Etnies "RSS" in pink

Running temporarily low on plebefic headers.

Also, Ricky Martin came out.

That was harrowing.

Oh my Gaga, my DAY! Today I have spent over 2 hours on buses, gotten a ride from one of my coursemates (a shy woman my mom's age with Parkinson's), had my feet frozen, jumped into a snowdrift and listened to a delusional SI therapist passionately argue that children should not be allowed to learn to read too early because then they might find out about "bad things" in the world (such as current events), and they should be shielded from that well past the age of four. o_O (Her tone when she said "He's FOUR and he's TEACHING HIMSELF TO READ!!!" was pricelessly shocked, and she even made the kind of face you'd expect from a comedian on, say, a sketch show. Which was where her whole rant belonged anyway.)

What the fuck actually happened to me today, fuck

1. Last week I skipped my class (certification course to become a class assistant for special education children, for those new to this journal) due to a high probability of being forced to hold hands in a circle and play "Bounce the Balloon" or "We're a Caterpillar Together" again, and a high contingent probability that in that case I would murder the lecturer.



2. Therefore I didn't get reminded with everyone else that this week's class was meant to be a field trip to a local rehab/therapy center in town, and not a regular lecture in Pargas.



3. I took the 50-minute bus ride to the school. The teacher tried to call around for someone to drive me but they had all already left, so I took the next bus back (½ hour) to town, bringing my total bus fare for the day up to €10,80.



4. The last classmate to leave offered to grab me from the bus stop where it intersected her path. Cue Talking to a Near-Stranger on the Phone for 1st Time anxiety! She did probably save me 10 minutes' walk though.



5. We didn't get the usual break at 7ish, and my thermos of peach-mango tea was wasted. Also, I was starving. The lecturer, who was quite knowledgable about ergotherapy, speech therapy, and SI therapy, was mostly interesting, but she ruined my whole night (and destroyed my faith in humanity a little) by opining that children shouldn't get to learn to read early in case they might read about Bad Things, and she didn't know what his daycare and parents were thinking with this autistic boy who was teaching himself at the apparently shocking age of 4 (I learned at 5 in kindergarten and my parents seemed to think this was rather late...?), and then she related a "humorous anecdote" about how she told his parents to for Gaga's sake take all the newspapers and books out of their house to prevent him from reading it and thereby sullying his innocent mind (by learning about the existence of war, terrorism, racism, etc). She then concluded that in general children need to be protected from knowledge of current events because "they shouldn't have to worry about that". I was gobsmacked into silence but attempted to show my reaction with this face:
   



6. Nobody was going my direction and I was way on the other side of town, at least 20 minutes from home. I grabbed the 1st bus going downtown, bringing my total bus fare for the day up to €13,40, but it wasn't going my way so I dismounted in the market square, where I learned that the bus that drives by my apartment had left just 8 minutes prior and wasn't due back for an hour.



7. I went into the store, figuring I'd buy salt and vinegar potato chips since I was there, but I'd forgotten they stopped carrying them. :(



8. And then I had to take the airport bus instead of the one that goes to my door, which meant I still had to walk about 5 blocks. I know, I know, it's actually quite short and in better weather would be nothing, but by then my feet were like blocks of ice because I wore sneakers instead of my Docs for the first time today, since it's been warming up and the sidewalk ice has melted.