Wednesday, March 02, 2005
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Crossed Wires
It seems as though the whole of the last post was pretty pointless. I wasn't given the opportunity to say "yes" to the ABA therapy largely because my liaison didn't ask me. She just assumed that I wanted to be a therapist. So I was given the job without being given a job offer. It was a strange situation. Especially because she said that all the questions I would have would be answered in training, and that training will be three times a week on MWF. I figured that since I'm free after 11am on MWF and training is paid, I wouldn't mind getting training and then waiting to decide then. The only problem is that when she emailed me my schedule, she had me on TuTh as well, at times that I thought she had understood I was unavailable for. I mean I was watching her as she took down my availability. Perhaps she was just doodling, but that would just really be stupid, don't you think?
Not only that, I told her that I worked on the weekends and that it was lucrative and therefore would only be available on the weekdays. All staff meetings and major training sessions take place on the weekends. She doesn't tell me this, she just sends me emails with the dates of events expecting me to attend. I mean when I went to meet her last Wednesday, she was expecting me for a four hour session that Sunday. Not only was it extremely short notice, I think Sunday nights are something that you have to have a really good excuse for making people commit to something for.
All this aside, when I met Nicholas (it was a boy, not a girl) I almost fell in love. He's 6 years old, full of energy and, while I was there, in a very good mood. He took well to me too. Which is why I made the decision not to be his therapist. Children who have autism have something called an insistence on similarity. In other words, if something in their routine changes they really do not like it. So if I keep getting scheduled for times which I have to miss or push back, if I keep having to miss team meetings (this kid has a team of 12 therapists) it's really not going to be fair to Nicholas. I just told Kathleen (my liaison) that I wasn't going to commit to this. I mean I didn't really apologize to her because I feel that I should have been given the chance to accept the position in the first place. I hope that there's someone awesome who takes the place I was supposed to because Nicholas is a great kid.
On a completely different note, Jim and I are both sick with the same thing. It's very strange, because it's like the flu with no runny nose and no fever. Just achy head, achy body. Jim's been missing work and I've been missing some classes. I still attend the important ones, but it's not easy, that's for sure. Jim seems to have gotten worse today. I'm about the same, but I think I might be getting better. For me it's always alright when I just wake up, but gets worse throughout the day. I wonder which one of us brought it home first.
The only good thing to come out of this bout of achy-achy is that I have time to blog. It's been such a whirlwind of work right now, not to mention two mid-terms and a major assignment due next week, a semi-important assignment due tomorrow and a missed 2% assignment. I'm currently debating whether or not to try and get a doctor's note to allow me to make up that missed assignment. The reason I'm thinking it doesn't matter all that much is because (a) I got 93.3% on the mid-term and 4 out of 5 for the 10% assignment and (b) believe it or not, the GP mear my home
charges $10 for writing notes. I'm not sure they're allowed to do that, but no one has stepped up to stop them yet. It's rather ridiculous really. The question now is: is 2% in a course that I'm pretty sure I'm going to do well in anyway worth $10?
Which is an interesting question, acutally. I had a take-home mid-term due on Monday. The only problem was that I had no idea what the last question was asking for. I didn't understand the question and to the extent I understood it I couldn't answer it. So I decided to tell Kai (my lab partner from Carden's class, who is also in this class) that I would take him out for dinner anywhere he wants if he just gave me the frigging answer. I figure that it's going to run me $50 maximally. $50 for 20%. Then there are all the moral issues. Was I cheating? Was I copying from someone? Was I taking advantage of someone's desire for a nice sushi dinner? I figure if Kai doesn't mind, I don't mind. He thought I was joking about the dinner when I asked him for help anyway, which means that he would have done it for free.
Now if I can just find other people who will let me copy their mid-terms. Reliable people, that is.
posted by Joie! at
8:40 a.m.
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