esa lengua celestial

so. I remember wanting to rant and ramble about something or the other but I can’t remember what it was. instead, here’s an update on my life, since I haven’t posted in forever.

None of the other schools I applied to came through. Meaning, I got waitlisted at columbia (damn them, they waitlisted me for undergrad too) and essentially rejected everywhere else. By ‘essentially’ I mean that I got rejected by the MD-PhD folk (or at least so I assume because I didn’t get interviews) and in some cases, was informed over the last two weeks that my file was going to get handed over to the MD-only folk, who, btw, are done interviewing. helpful bastards.

But in any case, I did get into Wash U, which I’m progressively getting more and more excited about. I’m even excited about moving to the MidWest, which tells you how ready I am to move on with my life. Have started to plan for the fall, but am having somewhat more trouble planning for the summer. Trying to climb kilimanjaro at some point, but I also need to get my visa processed over the summer, which can’t be done while I’m travelling (the whole passport confiscation thing gets in the way). Doesn’t help that CERTAIN PEOPLE aren’t responding to my emails about kili either. *COUGH COUGH*

In other news, I will be submitting another abstract to a conference for this fall, which will make my 2nd first-author poster presentation at a national conference… an extremely slow start to my academic career :P The papers I’m working on look like they won’t materialize for some time, hopefully they do eventually materialize at SOME point.

Also, I am this close to finishing that vest I started knitting eons ago. It’s actually all done, I just need to find my darning needles so I can sew the damn seams. and it fits! Kids, I just MADE a garment of clothing. How domestic am I getting. The great thing is that it required a lot less yarn than I expected, meaning that not counting how much of a TIME SINK it was, it only cost me $7.20 in materials. yeehaa. :)

Actually, the most exciting thing about that project was the moment a few nights ago when I realised I was actually watching TV while knitting. Not just glancing at the screen occasionally and following along by listening to the conversations, but actually WATCHING. this means that finally, I can knit blind! Grandmotherhood, here I come. Now I just need to purchase chunkier yarn so that the knitting goes by a little quicker. think I’ll give a cable scarf a go, and maybe a tank to finish off that yarn, and then dammit, I’m buying something heavier and in color and making a sweater.

Am in the middle of another reading phase (yay), working my way through the third of three books (since the beginning of the phase that is). Started with Alone (Richard Byrd), a book that I picked up at a used bookstore because it was about living in Antarctica and had a nice worn hardcover look to it (I’m a sucker for hardcovers that look old, as long as the fonts on the spine are pretty). turned out to be quite the tale. autobiographical of course, about Byrd on a solo expedition to set up a meteorological base south of Little America, how he almost died, and his efforts to keep his crew from finding out lest they try to save them and endanger themselves in the process. It’ll go on my shelf alongside Rowing to Latitude (a couple rowing around in the Arctic) and Lost in Mongolia (crazy guys rafting the Yenisey), the books I read and keep around to remind myself to get out there and DO something every once in awhile.

Anyhow… followed that up with The Fall (Albert Camus), in an effort to continue plugging through the unread books on my shelf. Not at all what I expected, and I’ll pass on the description in order not to spoil the surprise for any of you who might one day pick it up. It’s not at all like his other books (The Plague/The Stranger), and I think it deserves a second read, possibly in the original French (if I ever get my French back up to reading snuff).

Rushed through The Fall a little at the end, in part because I really wanted to know the end (and later realised that really wasn’t the point), and in part because I’d just gotten my hands on book number 3 (have given up on my shelf collection for a bit), Working in a Very Small Place (Mark Shelton). So far it’s been the story of Peter Janetta and his neurosurgical technique of microvascular decompression(lifting blood vessels off nerves) to relieve trigeminal neuralgia (severe facial pain), hemifacial spasm (aka tic doloreux), vertigo, and so on. It’s really quite fascinating, and I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t see if I can kick ass on the USMLE boards and point myself towards neurosurgery. I thought when I was applying that I would go the neurology+neuroscience route of pairing clinical neurology with behavioral neuropsych/neuroscience research, trying to understand how the modules of the brain work together, how information is processed, not just computationally but neurologically. I must say though that I would like to be able to actually FIX something, rather than just studying it, which is possibly my number one frustration working here with stroke rehab. This is not to say that neurologists don’t fix things, but their method of attack seems much more like management than it does fixing. Janetta’s technique is still rather new, and no one expected it to be able to cure the things it does…. I wonder if in time we’ll find a similar way to treat stroke and/or aphasia. anyway. I’m rambling. Book’s great though.

Read a couple of other books a while back but I forget them at the moment. I’m going to try to spend a ton of time this summer just reading, since most of y’all back home are working and won’t have time to putz about with li’l ol’ me. Oh, also finally watched Amores Perros. Quite the movie. Definitely worth the hype. Am also slightly upset that Munich didn’t win much at the Oscars.

In other OTHER news…. I’ve started running! well. trying, at least. Not terribly frequently (only when the weekends are warm) but it’s certainly a start. Will have to start biking again soon…