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lydyI got an A on my final for A & P of Sleep and Breathing. This means I should get a B in the course. Which is not, you understand, an A. There goes my 4.0 record. But it is definitely the right trend. I got a C on my first test, a B on the next two, and now an A on the final. I feel pretty good about that, especially since I felt so lost during the course. Anatomy and Physiology are just not things that I learn easily. I have so little visual capability. Keeping track of where the hypothalamus is, and the thalamus, and the various parts of the medulla is just tough. As for heart circulation, it's hopeless. I get lost on the bits where the blood vessel is moving anteriorly along the sulcus to the apex of the heart. I can kinda understand it a little, but it doesn't stick. Fortunately, the final had very little about that.
A & P of Sleep and Breathing is really just half of a class. It only lasted 8 weeks. Now I'm in the other half of the class, Patho/Class of Sleep Disorders. I have no idea if it will be as tough as A & P. I need to start to worry about it almost instantly, since the first assignment is due Friday at midnight. At least, that's when I think it's due. I have to check that. I'm really bad at keeping track of the exact due dates of things. I've a little time, though, since the reading and the assignments only take me one day, two at the outside. I'll start to worry about them tomorrow.
In bad news, I got a C on the last quizz in Fundamentals of Polysomnography. I didn't study for it, I was too busy studying for the final, and I thought it would be easy. I missed at least one easy question, thinking that the easy answer was too easy and couldn't be the right one. Out thought myself on that one.
Other than school, nothing much goes on in my life. I accidentally registered for Minicon twice. Evidently, I had registered for Minicon at last Minicon, and had forgotten it. My cat is my study buddy. She tries to sit on the book to help me study. I have to chivvy her off it and onto my lap. She'll eventually sit on my lap and I put my book at my side to study. If she can get away with it, she'll rest her head on the book. It's very cute in a frustrating sort of way. But if we get sorted out so that I can read my book and she's in a comfortable position, she'll stay that way for hours. And then she wants to get fed. Usually about an hour before supper time. At which point she becomes amazingly obstreperous.
Oh, one odd thing has happened. I got a letter from my nephew who is in prison. It was a nice letter, with the full story of how he happened to get busted. Two weeks without sleep, on meth, and a lot of guns that he's stolen from the father of a friend of his. He's lucky he is alive. He wanted to shoot it out with the cops, but his girlfriend shut the trunk before he could get one of the shotguns out. He got 9 to 15 years for stealing and selling the guns, and possession of drugs. Being on meth probably makes you stupid, but staying awake for two weeks will surely make you stupid. All in all it was a nice letter, but there was a little hint there that maybe I would send him $50 for a CD player. He's in segregation again. Call it solitary. I forget what for this time. Fighting, I think. He's also changing his name from Jonathan Thomas to Sinner Lawrence Bilskirnir. He's into worshipping the Norse gods. Which I guess is fine, but the Norse have never been my favorite pantheon. They're awfully warlike and grim. Maybe this religion will do him some good. Lord knows his strict Christian upbringing gave him nothing.
I still haven't sent a response. I've written a bit, warning him that I have no money and no place for him to stay when he gets out. That should be the hard part, but it doesn't seem to be. I'm having trouble figuring out what else to say. The sad fact is that by all the numbers, Jonathan/Sinner is a lost cause. Recidivism is 80% overall, and he's not in the category of low recidivism, like murderers. Not that I want that he should have murdered some one. Good heavens, no. It's just that his chance of ending up back in prison is pretty high. He initially got caught up with the justice system for sexually abusing his siblings when he was 16. Then the thing with the meth and the guns. (Cops just hate guns. Even more guns and drugs.) The fact that he keeps ending up in segregation suggests that he's hopeless. He's got a terrible temper. He got kicked out of the rehab program he was in at 16 and sent to juvie because he threw a desk at a teacher, and other angry outbursts. He wonders sadly how he's going to make it on the outside. So do I. He's got facial tattoos, for heavens sake. And he's changing his name to Sinner. These just seem to be extremely non-world friendly. And so I don't have much encouragement to offer him. But he's probably being abandoned by his family, plus his family is one of the reasons why he's in this mess (home-schooled). I feel like I ought to offer emotional support. What's a letter? But I can't get involved in his life. I don't have the money or the trust that would need. I can't see inviting him as a guest, offering him a key to the house and the alarm code. I especially can't see my housemates accepting this idea. It's hard, though. I still think of him as the 8 year old who asked me how it was possible to live without God and all the rules. He didn't follow my advice, which was to keep his head down, hang on until he was 18, and book it. He also didn't follow my advice about not getting caught. I couldn't care less what drugs he takes, it's the stupid things you do on drugs that worry me.
