Politics

As some of you may know, I am not one who usually goes about declaring my political views to the world. I believe that everyone has the right to their own opinion, and that each of us also has a responsibility to educate ourselves about issues when we have the opportunity to vote. But this year when people in California were voting on Proposition 8, it became clear to me that when there is such an important issue being voted on, then we also have a responsibility to educate ourselves about the issue and to help educate others. When I was visiting my family in San Diego this fall, my mom was involved with helping to visit and call people in her neighborhood to explain to them what Prop 8 was all about (and many people who she spoke to weren’t even clear on what a “Yes” or a “No” vote actually meant). When I first heard about people from church contacting people to talk to them about Prop 8, I have to admit that I thought that would be a difficult thing to do – I can be rather shy about speaking to people anyways, especially about such a disputed topic. But after watching several video clips and reading some articles about Prop 8, I realized how important it was to not just stand by and let a minority make decisions for the majority. After all of the video clips showing families in Massachusetts (where they had previously passed laws allowing same-sex marriage) where the parents were not allowed to be notified by the schools before their young children were taught about homosexual relationships – students were taught not only to embrace homosexuality in others, but the students themselves were encouraged to experiment with both heterosexuality and homosexuality before deciding what worked best for them – I thought of my little boys, and how difficult it would be to have my family placed in that kind of a situation. It is hard enough today to teach our children about having strong values and living the gospel with all of the misinformation that they receive from the media and other sources, but to have their school teachers who the children admire and look to as role models teaching them opposite principles than what we are trying to teach them would make our job as parents even more difficult.

And, although there were similar propositions being voted upon in several states during that election, California’s Proposition 8 was the one that everyone seemed to be focusing on, because many states seem to eventually follow the trends of California within a few years. Plus, as you probably know, I grew up in California and have always wanted to move back to Southern California again after all of Michael’s medical training so that we could be near family and enjoy the beautiful weather there. So the vote on Prop 8 was more than just a curiosity to me – it was personal: deciding what could be taught to my children in the public schools in the state where I’d like to move back to. Anyways, when the election was going on and all of the votes were being counted, I admit that I was more interested in the turnout of California’s Prop 8 than in even the presidential election (after all, I felt that both of the presidential candidates had both positives and negatives and I had a hard time deciding which one to vote for – I am still curious to see the outcome of the presidential election with the candidate that was chosen – but I knew exactly what I wanted the outcome of the Prop 8 vote to be). Since the local news stations were only covering the Presidential election and a few minor local issues (like whether the tax-payers were going to pay extra to fix up the zoo or not), I went online and found an official website with information for California that was updated as the votes were counted. I followed that site through the next day, until it was clear what the people of California had decided: that marriage was defined as between one man and one woman. I was so relieved. I thought about writing a post on the blog about it at that time, but never got around to it after the fact. But I got an e-mail from a friend that reminded me of Prop 8 and all my feelings about that.

The e-mail was about Obama’s plans to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as he becomes president, and links to a website with a form that you can fill out petitioning him not to do so. Although I am usually pretty critical of forwarded e-mails, and I also do not know if online petitions have any real effect on political issues, this is another issue that I think is incredibly important. I took a look at the website for the petition, http://www.fightfoca.com/, and it shows a short video clip of Obama clearly stating that he plans to support this act. Among other things, the Freedom of Choice Act will allow various types of abortions, including partial birth abortions. I was watching tv once a few years ago and I flipped the channel to see a partial birth abortion, and it just made me cry. First of all, I think that although I personally don’t know if I could ever have an abortion in any situation, there are a few situations where it might be considered, such as cases of rape or if the mother and baby would surely die if she were to give birth, but in most cases I think abortion is a terrible thing and should never be considered. I think that people who are irresponsible and have sex without thinking about the consequences, and then decide that abortion is a good fix for their problem will be held responsible for their actions after this life. I think that stopping the life of an innocent baby is such a terrible thing to do, and I imagine that the majority of women who make the decision to do so, especially teenagers, regret their decision later on. I also think that a child deserves to be raised by a mother and a father in a good home, and I know that there are good parents out there looking to adopt children. How could any person be so selfish as to end the life of another human being just because it would be difficult for her for 9 months of her life? I know, being sick and having changes to your body are not fun, and the social pressures may be difficult to deal with, but if you chose to have sex in the first place, you knew that pregnancy was a possible result of that action. Why not just have the baby and give it up for adoption?

And why would anyone ever have a partial birth abortion? As I understand it, these abortions are done late enough that the baby could possibly be born and survive, but instead they are partially born and then killed. How could any woman, medical professional, or politician ever think that such a thing should be allowable?

