Joy of Zen

Had a rough time earlier. I went out to work today and met up with my cousin after to go see my aunt (his gma). She is in an assisted living place now. I think she is 78. I saw her last year, I was thinking around September, but it must’ve been before that. Then she was a bit forgetful, but pretty much there. It’s a whole different story now.

She looks like she’s aged 5 years since I last saw her. And her mind is just completely gone. I thought my grandma got bad, but she was nowhere near this level. In her hospital bed, she kept looking through her blankets. I asked what she was looking for and she said “Anything I can get.” She mentioned getting up a few times, one being “Let’s make a charge!” She also said we should go out to the garage. She called for my other cousin (her daughter). We said she wasn’t there. And she wondered where everyone went, and she called for her a few more times.

It was extremely difficult to keep a happy smiling face while I wanted to cry. She’s just diminished into nothing in such a short time. I’m still not sure if she knew who I was. She said, “Is that?” And I said “It’s Joy.” She smiled and said it was good to see us. And she realized I had dye in my hair. But she was calling my cousin Junior (who is her brother).

She would say things that made absolutely no sense. And sometimes she couldn’t even properly pronounce the words. At one point she seemed to be asking me about my twins. Which obviously I don’t have. But she didn’t form a full sentence. And she is at least somewhat aware that she is not making sense. She said, “I’m not saying that right, am I?” I asked my cousin if he knew what she meant and he said no. She said “We’ll just have to save that for later then.” At another time she said something about being so “damn dumb.”

It was just a very difficult experience. I am not sure I can go back. It was hard to see my gma when she was no longer herself. And this is what has happened here. I hope that she doesn’t have to live like this for too much longer. It is time for her to go.

I was debating whether to use my professor’s name in this, since she could google her name and wind up here. But I think I’m cool with that, and she mentioned her MySpace in class today about reading a blog post she did, so I found her on there and her page is public. So I’m sure she won’t mind I figure curious students might also end up here wanting to know if they should take her too.

I know it’s only the 2nd week of school, but Melissa Ysais is freaking awesome. This is only the 2nd teacher at the university that I have gotten excited over (the other was Jasper Cross). In the first class meeting she brought us fruit snacks to help wake us up. It’s a class on Saturdays at the awful time of 8:10 in the morning. She also warned us that she cusses and doesn’t have an edit button. And she does cuss, but it’s not too much, and it’s great. She also told us to call her by her first name and said she’d laugh if we called her Professor Ysais.

I could tell in the first meeting that she is passionate about what she is doing. She also has a ton of experience. Oh, she also has a master’s in special education which is great. She has a wonderful personality, she jokes around, makes faces. She is just naturally entertaining. One thing she does in class she calls meditation. It’s her reading a children’s book to us, and we are the kids. It’s great.

And today I found out that she rules even more because she brought up NIN! She couldn’t get the presale tix (neither did Tamie) and she was bummed. And on her page I saw The English Beat on there. Ohhh, and I just saw Margaret Cho and Dead Man’s Party on her friends list. Awesome.

Sorry this post is so long! But I have more. I have a HUGE pet peeve with teachers who use PowerPoint and sit there and read it word-for-word and/or fill each screen with an insane amount of text that is overwhelming. She does use PowerPoint, but the slides are perfect, and she ALWAYS gives examples from her own experiences and elaborates, and makes it interesting. That is no small task. Especially on a Saturday morning.

Of course I don’t know details about her grading or tests yet because it’s early, but you can tell she is a reasonable person unlike some teachers who won’t take your 18 page paper even though you had a recent emergency room visit (not me, someone I know, but same school). I just had to throw a rant in. Anyway. I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better teacher to make this summer, Saturday class as painless as possible.

You’d think since my crazy spring quarter is over I’d be writing more! But no, I suck. I wanna thank Measly for helping me center my header at the top there… only it looks center on my big monitor but not on my laptop. I dunno what code to change for that. It’s like the blogger bar at the top is set to autofit the visible part of the screen, but the rest of my blog goes farther to the right so I have to scroll over to see it, so then it doesn’t look centered. sigh. Someday I’ll figure it all out

I need to write about my new teacher. So far, she fucking RULES.

Here is another video that won’t let me embed. I found this one first, and he talks about death in it.

I know this is old, and I am pretty sure I blogged this before, but it just made me bust up again. This dude is awesome and has some energy.

I loved New Kids in 5th and 6th grade. I had a beach towel of theirs forever. I just can’t imagine paying money to go see them now. That link doesn’t say how much tickets are. I was all prepared to laugh at the price too. But if they wanna perform and peeps wanna give them money, it’s all cool. Just a little insane.