Foooood stuffs

Hello! I am sorry that it's been so long; grad school got crazy and there was very little sleeping, let alone blogging.  But I am finally on break, at my parents' house, and relaxing. And I figured it was time for an update.

About my last post, about social services: Everything got fixed! A few days after I posted my enraged post about the idiotic system, I got more mail from Social Services. The last one that I got explained everything. Basically, they have an electronic system that sends out mail automatically. When it doesn't receive the authorization that it needs, it sends you mail, even if it's not your fault. I finally got a letter approving me for $200 of benefits per month, which is awesome. After three months, they are going to check up on me and make sure that that is an appropriate amount. Thank goodness that's over!

So, I'm at my parents' house. I am making a conscious effort to call it 'my parents' house' instead of 'home', because it is not my home anymore. I live in Missouri, not Oregon. I will live there for two years, only coming to Oregon for Christmas and other random times. And I don't want my parents' house to be my house! I want to be independent, not strapped to them. Unfortunately, I am still relying on them for lots of funding and support, which kinda sucks. But soon, I will be able to have a real live job and make real live money that is alllll miiiiiine, muahahaha.

Speaking of my parents' house, it is always challenging to be here. Especially with food stuff. My mother is incredibly controlling about food, with herself and with others. I didn't notice that she controlled other people (well, besides me) until this week. Normally, I am so focused on how she is controlling toward my food intake, that I have failed to notice that she controls my dad too. For example, last night, we went to dinner at this nice Lebanese place, before going to see the Nutcracker. My dad ordered a Gyro sandwich, but then also ate a whole bunch of my food and my mom's food. (This was fine with me, because I had the stomach flu on Tuesday and wasn't feeling well enough to eat very much on Wednesday night at dinner, so he was welcome to my food). But my mom was piiiiissssed. She got all up in his face about it, and accused him of being selfish and eating all of her food and then his food. It was completely ridiculous. My dad is a hungry guy. He doesn't eat very good lunches sometimes, so by the time dinner comes, he is hungry. And he's a big guy, so he isn't going to eat the same amount as my mother, who is average sized. The amount of shaming that was happening was outrageous, but I couldn't say anything, because she would have gotten angry at me too. (Of course, I did numerous things to make her angry that night anyway, so whatever...). The whole thing made me realize a) how concerned my mother is about appearances, b) how concerned she is about food consumption, and c) how she needs to be in control at all times. I am amazing that she doesn't have a full-blown eating disorder. It's no wonder that I have eating issues...

I just can't wait to go back home, to Missouri. Please God, take me home! I want my friends and my own bed and my apartment and all of my stuff back. January can't come soon enough!

Here, have some pictures of my apartment :)

 This is my messy, messy bedroom ;)

 The other side of my bedroom with my dresser and cute shelves.

My kitchen!

My living room :)

I HATE SOCIAL SERVICES

I am so freaking fed up with the Social Services people here. Let me start at the beginning, and you can share in the immense frustration that I am feeling right now.

I applied for food stamps about a month and a half ago. For those of you who don't know, food stamps are government assistance to help you buy food. You apply for benefits, and if you qualify (i.e. you are poor enough and other random-ass qualifications are met), they give you free money for groceries. I applied and never heard back... until I got a random letter in the mail saying that I had missed my scheduled interview and was required to interview with them by November 9th or lose my eligibility. And I was like, "Um, I never scheduled an interview, so how could I have possibly missed it?" I called my case worker, but she was unreachable and I kept getting redirected to other phone lines. So I finally went down to the office, which was a pain in the butt and took three hours total. I interviewed with another woman (not my case worker), who took all of my income verification and other stuff, and told me that I would qualify. She asked me to mail my last few pay stubs to them, to verify that my income was steady. She wanted pay stubs from September and October. When I arrived home, I realized that I didn't have any pay stubs from September, because I was unemployed then. So I mailed the other pay stubs to my case worker, with a note saying that I didn't have any from September.

Then about a week ago, I got a letter with my brand new EBT (food stamps) card and my pin number, and found out that I had been approved for $140 per month of benefits. Yay! I was so excited! Grocery shopping has never been more fun!

But THEN I got this ridiculous letter in the mail from Social Services yesterday saying:
"Based on information reported to us, your food stamps benefits have been closed effective 11/30/12 because: requested verification was not provided."
What the fuck.
What fucking verification did you request?
I don't know what they want from me! I just want my freaking free money! And because the office is virtually unreachable by phone, I would have to go back down there again, to sort this all out. I don't have time for this! I don't have transportation! This is such bullshit.

I am annoyed in general, because this is a waste of my time, but I am also annoyed at the system. Think about this: what if I was not a student of social work, but a single mother working three jobs to stay afloat? Would I have time to go down to the social services office twice, missing almost a whole day of work, to get these food stamps benefits? I think not. This is so messed up; the people who these food stamps should be benefiting are unable to get them, because of how screwed up the system is! This is unbelievable.

GRR.