May 2008 Archives

Of all of the
countries of the world, Italy is by far my favorite for various
reasons. I have always been really interested in the country, the
language, and the culture.  I have taken about six years worth
of school Italian
and have been there once for a field trip in high school. My plan now
is to graduate next  May and move in to one of the apartments
in Umbria that I have been looking at.  Of all of
the specific regions of Italy, if I had to choose just one to live in
it would be Umbria.  I am not much of a beach person so that
goes to chow why I chose one of the few landlocked states on the
peninsula.  I am also not much for large cities either so I
would like to work in Rome but live in some Umbria
villas.  The population of the whole region is
relatively small in comparison to the quite large sprawl of Rome and
other areas where tourists tend to go.  I have been
researching various jobs in the food industry within the city of Assisi
and speaking to a company called apartments
Umbria.  Through these two channels I have been
getting a pretty clear picture of what I will probably be doing this
time next year.  It is becoming more my dream now to work for
a while as a chef and then go one to buy and sell luxury
Umbria villas to make enough money to start my own
restaurant.  I know that it seems pretty bold for an American
to think that Italians would be interested in buying a blend of
Italian, Thai, and American foods, but I feel quite confident that I
blend my recipes in a way that is sure to please any Italian socialite
with a taste only for local dishes.  It will be quite an
exciting experience to walk out and pick from the olive branches or to
help make specialty olive oil.  I don't do much work with
grapes here in the states for various reasons, but when I move to
Umbria it will be my next addition to my palette of flavors to choose
from.  

The world is getting to be a very
strange place.  These
days it feels like you can trust no
one.  It seems that
every time you turn
on the television that someone is being killed or robbed.  People will break into
your home and steal
not only your stuff, but also your kids. 
I really think that living in this society more and more
people must be
purchasing home
alarm systems.  I
know
that we recently installed one of these home
security systems, and it has made
all of us feel safer and more secure in our own home. 

It is a really good feeling to know that no
matter where you are in your home, if someone enters that alarm will
sound and
everyone will know they are there.

I have noticed that since installing this system, I even use
it when I am home alone during the day. 
It makes me feel more peaceful. 
I
notice also, that leaving the kids home alone when I go out, I am less
worried
and so are they.  It
is a good feeling to
know that if someone comes near my house or my kids while I am away,
that the
authorities will be notified right away. 
I also know that they must stay in the house, and that
they can’t let
any of their friends in when I am not home, or the alarm will sound.  They don’t have
the code, so they can’t shut
the system down.  This
is a big plus to
me. 

Another benefit, which I did not originally anticipate is
that my children sleep more soundly. 
Before installing this system, every night, at least one
or two of my
kids would come and hop in bed with my husband and myself.  Now, since we have
installed the security
system, they stay in their own beds and are less afraid at
night to go to
sleep.  This is
truly a god send, since
now we all get a better night sleep.

In this ever changing world, it just makes sense to get a
home security system and provide yourself and your family with the
peace of
mind they deserve.  It
is not a very
expensive thing to do, and the comfort it will provide you and your
family is
priceless.  It is
also really great when
you have elderly people living with you; you know that they
can’t wander off if
the alarm is set, just another bonus of owning one of these home
security
systems.  Look into
it today, and you
will be glad you did. 

drug
treatment
was never a smooth one and for most people suffering from substance
abuse,
full-recovery entails a huge amount of effort – both physical
and mental. While
rehab facilities these days are more apt to offer more innovative
approaches to
addiction treatment, the possibility of a relapse is still looming over
an
individual’s head after undergoing rehab. There really is no
established cure
for this affliction that will work for all types of cases. What you
have are
options that you can choose to explore to find out which one would work
best
for your loved one.

Individualized treatment

Typical drug treatment programs are tailored to suit the varied needs of individuals suffering from substance abuse. A good rehab facility should understand that each patient has a different set of needs and can only recover in a particular condition. Before getting admitted into a facility, the patient usually undergoes interviews and examinations that will help the administrators identify the right treatment program that will suit his case.

