Category: Family matters

2010 International Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous…

Johnnyboy

As former GSR of my AA homegroup I am still on the mailing list.  This means that I have received the applications for the 2010 International Convention being held in San Antonio, Texas next July.  I am going, and have only to mail my registration and book my room.  I’ll do that today.

I brought the applications to the meeting last night and made the announcement, held up the flyers, etc…Then I saw that the registration applications went into the chairperson’s notebook, which means they will never be seen again.  This makes me sick, and opens my eyes again to the apathy that surrounds me in this program.  This group is full of people with long-term sobriety who do nothing outside of coming to one meeting a week (maybe two) and leaving it at that.  How sad.  They have lost the gift of desperation and in doing so dampen the exciting fire of sobriety that I felt when I came into the rooms, and still feel at certain meetings.  They no little or nothing of the 12 Traditions (which are not suggestions, like the Steps), and to top it off, I found out last week at a business meeting that the current treasurer (15 years sober) had no idea what a prudent reserve was.  Once again, puking time is upon me.

In any case, their sobriety is not my own, and they can do what they want, but they give the impression that it is OK to just go to meetings and so forth.  They take it all for granted.  Blah, blah, blah…listen to me go.

Good news is all around me…Mom is doing much better (reading, with it, etc…) and the world still spins on its wobbly axis despite my disappointment with a bunch of whinging old ladies.  I am going to finish my thesis and photo class by the end of next week and move along in life.  This, I declare, is my goal today.

Johnnyboy

Mom is better but school is becoming a drag…

Johnnyboy

My mother has come back to ground after 5 weeks of wandering in her mind.  It can be frightening for her, and dismaying as she is sometimes aware of what is going on. The past week, however, has seen a smoothing out of the rough edges.  Most of the time she knows where she is and, thankfully, she has not forgotten who I am or her other family members.  Her condition is called ‘sundowning’ and it causes her to become disoriented in the early morning after waking and beginning around 4:30PM until about 7:30PM.  I think much of it actually has to do with light and stimulation to her eyes.  Her attitude towards this can be upsetting for her, but she seems to be taking it in stride.  In short, she knows that she is safe and loved and at home.  What a relief.

In my academic life I am up against another bureaucratic wall.  I am currently finishing my history thesis and working in a darkroom for an independent study–this you all know.  After this summer is through, I will have only 20 credits left to fulfill, all of which are electives.  I have submitted the changes to my degree plan.  One of the changes is a possible 12-credit semester in Greece next spring at The Aegean Center for the Arts on the island of Paros.  I have visited the school already and met the director, John Pack.  I would be taking Digital Photography, Figure Drawing, and The History of Photography.  That would leave only 8 credits left before graduating.  The ACotA has a credit exchange program with a huge list of colleges and universities here in the US and abroad, including several from  the same state institution I attend.  It is also accredited with the Association of American Colleges and Universities.  This seems like a no-brain-er and  it would be except for a woman named Milly Dean (not her real name). She is on the academic assessment board at my school and probably one of the reasons I had such hard time last year with my Prior Learning Assessment for culinary arts.  She says that since the Arts Center is not “regionally accredited”,  Empire State College cannot transfer the credits.  She has also denied any of the changes I have made on my degree plan.  I have finished my major; the only credits left are electives, which I am taking in the arts and photography in preparation for trying to get an MA or an MFA.

My mentor is working on this for me and I will go above Ms. Dean’s head if I need to. The worst case scenario is that I transfer all my credits to SUNY Purchase and finish my BA there.  I have been told that there are two reasons Milly Dean has it in for me (and others as well).  The first is that a creative strategy for learning does not fit into her neat little unimaginative box.  The second is that ESC receives no money if I go to Greece.  It comes down to the fact that Milly Dean and others like her have no imagination and, maybe, but only maybe, are even jealous of those who do.

It is sad to see that the world of education has been co-opted by the bean-counting idiots who sit on their fat asses and eat chocolate all day.  This is true.  I’ve seen it. They have fat asses and they eat chocolate all day.  The counting of beans is an idiomatic statement.