A brief, I’m still alive update:
* Mom is still sick. She’s had repeat fluid buildups, and they’re running extensive tests to figure out why she’s not getting better. I am unabashedly worried at, at this point.
* I just got back from NYC. Saw Colbert tape again, which was interesting, and spent time exploring the city and running a couple of necessary errands. Also got to hear The Lonesome Trio perform, which was oodles of fun. Had a good time talking to two of the three band members after the show, too – nice guys.
* School is going. I’ll be glad to have this semester over with.
* It’s very hard to make vague comments that are just complaining about life, when all you want to do is complain and not actually email the specific people and talk to them about it, when the specific people read the blog and then say things like “was that me?” the next time you see them. *cough*Glenn*cough* :p
* I was delayed for hours, due to ice, leaving NYC today. So no real celebration of Bodhi Day for me, but I did end up talking about bioethics to a lot of different people while waiting for the train. A couple of the porters and Amtrak workers were being friendly, for reasons that are filed under the “people treat me oddly in NYC” category, and we got on to what I study, and suddenly there were lots of questions. And one guy ended up calling someone whose grandson has MS; she’s been trying to learn about stem cells and getting confused about it all, and he wanted to know if I could make sense of it for her. So, I did my best stem cells 101; I think I might have actually changed some people’s minds about things. I know I certainly enlightened them to other things they hadn’t thought of, like issues of GMOs and our food supply. (I swear, Michael Pollan should give me a percentage, I recommend that book to so many people.)
It was probably good to do the talking, even though it made me nervous. It gave me a reality check with how much I do actually know, and reminded me how much I enjoy talking to people about this sort of thing. Still, kind of weird to figure out how to word a reply when someone says “will this cure my grandson?” Guess I need to get accustomed to that, eh?
Jesus, my ability to form anything resembling a well-crafted sentence is apparently shot. I’m alive, life continues to be surreal, I’ll think about typing up my thoughts on NYC (from the last three visits) and uploading photos this weekend. Have some other things on my plate first, though!