Very Superstitious....

Day four of " What the reader, wants the reader gets "/300thblog post celebration week. Todays post is courteousy of Kylie at The Rockgarden. She wants to know: Do you have any personal rituals or superstitions?

I had to kind of think long and hard about this one - i dont really have any personal rituals ( like wearing lucky underpants or putting on my left shoe first or whatever ) but i am a little superstitious. But why? Why have i picked up some superstitions but completely dismissed others? I suppose it comes down to how you were raised and who by - if you parents and grandparents tell you a certain superstition, i think you're more likely to stick with it.

For the record, i chose that there picture because i DO NOT  ever walk under ladders. I'm sure this one was passed down to me by my nan. Its bad luck standing under ladders you see ( for what reason, i'm not sure... ) so i dont even risk the wrath of the Universe. We quiet often have workmen come to my workplace needing to get into the roof, and the manhole happens to be right above my work station. Well, as long as they have their ladder open there i find something other than paper work to do, because i refuse to stand or walk under ladders, even for a few seconds.

I also:

1.  Never put shoes on the table

2. Cross my fingers when i'm in need of good luck

3. Fork my fingers when a black cat crosses my path and;

4. I was known to spend a good amount of time searching for four leaf clovers when i was young.

So no - no crazy personal rituals that i can tell you about, but a few odd superstitions here and there. Strangely enough i'm one of those folks that DOESN'T think Friday the 13th is bad luck - in fact, every Friday the 13th i go out and buy a lottery ticket, hoping to catch all thegood vibes floating around out there! So what superstitions do you guys believe in? Why ? And anything in particular that makes you feel lucky or unlucky?

Ooh, and only 2 days left of " What the reader wants, the reader gets! " so get your suggestions in!

Mayday-Mayday

Illegal aliens from Mexico are pouring into our country. It’s the federal government’s responsibility, but the feds don’t really want to stop the invasion. Washington feigns concern and wants to appear to be trying to prevent it - while avoiding measures that would actually stop it, like building a real fence. This has been true for both Democrats in the Obama Administration and Republicans in the Bush Administration, as well as congresses controlled by both parties for twenty-five years. Citizens, meanwhile, are getting angrier by the day. They resent pressing one for English in their own country.Somewhere between twelve and twenty million illegals are here already and tens of thousands sneak in every month, mostly into border states like Arizona. They go on welfare, work under the table, or with a stolen identity. They use hospital emergency rooms when sick or injured and don’t pay. They send children to public schools costing at least $10-15 thousand a year per child. They fill prisons at $45,000 a year per prisoner. Hospitals in border states are going bankrupt. School budgets are at the breaking point. According the Federation for Immigration Reform, California’s illegal aliens cost that state more than $10 billion in 2004. Today, California is nearly bankrupt.Illegal immigrant crime is exploding. A month ago, an Arizona rancher and his dog were shot and killed. The murder seems to have been the final straw leading to the passage of SB 1070, a law allowing making illegal immigration a state crime in Arizona. Demonized by leftists as Nazi-like, the law makes illegal immigration a major issue for the November elections. The left sponsored demonstrations in cities all over the country last Saturday, May 1st. I drove down to the one in Portland, Maine to watch.The Arizona law was definitely the aiming point for the few hundred in attendance. They came in from two directions on Congress Street singing a song in Spanish I couldn’t understand and chanting “Si se puede!” I looked that up and it means: “Yes we can!” or “It is possible!” Along with Hispanics and blacks carrying signs were white people with rainbow flags, SIEU and Obama T-shirts, Palestinian keffiyehs, and lots of tattoos. It was slickly organized by the Maine People’s Alliance, a left-wing group of “community organizers” with offices in Portland, Lewiston, and Bangor. The MPA pushes the usual panoply of government-expanding issues like socialized medicine, special rights for homosexuals, fluorescent light bulbs, amnesty for illegal aliens, and more taxes to pay for it all. It’s affiliated with national “progressive” groups like USAction and has an annual budget of over $800,000 with which it lobbies for the above issues.Portland, Maine demonstration

Mike Tipping, communications director for MPA, gave me a press kit which included endorsements by the Maine Civil Liberties Union. He told me his fiance would have had to wait ten years to get into the country if she were not engaged to him, implying that legal restrictions on immigration aren’t reasonable. “There aren’t enough busses to deport all the immigrants living here,” he said, and “families shouldn’t be broken up.”“Then let’s deport them intact,” I said.

