.:reflections of twilight:.

This is going to be a very stressful week. My dad and step-mother (as well as the people they care for) are visiting and, while I get along great with my dad, things can be tense with my step-mom. Not that we don’t get along in general, it’s just certain aspects of her personality kinda rubs me the wrong way. Dad said he thinks she may have an undiagnosed mental illness such as bipolar disease, but refuses to acknowledge this in order to get diagnosed. It’s… frustrating and convoluted at times. I can only take the whole crew for more than a few days. So while I was disappointed not to go to DC with them, it was probably for the best, because being enclosed in the relatively small enclosure for even four days, it would’ve been too much to deal with. So, I’d still like to go, but maybe just with mom and sometime during the fall when it’s cooler and less active.

So, we’re set to go to Oak Ridge, TN tomorrow (which is two+ hours away. Help me), and it should be an interesting experience. Hopefully I won’t break out into an anxiety attack (like I almost did at dinner tonight). Luckily mom will be with me to act as a buffer. She’s a calming influence on me and it helps to have her around.

Working at the library is very busy, but not in a bad way. I like doing what I do and am learning quite a lot about how a larger high school library works. I’ve gotten a bit more confident when it comes to getting kids to be doing what their supposed to be doing and I get a hands on experience. I still have to do a collaborative lesson plan, so that’s a bit nerve-wracking, but I just have to suck it up and do it. It’s just for one day and I like the teacher I’ll be collaborating with, so that will help. I just need to do the same when I return to the other school I was at once they return from fall break. Then I have to gather the materials I need to do my Oral Presentation toward the end of October. Hopefully I can get to a point where I can sit and do all of that stuff relatively soon. I can survive until December. I know I can!!

You know, I can withstand quite a lot of things without getting pissed off. Make fun of me? OK. It hurts a little, but I eventually shake it off. But there are a few things that just make me really angry and pissed.

Now, I’m not referring to things being done to others. I mean, I do get upset and angry if I think something is being done to someone I know or an animal. I’m talking about things directed at me more or less.

First thing, don’t mock me. Now, some of you probably aren’t aware that I was attacked by a large dog when I was seven, leaving scars on my neck and permanent hoarseness. The most commentary I get about it is that I must have a sore throat. I’m fine with people thinking that. Besides, I’m not going to go into the whole story with a random person I come across. If I become friends with you and you ask politely, I’ll more than likely tell you what happened. No big deal. I’m a big girl.
HOWEVER, don’t stand there and try to imitate my voice. I know sometimes people do it because they think they’re being clever, or cute. It’s not. It’s mocking me.

Granted, it hasn’t happened too often. In general, people are a tad more sensitive than that. But it has happened. Once in front of my dad. He was pretty pissed off about it too. Mostly because he noticed that it bothered me. I was at my step-sister’s wedding and I was in charge of the sign in book. I asked people if they would please sign the register. Simple, right? One of the guests came and mimicked my voice back to me after I asked them to sign the register. Now my dad was standing next to me when it happened because he was talking to me for a little while beforehand and he could tell it bothered me when said guest did that. It bothered him that I was upset.

Now, I will have to say that once the story of what happened was revealed, I did later on get a note of apology and I was fine with that. But, bottom line. DO NOT MOCK ME!

Finally, don’t treat me like I’m stupid. That’s what bringing on this particular post. I received an email at work indicating an error I had done with one of my postings. I had accidentally posted an incorrect amount of units for an injection, which was apparently less than what it was supposed to be.

For one thing, the amount I posted was what was on the charge slip, but that’s another matter altogether. The sender of said email goes into this spiel about how the charges now have to be resubmitted to the insurance company (which is Medicare, which is a pain in the ass to deal with) to try and get back the proper payment amount for the proper amount of units.

I sent back an apology saying that I was sorry for the mistake and I’ll try not to repeat it the next time. I mean, when I make a mistake, I own up to it. I’m a human being and prone to mistakes now and then, like we all are.

Then she goes and says, “I hope we get the additional money. :-(”

I was fine until that last part. The way she worded it (and the frowny face at the end), makes her sound extremely condescending to me. It’s not like I did the errors deliberately! And to make it seem like if we aren’t reimbursed, it’s my own personal fault. It’s a good thing I vented to Twitter, or else I would’ve come extremely close to telling this lady off. >:[

Sorry for the long post, but I needed to exasperate somewhere that was longer than 140 characters. I mean, I am not stupid. I do have a learning disability that makes it harder to process things right away and sometimes I need detail explanations, but don’t treat me like an idiot. And none of that cutesy nice stuff either.

Back to your regularly scheduled lives.

Meh. Life continues to want to kick me in the teeth...

We're having a hard time with coming up with the money for our vacation. We did have some saved up, but we had to use it for unexpected expenses such as a new car battery and bills. I'm hoping to try and build it up a little bit, but I also had some bills come up that I needed to pay and since I had to pay all of the rent this time around instead of just a portion of it, I didn't have as much left over. I was doing better at keeping my bank account full, but I wasn't able to this time and I'm kinda upset about that needless to say.

