Sunday, January 3, 2010

Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

You know when you reach that point when all the bitching and hate and shit you spew on a regular basis starts to sound old even to you?

Well, despite having an amazing capacity to bitch and hate and spew shit and moan and listen to myself and still think it all sounds ridiculously justified and SO TRUE, I think I'm tired of it.

So, instead of the usual "MD Sucks Major Sweaty Balls" rant, I've decided to write a little ditty. And by "little ditty," I mean a tuneless, dirge-like, whiny chant. I still haven't decided on a title, but that will come with time, I feel. Anyway, here are the first few versus.

Maryland really sucks,
Maryland really sucks.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit,
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

It's flat and ugly
Like Janet Reno.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit,
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

No mass transit
But lots of traffic.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit,
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Grad school is shit,
And I hate everything.
Bullshit bullshit bullshit,
Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

It's obviously a work in progress, and where it says "bullshit," you actually say it. I didn't just write it because I hadn't thought of a good refrain. That is the refrain. You say bullshit because it's true. What's that? You don't believe me? Well, all I have to say is it took FOUR WHOLE DAYS for the state of Maryland to remove enough snow so that traffic could flow as normally as possible in this wretched place. Bullshit bullshit bullshit, bullshit bullshit bullshit.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

I'm writing a PAPER

...AND MY NAME WILL BE **FIRST** IN THE AUTHORS.

Hells yes. I have endured over the last week some very subtly nasty commentary from an unsuspected source that has rankled. Basically, the questions came down to "I really don't think you know anything at all about anything you've done, and you're a total idiot, so I'm going to treat you like an underling even though I have nothing on you." So I've been mad. But you know what they say? That whole living well is the best revenge? It is. It SO is.

I started writing today, and after 4 hours, I'm on the second page (single spaced) which for science writing is very good. No idea how it compares to other kinds of writing, but I'm feeling smug. When asked how/what I was doing and I shared and displayed my handiwork, the look I got was priceless. Priceless, I say! Shock and awe. It was along the lines of "[Advisor] thinks you have enough data to begin writing?" "Yes." "When did you start?" "Oh, about an hour ago." Silence, eyes wide, walked away. That is a lesson in how to give a bitch slap without lifting a finger.

Fuck the lot of them.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Huh.

Every so often I come up with a really good idea, like the title of this blog which is a reference to the immortal comic duo Laurel and Hardy.  Another fine mess, indeed.  

Speaking of fine messes, in my infinite wisdom, I picked an awesome topic to write my independent proposal on, but I have to give an open-to-the-public seminar on it (omg omg I'm gonna die), a closed-to-everyone-but-the-collection-of-oddities-that-is-my-PhD-committee oral defense of  the proposal, as well as a 3 page progress report on my actual experiments that I'm doing now.  I am resisting the urge to slit my wrists and claim disability or get my tonsils removed so I can't talk for several weeks.  

I am very unhappy right now, although while wallowing around in my pit of despair, I remembered a 5 lb block of white chocolate that my aunt pressed upon Danny and me.  It is SO GOOD.  I don't know why it's so good; it isn't even chocolate.  But if you have to pick something to take down into a pit of despair, white chocolate isn't so bad... at least it won't talk back to you.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

The last of the (____________).

So, I got an email addressed to everyone who started in the biochem department with me in regards to our upcoming Independent Proposals.  All the bullshit about scheduling the proposals aside (and trust me, there was a lot of it), I read that list and realized 40% of my class had dropped out.  

24 hours later, I still can't decide whether it means that I'm really smart (as in "woohoo, I'm making it where all these people failed!") or really, really stupid (as in why didn't I say "who the hell needs this shit??!?!" and peaced out 6.34 quarts of cortisol and stomach acid ago).

Friday, August 21, 2009

I hear Obama's been brought in to make Nascar even more popular.  He said it's quintessentially American, or something.  

What does that mean?  

I'll tell you what it means.  It means we've taken something from the Europeans, Formula 1 racing, decreased the level of skill required to do it well by moving onto a track, so really you only have to know how to turn left and you can't possibly get lost.  And as long as it means we burn insane amounts of fuel doing it, it makes lots of noise, and we can eat tons of fried shit and sit on our asses, then yes, it's quintessentially American.  

(For the record, I spent the last 10 days sitting on my ass/shlepping around eating tons of fruit and vegetables, and I lost weight.)

Blue Man Nude

I just got back from Israel, and before I even try to organize my thoughts, I would like to make a statement.

