running in circles, chasing our tails, coming back as we are

I lay wide awake in bed this morning thinking. It was one of those moments where I realized I have ruined my life in a way, and there is no way to fix it. My ruined life is terminal.

They say it's a piece of you that is yours only, until you make the decision to give it away. But once it's gone, where does it go? I don't believe in it belonging to the person you gave it to. Because most often, in today's day and age, that person doesn't mean anything to anybody. They just happen to be the one person that is present at the moment you give it away. But they don't keep it, no. But who does?

My epiphany began last week with my beautifully insightful patient at Fairview. She made me realize I ruined my life. Yea, it is awful news. And it would be easier to not have known. Ignorance is bliss. But I'm thankful she showed me. Because maybe, just maybe. Now that I know that my life would be less ruined if I found it again, I can begin to look for it.

Is there no way out of the mind?

I've got to put her down. She's messing me up.. well more, that is. I'm not sure what it is either. Lately I've had my head stuck in The Bell Jar throughout my days--like even when I'm not reading it, I think about it. But not about the story, or about the characters, or anything like that. I think like Esther. (Don't worry, not in the commit suicide sense).. I think like her in the way that I itemize everything I see. I wish I was stealthy enough, or perhaps just secure enough to carry a journal around with me and write everything I see and think about. I'm fairly certain it would amount to nothing, and likely, a crazy nothing. But it would be interesting. It would be more interesting than the sleepy stuff I come up with at night.

I anyways finished The Bell Jar, and I've moved onto The Journals of Sylvia Plath. And it's already stunning. The Bell Jar ended quite beautifully--not happy, not sad, but realistic. Life. I'm not so demented that I wish for sad endings, but I tend to get agitated at too happy of endings. That isn't life, to put it bluntly. But neither is life completely hopeless. I think it's just normal. It is what it is. It usually works out, but when it doesn't, we survive. Life, is surviving.

My mom recently went into a lovely (**yawn) discourse on the negative impact of the media on kids. Her specific example was Skins (that British show that I used to be positively in love with that is now a terrible American remake). She thinks the partying and drugs and sex and whatnot is bad for kids to see because they will take it to heart and believe it to be an accurate representation of their peers. Since I didn't have the heart to tell her it was 1,000% true, I took another approach: I scolded her for her complete disregard of other forms of media that are potentially corrupting children. I'm positive no television show shook me to my core, all the way to my own hidden crazy, the way Miss Plath has done these past few days. Is a visual really needed to understand just how insane she was? If the answer is yes (I think no, but to entertain the opinion..), then what about art?

This is one of my favorite by Jack Kevorkian. I feel as though I don't really have to say much about it.

So, of course, we aren't going to take away literature and art from growing minds, so how could we possibly take away (or restrict) television or movies? It's the same, or probably, a little tamer.

I'll exit with a bit of Sylvia:

With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone, it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second, you have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand...hopeless from the start. A story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. Nothing is real except the present, and already I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don't want to die.

The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.

Sylvia Plath might be turning me into a glass-half-empty sort of girl.




I felt like a race horse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like a date on a tombstone.

And maybe giving me insomnia.

something from a world we aren't meant to see

I might have been a body buried in a brick wall, eavesdropping on the simple business of the living. It came to me that death itself could be a more distant form of participation in the continuing history of the world. Death could be like this, a simultaneous presence and absence while your friends continued to chat among the lamps and furniture about someone who was no longer you.

-Bobby, A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham



This book is dragging a little now towards the end, but I'll suddenly come across passages such as this one and be a little stunned at this guy's grace with words. He can be very insightful. Next in my plans is another of his, The Hours, which is actually his more popular novel, so I'm excited. I'm not sure why I've taken such a craving for reading lately. Perhaps, I guess, I am driving myself crazy with all the reading I have to do for my classes this semester. It is getting a little unrealisitc. Literally, I have 100 pages a week at the very least. The worst somehow are my two favorite classes--biology and physiology. The information is interesting, but definitely not possible for me to remember without taking notes as I read. Meaning it takes about 4x as long as it reasonably should. At least for my British Literature class I can read the passages one or two times and I am prepared for lecture.

So I like to take breaks from reading and note-taking, with reading novels.



Back to my original analysis now.. Each of the characters have some emotional problems--mostly centering around existentialism (yay!). Bobby's brother (and best friend) died in front of him when he was young, and now as a grown man, he has a sense that he is living for his brother in a way, which is making it hard for him to understand himself completely. I like this. I don't think I understand myself completely most of the time.

Jonathan is gay and had a bit of a strange relationship with his mother growing up, or maybe she was just a little strange. But now he is a little lost as far as love and relationships go. He has always wanted to fall in love, but is losing faith in his idealistic view of it.

Love had seemed so final and so dull--love was what ruined our parents. Love had delivered them to a life of mortgage payments and household repairs; to unglamorous jobs and the fluorescent aisles of a supermarket at two in the afternoon. We'd hoped for love of a different kind, love that knew and forgave our human frailty but did not miniaturize our grander idea of ourselves.
-Jonathan, A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham


I identify most with Jonathan.



