Life as an Extreme Sport

Author: Kelly

hateses the first week of the semester, we do

...and everything else, Academics

Think of a child of a demanding parent. That child often grows into a perfectionist type who seeks out mates who are hard to please — and then tries to please them. Cast that way, does it sound familiar?

You would think it was counterintuitive — why would we seek out the thing that made us miserable in youth, instead of running the other way? — but it makes sense. People unwittingly seek out what is familiar to them emotionally; if your home was run by a bully, then being bullied by a mate will feel normal, like “home.”

Then, once people re-create their unhappy circumstances, they get down to the real business of dysfunction: staying mired there while they make a fruitless effort to get it “right” this time, to master whatever it is that left them feeling so helpless or out-of-control as a kid.

To break the cycle you have to see it; trace its roots; face, with brutal honesty, what you do to perpetuate it; and learn new habits. It can take one epiphany or years of therapy, but it can be done.
–Carolyn Hax

The first week of a new academic term is always stressful and trying. The strange thing is, it’s not for any bad reasons – it’s just that you go from having a tonne of downtime to having no downtime in the span of 24 hours, and it’s a lot like shifting from neutral to 3rd gear, skipping stages in between.

When I was at UW, this wasn’t too hard of a thing, if only because on the quarter system, everything moves quickly and even your downtime is short – not really time to adjust to relaxed schedules. But the combination of a semester system, and having essentially not had courses in, depending on how you want to look at it, 6 or more months, has meant my ability to come anywhere near balance or adjusting to the shift in speeds is way, way off.

I could whine and say I’m still sick (I am) and it makes things harder, or having the rapid series of faculty interviews back to back at the beginning of the semester – the job talks, meals, meetings, readings, etc – is a time sink (albeit an important one to be involved in), or that even adjusting to set reading habits even when you’re not interested in the material is just hard. It’d all be true. But in reality, the issue is not the hard things, but the pleasant things – the sudden overabundance of being around people I like, brains I enjoy talking to, and the strange pleasure that comes from being woken up before 9am because a friend wanted to talk before class. It’s a hatred borne from a feast of excess.

In the first week or two of the semester, everything is about readjusting, finding balance. Figuring out your schedule – when do you have class, and then build from around that when everything else happens. Even if you’re amazing at dealing with that fast shift into overdrive, it’s hard to go from a relaxed, “I have 24 hours to fill at my inclination” attitude to one of strictly regimented schedule.

Oddly, my mild epiphany last night (prior to the drinking and socializing, thank you – so an actual epiphany, not an alcohol-induced one) was that I need to mimic a lot of what I did at UW here, because it really was successful for me. That means things as simple as keeping as spartan an apartment as possible, to establishing favourite spots to go to work and study – coffee shops and quiet bars, with and without wireless. And to live by a tightly controlled schedule that really is scheduled down to the minute, of when to sleep, when to eat, go to class, work, even play.

The only way to do this successfully is to do this with precision, and I have lost a lot of that sharp precision in these last few months. Whether that is okay or not is not at issue – that’s another topic for another time, and admitting that it’s been gone isn’t an admission of having done anything bad. It’s just acknowledging that things need to change, and they need to change now.

This post brought to you by distance, perception, Wellbutrin, introspection, the words “dark and twisty”, the letter B and the number 50. And the Carolyn Hax quote is related, but I’m not going to spell it out – at least not right now.

oh my

...and everything else

Kelly is a touch bit drunker than she has been in a while. But she was actually also more outgoing and social than she has been in a while, so perhaps it’s an even bet.

Either way, fun today and work all the weekend long. …that ought to be fun. Here’s hoping for not so much with a headache in the morning, eh? (Still considering the haggis thing, too, Jen…)

Wednesday Will Be the Death of Me

...and everything else, Academics

I fell back asleep pretty much immediately after my last update, lending a bit of credence to the whole “tired from being sick” concept. Solidifying that was the fact that, this being the first day of the semester, I set my alarm relatively early so I could work a few hours before disappearing into academia for the long majority of the day. The whole schedules thing I was mentioning last night.

Well, I woke up around 12:15 to Lunar licking my face, the next door dog barking, and Toledo passed out across my feet, pinning my legs down. 12:15 was not the time I had set my alarm for; in fact, it was a good almost-five hours later than I had set my alarm for, and I was puzzled. Where the hell was my alarm and why did it not off?