What the hell is the movie Watchmen supposed to even be about?  I watched it on the flight back to the US, and aside from an anatomically correct, naked, glowing blue man and some intrigue, I couldn't make head or tail of the actual plot.  Maybe it was just the slight hypoxia.  Oh, and then it got REALLY weird because there was a very, very explicit sex scene (I don't mean choreographed Hollywood dance-fucking, but actual grinding, thrusting, and humping along with facial expressions, head to toe sideways body shots, etc).  I'd say it definitely surpassed softcore, but because there was no visible genitalia, it wasn't quite hardcore.  That has got to be the most awkward thing to watch on an airplane.  EVER.  I mean, there are children running around!  Or you're just that pervert in the seat in front watching the closest thing to porn you can find.

Weird...

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Creative drain

Last night I went to fencing. In and of itself, that was a great way to spend an evening, other than the now-undeniable fact that I need to wash my gear. Febreze will only take you so far, kiddies. There comes a point when everything is so sweat-drenched and revolting when you actually need to wash yo bidness. My gear is at that point.

Anyway, I fenced some (literally!) world-class fencers and lost to them, which was ok because I'm not that good. Yet. I was able to go down with a fight, at any rate. But I was talking with my coach after, just trying to think how I can fix my game so I don't make all the same mistakes next time. He said a couple interesting things, some good, some to think about.

The thinking first. It wasn't out-and-out criticism, and I definitely wasn't smacking my head into the steering wheel the whole way home going, "IIIIIIdiot!!" He said I wasn't creative enough with my actions on the strip. Now... that was the body, mind, and soul of my game when I started out with epee at NYU. I learned how to parry, I did point control, and then they let me loose on a strip and said, "Hit the other girl. Beat her. Feel free to make her cry." Check, check, and check. The good bits about that (lack of) strategy:

- I was a total wildcard. No one knew what the hell to do with me.

- My timing and footwork were brilliant because I couldn't do anything else. My counter-time stop hits were like lightening. I learned how to flinch and simultaneously extend my arm and usually score. At the very least, a double touch. Super-aware of where every part of my body was.

- When I got angry, I LET myself get that way, then I just beat the shit out of whoever got on the strip in front of me. I was unstoppable. And kind of crazy. But I won a lot of bouts pissed off.

The bad aspects of my old game:

- To be unstoppable, I had to get furious. This is hard to just do unless I'm having a really bad month PMS-wise. I had to lose to really bad people and feel like shit about myself before I could get angry enough. This is neither a healthy nor a sound reliable strategy.

- If someone could read my bullshit, I didn't have anything underneath it.

I decided I was going to revamp my game from the bottom up, which I've been doing. For instance, I was going to stop frenetically bouncing around because ultimately it's a waste of energy, and I'd also stop leaning forward. So, I tried keeping my back heel down a little more and sitting more upright in my en guarde. Leaning/frenetic bouncing = gone. I did find a middle ground, because if you sit too upright and don't bounce at all, you lose a lot of mobility. Paired with lots of rope jumping, it's becoming very effective in keeping me grounded - literally - but mobile.

Generally, I think it's going well, because the good bit of the convo was about how I don't have any compulsive tendencies on the strip in a bout situation, save for relaxing a little too much when I retreat. Some people have a tendency start with their blade high and then cut over and finish low. So you nail them over their shoulder. Others compulsively take a given parry when offered the blade. So you know they're going to do it; you disengage and score. Another great thing about last night was I angled my blade the tiniest bit, and all of a sudden, I was landing wrist touches again. Wrist touches over the blade, under it, on the side... it was awesome.

But that thing about needing to be more creative on the strip. I was talking to Danny, and the truth of it is that at the end of the day (and even the end of weeks) I just feel so drained and beaten down mentally, that summoning the effort to be in any way creative is so Herculean, I just can't. To try to think anymore than absolutely necessary, to try to be more than just a functioning body is nearly impossible. Day in day out, I'm working on the same problem in lab. I've been running these wretched experiments for going on 4 years now. It's very hard to describe the incredible lack of desire to do anything at all. The most incredible boredom and laziness combined with feeling like the world owes me huge for the trouble I'm going to. I'm not saying these feelings have anything to do with fairness or logic, they're just there, and it sucks when I want to do well at fencing because they're quite a hindrance. It's one thing to not like what you're doing and feel beaten down at work, but why does it have to bleed over into my general well-being and infect the things that I really love?

Oh well. Try harder, I guess... because that's about all I can do.