He paused and he stared at me for a second. I had tipped my hand.

“But I don’t think that would be necessary,” I continued. “If we fined their employers and stopped giving them welfare, illegals would leave the same way they came.”

“Don’t you think it’s time for immigration reform?” he asked.

“You mean amnesty,” I said. “President Reagan did that twenty-five years ago, but 12-20 million more illegal aliens have sneaked in here since. No. I don’t think it’s time for amnesty. Arizona is doing what it has to do because the federal government isn’t doing its job.”

After the demonstrators gathered in Congress Square, various speakers railed against SB 1070 as “racial profiling.” However, the Arizona law only requires immigrants stopped for something else to show proof they’re in our country legally. Consider how many times we citizens must show our papers in the course of living our lives: at airports, banks, traffic stops, checkout counters, etc. It’s not racial profiling. Liberal Affirmative Action policies are racial profiling.MPA’s Tipping would seem to allow anyone from anywhere in whatever numbers to sneak the United States and stay - and anyone who objects is accused of racism. Hypocritical Mexican President Felipe Calderone called SB 1070 “racial discrimination,” although Mexico’s own laws against illegal immigrants coming into Mexico from poorer countries to his south are much tougher. US law requires resident aliens to carry registration papers on them at all times, yet President Obama says Arizona’s law would “undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.” Presidential hypocrisy is rampant on both sides of the border.On May 1st four years ago, illegals carried Mexican flags and “Amnesty” signs in similar demonstrations. That indicated where their true loyalties lay but it backfired with Americans who watched it on television. Leftist organizers have since corrected that mistake. All I could see this year in Portland and elsewhere were American flags and “Immigration Reform” signs. Appearances have changed, but their motive hasn’t.

May 1st is Mayday, and Mayday is a warning. We’ll see how it plays out in November.

ADDENDUM:
For those who question immigrant welfare benefits, consider this from the Center For Immigration Studies:

The First Blush Of Love

Welcome back to my " What the reader wants, the reader gets! " week, to celebrate my 300th post milestone. Todays suggestions comes from Jaded Vixen of The Jaded Gym Junkie who wrote:
I'd love to read a post about your first love! They're always interesting stories! x

Aaah..... young love. I'm always interested to hear other people " first love " stories but, to be quite honest, mine isnt really all that special. My first love - if we're talking about that first boy you ever held hands with/kissed behind the toilets/ wrote " Mrs Amy Blah De Blah " on your notebook love - was a boy we shall refer to as K, and i was around 10 years old. We went to school together and it was of those situations where he got someone else to run up to me and say " K wants to be your boyfriend. Wanna go out with him ? " and i say " Yep. OK ". Of course, at 10 years old, " going out " means nothing more than eating your lunch at the same table, lending him your favourite pen, and walking home holding hands. All of which K and i did. We lived close to one another so we hung out on weekends too ( with other kids around ), down at our local playground and riding our bikes. We were friends. But, as happens with almost all first love, it eventually had to come to an end . I cant remember exactly what happened but i'm pretty sure it just came down to boys are still kind of weird and icky when your 10 years old. Eww, boy germs - gross.

As for my first adult love, well.... truth be told, during high school and the first few years of my twenties, i was a chronically shy and socially anxious kind of girl. I only had one boyfriend and a handful of dates here and there. I told one guy that i loved him but, in retrospect, that was completely misguided and i didnt really mean it ( although i thought i did at the time ). So, i'm happy to say, my first, proper, real, adult love is.... Mick.

