the dangerous cunning of internet scams

over the holidays, i was at home in kentucky eating lunch with my family, when we got a phone call. my brother, being the most spry of us at the table, jumped up and answered the phone. my brother, also being the most patient/naive of us at the table, listened to the automated message long enough to hear that whoever just called us had put us on hold, to wait for "the next available agent." my mom immediately grabbed the phone from him and hung up. everyone at the table chided him, "when you get calls from telemarketers, just hang up!"

but, this was one of several similar calls we'd gotten this week. at another point during the holidays, we got a call from "American Express" which i thought was a telemarketing call, so i hung up, but then i remembered that credit card companies sometimes make courtesy calls when strange or suspicious spending occurs on a credit card (i'm grateful to my credit card EVERY single time this happens, even the one time it was for $70 of groceries at Safeway). so, it being the holidays, i had a twinge of concern in the back of my mind and asked if my parents had checked their credit card activity lately. my mom, being a somewhat paranoid and worrisome person, immediately checked her wallet and my dad's wallet and freaked out that one of their AmEx cards was missing. she called American Express back to talk to someone to see if something suspicious had happened on their card because one was missing. 10 minutes later, we found the card (at the bottom of a purse or briefcase) and AmEx informed us they hadn't made a call to us in the last half hour.

but, because of this earlier incident, in which a potential telemarketing scam could have also been a potential credit-related courtesy call, my mom's curiosity was more piqued than it would otherwise be, and she called the-place-that-put-us-on-hold back and asked them who they were, why they called us, and if it was such an important matter, why they put us on hold. the person on the line then continued to inform her that i owed $400+ in debt to a hospital in LA for a visit occurring nearly 2 years ago. my mom was incredulous at first, then angry, argumentative, and lastly, she asked me if i knew anything about this. i thought it was preposterous, i had a string of freak medical emergencies about 2 years ago for a work-related health injury, but i had paid all my medical bills up front, out of pocket. i also had two different sets of insurance, my own medical insurance and workers' comp. so to have an outstanding debt of this size from over two years ago, and not hear anything about it until now, seemed wildly suspicious. worse, the man on the phone threatened that the issue had to be resolved TODAY.

luckily, my mom was in a hurry to go to yoga and told him he'd have to wait, and then just hung up. we didn't hear from them again. until a week later. they sent a letter to my house, which i didn't read or see because i wasn't home when my mom got it, but it freaked her out. from what i can tell though, from her reading it to me on skype, is that there are no details regarding the visit, what services or procedures incurred the debt, or even who the doctor(s) was/were that i saw. the letter said i had 30 days to write back to dispute it, otherwise they would assume i acknowledge a debt was owed and they would pursue it.

well, this afternoon, while i was sitting in the sun enjoying a post-lunch break with some reading, i received another call. again, the man on the phone was insistent that i needed to resolve the issue today. i told him, firmly, that i would not be doing ANYTHING today, i would not admit debt, would not resolve to pay them, would not speak to them further, until i obtained written documentation from them and the hospital with more details about the supposed outstanding bills and until they could tell me specifically where the charges were coming from. they couldn't even tell me what date the visit(s) occurred. the man on the phone said he wasn't a doctor and could not provide that information. i asked to speak to his manager, was put on hold for 10 minutes, and then i hung up because i thought it was ridiculous. they called me back another ten minutes later, but left no messages when i didn't answer.

this angers me so much because what the man on the phone is telling me is that the hospital i saw in LA "sold" my and others' medical files and bills to the collection agency he represents. isn't this a violation of HIPAA and patient confidentiality acts? if some third party company does in fact have access to my information (such as address, phone number) and was sold that information, i am pretty sure i have firm grounds to sue. 

well, i looked up their number online and found that others had received similar (unwarranted) phone calls and had filed complaints, indicating some suspicious, scammy behavior. i also called my insurance and workers comp representatives right away, and received notice from them that what this company is doing is ILLEGAL. according to my workers comp agent, discussions of debt or bills directly with patients (at least as it pertains to workers comp cases) is illegal, they should always go directly to insurance first. also, i should have received fair warning of this, even if i did not pay something, rather than hearing about it suddenly two years later.

