I suppose the people of my parent’s generation are at an age where cancers are, sadly, somewhat common.

But basically? Cancer sucks.

And I’m really sick of that being my only answer to things.

So I figure it’s time for some good cancer news.

Earlier this year I posted a story about a former coworker who is receiving the first every trial for a new ovarian cancer vaccine which uses her own tissue and immune system to fight the disease.

Basically it’s pretty bad ass.  And I could prattle on about how fantastic my coworker is, and how much I admire her, but that’s just really icing on the cake to this portion of the Feel Good Story Hour

The real good news part comes in by this: The latest scans show that the tumors present have shrunk – BY HALF.

If that’s not amazing news, I don’t know what it.

Science is awesome.

But.

If a professor changed a week’s reading assignment (which, btw, is outlined in a 42 page syllabus) and says that the weekly quiz for next week would be based mostly on newly assigned reading from the textbook, and less on the other 2 readings he might assign, what would you expect?

Would you expect for 3 out of 6 questions to be based on a reading assigned 3 weeks ago? And one on class discussion from 2 weeks ago? And only 2 on the actual reading for this class?

No?

Well, obviously you haven’t been taking Social and Behavior Sciences for International Health concentrators.

Lucky fucking you.

Flash forward to 3pm. Mouse traps are installed in addition to more d-con.  My roommates go to bed, I stay up in my bedroom to finish some work.

12: 42am comes around, and I hear a loud, resounding SNAP!

A trap in the kitchen definitely just went off.

Score one for the humans.

Unfortunately, my phobia of mice includes dead ones… so I’m hoping my roommate who goes to work at 3am and is NOT a’feared of mice deals with it. ‘Cuz I’m selfish like that.

I have one phobia. One. It’s irrational (hence, phobia), and stupid. But very real.

Mice. Ugh. I hate them.

If there’s a mouse in my house, I have a hard time sleeping. I imagine them crawling on me, and every time the wind blows and bends a window screen or makes the house creak, I am convinced it’s mice infesting and breeding in the walls.

But I’m pretty sure the universe has decided my phobia is so neurotic, it’s going to make it a goal to mock me as much as humanly possible.

Every place I have ever lived has had mice, with the (somewhat odd) exception of my apartment senior year of college (although my roommate had cats for half that year, which could have contributed.).

When I moved into my apartment in Boston, the absolute first thing I saw in our kitchen was a dead mouse stuck in a trap.  Naturally, I freaked out, called my sister, and waited for my roommate to come and clean it up. And barely slept that first night, despite assurances from the landlord and the exterminator they were convinced that was the last one they just hadn’t been able to catch.

Fast forward 2+ months, and surprisingly, there’s actually been no additional evidence of any mice!  Until now…

As a mouse phobic, I’m highly sensitive to mouse droppings, and based on the tiny size of these droppings, we’re looking at baby mice. No.  FUCK THAT.  I’m not having fucking baby mice making my house into their breeding ground.  That’s literally my worst nightmare.  Nuh uh.

War.

Mouse war #1, earlier this year in a different city, started with peppermint, was taken care of by blocking up holes and entry points, and our feelings were mollified by D-Con tablets left out.

Fuck that. This time I’m starting with the D-Con.

Which I sort of bought without consulting all my roommates.  But I don’t really understand people who don’t want mice to get the hell out of their house by any means necessary. ‘Cuz I’m a bad person apparently.

It’s time for these fuckers to die.

God, I hate mice.

(Ironically enough, in 3 days I’m going to see a very big mouse, and I couldn’t be happier.  It might help that a) he’s not real, b) he’s in Florida.)

And I’m not sure I wouldn’t do it again.

Public health school is weird.*

(In context:  both were decisions regarding limited-resource countries and ways to combat HIV. But still. )

* But awesome.

Yup. Things you never wanted to know.

Here’s a thought.  If you normally assign your class 40-100 pages of reading a week, you just miiiiiiight want to give them a heads’ up the week you decide to drop 400 pages of reading on them.

Oh, and – again, just a thought – perhaps if you explicitly tell said students NOT to read Section 10c (but read the rest of sections 3-15 (see aforenoted 400 pages)), you shouldn’t take a question on the weekly quiz WORD-FOR-WORD from the aforementioned nixed-section 10c.

