Waking up

I lay on my right side. The blooming morning light grows through the white gauze covering my windows. Birds chirp as they look for food. An early Spring? I roll over. I can hear nothing.

tone deaf

I'm afraid right now. I can't hear out of my right ear and haven't been able to do so since Monday. There doesn't seem to be any fluid in my head. If I shake it nothing happens. The right side of my head feels dead. It worries me.

ear

I'm worried about my ear. I'm pretty sure I've lost all hearing from it except for bone conduction . . . and even that I'm not sure if it's just conducting to the other side . . . I put a ear plug in my other side just to see what it sounded like . . . I could hear anything . . .

Hitting on teachers

Being 31 means that I'm older than some of the faculty here. Think about it: graduate college at 22 and then law school at 25. Begin teaching the next year or so. There's a gap of a few years there. Of the younger faculty here I've managed to straight up hit on one once, and arguably flirted with another. Just a couple of seconds ago I didn't hide the fact that I was checking one out. It's all very funny for me. Law school has an annoying habit of being overly formal. Everything is strictly order, from our grades to our status with the faculty. Even in a informal - a profoundly not formal setting - it's still "I'm professor so and so" not "I'm Claire".

That's how the first one went. I was at a bowling event on campus - didn't even know professors were going to be there. Cute girl. Indie looking flannel with jeans and Chucks. Maybe mixed Euro-Middle Eastern? Nice smile. Obviously a "little older". I catch her eye so I walked over. Lip bite. Head nod. "How you doin'?" I said with wet lust in my eyes. "I'm Paul, what's your name?" "I'm professor blah blah blah". And then the conversation got awkward. Once she started to say "Professor" I stopped caring. Stopped paying attention really. I thought to myself "You're at a bowling alley dressed like you're about to go to a 'show', and we're both obviously older, and you can't just for a couple of minutes get past the bull shit faux decorum of law school?"

The second time I was at a pizza place. As chance would have it the professor I ran into I looked up a couple of days before hand. That's how I even knew who she was. I emailed her because I wanted to take her class but it conflicted with a more important class I wanted to see if she was going to teach it again. I had never heard of her so I looked her up one the faculty website. Young, only 26, and blond. I don't normally go for blonds. Raven black is more my style. But she was pretty and skinny. She'd just graduated the year before. So anyway, she was standing in front of me at the pizza place. I recognised her and overheard her talking to a friend about law school things. I introduced myself, told her I was the person who emailed her, and started talking about the class she was teaching. Remember the previous professor encounter I sensed to discomfort in her demeanour. I was funny. I definitely wasn't hitting on her, but I can see how it could be interpreted as such. I certainly wasn't going to act submissively. I shook her hand, delicately and gentlemanly like, "Nice meeting you," I said, "Good luck with your classes, hope I get to take one. See you around". Then I walked to my table.

Right now I'm sitting in the student lounge, the cafeteria (or cafe) as I like to call it because it's really just an in building Starbucks. No one is in here except for me. I'm sitting by the drink machines, and a few minutes ago another young professor walked in a coke from the machine. Skinny, wearing a form fitting power suit, with straight light brown hair. I've seen her before but don't really know who she is. Well, I made bones of the fact that I was checking her out. As she walked from the drink machine - which is about 8 feet away - I made eye contact and gave her an approving smile.

In a totally unrelated story, but still amusing and related because it deals with women I find attractive I was on facebook last week. A couple of times on my feed popped up the friend of a friend. My friend is a fellow law student and also a fairly conservative (she covers up I mean) Muslim. On two different occasions pictures of her friend came up. Just a stunning girl, long straight black hair, petite and skinny, very pale, fox-like face and a very sharp smile. Although she doesn't cover I'm sure she's Muslim too, but I can't quite tell what her nationality is (she may be Pakistani based on some of the clothes she had on and her name, but I'm not sure because she's so pale). Anyway, feeling a little guilty, but hey she did pop up on my feed! I check out her profile. Mostly closed, but she seems really interesting and artsy (free spirited) and is super hot! Well I decide to bring this up to my friend. But I feel a little awkward about it. Is it OK to tell a Muslim girl who covers up that her friend is really pretty? I don't know.

