When left to my own devices

It's Friday and A is gone for the weekend. I think he took any motivation I had with him. I had big plans of cleaning and studying before I picked Kidzilla up from school. Then we were going to head to the mall, pick up some dinner at the BBQ at the end of the street (just so I can get a big "I told you so" when I picked up some unknown bacteria sickness from eating food cooked in a trailer from A) and watching a movie. A left, I made it as far as cleaning and then... nothing. Our place is less than 500 sq. feet, it doesn't take a lot to clean it. I read fiction instead of the 2 two chapters of textbook I was supposed to read. I ate chocolate bars instead of fruit. I lounged it up. And now Kidzilla has been playing on his DS for like 2 hours straight while I read some more and now, blog. I guess life really does fall apart without our beloved PIC.

Last Saturday I sucked it up and took the boys to a football game. In the pouring rain. And just to prove how hard core I am, I sat there, in the rain, wearing trash bags as a poncho and lap cover, not complaining, the whole time. And it wasn't that bad. We ended up winning by a hair in the final 2 minutes of the game. A few bad photos of me, just to prove we were there. First is me and frightened Kidzilla with our mascot Chief Oceola. Second is me and A during a break in the rain (note the non-flying pilot facial hair growth).
This week we had the ordeal of changing Kidzilla due to our massive differences in opinion with the school administration. Sorry if I believe that parents should have access to the teachers, kids should have recess AT LEAST once a day and there is more to education that test scores. So we enrolled him in a local charter school. And promptly had to drop $100 on uniforms. He starts Monday and gets to ride a school bus. Fingers crossed that this will work.

Off to bribe Kidzilla into not reporting my laziness with some new gizmo from Target. At least it will get me out of the house.

Coming Along

I'm two weeks into school.

Boy have things changed since I was last in school (in 2000). Every single syllabus had a comment in it about please turn off your cell phone in class. I thought I was cool to have a pager that was alpha-numeric back in 2000. Teachers request that one use their laptop only for notetaking and not for surfing the web or instant messaging during class (or looking at porn...). I thought I was hot stuff to actually have an email account in 1995 when I started at OSU. Every teacher does powerpoint presentations and you can download them ahead of time and take notes directly on them. I think I had one teacher who used powerpoint, and it had a plain black background. Everyone else used the overhead machine. We have this all encompassing website that we can log into to communicate with our classmates and teacher, get our assignments and other information from the teacher and submit our work in their "drop box". I guess group meetings and office hours are a thing of the past.

I'm making it through. I ended up dropping one class because it was just too much. Admittedly it was the class that required a 20 page individually written paper... As long as I can keep up with the reading (2-3 chapters PER class PER week, chapters averaging 50 pages each). I'd forgotten just how boring textbooks can be. I feel like I need a nice shot of espresso to stay away during each chapter. I ended up in the research class that doesn't actually require you to do a research project. Honestly, I'm kinda bummed about that.

Kidzilla is settling in to school pretty well. A is in charge of school relations. He attended orientation and does the morning and afternoon routines. A also taught Kidzilla to ride a two wheeler (yesterday) and now we hear requests to go bike riding several times a day. A needs some friends so he's out with someone not me. We're working on that.

Today we celebrated Labor Day by going for a 3 mile hike (I'm currently regretting ignoring the "use bug spray" advice). Now I'm blogging to the soundtrack of the FSU-Miami game. It's only the 2nd quarter and I'm already tired of hearing the "Tomahawk Chop" business over and over AND OVER. I promised I would suck it up and take the boys to a game, but I'm not really looking forward to it. I wish we could just go for the opening festivities and the halftime field show (I'm such a band geek). The evening before home games the spear is lit on the statue outside our stadium so we took Kidzilla and got a picture.


To throw something aviation related in this post- I'm still interested in doing a research project about divorce rates for pilots and whether they really are higher than average. And as an offshoot of my last post about pilots and depression, a study about how many pilots who go out on disability ultimately lose their license due to depression about their condition/situation instead of due to their actual disability. If I could just get someone to foot the bill...

Pilots and depression revisited

In a previous post I brought up some questions about the FAA rules and pilot mental health. I personally feel that there is a lot of misinformation floating around about how nosy the FAA is about what type of counseling a person receives and what it is for and any retribution that might happen because of it. But right now I don't have the time to look further into it (I'm waiting for the opportunity to do it under the guise of a research paper and kill two birds with one stone actually...). My interest was more along the lines of getting short term counseling to help one deal with financial, parenting, or relationship stress and how even needing that can be perceived as a weakness making one unfit to fly not so much on full on diagnosed depression. It bothers me that ANY kind of counseling, by anyone, is perceived as a negative when in reality it could help one do ones job even better.

To that end, I came across a post in A's company forum that talked about pilots and depression and highlighted an Australian study regarding pilots who do fly while under care for depression. Here is the poster's summary of the study-

"Most air-safety authorities around the world ban pilots from flying while on antidepressant drugs citing safety reasons. Now the results of an Australian study suggests that taking the drugs does not increase the risk of accidents, while banning them could increase risks by encouraging depressed pilots not to seek treatment.

A team led by aviation medicine specialist James Ross, who ran the study while a consultant at Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), scrutinised Australian pilot safety records spanning from 1993 to 2004.

