"A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never allow passion or transitory desire to disturb his tranquility." Frankenstein Posted by Hello
Well I have 12 pretty good pages of what has to be at a 15 page paper. I will have a great draft finished by monday, edit monday night and have a final version by tuesday. But in order for that to happen gentle friends. I will not be posting until at least Dec. 1. Immediately after grad apps get in I will be heading to the nearest bar to order a martini so large it will have a deep end and a diving board. In all reality I won't post until Dec. 2 or 3.
Until then please send: good wishes, G-d's undivided attention, cigarettes, and no-doze.


My Research Staff Posted by Hello
What Writing a Paper for 10 Hours After Cooking for 2 Days and Dealing With My Extended Family For 20 Hours Can Do To My Brain
After working on my Frankenstein paper for grad apps, I was gathering up my research to go to sleep when I came across, through pure coincidence, this quotation from Anatole Broyard, "...the emotional burden of avoiding the patient may be much harder on the doctor than he imagines" (49). Well, if that doesn't sum up the basic conflict of Frankenstein, I don't know what does. Sure he could just look upon his creation and give him a hug, but no, he has to travel all over europe, get five decent people murdered, extinguish his family line, and drive some poor dogs to their death on an ice raft. Again I scoff at the idea that men excel at linear thinking.
Of course, I am shocked to discover that I have become the type of person who posts pictures of her mother's cat on her blog. Which only makes sense once I perused my mother's digital picture gallery and realized she has a whole cache of pictures dedicated to her house from every angle possible. I mean really. She took a picture of the house, walked ten feet to the left took another picture, no animals, no people, just her house from every angle. She also has pictures of floral arrangements. No kidding. Sometimes several pictures of the SAME arrangement from different angles.
Incidentally the cat in the picture is NOT a girl cat, it is a boy cat. In fact, the ASPCA named him Tony. Realizing that the cat bears no ressemblance to a Soprano or the star of Who's the Boss, my mother wanted to name him RuPaul, but I vetoed it. I thought perhaps Glen or Glenda in a tribute to Ed Wood, but well a three word name isn't very convenient, and the cat certainly didn't look like an Ed. Since the cat has two different color eyes ( one blue, one green), I thought perhaps Ziggy Stardust might be appropriate, but my mother isn't the naming her cat after a famous concept rock album type. Finally we settled on a very nice non gender specific name: "Puff."

Thankful
Well, I should be, and will be, working on completing my second draft of the writing sample for grad school today, but just a moment here so ya all don't think that I spend every day of the year being a snarling self obsessed hell beast.
I'm thankful that:
that I really do have one of the best mother's ever. Understanding, sympathic, beautiful, energetic. OK she doesn't really live on this planet all the time, but this I can forgive.
that I actually have friends who put up with me while I go through grad. app. hell
that my students often say "it's not that we don't like you, it's just that we don't like the class"
that I live in a place where I can pretty much get gummi bears whenever the hell I want
that I don't live in a place where the bars have video poker built into them
that I am able to afford my staggering book habit
that I was raised by parents who believed that knowledge was more valuable than money
that I have a cat who is one of the most emotionally needy animals on the planet
that I have a date this weekend
that there are people who call me when they haven't heard from me in two days
that some of my friends have already started X-mas/birthday shopping for me
that I still look damn fine in a pair of jeans and a black sweater
that my relatives won't be staying more than a day
that I only go to PA once a year
that people actually come to this blog and read it
that if all goes well I will be getting a massage this weekend
that there are jalapeno with tequila and lime kettle chips in the kitchen right now
that there is wine decanting
that I have not yet casually rammed a meat thermometer into the neck of my aunt
....must go refuel for the the second draft of the paper....
Have a Happy Thanksgiving

Gimme That Old Time Religion
"If G-d answers all our prayers, why is it sometimes he says no?" -Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You
"I've stopped praying to G-d, and now I pray to Joe Pesci because I find when I pray to him it gets done." George Carlin
Since I've been researching medical narrative all week, I'm going to continue and post here about some more fabulous experiences from my life as an invisible disabled person. The big O has recently posted about how he has been advised in his current condition to perhaps find faith.
Luckily, and perhaps this is because I am Jewish, no one has suggested to me even when I almost bled to death when I was 21, even when there was concern that I suddenly in kidney failure at 26, (insert several other life threatening/painful medical occurences here) that I "explore my faith." This is good thing for them because even coked out of my mind, I am fairly sure I would have stuffed my hospital pillow down the throat of whoever uttered such a phrase. Mainly because when I am in that much pain it doesn't take much to provoke me into an act of violence. Some people are soothed by prayer, not me, generally I am soothed by idiots who rather offer me platititudes than genuinely try to be with me in my pain.
Last year one of my students wanted to write a paper about the "healing power of faith." "How," I asked her, "are you going to set about proving it? How can you prove a person has real faith? What about people who have it but don't boast or proclaim it? What kind of evidence can you bring me?" I tried to be reasonable about it, but honestly I was enraged. Faith, it seems to me, is often a way of blaming the victim for failing to be cured. Christina Middlebrook, who wrote one of the best cancer memoirs, suspected that those who did not fully accept her terminal diagnosis, (she was diagnosed with breast cancer already in stage IV-there is no stage V) like her own mother, would blame her "lack of a positive attitude" for her death rather than accept that her death was beyond the hopeful effects of optimism.
Many people seem to operate on the idea that G-d is essentially like a parent with children in college. You call up when you really need money and whine and weedle and kvetch and G-d gives you some money, not everything you want, but just what you need. And it's easy, if you wear horseblinders, to believe in such an idea. The idea of G-d is very attractive when you are suffering, to give some reason, some purpose to suffering, and to those who believe I would not take their beliefs away from them. But for those of us who don't believe, there should be some respect that perhaps, just perhaps,we aren't suffering because of a lack of religious faith. And if something terrible should happen not see it as a failure on my part for not believing in G-d, but that quite obviously accept that unfortunately bad things happen to good people.
Of course, having said that there are no atheists in foxholes. I am WAY behind on grad apps and honeslty, if there is a G-d, I could use his undivided attention until dec. 1. And really I can't be picky, any minions, seraphs, underlords, elves, nymphs, demigods, that owe favors to you, if you would mind pulling them in, really really really need their help.
Note: Tomorrow's blog-wacky familial hijinx, perhaps the final draft of my SOP, and yes, actually a happy thought

As if we didn't already know

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