I want me some cardio too

Cardio-hog: 'kärd-E-(") O hog, n. Any of various forms of the species homo sapiens, which uses too much of the cardio machine.

Look here. I like to exercise, and I go to the gym 2 hours a day. That may be a little on the excessive side, but hey, my thighs need it.
Now some people....(ahem, ahem) always be working out at the gym. I mean, I get there at 4pm after I'm done with work and these cats? Already on the ellipticals, and been on them a good while, if their sweat soaked shirts are anything to go by.
So baby dawg, I do my thang on the stairmaster, and after half an hour, miss-sweat-stained-t shirt is still on. (Never mind the half hour limit on cardio machines, no ma'am, I'm beyond such pettiness.)
A few stretches and 45 minutes of weight training later, I'm ready to crank up the ol' metabolism. But of course, you know who and her twin sister are still on the ellipticals. Damn girl!
Now, don't get me wrong, I understand and appreciate the pull of the cardio machine. Your heart rate is in the 85% efficiency zone, you're feeling the burn and you just know that extra 100 calories will take care of that snickers you had with lunch.
I myself, have given into the sweet reasoning voice of the 5 minute cool down at the end of a 30 minute work out......but please! More than an hour? Give it a rest sugar, the machine will still be there tomorrow.
Yes. It's you I'm looking at. Time to get off now.

Late night in the lab

Working on Medical School Applications (notice the capitals, ladies and gentlemen) is strangely exhilarating. It makes me feel powerful; as though merely by using strategically chosen words and spicy synonyms I could rule the world. And you know what? I think I could.

Here I come Johns Hopkins. Or Columbia. Or NYU. Or....

In a month and a half I will be a senior. This makes me (officially at the very least) one of the wisest few on campus. Of course, this was the case even as a freshman, har de har har har, but now, my friends, it is for real. Be very afraid.

Did you know my sister won the Manager of the Quarter award at the hotel she works at? She surrre did. And she's only been working there a few months. Respect.

I should be writing an essay. Not my blog. Goodbye.

Home

tomorrow is the day of reckoning aka d-day soon to be known as The Day My Mcat Score Was Revealed To Me. despite the faith and good feelings of the people that make up my ahem, life, I know that whatever score I get will be a disappointment. because that's just the way it is. with the post-now wisdom some people call hindsight, that ten minutes you spent not studying will come back, grin at your sorry self and its teeth will not be white.

i'm in zambia right at this very moment. as I press these keys and put words together, I am breathing Southern Hemisphere air. why am I saying this? I just am, so deal with it.

wooden floors that go squeek under your feet when you walk on them this way, and water in the fridge safe to drink because it's been cooked to get rid of the germs. grass outside and the sound of the six million dogs barking late into the night in the neigh-bor-hood. going to church on foot, but not really, just in your heart. and a living room you can sit down and watch tv in because at the end of the day, damnit, we just want what everybody else wants: a place to call home.

so count those hours down with me, friend, and think big thoughts.

I have a box
in this box
I put my
tears
blue tears, that drip down
the side of my face
over my cheeks
I let them
this box
used to be empty
now
it is
a quarter full, half full, three quarters full
tell me,
when this box is full
and begins to run over
where will I put my tears?

Ode to coffee

Oh coffee! How marvellous is your power. How beautiful are your mechanisms. You give me strength when I have none. You fill me with a sense of renewed vigor and purpose. How potent your effects, how merciful your action. When the tentacles of sleep seek to crush me in their lethal embrace, when the very jaws of exhaustion seek to devour me with their terrible fate, coffee, you spring to action. Your smoky flavor alights on my tongue. Your purine rings awaken in me a desire to re-memorise all 10 steps in the glycolysis pathway. They open my eyes to the way of the electromagnetic wave - they equip me with the critical thinking necessary for a 15 on the Mcat Verbal. Truly your works are noble. Long I made jest at your pro-studying capacity. How I mocked those who partook of your healing powers. Alas! I was in err. Permit me now, this moment of post coffee meditation, to extol your virtues.
Oh coffee! How marvellous your power. How beautiful your mechanisms.

