Mrs. Ram's Jams

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    • Mrs. Ram’s Vocabulary Lesson for the Words Asymptomatic, Presymptomatic, and Defund

      Posted at 10:39 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on June 13, 2020

      Hey! I’m here in a professional capacity today to teach you about Greek and Latin roots and affixes. Breaking down words you don’t know for their parts, a skill I practice with my students daily, helps build vocabulary because 60 percent of the English language is built with those roots and affixes. 

      Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

      I’ve noticed a bit of confusion surrounding three words in particular this week:  asymptomatic, presymptomatic, and defund. Lucky for you, these three words are easily broken down. Are you ready for your vocabulary lesson?

      Vocab Word Number 1:  Asymptomatic (adjective)
      A–a Greek prefix that means without or no
      Symptom—a word from Greek and Latin that means showing signs of illness
      Atic/ic–a Latin and Greek suffix that means characteristic of and makes words adjectives
      Put It All Together and What Do You Get? Showing no signs of illness
      Why does it matter? Because you can test positive for an illness, like COVID-19, but show no symptoms. You should still wear a mask in public because you still could spread the disease. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/health/asymptomatic-presymptomatic-coronavirus-spread-explained-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/12/health/coronavirus-mask-wellness-trnd/index.html
      Vocab Word Number 2:  Presymptomatic (adjective)
      Pre–a Latin prefix that means before
      Symptom–a word from Greek and Latin that means showing signs of illness
      Atic/ic–a Latin and Greek suffix that means characteristic of and makes words adjectives
      Put It All Together and What Do You Get? Before signs of illness start
      Why does it matter? Because you can show no signs of being sick before becoming ill with COVID-19. You should still wear a mask in public because you still could spread the disease. 
      https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/health/asymptomatic-presymptomatic-coronavirus-spread-explained-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/12/health/coronavirus-mask-wellness-trnd/index.html
      Vocab Word Number 3:  Defund (verb)
      De–a Latin prefix that means to take away or to remove or reverse
      Fund–a word from Latin that means to finance 
      Put It All Together and What Do You Get? To take away or remove money
      Why does it matter? Because taking away money doesn’t necessarily mean abolishing the police force or taking away all of the money. Look at education, the government has been defunding education for years–but often, like I saw on the news this morning, instead of using the word defund because of its negative connotation, taking money away from education is often described as the euphemistic  “deep budget cuts.” Choosing to use the word defund instead of a word or phrase with a more positive connotation is divisive, creating even more controversy around rethinking traditional law enforcement.

      If the potential money defunded from the police were redirected to education, maybe there:

       1. Wouldn’t be so much confusion over what words mean or how they can be chosen so carefully to inflame either side of the aisle to react based on their emotions instead of looking at the facts and participating in rational discourse. After all, it’s common knowledge that words are powerful, and often they are loaded with biased emotions. (Sorry for the cliché.) 

      2. Wouldn’t be so much confusion about which news sources are reliable.

      3. Wouldn’t be such a distrust of science.

      4. Wouldn’t be such a stigma surrounding admitting that you were wrong.

      5. Wouldn’t be such a reluctance to rethink our many societal establishments steeped in racism. 

      6. Wouldn’t be so many people who lack empathy. 

      7. Wound’t be . . . . (You fill in the blank. The possibilities are endless because more education and change are the only answers. We need to start SHOVELING money, from all directions–not just rerouted money from police departments, into the public education system instead of continuing to take it away.)

