home is where you make it

From My Little Problem

You can really tell a lot about my driving habits from this photo

Health Care

Here, I borrowed links from someone else's blog. Healthcare these days is kinda scary. A single mother i know can't afford coverage for both her and her kid. she also can't afford the time to invest in herself and get a better job. myself? most of my income goes to premiums, and debts for hospitalization. I am almost paid off for a small hospitalization in 2007. I had this little tiny cat bite on my hand--just a pinprick on the knuckle of my left index finger. didn't even notice it at the time. A day later it looked like a melon, and i was in the hospital getting IV antibiotics. Levaquin.

Think Progress: Uninsured 22-Year-Old Boehner Constituent Dies From Swine Flu

Update: Report: Miami U. Grad Did Not Have H1N1 - Kimi Young Died Of Viral Pneumonia

The New Republic: WealthCare

The Atlantic: How American Healthcare Killed My Father

bromeliad

bromeliad
Originally uploaded by _william

Monday morning, I went out just after first light and went down to the Pink Streets, hoping to find some good views at the parks along the waters edge. I passed this house just as the golden rays of sun were starting to penetrate the haze, and filter through the trees this one impressive bromeliad caught my attention as I passed.

chodron

Pema Chodron talks about her early reluctance to join into an unconditional relationship with Trungpa Rinpoche

"Steadfastness with one particular person translates into steadfastness with any situation that you could possibly encounter."

"I consider myself a spiritual friend to my students. I’m not a guru."

"The teacher serves as a mirror but also encourages your ability to trust in yourself."


"What is it that encourages a person to hang in there so that the minute
the teacher does something that you don’t like you don’t say, “I’m
outta here”? We Westerners have a strong habitual tendency to idealize
our authority figures. We romanticize them.
 
For Western students what
needs to be communicated is that the mind of the teacher and student
meet, not by the student making the teacher all pure or all evil, but
in the ambiguity between those two, in the capacity to sustain
uncertainty.

Otherwise, in the name of true devotion you’ll get a kind
of worship that inevitably flips into vast disillusionment because
sooner or later the teacher does something that the student can’t
handle."

"What I was left with from Trungpa Rinpoche was this: that between the
teacher and the student there can be a meeting of minds, a mutual
communication. The job of the teacher is to help the student experience
that their mind and the mind of the teacher are the same."