The other part of the Freedom of Choice Act that really bothered me was the fact that doctors would be forced to perform abortions against their will. When Michael went through medical school, he told me that as a doctor they are obligated to refer a patient to a different doctor who will help them with an abortion if they are morally opposed to performing one. Why change this? If the patient will be referred to another doctor who will give them information about their options and give them the care they need, why force all doctors to perform abortions? I’m just glad that Michael is going into dermatology, so if this act does get passed it shouldn’t affect him professionally.

Anyways, I don't know if signing the petition on this website will have any effect on Obama's decision to go forward with signing the Freedom of Choice Act, but at least we can try to get the message out to people about his plans to do so, and hopefully the more people who learn about this, the more people there will be who will let their opinions be known that we as the majority of the American population do not support such actions.

http://www.fightfoca.com/

Driving Home

This is a real short clip from our long drive home from California to Utah. Camden was being really cute – playing peek-a-boo and making Isaac laugh, but of course as soon as I got out the camera the kids all became distracted by the camera and Camden stopped playing peek-a-boo and Isaac stopped laughing. Oh well, they are still pretty cute.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Waiting Game

Well, tomorrow’s the big day! The Match starts at 11am, but I’m sure we’ll be getting up pretty early in the morning to get the kids ready and get over to the school in plenty of time to get enough seats for us and all our boys next to each other. I have not really been nervous so far, waiting for Match Day, but tonight am feeling it a bit – not really nervous, I guess, just so many questions and thoughts running through my head. If we went to California we could be with my family . . . if we went to Texas I have heard the housing is so cheap . . . if we went to Pennsylvania we will be in a pretty small town, how would that be? . . . if we stayed here, I would be pretty bummed to have to last through four more Milwaukee winters . . . but if we stayed here we wouldn’t have to leave our friends . . . what is there to do in Ohio? . . . if we happened to get into New York City wouldn’t that be such a cool place to live? (and how could we ever afford it with all our kids?) . . . if we got into Florida that program has totally free medical insurance for the whole family – that would make a big difference . . . what if we ended up in some other Wisconsin program and had the cold winters to deal with, but didn’t have our friends? . . . if we went to Utah, we could live with my Grandma and save up for a house . . . how are we going to figure out if it is best to buy a house or just rent, no matter where we go? . . . I just have to keep telling myself to just wait one more day and then most of these questions won’t matter anymore because we won’t be going to all of these different places, just one or two of them. It’s pretty exciting! I’ll be sure to post tomorrow what we find out . . .

Erin

While we were in San Diego I got a chance to see my best friend from high school, Erin Devenberg. She moved to northern California when we were younger, and I hadn’t even seen her since before Kolby was born. She brought books for Kolby, Eli, and Camden and a rattle for Isaac – the boys enjoyed having her read the books to them. We had lunch with our moms one day, and then she was able to come visit again before she left San Diego. It was so nice to see her. Hopefully it won’t be as long before we do it again.

Thoughts on Moving

So, as Match Day is approaching I have been thinking more and more about moving. For those of you not familiar with how medical students end up in a residency program after graduation, here’s a quick explanation: The students apply for residency programs and then wait to get invitations for interviews. After interviews are over, each student makes a rank list of all the programs they interviewed with in order of preference, and turns in their lists in February. Each residency program also ranks the students that they interviewed. Then a computer takes all the lists and uses an algorithm to match every graduating student in the country with a residency program. Ideally, a competitive student would get their top choice, but many get one lower down on their list. So, on March 20th all the students come in and each one gets their name called and goes up to get an envelope that contains the results of the match. And that is a contract (you have to go at least for the first year, and you are expected to stay with that program for the remainder of the residency).

So, it is a very interesting time right now, while we wait for Match Day. We have quite a few choices of where to go, and most of them are very good programs that would be good places for Michael to do his residency. We are pretty confident that we will match somewhere, but we’re really not sure which program we are likely to match with. So, being in innate planner that I am, I have a bunch of different questions and thoughts all running through my mind about all the places that we might possibly end up:

