ICU team

So, I'm applying for a new position at work.  Right now I do standard callbacks.  Doctor calls up says, "fix my phone, wait, I'm in the middle of performing surgery, call me back" click... I get to call them back and say "what's wrong with your phone sir?"  I'm looking at moving to our center's "Intensive Care Unit."  Literally that's what we call it.  There's a Center for Disease Control too, but that's out of center.  So basically, I'd do the callbacks for the problems that as far as anybody can tell during the call, have no solution.  Like the person I had recently whose contract was printed out in Spanish on accident and there's no official way of reprint in English unless he wants to sign up for another contract.  I'd be working evening shift instead and get paid another 50 cents an hour.

There are several reasons for switching positions.  One, Bonnie Jean could switch back to working more hours regardless of when Uriel went back home.  Two, I'd be more able to take daytime Institute classes.  Three, the scheduling perks that come with being on my current team only last so long as my stats stay good, and I'm only ever one week away from losing that.  Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but they've been being really aggressive about maintaining high productivity.  To maintain stats you have to do around 1/4 to 1/3 of the callback work when the time for it isn't being measured.  Imagine measuring car speed that way.  The distance counts, but not the time you took getting there.  Makes your speed jump really quickly.  The ICU team, on the other hand, values thoroughness and accuracy over speed, which suits me just fine.

Since I'm already a backup replacement for the ICU team and I have a really good relationship with the TL in charge of the operation, I have a really good chance of getting it.  The TL in charge actually all but told me that the interview for it would be a formality.  He said we'd still have to do an interview process just to make it fair, but that he was really excited to have me on his team.  So unless I have a call monitoring that completely bombs between now and then, chances are I'll get it.

Nonverbal Language... and Movies

I have been rewatching a lot of movies recently.  Gives me something to do while I'm washing dishes.  I've noticed something.  I'm starting to pick up on a lot of the background stuff that I never saw before.  Emotional cues between characters, non verbal story elements etc...  I'm not certain how much of this is due to the aging process of gaining experience.  I recall listening to some Amy Grant music before and after getting engaged to Bonnie Jean and there was so much of it that I got after being in a deep relationship that I hadn't picked up before.

How much of this means my expression of AS is evolving as I develop as a person?  That would be nice, but its also unstable.  My development can shift forwards or backwards without warning.  I recall one time when I was so proud of myself because I was talking to three girls at once, said something that caused an unintentional emotional reaction, read that expression off all three of their faces in real time, responded to it in real time, and addressed the unintended reaction.  Wow that was a good day.  Normally most of that would happen after about a minute and a half of analyzing and the conversation would be over before I could address the problem.  Then, I was unable to read social context or anything social that was non verbal for about the next three days and I think I made my professor want to kill me.

Or maybe its simple repetition?  Wow, I just watched Star Wars for the billionth time and now I finally get that facial expression that passes between Han and Leia at the end of the last movie.  I really don't know.  I probably have bits of all those going on.  In any case, it makes it kind of fun to watch these old movies.  I'm in the middle of Star Trek: The Movie (ok I felt like enjoying some old cheesy stuff, I know the movie is awful but its fun at the same time) and there's all sorts of things that I just passed by before that suddenly make sense.  I mean, the entire Captain Decker and Captian Kirk duking it out over who is more competent to lead the ship.  Sure I understood that it was there, but watching it now I get a lot of the emotional aspects of that battle and the politics behind the scenes of how they are relating.    Or there's things that suddenly don't make sense.  Why does Spock understand their "new" engines that "nobody" understands when he's been busy training to be a monk of logic or whatever you want to call it  for the past who knows how long?  I guess monks of logic get to study ship design?

In any case, its like watching the movies for the first time suddenly, or as if its a completely new movie.  Now if only some of this could translate to real world application that could be fun.  I'm guessing it could be happening there all the time and I'm just not realizing it because I've developed such a caution in dealing with people that I don't take risks where I might not understand what's happening.  For instance, I was IM chatting with a team lead about a new position I'm considering applying for, and I was practically triple verifying what he was saying to make sure I understood him.  That's worse because I don't normally interact with that particular person much and I always always struggle when I'm changing team leads, teachers, or whatever.  I don't adapt to different people's communication/leadership styles readily and I was trying not to make any big mistakes.  I can't hit rewind and watch the movie of John the team lead and Justin the closet aspie over and over again until I understand it.  Guess movies have their advantages.

It's a boy

Ultrasounds round two are done.  Its a boy.  Fun Fun Fun.

Sunday school teacher

So Bonnie Jean and I have figured out what it is that makes our favorite Sunday school teacher so great. For context, there are several of them, each of whom teaches once per month. In any case, the SUU President's mansion is in our ward and an event was held there recently and we realized our host was our favorite of the teachers. Hadn't realized he was the University president. Might explain why he's more likely to pull out Talmudic referances than crossword puzzles.

