Doctors

I went to the doctor yesterday and I really hate going to the doctor. Half of it is the normal "I don't wanna go to the doctor" feeling that diminishes many of us to roughly the personality equivalent of a 4-year old the instant we walk into a doctor's office. (It's also the likely cause of my high blood pressure at the beginning of every appointment). But the other half of why I don't like going to the doctor is that, in general, I dislike the actual doctors. And I should preface this by saying that my close friends who have become doctors are exempted from the stark generalization I am about to make. You all, thank goodness, have maintained the kindness and generous spirits that made me love you in the first place. The rest of the doctor world, listen up: it's the "doctor attitude" that really irks me. That way that doctors (and again, I'm being hugely general here) have of looking down at you, of holding this "ooh look at me, I went to medical school, I'm so smart" nonsense over your head, that holier than thou attitude.... it really irritates the crap out of me. I'm pretty sure they brainwash it into these people in medical school, too. I have seen so many seemingly nice, normal, civilized people enter medical school and come out with this M.D. complex, it makes me want to go to medical school just to find out what it is that they tell these pre-doctors that makes them develop such a big head!! Actually no. I'm not sure there is enough money (or pretty shoes!) in the world to make me want to go to medical school.

Anyway, I had to go to the doctor yesterday. And my last experience with a doctor was so bad that I just prefaced my entire appointment with "Look, I really hate going to the doctor, I've been treated very poorly in the past and I'm only here because you came very highly recommended."

And actually, my doctor was really nice. She was honest with me and didn't speak down to me or use big words that she didn't even understand just to make herself sound smart. It was not awful. And now, I can go back to her with all of my real ailments and find out what I need to do to fix myself and live to see age 50. :)

My only complaint: my tetnus shot was overdue. I remember screaming like I was having my hand cut off when I had to get this shot as a youth. Why I wept so overzealously as a child over the actual needle, I do not know--it's tiny! It's the vaccine itself you should worry about. Damn, does my arm hurt. It has gotten progressively worse since yesterday. The nurses warned me that my arm might hurt for a few weeks (and yes, they did say weeks), but I didn't really believe them. I thought, well the vaccine might burn or the needle might be as wide as a Starbucks Frappaccino straw, but will my arm hurt for weeks? No way.

I'm here to tell you: Way. Damn. I'm obviously a total wus that should never have any actual children of my own; I would never survive even the thought of labor. But at least I won't get lockjaw anytime in the next decade!

How do I love The West Wing

Let me count the ways. :)

I don't watch a ton of tv, but The West Wing is one of the few shows that I do really like. (The others are Alias, sometimes 24, and now, Desperate Housewives). And I am the first to tell you that last season The West Wing pretty much blew. But still, I watch. Especially reruns.

And Bravo is the greatest network ever. They play TWW like 5 times a day! And it's usually the first 3 seasons or so that they keep repeating which are the best ones. There are days that I wish Aaron Sorkin could script our actual White House. I don't always agree with the politics on West Wing, but at least I have faith that the characters are sincere in their service to their country, and they really believe in what they do. That counts for a lot these days, I think. Here I am waxing poetic about characters on a tv show and how I wish they could actually run our country, but still. It gives me faith enough to hope that one day, something like it could be real. It's a great show, by the way. You should watch it if you haven't. But I recommend that you start with the reruns.

Added as an addendum about 10 minutes later: Ok, I lied about the only really watching 3-4 shows. I also love Inside the Actor's Studio on Bravo. It's my favorite Sunday morning show. I sit on my cushy new-ish arm chair with a cup of stong coffee and wear my slippers and fuzzy flannel pajamas. It's fantastic. Maybe someday I'll write a whole little post about Bravo, and how it rocks.

It has begun!

Now, by the way, it's Christmas time.

All Night Long

One of the unique skills necessary to be a good observational astronomer is that you have to be able to switch from a normal diurnal schedule to a nocturnal one and back, almost at will. It may (or may not) seem obvious to people, but if you are a typical observer your time on the telescope is at night. Your "day" starts at maybe 5 pm (around sunset) and you work until sunrise. But let's be honest, this is rarely after having given yourself a week to slowly adjust your internal clock to a night schedule. If you have a night of observing coming up, you usually work most of the day, maybe go disco nap for a few hours right before your observing run starts, and then power through all night until the sun comes up. Astronomers are somewhat of a rare breed in this way.

