Music

My life long friend (we went to high school together and despite the 4,000 miles between us in the last 27 years we are still in touch!) just sent me a CD from her son's girlfriend. And it is really cool. The young woman has a great voice, and the musicians who accompany her did wonderful arrangements. She wrote the six songs on the album herself. The violin player is great and the last song is a tribute to her mother and her death. She passed away two years ago. It is a great first album and I hope she is successful and can sell a lot of them. It is not for sale in the US, but in Quebec. Anyway, I was delighted to see her progress as I have known her for some time now. I just love to see what these "kids" are turning out to be. Now that I am passed the hardship of launching my own daugther, some of you may remembers how hard that was, I just love seeing folks I have known as children grow up and become part of the world and contributing to it either through music, art, activism, or any talent they may have.

I have been working hard to get ready for classes which start next week. I will have 3 courses, 5 sections, about 180 students. Whew! That will be a lot of work, but I think I will enjoy it. I am however, somewhat disenchanted with the book for one of my classes which has some very sexist comments (That women "nag" for one) and some antiquated view of the family. Anything other than the "nuclear" family of the husband, wife and kids is relegated to a chapter called "variations." I think I will use that for critical discussion and critical thinking in my students. I hope it works.

I had a very disturbing session with one patient I saw today. He was very confused, youngish looking gentleman, who must have been an absolut doll when he was well. He spent the few minutes I was visiting making statements (or attempting to do so) that I looked fine, and went from laughing and being cheerful to utter despair and crying. Poor guy was so confused, and when I responded and told him he was kind or that it was nice he felt happy, he would try to speak and express himself only to mix up words so that he did not make sense. It made me really sad and confused myself. I just do not like seeing patients at facilities. I know the staff does as much as they can, but it is really disheartening to witness. At least, for the most part, he was happy for my visit and I reflected those positive feelings back to him. Thankfully, my last visit was with a lovely lady who was coherent and cheerful and very happy to have a new air bed which makes her much more comfortable. I usually am not so distraught by the patients and can usually see a glimpse of who they were which helps in spending time with them, but for some reason, the abyss of this man's mind was frightening to me. I hope I never experience that. To be so remote from the world, have so much to say and not be able to do so, he seemed frustrated by it at times and at others felt that all was ok. For once I am at a lost to shake that one out of my system. Cyber puppy shake!