on reclaimng life

Having gotten through the most terrifying aspect of this season (the GRE), and having experienced the worst case scenario (not only unimproved, but slightly lower scores than last year... when I was high, nauseous and in pain), I am successfully emerged on the other side of doom.

Oddly, I am less bothered by average scores than I expected to be.  The relief of its being over with is much more potent than the disappointment with my performance on this particular exam.  Frankly -- and I'm not alone here -- I regard that test as far more highly referred to by graduate school admissions committees than is wise.  That said, I am acutely aware of how biased, political and funding-based the admissions process is in general and, therefore, am aware that average test scores will not be my undoing.

That is, of course, unless my average scores prevent me from being invited to interviews.  The thing is that highly prestigious schools will triage applications to the discard pile if they are not at a particular level.  Here is why I think that is a complete bullshit filter for applications:

This summer, I had the privilege of teaching several intern students.  Two of them were at he high school level, and were very fun to teach because they were fledgling scientists with lots of interesting questions and a flare for the work.  At least by the end of the summer, when the results of their month-long project started trickling in, their enthusiasm was wonderful.  This is why I love teaching.

In another vein, however, I had the privilege of teaching some biochemical techniques to one of our veteran students who has been doing analysis in another part of our lab for three years, and whom we had come to regard as a genius.  This student happened to be entering his senior year as a Biochemistry major, was applying to graduate programs, and was using his last summer month with us to buffer his resume by learning some new techniques.  He was, for all intents and purposes, my peer.

He was also a complete dolt in the lab -- more clumsy, less interested and with the worst memory I had ever seen in a person, scientist or otherwise.  I was completely taken aback by his lack of apt for deduction (read: common sense).  Please understand that this is not an exaggeration; I was shocked and befuddled that teaching my peer was like teaching a kindergartner.  I had to cut in half what I had planned on teaching him in that month because he could barely handle what he was initially tasked with.

How this boy could possibly be an academic genius became more and more puzzling.  Yet, his GRE scores trumped mine.  And he will be invited to interview at Stanford (yes, he is applying to the exact same programs that I am), and I will not, because his scores are higher than mine.  He will bomb his interview, because he knows almost nothing about what he's been doing for the last three years, and has very poor social skills (for which I do feel bad for him), but he will get them, and a small part of me dies whenever I think about that.  Despite this, he may actually be admitted to programs that I am rejected from because the more prestigious the school, the more weight is put on his exam scores.  I have effectively buffered the resume of a boy who, for all his pompous yet oblivious innocence, will never be a decent research scientist much less a Stanford-grade one.  What's more, he has no idea why he wants a PhD; it's just another step in the academic achievement track.  And this, as I studied for my own second-go at the GRE, was infuriating. 

However!, having faced my worst fear and come out the other side, I am happy with whatever school I am accepted to because I know what I want and what I'm doing, and will be a huge asset wherever I end up.  Whatever I want to make happen with what I'm given will happen, because that is something I've consistently been good at.  Getting into an amazing school instead of an average one, however, would be much welcomed reassurance that I belong in this field.

I could write volumes on how to best approach finding a graduate school, preparing yourself, exploring options, what the GRE actually says about your scientific potential, and negotiating the politics of science, but this data dump is dry enough as it is.

To end on a pleasant note -- and I must, because I feel better now than I have felt in two months -- this weekend was beautiful!  I worked on my grant while being infused for four hours on Saturday, stopped at New Seasons to pick up special sandwiches on the way home, and took the bikes and Frisbee out for some exercise at the park for the afternoon.  It was freeing, and wonderful to be able to throw myself back into real life. 

 

Today, I will finish my next manuscript and make some progress on applications having filled my tummeh with my new favorite Lisa-inspired breakfast: waffled eggs with chive Tofutti and onion bagel.

I feel good.

on waffling

One of my most favorite wedding gifts was from Lovely Lisa.  Leave it to the Waffle Wizard to bestow upon me a waffle maker of my very own.

Not only does my fancy new culinary instrument occupy perfectly that-one-shelf-space-in-the-kitchen-into-which-nothing-else-fits; there is just no topping the ultimate design of the waffle in terms of entree base.

This is one of my favorites.

Last night, I conducted my first experiment: waffled polenta.  It was simple, speedy and surprisingly delicious -- delicious in a reliable way, as if I could make this thing well more than one fluke time in my life.

Next up, "Fawafles".

 

  yes, this is, indeed, Tapatio sauce.

Protest all you like about how terrible corn is for the Crohn tract.  While cornbread, polenta, grits, hominy and cornmeal soup are all reproved in the common Crohn's or IBS diet, these are also gluten free foods, so if your reactions tend to be more volatile with wheats, polenta can be a benign substitute.  Cornmeal is also higher in fiber than wheat, and can be very helpful with Obdurate Throughput.  With Crohn's the clinical studies never cease to reveal that what is beneficial to one case is likely to be harmful to another, and there is no universally harmful food in Crohn's disease (Triggs et al 2010).

