Sunday, 06.07.2015 - 12:20 pm.
Nothing on the scholarships yet. This is cruel. We should have had news this past week. Maybe tomorrow? Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to tell where I, where we will be in September this year.
In the meantime: yesterday morning, Andrew and I rescued a dog on a bridge. I'm on the local animal rescue group's Facebook group and someone posted a blurry pic of a dog that had been run over and was unable to move. "I can see that bridge from here!", I said to myself, and I do: I live on a 4th floor and I can see it, it connects to another city. I imagined the poor animal and I asked Andrew to go. He was finishing some errands nearby and I had just finished my workload for the weekend (thank God it wasn't much). Ever in solidarity, he said yes.
I was moved because it was a case literally close to home. And because I imagined the dog with the fractured hip and because the place where it was happening was within sight. Also, because I saw so many unhelpful posts of other people, poor thing, someone help him, why didn't the person who took the picture do something, etc.
It turned out I had the wrong bridge though. There are two bridges to that city and from our apartment we can see the new one. The dog was in the old one, but Andrew knew how to get there. And indeed we saw him: a big stray dog, unable to move his hind legs, looking up and around in pain. He was on the edge of the bridge, it's a very narrow sidewalk, only one person can walk on it at the time. On one side there was the river and on the other there was traffic, cars would drive by the dog slowly. Andrew parked the car a few feet away from the bridge and we went to get him.
The look in the dog's eyes, it was painful. He had his lower body bent. The bridge trembled and rumbled non-stop and cars rushed a few inches away from us. A train also rushed nearby and the noise and the trembling was scary even for me. Some time ago, Andrew and I bought a muzzle and always carry it in the car. It came in handy, though it was too small. Andrew took the dog in his arms, we put him in the trunk of our car and covered him with a towel (thanks, first aid course I attended) and we took him to our vet friend's clinic.
Right on time, also. It started to raining. It's been raining a lot, and I can barely picture the agony of having a fractured hip, laying on a sidewalk on the edge of a trembling, noisy two-lane bridge. Hundreds of people driving by, not one stopping to help. No one wants to be responsible. It takes time and money.
This dog was like a beagle but huge; a hound. A handsome lad, if someone had taken the time to look after him. He probably received more care and concern with us in those hours before his death than ever in his life. There were talks from our vet friends that he could make it, but they and us, Andrew and I, knew it was most likely he wouldn't. The spine was broken, the organs were filling up with fluid. He'd howl in pain in the car, and then when they were taking his x-rays.
Our vet friends put him down. I sort of wish I had been there, so he could have seen a friendly face as he went away (the look in his eyes, seriously), but he was supposed to stay in observation for a few days and perhaps have surgery if there was something they could do. But quickly they realized there wasn't anything they could do. And my silly yet valuable consolation is that he was treated with dignity as he died. His pain was eased and he was released with affection.
And that was the most significant part of our saturday.
Andrew's birthday is on the 15th and I have to plan stuff this week. I've ordered a present for him but I'm always scared it may never come in the mail, so I should go get a back-up. He hasn't been in the best of moods, what with the uncertainty of the scholarship, the natural exhaustion of the semester and perhaps a bit of his family tragedy catching up with him.
Oh, I decided I'm going to quit my teaching job at the university. I'm supposed to teach a new course next semester (if the scholarship falls through) but...I don't like it and I know nothing about it. I'm very busy with my research jobs so I really can't dedicate any more time to learning and getting motivated. That's the cherry on top of all the work required versus the rewards (material and otherwise) and the students' attitudes. If I wanted to teach schoolchildren, well, I'd go and do that. I was hoping I'd work with 3rd year college students. They are not mean but they are so passive and irresponsible that they make it look like them not learning is all my fault. Their reading comprehension is a disgrace and I'm so frustrated. Indeed, I'm done.