J'Espere

Always a socialist at heart (I told y'all I love the French), I'm speaking out on insurance in the US today. It started with a phone call last night. One of my friends just suffered her second miscarriage in a very short period of time. She went to the ER and then to her normal doctor. Who said she suspects she has lupus. I'm not going to judge her for actually getting pregnant on purpose without health insurance. But I am going to judge Blue Cross Blue Shield for trying to charge her $700 a month for insurance. When her husband hasn't received a paycheck in two months. When she has two children to feed. She doesn't know if she has lupus- she doesn't have money for the test required. Nor does she have the insurance to cover it. Now, onto situation 2. My friend has a friend who has a medical disease that requires daily medication. But he isn't getting it because he again doesn't have health insurance. And he needs it- without it he could get really sick a...

I flew up on thursday morning, the official beginning of my fall break, and just got back today. My house is a mess, I haven't done any of my homework, and I'm still breathing and living New York in the fall. If you haven't been there for this particular season you should go. this fall since it was a little warm, it was weird- people were wearing shorts and t-shirts. I brought all 3/4 and long sleeved stuff but was determined to wear it, because, after all, it's mid-Oct in the Northeast. It's a little ridiculous. Since the boyfriend was not on fall break, I actually had a while to just wander around the city on my own. Which I love to do anyway. That's actually one advantage to my friends having real jobs is that I do have some alone time. I did a whole lot and walked around 75-80 blocks total. I walked a lot. But that's not the point. The New York Public Library. I went on the tour (offered M-F 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.) I highly recommend this. because you will b...

So I've noticed something really interesting about people and library school. Whenever I mention that I'm in library school I get two responses- 1) "Really? You have to go to school for that?" or 2) "That's great!". The latter being from people who are generally more educated. So I'm here to clear up a few things. Librarian is a legitimate career. We find things for people. We help people select books. We select books for our libraries. We support school curriculum, we educate people of all ages, we fight for the money to keep you informed with dictionaries, encyclopedias and databases. There is no constitutional right to the Public Library. The Public Library is there because it was started hundreds of years ago, because it turned out that people liked borrowing books for FREE and because people had questions that they could not answer on their own. The library is here today because even our government realized that to an extent libraries are a wond...

or at least the Triangle area. Today may have been a day out of "Office Space". I spent two hours on 40-E going 25 miles. at approx. 20-25 miles per hour. It really took that long. In the time I was on the road, I had two phone conversations, worked on my nails and hands, and thought of reasons to carpool. Or at least incentives that would help people want to carpool. These are some of the ideas I had: 1) Tax break for people driving and participating in organized car pools 2) Gas cards for drivers of carpools (maybe $150/year?) 3) Discounts on car maintenance through Jiffy Lube or something for drivers 4) Special lanes for cars holding three or more people 5) Free Satellite radio I think the best thing would be for hte Triangle to realize it's becoming more urban and embrace it. And put in a true Public Transportation System. I was imagining, to start, a high speed train looping from Raleigh to Durham to Cary and Chapel Hill. It would make few stops, but each one would b...

Really there are several things that I abso-lute-ly love in NC. One is the Duke- Carolina game, be it basketball, football, or even soccer. The second is the NC State Fair. Held every year in Raleigh NC, the State Fair is a cumulation of everything that is good about the South- giant vegetables, rides that might fall apart at any moment, and deep-fried anything (even pickles or Twinkies. really.) I've been going nearly every year since I was too small to remember. My favorite memories are from when I was in elementary school and my parents would actually let me skip a half-day to head over to the fair with them. I loved being pulled out of school for any reason, but that was an especially good one. I loved eating junk food, picking up cheap prizes at the grab-a-bag, and petting the goats and seeing the bunnies. I could go on and on. So I talk about the fair a lot this time of year. It's nothing against anyone else's state fair, it's just that this one is the best. when ...

I was put in charge of the farm for this weekend and next. My responsibilities include but are not limited to raking, weeding, feeding horses, cats, dogs, walking said dogs, grooming horses, cleaning part of the house. It's been stressful, to say the least. I have a newfound respect for my parents, who do this every single day. But I think the rewards are also kind of great. Like tonight, when I was standing outside, filling troughs and staring at a beautiful starry sky. that should be reason enough to stop development. People never realize how many stars there are, and how beautiful they are, and how our paved roads with streetlights reflecting off of them are affecting what we see, or better said, what we aren't seeing. It scares me how suddenly we are sprawling out. Instead of taking steps to conserve what we use and what we are, we are beginning to think that 8000 square foot houses with swimming pools and Hummers are normal. I can't think of anything worse than not ...