Kat Reaganomics

I want to continue learning the language, but I'm not sure what else I could do with a degree like the one I'm working towards earning if I'm not willing to live abroad. Besides, aside from learning to speak Japanese, Asian Studies doesn't really give me the same thrill Geography does. It's like I told Adam: 

"I feel like Asian Studies is my over-bearing wife that I've been married to for thirty plus years and Geography is the hot, new receptionist that just started working at my office." 

I've been talking to my Geography professor about how I feel and he said that he thinks I would make an excellent Geographer and that he thinks it'd be something I'd be happy doing. He also told me it's possible to have my cake and eat it, too. He specializes in the Geography of South and Central America and I could do the same for Asia. He noted that Japan in particular would be especially fascinating because of it's location in one of the most active places in the Ring of Fire.

I'll give it some more thought while I'm fighting with GSU about transfer credits. (They're claiming that I don't have a satisfactory English credit and must take the intro-level English courses. I can't register for classes until I straighten this out with them. I'm never going to fucking leave school at this rate.)

I been feeling so divided about everything as of late and I'm not sure what's causing it.

I want to change my major, I want it to stay the same.  
I want to move out and find a place of my own, I want to stay with my parents until I'm more stable financially.
I want to continue wearing Lolita, I want to sell it all and start dressing totally differently.
I want to buy a Fanta, I want to buy a Pepsi.

All across the board I can't seem to settle. I feel like I'm having a quarter life crisis or something.  Either way, I shouldn't be worrying about this stuff now. I've got an exam to study for.

Cheers!

My mom was kind of mean about it when I tried to talk to her, too. Then again, I guess I shouldn't expect more from her.

Ugh. So yeah. I'm looking forward to all this crap.

Instead, I was fired on a lame technicality that's suddenly an issue after four years. The church that owns the building we used decided that someone can't work in any church program if they have a family memeber who is their superior. Obviously, because my mom is the director of the program I got the axe. No warning of a change in policy or anything  Here's a list of everything that's fucked up about the situation: 

1. Even though my mom is the director of the program, I don't report to her. The assistant director takes care of most of the issues involving employees, parents, and children. If there's something serious going on, it's sent to my mother THROUGH her. Not one of us. My mom spends her time doing paperwork, handling the accounts, and running the program. Most of the employees don't even see her during the day. So technically, my mom is "my boss' boss". Not mine.

2. The woman who runs the church summer camp in the school during June and July has her two sons working in it but the church says they're exempt since it's "just a camp".

3. So basically, this rule was pretty much invented for my mother and I since I'm the only person other person that has a parent as their superior.  I can't help but feel as if this rule was put in action out of spite for my mother. The higher-ups in the church have been at odds with my mother since she started running After School. They've been especially hostile towards her since they found black mold in our building. They told her not to tell the parents and she argued that if they found out through some other source that there'd be hell to pay, so it wasn't a good idea. Especially in the case of a child getting sick. So, after she fought with them over that, they've been less-than-kind to her. 

4. The After School technically isn't even part of the church, really. We just use their building and their buses. We don't get any money from them or any support. Yet, they still insisted that we obey their rules.

5. They told my mother that she was the one who had to fire me.

So yeah, I'm pissed.

My mom says there's a chance that the rule was decided by the head of the Methodist church, so all the other churches followed. I can't help but wonder: If the head of the Methodist church decided to jump off a bridge, would the guys who decided to fire me do it, too? 

Haha. Actually using my live journal for its intended purpose for once. I have to make a habit of writing in this thing more.

Anyway. Yesterday was quite hellish. It all began with being a crazy day at work. (I've been working at a week-long "Circus camp" that ends tomorrow.) First, a little boy threw up on the tire swing and had to be sent home. (Guess who got to take care of that child...)

After that, the same little girl pee'd herself twice. (Again, guess who got to take care of that.) Another boy had a meltdown tantrum of major proportions. But...these are all normal things that one comes to expect when working with children. The real capper on my day was Evan. Evan, the little boy who lives next door to me. Evan, the little antichrist who wakes up at 6 am almost every morning, is in a tree in the back yard by 6:30 and screaming loud enough to wake me up. Not just the normal, giddy squeals of a child who is having fun playing out doors, either. Blood-curdling screeches. Shrill, ear-piercing cries.

So. Yesterday, one of Evan's friends comes up to me and says "Evan stuck a Lego up his nose.".  Not phased and not at all surprised, I took Evan by the hand and told the women who were running the camp what his friend had told me. (The fact that there was a Lego lodged in his nose was confirmed by the fact that his voice was suddenly very, very nasal.) So, they call his mother; Ann. She comes flying down to the summer camp, white as a sheet and freaking out. This of course puts Evan on to hysterics all over again.

"I've got a treat for you." She crooned in her thick, Welsh accent. "Mummy's got a treat for you." She then realized that she didn't bring anything to bribe her son in to her vehicle with. So she turns to me and goes "You, yes you there, can you get him a popsicle?" While I was fighting the urge to curtly remind her we were neighbors and she KNEW MY NAME, one of my fellow employees came to their senses and got him a popsicle and a toy. (At his mother's request.) She the leaves her 1-year-old son Ellis with us. The fact that we are neither equipped or allowed by law not allowed to look after a boy his age must have slipped her mind...because her son had a LEGO LODGED IN HIS NOSE. She frantically told me to help her take him out to the car, and I must admit her voice was again pretty curt and rude.

Now, I understand that the fact that her son has something obstructing his ability to breathe through his nostrils was upsetting...but the boy was STILL able to breathe. One can't be screaming at the top of their lungs like that if they're being denied air. It wasn't like it was going to migrate up his nasal passage and lodge itself in his brain. I volunteer to stay with Ellis instead and keep him entertained until her husband gets there. 