In-patient treatment

Drug addiction almost always traces its roots to psychosocial drivers. An individual resorts to substance abuse either to compensate for a lack in his life, to address ongoing social problems or to escape reality. Many experts believe that one should be removed from the people and instances that are driving him towards drug use in order to fully recover. This is why in-patient drug treatment has become one of the most popular programs being administered today. This program gives the patient an opportunity to isolate himself from stressful situations, gain peace of mind and see his life from another perspective that is not influenced by the problems around him.

Extended support

Help and drug treatment doesn’t stop after the individual leaves the rehab center. For the most part, those who were enrolled in in-patient care need assistance in rejoining society. Most of the programs offered within the center, particularly those at the latter part of the treatment, are geared towards teaching patients to build social ties that are not dependent on drugs or any psychoactive substance for that matter. After the individual leaves the facility, he will still need the help of a support group to make sure that he stays sober.

My friends and I have
devised a pretty interesting, new way of staying in touch over the
summer.  We are all big fans of video and computer games. 
I am usually the last on in the pack to find out about any games though
so I am always at sort of a disadvantage because I am so busy during
the semester.  The honors college gives you very little free
time to be yourself while trying to be a great student. 
During the year I pick up everything when they have already beaten the
game and don't ever want to play it again. Now that we are right in the
middle of summer and I am not going anywhere but everyone else has, the
amount of activities left here has dropped to next to
nothing.  Before everyone left we all really got in to a few
particular multiplayer games

which can be played over a network.  The week before everyone
was leaving we all set up a network that is totally exclusive to the
six of us.  Now at almost any hour of the day one or more of
us is on and for the first time I am really part of this whole video
game thing as it is developing.  Once a week we all get on and
just go crazy for a few hours.  Our team scores are being
registered on the network so that we can see who wins at the end of the
summer. With only about two weeks in to the summer I am already vastly
behind everyone else.  I love video games and playing over the
internet is really cool, but I am just not cut out for any kind of
game.  I am the only one who had to stay behind because i have
one class this summer. As of now that and grocery shopping are the only
two things that really get me out of my apartment.  I don't
know what I would do if I didn't have these guys there to play
with.  I might have spent the whole summer outside or
swimming.  I know it sounds crazy to me too. 

I just got back from
my semester abroad in Korea.  My studies for the year went
very well and the culture was simply amazing. I have always wanted to
go to Korea and this experience proved that it was all I had hoped it
would be and more.  I was studying international politics
while I was there it it was very interesting to see such a stark
contrast in their form of government and their every day politics from
what we are used to here. While I wasn't studying I was trying to
experience the culture as much as possible.  After about two
weeks of being the for the semester I began to look around for a some
type of movement arts. Here I got to Iyengar yoga classes almost every
single day so I am very used to this style.  Knowing that
Korea may not be as fluidly integrated with Indian forms as the US
seems to be these days, I had hoped I would find something a little bit
more Korean in origin, and I found what I was looking for.  I
stumbled in to a Dahn Yoga studio in Seoul one day and everyone there
greeted me very warmly.  I didn't quite know what I was
getting in to since I had never before even heard of this style of
Yoga.  The classes began in a similar way to class I have done
before, but then it went full tilt in to a blend of Tai Chi and Qigong,
from what I understand. I have taken classes in both of these styles
and though they are quite similar, when you have practiced both you can
see and feel the differences quite quickly.  As the class
progressed I could feel their individual contributions coming out
inside me and changing my energy patterns.  This experience
made me want to come back the next day and the next.  I went
back to that same studio almost every single day I was there for the
rest of the semester. Though I am back in to my local classes again, I
am seriously considering doing one of the American Dahn Yoga
retreats or workshops.  