my biggest problem with this is the predatory nature in which these kinds of calls are being placed. without having to do more than mention "debt" "collection" "credit report" in one sentence, they made my parents draw their own conclusions with a lack of evidence or data and had them fearing for their financial security. they immediately feared for their ruined credit scores, having all their assets seized, legal troubles that could easily be disappeared with a quick $400 payoff. this is the scary nature of scams these days: scammers can easily get you to leap to conclusions and be under their thumb, because the economy is so scary right now, everyone's trying to stay out of debt, and everyday people feel powerless and ill-prepared to challenge even the most dubious of financial crises or disputes. my parents thoughts immediately turned to "it will be easier to pay this now while it's still early than to try to delay it and incur litigation fees or penalties." but where's the proof? also, resolving a financial dispute over the phone immediately seems very strange to me.

furthermore, scams of this nature erode our sense of security and foster paranoia - how can we distinguish between a real scam and a legitimate call from my credit card or hospital? how will i know when i actually owe money and when i'm being taken for a ride? (answer: always keep really detailed and careful records of all your medical-related bills and large purchases, always make sure you pay on time - and keep records of debt repayment - and keep a rolodex of people at each agency or organization you use services from and their customer service lines. NEVER take anyone's word for it that you owe money and didn't know about it).

if you are similarly the victim of dubious medical bill-related calls, here is what you should do: tell them they should contact your insurance (but DO NOT provide any insurance phone numbers or plan data) and if they contact you further tell them their actions are illegal and you will report them to an accountability agency. then see if you can have their numbers blocked from your phone.

the point of this post is: in today's increasingly confusing and difficult to navigate digital world, information and misinformation are equally abundant and equally dangerous. scammers know that a lot of people are paranoid right now about issues related to money, and many don't know how to differentiate between legitimate companies and scams (for example: my dad opened a spam email from "Amazon" telling him my brother had purchased a $500 laptop computer, and then forwarded it to my whole family asking who bought the computer, before i told him to delete it immediately and not click any of the links because it was spam. you don't see a lot of "Nigerian prince" emails any more, all the spam is masked as notifications from companies you actually use - Viagara and Rolex being perhaps exceptions to the rule).

bad teachers

i saw this conversation on my facebook feed the other day, when high school students around the country were planning walk-outs in support of teachers and workers in Wisconsin.

a little context first, before i completely tear this apart:

1. Karen is one of my oldest friends. we've been friends since middle school (14 years!) and were best friends in middle school. then, starting in high school, we kinda drifted apart, and now we barely keep in touch. though in some respects i lament our weakened friendship (she was one of my closest confidants), in other respects i am grateful we grew apart, and can totally understand why and how it happened.
2. Karen has always wanted, from as long ago as i can remember, to be an English teacher when she grew up. and now she is one. in our old school district. she, though, took the traditional student-teaching route (unlike my trial-by-fire, teaching in the trenches, going to night-school, TFA version) and has only recently started teaching her own students full-time in her own classroom (i think this is her second year of full-time teaching).
3. i don't know any of these other people. but, i do know that they all live in Kentucky.

OK! begin rant:

this kind of mentality makes me SO ANGRY. first off, that a walkout in support of teachers would be considered an inconvenience and for that reason must be shut-down, demonized, and demeaned. and then, that others would be cheering on this authoritative disregard for students' voices and actions, as if teachers need to win some kind of battle against their students, as if succeeding in enforcing (and forcibly teaching) a deflationist, irrelevant, separatist curriculum is the best thing a teacher could do all day with their students. it's so teacher-centric and irrelevant and so MIND-NUMBINGLY BACKWARDS that it makes me want to raze a magnet school.

the mentality that guides these teachers' practice is one of simple-minded obeisance to "performance standards" and status quo and daily planners written in stone. these are terrible teachers. these are teachers who got into the profession to lord over children and manipulate them into performing daily meaningless rituals so they can feel better about themselves. these are the kinds of teachers who use "because i said so" as legitimate reasons to believe or do anything. these are teachers who see their students' natural curiosity as an annoyance to be quelled and stifled rather than nourished. these are the kinds of teachers i HATED in school and made me want to go into ed policy and teacher training.

