New Job, New Rule, New Animal

Ok so there really isn't a new animal, but it rounded out the title. I will tell you about some animals but lets get to the other stuff first.

So I finally got a job in my field! Hurray!! I am now employed full time as a Family Service Specialist with Mountainland Head Start. I get real people wages, health insurance, and the satisfaction of knowing that I am helping people. Also lots of stress and confusion for the first few weeks, but I'll get through it : ) Basically I work with the families of kids who are enrolled in Head Start making sure their needs and the needs of their child are met. So it's kind of like social work in a sense. I also enroll new kids in the program and conduct basic health screenings like blood pressure, height, weight, etc.

So far it has been pretty good. Lots of stress in figuring out the specifics and what is required of me, but I think it will really help me determine what direction I want to go in the future. When I graduated USU I was pretty sure I wanted to go to grad school to become a Physician Assistant. I haven't ruled that out yet but I am also keeping my options open and figuring out what the best fit for me will be.

So that is the new job. As for the new rule it is this: Boys are no longer allowed to make fun of girls for trying to do things for themselves that people don't teach them how to do because they are girls. For example: When I am trying to put air into a flat tire on a car and struggling to get the hose nozzle onto the valve on the tire because it is so deflated it has sunk inside the hubcap, you are not allowed to make fun of me for not knowing that the hubcap can be removed for easier access. Guess what? Nobody ever told me that! Because I'm a girl and nobody teaches girls about cars except maybe to change a flat tire. So when I try to educate myself by experimenting you can either keep your mouth shut or help me learn. In return, I will not make fun of you when you turn the oven to broil to cook a pizza, wonder why the dryer won't start when the lint trap is overflowing, or try to iron a silk shirt on a cotton setting. Deal?

(As a side note, I think there should be a class for girls specifically dealing with how cars work and how to conduct basic maintenence. I have just recently begun learning how an internal combustion engine works and it is interesting stuff. It makes me wonder what else I could have learned long ago had somebody expected me to learn it. But alas, nobody has great expectations for girls in regards to automechanics. Also, while we are offering classes, I think there should be a a set of classes required for basic life skills like managing money, understanding insurance, and what the heck a 401k is. I was marveling the other day at how bad some people are at managing their money when it dawned on me that money management isn't a part of puberty. It's not something that just comes to you with age. So I really shouldn't be surprised that some mid-lifers really suck at finances. )

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, which since we have covered new job and new rule is new animal. Like I said, the animal isn't new but it may give you a new take on an old one.

This is an Opossum:

And this is a Possum:

You will notice that the Possum is significantly cuter than the Opossum. At least in my opinion.

I was reading a book set in Australia the other day and they mentioned that Possums are marsupials, which came as a surprise to me because I thought that Australia had the market on marsupials. They generally do, with over 70% of species being found in or around Australia, but South America has a few as well, and North America has one: the Opossum.

Now, you may be wondering, as was I, why the "O". The word Opossum comes from the Native American (Algonquian) word apasum, meaning white animal. Like a lot of words in English it got Anglicized to Opossum but most people pronounce it possum. This was the case with Captain Cook's botanist who called the animal he saw in Australia a possum because he thought they looked alike. I think he had been at sea too long. Either that or he mistook another animal for the American Opossum, because trust me, once you have seen a dead Opossum with its snout curled back around it's razor sharp teeth you don't soon forget it. *Shiver*

So, now you know about the new job and the new rule and have a new perspective on two animals. And as an added bonus you now have a redeeming quality about Australia, as I promised earlier: their possums are cuter than ours.