A friend of mine referred me to a chiropractor for my back
pain.  I was a
little skeptical, but this
was a well trusted friend so I decided to go. 
Before entering the office, I did some research myself on Bethesda
Chiropractors, and contacted the better business bureau prior
to going into the
office.

I had already learned a little bit about chiropractic from another friend who was referred to one as an alternative to back surgery.  She was really messed up after a car accident, and the doctors had her in physical therapy for months and when that didn’t help, they told her that her only alternative was fusing 4 vertebra in her low back and 2 in her neck.  She was scared of this kind of surgery and rightly so since even the doctors who were performing the surgery said that she would only have a 50% success rate that this would take care of her pain, and they said that since she was a smoker, the success rate would actually be half of that.  Needless to say she was at the point of doing absolutely anything to get rid of this pain without surgery.  She found a chiropractor that did the Lordex Low Spine Technique.  This multi phased technique worked quickly to restore her to normal function and a pain free existence.  She was a definite success story.

This friend wanted me to go to her chiropractor and he practices the Cox technic.  I had never heard of this before, but my friend said that her chiropractor was awesome and that she was really thrilled with the results she was getting from this technique, so I gave it a try.

Well, I was honestly very impressed with the level of
professionalism that this doctor showed me. 
He was very thorough and has involved me in every step of
my own healing
process.  He has
taught me things about
healing and health that I had no idea about. 
And I consider myself to be a very well educated person.  I am amazed that after so
many years in the
medical model, I was so easily able to transition to a more holistic
approach
to healing.  I have
learned that my body
can heal itself, with the proper assistance and resources, that it is
an
autonomous system.  I
have learned how
what I eat affects who I am and how much physical and spiritual healing
I can
attain.  Above all
else, I have learned
the incredible forces of nature that flow through all of us. 

Oh my word! It's all over the news in today's world --- surveillance cameras
are everywhere. There is serious surveillance security
in every bank, security
cameras in the grocery stores and shopping malls and just
your basic security
systems in place almost everywhere we go these days.
Surveillance security is all about what is happening to all of us these
days. I personally am fine with the fact that I can just be parked
behind my local McDonald's smoking a cigarette after my Happy Meal and
there are security cameras

in place that can see me, that can see the size of my body if I get out
of the car (wide angle lenses only), that can also see my car, the
color of clothes I am wearing, and the time of day or night and the day
of the week that I was there. I am just fine with that but many people
think it is a breach of our privacy. If I could afford it and if it
were available to me, I'd have a surveillance camera on my house and
something on my car, like a surveillance security system of some kind
because I am not the kind of person that is out there trying to do some
wrongdoing of some kind. And if there is someone else out there that is
up to no darn good, I'd love to be able to have some kind of security
system in place that could help the police identify them and catch them
and punish them. I don't care if I'm in the party district of my town
and there are just surveillance cameras watching people walking up and
down the street. Some people have a hard time with that concept ---
like here we are with Big Brother watching us. Well, if I pick my nose
or scratch my butt on camera, I just really don't give a damn. But if I
am in the party district of my town and there are pick-pockets or
people dealing drugs or knocking people on the head and robbing them or
shoving them into some dark scary place and raping them, then I TOTALLY
want those people to be seen and possibly caught and you know, badly
punished. And if I am the victim, let me figure out the punishment for
the perpetrator based on the degree of the crime. I can guarantee you
my punishment would be a great deal more severe than they would get if
they got to the stage where they are going before a judge or a jury.