it makes me so mad! it is a horrible time to be a teacher, what with all the public scrutiny that teachers have come under lately in light of the bill in Wisconsin, and with the cuts to government funding threatening to take away their jobs, their pensions, their benefits and their pay, and with increasing lack of appreciation for what teachers do, it's a wonder ANYONE still endeavors to undertake this difficult job. it is quite possibly the MOST difficult career AND the most necessary to our society. so, it greatly disheartens me, with all the sh*t that is already happening to the teachers from forces outside the profession, to see that some teachers would voluntarily (and self-congratulatorily!) demean and dismiss the importance of recent political activism. LADIES! if you're not going to join the revolution, at least stand aside and let it happen without you!

[ shakes head ]

sweet justice

sea world: 2. humans: 0. this has not been a good week in the battle between man vs. nature.
an aquarium in the Dubai mall containing 2 million gallons of water and some 33,000 marine animals is beginning to crack. shark attack!

also, last week a 12,000 pound orca whale named Telly "dragged a trainer into the pool by her ponytail" and effectively killed her. in 1999, a man, who snuck past Seaworld security, and "either jumped, fell, or was pulled into the water" also died, possibly from hypothermia, though his body was found "draped" over Telly's head. the Seaworld PR people are now trying to keep blame away from Telly:

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Chuck Tompkins, Sea World’s head of animal training, insisted that the orca was getting a bad rap, saying, “those two incidents really don’t have anything to do with this and to mark him as a killer is very unfair.” [via]

damn right it's unfair! look, we're talking about a giant swimming KILLING MACHINE. have we forgotten that orca whales, in nature (where they NATURALLY BELONG) are huge, swift, powerful, blood-thirsty BEASTS who hunt BABY SEALS and EAT them? i'm guessing these deaths are due to a number of things (like, THEIR MOTHER FUCKING NATURE TO LEAP OUT OF WATER, SOMETIMES THROUGH ICE, TO BITE AND KILL AND EAT THINGS), none of which amount to "revenge," which is what the media is (ridiculously) trying to call it ("there was no reason to believe that the orca had turned on its trainer out of anger").
i'm sorry, but when it comes to animals and humans, i'm almost uncompromisingly pro-fauna. if you put a bunch of fucking SHARKS in a tank with a tunnel thru it in the mother-fucking MALL for the sake of spectacle/thrill/etc. you deserve to lose your shit once that tank starts cracking and leaking water. and if you put an orca whale in a pool, feed it nothing but little fish and expect it to learn tricks for your amusement, you're damned right it's gonna leap out and eat you if you're not looking. it's not revenge, it's poetic justice.
it infuriates me how often the media covers these animal encounter stories and side unequivocally with the humans. i mean, i know it's common practice to be anthropomorphic, but dang, can't we just get over ourselves from time to time and see from another perspective? it seems that for the supposedly "most intelligent" animal, and the only one granted with reason, that we can be extremely unreasonable and myopic.
sheeyit.

pshuh duh!

i need to delete my facebook account. every time i use it, it makes me want to smack myself in the face. i originally joined because i thought it would be an interesting sociological experiment, which i will admit it can still occasionally be, but it's generally just too much drama.

"people say i look like Lucy Liu all the time"

"dead ringer! but that's not fair... don't all asian people look alike?"

"@Ruth: you're so right! i've always thought all white people look alike too!"

i couldn't resist being a sarcastic bitch on this person's profile today. i really fucking can't stand people who think all people of a certain race look alike. if i can distinguish all the WHITE people apart, i think you can at least *pretend* to tell 2 people of color apart (esp. if both of them look NOTHING like each other).

when i trolled through this person's profile, i was sadly not so surprised to see that she is a Campus Crusader for Christ at Miami University. y'all, that school was so white bre(a)d.

i must commend her, though, on posting one of the most self-righteous-quotes-from-the-Bible-i've-ever-read as her "religious view." she practically parodies herself.

but, after further consideration, i feel i may have been too harsh on this certain sad individual. it seems her own friends can't tell her apart from an animated animal, so maybe i should forgive her inability to tell two people of color apart?