Anyway, I find myself this morning at an observatory having just finished my first night of five full nights of observing. A little background: I have spent the last year and a half as part of a team at my university who built a new infrared camera for use at our telescope. The camera is now completed and it was brought to the observatory last weekend. I drove here yesterday (11 hour drive) and arrived just in time to unpack my suitcase, grab a caffeinated beverage, and start our first night of observing. I thought I would be ok staying up all night. I was wrong.

I used to be able to pull all-nighters in college all the time. I'm not saying it was easy, but I recovered from it quite quickly with no adverse after-effects. That skill has clearly left me. Apparently 24 hours with no sleep is now my hard limit. I got up yesterday at 4 am to pack the car and leave on the drive from hell to the observatory and by about 4:15 this morning, after 11 hours of a little bit of observing and a lot of cloud watching, I was done. I just shut down and could barely keep my eyes open. Luckily, I am one of 7 observers down here right now for this project so they didn't really miss me, but wow. There was nothing I could do. When my body was done being awake, it was just done. No argument, no negotiations, I was going to sleep, no matter where I was. Luckily I have four more nights here to try to redeem myself, so perhaps by the end I will be on a comfortable nocturnal schedule and will make it through the whole observing night. Just in time to drive back home and hop on a plane for Thanksgiving. :)

Non-Holiday Seasons

I'm pretty sure that all of the political commercials that inundated our airwaves mere weeks ago have now been replaced by Christmas commericals. Here's a newflash: it is not Christmastime yet! Christmas season does not start until the day after Thanksgiving. Have they stopped issuing that memo?

When is it that we (and by "we" I mean whoever the advertising execs have decided is their target audience) stopped having any time in between holidays? I mean, the Halloween candy corn was off the shelves no more than 10 minutes before it had been replaced with candy canes and anything else that could be dyed red and green. And before that, it seemed to go straight from July 4 (which gave us everything red, white, and blue including the American flag cake) to jack-o-lanterns and witches. I feel pretty confident that I could function quite nicely outside of a prescribed holiday season and would love to be given the chance to demonstrate how capable I am in this regard.

I don't mean to be a scrooge, but I just wish that the Christmas season (and especially the associated holiday muzak) did not keep being pushed earlier and earlier. At this rate we're going to be singing Jingle Bells in August soon.

Babies

I just found out that two of my best friends just had their baby yesterday. They had a little girl named Ella Catherine. What in the world could be better than that? Congratulations to Jeff and Carrie, and to Ella, I can't wait to meet you! :)

Unsuccessful Weekends

I had grand plans for this weekend. It's the last weekend I was going to be at home for the next 3-4 weeks so I had a whole list of tasks to complete as well as a pile of work to do. Now, I have restricted myself to working only one day of my weekend anymore (which for me is quite the accomplishment), but I really needed to get a solid day of work in this time. I have about six things to finish this week before I leave town and I seem to be drowning in meetings during the week lately. I manage to accomplish very little "work" during my actual "workday". Also, I wanted to clean my apartment spotless, as not only do I hate coming home from a trip to a dirty apartment, but I would really love to have a bunch of overdue maintenance stuff taken care of while I'm gone. I cannot stand the thought of having strangers in my house if the house is not clean (even if they are just repairing the smoke detector that I ripped out of the ceiling in the middle of the night because it wouldn't stop beeping that my battery was low). My apartment isn't a mess per se, but it could certainly use some straightening. Plus, my weekend is laundry time. I don't ever have enough time at home during the week to do a complete load of laundry. I can wash overnight, for example, then let the wet clothes sit until morning when I put them in the dryer before I leave for work. But then they just sit there, dry and wrinkling at light speed all day long while I'm gone. So I actually create more ironing for myself in this manner. Therefore, I do it all on the weekend when I can usually do a few loads at once and fold it right away, thus reducing both ironing time and the possibility that I would say "Screw ironing!" and just go to work wrinkled. Perhaps most importantly, though, I needed new shoes. Now granted, I am a graduate student so I'm not necessarily expected to dress up for work. Nor am I in a field necessarily known for its fashion sense. (In fact, it's quite the opposite!) But there comes a point when I would rather pull out my own teeth with a pair of pliers than wear sneakers for another day. I reached that point weeks ago. And all of my regular not-sneakers-but-not-stillettos shoes are nearly unwearable anymore. I have worn them to death. They have served me well, but they are well past their prime. So, on top of the cleaning, laundry, and general work to complete, I wanted to go shoe shopping. And boy, can I shoe shop. :) (I could give Carrie Bradshaw a run for her money in the shopping department, just not the actual purchasing department.)

