Ultimate Misery: The Canker Sore

Nothing ruins your day quite like a canker sore (not a cold sore; those are outside the mouth). They hurt like absolute hell and although they only really stick around for a week or so, it feels like an eternity. And the worst part is waking up after a blissful night's sleep of not feeling it. For that 20 or so minutes after you get out of bed, it feels like acid is being poured into your mouth, and there's no stopping it.

This is not me, but they all pretty much look the same.
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If you've never seen one before, 1. You're lucky, and 2: ^^^

Basically, they're tiny puddles of fiery hell-sore.

And although the surface area is tiny, they tend to make an entire side of one's mouth feel like it's being operated on by a really shitty oral surgeon. For example, the canker sore I have right now is in the back of my left cheek, riiiiiight between where my teeth bite, so logically, the entire left side of my jaw and mouth hurts. Nice. Here's a short list of the daily activities that have been hindered by black hole ulcer in my mouth:

• Eating: Chewing is definitely out, so I've been living on cottage cheese, yogurt, and ice cream. (And no, chewing on one side doesn't help, because BOTH sides of my jaw go up and down, meaning that the sore will get hit even when there's no food there)
• Talking: If I've seemed reticent/sad/unusually quiet, it's not because I don't like you (well, maybe, but the odds are low). It's because talking moves everything around and if words aren't critical, they're not worth it right now.
• Teeth Brushing: Between the  bristles and the toothpaste, this sucks. My obsessive need for dental hygiene requires me to power through it though; I fight cavities at all costs. 
• Drinking (and not in the alcohol sense): You can basically swallow food on one side (more or less), but liquid spreads out everywhere and burns. Pro-tip: don't go for the carbonated beverages...
• Gum Chewing: Just don't bother.
• General Happiness: Constant pain leads to constant irritation/pissed-off-ed-ness. Although to be fair, I get frustrated/angry extremely easily when I'm in pain of any sort. From now on, I'm calling them Cranky Sores©

But every once in a while, a few minutes goes by when you forgot that it's there. There's no pain. Maybe it's starting to heal. So you smile a bit, start to say "Hooray" and...

Epic rage time
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...it's back.

Has America Become the Anti-Melting-Pot?

I generally steer clear of politics on my blog because I'm not looking for comment confrontation, but I'll put myself out there just this once (or is this a first? Food for thought). With the passing of the Alabama immigration law, America has given our Hispanic population a swift kick in the shins. Latino families in Alabama are emigrating out of the state for fear of being deported. Even families with full citizenship are worried that they'll be negatively affected by the law. I'd like to highlight this here article though, which I believe shows the saddest effects of our current state of affairs. The article highlights the child to child bullying that has increased so dramatically since the passing of the law. I'm sorry, but what the eff is so wrong with the parents of this nation that they teach their children that it's acceptable to tell their fellow THIRTEEN YEAR OLDS to "go back to Mexico" and "if you're not going I'm going to punch you." 

This kid knows what's up.
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Are we for real right now? And the worst part is that the kids won't even report their abuse to teacher for fear of drawing more attention to themselves. Where have we failed that school yard bullying has reverted back to the 50's when no one was willing to tell the teacher? Be the tattle tale! No, really. Do it. The silent sufferers will thank you.


This isn't even a matter of illegal immigration anymore. Racism, which never really left America in the first place, has taken a giant step as of late. It seems that all brown people are falling victim to the blatant racism that has somehow become okay because "we hate illegals. arggggg." Look at the response of a mother whose daughter was verbally abused...basically because of the color of her skin.


"She is a citizen. She doesn't even speak Spanish," said Conde, a U.S. citizen originally from Puerto Rico. "The culture being created (by the law) is that this sort of thing is OK."

Should this bear also go back to Mexico because it's brown?
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Again, this is hardly about illegal status anymore. It's about the color of a person's skin. Way back in the day, my just-off-the-boat Sicilian grandfather was told he couldn't enter certain establishments because he was so tan that the store owners thought he was African-American. I though we had moved past that.... It might seem like this issue is centered on the Hispanic community right now, but if we can silence the brown people, then it's only a matter of time before Hate's slithery tentacles wrap themselves around other minority groups (disclaimer: I'm not suggesting that other minority groups aren't facing racism right now. I'm just saying that it's not quite so headline-prominent at the present). 



As a proud Native American (if you don't believe me, go back to this article), I'm going to have to pull the "everyone here is an illegal immigrant" card. Seriously, there was actually a time where this continent didn't have any Europeans on it. Crazy, I know. Like I mentioned in my other article, I understand that population shifts happen over the ages. People move in and out of areas. And we Natives are generally told to stop complaining about it. "Americans," however, are completely entitled to b*tching about what's going on right now. Wait....



And because racism likes to manifest itself in our everyday speech, I'm also pretty disgusted with recent attempts to make English the official language of the United States. The intolerance. Make it stop. 


Basically every immigration-related news article on the web will have a few comments to the tune of "THEY COME IN OUR COUNTRY AND DON'T EVEN SPEAK OUR LANGUAGE WTFFFFFFFF"**

But actually.
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If you're not going to recognize the myriad indigenous languages of our Native peoples, why on Earth should English be our national language? Does this mean that we should tell the French Quarter of New Orleans to stop speaking French? Or that the Chinatowns of our major cities should stop conversing in Chinese? Or that Jewish communities need to stop speaking Hebrew? Or that American Indian reservations should stop using their native tongues (wait, Natives already got fined and beaten for that once...)?