                         

We met on an internet dating site, our first date lasted for five hours, i went away for the weekend to visit his family after only two weeks.... and now we're engaged and have a gorgeous, smorgeous baby boy. We tell each other " I love you " every day, several times a day, and i can tell you, for my part, that i mean it every single time its said. All thats left now for us is a wedding ceremony ( which could be at the registery office - its the marriage bit that matters to me ) and more bubbas!

Oh, and PS - if you havent already done so, leave me a comment letting me know what you'd like to see me blog about this week!!

Tennessee Flooding

OK, this is very important. Nashville and it's surrounding areas need lots of prayers. There are massive amounts of flooding due to over a foot of rain over the weekend. Several of my friends have had flooding in or around their home and one friend has lost everything. Please remember them in your prayers along with the thousands of other middle Tennesseans who have lost their home due to the flooding.
This hasn't been shown much or ant on National News but it's happening. Please, please, please remember to pray for the all of us here in Middle Tennessee as we go and help our neighbor, or as we go through our own homes that have been damaged.
Luckily weather is nice now and there isn't any rain in the forecast for a few days so people have been able to get out and help. The rivers and creeks are going down so clean up can begin in many places but there are still areas under five to six feet of water.
Through all this I am reminded of a verse in Isaiah chapter 43. The first part of verse two the Lord says, "When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, they will not overwhelm you."
Right now I cling to this promise. God sent this flood. He has a reason for it. He's with us through this and every other situation we go through. He is, was, will be, there for us, always and forever.
Please keep Middle Tennessee in your prayers.

A Labour of Love

So....in yesterdays 300th blog post - which mind you, has been a bit of anti-climax. Where are all my comments? - i asked for post suggestions for this week. Seeing as Brea of Brea's Befuddled Brain is the only ( yet ) to suggest anything, i guess she gets the honour of being todays " contributor ". Brea said:
As a fellow Mummy, I would LOVE to hear about your labour! Was it short, long, emotionally draining...? Did everything go to plan, or did something go wrong? How did Mick cope?

So here's the disclaimer: this post will definately be of the TMI variety. If you are easily offended by birth stories, do not need the mental image of me giving birth scarring you for life or simply do not care to hear about how my son was born STOP READING NOW. Do not read the post, decide you didnt care for it, and then bombard me with abuse in the comments section.

So, that being said - this is not an overly scary birth story. I didnt give birth in my backyard ( shout out to you Lori ) and i wasnt in agonising pain for days on end. Truth be told, i'm lead to believe my labour was on the " good " end of the scale. I'm not saying it was easy - uh, hell no! - but it wasnt as horrible as some other wanna-be-mummas have had to go through. For starters, my son decided that it was going to arrive 15 days before his due date, and contractions started spontaneously. By " spontaneously " i mean a) that i didnt have to be induced and b) they started in the checkout line at Target. Yep - i decided to hit up the post-Christmas sales, December 27th, 11am, and i'm waiting in line to pay for Powderfingers latest album and a set of 3 baby onesies and.... hey, wait, whats that little niggly feeling? Feels like the waistband in my pants has decided to shrink a little, like it wants to squeeze me to death. It wasnt overly painful, just uncomfortable, so Mick and I continued on to my brothers house for a visit.

It wasnt until we left my brothers house that i decided to let Mick in my little secret. I started timing the contractions - 5 minutes apart, lasting 30 seconds - and when we got home i called the hospital. The midwife said that if my water hadnt broken then i probably wasnt in labour, but if a shower didnt ease the pain i could come in. A shower ease the pain ? Uh, nuh. All the shower suceeded in doing was making me lose timing of the contractions and made me extra-squeaky clean. We got to the hospital ( which is literally a 3 minute drive from our house ) just before 1pm and i was 3 cm dialated on examination. I was definately in labour! We were moved into a suite and by this time the uncomfortable sensation was starting to become a little painful. I was still ok but Mick - aww, poor old Mick. He had said the whole way through the pregnancy he didnt want to be in the suite for the birth and i could see why - poor thing was as white as a ghost, and so far all i was doing was walking in circles rubbing my back! He called my mum and waited til she got there, then i sent him away to get himself some lunch, expecting that we would be preoccupied well into the night.