Last weekend was
mother's day and I celebrated it right.  I got all of the
special ladies in my life something special and they all seemed
satisfied with my show of appreciation.  I began by making
sure that every one of them had a flower delivery
in their schedule.  Then I began with my partner by making her
breakfast in bed.  Then we went to visit my mother across town
and she had already gotten her flower
delivery.  I also got her a couple of books that I know she
has been talking about lately and then we went to lunch
together.  We talked with the kids about how much we all
appreciate the sacrifices our mothers go through to make sure that we
all have what we need. The lunch went really well and I could tell that
both the women were very happy with their days so far.  I
footed the bill of course and they were a little shocked since I am
usually a bit of a stickler when it comes to spending money. 
I told them that on this day I feel that money is of no concern since I
am celebrating those who sacrifice much more for me and the rest of the
family.  Then after lunch my partner, our kids, and I all went
to see my grandmother on my father's side. She had also already gotten
her flower delivery and was very happy to see us.  We hung
around her house for the rest of the day and let the kids run around
and play.  My partner helped her make dinner and they were
very happy to make dinner with each other for the first time. 
They had met many times before that since we started dating our
freshman year but this was the first time they had really gotten to
hang out alone together and talk.  I guess they have a lot
more in common than I would have ever imagined. So after all was said
and  done I think that this was a very great 
mother's day and that I showed the women in my life how much I
appreciated them for their hard work and love.  

My parents are
getting older these days and it's hard to say his but they are actually
looking for a retirement home. Not a nursing home mind you
but  luxury
italy villas.  That's right, they have both finished
their work as Education professors at college back home, and now they
are ready to move some place where they can relax and do exactly what
they have always wanted to do .  It has been their dream of
living in Italy for a long time and they have finally gotten to a point
where they can realize this dream and get out there.  I am
supporting them all the way and I have actually been helping them to
research places to live lately.  They have been looking mostly
at luxury
Tuscany villas and luxury
Sicily villas.  I am more of a great beach person
and I have been looking up luxury
Sardinia villas for them.  I think that they should
move there so that when I want to visit I will be right where I want to
go.  Plus if they want to go to the mainland there are ferries
almost every day of the year.  Some people commute that trip
every day to work in Rome. 

I don't see the problem, but they want to live in the
mainland.  I think that if they do that that they should live
up north so that when I finish with school I can set up a wine selling
business by picking up wine in their area and bringing it back top the
states.  I am a huge wine buff and just think that they should
consider me once again in their decision. I don't have much of an
attachment to the area around Sicily so I don't mind those villas
much.  I just think that they should consider the wine area
also so that they could make a little extra income on the
side.  They could even open a cafe if they wanted to I mean
they never have too many cafes in Italy.  No matter what they
I think that they are going to have great time because they are living
their dream right now and I really respect my parents for making that
decision.  

In the wake of all of the natural disasters of the past few weeks and
months, my church
has decided to set up some missionary flights
for the college aged kids to go and help out where we can.  I
have been put in charge of getting all of the airfares

set up for the various trip.  I think I have been really
blessed to find all of the great missionary travel
web sites and organizations.  These people have been so nice
to me.  They understood right from the beginning what we are
trying to do and they have tried their best to get our mission travel
plans in order.  Since we are all trying to go in the same
general period of time this summer they have been hooking us up with
very cheap church
airfares and for those of us who can't help out because of
physical problems they have offered us lots of religious tours

packages in the holy lands and various religiously significant spots
across the globe.  I am so glad that there has been such a big
push within our church to go out and help these people because it has
been an almost non stop stream of bad news from the rest of the
world.  There have been some more recent disasters here within
our own country and those areas have been swarmed by our brothers who
are also lending their hands to those in need.  I am going to
help out with a cyclone disaster from a few weeks ago and I want to try
to help people with setting up a community farming effort.  I
feel that when situations like this happen the best thing for everyone
is to start where they need it most, at a food source.  With
the experience I have gained from the horticulture program here, I feel
that I can quite effectively lead such an effort in whatever setting we
come in to.  Whatever happens though I know that all of us are
going to have an amazing time and we are all going to help a lot of
people pull their lives back together.  I think that three
months helping out will be enough of a start for me to feel happy with
our efforts.