If America wants to continue to call itself the melting pot, then it has to start (re?)accepting differences in language, skin color, and cultures. Parents need to stop teaching their children that they should hate their classmates who don't look like them. No matter what your views are on illegal immigration issues, hating people isn't going to "fix" anything. All it does is make the United States an unpleasant and hostile place to live. America is America because of its diversity. No other country can boast so many different types of people living within the same set of political boundaries. 


Let's not completely tear that apart, thanks.

Because believe it or not, you're not better than everyone else.
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**You see what I did there with the grammatical error? That's me judging. 

College and the common cold blues

Falling ill while at school is the very definition of the word "misery." My immune system is pretty baller and I only really get sick once or twice a year. It usually lasts for about 24 hours and then I'm fine. I don't visit the doctor unless death is on the horizon.

FEEL BAD FOR ME

** Note the sadface, blanket, and the mug of tea. Oh, and the oxford comma in that last sentence YEAH.

I've just passed the one week point and I'm confused and unhappy about it. I've dealt with the sore throat, body aches, and congestion akin to what would happen if you rubbed a shedding cat on my face. I also lost my voice and sounded like a man-lurking-in-the-bushes for 3 or 4 days. I cannot breathe, I cannot smell, my ears keep popping in and out, and I'm all gross and snivelly.

And here's the worst part: college has no sick days. Assignments don't get postponed because you need extra sleep (like, 8 full hours or something...ultra rare!). All I want is a self-wallowing pity party, but my commitments keep floating around in front of me. I actually have, you know...stuff to do. I'm not getting anything done because I feel like death, and yet I can't take a nap because I'll feel guilty if I'm intentionally not working. This is a vicious circle if I ever saw one.

I've made it through a bottle and a half of DayQuil (which tastes like it was brewed by the devil himself), more than 2 rolls of toilet paper (for my NOSE. Tissues are expensive and toilet paper is free. I'm not cheap, I'm frugal), and a bag of Halls. WTF common cold. Taking medicine is totally not my style.

I'm that kid that everyone made fun of in middle school. The one who's coughing like their extra-curricular is coal mining and making gross snarf-a-larf-a-larf noises as they suffer through class (totally worse in a 200 person lecture). I'm the kid that no one wants to sit next to because let's be real. Ew. I am Hester Prynne, ostracized and condemned by society. It gives me the sadz.

Okay, I'm done playing myself the world's saddest song on the world's smallest violin. This is the part where you pity me back with chocolate, tea, and Puff's lotion infused tissues, kay?

A Judgmental View of Harvard's Summer School Program

In the nine weeks that I spent on campus this summer, I learned a lot about Harvard's Summer School Program. Namely, seeing the hordes of high schoolers running around like excited chickens every day reminded me of just how annoying I must have been a few years ago. I have a few questions for the (high school aged) patrons of SSP:

1. Why do you wear Harvard insignia apparel on every inch of your bodies? I'll note that college students don't actually dress like this. Furthermore, given the fact that you're living on campus, everyone knows you're in Harvard's summer program. Excessive advertising is really not necessary.

2. Ladies: Why do y'all wear stilettos/4in wedge heels EVERY DAY? Fact: actual college students don't wear hooker heels to class. The streets of Cambridge are so cobbled that I don't even like wearing them to parties. I understand that summertime = sandal-time, but just because your toes poke out of your too-shiny patent pleather peep-toe 4in heels doesn't mean they qualify as sandals. The general rule of thumb is that anything you'd wear at 1am on a Saturday is not appropriate for the lecture hall. Get some damn flip flops.

3. Are you really going to lose your ID if you don't wear it on a lanyard around your neck for every hour of every day? Because honestly, you look like n00bs that are too paranoid to put your plastic card out of sight into a wallet like a normal person. If, like explained in inquiry 1., you're wearing your ID in order to advertise your Harvard SSP student status...well, that's just sad.

4. Is the Annenberg servery really that difficult to navigate? Because I swear, it takes y'all an hour to get through the lines. Here's a tip, if the person ahead of you is taking a really long time and you're interested in something farther down the line, go past him/her. It's not cutting, it's saving everyone else in line a little bit of time. Also, don't have conversations in front of the drink machines, deli, toaster, or any other crowded area. Rude.

5. Why, WHY GOD WHY do you young people (lulz) think it's appropriate or even acceptable to talk about your sexual exploits in Annenberg? Please, it's the common dining hall for everyone on a summer meal plan, meaning that at any given time, there are probably hundreds of people eating at once. I promise you, I am not the only person who does not want to hear about your bedroom antics while trying to nourish myself. Your conversations are disgusting. Save it for a dorm room, because you never know when you'll be sitting next to your future employer, and how much would that suck if he/she got a good earful about the walk of shame you did yesterday morning? NO ONE WANTS TO KNOW.

6. Oh, you think you fancy, huh? I know you all think you're super cool because you're spending your summer studying and being academically miserable challenged (although you'll tell everyone that you had soooo much fun). However, if you return home and act like you're more worthy and scholarly than your friends who worked a summer job or chilled at summer camp, no one will like you. No one wants to hang out with a high-and-mighty, so wash off the smug you got all over your face. I've seen y'all act all pseudo-(p)sophisticated on campus because you're in high school, but you spend your summer vacay at college(!!11!!!1). Congrats. This does not make me like you more.

Okay, maybe this means I'm impatient and testy. Maybe I just want all of these troublemaking kids to get off my damn lawn. And I know, I was an overzealous, kind of annoying high schooler at one time, too, but I'm not anymore, and that totally gives me the right to be a super-critical hater. Haters gonna hate: OH YES I WILL.

**Disclaimer - I'm sure a few SSP-ers are actually chill peeps. No offense to them.