My mum rubbed my back and helped time my contractions, which were getting closer together. I had an " older " midwife come in, maybe in her early 60's and she broke my water - now let me tell you, for those who dont know, that having your waters broken for you is not fun. Its relatively quick, but it hurts. Once the water was broken, the labour stepped up a notch. I got into the spa and started using the gas but it made me feel disgusting - it made me light headed and i threw up twice. ( NOTE: I kind of lost track of time, so excuse the lack of time frame here ). Besides the nausea, the gas wasnt doing jack for the pain so i got out of the spa and tried walking around the room again. Didnt help. The midwife came back and told me it was only going to get worse and i should get back in the spa. Mick came back from his lunch just in time to help Mum get me back in the spa - after which my Mum sent him back out again because he looked like he was going to pass out.

Well - here's where my female bodies natural instincts took hold. It had only been around 4 and half hours since my contractions first began but something, somewhere, inside me was saying " Push! ". I climbed out of the spa, crying and wailing, telling my mum i was going to sit on the loo and i was going to push. She kind of got a little panicked and told me i couldnt do that, it would be hours yet, and i didnt want to hurt the baby. The old midwife came back in and told my mum - " She's being a bit ridiculous. You need to settle her down because its going to be a good while yet ". Ridiculous? Screw you, you old bag, i'm in pain and i'm pushing! ( ok, i didnt ACTUALLY say that, but thats what i was thinking ). After another 20ish minutes of me stalking around the bathroom grunting a young midwife came in and told me that, if i'd come out of the bathroom and hop up on the bed, she'd examine me and see how far along i was. So i did as i was asked, completely panicked and calling out for an epidural. It wasnt supposed to hurt this bad, this early, was it? Seriously, if this was only the beginning i wasnt going to able to cope!

My mum helped me up on the bed, my legs shaking as i let the midwife have a look..... She ducked her back up and said " Sweety, you're absolutely right, you do need to push. The babys ready so whenever you get the urge you push as hard as you can " ( you know, or words to that effect ).So - too late for the epidural then? The first thing i did ? I turned to my mum and yelled " I told you so! ".... and then it was on. I remember saying i wanted to go home, i couldnt do this anymore and, when my mum said she could see the babys head i asked if she could just reach down and pull it out for me. The midwife calmly got herself ready because she didnt think the doctor was going to make it back to deliver the baby, and, even though she said i needed to try and push without wasting my energy on making noise, i screamed and grunted for all i was worth.

And, finally, at 5:05pm i gave one final push and pop! there he was, my little bubba. I say " pop! " because thats the noise it made - i'm going to add in a " woosh! " too because it was like that little dude was coming down some kind of waterslide ( sorry about the mess Dr... ). The doc asked if i wanted to hold him and i was aware enough to answer, but stupid enough to ask " Me? ". Uh, duh, yea Amy.... its your baby. My mum called Mick in after the midwife had cleaned me up and he had the first hold after Flynn had been cleaned up a bit. My dad, with his impeccable timing, had turned up to see how i was getting along, so we let him in too, at which time Mick and I told them that the babys name was Flynn Charlie - we'd manage to keep the name a secret up til then.

So there you be - 15 days early, spontaneous contractions, 6 hours labour, and no stitches - one hell of a first labour if i do say so myself. All of which resulted in this little sprout:

 PS - my apologies to my mother for putting her through an 18 hour labour....
P.P.S Feel free to leave your suggestion for tomorrows post!

I've Reached A Triple Century!

Hello, and welcome to this special, 300th post edition of " New Adventures In Dreamworld ". Yes, thats right, i've reached my 300th post on this version of my blog, and i'm lead to believe this may be cause for celebration. So wooty woot for me!

I was hoping to get an introduction written by my oldest reader for this post, but it seems she may be out of reach ( or so i would be lead to believe by the lack of response. If your reading this Sheena, i still love you... ). I was also hoping i could get some big celebrity guest to pop by and tell you how much they love me - but, unfortunately, i dont actually know any celebrities and turns out i cant afford to buy Johnny Depp/George Clooney/Drew Barrymores adoration. And so, in lieu of having no celebrity spruikers and one missing-in-action reader, i thought i'd trawl through the past 299 posts and bring you my Top 5. These post are either my favourite because i enjoyed writing them, i enjoy re-reading them, you people seemed to enjoy them or they relate to a beautiful memory. In chronological order:

1. You Know That Album? This one was about my favourite album from high school. Music has always mattered to me, but it really meant something during  my high school years. This was also one of my first posts on this blog, and it got good reception from my (few) readers at the time, so this was a post that sticks out in my mind as a "good" one.
2. Amy's Hall Of Attractions A list of the five men i find attractive that illicit a WTF?!? Go on, click the link, check them out.....you  know your curious now. This post was fun to write and it got good comment action. Everyone loves a good list, and theres always debate who's included, who isnt, and who you'd pick instead...
3. International Relations A co-blog with Andy from WildARSChase. Co-blogs rock ( my services are available if anyone is interested... ) and could this one not? We had an American, an Australian and a whole bunch of stupid generalisations. Andy has since gone on to co-blog with much better writers than me but hey, it was fun while it lasted.
4. The Making Of Me: A 10 Year Retrospective This one is exactly what it says it is, so if you've only come to my blog fairly recently, click that there link and you'll learn a whole bunch about little 'ole me. I would have said that you'd learn everything there is to know, but thats not true - a lady has to retain some mystery. That being said, this was a pretty important blog post. It opened me up to my readers just that little bit more, and i think by sharing with you all, some of past lot a bit of its murk. So to speak.
5. How Was It? Can I Get A Woo Hoo! This post features my famous patented dating scale. Why would it feature a dating scale? Because this is the first post that featured my gorgeous ( now ) fiance. Yep, its the post that i made after my first date with Mick, who then went by the mysterious nickname of Mr Gil. And for that reason, this post gets to be in the top 5... it reminds of my lover-boy and everything wonderful thats happened since!

So there you be - check those out if you missed them the first time round. Now, i know its customary to offer some kind of giveaway for blog milestones and, in truth, i did think about it. But, unluckily for you all, i couldnt think of anything that i could get and give away as a prize so...umm...sorry people. However - i love you guys big lots, and i want to make you all happy ( see, thats the people pleaser in me, coming out again ) so.... i want your suggestions. I'm going to post every day for the next five - which, in itself, is unusual - but i want you guys to pick my topics. Take yourself down there to the comments section and leave me a comment with what you'd like me to write about this week. Big, small, scary, TMI...whatever you want!

Also, feel free to leave comments telling me how much you love... i like those.
Oh, and PS: if you can help me make it to 50 followers by my 350th post, that would be muchly appreciated also. Thats my new goal!

Totems in Turku and the Immaculately Coiffured in Glazebury

I have been on annual leave this week. I decided I would not read any emails until my return to work on the 4th May. So far I am up to 843 work emails since finishing work last Saturday. It will be a busy Tuesday morning! I have of course continued to look at personal emails, one of which, on Thursday, was from my colleague Leena, who lives and works in Finland.

Now Leena is a special person. She is one member of group that came to be known as the Four Musketeers. Let me explain. In 1998 I visited Finland for only the second time in my life. The first time was to represent MMU at an EU distance learning conference in Helsinki during 1996. The conference was held one month before the IRA bombed Manchester. Following the attack, I was surprised, but pleased to receive emails from the Finnish colleagues I had met at the conference expressing their concern and support during what they saw as being very troubling times.