Somehow, though, my grand plans did not work out.

I don't exactly know where all of my weekend went. I know where part of Saturday went at least. I did a college interview in the morning (with a perfectly nice young woman who still managed not to find me for 20 minutes even though I was sitting at one of the 8 tables in the coffee shop she suggested for the meeting with a college baseball hat on the table to identify me as the interviewer), then I went to work in the lab for a few hours to pack up a moving truck. (Long story, might describe more of my job at a later date). I was also dog sitting over the weekend. This normally wouldn't be an issue at all. Feed her in the morning before I leave, feed her dinner at dinner time, and hang out with her at night. Easy enough, plus she is a very cute dog. But this time around, the heat spontaneously ceased functioning in the house where I was dogsitting. So I returned to the house after packing the moving truck to decide what to do. I was planning to pack up the dog and take her to my house (where it was not 59 degrees indoors) when the house owners decided to try to go ahead and get the heat fixed then and there. So, I tried a few (unsuccessful) remedies myself, then talked to the heating repairman on the phone for a while and tried his unsuccessful remedies, and finally had to chill in the house while he came over that evening and fixed the heat. All in all, it was a many hour procedure. And thus, Saturday was entirely gone (and rather cold!)

Sunday, I did manage to do a load of dishes, cook meals for the week for lunches & quick dinners, and wash/dry/fold a single load of laundry. (Yay! I have clean socks!) But that's it. No work on my papers or proposals, no overall cleaning of the apartment, and most importantly, no new shoes. Very disappointing as a whole. I wonder if needing new shoes is a viable reason to take a day off this week....

Naming One's Blog

So, I was reading my friend Ginny's new blog and decided to post a comment. Being a reasonably intelligent person (and having precisely 2.5 minutes to spare), I scrolled to the bottom of the page and clicked on "Post a Comment." Since I have a couple of other friends who now have blogs on the same site (and who knows, I might get the urge to comment on one of them again!) I thought I would go ahead and sign up/log in/create a username or whatever they call it now so that I didn't have to post anonymously anymore. (I think it's just good form to sign one's name to what you say!) I follow the directions to create my account so that I can publicly comment on Ginny's rockin' job as a 4th grade teacher. All fine and good so far. After several failed attempts, I finally come up with a username that is not taken (Can we talk later about how many Meredith's there must be on this site? And how they have already taken every variation of my name and initials as their own usernames leaving me with nothing remotely memorable?) and I fill that whole page out. Keep in mind that during this whole experience, I'm hoping it will be done in less than 12-17 seconds so that I can quickly post my comment and make it to class on time. It does not look good for the TA for a class to be late to class, especially when the professor is innately hostile. But I digress.

You might guess that in my hurry to create a not-too-common yet not unforgettable username that I did not look at the top of the page where there is clear indication that this is not simply setting up a commenting account. Instead, I am now asked to create a name for my own blog. My own blog? Huh? Well, I've thought about starting a blog before (as so many people I know now do it and I sure as hell don't want to be left out), but what in the world will I call it? And how will I come up with a name in the remaining 3 seconds I have alotted for this activity? Now, I rival Lorelai Gilmore in some of my innane pop culture references these days so as I am sitting with my head in my hands, realizing that I will never be able to create a blog in time to comment on Ginny's students' problems with the restroom *and* get to class on time, I hear in my head a scene from Pretty Woman. Picture it ("Siciliy: 1923")--Kit and Julia Roberts sitting at a picnic-type table outside at the hotel where Julia has been living in comfort with a younger and pre-greying Richard Gere. Julia asks Kit to tell her the name of one real person who met Prince Charming, goes from rags to riches, and lived happily ever after in the lap of luxury. Kit leans back, head in hands (not unlike me at the moment) and says something to the effect of "You want a name? Oh, the pressure of a name." And with that, my blog is born. :) This is not to say that I will not bore of the name within 3-5 days, but at least for the moment, I now have both a username for comments and my very own blog! If only I could actually remember now what I wanted to say in Ginny's blog comments....