A few random thoughts today

Everybody keeps asking me how I'm doing. What a complicated question! It depends on the moment you ask, honestly. If I've just taken my blood sugar reading and it was high, I'll be crying my eyes out. If it was low, I'll be elated, but still very nervous about what it will be when the lab test is taken in a couple weeks, still nervous about whether the doctors will proclaim me healthy. Honestly it's so dumb - it completely rules my life, thinking about what I'm eating and when I have to stick myself again, not to mention that my fingers are getting really sore. I so wish it was over. I'm sure it's doing a ton of good for my blood pressure too.

Then the news from GTU is alternately nice (like when a prof will check on me to see how housing is coming along) and annoying (like when I'm told for the umpteenth time that there's no room in yet another student housing complex). The move is just so complicated with the baby's unknown arrival date and the complete fog we're in about what we can afford. Also, when we should look, and where, and whether J will have to go without me to look, and whether I can handle him being gone, and it would just be so nice to work it out ahead of time, to know a place will be waiting for us, but I just don't think that's happening. In fact, I'm starting to think we'll probably have to pay rent on 2 apartments for at least 1 or 2 months, just to secure a good place and take our time getting the move done. Where will the money for that come from? And for movers? It's the great unknown.

I'm also trying to navigate California's assistance programs, and let me tell you, that is a headache. There are so many programs that we may qualify for, and I don't know which to apply to or what order to apply for them in, and I don't want to disqualify us by applying to the wrong thing or waiting too long on something. There are all these income programs - such as unemployment and family bonding - and then there's also the insurance stuff - whether we'll want to put baby on Medical, whether we'll all qualify for Medical, and the fact that we can't apply until our income stream dries up, and I don't want baby to be not covered for even a moment. And honestly, with us both being parents, I really don't like the idea of not having coverage for me or J. He's going to be the primary care provider - we need him to be covered if he gets sick or is in an accident or something. I don't think we can skip insurance for him, not anymore, not now that he's a daddy. But damn if it isn't so expensive - the school's plan is nearly $1,000 a month for the three of us! God, what I wouldn't do for universal health care.

If anybody who reads this knows a social worker type person who might be able to help us navigate this maze, I would so appreciate a referral.

Yesterday I also found out that the class I'm supposed to TA for doesn't have enough students to carry a TA. The prof will appeal this if I want, but suddenly I'm wondering if this could be a good out for me so that I'm not tied into the work. Then I stop and think about the money I'd be making, knowing that in a few months I'm really gonna wish I had it. So I don't know. I am so freaking busy, life simply hasn't slowed down, and I haven't even started any TA work yet. I'm terribly tired - sleeping 9 hours at night and still needing a nap every day - but I attribute that largely to the lack of sugar in my system. Still, is this a signal that I need to baby myself a bit more? This little one is getting awfully heavy. Making all my commitments is getting more and more difficult. And to think, at one point I was thinking this would be 10 weeks of boredom! Ha!

Okay, enough about me, now I need to talk just for a minute about American Idol.

First: WTF with Michael Johns????
Second: WTF with Kristy Lee Cook??? Who coated her with teflon, man?
Third: WTF with them singing "Shout to the Lord"?

There are so many ways that was just completely weird. First off, is that show - that stage, all those celebrities, the whole giant corporate money-making behemoth of it all - the proper forum for a worship song? Was the message of the song completely watered down by it being used to raise money (granted, money for a good cause, but still)? And this is American Idol, i.e., Pluralistic Nation Idol, so why are we singing songs from only one religion? I suppose the lyrics are vague enough that a Jew or maybe a Muslim could go with it; I've even heard some Hindu devotional songs (usually to Lord Krishna) that aren't too different lyrically. But still, it just made me so uncomfortable because it wraps up Jesus in the American flag and equates the church with this cultural giant and it all just seems a bit too cozy.

The other day President Mouw made a comment about how Christianity used to put an emphasis on "this world is not my home." Now I don't like how that movement pulled Christians out of social justice concerns, but I did take his point that it was very counter-cultural and not focused on having a comfortable and safe existence in this world now, be that economically, socially, vocationally, whatever. Yeah, the AI thing just tied my stomach up in knots, and I think that was why. It was just the implicit assumption that Christianity is so safe and vanilla that it can be conflated with American Idol. I'll bet we had a few saints rolling in their graves.

So that's my beef today. But as usual, it's time for me to eat something (not very tasty). Luckily I have until tomorrow dinner before I have to do blood sugar again, so I can try to shake off this morning's numbers and do my best to improve for next time. One week until my lab test; a week from Monday is my next OB appointment, where I may or may not get out of this. I can't tell you how much I'm begging God to heal my body, to make it cooperate. I just want so badly to be healthy.

And then, I get to rewrite the liturgy for a new service at church! Because hey, what else do I have going on! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha....