I really don't have a whole lot to blog about, just a potpourri of short items.
"The Waaiitting is the Hardest Part"
Firstly, still waiting on the Peace Corps. I received an email week before last from the Placement Office, asking for me to submit an updated resume with any changes that have occurred since I originally submitted it along with my application 13 long months ago. After some modifications with the assistance of my amazing girlfriend Kristen, I resubmitted my resume. The fact that the Placement Office is finally assessing my file is a good sign that the end of this process is almost in sight. I am scheduled to depart for staging in some African nation at some point in the April to June time-frame. Considering that I have still not been approved and given an assignment by the Placement Office (nor contacted by the Legal Office about my student loans and credit card debt), I'm thinking it's not likely to be April, more likely late May or June. It goes without saying that this giant question mark that has hung over my future since graduation has been both nerve-wracking and paralyzing, and I'd like to thank my friends and family for encouraging me and believing that it's going to happen after all, even when my faith falters.
Brief Political Aside
Almost as long and every bit as excruciating as my slow digestion by the Peace Corps bureaucracy, the Bataan health care march continues staggering towards the end-zone. I've long since lost patience with Republican political maneuvering and lying, Democratic insincerity and incompetence, and White House infighting. Just get it done. Not tomorrow. Yesterday. Republicans can push through deficit-expanding trillion-dollar boondoggles with 50+1 votes in the Senate but Democrats can't pass what's been the central plank in the party's domestic platform for at least the last 16 years because they only have 59 votes now instead of 60: this would be funny if people's lives weren't at stake. This debate has gone on for so long and been so draining, I almost don't care any more; much like a malnourished prisoner on the Bataan death march, at this point I almost care only about it ending, one way or another.
Almost. Because I don't have health insurance. Haven't since I graduated back in December 2008. In order to be medically cleared fit for duty by the Peace Corps, I had to drive myself over a thousand dollars into debt with medical expenses, simply because I want to serve. And I know there are millions of Americans who have it far, far worse than I do. Millions of Americans who actually do have serious medical conditions and cannot afford treatment. Millions of middle-class families having to skip physicals, dental exams, eye exams; millions of families driven into bankruptcy because they were unable to get treatment in the early stages of cancer or heart disease.
The amount of money one makes should determine what kind of car one drives, or one can even afford a car or whether one will have to rely on public transit. The amount of money one makes should determine what brand of clothes one can afford to buy and what kind of house one lives in, or whether one has to rent instead. I accept all these things. But the amount of money one makes should not determine whether one lives or dies. Not in the wealthiest nation in the history of humanity. Not in MY America. So this is my plea to Obama and congressional Democrats: pass health insurance reform. Speak with passion and conviction and righteous anger like Obama did on the campaign trail but has generally failed to do as president. Fight as if lives depended on it. Because they do.
Random Feb. 28 Thoughts
February has always disturbed me a little bit. First there's the pronunciation, the silent "r" that forces us to mentally say "Feb-RU-ar-y" (much like we have to say "WED-NES-day" and "Ant-arC-tic-a.") It's also hard to trust a month that keeps changing its mind on how many days it has.
When I was a child, I thought this quirk of February was due to the month being under a Biblical curse. I always felt an affinity for the suffering of Job. In the course of a single day, his oxen and donkeys were all stolen, his flock of sheep (his main investment and source of income) was killed by a rain of fire from the sky, and his sons and daughters were all killed when a great wind knocked down the house they were in. Oh, and Job broke out in really painful sores all over his body. (And you thought you'd had bad days before!) "Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said: 'Let the day perish in which I was born... let it not come into the number of the months.'" (Job 3:1-3, 6; NRSV) Clearly the day on which Job was born was February 30! Sadly, this still fails to explain the appearance every 4 years of February 29.
My first "official" girlfriend, back in high school, had February 28 as her birthday, just narrowly missing out on being born on February 29. I always thought having a birthday on 2/29 would be interesting. If you were born on February 29 but that date didn't recur again until 4 years later, would you be 4 years old then, or technically just one? Or should you celebrate your birthday exactly 365 days after your birth, which means you'd turn 1 on March 1 of the year after your birth, 2 on March 2, etc.? If that were the case, your birthday would rotate around the calendar year like Ramadan. How cool would that be?
This could also come in handy for anniversaries. "Honey, you know what today is, right?" "February 28." "Right, our first anniversary." "No, it isn't." "Yes, it is! How could you forget that?" "I didn't forget. We were married on February 29th, so our first anniversary won't be until that day recurs again 3 years from now.... Honey, darling, where are you going? Don't blame me, blame the Gregorian calendar system!"
Finally, a fun ADD fact: Thomas Jefferson, a man who could be absentminded (to put it mildy), suggested during the 1780s that presidents be elected to serve only 1-year terms.The date he proposed selecting for the annual election: February 29! Founding Father Fail.
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