You've Got to be Kidding Me!!!!

I honestly had no intention of writing a post tonight, but while scrolling through Yahoo’s news site before I shut the computer down to knit I stumbled across this article and had to write. I think it is crazy that a school would suspend a student, much less one that has survived cancer over hair!!! No they didn’t suspend him for lack of hair, but over the fact that as a male student his hair doesn’t meet their pretty strict code for how hair “must look”.

J.T. Gaskins is a student at Madison Academy in Burton, Michigan and was diagnosed with leukemia when he was one year old. He is growing out his hair to donate to the Locks of Love charity, which is a widely known charity that takes donated lengths of hair and turns them into wigs for cancer patients. They have requirements listed on their website as to the needed length (10” of hair) and listing some of the regulations such as the percentage of the hair that can be bleached and other needed factors. J.T. decided to grow out his hair for donation after learning a sister of a family friend was facing cancer. If nothing else these factors lead me to believe his school is being too rigid with their suspension of him for wanting to support a fellow cancer fighter. It also makes me wonder if heaven forbid he were to relapse for one reason or another if the school would suspend him should he lose all of his hair due to his cancer treatments?

I also find it interesting to read in the article that his school says “Gaskins’ suspension has more to do with the unkempt style of his hair, rather than its length.” They follow with the handbook statement that “boys’ hair be, ‘clean, neat, free of unnatural or distracting colors, off the collar, off the ears and out of the eyes’”. My question to that is, if the length is not the problem, what solution do they offer to allow him to grow his hair to the needed 10 inch length and stay in compliance with their code?  Maybe I’m not seeing something here, but I cannot see any male appropriate methods of hair containment that will both allow him to grow his hair out for the charitable cause and comply with the school’s code.

I do believe that students need to have a healthy respect for both rules and authority, but there also needs to be some flexibility by those in authority to allow the kids to give back to their community if they are so inclined. Whether that be a program as described in the article involving a promissory note and research into the organization or some other method of deciding what the exception should be could be left up to individual states or school district. Honestly in the end the final decision of how each student’s hair should look should fall to his or her parents.  I think it is beyond the scope of what the district can actually be expected or allowed to regulate. 

Overbooked...

Okay, so these last two weeks have been a wee bit crazy in my world. Just to give you all a picture, I work full time nights in ICU at Freeman, I have two teenagers, I sell Scentsy and I'm taking 12 credit hours this semester, all online, 4 of those hours are Pathophysiology. Oh, and did I mention that I technically live in Ozark, which is about 90 miles from here? That's the background, overall most of those facts are no big deal as long as I keep on top of my schedule. The deal breaker and insanity creator currently is my Scentsy business. Every January/February we have a training called Spring Sprint, this year ours is January 28th in Oklahoma City. When they started advertising it I thought; "hey cool, I can swing going to that, should be fun" and I still think it might be. What I wasn't really considering in my thoughts was the fact that January 28th was at the end of the second week of classes for the Spring Semester; which for me is typically a crazy week getting into the swing of the "real" work and assignments after the "get to know you ones" from week 1. Not my brightest moment by any means.
To put it all into perspective, I worked 12 hour shifts last Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. I then spent most of Sunday waiting for my friend to see if we could figure out what in the world was wrong with the wireless card in my laptop (still don't know, it's currently a very large paperweight, hoping for a call with the answer today), wound up borrowing another friends' netbook to get me through this week, ordered a refurbished netbook off of eBay, hoping it turns up soon... This is all still Sunday by the way. Then drove back to Ozark, did laundry, cooked, cleaned my entire house, did the grocery shopping, took the 16 year old to buy soccer cleats, hung out & played board games with the 13 year old and tried to get a little sleep. Then I came back to Joplin to work 12 hour night shifts Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, trying to make some progress on all of my homework in between shifts, as well as sleep some. Then Friday as soon as I get off of work I'm headed back to Ozark to unpack my work stuff, throw the things I need for Spring Sprint in my bag and head to Oklahoma City for the weekend. Of course if I don't get my homework done, Friday night instead of hanging out and having fun with everyone else I'll be holed up in my hotel room hoping I can get everything done and submitted by midnight. Then all day Saturday we have our trainings, Saturday night is a big dinner, then Sunday we're headed home because of course we have to be back for a big family dinner by 5:30 that night. I'm tired just thinking about everything that has to happen perfectly to make this all work. Sigh...

Insult Added to Injury???

In my reading for the past few weeks I've been following the Costa Concordia sinking off of Italy. Overall this seems like a terrible tragedy caused by lax policies and a captain who seems to have forgotten that his first responsibility is to his passengers, his crew and his ship, not to be among the first off and to refuse to go on. But that is not the meat of this post. Tonight in my reading I found an article detailing the "offer" being made to the souls fortunate enough to have survived their vacation literally sinking out from under them. The company that ran the Costa Concordia, Costa Cruises (owned by Carnival Cruise Lines) has made the offer of a refund of the cruise price, reimbursement for lost items and 30% off of another cruise on their line. You have got to be kidding me! Really? I can say if any tragedy such as that happened on my vacation I'd never take another like it, much less one run by the same company. This has got to be a joke. These people have undergone more stress than many of them will ever undergo again, and this is the offer? I am not a litigious person; but have to say if I'd been on that cruise I would be jumping on board the class action lawsuit that is reported to be being filed in Miami this week. 
Cruises are a very popular vacation to be sure; and Carnival Cruise Lines is a major name in them. You have to wonder how something of this nature could still happen with all of the technology available for navigation and such. Carnival does seem to be looking into ways to improve safety and prevent further tragedy, but I wonder if it's too little, too late? It certainly is for those who perished in this incident. I've never personally been on one, and stories like this make me wonder if I'll ever go. 

Introduction

I'm an online student, currently an RN, working toward my BSN here at MSSU. I work at Freeman in the Intensive Care Unit and love it! I have two children at home (teenagers!!) and enjoy spending time with them anytime I can get away with it. (work and school get in the way more than I'd like sometimes) I personally never thought I'd start a blog, but we'll see where this one goes, it may last longer than the class, or it might wind up deleted the end of finals week, we will see. I tend to say what I think, and don't always filter my thoughts before I unleash them on the world, so I'll do my best not to offend anyone, but can't guarantee it won't happen.

My name is legally Melissa, but I prefer to go by Missy, whichever is fine, it takes me a split second longer to respond to Melissa though. Also the blog name of Night Owl's Hoots comes from my "camp name" (a name all adults at resident camp go by, typically something fun & easy that represents them in some way) of Night Owl, that goes along with my preferred sleeping patterns and the fact that the kids have caught me up at my desk working on projects and camp paperwork long into the night.

I spend any free time I can nab doing things I love, knitting, backpacking (seriously in the woods, no technology, everything I need for a weekend or longer on my back), hanging out with my kids or friends, volunteering or working in one way or another with the Girl Scouts in the area. For example I've been the camp nurse at Camp Finbrooke and Camp Mintahama the past few years and loved it. Great experiences for kids and adults alike at camp.

Last thing I can think of to mention is I had LASIK eye surgery on January 13th and LOVE IT!! I've been totally dependent (couldn't even see the big "E" on the eye chart) on glasses since I was 8 and now have 20/20 vision without any correction at all. :) HUGE adjustment!

I look forward to learning about all of you as we go through this semester, and I'm pretty much an open book, if any of you have questions, just ask, I'll more than likely answer them.