Claire is the other main character, but I really dislike her. I'm not sure if the author wants us to not like her, or if it is one of those weird Rachael-is-crazy sort of things. It's not blatant that we shouldn't like her, so I'm thinking is the later. Ah well.

black skin is peeling off and leaving me grey

.. and it itches.

Golden Globes

These aren't in any particular order, I just went through everybody and picked out the ones I have something to say about. There are a lot. Deep breath, and here we go:

Sofia Vergara. I don't actually know who this is, but on the Red Carpet show yesterday, she was like all over. And today she made a bunch of best dressed lists. Anyways, I found her rather annoying, and I also don't like her dress.

Robert Downey Jr. sigh. He looks perfect. I adore his red tie. The female next to him is his wife. I envy her ridiculous amounts.

Olivia Wilde. She made the tops of many best dressed lists, and I have to agree. I mostly adore her shoes, but especially paired with the dress. Perfect.

Nicole Kidman. I think my opinions may be skewed based on my love for the wearer. Nobody was thrilled with this look, some even had her on worst dressed lists. I adore it, especially with Keith on her side. Just adorable.

Natalie Portman. This could be another biased case: I love love love her, plus I love love love the bump. I wish I had one. Anyways, I love her, but not many of the fashion police did. Anywhere But Here is currently on--the part where she is auditioning for an acting job. Ugh. Just so lovely.

Michelle Williams. I hate hate hate the dress. But, I recently saw Michelle Williams in a movie. A fantastic movie: Imaginary Heroes. And she was great, even though she had a small part, but it was fantastic.

Leighton Meester. Maybe another bias (because I adore Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl), but I love this dress. Fashion police said a "trashy Laura Ingles Wilder." Fuck em.

Jayma Mays. Who? No idea. But my goodness she is lovely here. I love her red lipstick with that gorgeous gown.

Jane Krakowski. Who? I don't care--I love the bump!

Hailee Steinfeld. I just love this girl from True Grit (movie was disappointing for a Cohen brothers, but she was fantastic in it.. so was Jeff Bridges). Her dress is.. sweet. I mean she's 14. So sweet is perfect.

Eva Longoria. I just love love this, minus the goofty broach. I reminds me of Claire's (that jewelry store we went to when we were little kittens.)

Emma Stone. This was another one on Worst Dressed, which is of course wrong. It's beautiful.

Elisabeth Moss. This is cute, and I love that color of green.

Dianna Agron. This is my Best Dressed top pick. I don't know who this girl, and I don't even think she is that pretty. But the dress is positively my favorite, I love it.

Catherine Zeta-Jones. Her dress is gorgeous, but my favorite is her accessory: Michael Douglas. He is adorable.

Carrie Underwood. Her dress is ugly, she is ugly, her clutch is ugly. She has a BumpIt in her ugly hair. That's all I have to say.

Anne Hathaway. Of course, this is gorgeous.

Angelina Jolie. I love this. I love the sleeves, and the cinched waist. It is gorgeous.

his ladder to the stars

Cancer.

To be completely honest with myself, I don't understand it.



I like to consider myself a pretty compassionate person--I think every person is, actually. And I think if you want to be a doctor, you are especially atuned to this emotion. I've narrowed my current favorite specialties to two: pediatrics and geriatrics. I know, geriatrics isn't a specialty--nor does it, obviously, fit with any pediatrics fellowship. But anyways, it would probably be a family medicine fellowship, but thats besides the point. They are at opposite ends of.. life. But I've made a couple possible connections as to why I'm interested in these two fields:

1.) It's all about vulnerability. Children and the elderly are similarily completely helpless--and that's just in general and not taking into account an illness or disability. I think this is why I love them and feel a strong passion for helping them.

2.) These are the only two types of patients I've helped (at the nursing home and at Fairview)..in other words--I'm going to be drawn to all patients. Which is okay, too.


But anyways, cancer. The other day my sister said I should go into oncology. It is interesting. If my first theory is correct, that I'm drawn to especially vulnerable people, what is possibly more vulnerable than a disease that is ruining you from the inside out, with little to be done? My hesitation? The little to be done. I'm a doctor (in this hypothetical future).. I would like for there to be much to do. Everything I can do possibly. Then I thought, but what about research? I could do cancer research! How wonderful would it be to make it more possible for doctors to DO something. I had always written off my MD/PHD fantasy when I considered the time that would be taken away from my clinic time. But what if that time was spent doing something so incredible. So there didn't need to be so much time to see patients. So they could actually GET BETTER. I should look for cancer labs I could work in now, as an undergrad.

**this revelation, of course, took place at Fairview tonight while I was hanging out with a little boy with Leukemia, whom I am in love with..**


I get to my phone at the end of the night: email from the professor at my current lab (plant research)--summer research opportunity $4,000 stipend for plant research.


Maybe I'll stick with plants for now..



And death is at your doorstep
And it will steal your innocence

Lord have mercy on my rough and rowdy ways

so people and things don't pair anymore with what they used to pair with before