So, here we are, halfway through my summer session class.  I was surprised to find myself not the only older student and that the teacher is very attentive to the older students, more so, than the kids.  He has been very encouraging of my progress and understanding in terms of schedule changes, child care needs, ect.  In my previous attempts to attend school, I have never felt this excited to be there.  Perhaps it’s the subject matter, perhaps it’s my current stage in life, not sure which.  Does it really matter?  I don’t think so.

The class is a beginner piano class and I wasn’t sure how much I’d get out of it.  I took piano for so many years as a kid that I thought I would be bored.  However, the students are all at different levels and the teacher works with us individually.  I’m very surprised at the rate of my progress.  I hadn’t played music in nearly 20 years.  When I was a kid, I was a total theory geek, so I still have the ability to read music, I just need to work on the actual playing.  Having a teacher is really doing wonders for that.  When we got the piano, I got some “teach yourself to play” books, but never went very far.  This class has reminded me just how much I love making music and I plan to continue taking classes when this one is finished.

The other older student in my class is a guy my age.  He got his first AA in Criminal Justice and had been working in the field for 10+ years.  I was very interested to talk to him, both about the program and about his work.  The things he has told me has me reconsidering my plan to study Criminal Justice.  At this point, I don’t have to declare a major and I have quite a bit of time before I do.  I won’t be going full time until the kids are old enough to stay home by themselves.  Right now, I plan on working on my core classes and the major can wait.

I took the leap and registered for a class at the local community college.  It starts in 2 weeks and I’m more than a little nervous about it.  I’ve attempted to go to college several times in the past.  Each time, it has turned out to be bad timing.  The first time, back in 1992, my stepmother was going through treatment for ovarian cancer.  I just couldn’t cope with stress.  I ended up failing most of my classes due to poor attendance.  The second time, 10 years later, I got pregnant half way through the semester.  Let’s just say I don’t have easy pregnancies and I was taking a class that required working with smelly chemicals.

Since then, I have gone to the college and talked to advisers about coming back.  Usually, the advice was not good, or at least not what I wanted to hear at the time.  I was given two options, clear my record and lose all my credits or retake all the classes I had failed.  I did pretty well in all the classes I managed to finished, so I’d really hate to lose those grades.  The other option isn’t really realistic.  I originally went in as a dance major.  I don’t think my body is up to the task of taking those classes over.  I guess I’ll retake the classes that aren’t dance and hope for the best.

The class I’m taking next month is a fun one, just something to get my feet wet and get used to the idea of going to school.  In the fall, I take some serious classes.  My adviser recommended taking the next English in the sequence before retaking some of the classes that require lots of writing.  Writing has never been a strong point, so I’m very nervous about taking that class.  She also recommended retaking intro to computer applications, since when I took it, it focused mainly on DOS.  This will be the third time I will have taken it.  Maybe having some help this time around will do the trick!

Everyone keeps telling me that when you go back to school as an adult, things are different, that adult students tend to do better, be more dedicated, ect, ect.  I hope that turns out to the truth for me.  I certainly can’t do any worse than I’ve done in the past.

From www.tmj.org

Temporomandibular Joint and Muscle Disorders (TMJDs) refers to a complex and poorly understood set of conditions that can cause pain in the area of the jaw joint and associated muscles and/or problems using the jaw. Both or just one of the TM joints may be affected. TMJDs can affect a person’s ability to speak, eat, chew, swallow, make facial expressions, and even breathe.

I was first diagnosed with TMJ disorder when I was 18. The flare that caused me running to the dentist was a particularly bad one.  After a few days of increasing pain and stiffness, my jaw locked up in an open position and I was unable to close it.  Unfortunately, my experience at the dentist’s office only made things worse.  The hygenist couldn’t understand what I was trying to tell her and she forced my mouth to open wider so she could examine me.  This experience made me very wary of dentists.  It took me several years, nearly a decade, to find a dentist who had TMJ himself and made sure his entire staff knew how to care for TMJ patients.  Over the years, I wondered if I was missing out on effective treatment by avoiding dentists.  My current dentist has been totally honest with me.  There is no cure for TMJ and most treatments are worthless.