Unlike most air safety authorities around the world, CASA allows Australian pilots to fly while on antidepressant drugs, under tightly controlled conditions.

For example, the pilot must have taken the drugs for at least a month before flying. This is to ensure that he or she is not suffering side-effects such as fatigue or nausea that could affect performance. Depressed pilots are also not allowed to fly if they have suicidal tendencies, pathological anger, or abnormal sleep patterns associated with the disorder.

General ban
Over the 12-year study period, 481 pilots who were prescribed antidepressants had 11 accidents due to pilot error and 22 near misses. The researchers say this was not significantly different to the five accidents and 26 near misses of the similar number of pilots who did not take antidepressants, but who were matched by age, sex, and flying experience.

The results will be presented by team member Kathy Griffiths of the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University in Canberra today at the World Psychiatric Association annual congress in Melbourne, Australia.

Most aviation safety authorities, including the US Federal Aviation Authority, and the European Joint Aviation Authority, ban pilots from flying while on antidepressants because of concerns about the effect of treatment and the underlying depression on a pilot's performance.

That might not be wise, says Ross. He points out that the Australian study suggests that using antidepressants in a carefully managed, structured environment is safe, and that rules or regulations that encourage pilots not to seek treatment, or not to declare it, could backfire.

"Antidepressants can be prescribed for years, so that means you are asking people to give up their livelihoods, or leave their depression untreated," notes Griffiths.

Reluctant reporting
The Australian study also found that only 1% of pilots admitted to taking antidepressants, compared to 4.5% of Australians in the general population.

That suggests that even under the Australian rules, which allow pilots on antidepressants to continue flying, the increased scrutiny by CASA could encourage pilots to avoid seeking medical help or to keep it secret when they do.

US pilots taking medication for psychological conditions such as depression who were involved in fatal accidents had also rarely reported either the medication or their underlying condition to the FAA, according to two recent studies (see Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, vol 77, p 1171, and vol 78, p 1055, for the most recent).

"Many aviation doctors have maintained that the side effects of antidepressants present far less risk to aviation safety than the problem of untreated or undeclared depression. It's encouraging to see that the Australian evidence supports this," says David Powell of the Occupational and Aviation Medicine Unit at Otago University in Wellington, New Zealand.

"Depression is common and treatable, so surely the best way to manage it in aviation is to bring it out of hiding," he says."

A comment made by the poster that reflects what I was thinking as well when I made the first posts- "I guess we would rather have depressed pilots flying, who don't want to report it, than pilots who are being treated and fully able to fly competently while on medication."

A later poster commented that pilots hiding depression do self medicate- with alcohol.

Sadly, the poster of the study did not give any citations for the study so I can't give any info about where to find this study or where/when it was published. Requests for that information further into the post did not receive a response. I feel kind of dirty posting what is said to be research without a citation, must the the honest student in me, but I felt the information was important.

Numerically speaking

Signs I know I live in the hood:
1. My complex is surrounded by cyclone fence topped by razor wire.
2. There are 3 laundromats on a 1 mile stretch of street
3. I saw someone having a yard sale in the parking lot of the local corner store.
4. Several gas stations are cash only.
5. The local church van lives in a locked fence cage.

Weird things I've seen on the road in the past two weeks:
1. Dead construction worker (was hit by a car, hadn't been fully covered over by the police at the scene).
2. A guy wearing only a headband and thong riding his bike down a main thoroughfare (not pretty!)
3. A space capsule on the back of a semi heading west down the highway (headed for Houston or Huntsville we guessed).

Number of trips back to Jacksonville we've made in the 2.5 weeks since we've moved- 2. Actually A has made 3.

Amount spent on textbooks for 3 of my 5 classes- $570.45. One class has no required text, one has yet to announce.

Number of fans constantly running in our house- 3. In addition to the air-conditioner.

Number of hours I have spent apart from A since Aug 1- 35. Out of a possible 432.

Number of times I have cursed at FSU- countless.

Largest conundrum faced- Parking is available on campus by permit only. One must have a student ID to get a permit. The ID office is located on campus. Where does one park on campus to get said ID in order to get the permit required for on campus parking?

Number of students who will descend on campus like a swarm of locusts this week- Approximately 30,000. For a total student population of 40,000.

Days until I pick up Kidzilla from the airport after 8 weeks away- <1

Days until school starts- 5

Turning the tables

Back in January 2006 we moved from California to Florida for A to do his flight training. Essentially I left everything and everyone I knew to move across the country to support him. To me it was a big adventure and a chance to start our lives fresh.

It was only about 2 years later that he revealed to me the huge pressure he felt to make it through training. We had moved everything specifically for him to follow his dream and if he screwed up and failed out of training he would feel like a massive failure. Even though it never occurred to me that he might not succeed (probably my blind faith was a good thing while going through training) and I never once put any pressure on him or guilted him about making us move (well, he'd probably beg to differ, but I don't remember doing it) he still felt an enormous amount of pressure.

Now the tables are turned and our family has moved so I can follow though on my goals. And even though A hasn't said one thing to me about it, I feel an enormous pressure not to f*%k this up. We moved here because of me, solely me, and if I decide I made a mistake in following this career path, I will have uprooted everyone for nothing.

I'm working on letting go and trying to release the pressure to succeed. I think (hope!) that once I actually get going in school it will all fall away. But so far, in the back of my mind, that little bit of anxiety still lingers.