"you know this looks a lot like you!"

i always thought these "find the differences" puzzles in the weekend paper were a waste of time and insulting to people, but now i see how necessary they were.

can you tell the differences between these two pictures? yes? THEN YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MY FACE AND ANOTHER PERSON'S FACE. IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT THE COLORS ARE THE SAME!!!

whoo. alright, back to some grad school work. 'sbeen fun.

-stef

ugh.

what is the point of this?



the only possible outcomes of this much rain are:
1) mudslides

and 2) one helluva work week (children are like gremlins when it rains)

i think it's time to burrow down until next saturday.
-stef

anatomy of a shit-tastic day

1. slept less than 4 (nonconsecutive) hours last night
2. found out i failed my grad school project, so won't be having any more luck with PhD applications
3. there was nothing for breakfast so i ate a block of cheese and stale wheat thins
4. got two new students in the special ed class today, bumping up my class size to 12 (which, for special ed, is kind of a lot for me)
5. my students were CRAZY today (held a total of 7 students for detention, sent 2 out of the classroom)
6. the new students don't know how to add or multiply, and would prefer to ask me about my pets than learn how to find LCDs
7. one of the new students was sent to me for "taking a doo in the teacher's garbage can"
8. cold lasagna for lunch because there was nothing else to pack
9. no swimming after school because it's cold and i think i'm a little worn out already
10. tummy ache
11. it's friday and despite all the horrible work-related things, i'm still not so excited about this weekend

but good things that happened that i should remember:
1. traffic was almost non existent this morning
2. one more hour before i get to go home
3. i got Christopher and Alisha caught up on fractions (from LCDs, to simplifying, they can do it all now!)
4. my advisory class and those kids who make it seem like my class is the only one they come to school for
5. this article about Glenn Beck's "A Christmas Sweater," which i read at lunch and actually laughed out loud
6. only 2 more weeks to go before i can go back to Kentucky!

EDIT: i didn't actually fail the grad school project! hooray! the prof just make a huge error in entering grades onto blackboard. (i aced the project! all because of my editing skillz.)

a postmodern schooling-related rant (kinda)

i had to write a "blog" post for my grad class and this is what i spat:

These authors seem to be in conversation regarding the interconnectedness of the school and society, and the unique role the school plays as a social institution. Provenzo opens up his chapter discussing the interconnection from a postmodern view. He goes on to explain that a postmodern perspective is one that takes culture and history as a context for changes and phenomena that may occur or be observed. I found his discussion of technology particularly interesting. In page 9 of his introduction, he discusses the importance of seeking new perspectives as our culture and society are redefined. That is, coming to consider those things we once took for granted to the point of being invisible, questioning our most basic assumptions of how things are and whether they need to be this way, and what makes them that way to begin with. His discussion of technology, its advantages and conveniences in our modern age, but also its downfalls, rang particularly strong with me. Take technology as an example of how education has sought to adapt to the changing times, but with, what I believe, are drastic results. In this day and age, students are constantly plugged into something: they surf the web to talk to friends, everyone has a phone that text messages as well as sends photos, they know how to use video technology and post videos to YouTube. Instead of talking to people face to face, or going outside to play games with other children, modern age school children are retreating online to talk to others through virtual mediums, and to play Capture the Flag on shoot-them-up video game simulations. Their hyper-reality translates into a constant need for stimulation and entertainment. Teaching practices have come to mirror this change in our children's interactive patterns: best practices now incorporate multiple learning modes, activities, connections to children's knowledge and experiences (frequently manifested as connections to their virtual realities - online games, movies, etc.). Even the drastically increased use of technology in teaching itself, the move away from low-tech transparencies and overheads to digital projectors, document cameras, Smart Boards reflects the change in the times but also the change in needs of our student populations. As a student in public schools, I never once saw more than a chalkboard or overhead used during instruction, never once played a game to "trick" me into liking math, and never had to have teachers explain mathematic conversions using elaborate metaphors involving superheroes to get me to understand or find interest in the subject. I was learning because I enjoyed the raw subject matter itself, and not the fancy instructional tricks my teacher could pull in a one hour class. But, modern day instruction requires hooks, and activities, and even "collaborative conversation" moments to be effective. When did we have to start teaching children to talk to one another and get along? This begs me to wonder, what elements of society does the school seek to accommodate and incorporate, and which elements does it perpetuate? Is our modern society losing its ability to talk to itself because of technology's fierce advancement and seduction of our youth, or is it because our schools are finding themselves also susceptible to the media and mandates of technology because of society itself? I believe Provenzo echoes my same concern when he writes, "simply stated, problems, conditions, and issues in the larger society tend to be reproduced in the schools" (10). The struggle we face as educators, parents, and citizens, is understanding the interconnection between education and society, and how they reflect and influence one another, for good or bad.

