Wizards, Grains, and Attitude

Have you heard of the Dresden Files? It's a series of fictional (duh) books about a wizard named Harry Dresden who assists the Chicago Police Department in fighting crime--of the supernatural variety. Anyway, lately I've had a borderline unhealthy fascination with the books (I just finished book four) so much so that even when I'm exhausted from working late, I've stayed up til one or so in the morning trying to leard what happens next? No, I wouldn't give the books any award or anything, but they are excellent escapist fiction with humor, adventure, and evil faeries. Here's a link cause I encourage SOMEONE to check out the books: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Storm-Front/Jim-Butcher/e/9780451457813/?itm=9



Grains. So, as soon as we're told whole grains are better than bleached, enriched flour, we learn that gluten-free is better than wheat/oats/barley/other glutinous grains. And now we're finding that NO GRAINS are better than some or any grains for a host of reasons. Let's talk agricultural. Simply put, acre for acre, fresh fruits and vegetables yield far more food than grains. Grains nowadays are stripped of whatever nutritional value they might have had, and in their very protein structures have substances that cause humans to unknowingly become addicted to them. (This particularly applies to glutinous grains, seen here: http://www.habitguide.com/blog/gluten) But whole grains have lots of fiber, you argue. Indeed. But it's not the good fiber. Think of swallowing bark. It has lots of fiber, but no matter how soft it may feel in your mouth, going down your very sensitive esophagus it's creating millions of tiny cuts on the membrane, which causes the body to react by producing a fine layer of mucous to protect it. And really, if you have bad allergies like I do, do you really need your body creating MORE mucous? Eck! Alternative to grains? Lots of bananas (for calories) and lettuce/celery/similar veggies for fiber. How am I doing with this? Well, this is day 3 for me. Indeed I did the raw food thing off and on for a bit, and yes I am trying to slowly transition back to that. But for a carbo addict like myself, breaking free of the addiction to grains is step one. Sure, it all sounds wacky... until you look at it from a bio-nutritionist standpoint and not a comercial view.



We have a new supervisor at work. Now, the supervisors at my job have specialized jobs and levels of leadership. We have a behaviorist, an occupational therapist, and a woman who's kind of in charge of everything admin and in the classroom. Then each classroom has a teacher and below that are 6-8 teacher assistants (yours truly.) Anyway, the new behaviorist is a piece of work. I say she's new, but she's actually been here for several months (maybe since December?) Anyway, it doesn't matter when she got here because instead of being the modest, wise observant person who took the time to get to know each student and their protocol and the teachers/TAs, she just jumps in and start telling everyone that they're doing everything wrong, and it's been like that since. Whatever the situation is, she just jumps in, acts like she knows everything, treats the teachers (well, my teacher) and the TAs like we're dumb pieces of shit, and THEN, as if her dominion over the staff isn't enough, starts telling the parents that they're fucked up for not allowing their children edible reinforcers (read: candy) at school. Honestly, that's their fucken perogative. And if she can't teach the kids without bribing them with sugar, then she's not so perfect, is she? The worst part about her arrogance is that she has succeeded in making everyone feel afraid of her. NO ONE will tell her, "Hey, you know what? I had that under control. It's nice of you to want to help, but I'd appreciate it if you ASKED me next time since that's MY student right now." Or, "Maybe you could stop being such a condescending little prick and respect that you have people under you before they stop working for you altogether," (not quit their jobs, but you know, stop being cooperative.) Its like in the military... it's like she's an officer that treats us, the enlisted, as these people far inferior to herself. The number of times I have had to stare her down because she was wanting something to control and not able to have it is ridiculous. I liked being humble and submissive. I was able to just follow directions without (well, mostly without) asking why... the military would love me. And then SHE came and started acting like a prick and changing things in her "I'm the GOD of ABA" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis) manner of leadership. I'm gonna put dishwashing liquid in her coffee or something...