So that's everything that's going on.
A & P of Sleep and Breathing is really just half of a class. It only lasted 8 weeks. Now I'm in the other half of the class, Patho/Class of Sleep Disorders. I have no idea if it will be as tough as A & P. I need to start to worry about it almost instantly, since the first assignment is due Friday at midnight. At least, that's when I think it's due. I have to check that. I'm really bad at keeping track of the exact due dates of things. I've a little time, though, since the reading and the assignments only take me one day, two at the outside. I'll start to worry about them tomorrow.
In bad news, I got a C on the last quizz in Fundamentals of Polysomnography. I didn't study for it, I was too busy studying for the final, and I thought it would be easy. I missed at least one easy question, thinking that the easy answer was too easy and couldn't be the right one. Out thought myself on that one.
Other than school, nothing much goes on in my life. I accidentally registered for Minicon twice. Evidently, I had registered for Minicon at last Minicon, and had forgotten it. My cat is my study buddy. She tries to sit on the book to help me study. I have to chivvy her off it and onto my lap. She'll eventually sit on my lap and I put my book at my side to study. If she can get away with it, she'll rest her head on the book. It's very cute in a frustrating sort of way. But if we get sorted out so that I can read my book and she's in a comfortable position, she'll stay that way for hours. And then she wants to get fed. Usually about an hour before supper time. At which point she becomes amazingly obstreperous.
Oh, one odd thing has happened. I got a letter from my nephew who is in prison. It was a nice letter, with the full story of how he happened to get busted. Two weeks without sleep, on meth, and a lot of guns that he's stolen from the father of a friend of his. He's lucky he is alive. He wanted to shoot it out with the cops, but his girlfriend shut the trunk before he could get one of the shotguns out. He got 9 to 15 years for stealing and selling the guns, and possession of drugs. Being on meth probably makes you stupid, but staying awake for two weeks will surely make you stupid. All in all it was a nice letter, but there was a little hint there that maybe I would send him $50 for a CD player. He's in segregation again. Call it solitary. I forget what for this time. Fighting, I think. He's also changing his name from Jonathan Thomas to Sinner Lawrence Bilskirnir. He's into worshipping the Norse gods. Which I guess is fine, but the Norse have never been my favorite pantheon. They're awfully warlike and grim. Maybe this religion will do him some good. Lord knows his strict Christian upbringing gave him nothing.
I still haven't sent a response. I've written a bit, warning him that I have no money and no place for him to stay when he gets out. That should be the hard part, but it doesn't seem to be. I'm having trouble figuring out what else to say. The sad fact is that by all the numbers, Jonathan/Sinner is a lost cause. Recidivism is 80% overall, and he's not in the category of low recidivism, like murderers. Not that I want that he should have murdered some one. Good heavens, no. It's just that his chance of ending up back in prison is pretty high. He initially got caught up with the justice system for sexually abusing his siblings when he was 16. Then the thing with the meth and the guns. (Cops just hate guns. Even more guns and drugs.) The fact that he keeps ending up in segregation suggests that he's hopeless. He's got a terrible temper. He got kicked out of the rehab program he was in at 16 and sent to juvie because he threw a desk at a teacher, and other angry outbursts. He wonders sadly how he's going to make it on the outside. So do I. He's got facial tattoos, for heavens sake. And he's changing his name to Sinner. These just seem to be extremely non-world friendly. And so I don't have much encouragement to offer him. But he's probably being abandoned by his family, plus his family is one of the reasons why he's in this mess (home-schooled). I feel like I ought to offer emotional support. What's a letter? But I can't get involved in his life. I don't have the money or the trust that would need. I can't see inviting him as a guest, offering him a key to the house and the alarm code. I especially can't see my housemates accepting this idea. It's hard, though. I still think of him as the 8 year old who asked me how it was possible to live without God and all the rules. He didn't follow my advice, which was to keep his head down, hang on until he was 18, and book it. He also didn't follow my advice about not getting caught. I couldn't care less what drugs he takes, it's the stupid things you do on drugs that worry me.
So that's everything that's going on.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-14 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 01:30 am (UTC)Nebraska Department of Corrections
Inmate Name: Thomas
Inmate Number 64502
P. O. Box 2500
Lincoln, NE 68542-2500
no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 12:05 pm (UTC)