I really don't want to give up my vacation since I've been looking forward to this for a few years now. And now mom is having troubles with her computer which needs to be fixed and payed for somehow. This ALWAYS happens to us. We do really good for a time and when we get ready to do something nice, something ALWAYS comes up that we have to end up paying for. It's like we just cannot catch a break.

My life kinda sucks right now...

Hey, how was everyone's weekend? Mine would have been better had I not been sick for a good portion of it. My allergies are kicking my ass big time lately. I had to leave work early on Thursday and I didn't even go in at all on Friday because of utter misery. I have to take Mucinex in order to breathe and all the gunk that keeps collecting is a major pain in the arse. We've had MAJOR pollen clouds floating hither and yon which make a bee line straight for my nostrils it seems. Mom isn't immune either. She's been suffering from major sinus headaches quite often.

BLARGH!!!

Mom liked the photo book I made for her for Mother's Day. I think she was really touched, which made me happy. Now the challenge is what to do for next year! HA! I took her to lunch and then later in the evening, we went to my aunts house and had desert! I made an absolute porker of myself. I had Two slices of red velvet cake (I had to stock up, because we don't get it very often), two brownies, a bowl of ice cream and a cup of chocolate milk. Oof.

We saw Iron Man 2 Saturday. I liked it. We want to see it again. If you do see it, make sure you stay until the end for a nice surprise!

I have an interview on Thursday for the coding position I applied for. I'm hoping good things will come from this, so wish me lots of luck! I shall let you all know what happened once it's done with.

My roomie was out today because her neck was bothering her again. She'll be out again tomorrow also. I think what she has is Degenerative Disk Disease and it's affecting the vertebrae in her neck. Meaning, she has no disks between bone. Youch. In any case, it kinda sucks when she's not there because I have no one to talk to.

Then I receive an email from my boss saying how I need to increase my posting quota. Normally I post between 400-500 charges a day depending on how many packets I get that day. Now she's saying I need to get between 550-1000 posted a day "like everyone else is." I dunno where these numbers are coming from all of a sudden, but I think she's crazy if she thinks I can post 1000 charges a day, I post what I get. Since when did we have to meet a quota? Is this some sort of competition I wasn't aware of?

I emailed her back saying I would "try." I mean, it's the only thing I can do, really. I'm not gonna give myself an aneurysm just to meet some crazy number. Since when is the job more about numbers than people? Maybe I should look into taking one of the open slots for assistant coder...

All this stress and weather has given me a headache, so I'm gonna take a shower, take some meds and call it a night...

Blah...

Well, work today was... ehh. I guess my boss was on a tear today or something. I got a number of e-mails notifying me that some of my charge totals don't always match up with the corresponding payment sheets. Now, I make it a point to double check to make sure my totals match after I finish posting my payments. Now, I realize that one or two might accidentally slip through without my noticing, but I'm only human after all.

But it seems like every time I get an error pointed out to me, it takes on the intensity of a natural disaster or something. I mean, I realize that they have to be addressed and all, but tone down things a bit or something. I mean, I didn't get all depressed and stuff about it like I usually would, but it just made me annoyed and a little pissed. I mean, I catch my mistakes 99% of the time and the other 1% is pretty minor. Let that 99% account for something here, OK?

But I'm trying to be very zen about it all. Hopefully, if things work out to my advantage, I can be transferred to another location in the spring. At least, that's how I'm hoping things happen. Mostly because when the doctors I post for currently move into the big new building, I stop getting their charges. Then I'd be stuck back with insurance payments, which I LOATHE! So hopefully I can get transferred over to the new building where I can continue to post the charges.

Well work was "eh" today.

My boss is apparently going though a rough time personally and there tends to be a trickle down effect. Anyway, there's a doctor I've been posting charges for for almost a year now. He's a specialist and doesn't see a lot of patients, so it doesn't take me very long to do them and they're pretty basic and straight forward. Anyway, there are certain charges that Medicare requires. They're basic stuff, but they are a pain in the ass because there can be a lot per patient. Well, I was informed today that a certain charge was supposed to be posted in addition to the consults and stuff that I had been posting for the Neurology doctor. It seems I hadn't been posting them. Now, had I known I was supposed to, I would have. I certainly wouldn't intentionally omit it or anything. However, there were no indications that this charge was supposed to have been posted. We're talking a charge that basically indicates that the encounter was documented in the chart. That's it. And there is no monetary value attached to it. When I post it, the charge shows up thusly: "$ .00" so it's not like they're losing money. Of course, everyone blows it all out of proportion and makes it seem like I built a bonfire out of my papers and pranced around naked or something...

So now my boss needed to ask what doctors I post for so she can double check the things I do to make sure it's right. Like I'm a friggin' five year old.

So it kinda sucked today needless to say...