      Posted in teaching, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged asymptomatic, blacklivesmatter, coronavirus, defund, presymptomatic
    • A Poem: I Know More Than You

      Posted at 9:26 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on May 9, 2020

      I don’t know who or what to believe anymore

      so I’ll just put My trust in youtube folklore

      the experts are crooks

      who want Me to read books

      and wear a mask

      what an unpatriotic task

      you can’t tell Me what to do

      because I’ve got google and it knows more than you

      I’ll keep My gun on My hip

      and call you a dip shit

      for believing in science

      screw your feminist liberal defiance

      you can’t tell Me what to do

      because I’m a man and will always know more than you

      everything will go back to the way it was before

      just go ahead and reopen the economy’s door

      because your life doesn’t matter as much

      as Me being able to get a decent haircut and such

      you can’t tell Me what to do

      because I will never let you forget that I know more than you

      Posted in poems, poetry | 8 Comments | Tagged coronavirus, covid-19, poems, poetry
    • A Coronavirus Poem: War Hands

      Posted at 11:53 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on March 28, 2020

      declaring war on my hands
      has left them raw–
      they’ve been scrubbed too hard with sandpaper
      and a wolf has chewed them bloody with its murderous maw

      COVID-19
      has corroded my hands by soaking them in gasoline

      I have war hands
      and it’s left me raw

      person holding a poster on proper hand washing

      Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

      Posted in poems, poetry, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, coronavirus, covid-19, hands, poems, washyourhands, writing
    • A Plea From a High-Risk Friend–Please Stay at Home

      Posted at 10:20 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on March 21, 2020

      Please stay at home.

      Your friends with underlying conditions, the immunosuppressed, and the elderly thank you for your efforts. 

      I am an immunosuppressed 37-year-old mother with underlying conditions–high-risk alert right here. Please stay home. I can’t help that my body attacks itself. It’s been this way since high school. Please help me out by staying home. 

      I know it’s not any fun, and you’re concerned about free will, your rights being limited, and a litany of other complaints—all of which might make you angry. But please set emotions aside for the time being and focus on facts and logic.

      As an English teacher, I teach my students to get their information from reliable, unbiased resources and to ground their arguments in facts, data, and logical reasoning. I also teach them to get information from experts. And while emotion is a powerful argumentative tool, it is, in fact, weak on its own. Even though emotions are real and important, they can mess up judgment. 

      Ignoring the CDC, WHO, Dr. Fauci, and governmental recommendations are illogical choices because they are the experts providing facts. 

      And here’s a fact, one that I’ve already stated. I am one of those people they consider high risk. Why?  

      I have three autoimmune diseases. THREE! 

      One:  Meniere’s disease. 

      Two:  Ulcerative colitis 

      Three: an undiagnosed disease my rheumatologist monitors me for

      Number two concerns me particularly because I was hospitalized for it in February. My colon hates me. This flare, unfortunately, coincides with a pandemic. Lucky me. 

      Because my colon is broken, I am on two immune-suppressing drugs. TWO! Prednisone, which I’m on for two more weeks, and tacrolimus–an organ transplant rejection medicine. Prednisone, an anti-inflammatory, is bad news according to the CDC. I get to take these drugs during a pandemic. Lucky me. 

      Also, those malaria drugs that doctors are testing as possible treatment for coronavirus–guess what? I’m allergic. Last year, I was prescribed hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil) for autoimmune disease number three and broke out in hives six weeks into treatment. So again, lucky me. (I want to reiterate the term “possible treatment.”)

      Please stay at home because it shows empathy–which is ONE thing that we need more of in this world and another thing that I try to teach my students. This pandemic isn’t about you–it’s about all of us. 


       

      ONE final thought:

      Please stop sharing coronavirus information via memes and unverified Facebook posts. Consider the information’s source. I am readily reading my doctor friends’ Facebook posts and trust their expertise, but if I were to share that information to you, then you share it to Facebook Karen, then Facebook Karen shares it to Facebook Chad, then how does Facebook Chad know an actual doctor wrote that post? In this scenario, the information is accurate, but lots of posts shared this way are fake or spreading wrong information–with no way to verify the author’s authenticity. Before hitting the share button, confirm the post’s reliability. Try to share information from trusted sources instead of second hand. 

      Posted in meniere's disease, ulcerative colitis, Uncategorized, writing | 3 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, coronavirus, covid-19, highrisk, ibd, immunosuppressed, invisible illness, meniere's disease, pleasestayathome, politics, ulcerative colitis, washyourhands, writing
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