There are a lot of way to get home loans
out there. Some
people think they aren't able to buy a home because of their credit.
There are
FHA and Fannie Mae loans available for people who meet the criteria.
Also HUD
and government foreclosures are a good place to start looking.  I would recommend making
sure you get a fixed
rate on your home loan rather than a variable rate. 
You will be glad in the long run. A lot of
folks take what they can get at the moment, thinking they will just
refinance
later on. But the rates usually just get higher, and those dreams are
shot
down. There are many choices between home loans as well as lenders. You
can
probably get a better rate with a well known company, the smaller
lender like
to charge a lot of origination fees and points. They don’t
always tell you all
the information you need to know. For the first few years of
homeownership, I never
knew you can claim your points on your taxes! Homeownership
is definitely
something all citizens should have the opportunity of. Paying rent is
ridiculous, like throwing money down the drain. You have nothing to
show for
it. I think owning and home gives people a sense of pride in their
home, and
ownership of it. After a couple years of owning your home, you can
usually take
an equity line out, which can help out a lot if you have renovations or
upgrades you want to make on your house. You can use the money for
whatever you
want, even pay off some debt. But remember that you will be making the
payments
for at least 10 years. I would recommend the smallest term on your
equity line,
and again, no early payoff penalty. It is probably a good idea to do
some
research online, or contact a government office to get factual
information, not
biased info.

I know it seems like
a bad time to come to town, but my parents arrived this morning and now
I have to suffer through both finals week and the interesting
explanations as to what in god's name are all of the students on campus
wearing.  Even with four more finals and a choice about auto insurance
to make by thursday, I still have to suffer through the terror that is
a campus visit from my parents.  I know it sounds weird but I
have actually taken refuge within my stack of auto insurance quotes
and class notes I still have to study before the finals. I am pretty
sure I just said that I enjoy looking up car insurance
prices rather than escorting my parents around what to them must look
like an alien planet complete with underground slugs and man eating
birds.  This is the first time since our tour of campus that
they have come here with me.  That means they have not seen
anything I have done or where I have been living for almost two years
now.  I was actually enjoying what we had before. 
You know they pay the bills I make a little cash and get the good
grades, and I only drop by for holidays and when I overspend my
limit.  It was a good system and now they have killed it right
here, today.  I mean I really love my parents but an
unexpected visit is much better when you know it's coming. 
They could have chosen any other week and it would have been worlds
different than it is now.  Just take the busiest schedule you
have ever had and throw in two people who follow you around like golden
retrievers looking for food scraps.  Add some extremely
awkward conversations when we run in to friends around campus, and you
just about have my general mood for the week.  Sounds great,
huh? Well I hope that everyone else out there is having a much better
week than I am. Enjoy your peaceful studying and every time you want to
take a brake think about me and I am sure you will jump back on those
books like a dog to a bone.  

Not
so long ago, I have been
invited to participate in a conference dealing with the drug rehabilitation
programs and detoxification. The conference is supposed to
take
place in June, in a nice hotel in downtown. I have obviously agreed to
participate, since I try to never miss a chance to participate in an
event like
that, but then I started thinking about what really made me participate
in it.
My history with studying addiction has been long. I started doing peer
psychological counseling even while still in High School, under the
supervision
of a wonderful lady who taught us (meaning me and other fellow
students) how to
approach students in need, how to elicit what their main concerns are,
and how
to address those. One of the biggest problems in a teenage population
was,
apparently, addiction, at that time. I learned what addiction is about,
what
factors might contribute to its development, how to approach patients
with
addictions, how to help them better, and so on and so forth. I learned
about
the options that were available for people that suffered from various
kinds of
addiction, including cigarettes, alcohol,
recreational drugs, etc. I also
learned that addiction recovery is a very powerful phenomenon that
health care
professionals really need to push forward. Addiction recovery can
be
very difficult to achieve, but once, thanks to the efforts of health
care
professionals, families, and individuals themselves, a lot of
individuals
suffering from addiction get rehabilitated and go on to develop healthy
lives
and healthy relationships. Detoxification
is generally a long-term
program, in which individuals have to follow a certain regimen,
participate in
individual and group activities, and learn to control the functions of
their
bodies. The program allows individuals who suffer from various
addictions to
“come to their senses”, realize that their
addictions are hurting not only the
aspects of their lives that they are aware of, but much more, including
their
future, and so on. The program also includes medical assistance, in the
form of
certain drugs and therapy. Overall, from my experience in High School,
I have
learned (which is probably the biggest thing that I carried out of it)
is that
addictions are much easier to prevent than treat, but once the
individual has
the addiction, given the agreement and desire of that individual, the
addiction
is curable, like any other curable disease. However, the treatment does
require
higher levels of compliance from patients, but once the desire is
there, there
is really a lot a patient can do to his/her life and the life of the
family in
terms of getting rid of the addiction.

