The Journey Inward

It’s Spirit Week this week and most teachers and students forgot today was Crazy Hair Day. With my hair on just a regular day, I couldn’t help but wonder if people thought I was participating.

We’re studying forces and motion for our Unit of Inquiry. Today our two classes had a tug of war to test their push and pull after watching a Mystery Science video on how kids could beat grownups (put them on top of ice or in roller skates). We also found different ways to represent 6 square feet outside on the tiles. And our little reading corner is coming along!

I love the way things are described and packaged here. After lunch today, I had a Lunch Bar, which you might think was a granola bar or protein bar, but that is incorrect. It’s a straight up chocolate bar that is “crammed with wafer biscuit, caramel, peanuts, and crisped rice.” Tonight I had chocolate that was described as “layers of wafer and chocolate flavoured cream smothered in Cadbury caramel confection.” Bravo on the alliteration! And the candy bar!

Teighler’s 2 year old son and I are both obsessed with the Hadeda bird. When I was talking to my daughter last night, two flew over the house and she got to experience their squawk! Teighler brought me her son’s Hadeda book today and I loved it. He was very concerned that it was leaving the house, so I read it, took some pictures of highlights and sent it home to Lyle.

I had a doctor’s appointment today to make sure I have a GP, but also because I forgot my extra bottle of prescription meds and I only have a few days left on the one with me. I wasn’t sure what would need to be done and I’d had no luck going on line to my doctor in Flemington. The appointment started with this sign on the way to the waiting room, which made me smile with its seeming outright acknowledgement of insurance abuse…”Intercare accepts most medical schemes.”

The waiting room is one size fits all, no separate seating for the sick and healthy. I sat amongst fevers and rashes and coughs. I was scolded by a nurse who made me move to the front seats because she said I’d missed my name called twice. She thought I wasn’t listening, but I was and did not recognize a single name called as mine. She pointed at me the next round when the doctor called my name again, or I’d have been sitting there still.

The doctor’s room was his office and patient room in one. Each doctor has one room like this. He bumped elbows with me and then washed his hands, saying the patient before me had mumps. He then asked what brought me in and I told him I wanted to establish a doctor, but also get a prescription. He immediately looked up the dosages available here and after no dose was exact, he decided to go with the most frequently prescribed one and wrote it up for me! Then he asked if I had any family history of cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol or blood pressure, or colon cancer. He wrote none of this down anywhere. I never moved to the table and he never examined me. After that 10 minutes, he spoke about South African history and politics for 25 minutes. There is definitely not the same rush here as in NJ! I had told him I was going to Johannesburg next weekend and he told me there’s a train. I hadn’t heard that, so he went on to describe how back in the days of apartheid, this was a thriving country with public transportation, no potholes, and things that ran beautifully. He said it was the best country in the world. Except for the oppression of blacks. Everything changed in 1994 when quotas were put in place and jobs were awarded to unqualified blacks, so things went into a steady decline. He said that with democracy, whites lost leadership and the government became corrupt, but many whites are entitled and many blacks are better people. He concluded this soliloquy by saying they are still in a decline that hopefully will begin to right itself. As he walked me out, he said to get in touch if I needed any advice about where to go or how to travel. An interesting doctor’s visit.

As I was checking out, the receptionist’s colleague brought her a hot water bottle. She put it on her lap and told me she’s sick. The appointment cost $40.34, which I paid there and uploaded the receipt to my health care app, who will deposit the refund into my bank account in 5 days. Just a receipt, no write up of why I was there.

Next I went to the pharmacy, which many of you know I have a penchant for. No matter where I travel, I always go into the local pharmacy. The pharmacist locked my medicine in a metal cage and handed it to me. I had to take it up to the cashier to pay and get it unlocked. That came to $2.08.

And that was my first doctor’s appointment. Dr. George told me if I wanted a mammogram, I could stop in radiology on the way out. I thought I’d had enough for today. Now here’s hoping I don’t get mumps!

Also, here’s a fun little picture of Henry and Spencer at their favorite station…my daughter’s couch looking out her front window into the courtyard!