What it is

Notice:
The droop of the shoulders due to the heavy burden
The discarded Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts coffee cups
The pained expression in the eyes

Overheard: Dramatized and blogified

Not so thin girl: I have all this cellulite on my legs. It looks awful! I've been going to the gym and eating right, but my legs are taking ages to firm up.
Thin girl: Omg, I had the exact same thing, like, a year ago. I know exactly what you mean!
Not so thin girl: Really? What happened?
Thin girl: I was like, enormous - a size 10 can you believe it??
Not so thin girl: Umm, yeah...
Thin girl: Yeah, well. A friend of mine told me about this amazing procedure. You will not believe it, OMG!
Not so thin girl: No way, what was it?
Thin girl: Hold, on - I'll tell you!
Not so thin girl: Ok, Ok.
Thin girl: So, it's really easy, but you have to like, be kinda strong you know?
Not so thin girl: Mm, Hmm.
Thin girl: So basically, what it's about, is that like, you just don't eat, for like two weeks. And then, OMG - you'll be amazed at how much cellulite wears off! Plus, you lose MAD weight.
Not so thin girl: You don't say...
Thin girl: I know! Isn't it marvellous? I could not believe it either! When my friend told me about this, I was like, I cannot wait to start this procedure. And it SO worked! I mean, now I'm the same size I was when I was 11! I can like, wear size 0 clothes. You should try it, it so works!!
Not so thin girl: You know what, I think I'll just...
Thin girl: No really!! I'm dead serious. The only bad thing about it though, is that you tend to faint or collapse when it gets too hot. Or too cold. Or when it's late at night. Or early. But you know what I mean right?
Not so thin girl: Right.

Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person.

Mother Theresa

Do it in purple

I'm back. Here. Another semester lays all stretched out and furious before me. What have I done wrong? Express a desire to go to Medical School? Show my intentions of taking the Mcat in April? It's a count down I tell you. 87 days and my life will flash before my eyes. Four score and 7 days and my heart will stand still for 8 hours. Oh boy, oh boy - Mcat fever. (I'm too young to die).

Here is that list, my friends, in case you lost count:

BN104: Developmental Neurobiology
PH4: Basic Physics
BI28: Introductory Biochemistry
And the Kaplan Mcat prep course

Do it in purple.

Coldplay is the only music worth listening to

What if there was no light
Nothing wrong, nothing right
What if there was no time
And no reason or rhyme
What if you should decide
That you don’t want me there by your side
That you don’t want me there in your life

What if I got it wrong
And no poem or song
Could put right what I got wrong
Or make you feel I belong
What if you should decide
That you don’t want me there by your side
That you don’t want me there in your life

Oooh, that’s right
Let’s take a breath, jump over the side
Oooh, that’s right
How can you know it if you don’t even try
Oooh, that’s right

-What If. Coldplay

The Beginning of the End

Christmas is coming, and hooray to that. Boo to the snow, which makes it impossible to get out of a warm bed at 7 in the morning. But hooray for concoctions of half black hazelnut decaf and half cappuccino. That creamy froth goes down like a bad habit.

Boo to being unable to sleep at 2 O'Clock in the morning, despite a full day of studying and running around headless chicken style. Boo to the Organic Chem quiz I have tomorrow. Who cares about enolates and enols anyway?

The last two weeks of school. Hooray for classes that observe the reading period. Boo to Organic Chem for going way out of line, and keeping us learning.

Awesome. Absolut Neuro T-shirts on the way. Hooray to being first in line to buy mine, and double hooray to being a Neuro nerd. Nerdiness is in, baby. Get with the program.

Boo to the feelings of anxiety that seed in the bottom of my stomach and develop into fully grown panic trees on the day of the Orgo exam. Hooray to no more Orgo classes after Dec 17th. Orgo - it's not you, it's me.