Well I did though. A couple of days ago I randomly ran into my friend (as planned), and after making small talk said, "Hey, Aisha sorry if this isn't appropriate, but a very pretty friend of yours came up on my facebook feed. I just want to tell you that whoever she is she's very beautiful". A little shocked my friend said, "What's her name? Do you want me to talk to her?" "I don't really remember . . . it started with a G. I didn't want to be too 'stalkery' but she came up and she's pretty so I had to look. You posted something like 'you are your mother are so beautiful' it was a picture of her and her mom". "That's OK everyone does that on facebook. Are you sure it began with G . . . it didn't begin with Z did it!? That's my roommate!" "Actually . . . I think it did begin with a Z." "Haha that's so funny, I'll send you pictures of her and let me know if that is who it is!"

That's exactly who it is . . . when I got home, I looked the girl up again. Yep, Z G. Wonder what'll happen. I haven't seen my friend since then, but I've been really sick and it's only a couple of days . . .

My ear is bleeding

I haven't been this sick in quite a while. Two days ago I woke up at about 3:30am with excruciating ear pain. It was so painful that all I could do was curl up in a ball and press on my skull. The pain didn't go away until about 7am. But also at that time it started to fill with liquid. It also started to bleed. Blood coming from my right ear. I went over to student health at 8 when they opened. The doctor saw no perforations in my ear. She got a second opinion. Still nothing. Noting in the external ear either. A lot of blood though. They gave me these drops - ofloxacin - to kill whatever bacteria could be in there. Otherwise - at that time - I wasn't feeling too sick - by that I mean there was minimal malaise. I haven't been able to hear out of my right ear. Only the dull buzz of tinnitus. But today I'm starting to fee sick again. I can feel it in my bones and joints. I haven't been able to do anything for a week now. How am I supposed to get work done when my head is so foggy?

A rush of blood away from the head

OK so I figured it out. I've been mixing intentions from this blog and my other Cloud Mind Data Dump. The other was/is supposed to be the boring accounts of my day, "I woke up and did this and that". This was was supposed to be the gambolling thoughts and feeling inside my mind. But since I got sick they became the same. I guess it's because sickness has a tendency to merge the emotional and factual aspects of my mind. Even before I got sick I've been feeling more emotional than I normally do - although being sick has heightened it. I think it's because Christmas break was so stressful for me. It made me realise that I have no one I can express myself to, no one who understands me enough, no one who cares enough, and no one I trust enough to be able to express the range of my emotional self. So I do it here. Maybe the internet will become a vast conscious mind, but it isn't and no matter how much I wanted it to be so or pretend that it is I can't actually live entirely online. But i have no material outlet. So I feel bottled up, the breadth of my emotion distilled as concentrated liquid pigment into tiny glass phials.

something more to read

i've got two other blogs under view profile: one of them is a day-to-day short blog (or maybe the "real" blog... it's starting to feel that way) and the other is the archive of the myspace blog I kept for years (it'll take a while to finish up . . . has all of 2007 . . ..).

Well the New Year begins . . . anew.

2010 retrospective

2010 was OK. As far as years go I give it a C. Lets start at the beginning. January to May 2010 was second semester of law school. For those who are new, law school is about the 5th "major" and probably the last I've had in my tenure as a student. I say "probably" only because since I finished with graduate school I've worked on a couple of papers and am working on another big one with my old lab. I don't really expect anything to come of this - other than the papers - but if the right mixture of buzz, funding and life situation presented itself I'd seriously considered putting in another 3 years for a PhD.

So anyway, second semester law school. I don't dislike law school, but I don't exactly like it either. Within the law community is the sentiment that a JD is a dynamic degree that can be used not just to become a lawyer, but to also use in business, education, governmental and a breadth of other disciplines too. What this really means is that a JD means the same thing that a bachelors meant 30 years ago. It's a general degree you get so that you can "get a job". This makes sense, and really is a good way to promote itself.

To note, law school has utterly met my expectations. Before I went, and even before deciding to even apply I sat down and predicted the entire experience. To the smallest detail these expectations have been met. To name a few, I predicted: that it wouldn't be particularly intellectually satisfying, the people would either bore or annoy me, that it would be a fuck tonne of work for only modest returns, that I'd only get average grades, professors wouldn't be inspiring, and that I'd probably get really depressed at some point. All of that happened. But I want you to know that even though those predictions are written negatively I don't mean for them to ... er... "mean" that that way. I don't perceive these things as being negative - I perceive them as being neutral. Law school - like medical school before it - is optimal for personalities who can be fairly categorised and defined. Thus, if you "fit the mould" you'll be fine in law school. And if you fit the mould and are smart you'll "win" law school. But if you don't then you have to find a way to survive.