Of nasal exoskeletons and forcible exhaustion

It may be surprising to my viewers that I am awake at 3am.  The typing kind of awake.  Shed your marvel, my friends, for this has been my habit for a month, now.

In June, when the allergy bug settled in my sinuses, this was just a regular infection, and I treated it as such with saline, my trusted Nasal Crom, and even hopped on the Neti Pot wagon.  By mid-July, when none of these therapies worked, I threw up my hands and called it in.  By this time, I have developed inner nasal scabs which made mucous expulsion quite the bother.  A prescription of Flonase was bestowed without even an appointment.  Beautiful.

Fifteen dollars and three glorious weeks of regular breathing later, it was time to abandon the steroids and hope that their effect would be sustainable.  Fat chance.  So I called it in again, asking my doctor what the next step might be.  "Try saline washes and using the Neti Pot," says my doctor's replacement.

"Are... are you serious?" I wanted to respond, but refrained in the interest of actually getting some help on the stagnant-green-pool-harboring nasal exoskeleton front.  So I actually tried these saline treatments again, hoping that with the steroids having brought me back to stage one, they might work.  Negative.  A month later, the scabbing and green mucous flow are worse than ever, so I call it in again.

"Hi, I've been having some problems with my nose and may need antibotics."

"Well, why don't you give me an idea of what's been going on, sweetheart," says the Southern Bell on the other end of the line, who I must trust to translate my story to my doctor.

"Well, three months ago I just had what appeared to be a regular sinus infection.  I treated with all the different saline washes for a month, was prescribed Flonase for a month, and the infection got worse when the steroid treatment ended.  So now I'm concerned that I might have a more serious infection and be in need of antibiotics.  This is my first allergy season being on Remicade, so I'm susceptible to infection.  This is the first time in my life I've had a sinus problem nearly this severe and that may have something to do with it."

"Well bless your heart, you poor thing.  Let me send this message to the doctor and call you right back!"  I've spoken to this woman many a time. She is, if not effective, very sweet.

[Time lapse of three hours, Southern Bell calls me back]

"The doctor says she'd like you to continue using saline washes and wait until the peak season is over in October."

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, she said continue with the saline.  You're doing the right thing."

"Alright, look.  I know this isn't your fault, and I apologize for getting upset, but I'm at my wit's end, here.  Saline has not been anything resembling helpful during this whole situation.  I have gotten progressively worse with the exception of the fast-acting and fast-disappearing effects of Flonase.  I have been expelling green mucous out of my mouth at least ten times a day because my nasal passage has developed an exoskeleton so strong that I can't blow my nose because the mucous has no way to push through.  I bleed every time I sneeze, I now have scabs on the outside of my nostrils, I wake up at 3am every night, and frankly, I can't breathe at all unless I flush my nose with hot water every morning and try to peel away some of the blockage, and to exacerbate this I am in the crux of the most stressful time of my entire life.  Saline nor steroids have been helpful in this matter and have, in fact, allowed things to get much worse, and the doctor doesn't think that I might have an infection that my immune-suppressed body just can't fight on its own?"

"Well honey, I'm sorry.  Let me send a more explicit message to the doctor and get back to you soon."

That was a week ago.  I think I may have scared off poor Bell.

My exoskeleton needs a hot shower.  I'm effing tired.  I'm effing stressed.  Please give me some effing antibiotics.  I am working 50-hour weeks, writing grants, writing graduate school applications and studying for the GRE (something which I can't quite support logically).  I haven't run in two weeks because, well, it makes my sinuses swell.

Anyone have thoughts on just chopping the thing off, going Tycho Brahe style?

L'shana tova, u'metuka!

If I can't hold to a marriage resolution, perhaps I can cling to a new year's resolution.  My favorite holiday -- at one time, for no other reason than the unassuming joy of casting away my sinful bread crumbs into a flowing body of water -- comes to the rescue.

L'shana tova u-metuka, everyone!  May the new year 5771 be the one during which I finally set sail for graduate school and begin actually working toward my and my husband's future.  And may Gaia accept this Jewish celebration, absorb my bread crumb sins into her bosom and recycle them back to me as renewed opportunity.  May there be abundant apples and honey, and may the Pedant Neuroscientists of the world not get in my way again this year.

Or some such gibberish.