• We are going to have to figure out all the stuff for school for Kolby wherever we go. We really aren’t old enough to have a kid old enough to be starting school, are we?
• If we went to Texas, I’ve heard we could afford a house, but would we be able to sell it without a problem when we leave after residency?
• If we went to Pennsylvania, how would it be living in a small town? We could do lots of outdoor things, except when it’s too cold in the winter. But we could also take trips and do all the East Coast stuff.
• How are we going to get wherever we go? We have the van and the car – and driving separately on a long move doesn’t really appeal to me. Is it worth it to take that car with us, or should we just sell it to yet another medical student? But we don’t really want a car payment at this point if we can help it.
• What if we happened to end up in New York City, how would we be able to afford to live there? But wouldn’t it be so cool to live near all those great sites in the histories of our country and our church?
• How is it going to be to move into a normal family ward after being here with all the other student families who are in our same situation? Are we going to be the only young family in the ward? Will we be the busiest/noisiest/wildest family in the ward with all our little boys?
• How humid is it in north-central Florida? Would the humidity be better than living someplace with a really cold winter? We could take a day trip to the beach. :)
• What kind of insurance coverage are we going to have, and how will I figure that all out?
• What if we went to San Diego for a year? There are so many things I would love about that. We would be with family, save money on rent for a down payment on a house, and be able to enjoy the beautiful weather there. Where would we put our furniture and the things we wouldn’t need there?
• If we move someplace for a transition year before the derm residency starts – it will take a lot of effort to get to know everyone and unpack and get settled in, just to pick up and move again a year later.
• Rochester, New York would be amazing, but cold. But when are we ever going to have a chance again to live on the East Coast?
• Wouldn’t it be cool to have a house and a yard? I could decorate and we could plant a garden and the kids could play in the yard. But we are pretty ignorant about buying a house – how will we figure all that out? We would have to buy all the big appliances and worry about maintenance and upkeep.
• What kinds of things are there to do in Ohio? I bet it would be similar there to Milwaukee.
• Maybe our van would actually run ok if we moved to someplace warm – it runs fine in the summer here, but in the cold winter weather it frequently needs to be jumped and lately has started to kill sometimes when we stop at traffic lights, even though we have replaced the battery several times and no mechanic can figure out the problem. We’ll see.
• Salt Lake would mean we could live in my grandma’s finished basement (which is larger than our current apartment), and save up money for a house. But the transition year there said their interns are busier at the hospital than some other programs – it would probably be ok, but Michael’s going to be gone enough as it is, so would I really want him to be more busy than he might somewhere else?
• Tonight the temperature here in Milwaukee is in the negatives. Just about any place would have to have a better climate than this, right? :) Too bad for the winters here – otherwise Milwaukee would be a rather nice place to live.
• How are we ever going to find friends as good as the ones here?
• I feel like there are so many things to be thinking about, and I am just scratching the surface. I wonder what else there is to figure out that I haven’t even thought of yet. I just have to keep myself from really thinking about it too much, since I can’t do anything but wait at this point.

I am excited about starting out someplace new, but at the same time I am feeling rather sad that we will likely be leaving our friends here in Milwaukee and will not see many of them again. This is an exciting time for us coming up, so it will be really interesting to see how it all turns out.

Re-Connecting

So, a couple weeks ago I was catching up on the lives of some of my friends by looking at their blogs. One girl, Audrey, who I met on an archeology trip and knew for a short time at Ricks College, sometimes writes about her family and posts to her husband’s family’s blog. So, I was just checking quickly to see if Audrey had posted anything recently to that blog. I didn’t notice anything from her, and was about to close the internet page, but saw a photo of a girl that I thought I recognized. When I looked closer, I confirmed that it was a photo of my old friend, Becca Floyd (who has since gotten married and is now Becca Doolittle), who I was good friends with during high school back home in San Diego.

After searching around that blog and the blog that I found for Becca and her husband, Jason, I concluded that Audrey’s and Becca’s husbands were brothers. I couldn’t believe that I was able to reconnect with a close friend from California who I had lost touch with through a girl who I didn’t know for very long at college in Idaho. I was excited to e-mail Becca and tell her how I had ‘found’ her on the internet. I looked at her blog a little and soon realized another huge coincidence: Becca and her husband moved to Milwaukee earlier this summer for his veterinary medicine internship. So, I e-mailed her, and today Becca was able to come to our home and visit with me, and meet my family. It was really fun to talk with her, and to catch up on everything that has happened to each of us in the last 5 or 10 years. Although her husband has a difficult schedule with his internship right now, we are hoping to get together for dinner sometime soon.

Although I feel like it’s worth it to keep up on our blog because I print out everything that I write here and keep it as a sort of family journal, I sometimes feel like it’s silly to write so much and post it on the internet because I don’t know how many of our family members and friends really read it. Also, although it is a very convenient way for me to keep in touch with friends and keep family updated on what is going on with us, I sometimes wonder if it is less personal that sending a letter in the mail or calling people. But it’s kind of cool to think that using these blogs can not only help me keep in touch with and ‘find’ old friends, but can sometimes lead to being able to get together with them in person (and what could be more personal than that?)