When I was teaching in high school a couple of years ago I came across a self-help pamphlet for parents trying to figure out their children in the school's counselor's office. The title was "Your Gifted Child". Euphemistically, "gifted" means smart kids who don't do well in school. Or perhaps more accurately, smart kids who do not meet the expectations of themselves or their parents. These children don't do as well as they could not because they have behaviour problems or whatever, but because they don't streamline properly.

My performance tends to follow that of the instructor. Thus, if the teacher is competent I'll do fair (to my personal standards), if they are exceptional I'll do exceptional, and if they are terrible I'll do terribly. However, "competency" is predicated directly upon deliberate care and personalisation. Thus, it is impossible to be exceptional if the teacher does not proactively care about how his students are doing, and does not care about me personally. So a teacher may be able to explain things eloquently and clearly, but if he doesn't actively make sure I am understanding things and cares how I am fairing overall the best he can ever be as an instructor is "competent".

This is how every instructor is in law school. All of them are parsimonious and kind. They all enjoy their subjects and enjoy teaching. But the problem is that none of them really care about the individual students. The students could be cardboard cutouts with tape recorders in front of them and the teachers would still act the same way. Thus, they are more concerned with the act of imbuing knowledge rather than the imbuing itself. The same was true of medical school as well except with the caveat that there actually were some incompetent teachers too.

So that's basically how I feel about law school. It's just competent.

If you're actually following from the beginning this began as a critique of Spring 2010 semester and ended as a critique of law school in general without much specific details of law school. This post has also become a little too long so I'll summarise in a couple of sentences.

Spring 2010: School was meh as expected. I got to know a few more students, but really only solidified one friendship. I got a Siamese cat named Mia. I started to become depressed.

Summer 2010 part A: Summer school. School was as predicted. I spiraled into depression. I started hanging out with different "groups". The "Cotillion Crew" - the rich frat people, a whole lot nicer than you'd expect and they know how to have a good time. "BLSA" - Black law students association - fiercely loyal and more diverse than you'd think. The "Smoking Circle" - a hodgepodge of people almost all of whom smoke cigarettes (I do not however) and play a lot of videogames. This is how I began my philosophy of "friend agnosticism". Being depressed, I mostly wanted to die, but wasn't quite suicidal. I switched from Prozac to Zoloft, and started taking Ambien.

Summer 2010 part B: Summer vacation at home. Got a nice email from Dh1 which helped me out of my hole. When home for the first time in 6 months. Decided that it was necessary to home at least once a semester to maintain sanity. Best summer I've had in years. It was a blur of fun and rebirth. First went and rode bicycles around NYC with my dad for a few days. Stopped being depressed. Then, I chilled with Richmond hommies. Then, one of my best friend's bachelor party in the mountains of West Virginia. Then, then I met Dh2 (different name same first two letters). Then, that particular best friend's wedding.

Fall 2010: Dated Dh2 for most of it. Tested my "how to keep long-distance relationships together" hypothesis (basically: a) must see each other at least once every 6 weeks, b) must communicate every day, but it shouldn't be too in-depth and shouldn't always be "phone calls", c) at most, but necessarily, once or twice a week in-depth conversation, d) use all communication tools available - phone, facebook, skype, texting, etc to keep things going, and e) a commitment to the plan and compromise when necessary). I think the relationship failed not because my plan wasn't solid, but because their wasn't quite enough "feeling" for each other. That's OK. If you're going to break up with someone that's about the best way to do it. School was a lot less meh, but also a lot less satisfying. What I mean is that the subjects were a lot more interesting, classes more mature, but the "flaws" of law school became more apparent. Stopped taking Zoloft. Live in a great apartment. Sadly, my oldest plant died. My grandfather died. Became genuinely good friends with another law student, but I strongly streamlined my superficial friends.

Winter 2010: Fell back into depression for idiopathic reasons, but probably because of a combination of school stress catching up with me, continued "un-satisfaction" with school, and overwhelming family dynamic. I feel confident that the depression will subside once the "break" is over. Caught up with J after a couple of years of silence. That was the nicest thing all break. Hit a huge music skill bock so I'm going to bite the bullet and learn theory. Grew a really nice beard.

Happy New Year e'er body!