it in order to write a story, there was also part of me that was just plain slumming, and I won't lie - it was fun to hang out with a bunch of drunks and aimless individuals who talked about nothing and whose only goals were to make enough money during the day (legally or not) to spend the evening at said bar. Quite the contrast to the pretention of graduate school, let me tell you. I guess I dated Anton's friend - but it wasn't really dating so much as it was hanging out and having sex occasionally because I never felt a single thing for him other than pity for his wasted intelligence and nowhere life. Funny thing is, that part of my life ended abruptly and went on to other matters, like Jamison and new friends, and a new graduate program. I closed the book on them - all of them - because after a bit we had nothing to talk about. Every once in a while I will get a random phone call and it feels strange, like a past life coming to call. Seeing Anton was no different, except that seeing him is not and was not the issue.
My friend Sarah is the inspiration for a character in my current novel project. Even though the character is also named Sarah, it's important that I distinguish it's only loosely based on the real Sarah. The stories that I wrote about that group of people in that bar years ago were recently excavated from an old hard drive and I discovered that I really liked some of the pieces. I assigned them to the character Sarah because it seemed like a good fit for her subplot. I'm happy with it and so on, but the odd thing is that Anton is one of the characters in those stories and now so is Sarah, and last night I found out that they are good friends in real life. How strange is that?
Of course I know that Denver is a small town comparatively, but the fact that it shrinks almost around me at times is unnerving. Like the person I know in London who is married to a Scotsman who dated one of my good friends a decade ago and I'd never met her. Or how Jamison spent nearly nine years working and living only steps away from me in a host of places and we never met, but once we did, it was instant and permanent for us to be together. Six degrees of separation? It's more like two at any given moment in my world, it seems. I guess the one nice thing was that Anton didn't recognize me even when I said I knew him - it was much later when he approached me and said he remembered, but that it wasn't fair to him that I had changed so much. He said "every single thing I remember about you is different" and I'm certain he had no idea what a compliment it was to me, but when I commented on the fact that I'd changed my hair and glasses, and so on, he interjected with "but you look really great. And happy." From a person who knew me (even if only on a superficial level) at one of the lowest points of my life to date to say this has given me a solid sense of joy today. Go figure.
03 September 2008
I awoke to a threat that was empty; a grandstand of I'm not through with you yet
Ah, another year at DU. Joy. I'm so sick of the crap at this place that I can scarcely vocalize my frustration anymore. There aren't even words. Just elevated blood pressure and a growing sense of rage all over again.
Do you ever feel like every single thing in the world just has to be difficult? It drives me insane that one cannot simply pick up a telephone and call someone and solve a problem. If the internet isn't working, it's an hour-long phone call to Qwest, who will ultimately tell you "oh, yes, I see; we have an outage in your area. Should be back up soon." If you have a problem with health insurance, it's not enough to call the person in the insurance office and get it fixed - heavens no! - you must first call the bursar's office, who will tell you to call the health insurance people who will tell you to call the bursar's office. Each time you place a call back to the place you started, you will reach a different work study student who has a different knowledge base (or complete lack thereof) and will direct you to yet a different place. I'm tired of everything in the world being so fucking complicated.
DU starts next week, and this morning, my scholarship hours were misapplied, I didn't get one of my student loans, and apparently, I have no health insurance. Keep in mind, here, that I did every single thing right, and by the time I was supposed to. I called financial aid, only to be told that they had changed lenders over the summer and I hadn't selected a new lender or signed a new promissory note. When I asked the perky young woman why in the HOLY FUCK someone couldn't have told me this months ago, her pert reply was "sorry, some people were never notified." So by no fault of my own I failed to do something that was never communicated to me that it needed doing at all, nor was said information available anywhere I looked for it in my account information online, but I am somehow supposed to be okay with waiting another two to four weeks to get this loan. I am certain, as well, that something else will go wrong that no one will tell me about.
I then phoned the bursar's office because I noticed that I had not been charged for health insurance, and my doctor's office left a message today saying that my coverage had lapsed. The bursar's office told me to talk to the insurance person, who is not a person at all, but a lengthy recording that is of no help whatsoever. I finally talked to someone in the health center who told me that I needed to fill out a form, bring it down to her with a check and she'd get me in the system. Perhaps by Friday when I need to have a surgical procedure, perhaps not. Laura said when she called that they told her she was already covered unless it went unpaid until the 21st, but alas, I tried to log on and couldn't because the new insurance system doesn't recognize me. Oh, did I mention that they also changed our carrier and our benefit amounts and NEVER so much as mentioned it? This too may or may not be fixed. I'm sure I won't know until something unbelievably infuriating happens.
That's not even the half of it and school has not yet started for the year.
Do you ever feel like every single thing in the world just has to be difficult? It drives me insane that one cannot simply pick up a telephone and call someone and solve a problem. If the internet isn't working, it's an hour-long phone call to Qwest, who will ultimately tell you "oh, yes, I see; we have an outage in your area. Should be back up soon." If you have a problem with health insurance, it's not enough to call the person in the insurance office and get it fixed - heavens no! - you must first call the bursar's office, who will tell you to call the health insurance people who will tell you to call the bursar's office. Each time you place a call back to the place you started, you will reach a different work study student who has a different knowledge base (or complete lack thereof) and will direct you to yet a different place. I'm tired of everything in the world being so fucking complicated.
DU starts next week, and this morning, my scholarship hours were misapplied, I didn't get one of my student loans, and apparently, I have no health insurance. Keep in mind, here, that I did every single thing right, and by the time I was supposed to. I called financial aid, only to be told that they had changed lenders over the summer and I hadn't selected a new lender or signed a new promissory note. When I asked the perky young woman why in the HOLY FUCK someone couldn't have told me this months ago, her pert reply was "sorry, some people were never notified." So by no fault of my own I failed to do something that was never communicated to me that it needed doing at all, nor was said information available anywhere I looked for it in my account information online, but I am somehow supposed to be okay with waiting another two to four weeks to get this loan. I am certain, as well, that something else will go wrong that no one will tell me about.
I then phoned the bursar's office because I noticed that I had not been charged for health insurance, and my doctor's office left a message today saying that my coverage had lapsed. The bursar's office told me to talk to the insurance person, who is not a person at all, but a lengthy recording that is of no help whatsoever. I finally talked to someone in the health center who told me that I needed to fill out a form, bring it down to her with a check and she'd get me in the system. Perhaps by Friday when I need to have a surgical procedure, perhaps not. Laura said when she called that they told her she was already covered unless it went unpaid until the 21st, but alas, I tried to log on and couldn't because the new insurance system doesn't recognize me. Oh, did I mention that they also changed our carrier and our benefit amounts and NEVER so much as mentioned it? This too may or may not be fixed. I'm sure I won't know until something unbelievably infuriating happens.
That's not even the half of it and school has not yet started for the year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