My boys and I went
out yesterday and bought a brand new dog.  Their mother is out
on a business trip and since classes for me have ended I have been put
full time on boy duty till she gets back.  Of course after a
couple of days we couldn't help but do something crazy.  It
didn't take us long to figure out that this is what our mission for the
week was going to be.  We went to both the animal shelter and
the three pet stores in town to find the perfect dog for us. 
Actually our mission really began as a trip to the first pet store for pet meds. 
We own a hand full of lizards because the boys really love reptiles and
dinosaurs.  So when I had bought the pet meds and went to
round up the boys to go home, they were each in the back room where
they keep all of the big animals.  When I walked in they were
each holding a different dog and looked at me at the same
moment.  I knew right then that we would certainly not make it
till when their mother gets back to do something about this dog craze
that I felt was coming on.  So I asked the boys which dogs
they liked best and then said it was time to go.  Without
discussing it we went to the next place, and then the next. 
At each stop I would ask them which ones they liked the best and then
right down the dog's name.  Finally at the end of the day we
went over the list and I asked them which dog they absolutely like the
best and they chose one of the first two, of course.  We went
back yesterday morning and bought the one they chose.  It's a
little chocolate lab puppy who has just fallen right in to our home and
has not stopped playing with the boys since yesterday.  The
little guy has been eating like crazy too since I think they keep a
very regimented feeding schedule with the dogs at the
shelter.  We are still learning how to train him so we feed
him a bunch right now.  I hope that my wife doesn't mind the
dog living with us right now since I will have class off all summer and
will be able to train the dog while she is at work.  

My husband has been in drug rehab
when he was younger.  He
really feels like the counseling in this
place really helped him to get his act together. 
I myself have never been to drug rehab,
however, I do think that it can be a beneficial process for those
willing to
get help.  You
probably don’t think that
people can change, but I have seen it with my own eyes and I do believe
that
people can heal and change, it just depends mostly on their desire to
do so.

His alcohol and drug abuse began at an early age, he was 13.  First he began drinking alcohol and smoking pot.  His parents basically were ignoring these things, and then when he got a little older he began smoking crack.  It was a pretty sad situation.  Fortunately, he was not one of those people who used it all the time, basically he would binge.  He would go out for 2 or 3 days and then return.  He would spend those few days smoking crack with total strangers, getting high.  Then he would return home and sober up.  This he would do every month or two.  

When I met him, he was not out of the woods yet, only I did not know it.  We were working at the same place, and met, I had a daughter and he had a daughter on the way.  We began seeing each other, and then one day he disappeared.  His parents showed up at my work place, asking me if I had heard from John and said that he stole their car and had disappeared.  Being as naïve as I was, I still did not really understand what was wrong with him.  Upon his return, he told me about his problems and that he really needed to enter drug rehab again for some help.  Well, he did and he came out a new man. 

We moved away together so I could return to school.  This was a big help to get him away from his family situation.  Don’t get me wrong, he did have 2 or 3 relapses along the way, and that really scared me.  Now he has been clean and sober for almost 10 years, it will be 10 years next month, and I am really proud of him and all he has accomplished.  He likes to credit me with his success, but I assure him that it was all him.  Truly no one can help you if you don’t want to be helped.