Before she leaves, she says to me and my bosses: "Could you please watch the children more carefully and see to it that nothing like this happens again?" 

The response that flashed through my brain was: "Lady, we can't keep a close eye on all twenty-eight childrend all the time. Also, ten of children in this camp that are your son's age. In fact, there are several more that are even younger than he is. And thus far, ALL OF THEM have managed to avoid a trip to the emergancy room via shoving something where it doesn't belong. D'you think it's possible that maybe YOU'RE not doing your job properly rather than us?"

Of course, in the midst of all this, another parent comes in. (BIG, LONG BACKSTORY: This is a woman who on the first day of camp comes up to me and snapped "Where's Jackson?" (Jackson being her son.) I calmly told her that since it was the first day I didn't know all the children's names yet and I wasn't quite sure which one was her son, but I was pretty sure that a little boy with blonde hair who just asked me if he could go to the bathroom was Jackson. She took this to mean that I had no idea where her child was and freaked out. She went to look for him and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, he was in the bathroom.)

So, anyway. The same mother comes in and asks me the SAME question in the SAME TONE. She doesn't ask the assistant who was sitting by the door and monitoring who was coming in and out of the room. She asked me. The assistant who was in the middle of face-painting at least ten children and trying to keep a 1-year-old entertained. So I told her "I saw Jackson go outside with another employee and a group of children who wanted to play. Did you check out there?" So she goes out and doesn't see him and freaks out again. Of course, she didn't ask the other employee who was working out there where he was. She just saw that he wasn't out there and lost her shit. If she had ASKED him where Jackson was he would have told her that he was going to the bathroom.

And that was my day at work. Eager to unwind a bit after such a day, I decided to hang out with my friend Erica. We went and ate a lovely pasta dinner after being nearly run off the road by a psycho soccer dad and his two childen in a BMW. After that we went to Little Five, which is a small ecclectic pocket of shops. I was dressed in one of my favorite Lolita dresses. My BtSSB pink Paris Windows jumper skirt. Of course people are unused to seeing someone walking around who looks like a birthday cake. So I expected to get a lot of stares and perhaps a few mean words. I didn't expect to get attacked.

Attacked is too strong a word, truthfully, but harrassed is one that's too weak. It was somewhere inbetween the two? And the incident didn't occur because I was wearing Lolita, but that's certainly what began it. Dusk was rapidly approaching and Erica and I were making our exit because Little Five isn't a good area to be in at night. Of course, you can't walk ten feet in that area sometimes without someone asking you to buy something off them or if they can take your money in some way shape or form. SO, we were walking past a large group of males and one Joe Dirt-looking mother-fucker started cat-calling me. "Hey, Cinderella, looking for a prince?" 

I was a little annoyed, but again it was something I expected. Of course, after this his friend thinks it possible to try and sell his CD to us. We tried to tell him in every way possible that we were not interested, neither of us had heard of the "big hip-hop bands" that he did collaborations with, neither of us listened to the radio much, neither of us had any cash on us. He still wouldn't let up. He followed us a few feet and then stood in front of the two of us to block us from making it past him any more. He was still jabbering away a mile a minute. But honestly, I couldn't understand a word he was saying. It wasn't that he had a speech deformity or something of that nature...it just suddenly sounded like he was talking through a tunnel.

I had complained earlier in a store called Psycho Sisters (where I met a very nice girl who was also a fan of Lolita) of feeling a bit dizzy and light-headed. Of course, I didn't think that I could be dehydrated from spending about six hours out in the sun and the Atlanta humidity. I had felt fine the whole day and drank two glasses of water at dinner, so I didn't think there was a problem until I started feeling bad in the store.

 In any case, I don't quite remember what happened next while the hip-hop man was talking to us. The next thing I remember was that I was lying on the sidewalk and the Joe Dirt look-a-like was saying "Oh, she's an actress, she's an actress." indicating of course that I was faking. Erica is immensely protective of me and got a bit tactless.

"Fuck you. She wouldn't fake something like this." She hissed at him. Once the three gentlemen who had been harrassing us had realized that I was in fact sick they wanted to help. I remember hearing one of them ask if we needed a phone several times. Erica informed them that she had one and she was going to take me where I could lie down and get me some water. She also expressed that she was annoyed with the fact that despite their suddenly wanting to help me, a moment a go they were all laughing at me and then when I fainted they called me a faker.

Then the next thing I know, I'm being guided down the sidewalk and this grungy rat-looking guy is following us shouting and screaming. He's saying things like "You fucking cunt nigger bitch. People are trying to help. You don't pull that kind of shit you fucking bitch. Not on my streets. I run this place." My friend kept telling him to walk away, so he goes "What the fuck are you gonna do, huh? I run these streets. I better not see your black ass around here again or there's gonna be a problem." He's advancing on us and getting closer and closer while he's following us down the side walk.  He kept calling her a bitch. Repeatedly, as a matter of fact. More disturbingly, he made repeated thinly guised threats while asking "What are you gonna do?" As she told him to leave us alone. His hands were clenched in to fists. 

All the while, Erica is shaking like a leaf. Not because she's scared. Because she's angry and she's trying to control herself. See, this guy was actually shorter than Erica and maybe had thirty pounds on her, tops. What he didn't know about her is that Erica has been trained in three different types of martial arts and boxing since she was old enough to stand and throw a punch. Part of me almost wishes he had tried something. I could see the headlines now: "Diminuative black girl kicks snot out of coke fiend."

The morals of the story:

1.) Legos don't belong up your nose.
2.) Full-grown crackheads don't have the right to harrass you. No matter how you're dressed.