Well, some interesting developments have happened in the Saga of the Hot Water Heater^TM. It was SUPPOSED to arrive today, however when mom called them today to reconfirm (she stayed home due to issues with her IBS), they had discovered it was 'lost' between Orlando and here. How one loses a hot water heater is beyond me. I mean, it's not that difficult to get to here from Orlando for Pete's sake. So HOPEFULLY it'll arrive later on this week so I can take an actual shower and not sponge baths.

Also, when mom called to see again about replacing my keyboard, she got disconnected due to 'technical difficulties'. Technical difficulties my ass. At this point, I'm willing to chuck the service coverage and just buy me a new frakkin' keyboard...

We're all set to take a walk through of the Barbie Dream Home Saturday at 10:00. I have a pretty good feeling about this... *rubs lucky rabbit foot just in case*

I bought the latest volumes of Naruto (at Wal-Mart of all places) and read them over the weekend. Only one thing kind of bothers me. When Asuma is killed by Hidan, Shikamaru and the rest of his team are all set to track him and his associate down to avenge their Master's death. Fine. However, one thing the editor of the English versions seemed to edit was the fact that Shikamaru had taken up smoking to, I dunno, honor his fallen Master. Now, I'm not one to endorse smoking. I know when I discovered my cousin started up with it, I was bitterly disappointed. But in this particular case, it was a relevant plot point. However, in the English version, they just eliminated the cigarette... not the hand motions associated with smoking a cigarette. So, basically, Shika was smoking invisible cigarettes. It's something that is definitely noticeable. He makes hand motions in one chapter where he's stubbing out a cigarette and pocketing the butt. In the original version of the chapter (which I pulled up to compare), it definitely makes it clear that's what he's doing. Viz's version? It just looks like he's making strange hand gestures near the ground and then clenching his fists. In another chapter, it looks like he's lighting mid air.

Now, I can kind of understand why Viz would be a little squeamish about portraying a 15-year-old smoking especially considering their demographic for this particular title, but I think it could've maybe been handled in a different way. Now, whether or not Shikamaru continues with the smoking habit in subsequent chapters, I don't know. I haven't read far enough ahead as of yet. And I can't believe I typed this much about this thing...

Anyway, enough about that. Most of my weekend was uneventful. I didn't even bother getting out of my pajamas on Saturday.

Birthdays Today: Mia Farrow [Maria de Lourdes Villers]
Actress
b: 1945 -

I'm getting kind of sick and tired of always getting fucked over!!! That's right! I'm goin' there! This incident happened with a bank and our apartment's leasing office.

We had sent our rent check in at the beginning of the month, like always. We discovered a few days ago, however that we were short and the bank sent the check back. Guess how much we were short by? Go ahead. Guess. Forty-five cents. Yes, that's right. FOURTY. FIVE.CENTS. $0.45. Zero point four five cents. Now beforehand, they'd still send the check though, even if we were off by more than that. Not this time!! And then, to make matters worse, our leasing office charged us $140 for a returned check fee. Now we have to pay $1012.50.


*HEADDESK*

That's it. I'm looking for another place to live. I saw just today, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath HOUSE for $750! That's over a hundred dollars less than what we're paying now for a cramped 2 bedroom one bath apartment. Our lease is up in May and we have to give them a 60 day notice, so we have at least until February/March to find something else. With the housing market the way it is, it shouldn't be too hard. I highly doubt things will change within the next few months.


*STABBITY*

For some reason my bumper seems to attract other bumpers.

I went to the store today to pick up a few things for dinner tonight. When I was getting ready to pull out, I noticed the car behind me had their lights on like they were about to pull out. So I waited. It didn't move, so I thought it was OK for me to pull out. I was halfway out when I noticed the car behind me had started to pull out, so I went to change into drive so I could pull forward and let them by, but I wasn't quite fast enough and he smushed into me. Fantastic.

I pull back into the space, praying to God that this guy wasn't litigious. He got out and examined his bumper. He walked toward my door and I opened it. He said, "My bumper looks fine, but you have a little bit of paint off of yours." I get out and look at my bumper. True, there was a bit of paint scraped off, but otherwise it was intact. I said, "It's doesn't look too bad, so it's no big deal to me." He said it was fine with him and we both return to our respective cars. I wait for him to leave, then I leave.

The scrape on my bumper is indeed noticeable, but since it doesn't impede my ability to drive the car, it's no skin off my nose. Besides, I really don't wanna get into a whole tangle of insurance rates and whatnot for a little scratch. I will say this though. Saturn's have some damn good bumpers.

In other news, I bought a copy of Juno. I heard it was good, so I'm willing to give it a try. What?! Rent?! How absurd!!

Today in History: 1970
Deliverance, James Dickey's controversial best-selling novel about a four-man canoe trip through the backwoods of northern Georgia, which turned from a fun-filled vacation into a murderous nightmare, was published. It was later made into a hit film, starring Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ronny Cox, and Ned Beatty.--it also has the most notorious banjo riff in history.