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.

Hell is my house

My days have passed away, my
thoughts are dissipated, tormenting my
heart.
They have turned night into day,
and after darkness I hope for light again.
If I wait hell is my house, and I have
made my bed in darkness.
I have said to rottenness; thou art
my father; to worms, my mother and
my sister.
Where is now then my expectation,
and who considereth my patience?
All that I have shall go down into
the deepest pit: Thinkest thou that there
at least I shall have rest?

Job 17: 11 - 16

They are with me

so we are here. you and I. let us sit at this table, this big table, over polished glass and wanton displays of starched whiteness. lift fork here, sip water there.
only do not look at me that way. if you do, i will poison your children
murder your seed
haha, you like that? and you drape me with the flesh of exotic tree dwelling animals. when you adorn my neck with blood, you smile to yourself. i am your pretty trinket, your gold plated imitation gucci. smile at me, you say. i smile at you, and the silver you planted in my teeth reflects the candlelight that bounces offyour bald head
we sit at this table that is as long as it is wide, under ceiling as high as you are tall. you look down at me, possesively, exclusively. everything is as you want it. shoes? i will give you shoes, licentious underclothing that you tear offmy naked body
wear red, you say. i wear red, and i hang my head hang my head my head...
and they watch. perhaps it is the smell of the cocoa butter that you spread on my back. remind me how to be cruel. remind me that clothes hanging to dry under hot sun strong wind
look like ghost and whisper treacherous ideas to me.
only open your eyes and you will see that I talk with them. if you come, you will see me, and you will see how I am with them. and so we sit here
at
this table
that is as long as it is wide as dark as you are strong

and they are with me

May is for mothers

Back in the day Mom used to get excruciating migraines and she still gets them once in a while, but those suckers rendered her completely defenceless, reduced to an agonised heap beneath sweaty and dark sheets. I would sneak into her room, lay next to her on that huge expanse of bed, and stare at her. I remember those times, like they were (yes indeed) yesterday. The fan would whir out its promises each time it made its relentless circuit, and as it turned to face us, breathe soft air into the stagnant migraine waters of the room.
Vague and disorganised primary school memories hide in the dark recess of my mind. They float around like faded post it notes, dropped behind a cluttered desk, aching to be examined again.
I see her, morning after morning, holding the blue jacket I had to stuff into my bag before I got to school because it 'wasn't part of the uniform, and could be con-fis-cated' over the grill, so it would be warm when I wore it. And when I walked to the stop, with my head as low in my jacket as was possible, and the sleep still in my eyes, I was warm.
And always, always, just like clockwork, in the hour she had for lunch, she would come pick me up after school. I tried to be nonchalant about it, face expressionless, walking over to the car with not a care in the world. Yeah, Mom, I knew you were coming.
But I was delighted. Nothing beat the joy of seeing her come driving into the parking lot, with the window slightly down, and the smell of ZCCM wafting out the car.
And there would be ice-cream after that. Bright (almost to the point of fluorescence) pink artifically flavored after taste inducing strawberry ice-cream. I loved it. It gave her headaches, but she ate it with me anyway.
It's all that, and it's more. I know you know this already, but hey. My Mom rocks.

I like your earrings

Look, I don't know you. When I'm sitting in the CIT or the Sci Li, and I'm frowning over my Organic Chemistry text book, with the steam coming out of my ears because I can't figure out how to make a reaction work, don't smile at me. I don't want to see your pretty little crest whitestrip enhanced dental formula. The reason I have those huge headphones over my ears is because I don't want to exchange idle chit chat with you. So what if it's nice outside? I have an exam tomorrow, and I feel really, really stupid right now. I don't want to stop my music and take off my earphones to listen to you tell me you're also considering being pre-med, or that you're a freshman (really, only freshmen do this), and yes isn't Organic Chemistry so incredibly boring?
I have synthesis problems to figure out, reagents to memorise and carbons to count. So when you walk in with your pink little ruffled barely there summer skirt, matching toenails and cute tote bag, walk past me, find your see-and-be-seen center stage spot at the table and fuss over the 8 page paper you have due for your English final.
Complain that your class is so very hard, because you have a paper due every other month. Or you actually have to read through an entire book to keep up with class readings.
And yeah, I actually do mind turning down my music. I have it blasting away on purpose. I like a nicely fried eardrum. Don't look at me, and I certainly won't look at you. I have work to do.