geez, my writing has deteriorated remarkably since becoming a grad student + teacher. sleep deprivation, i see you in my future.

misery,
s

bold [sic] hate - ha ha

shield yr eyes!

(or keep em peeled! this shit changes real-time, bitches. so you can witness my minute-by-minute struggles with this jackass mother fucker. and warn me of broken links cuz this shit is wired to hit the fan...)

i have been up since 7 am working on this stupid piece of shit for my grad class, the last two hours spent trying to figure out how to format the fucking tables in the rubric section so it's not all bold.

fucking google docs.

nothing like a webquest to make you hate google, the internet, and life.

also: no food, no company, no time. low sleep, dirty hair, and my muscles wanna go for a ruuuuuuunn nn n n na nun.

there was so much else i could have done but instead this. and more.

still one unit plan, one lesson plan, and a fieldwork journal to write.

and i'm wondering about the state of nature and (hu)man. if the birds, cows, monkeys, and fleas all want to kill us, and the pigs now too, i think it's proof my hero was right:

"Your planet's immune system is trying to get rid of you."

fly high, fly straight. into the sun?
-stef

i hate L.A.

hm, so you know how just yesterday i said i might grow to love L.A.? yea, it's not happening.

that's b/c L.A. is a vindictive little bitch who just wants my money and my time and attention, but i can't get no respect!

this morning, i wake up. the raindrops that were so pleasant to fall asleep to had apparently continued throughout the night, flooding the carport where my car rests and where i had to wade through 5 inch-deep FREEZING water this morning. and, b/c my bitch landlord didn't install lights in my part of the garage, i couldn't see the standing water until i was, well, already standing in it. so, great morning. i have to run back up to my apartment, throw off my shoes and socks, and improvise: for lack of galoshes (oh how i miss my big funky rubber galoshes right now...) i had to put on a pair of flip flops, which felt miserably uncomfortable on my bitterly cold feet.

the entire 55-60 minutes in the car on the freeway to work (what usually takes 20-25 minutes) everyone was driving 35 mph to avoid fatal crashes – the radio informed us accidents were happening at the rate of one every 30 seconds (wtf!?), a police officer (i learn later) was RUN DOWN while trying to assist traffic – and i still had assholes trying to sideswipe me to squeeze into my lane.

i get to school half an hour late (and this is after i even wake up early to make myself a cup of tea to start the day right), frantically driving in circles trying to find parking (i eventually coax the principal into my car and he assists me in finding a spot to park my poor water-logged vehicle). my feet are cramping at this point, they are so cold and wet, and i'm shivering and completely stiff from the cold and from running in the rain. basically, i arrive at school looking like a mess, feeling like a kid, and not wanting to be here (at school, at work, in LA).

it was a long day. the only thing that prevented me from completely losing my mind and crying was that i didn't actually teach today, i was in training. and they provided food. one saving grace.

i come home after going to the gym for a quick workout, hoping that all the time i've been away has allowed the water around my car to drain away. NOPE! the pond still exists, there might even be homeless seagulls nesting, who the fuck knows. all i can say is that this meant me having to park my car 2 blocks away, on some dark alley where i couldn't even see the signs or the curb to see if i was in a tow-away zone. i just hope, pray, that someone doesn't run into my car, knock the side mirror off, or decide it'd be fun to tow it. so many things to keep me up at night, it was hardly worth the 2 minutes of pleasant rain while i was drifting off last night...