Squatter Evangelism

I want a squatter toilet.  With a Bidet.

http://www.slate.com/id/2264657/

Hell Month

As Hell Month comes to a dragging close, I feel inclined to explain my "prolonged" absence and attempt to begin September anew.  August is typically difficult for me no matter what; it's the month where summer student projects realize their failure to culminate properly, when grant money comes in, when last years money must be spent or be lost to the government, when deadlines abound, and when I realize that I have been dawdling all summer and must reclaim some kind of focus.  This August, however, has been particularly acerbic.

I have not written much since July because my emotional mind has been inhabiting a very dark place.  It appears that I did not actually recover from my PWD phase until very recently.  Since I have not cried for a mind-boggling four-day continuum -- with the exception of M&L's wedding yesterday, which does not count -- I think it's time for a celebratory return to the real world.

This August, everything came crashing down.  My baby brother alone and unhappy in his new college surroundings; summer student projects failing to culminate; the complete revamping of my journal papers, which would be fine except for that the longer it takes my boss to edit them, the less likely it is that I will have their publication on my graduate school C.V.; weddings of those dear friends who decided last-minutely not to attend my own or send a gift, or a card, or even acknowledge an intent to do so, but who expect my attendance at showers, bachelorette parties and their special days (and, yes, I know exactly how that sounds); the sickening regrets about my own wedding that I seem to hunt down, which is its own special kind of painful and stupid act; the desperate need to get H.K. on my health insurance, which has been delayed by the marriage certificate fiasco, the name-changing social security card fiasco and the title and registration DMV fiasco that is guaranteed to occur; the realization that I am, Crohn's wise, exactly where I was last year at this time and somewhat terrified that it will all begin to replay at any moment, and the major anxiety that last year will fully repeat itself and I will not get into school again, even though I'm more qualified than 90% of applicants in the country (yes, I know exactly how that sounds, too).  This is do-or-die year.  If it doesn't happen now, it's not going to.

There have been several instances of tummeh turbulence that put my Crohn's panic into play.  Namely, a weekend out in Seattle with dear friends where eating out twice a day, despite my greatest efforts -- and I was very careful... excepting the alcohol -- sent me into a painful reenactment Monday evening.  Secondarily, the immense stress I've felt deep into the dorsal horn of my spine makes even butter a dangerous contender.  'You're doing so well,' I tell myself, 'don't throw it all away in the name of gustatory freedom.'  And it's so much more easily said than done.

Sleep?  None to be had.  Exercise?  Fluctuating with the consistency of supermarket produce quality.  Meditation?  Intimidatingly unsuccessful unless there is alcohol involved.

I need something good to happen here.  In the mean time, I am at least escaping from the grasp of beastly depression.

how we are hungry

No one in my line of work ever says, "It's so beautiful - so meaningful - what you're doing."  People don't look at graphs and n's and alpha values and feel the shell harboring their emotions crack.

I have to.  Every so often, I have to hunt for a study that is so powerful, and so beautiful that my jaw clenches and my eyes swell.  If I don't, I break under the politics of science.  I rarely find one.

So many years spent choreographing souls, extending life in my arms and dancing disease out of existence.  Science is not like dance.  No one ever reaches through the laminate of graphs and methodology to find the empathetic compassion of a fellow scientist.

I need to know that it can be so powerful - so beautiful - what I'm doing.

Apparently, it can be, and I lose sight of it:

What you do makes my jaw clench and my eyes water, though.

You see the day to day, deadlines to keep grants, shooting mice in the stomach with needles, and training new med school idiots who are clearly beneath you.

My second host mother, E, had the most warm, loving, wonderful parents. Her tall, strapping, powerful father slowly began to shake more and more each day until he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. All of a sudden this strong man was made to feel like an incapable child in his own body, leaving his tiny, frail wife to treat him like an infant. He felt emasculated and helpless.  He went on the most top-notch medication known at the time in order to control his uncontrollable shaking and ended up having psychedelic nightmares every waking and sleeping moment of the day. Waking up, shitting himself from fear, literally seeing a wrecking ball smashing through the room, muscling his weak body over his wife to protect her from his delusions.

I've seen another man, not much older than your parents, with a teenage child. But instead of looking his age, the stress from Parkinsons leaves him looking in his 70's, barely capable of continuing his accounting practice because it takes him over 5 minutes to write his name. He can't keep a conversation because the shakes take over and he can no longer concentrate. "It's a bad day," he says to me, when he can't even complete a sentence, asking me about his [business transaction].

My heart breaks. But you are doing something about it. Your blood, sweat, tears, frustration, stress, training...your life will contribute to the future. So other people won't go through life like this.
When I found out this is what your focus was, I heard my host mother in my head. "I don't wish this disease on anyone." She was on the verge of tears as she watched her father try to simply walk through a doorway with so much difficulty. I was so proud of you, and to even know you, right then and there.

Thank you, K, for reminding me that what I am doing can be so beautiful, and so meaningful.