Addressing Assumptions

So I recently emailed a question to "SimpleMom" Tsh Oxenreider which has generated a lot of awesome discussion on her site.  You're welcome to chime in with your thoughts here, but it'd be more useful to more people over there.  The gist of the question is "do I give a food pantry items that I wouldn't feed to my own family?"

In reading through the comments though, it amused me the assumptions people made about me (to some extent...on the very rare occasion, people were just mean).  I didn't feel the need to respond to each comment, but if anyone cares enough to have come over here to check out who this "Melissa" person is, I wanted to clear a few things up.

First off, my children are definitely _not_ "bubble" children.  We try (as the budget allows) to eat organic, but mostly I try to just cook from scratch with whole ingredients.  It didn't even occur to me when I posed the question that it would veer off (for some) into 'Melissa must be an all-organic, all fair-trade, all free-range, all hormone-free helicopter parent' kind of thing.  Right now our priorities are whole grains (except even I can't stomach whole-grain pasta most of the time), and minimization of food dyes, artificial sweeteners, MSG, and less so things like nitrites (nitrates?) and other preservatives.  After that comes a preference for organic.  Only after that would come fair trade/free range (sadly...I understand the issues there to a limited extent, we're just not quite there in our baby steps to becoming better stewards, etc.).  That's just where we are in our process.  Someday I'd love to be all of those things (except a helicopter parent), but we're far from there.

Secondly, it really amused me the number of times it was mentioned that I have clearly never experienced poverty for myself if this is my question.  That amuses me immensely because I _HAVE_ experienced poverty, not personally, but I've definitely seen it for myself, first-hand (and not even as a visitor - I lived there for over a year) - just not necessarily in America.  The poverty (not starvation, mind you, just poverty) that I've seen has been in developing countries and war-ravaged countries.  I think poverty looks VERY different here than it does in places like Iraq and Nigeria.  And that was/is a large part of my dilemma.

In Iraq, I could absolutely have given a sack of rice with no worries to a poor person.  They would have known exactly what to do with it and would have appreciated it immensely.  In America, those in poverty don't necessarily _want_ plain rice (or any other random shelf-stable ingredient).  They want Hamburger Helper and boxed rice with other stuff that can be microwaved easily.  They want pop-top cans.

We send a 5-gallon bucket of pasta, rice, peanut butter, flour, and oil to Haiti and a family can eat for a month.  I have those same ingredients in my pantry and my babysitters' mom worries that we can't afford groceries because my cupboards are "bare."

I absolutely don't understand poverty in America.  I've never truly experienced it first-hand, and what I imagine I would want were my family in that situation are NOT the things that are listed as "needs" for the crisis food pantry at my church.  Maybe because their emphasis is on homeless rather than just poor?  I don't know.

If this question had easy answers, I would have figured it out for myself!

Called Out

So until just recently, my dad has been a minister of music (and sometimes youth). Sometimes he was full-time (most of my childhood, but not since my senior year in high school), sometimes bi-vocational, but always on a church staff. Still, he's not so much the type to talk about his kids from the pulpit, using something we said or did as an object lesson for the congregation.

So it was a new experience for me yesterday morning when our Senior Pastor called me out from the pulpit! I didn't even realize what was going on at first (even though I really was actually paying attention right then)! I was sitting there, thinking how funny it was that he was talking about what my email signature has said for just about forever (or, you know, 5-6 years): "The grass is always greenest right next to the puddle of raw sewage."

I made that up one day while driving through a poor part of Baghdad on a cold, dreary, November day. The houses were all adobe-colored, the sky was gray...and the only color I saw anywhere was this tall tuft of bright green grass growing next to a drainage ditch. In that part of town, there is no underground sewage system, so every house just has a ditch running from their "bathroom" to the ditches along the roads. And that was the only spot where grass took root and was growing.

Anyway, that gave me a good chuckle, so I put it after my name on all of my emails and it's been there ever since. I don't know that I've emailed the pastor in months, but that's obviously left an impression on him...so yesterday when he was preaching about finding joy, he mentioned that "the grass your neighbor is standing on is like that because..." then he trailed off and started staring right at me.

After a moment of discomfort (as I wondered, "Is he really talking about me? Is he really staring at me? Is he looking at something/someone else? What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? (ok, not really on that last one)), he then said that there was someone in the church who ends her every communication with that, then said, "Melissa, you want to fill them in?" At which point, VNB roared with laughter, as did the few others who have received emails from me and knew exactly what he was talking about.