The answer to that is that it would appear I have a wicked underhand when I’m asleep. Rather disturbingly, I don’t remember this at all; however, the several broken pieces of alarm clock at the foot of the wall across from me is a good indication of how displeased the idea of waking up apparently left me, this morning.

I made it out the door in time to grab lunch and perhaps even my books before class, but of course was on campus and halfway to the bookstore before realizing I had left my wallet in my other jacket. So not only did I not have money for my books, I had no way to get lunch, or even anything to drink. Add to that getting home only half an hour ago (a little after 10pm), and it’s no wonder I have a headache and feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.

Wednesday’s are going to be long days – I’ll be gone a good 11-12 hours if I keep my current schedule. I’m not entirely sure I’m up to it, and need to decide before this week is out. At the moment, the idea is kind of terrifying, but I’m also tired, have a headache, am beyond hungry, and pretty sure my ick is getting worse again, and not better.

Speaking of the latter, I’m back to cough and phlegm and ear pain, oh my. Which means getting up early and trying to slip into the doc’s office either right before or right after class, to see why I was getting better and am now not. But first, the advil needs to kick in so the pounding drum and bass band behind my left eye will shut up enough to let me work for a few hours before I head off to sleep.

strange days of gratitude

Academics, life and living, University at Albany

I guess you know I’m tired when I sit down to the computer and start typing, and wake up 3 hours later, still sitting up at the computer. As far as I can tell, I hung up the phone with Dad and fell asleep almost immediately after that; it’s basically where my memory stops, anyhow. (Experience has taught me I was probably active a bit longer than that, since I tend to lose the last 15-20 minutes of memory when I fall asleep like that – zaps the internal p-ram or somesuch.)

It’s weird to do that, especially since I partly recognize it’s because I took my nightly medications closely together, rather than spaced out like I normally do. I try not to think hard, or much, about the medications I take, except to space taking them out a bit, because I could work myself into a major freakout quickly if I did, especially with Heath Ledger’s death earlier today and reports coming that it was likely a combination of medication for his pneumonia and sleeping problems that caused the death (rather than suicide or OD). Sleeping problems, pneumonia, and oh, then add in the pain management medications – yeah, I get nervous. Especially when I suddenly snap awake over a computer three hours later, with no memory of even being sleepy enough to fall immediately asleep (as opposed to “I’m getting tired I should get to bed”).

Anyhow. That’s not what I’d typed out prior to falling asleep, the below was.

~*~

Today was my first day back on campus since December, and since I was only there a day or two, it was really my first day back seeing everyone since October. I was a bit nervous walking into it, especially as I was there for a job candidate – and one of the people specifically focused on who should be there for the candidate, since the position the department it looking for centers around familiarity with ethics (preferably applied and bio). And as quickly became apparent, a good chunk of the graduate department turned out for the interview – we were joking that we’d never seen so many grad students together at the same time, even inside a classroom.

I was genuinely surprised at how welcoming and warm everyone was. Smiles, hugs, affection – and maybe more importantly, a lot of joking around and laughter. I laughed into coughing fits several times, and although it hurt, it was fun and energetic and just… how I was always hoping to feel there. Like a part of the group, like I belonged.

Small things really stand out – someone patting me affectionately and comfortingly on the back when I got choked up talking about Mom, just a simple gesture of support. Being asked if I knew any of the candidates by name, because I was the one who would – an acknowledgment of the knowledge I can bring to the table. Planning get-togethers, classes for upcoming semesters, coordinating things, lots of teasing of each other. Even a joke about action theory turned into a fun (if short) conversation about female action stars, and Summer Glau.

There was a lot of positive energy coming from everyone, and it culminated in dinner with the candidate and other department members, with conversation ranging from philosophy on television to in depth and pointed discussion on the candidate’s presentation on how we experience emotion.

Being around that positive energy, truly sinking in to a feeling of belonging, was a much needed experience. I spend so much time alone and isolated that I curl in on myself and can lose the spark that excites me – especially when I’m overwhelmed, as I have been for much of the past 18 months. I am such an introvert that it’s easy to forget how much I do need to be around people, especially those who share overlapping interests and passions.

