Some updates

 

My ID came back, and it has the appropriate gender marker (phew!). Was a bit nervous waiting to find out if the paperwork from Multnomah County would be enough, but it looks like it was.

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Went up to Grand Marais with Rachel a couple weeks ago -- she thought I needed to get out for a bit, and she was right. The Arrowhead is an awful lot like coastal Oregon in some ways -- verdant growth, lush pine forests, many small beach towns. Nice quiet cabin-time and beach-bumming, with a side order of road-tripping mixed in. I love the town of Grand Marais and exploring up there, and being so close to such a large body of water. It almost felt like home. Duluth was an interesting city, too, and I'd like to get out there again.

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I'm very worried about one of my students. Her husband (who I've gathered has some rather regressive attitudes towards the role of women in a marriage) has turned abusive and forbidden her to leave the house, or come to school. She's very depressed, and there is some other leverage that makes seeking escape very untenable for her. It is not a simple situation at all, and there's probably little I can do to help, but I am trying to find out what kind of resources might exist to help someone in her situation. Even so, I may not be able to get that information to her. So worried for her...she's a geeky, expressive, clever and funny person whom everyone enjoyed, and had ambitions of being a teacher herself (which she loved doing in her previous country). It bothers me when any of my students fall on hard times, but...she's just someone it's hard to imagine the class without, and someone who (given our conversations and geeking out before classes together) I want to think of as a friend. It's hitting me pretty hard. I hope there's something that can be done to help her.

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Got a *fake* "you are being sued" summons from a debt collections agency. I'm quite sure it's not real; the court database had no trial pending, and none of the requisite information like court date, judge (and judge's signature), and soforth is present. It's clearly just designed to panic the debtor into paying rapidly. The whole thing is remarkably shady. Trying to figure out what to do next -- I owe a debt to the party they say they're collecting for, but that's my sole basis for giving them any credibility here. And a perusal of both the collection agency and the law office they pretend to be suggests they pull a lot of shady crap like this.

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Clothes have been succumbing to entropy all at once, suddenly. Probably summer's fault, but it's beginning to get very frustrating. It's inordinately difficult to find clothing I both want to wear and can afford. Losing the use of a bunch of garments all at once is a worrying prospect. I've got a skirt in the works with AJ, but I'm about to face a critical shortage of functional pants. Argh.