So I yelled out, "it's right next to a puddle of raw sewage!" He repeated me for amplification purposes, the congregation tittered, and then he moved on with his sermon.

It was definitely a new experience for me!

Hope Lives!

So I've long been a fan of Compassion, International. They're an organization that reaches children in poverty and helps them help themselves and their families out of it. They do it using local people who are working for the betterment of their own community with money donated by sponsors in the US and elsewhere. The child that you sponsor is not a "representative" child that fifty-thousand other people are "sponsoring." That child is unique to you and your family and for $32 a month is well-fed and schooled. They write you letters and you can write them back. You can even send them Christmas presents or other special things for their community or family.

Anyway, Compassion has recently gotten into blogging, thanks in no small part to Christian musician Shawn Groves. Currently, he and several other bloggers are in the Dominican Republic seeing the work that's being done there and opening themselves and Compassion up to the world through the various blogs. They're also sponsoring their first ever blog contest! So here's my entry describing how hope lives in my life.

Ever since I was young, my favorite Bible verse has been Psalm 30:5b "Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning" (that's the Leia Standard Version, btw). Whenever anything "bad" has happened in my life, that verse has been my mainstay because, not only does it give me hope for this life (i.e., as Scarlett says, "Tomorrow is another day!"), but it reminds me of the hope that I have for my eternal life after I die here on Earth.

When I was going through my various breast lumps and wondering if at 23 I had breast cancer, I knew no matter what I was going to have to deal with, that God would be there with me through it all...and even if I died of cancer, I was gonna go to heaven, so woohoo!

When I lived and worked in Baghdad, I knew that, even if I were kidnapped or worse, that God would be with me through it all, and even if I died, God would be glorified through my death (as he was through the deaths of my friends), and I was gonna go to heaven, so woohoo! While others in my company wanted to hunker down and stay in our office instead of going out and actually _helping_ people, I was ready to go out to the "dark" places because of that hope.

More recently, when Baby Jones' first sonogram showed a "soft marker" for Trisomy-18 (a genetic disorder which only very rarely allows the baby to make it to term, much less live outside the womb), the only thing that kept us sane was the knowledge that God was in control. It wouldn't make the loss of this little one hurt any less, but we could rest in the knowledge that God had a plan even for the shortest of lives, and that He would be glorified through it all. And we were happy to give Him the praise when the follow-up sonogram showed no signs of anything other than a healthy baby!

Hope lives in my life because I can look back across the years and see clearly where God has taken care of all of my needs (and those of my family) and given me so much more than I could ever ask or imagine along the way. Knowing that He's always done that in the past, I can rest assured that He will continue to do so in the future.

As Bill and Gloria Gaither said, "Because He lives I can face tomorrow. Because He lives all fear is gone. Because I know Who holds the future. My life is worth the living just because He lives."

10-15 out of 3,535

So according to Air & Space magazine, I am one of 3,535 people from which 10-15 will ultimately be chosen. Chosen for what, you ask?

Well, last September I got an email from a former boss which said "now's the time" with a link to a news article - an article about NASA accepting astronaut applications again. After confirming that he did, indeed think that I should apply, I got my references in order (it's really nice to be family friends with the software manager for Hubble repair missions and to have worked for one of the associate administrators of NASA who also just happens to be a former Shuttle pilot and commander (and who just got inducted into the astronaut hall of fame)!), found all of my medical records, updated my resume, sent in my school transcripts, and on Christmas Eve, submitted my complete application.

So why are you only hearing about this now? Well, the vacancy announcement didn't close until the end of June...and since the school transcripts had to be mailed in, they had to give ample time for everything to get to their office, so they didn't actually start considering anyone until the beginning of September. I figured that no one would want to hear "well, it's not even under consideration yet" for most of a year, so I held off. Plus, shortly after submitting my application, there were lots of vomit stories to tell, which were _much_ more exciting than "nope, not yet..."

Sometime in July or August, I got a post card from the Astronaut Selection office saying that they had my completed application and I'd be hearing from them in the future. Well, as they say, "the future is (potentially) now." They're currently going through the 3,535 applications and making their first cut. They'll cut out folks who don't qualify at all, and then cut it down more so that there are about 120 folks. These people will be called to come to Houston in groups of 20 in November, December, and January for interviews and medical tests.

So, assuming I make that first cut, they'll be getting a call from me asking if they would allow me to come in the first group since Baby's coming in December and will be here in January! Hopefully they'll be flexible!