It will be an interesting semester. While I lost one course I had been interested in taking, I have the minimum two already enrolled, and the classes start in the morning. I’ll be on campus daily this semester, for a minimum of 3 hours, which means I’ll have a chance to get into consistent habits that are good for me: waking up at a set time, showering, dressing, eating, getting out of the house. All things that can be difficult to enforce without outside factors.

~*~

Alright – I think what is happening is that lack of sleep from the last week, when the coughing and phlegm and needing to sleep upright in order to not drown in my own fluids, has caught up to me. I find myself starting to drift off again, even though I’ve only been awake 15 minutes or so. Which means I should take advantage of it now, and rest up prior to the start of what will hopefully be a very good semester.

Seeing Sideways: Stepping into Anorexia

...and everything else, Bioethics

For those of you who have read The Secret Life of Lobsters, the word umwelt will be a familiar one. It’s a biological term (German, of course – all the great descriptive words are, aren’t they?) introduced by Jakob von Uexküll that literally means the surrounding world, or environment, and practically means the sensory experience that gives an organism its subjective experience of the universe.

To put it in terms that the philosophers in the room might understand, it’s the biological take of Nagel’s phenomenal, subjective question of "what is it like to be a bat?"

In The Secret Life of Lobsters, umwelt is brought up when discussing how it is a lobster sees in the water – specifically, the fact that a lobster actually sees scent. (It’s a fascinating book, and I highly recommend it – especially to those of you who enjoy books on food and food origins). Where I didn’t expect to see umwelt so immediately was on MSNBC; yet after finishing the book and watching football, I turned to do my nightly crawl of news and found just that.

This narrative on MSNBC is titled "Anorexia nearly killed my wife", subtitled "To better understand a loved one’s illness, Tom Cramer stopped eating, too". And that’s precisely what the story is – a narrative of a husband’s perception of his wife as she developed anorexia, his reaction to her not eating (a very typical attempt to bribe and pressure her into eating), and then finally, his decision to mimic her behaviour and severely limit his calories. He did this out of desperation, as an effort to understand just what being anorexic was like, to understand the hold it could have on his wife – something, anything, that could allow him the small break he needed into her psyche so that he could help her, and help their family.

It’s a small but fascinating glimpse into umwelt, as he himself moves from what we would consider ordered to disordered thinking, from being hungry and fatigued to feeling challenged and buoyed by his control and the lack of eating. Although he stopped his experiment after a week, it was enough time with another perspective, a different subjective experience, umwelt, that he has been able to support his wife on her journey towards wellness since.

An example of why an ability to shift umwelt is necessary becomes clear in the recent UCSF missteps over MRSA USA300, the new strain of community acquired staff that had been widely reported as a new gay disease – not necessarily because of malicious intent on the part of the media (although the sensationalism is hard to deny), but because in their effort to be precisely clear to fellow researchers who would be peer reviewing their work, the UCSF scientists used language that has precise meaning within the public health community, but has a much broader meaning to the general public. When the media read the report, what they say, the meaning they interpreted, was clear – and utterly incorrect, because their umwelt was wrong, and although they were both using English to communicate, they weren’t using the same specialized form of the language.

Many years ago, in my former life in the computer industry, there was a very small group of people who had a highly valued and rare skill. They were able to interact with both the computer programmers and the lay person, shifting their language to be appropriate to who they were talking to. They could talk tech with the best of them, and then turn around and translate that tech-speak into something the general public could easily understand. (And anyone who has ever tried to follow a stereo installation manual or computer guide knows how valuable someone who speaks both languages is.) In Marvelous Possessions, Stephen Greenblatt calls these people the Go-Betweens, who can navigate and translate across multiple worlds.

We tend to see and think of ourselves as all the same, and discount the fact that even within our human sameness, the range of subjective experience is so vast, so different, that at times we need to step out of our own way of thinking and try to see the world in a new light. At my alma mater, we called this parallel thinking, in biology it’s umwelt – and it strikes me that the medical humanities, especially those of us working in applied, clinical or bioethics, would do well to either adopt the term or come up with our own for it, as it seems to me something that is at the very heart of what it is we do.

Originally posted at the Medical Humanities blog