When two years later I returned to Turku, Finland as part of an ERASMUS exchange, I was disappointed that such colligate empathy wasn’t as apparent. The first 24 hours were puzzling. Then I met Mikko and Leena, in the Old Bank – a pub that was previously a Bank. There are 120 pubs in Turku, half a dozen of which had former purposes – the Old School, the Old Toilet, Old Pharmacy and so on – you get the idea. Mikko and Leena, were nurse educators, and Mikko a former mental health nurse.

This extremely fun evening marked the start of very fruitful and interesting relationship with colleagues who became dear friends. Over the next few days, I was also introduced to Heikki, the original Finnish equivalent of Little John, and the four of us became inseparable. Over the years, we have all been involved in research projects, joint writing and each of us gained our PhDs. We have enjoyed many, many wonderful intellectual and academic debates over the years, often fuelled by fine Finnish beer and the occasional glass of Oban.

The upshot of that first week in Turku was the offer to go and teach their pre-registration nurses whose education and training was carried out mainly in English. Native English teachers were at a premium, so I agreed to teach Medical Sociology and Introduction to Anthropology. Since that time, once, twice or even three times a year I would whiz across to Turku, and spend two weeks working with some of the brightest pre-reg students I have ever encountered. Whilst anthropology as a discipline was a completely new subject area, they willingly embraced many of the fundamental concepts of social anthropology – for example, they had no problem with exploring the concept of Totemism as a relevant metaphor to promote understanding of the contemporary social construction of everyday life! It was Lévi-Strauss drawing on the ideas of Durkheim, Mailinowski and Evans-Pritchard amongst others who originally introduced these ideas, he aligned himself to Evans-Pritchard’s argument that the reason for totems was metaphoric. I returned to this work in 2004 and used these ideas in exploring the use of rhetoric and rituals in multi-professional working

Turku is Finland’s oldest city, it has been there for over 600 years. Much of what one sees today however, was built after the last great city fire in 1827. But it is still possible to see many great examples of the typical Finnish wooden house. Turku also has its own twin tower World Trade Centre.

I was eating lunch with Leena when the first news reports came in about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York. We rushed to a TV to watch the breaking news. I can remember sitting there watching the drama unfolding in real time, thinking this cannot be happening. I had been to the top of the twin towers on many occasions, and found it difficult to comprehend what was happening. It was a humbling experience.

I had a similar experience on a visit to New York two years ago when I had the chance to visit St Pauls Chapel and Trinity Church on Wall Street. This tiny chapel where George Washington worshiped after his inauguration now stands as the most extensive September 11th museum in New York City. The back of the church houses exhibits that tell the story of the role the chapel played in the aftermath of the September 11th attack. For the fire fighters, police officers and other rescuers who toiled for up to 12 hours at a time in the smouldering space where the towers once stood, the small chapel was a sanctuary.

Leena’s email was to say that she was on the brink of permanent retirement. She had semi retired a couple of years ago, but continued working for a couple of days a week with post graduate students. She felt that the time had now come to retire completely and spend more time with her family and grandchildren. Leena, toivotan teille kaikkea hyvää ja toivon, olet todella rentouttavaa eläkkeelle. Kiitos ihana ystävyyden vuosien varrella juhlitaan seuraavan kerran olen Turussa.

Closer to home, I was delighted to bump into the Salford equivalent of Leena, my colleague Mrs J (senior). The last I had heard from her was that she was stuck in Australia because of the Icelandic volcano. So seeing her in Bents the UK’s No1 Garden Centre (2009/10) last week on a wet and windy Friday afternoon was wonderful, and slightly disconcerting.

Both Lenna and Mrs J (senior) have that unnerving ability to always look elegant, and both sport hairstyles that are always immaculate. And so it was on this occasion. I on the other hand, looked like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards – but I was on holiday after all!