But most of all, hooray to being one step closer to the semester that starts it all: applying to Medical Schools, lots of essay writing and....the Mcat. Boo for all the studying I will have to go through to prepare myself.

Life, in the meantime at least, continues to go on.

Thanksgiving weekend is here

Psycho, groupie, cocaine, crazy
Psycho, groupie, cocaine, crazy
Psycho, groupie, cocaine, crazy
Psycho groupie coke
Makes you high makes you hide
Makes you really want to go, stop
Psycho, groupie, cocaine, crazy
Psycho groupie coke
Makes you high makes you hide
Makes you really want to think and stop

-System of a Down

In other news - no class for two whole days! And then, because they hate us so much, Organic Chem exam right after Thanksgiving weekend. Bleh.

November 8th, 2005

I thought time would stand still and let me be 20 forever.

I cannot tell you

let me tell you
I want to tell you
telling you is all I wish-hope-dream for
yes? answer me with affirmation
spectacular, unique, incomparable
tell me, you say
want me to tell you
anything, everything, nothing
in gasps - in stutters – in silence
in quiet tones
and in between words
in between heart beats - a response
harsh, sarcastic, bitter-sweet, painful, inside, outside
every dimension considered
and rushing through daylight
gathering ideas, mentally noting-
to laugh. To breathe. To feel
warm
hot
on fire – and yet
the cool waters of deliberation
anti-Climax
tell me, you say
deleted words, phrases –
a nod here
a frown there
I cannot tell you

Saturday night ramblings

I have a Neuropharmacology exam on Tuesday. I do not have class, meetings, or lab as it is a Saturday and yet I have only studied 3 hours. Why is this so?
For one thing, I am in my room which is most unconducive to productivity - of the studying variety, of course. I need to be in the library, forced to gaze at nothing other than Neuropharmacology text books and notes.
My room is also under a sleep spell. Rip Van Winkle would agree. Entrance is followed by immediate decrease in the firing rates of most of my brain stem modulatory neurons, and a strong desire to get horizontal.
And then, there's no class on Monday, due to ahem, ahem 'Columbus day'. This really should be a day of national mourning, but that's just me...
What else? I just ate a pesto-cheese-tomato-red pepper-and lettuce sandwhich and studying just doesn't seem so hot anymore. Naughty thoughts have begun to intrude, such as...what better time to watch Grim and Evil than the present? Or even better, Reno 911? Family guy? Or heck, the entire adult swim?
Naughty, I tell you. They are being punished.
Orange juice, anyone?

Bathroom conundrum

When one is in the privacy of one's bathroom - and it doesn't necessarily have to be one's bathroom, any bathroom is appropriate - and one is going about one's business, a dilemma is in the making.
The dilemma that I refer to here is the situation in which an external force in the form of a knock is applied to the outside of the door. The door being, of course, the entry to the bathroom that one is currently occupying.
Several solutions avail themselves at this point. Does one cry out, "I'm in here" and endure the possible questions that might ensue? Who exactly is 'I' and what is the initiator of the knock going to do about it? And indeed, one most certainly (depending on where this bathroom is located; public dormitory as opposed to private home) will have ensured that admission is impeded via door-lockage, and as such, utterances akin to 'I'm in here', are redundant to say the least...
One might also cry out, "Occupied!". The ostentation and pageantry associated with such a manner of response need not be discussed.
So what, really, must one say in reaction to this happening?
"Yes?", "What do you want?" or even "Who's there?"
Perhaps one's best option is to remain silent, for even the most brainless of knock-instigators will understand the meaning of a locked door.
Still, the conundrum of the bathroom remains irresolvable. It lurks behind the shower curtain, underneath the bathroom sink, in the medicine cabinet, and not even the most socially cognizant individual can figure out its mysteries.