After the interviews are completed, they'll make a second cut from the 120 down to about 40. These folks will be called back to Houston in February and March for more extensive medical screenings. If I make that second cut, they'll be getting another call from me asking that I be in the LAST group to give me more time to get back into shape after the baby comes! So many astronauts are running/fitness nuts. As much as I like to be "shapely," I'm far from a nut about running or biking (or whatever) miles and miles every day! Especially 2-3 months post-partum!

After those final screenings are finished, they'll make their final cut down to 10-15 people (depending on how many active astronauts are left at that point - they expect a good bit of attrition due to the expected retirement of the Shuttle fleet in 2010), about 1/3 of which will be minorities and/or women. Assuming I make _that_ cut, we'll find out in March or so and will be expected to report in Houston in August.

So, what are my chances? Well, 3535 applicants for (let's say) 15 spots...given that 1/3 of the chosen will be women and let's say that at most 50% of the applicants are women...all applicants being equal, I have a chance of approximately 5 in 1767 or about 1 in 353.

Honestly, those odds aren't quite as bad as I was expecting (this was the first time I'd actually done any calculations).

But all applicants _aren't_ equal. The average age for an astronaut is somewhere in their 40s. I'm in my early 30s. Many "mission specialist" astronauts (the non-pilot folks like me) tend to have multiple advanced degrees. I have one MS and no PhD. And most folks who become astronauts apply multiple times before being selected (there's even one guy who applied 15 times before being selected!!!!!). This is my first application.

But on the plus side, I believe that my work experience uniquely qualifies me for the expected work for astronauts of the 2009 class. The folks selected in this class of astronauts will not fly on the Shuttle (unless something _drastic_ happens with Russia and the Shuttle program has to be extended past 2010). They will go to the ISS and will fly on the CEV. Well, my experience as a risk analyst for both the ISS and the CEV means that I have a good amount of knowledge about those systems already (especially the life support systems since that was my area of expertise on both contracts, although I have a good general working knowledge of the other systems as well). On top of that, we used the astronaut training manuals and a lot of operational procedures and rules as our main sources of information. This gives me a leg up on the training aspect, but it also makes me more 'well-rounded' than many engineer types who are more focused on the technical aspects than the operational aspects of missions.

And all of that's not to mention my time at the research lab where I worked as an undergrad (a neutral buoyancy tank like they use for astronaut training) and getting to fly twice already on the "Vomit Comet" (another training tool). I even think that my time overseas was a bit like training - I was never allowed to be really alone (there was always a security guard and/or driver with me whenever I went anywhere), I was very limited in where I could go and what I could do (not to mention learning another language), and I was separated by vast distances from friends and family. I may not have been weightless or confined in really, really close quarters with anyone (although it sure seemed that way sometimes), but there were definitely aspects of my time there that were similar to what I'll (hopefully) experience someday on a space mission.

So will I get selected? In sha'allah (God willing).

National Treasure

So we've been watching the movie "National Treasure" the past few nights on USA. Which is silly since we have the DVD, but that's another story.

Anyway...so last night I heard a line for the first time. As Nicolas Cage is helping everyone into the scary staircase from the tunnel through the crypt, he grabs the girl and kisses her. Then "Thug #2" (or whatever his name is) says, "Why doesn't that ever happen to me?"

So I want to know what the thug is really asking. Is he asking why he's never in the situation where the pretty girl and he fall for each other during trying circumstances? Or is he asking why Nicolas Cage never grabs and kisses him?

I think it's the latter.






So anyway...on to my thankfulness for the day. I'm thankful for pomegranates. Just for their very existence to begin with...but also for the day I was introduced to them in Iraq. I remember it clearly. "My" family there laughing at me as I took a single kernel and tentatively put it in my mouth. Or the day I learned how to pick a "good" one (of the red Iraqi variety, that would be one with the most white on the skin). Or the day that they finally came into season here in the States after my return and I got to taste something at least very similar to what I'd come to love over there. It's not the same (as with most things, the American version is sweeter), but it's similar enough to do until I get a "real" one again. :) What I love even more though is that my supermarket sells "still good, but not for long" produce for reduced prices. And since most Americans have no idea what to do with a pomegranate, lots of them end up over there...and I get to eat them for cheap! Woohoo!

And yes, I had one tonight and it was scrumdiddlyumptious.

And Nicolas Cage, et al, just found the treasure...again....