of course, the assert doesn’t work
This about sums things up, of late:
Category: …and everything else
Mostly everything else in a brain-academic way.
where everybody knows your name
If anyone were to walk by the graduate student office right now, they might be concerned, worried, and ultimately puzzled, as I reassured them that no, no, everything is fine – I’m crying because I’m happy. But just sitting here, now, I basically burst into tears as I realized that I am happy. I am actually happy.
I’m making friends here. I’m starting to go out and socialize with folks from the department, but also people I’ve met through other means. I’m starting to make plans, I just invited someone in the department to take a few art classes with me in May, I’m meeting a handful of people in an hour or so just to hang out. I’m involved with activities, and I’m really starting to feel valued here. It’s weird to be a go-to person, but I am a go-to person – got a bioethics question? I’m ya gal. I get looped into other people’s office hours to help and harass students, I get asked to speak in general about some aspects of the field, or generalized publishing knowledge.
It’s not just school, though. There’s a local group trying to create a community feeling at a warehouse full of arts and crafts and fun and music, and they know me there – they know be my name, they bring in newspaper things to share with me, we talk about stuff. Not just what I do, either – we talk art and music and blueberries and the care and feeding of bees.
People are starting to call me on the phone.
People are starting to pick fights just to have a fun argument.
People are starting to make summer plans, and including me.
Last week, one of the grad students who’s been around longer than me looked up from the middle of a bunch of us having lunch and said, to me, in front of everyone, “you’re not just a team player, you organize the team and then you make everyone want to be a part of it.”
I think I’m just finally starting to feel like I can belong here, I do belong here.
There’s a lot of damage I need to…undo isn’t the right word. Repair is. It got bad, being me, for a while – I slid into a bad place, mentally just checked out of everything for a while. I had to curl around the little spark that was me and protect it, keep it lit. But I’m hoping this is a sign that I’m coming out of that funk, that the world will continue to turn into vibrant colours, that I’ll have a chance to apologize to those who deserve it, and make amends to those without whom I wouldn’t have so much that I do now. And that I’ll keep crying, not from sadness, but joy.
Match It for Pratchett
What just about everyone knows is that my mother died from cancer. She didn’t smoke, nor did she have the smoking-related sort of lung cancer; it was probably environmental, although who knows. Sometimes, genes just hate you. Some people know that my (paternal) grandfather is a medical literature oddity, thanks to his service record in WWII, and died from complications of a calcium shell around his heart. What most people don’t know is that my (maternal) grandmother died of Alzheimer’s, and it became a bit of an admittedly macabre running joke in my family to blame Mom’s spaciness or my tendency to forget things that are middling to early on-set. (Yes, tasteless, but hey, that’d be my family on these subjects.) Thing is, Alzheimer’s often skips generations, so… *glances around* Yep. One of those bullet-time bullets hanging in the air, maybe going to hit me or one of my sibs, but maybe we’ll bend out of the way fast enough.
Anyhow, I keep up on research, for obvious personal interests. So today’s Match It for Pratchett, courtesy of Neil’s blog caught my eye, and I’m reprinting it here. (For those of you who missed it, Terry Pratchett has an early-onset form of Alzheimer’s, and it’s grim, grim news.)
Today, it was announced that Terry Pratchett has donated half a million pounds to Alzheimer’s research. Hearing that, it occurred to me that if half a million of us all donated a pound to Alzheimer’s research, we could match his donation and make it an even million.
So whaddaya say, guys? It’s a pound. That’s about 2 bucks US dollars, give or take a couple of (US) pennies. You can spare that much. Go here and make your donation. Tell them it’s in honour of Terry Pratchett.
Let’s do it!
Fastfwd‘s idea, gillo‘s image/icon, a fantastic idea. Pure money like this is important in medical research – it drives actual research, with actual results; we don’t have to worry about companies tweaking results because of the pharma-money backing, we don’t have to worry as much about trial results influenced by needing to please shareholders, there are no strings attached – how research should always be conducted, in an ideal world we’ll probably never live in. So contribute a couple of bucks, wouldja? It just might make a difference in someone’s life – might even be mine.
David Cook Wins. Period.
It’s not like I really needed another reason to like David Cook, but yesterday morning’s Idol recap from a Tampa affiliate actually might send me over the voting edge on America, for the first time ever.
Basic rundown for those who don’t want to watch (although you should, because it really is sweet): the person doing the wrap up was in Hollywood last week for the Fox meet’n’greet, and met Cook. While talking, he explained to Cook that his teenage daughter, Lindsey, was a huge fan. He also told him how much it meant that she got excited about the show right now, because she was diagnosed with leukemia on Christmas day. So Cook stops what he’s doing, and asks for the guy’s cell phone so he can call her and say hello.
Score one massive amount of goodwill with me.
But it doesn’t stop there. The announcer also told him about the orange bracelets her friends and family wear, with the motto Lindsey uses to get through chemo, and her name. Cook asked if he could have one, promising to wear it on the show this week, and the announcer gave him the one off his wrist.
Did he wear it? Yep. At several points during Eleanor Rigby, his jacket pulls back and you can see the bracelet. Lindsey apparently went wild through the roof, and she and her father voted a million times each.
After that, so will I.
Apparently DCook’s older brother Adam has been battling cancer (from the sounds of it, leukemia) for a while, too. It’s a big and strange club of solidarity to be initiated into.
Edited to change the few details I got wrong, per the comment below. Thanks for the clarification!
humour break
Before I head back to the doom and gloom (and I plan on very much going there in the next day or two), a break for the funny:
I’ll bust out the American Idol break tomorrow.