The current poll made me think. I am lucky enough to have met what may be our youngest and our oldest active noders. Borgette is now 12. vwriter is now 91. Neither hides their age. Oh, and lucky me, both have given me copies of their self published books.

Goodnight.

A realization

I go to a Christian school. One would think that they would teach us stuff about being Christan. Chapels are meant to be about God, right? Not about 'being a woman' with nothing about Him put in there. This is one of my more passionate subjects: the school that does not teach its religion.

So, there I was, leaning about how to be myself despite 15 years of experience and previous beliefs that I should "never let someone else tell you how to be yourself". That's quoted from the same teacher who spoke to us on how to be women. They give us the stereotypical woman from the world's point of view, add a few words - "Oh, yeah, and God loves you, too" - and they call it and important "Christian" message.

It's all about be yourself, do things for yourself, you should be happy as a woman. It's a feminists' view on how we should live. There was a phrase we were told: "Be happy being alone" or some crap like that to make us feel okay if we didn't have a boyfriend. As a Christians, we should never be alone. We should have God by our side, at all times.

As a Christian, it shouldn't be about what we want, it should be about what God wants.

I just finished reading a Cleo magazine, which is a female teen's magazine telling us how fat we are, what the celebrities are wearing and why we should be doing that, and I have realized something. Our world is way too wrapped up in 'self'. We need to look right, talk right, eat right, dress right, and we don't want to be told how bad we are when we do so. We are selfish, ignorant, arrogant, foolish idiots who care nothing for anyone else.

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Day Seven

Strattera, Day Eight:

Yesterday was pretty good as far as side effects go. I think I have to take this stuff after dinner rather than before. I started taking Prilosec, too. It hasn't helped a whole lot yet but that stuff can take a while to start taking full effect. I had some heartburn but it was like the days before yesterday - not that big of a deal.

As far as what the medicine is supposed to do, it's still difficult to say for sure it's making a significant impact. The things I notice are still quite subtle. Like I seem to be remembering things better, but then before Strattera I'd go through times where my memory wasn't that bad. I think my mind might be a little less distracted at work than it usually was. Like when I'm listening to my MP3's, sometimes the song would remind me of something (for instance a movie or television show the song had been featured in) and send me into a daydream. That doesn't seem to be happening much anymore.

I am having non-ADD, Stattera related problems, though. I have to fly out to Phoenix this weekend with my Grandma (plans and tickets still aren't solidified). My sister needs some help. I will say no more, though, because I think she reads my E2 stuff sometimes.

This writeup is not a cry for sympathy. I have no illusions of being a personality here. However, taking into consideration the many ATC writeups I have subjected E2 to - how it began, ramblings about how some of it works and how I've progressed - I feel I would be remiss in not offering what is an afterword of sorts.

I got fired as a trainee air traffic controller today.

I was training as an Area (en-route) controller. In June, almost at the end of the course, I failed an oral assessment. A week later, I failed the resit. Training suspended. Today at about 15:00, after almost two months of waiting, a 2hr training review (a sort of panel interview with two managers) concluded with the termination of my ATC training.

According to the written rationale I later received, I failed to demonstrate an appreciation of the requirement to think outside the box.

This verdict was based - somewhat incongruously, I feel - on my practical work, which I thought was progressing reasonably well. Furthermore, the oral assessment was about two weeks before the practical assessments, so I didn't get chance to demonstrate one way or the other that I was up to the job before being suspended. Having to defend my practical work after failing a theory assessment never sat very well with me, but them's the breaks.

Aside from the tremendous loss (the job's your life), I'm currently wondering what would be occupying all of the space in my brain that's crammed full of now-redundant information, if I hadn't taken the job. *shrug* There may be a little MATS barbecue in the offing.

Yes, I'm upset. Probably bitter. Not defeated, I hope. One has to get on, after all.

...

I was always good at regurgitating theory. Not quite as good at putting it into practice.

What next? Your guess is as good as mine.

Still, I'll never forget the feeling of controlling seventeen aircraft at once and knowing exactly what I was doing. I know it wasn't real, but I've never known anything like it. I hope I might know it again eventually.