The value of knowing what you are talking about

Last month, there was a gay rights demonstration in my town.  Not too surprising considering the number of young people brought in by the university, but still a bit of a shocker to the sheltered Utahn's around here.  At the time, I was unable to tell what it was about.  I mean, really unable to tell.  I drove past it 3 times during my errands that day and I still couldn't see.  As one of my work associates commented, they needed to take some classes on protesting.  If you don't hold the sign still it means I can't read what it says, especially if someone is standing in front of it.

In priesthood meeting the following Sunday, my bishop said something essentially to the effect that it was a gay marriage demonstration and that we need to be careful in these last days etc... pretty predictable stuff.  Even though he stated or implied that the it was about marriage, I was pretty certain he didn't know because nobody else I had talked to had been able to figure it out yet.

So, today I finally looked up what they were actually protesting.  To make this make sense, I'll need to give some history.

A few months ago Salt Lake City passed a bill which protected homosexuals against employment and housing discrimination.  The LDS church, finding their concerns on the subject very much addressed made an official press release supporting the passage of the bill.  If you don't believe me the link to the press release/statement to the city council is here

In any case, church support for such a bill sparked similar bills across Utah.  In the Utah state legislature, there were simultaneous efforts to pass a bill similar to the one in Salt Lake and also to pass bills overturning any city discrimination law.  One lawmaker in particular, went on the record to say the following:

Our citizens shouldn't be doing things that are discriminatory. If they are, that's information we'll gather next year that will push legislation, If the GLBT community are doing offensive activities in a public setting, that will push legislation in the other direction," he added. "We need to be respectful of one another; we all need to all figure out how to live together."

I'll admit context is key on a subject like this.  But essentially from what it sounds like, he was saying that if homosexuals are publically obnoxious then said behavior will have to be criminalized or perhaps just repealing any city ordinances granting non discrimination rights.  I can understand a protest going against that kind of talk.  Especially since its so vague on what offensive activities means.  So what, if he loses his breakfast over seeing a gay couple make out next weekend he'll just have to take away their housing and employment discrimination rights to force them to move to California so his breakfast will sit better?  Perhaps he didn't mean that, but his statement was waaay to vague to be appropriate to a civil rights discussion.  To put it in context, if we were discussing race instead of orientation it would be like saying he didn't like segregation, but if he thought that the black community was offensive he'd be forced to allow segregation in employment and housing.  Not trying to say that all aspects of race and orientation arguments are equivalent or equal valued, but rephrasing his idiotic comment in a different context shows how badly worded and inappropriate the statement was.

So back to my actual point, my bishop thought he was speaking against a homosexual marriage demonstration.  He was actually speaking out against a proposal for non discrimination in housing and employment that the church he was representing had already made a statement supporting.  There's a value in knowing what you are talking about, which is why despite finding the protest interesting, I haven't commented on it until today when I found out what was actually going on.

More background on this situation can be found here, here, and here.

Oh, and having heard other people in congregation I've belonged to lament that in their opinion any publically known transgressor of any major commandment would be driven out of town in the little town he grew up in by ostracism and losing employment, I can see the value of a state ordinance.

Locks

Bonnie Jean took Uriel to a Relief Society event tonight, so I had a chance to install the second lock on the cabinets this evening.  I put the first one on his favorite drawer that was just his height, but that didn't make him lose interest in our glass measuring cups in the bottom drawer.  He likes the noise they make when he bangs them.  But, now he'll just have to be satisfied with enjoying the noise the drawer locks make when he bangs that instead.  He didn't seem very pleased to see me finishing up, readily grasping the connection between the lock I was installing and the one already in place.  So all we need now is one final lock to cover the silverware drawer so he stops trying to pull out the sharp knives and we're good.  I don't really care if he pulls out the oven mitts in the last drawer.  I mean good grief he knows how to put them on before touching the oven.  Not that we try to let him, but he knows how oven mitts work and is ready to use them.  Better that than him trying impulsively to touch the oven in general.

Clean Kitchen

Well, this is cool. I had to jump ship from IE Mobile to make blogger work, but here I am.

So exciting news. Two nights ago I stayed up till midnight and did something special. I completed all the dishes.

This is actually a bigger deal than it sounds. With temper tantrums every time we even tried to do dishes, it was extremely difficult to do them with kids around. By the time they left, most of our dishes were dirty and had to be washed prior to each use. So the sink hadn't been completely clean for easily 3-4 months. And now it is and has remained so for several days! Bonnie Jean was so happy!

In other news, I was hungrily eyeing a spiced potato stuffed bread, but haven't made it yet. We'd have so much food making that along with other stuff I'd want to invite someone else over to share it. But, I don't know how or who to invite. In a family ward everbody has kids and I couldn't fit them all in my kitchen... And as always Bonnie Jean and I integrate into new wards very slowly. But oh well, my stuffed bread needs to await another day anyways.