3rd year at Malory towers uhh, Brown University

So once again it's back to this place that I can almost call home, Brown University, for another year of good old Neuroscience classes and Organic Chemistry labs.
Back to studying late into the night at the Science Library.
To walking Thayer in search of that perfect brew of coffee.
And even though I have the Mcats to think about sometime next semester, I can relax and enjoy the fact that at my fingertips are thousands of resources that can, and will, make me a better person.
Ladies and gentlemen, in no particular order of preference, the long awaited deadrocketcow class list:

CH36: Organic Chemistry
BI80: Principles of Physiology
SI30: Intermediate American Sign Language 1
BN167: Neuropharmacology and Synaptic Transmission

Did you miss me?

How awesome is Coldplay?

Look:

All that noise and all that sound
All those places I got found
And birds go flying at the speed of sound
To show you how it all began
Birds came flying from the underground
If you could see it, then you’d understand

Need I go on?

Words cannot express

I want to tell you a bit about myself. My name is Meredith, I am 5’7, I live with my parents, and tonight I am going to kill them.
Now that you have read that, you may be thinking that I must be mad or worse still, that I am one of those troubled youths who, refusing to let the system brainwash their genius minds must get the system before it gets them, and must begin this process by exterminating their progenitors. Let me assure you that this is not so. I have spent the greater part of 20 years on this planet that I call home thinking about the perfect consciousness. It came to me in a flash last night. You see, blood is a beautiful thing. It flows through your veins, pumping all that sweet oxygen up and down the avenues of your body, making deliveries to every cell. If you cut just so on your wrist, you will feel the pain that comes from cutting through skin, sensitizing mechano and then pain receptors that scream to you, something is wrong, harm is being caused to your body. Deep enough, and blood, warm and red, wells out into the laceration. Deeper still and a few drops become an outflow that gushes forth life, and informs you of the possibilities that exist under your skin, of the richness of being human.
But I digress.
I think about blood often. I lie in my bed, envisioning pools of red liquid, lakes of erythrocytes, hemocytes, leukocytes, thick oceans of pure, hot blood. Of veins spurting forth hemoglobin enriched cells, of thick aortas working and pumping, of punctured carotid arteries pouring out deluges of blood.
So you see, I love the human body. I have a healthy respect for what keeps it alive. My fascination is blood, and tonight I will cure myself of this curiosity, this madness that grips me in the still of the night and takes over my mind. And what better blood, than the blood of the people I love?
Come now, I know what you are thinking. You think I am insane, I am deranged. What psychotic monster have my parents unleashed upon the world? To what stage of utter lunacy have I reached that I would even think such things?
Again, let me assure you. This is not so. Some things simply must be. Things will come to pass….my, how didactic I have become. They will feel no pain, and just think – what wonders will be revealed to mankind. How clear, how sweet the manifestation of what life is. Words cannot express. It will be an ecstatic jubilation of what it means to be alive. And I will relish every moment.

Elevator wars

What is it about the nature of the elevator interior that demands total silence and complete termination of all previous form of communication?
The area in front of the elevator is an extroverts paradise. Work mates clutch cups of expensive, hot starbucks coffee, weekends are described, new shoes, jewelry and other such adornments appraised. Life is good, and high powered executive frolics with lowly janitor. Buttons are pressed, the wonder of being at work is discussed, and all is well.
Then a light flashes. Ding! A slight shift in the air, and people regard each other, stealing furtive glances from under lowered lashes. An almost imperceptible spirit visible only to the trained eye has possessed this group. It reveals itself in the clenched buttock, in the tightening of the jaw, the faltering conversation.
The doors open, and each walks into his own private territory. A little to the left, a bit to the back. Muttered excuse me's and sorry's are exchanged. Place feet appropriately and stance.
In a second, the elevator doors glide towards each other and shut.
And there is silence.
1 - ding
2 - ding
Shoes are examined. Quality mentally assessed and prices calculated. That one over there shops at Walmart. That one over here shops at JC Penny. Not me, I shop at Saks. Noses turn upward as if seeking the air that is purest and untainted.
3 - ding
Eyes ever forward, faces composed, eyes unyielding. It is the great elevator undertaking. Be cool. Be sauve.
4, 5 - ding, ding. People get off.

And down again.