By the way, I like your earrings.

What do you mean, 'it's only an email'?

Hi [my name] jus wnted 2 kno if u cud meet earlier on 2day 'stead of @ 2pm lik we sed. s'thing came up and I hav 2 go out of twn this afternoon. how dus 10am sound? thanks, [her name].

With the veins bulging out in my neck, my eyeballs nearly bursting out of their sockets and an increasingly accelerating heart beat, I considered deleting this email and never speaking to this person again.
What an utter atrocity of an email! How dare we let ourselves sink to this disgusting level of erroneous punctuation and nauseating grammar.
I cannot believe the argument that because it is only an email, it doesn't need to be letter perfect. Is this a logical conclusion? Is it? Just because one is able to communicate with someone else in an instant, just because the way in which one is achieving this communication is electronic is not reason enough that we become derelict and sloppy with our writing.
That form of communication, regardless of the medium, is going to be received, read and assumptions are going to be made about the way the sender thinks - after all, what is an email but a presentation of ones ideas?
And saying the reason we can be tardy in the way we write is because it is so convenient is utter hogwash. Surely, a convenience such as this ought to give us more time to take pride in the way we write, to articulate ourselves well and damnit, to use paragraphs.
No, it is not just an email. It is a reflection of who you are. It is communication. Take pride in the way you write.
And at the very least, be coherent.

It's all about me

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion 26% Stability 43% Orderliness 46% Empathy 70% Interdependence 30% Intellectual 90% Mystical 90% Artistic 83% Religious 10% Hedonism 10% Materialism 90% Narcissism 70% Adventurousness 76% Work ethic 90% Self absorbed 50% Conflict seeking 43% Need to dominate 76% Romantic 83% Avoidant 63% Anti-authority 90% Wealth 36% Dependency 10% Change averse 50% Cautiousness 83% Individuality 90% Sexuality 76% Peter pan complex 70% Physical security 63% Food indulgent 90% Histrionic 30% Paranoia 90% Vanity 63% Hypersensitivity 50% Female cliche 30%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Bye Spring Break

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

Becoming normal

And so my spring break is almost over and I am glad. I really cannot wait until Wednesday at 5pm when I have my ghanain drumming class. I cannot wait to complain that I have three exams on the same day, and lab hasn't been cancelled.
I want to hit the V-dub at 4:45pm, have a quick dinner and then swipe my card to begin 4 hours of work with the nicest, most interesting workers there are.
I miss Manny, with his gray hair curling out from under his Buds cap, and his shy smile.
I miss Antonio aka Tony, with the long braid that goes all the way down to the small of his back. You don't want to mess with him.
And even though Ernesto gives me the creeps with his I'm-so-hot-right-now attitude (especially when he slips on that awful leather jacket) and his mashed finger - I kinda miss him too.
I miss parrying Pedro's continued quest to take me out to dinner.
Or Rabbit telling me what a great job I've done as soon as I walk in the door.
I miss seeing the shock on Bling-Bling and Baby-Gurl's faces when I tell them how I spend my weekends - studying or doing research at the Sci Li/CIT.
"Girl, you need to go clubbin sometime. You need a life"
I don't really know the other two student workers. They come and they go. Depending on how good they are at holding back their dinner when they discover they have to scrape the remains off other people's plates, or (oh, the horror) clean up the mess their friends made, they may last the week. I usually give them 3 weeks max. Then new ones come.
So far I haven't lost a bet.

Wow. I've been up all night.