seriously. it reminds me of something i remember my boyfriend saying last winter when we were driving around one late oxford night on the edge of a snow storm. it was the time of night when everyone is supposed to be asleep, when the snow machines and salt trucks come out (i think if you grow up in the midwest like i did, you know there are 5 stages of night-time: twilight, dusk, 8-11pm, midnight, and salt truck time. this is the time other ppl in other parts of the world might also know as tooth fairy time, or santa claus time.) there was snow falling in large clumpy flakes, and we could see it in his headlights, in the street lamplight, like static filling up the screen of gray and black night. and Ben said that ppl in ohio overreact to snow, b/c in Illinois, where he grew up, this would be nothing, "Illinois ppl know how to drive in snow." and that made sense, and that's what i think of now when i think about LA and its rain:

LA denizens are so unaccustomed to rain that they don't know how to drive in it, or how to build an efficient drainage system for when the rain pours. don't they know, that when it rains, it pours? i bet you anything a stupid Angelino coined that phrase...

-stephan!e


p.s. an afterthot: this is why you don't set up house in a desert. if there's no water so you have to steal it from yr neighbors to survive, and when the water finally comes you don't know what to do with it. ladies and gentlemen, Los Angeles! (a big fecking mess!)

rant!

i just have to blow some steam before it explodes me. pardon the venting.

whoever designed the university intern program for credentialing new teachers needs a fucking shoe up their ass. it is the most fucking miserable experience for the teacher candidates, and should not be considered anything less than a disservice to their students and the educational system immediately surrounding them, as they are completely deprived of any resources or support and drained and stretched to the point of being completely ineffective and incoherent. furthermore, it turns off new teachers to wanting to seriously remain in the educational system, or to give them the opportunity to try new and exciting pedagogies, which runs counter to what we should be encouraging in our educational system, b/c if the new teachers aren't going to be a source of innovation and exploration, who is?

there is absolutely no practicality or reason to this system. and it makes for some really fucking poor practice. i'm not even talking revolutionary pedagogy here, i'm just talking basic standards-based ordinary teaching. take this: my supervisor is supposed to get 4 formal observations done in the semester. i met with her to determine what days she would come in. but, b/c of surprise teacher training academies, district meetings, science lab trainings, etc. i had to cancel some observations, and she cancelled some observations, and now we're down to the last 3 weeks of the semester and she's threatening to give me an incomplete. she wants to come in tomorrow, a day i had planned as a test day, to observe me teach a lesson. what the fuck am i going to teach them, it doesn't even fit well into the calendar and the flow of the units.

so dig: this week is weird, b/c it's thanksgiving, and so monday is a full day, and tuesday and wednesday are half days. i need more than half a period to give a unit test, or to introduce a new topic, so i was going to do it like this: monday was going to be review, tuesday tests, wednesday a party/intro to new unit day. but, monday was taken out b/c of an emergency district meeting, so things got pushed back. tuesday became a review day (which sucked b/c i had to take two half periods to do a thorough review) and wednesday was going to be two periods of testing. but, b/c of my fucking supervisor and her demand that i teach a lesson, i'm now struggling to figure out what to do. i told my kids they were going to get a test tomorrow, so i can't just be like "haha, just kidding..." b/c then they would lose trust and never take me seriously again, esp. after all the emphasis i put on them studying tonight, and bringing their notes tomorrow to turn in for extra credit. so, no matter what, i am still going to give them the test. but, i wonder if squeezing in a lesson is going to be too little time to do either very well. and it doesn't make much sense, to me or the students, to have them test for a period, then come back and immediately start a new unit. it doesn't flow, and it gives them no sense of closure or release. they're not going to feel like things make sense, they're going to act up b/c i'm not giving them time to celebrate completion of a unit (which really, they should be allowed to do) and they're not going to retain anything from my new lesson, b/c their behavior is going to be absolutely bat shit crazy.

fuck shit cunt damn piss ass grunt kick fist.

-stef