Oh, and – just one more teeny tiny thing – maybe the rest of the questions from the online quizzes should be based on the actual readings, not your own Pulled-From-Your-Ass  sources.  Just since, you know, it’s nice and all when you tell us the answer to the question 85% of the class missed is on page 99, when, in reality, that page has absolutely no relevance to that topic.  (It’s cool though… not like that makes me think you completely made that question/answer up out of nowhere or anything. Really.)

But you know… don’t mistake this for passive aggressive bitching, or anything. I promise, these are all just meandering thoughts. It’s all on page 99, check it out.

Ex oh, Ex oh, Love, Me

But there was always Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Thanks to my parents, who were teenagers of the late 50s/60s, I grew up going to Peter, Paul, and Mary concerts every summer for as long as I can remember.  My parents actually wanted to get married to Noel Paul Stookey’s “The Wedding Song” but the priest wouldn’t let them (damn Catholic dogma).  PP&M was a constant on the radio in our house and there was always the annual trip to meet up with my godparents’ family on a warm summer night to sit on the lawn at Ravinia (always near the dog statue), and listen to PP&M.

Peter, Paul and Mary shaped my childhood. My social justice roots started early, I suppose.  I still cry when I listen to “Home is Where the Heart Is”… because… well, I’m supercool like that, I suppose.

On September 16th, 2009, Mary died due to complications of treatment for leukemia.  Her passing had more coverage than I’d expect, but still relatively little.

The rest of the world had their foundations rocked when MJ died. To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less.  But Mary Travers?  Mary Travers dying seems to have officially signaled the end of my childhood.

Anything I can think to say is sappy and two weeks overdue at this point.  But, basically… thanks, Mary, for being a huge part of shaping who I am.

(Wanted to find a different video, but I can’t find it on youtube, and Leaving on a Jet Plane is bad assed, so… this’ll do.)

10/4/09 ETA: Found the video I was looking for – I Have a Song to Sing, O!

This song is, I suppose, one of their lesser known ones, but definitely flitted through my house growing up. No idea which album it’s on, but I love it and recently rediscovered it while stalking down youtube videos of PP&M since hearing the news about Mary

Remember when I was at that game you threw the ball into the crowd with 2 outs? Yeah. I was mad… but I forgave you.

Remember when I was at that game where you dropped two balls in right field in one game, and struck out every time you were at the plate? Yeah. I was mad… but I forgave you.

Remember the entire month of June? And May? Oh, and April, too? Yeah. Forgiven.

With some trepidation, I rallied around you one more time when you swore you “were back 100%” in late July, and I proceeded to give you more chances, because, hell, you’re on the team I love, ergo, you are automatically a beneficiary of some of my hopeless but perpetual optimism.

Really. I’m a Cubs fan. I stick by my team through thick and thin. I suffer through pain and disappointment on a yearly basis. A lot of disappointment.  And I forgive. I don’t boo players on my team or the opponent’s, ‘cuz I think that’s asshatty.

But seriously? All that being said?

Get off my fucking team.

You are the worst parts of baseball all rolled into one.

Get off my team.

In order to prolong that blessed occasion as much as possible, and, really, because I’ve always been a miser, I’m attempting to save money and cut corners in as many ways as possible.  Granted, I’m not being as stringent or good as I was while in JVC – ie, I’ve treated myself to several lunches and/or dinners out since being here – but in my defense most of those meals are still in the sub-$5 or $10 range.

Still, there is one cost cutting activity I’m currently doing which I’m not actively telling (nor, per se “lying to”) my family about: I’m sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. And plan to for the foreseeable future.

The original plan was to sleep on the air mattress until I found a bed at goodwill or something cheap at IKEA. Maybe even a Craigslist free list procurement.

But… after 3 days of accidentally sleeping on an heirloom bedframe (long story) I discovered my air mattress is actually rather comfortable when on the floor.  I’m sure there’s literature available about how air mattresses are terrible for your back/muscles/brain/credit score and such other statistics, but right now? It’s working for me. Plus, not having to drive someplace in Boston and get hopelessly lost trying to find something to sleep on sounds like a better plan to me.

So that’s one of the nice little factoids of my life that just… doesn’t quite garner a mention in my phone calls and emails home.