My kid left for Denver this morning with her boyfriend, who has an internship with Ball Aerospace this summer. She'll be working in healthcare, as she needs lots of hours like that before applying to med school next year. Her boyfriend will be graduating with a BS in Engineering and an MS in Engineering Management (a tough concurrent degree path at Rose-Hulman). Don't let anyone tell you that everyone has the same opportunities. These kids are PRIVILEGED to have these opportunities.
The persistent myth in America that everyone can have the life they want is absolute bullshit. These two young adults (I shouldn't have said kids before) have educated parents, a solid upper middle class upbringing, and both went to a high school that is considered one of the best in the state. Their parents were able to save some $$ for college so they have less debt when they graduate than most of their peers. And now they have parents helping them with $$ so they can do internships like this.
Fortunately, these two know this and agree that they are fortunate as fuck. And they both vote for people who want to level the playing field for EVERYONE. But the unfairness of the American way of life is still hard to swallow. While these two are bright kids, there are thousands of others just like them who don't have these doors opened for them. There's this weird shame and guilt I feel for being able to help my child when I know so many others may not be able to.
And I will never understand why so many Americans are dead set against making access to education and opportunities so fucking hard for so many. (I mean, logically, I know they are stuck in the just-world hypothesis, but still, as a human, I don't get it). I will never understand why people won't do things like make school lunch free, healthcare accessible by all, education affordable by everyone--exactly what kind of world do they think this makes?
Just fyi, in Illinois, many of the teachers teaching dual credit courses for college courses are not remotely qualified to do so, their syllabi and content do match what the state says they’re supposed to have, and even though department chairs like myself are supposed to have approval rights to make sure the classes aren’t a joke, we can deny all we want and get overrruled anyway. So the students may be getting college credits, but they’re not getting college content. And nobody seems to care.
I guess in a country that doesn’t seem to value college education at all and actively punishes those who seek it, it makes sense that no one would care about the quality of the courses earning college credit. I fucking hate it here
I was asked to approve a high school teachers syllabi for Intro to Psych that skipped over the chapter on mental illness and has the students watching a self-selected movie on mental illness instead. Because movies are so accurate. I denied it but they overruled me. Because nothing matters anymore
Today one of my students stayed after class to talk. She’s a CNA who nearly died from COVID during the Delta wave. She has permanent lung damage and since COVID, she’s developed diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol. She’s still working in a hospital and she said they’re packed with COVID and flu patients right now. She is back in school so she can do something else for a career—said she can’t continue working in a “death environment.”
She has significant trauma not only from nearly dying from COVID, but from all the death she saw in the OG and Delta waves. She now has panic attacks when anything covers her mouth, which means she can’t wear a mask. That’s actually why she wanted to talk—she’s terrified the hospital is going to go back to masking and she doesn’t know if she can do it and wanted to know if there was anything that could help with this issue. Look at this damage. How many others just like her are out there?
And to be honest, how much men hate women. Yeah yeah yeah I know not all men, I do, but I’ve had to learn that even a lot of the “good guys” have some weird undercurrent of hatred for women. It pops out every now and then like a Freudian slip when they patronize and condescend or “well actually” you, or when they make a passive aggressive comment about your confidence. The need to remind you of your place is always present. It enrages me
@hannu_ikonen@Pagan_Animist I struggle with responding to internalized misogyny too, and what guts me is how prevalent it is among my female students. Also prevalent is this notion that feminism is believing women are inherently better than men instead the crazy idea that all genders are equal and should be treated as such (and laws should reflect that). Helping people understand that the patriarchy harms even those who support it is an uphill battle.
Saw a friend today who got COVID in late November. She is having tachycardia when she lays down and she also constantly has a sensation that her lungs are being squeezed. She is now on albuterol treatments and oral steroids. Sje is falling asleep by 7:00 every night. This is a woman who has been a powerhouse of energy since the day I met her. She looked straight at me today and said, “I was healthy before COVID.”
I told her about the hearing on Long COVID yesterday—she had no idea. Told her the rate of long COVID in people who get it—she had no idea. She’s always thought my extreme caution was just health anxiety, but now, unfortunately, she knows it was for good reason. That so few people know the true risk of COVID is criminal.
After she got COVID , she told me she didn’t get the latest vaccine because someone told her that the CDC said the new vaccine makes you more likely to get infected. I told her that was not true and sent her a link that explained where that rumor came from and why it was wrong. How can we be where we are after four years? It’s been one colossal failure after another. And Karine Jean-Pierre’s eye roll the other day when asked about COVID tells us this admin has no intention of fixing it.
"In patients with long COVID, the complement system no longer returns to its basal state but remains activated and, thus, also damages healthy body cells.
Patients with active Long Covid disease also had elevated blood levels, indicating damage to various body cells, including red blood cells, platelets, and blood vessels." https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg7942