Great Film

If only this cinematic masterpiece was really coming to theaters.

Blue-Eyed Girl

I subscribe to a magazine from the good people at Advance. They make publications to anyone in the medical field or allied professions. It's free, but you do have to update your contact information once a year.

Right now the magazines go to my parents' house, which is my permanent address. Since it was time to renew anyway, I figured that I might as well have them start sending things to Mike's address since I'll be moving there in a month or two anyway.

I went to the website and clicked on the option to update my information. I quickly went through and changed my address, city, and ZIP code. Then at the bottom of the page was a field I hadn't noticed before.

"Eye Color"

Eye color? What the hell do they need to know that for? Below the blank was a disclaimer in small print.

"For auditing purposes only"

Oh, well, if it's for auditing purposes that totally puts my mind at ease.

There was also a field asking for my professional designation, but I left that blank because I had no idea what that meant. I submitted the form.

No go. It came back with an error message telling me that they wanted that information. Other items that I'd left blank - middle name, for instance, and phone number - were fine. But they really, really wanted to know what color my eyes were.

It makes me wonder what possible use they'd have for that information. Are they sorting our information by eye color? If so, will the brown-eyed auditor get a slew of accounts to look at, while the auditor in charge of the hazel section gets off easy? If they wanted to organize us, couldn't they do it another way? Like, alphabetically? Or by state?

What if the guy dealing with our data just has a lackluster fantasy life? What if he wants to know eye color so he can more adequately fantasize about the women whose data he's entering?

"...her fingertips caressed the keyboard and her bright green eyes became wistful as she longed for the touch of a man...a real man, a man who knows his way around a computer terminal..."

Eww.

But I really like getting that magazine, and it is free. So I guess if they really want to know that they have a blue-eyed subscriber with "MS, CCC-SLP" after her name, they can go ahead and have that knowledge.

I just hope that next time they don't ask for my blood type and first-grade report cards. Sheesh.

Working Files

I have working files on all my students. Usually they're big, thick folders with papers dating back to when they first started. I can thumb through old Preschool Language Scales protocols, ancient language samples, and page after page of district paperwork.

What makes the working files different than the cumulative folders, though, is that my files contain things other than the official school documents. There's copies of memos passed from the teacher to the SLP, handwritten notes jotted down on IEP forms, and other information that I just eat up. It's surprising how the smallest tidbit of information can become useful later on. Plus, the SLPs who used to treat the child are often happy to answer questions about why there was a letter talking about a child's unusual bruises (abuse that DCFS wouldn't investigate) or why it was mentioned at a meeting that a middle schooler should bleach her hair (it's a nifty treatment for lice!).

I was recently going through a cognitively disabled student's file in preparation for a meeting. I had to remark on her history in speech and language therapy, and soon I found myself immersed in the artifacts of her school career. Looking back, I saw that she was adopted when she was a baby, and at the time she had four adopted siblings as well as two babies who were born to her parents. Suddenly, though, her father stopped being invited to meetings and a year later my student was sent to live in an institution.

I looked back and saw that her father was listed as a factory employee. Was there an industrial accident? Had he been killed? I imagined her parents as a young couple, so full of love, wanting to spread that love and help the children who needed it most. I imagined his brave wife soldiering on after his death, trying to hold onto those kids, trying to keep together the home they'd built and the family they'd constructed and nurtured. I imagined that, tearfully, the mother just couldn't cope, and sent my student away to live so she could tend to the other kids in the house.

I looked at the most recent paperwork. My student was living with her mother again, and no other siblings were listed. Maybe they had grown up and moved away, so my student could come back home.

A few days ago I happened to be talking about this student with her teacher. He mentioned that he wasn't sure what her home life was like, but that she always came to school dirty.

"I dunno," I said, "I bet it's hard for a single mom with all those kids."

"Yeah," he said. "I got the impression that it was a pretty nasty divorce."

"Divorce?" I asked, my mental image crumbling. "Maybe she was widowed."

"No," he said. "I'm pretty sure it was a divorce. Did you say they had other kids?"

"Um, yeah," I said. "Well, at one time they did, anyway. Like, two of their own and five adopted kids."

He nodded knowingly. "Yeah," he said. "They do that."

"Do what?" I asked blankly.

"Adopt a bunch of kids for the money the state gives them," he explained.

"Oh," I said hollowly. "Yeah. I forgot they do that."

Now, we're both making assumptions about her past. But unfortunately, in a district like this my version is the fairy tale and his is probably closer to the truth.

I guess I have a ways to go before I can learn to interpret working folders.

Top Five

Usually I don't do memes, but there was an interesting one going around.

"Write down the five items you own which you think are the most interesting, together with any needed descriptions or explanations, as well as who tagged you. Then tag five others to do the same thing."

Well, we'll forgo the tagging since that works better in LiveJournal land. But here's my top five:

1. Claude the Roomba - I hate vacuuming. I hate it more than any other household chore. So that's why I got a Roomba to do it for me. Basically the Roomba is a little circular robot about the size of a small pizza. You set it in the middle of the room and press a button, and it drives around until it's vacuumed everything up. I named mine Claude. Now my least favorite household chore is washing dishes.

2. Nativity in a walnut - My maternal grandparents are uber-Catholic. In 2000 they went to Italy to visit Rome and the surrounding areas. They brought home souveniers for all the grandkids...t-shirts for the boys, and little silver statues for the girls. The statue is a nativity scene, and it's housed in this rounded thing that's the same shape and texture as a walnut shell. I doubt that's what it's supposed to be, but that's what it looks like. I'll have to post a picture sometime. I'm very attached to it.

3. Dental reflector - As a speech pathologist, I don't get much special equipment. The occupational and physical therapists get all kinds of elaborate, weird equipment and all I usually get is flashcards. That's why I love my dental reflector. It looks sort of like a spoon that was run over by a truck and kind of bent funny, and it's the only job-related equipment I have that would make someone go, "What the hell is that?"

4. Robot with a daisy - Mike has recently gotten interested in making little figures out of polymer clay. A few weeks ago he made me a little clay robot, his favorite thing to make, holding a daisy, my favorite flower. I keep it by my computer.

5. Church bulletin - Sunday evenings are usually mildly depressing times. The weekend is over and I have to wake up early to get to work tomorrow. Most of my friends are spending time with their husbands or running last-minute weekend errands, and there's nothing on TV. Recently, too, it's been sad because I haven't been able to see Mike during the weeknights, only on weekends, so Sunday night marks the longest possible time before I see him again. It's quite lonely. Since I can't go anywhere (I like to spend Sunday nights in with the cats to make up for being gone all weekend) I have to find something in my apartment to distract me. Enter the church bulletin. It's a pretty standard Catholic parish bulletin, with a letter from the pastor and notices and advertisments on the back. But it gives me a sense of being a part of a community. I like to read it and think about what I'll get involved in once I move to Milwaukee, and the letter from the pastor usually provides some food for thought. I don't save them - when I'm done reading it I toss it out - but since it's Sunday night I have one, so I guess I can count it among my possessions.

Let's see what you've got!