I learned pretty early on to hide my pain from the world.  When people ask you “how are you?”, they don’t really want to know.  Anyone who doesn’t live with chronic pain can not understand it.  Even my family doesn’t really know how much pain I have.  All they see are bad days when I can barely control my temper, have no patience or maybe drink a little too much.  The problem is that it’s a vicious cycle.  Stress causes me to clench more, the clenching causes pain and insomnia, which causes me to lose my temper, wrecking havoc in my personal life, which then causes me to clench more.  In my younger days, I could break the cycle with pain medication.  Today, I know that is not an option.  I just can’t go down that road again.

When I was in middle school, my best friend’s father shot himself because of the pain of TMJ.  At various points in my life, I have been able to understand his actions.  Sometimes I think I would be willing to do anything to be rid of the pain.  I have to remember the important things in my life to keep me grounded.  My children, my husband,my family, and my friends keep me here.  I live through the pain so I can be here for them.

Earlier this year, I was chosen to service on the Grand Jury for the state of Maryland. Grand Jury service is different from petite jury service in many ways. To start off, your notice doesn’t come by a letter in the mail. On New Year’s Day, while I was getting ready for our big party, a county sheriff appeared on my front step. He handed me the summons. I was totally freaked out. I think I asked him 3 times if I was in trouble. Another major difference is that there is no questioning/elimination process. You can request to be excused , but it is up to the discretion of the judge. Basically, if you get the summons, you’re serving. The main purpose of the Grand Jury is also different. The job of the Grand Jury is to hear cases to determine if there is enough evidence for the state’s attorney to further the case. We were to decide if it was probable that a) a crime happened and b) this person probably committed that crime. We did not have to decide guilt or innocence. The other differences from the petite jury is time commitment and the number of cases heard. For petite jury service, you are chosen for a single case and you serve until that case is done. For grand jury, we heard all felonies that were coming through the system and served for 3 months. We usually heard an average of 20-30 cases per day

For the most part, I would say it was a good experience. I learned a lot about the law, my county, crime and got to see an interesting side of human behavior that most people aren’t exposed to. On occasion, I got very mad. There were many cases of a single, split decision changing people’s lives, usually not for the better. We heard a few cases that caused heated debate among us and I learned a lot from these debates. I also got to know some of the officers that were presenting their cases. I was quite happy to learn that our local police force seems to be very diverse, many minority and female officers. They were all professional and respectful of the people involved in the cases. In some cases, we really felt like we were doing good work, getting some truly bad guys off the street. Other times, we felt bad because we didn’t agree with the law as written, but had to vote the law.

In general, I was able to compartmentalize the violence and destruction. These things happened to other people, from other neighborhoods because of their own choices. Only one case had a huge impact on me. The jury was drilling the presenting the police officer pretty hard. Giving him a hard time because he was new to his department (but not to the force), asking questions about minutia that didn’t really matter. Finally, the assistant state’s attorney must have seen that it was going to continue without end. She handed out pictures of the victim. This was like bringing down a sledgehammer. All questions stopped. Those pictures haunted my dreams for a few weeks.

This experience has had a profound effect on me. I have a much stronger respect for policemen in general and our local police department for their hard work, professionalism and their tireless effort to protect us. I also have a stronger respect for the men and women who fight for the victims and for the people. I learned that I find criminal law fascinating. I would like to be part of the system that is working to get the bad people off the streets.   Because I am at a point in my life when I can explore new directions, whether going back to work or going to school, this experience has made me consider criminal justice as a possibility for my future.

Can’t say for sure, but we’ll find out.  As we gear up for the Lenten Season, I realize that my spiritual life has been put on the back burner.  My livejournal account has been a great place for daily posts, post about projects and other lighter topics.  I’ve never really felt comfortable posting spiritual stuff there, simply because of the readership.  Many of my non-Orthodox friends follow my livejournal posts.   I think I’ll hang on to this one for my spiritual struggles and musings.

