Like lead
Molybdenum. What a cool word. I found it in this scary article in the NYT about an old mine that's full of toxic water that is only being held back by a wall of accumulated rubbish. Horrible! But the word, the idea of being "lead-like," is a good one. In fact, it's how my brain has been lately!
Well. I wanted to write in and say "hi" for a moment. Things are going fine with me, though this is another long week and I honestly can't understand how people work 12-hour days every day for years. But then again, I fear I've gotten very complainy in the past month and it's not a trend I would like to see continue. School is fine. I presented initial results from my thesis project to some other students last night, and they had a lot of good suggestions for me. Hopefully this will make my research more "person centered" instead of "variable centered." Yes, people really do use these terms. I find them, like most terms in this field, risible. But what can you do? First I have to master the lexicon, THEN I will have earned the right to mock it.
I think my family is doing well. My sister A. is about to have her baby, which is really exciting (due date: March 11th), and she and her husband have apparently mastered the art of stained glass. My sister R. is also doing well, though she works with some very inept people (wearing slippers and pajamas to work, in a healthcare setting? come on!) so that's definitely trying. My dad's trying to figure out what to do with his practice, how to find a new doctor, how to make it viable. Remind me never to open a small business in a rural area. But no, seriously, it's not that he and his partner have done anything wrong, I think this is a difficult time economically, and recent graduates want to live in cities. Seeing my dad get stressed reminds me of how bad stress can be to the body and mind. Imagine having low levels of the 'fight or flight' response all the time, with no time for the body to repair itself and regroup. It's bad! I find that ongoing stress makes me somewhat stupid - I get absent minded, make very boring conversation, and forget things. And these are just stupid school tasks I'm talking about. I can't imagine how Dad feels when the fates of 20+ employees and thousands of animals are in his hands. My mom is hanging in there despite dad's stress, and they both have single handedly (well, in their case, double handedly) saved their local contra dance group from extinction, so they're proud of that.
I'm grateful that I've gotten to spend some time with supportive classmates and friends over the past week or two, though I'm not sure I've been very good company. People put up with me! It's so nice of them. M. especially puts up with it brilliantly, weathering the endless stream of department gossip and my general neuroses. I'm so excited and proud that he's going to Penn, and I can picture him there, which is definitely a good sign.
My "2007: The Year of Love" theory seems to have caught up/rolled over into 2008, with several new engagements (T & C in Raleigh, K & E in Wilmington, and most recently, H & J in Los Angeles!) and my friend A. finally meeting a guy who makes her smile. All of this totally, totally rocks.
And, YOU rock. You rock like molybdenum.