I haven’t been very regular about posting recently because I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with this. Having this blog be about my spiritual journey wasn’t the original plan. Now, I feel like it puts too much of me out there. Normally, I let my work speak for me. I’m a designer and textile artist ( and hairstylist extraordinaire) and originally wanted this blog to journal my work. I took the easy way out. Having found it to be difficult to post photos and other things dealing with my work, I bagged that idea. Yeah, technology scares me. I didn’t want to figure out how to make it work the way I wanted to. Just writing about what was going on in my head was easier. However, once it was out there, I felt vulnerable. I’ve never been comfortable with putting myself out there like that. I’ve been feeling the same way about podcasting, both the one that has been forever “in the works” with my husband and the one planned with a friend. While I am a good speaker and not afraid of the mic, when given a script, the thought of putting my thoughts and ideas out there for the world to hear scares me. I know so many talented people who, every week, put themselves out there and share themselves with complete strangers. That is so amazing to me. I wish I could do that, but I’ve realized that that’s just not me. So, we’ll see what happens. I’ll work on figuring out how to share my work and maybe some other things. I will probably also talk about the couch to 5k program that I’ve started and my quest for fitness. I hope that if I’m more comfortable with the subject matter, I’ll be a more frequent writer.

Can you really call the relationships you build strictly online “friendships”? How well do you really know someone that you’ve never met in real life? When these “friendships” go sour, is it really a big loss? Somehow, I’ve acquired many of these so-called friendships. Some of them mean a great deal to me. I “talk” with these people every day. In many cases, I have more contact with them than I do with my real life friends. When I have falling outs with them, it has a great impact on me. Some part of me wishes I would keep these people at arm’s length. I don’t need the added drama in my life. On the other hand, I’ve gotten to know some wonderful people who have enriched my life through my relationships with them. I’ve even been lucky enough to met some of them in real life. Whenever I travel to a new city, I know there’s a chance to met up with someone new. I remember the first time I met one of my online friends. We were in his city for a convention and while I knew the weekend would be busy, I made a point of going out to lunch with him. When we met, it felt like I was visiting with an old friend that I hadn’t seen in a while, not meeting a complete stranger for the first time. When we go back there again later this summer, I can’t wait to see him again, find out how his wife and family are doing, how their business is growing, ect. I wouldn’t give up those experiences for anything. I guess by limiting my involvement with online relationships, I would limit those kind of experiences, too. I guess I need to accept the negative in order to also have the positive experiences. I just can’t help feeling a little silly over losing a friend who I’ve never met in real life.

Maybe it’s the upcoming birthday, maybe it’s because my best friend is graduating from law school, but today, I feel like “just a mom”. Normally, I feel good about what I do, but as I enter my middle thirties, I wonder if this is what’s in store for me for the next 15-20 years. I’ve never really felt that motherhood was my calling, as some of my contemporaries do. While being a stay-at-home mom is best for kids, I’ve always thought of my role as temporary and that at some point, I’d get back to my “real life”. What is that “real life”, I don’t know. My misspent youth has left be little prepared for anything other than being a stay-at-home mom. At one time, I thought I had a career, but working in a high-end salon is a young girl’s job. I am no longer fashionable enough for that. Everyone around me seems to have hopes,dreams, lofty goals . My goals tend to be focused on clean laundry. Every so often, I toss around the idea of going to school, but in the end, it never happens. I’ve tossed around the idea of starting a home business, but in the end, it never happens. I’ve tossed around the idea of going back to work, but in the end, it never happens. All of that is risky. Being home is safe.

Wow! I can’t believe I just bought two more books, when I already have at least half a dozen on the shelves, waiting for me. I was involved in an on-line discussion where the topic of remarried priests came up. Someone mentioned that the focus of a major priest controversy wrote a book (Widowed Priest by Joseph Allen), so of course, I googled and found a copy. For some reason, I can’t leave an on-line bookstore with just one. I also picked up one of the books on my list. I know it’s a great book, but I haven’t read the others yet! Maybe one day, I’ll have time to read all the books waiting for me.

Vegetarian Tortilla Soup

makes 4 servings

3/4 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves
1 tbl tomato paste
1 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp chili powder
4 cups vegetable broth
4 tbl chopped cilantro
4 6-inch corn tortillas, cut into 1/2in wide strips
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
2/3 cups canned black beans, rinsed and drained (kidney or pinto beans work well, too)
2/3 cup chopped zucchini
dash of Tabasco sauce, to taste

Spray large nonstick pan with cooking spray. Add onion and garlic; cover and cook over medium-low heat until tender, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, cumin and chili powder. Add broth and 2 tbl cilantro; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add tortillas, tomatoes, beans, zucchini and Tabasco to soup. Cover and simmer until zucchini is tender, about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve in bowls, topped with remaining cilantro.