XX

Dimensions of Balance in Women's Lives
Maureen A. Mahoney, Ph.D.
International Conference of Women, Business and Society
Madrid, Spain, April 3, 2006

I was thrilled, back in January, to be invited to participate in this conference. In February, as I drove back and forth to work and at other random moments, I enjoyed contemplating what I would say about the challenges women face in defining success for themselves. In March, the enjoyment began to be replaced with anxiety about how I would ever carve out a few consecutive hours to commit my thoughts to paper, polish them, and have something worthy of this gathering in time for the meeting.

It did not take me long to realize that this progression from anticipated pleasure in a task near to one's heart to anxiety about time to accomplish it symbolizes a theme of this conference. How do accomplished, ambitious, professional women, who also have family obligations, find the time to reflect on our lives and reassess periodically what is in balance, what is out of balance, and, even more deeply, what matters to us the most? A cacophony of external voices sets expectations for success; for women, the freedom to choose what suits us has always been deeply constrained by a confluence of social structures rife with contradictions. Even for those of us who resist, and I would say that this audience is filled with resisters, we experience external expectations as guilt. We are always in doubt about whether we can be successful in our personal lives as well as our work lives. Will our relationships and children suffer if we are ambitious in our careers? Will our careers suffer when our family obligations require us to miss meetings and decline travel? We are so exhausted by carrying out our obligations and worrying about their consequences for our families and our careers that we rarely take time to assess whether we are reaching our goals. Indeed, we often lose track of whether we have goals of our own at all.

That we are in this predicament is the result of long and difficult social change in which women's rights to pursue careers have been forged. I am Dean at Smith College, the largest all-women's private college in the United States. Since 1875, Smith has been a destination for young women who desire to make a difference in the world. Only the best and the brightest are accepted. Our graduates have been pioneers in the professions since Smith was founded in 1875. But as recently as fifty years ago, we were also in the business of producing accomplished wives and helpmates for the male graduates of Harvard and Yale. It was in the mid-1950's and early 1960's that two distinguished Smith alumnae published books that addressed the conundrum of definitions of success for women.

One book, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963), fueled a nascent women's liberation movement in the United States which inspired increasing numbers of middle class American women to follow their own ambitions rather than, or in addition to, supporting their husbands. Friedan argued that women could only be truly fulfilled if they pursued careers. If we adopted the "feminine mystique" of domestic arts and devoted ourselves to the support of husband and children, Friedan argued, we became depressed, dissatisfied, restless and unfulfilled.

Today, more than seventy percent of American women with children work outside the home, driven, of course, not only by their desire to work, but also by economic necessity. Are they happy and fulfilled? Do they count themselves successful? There is no doubt that they are devoting themselves to their children as well as their careers. Recent studies in the U.S. find that working women are spending more time with their children than stay-at-home moms did in 1975. This is only possible because they are sleeping less. And it is taking a toll: the front page of the March 2nd New York Times carries an article with the headline "Stretched to Limit, Women Stall March to Work." Yet work is not now a choice for most women: it takes a two-income household to maintain a middle class lifestyle in the United States.

In answering Betty Friedan's call to work, we have found a sense of accomplishment. Our children enjoy as much time with us as they did thirty years ago. But how do we locate our own goals in the midst of these demands? A second, much quieter book by Smith alumna Anne Morrow Lindbergh (indeed, Charles Lindbergh's wife) was published only a few years before The Feminine Mystique. In Gift from the Sea (1955) Lindbergh does not advocate radical social change: rather, she suggests that the complications of work and family are inevitable and to be accepted as part of the fabric of our lives. Lindbergh did have a radical notion, however: that women need time periodically to sit quietly and reflect on the inner life that holds these tensions in balance.

In Gift from the Sea, a meditation on self and solitude, Lindbergh writes "the problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel." (p.23) Lindbergh suggests the answer is building solitude into our lives so that we have time to think systematically about these matters. She writes, "if women were convinced that a day off or an hour of solitude was a reasonable ambition, they would find a way of attaining it. As it is, they feel so unjustified in their demand that they rarely make the attempt." But, in an observation that is perhaps more timely now than when she first wrote it, even when we find such moments, we are unskilled at taking advantage of them. "Instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen....When the noise stops, there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone." (p. 36) I read this book fifty years after it was written, and it resonates so deeply for me that I am nearly brought to tears.

I am a product of the women's liberation movement that Betty Friedan started. My expectations for my own success have been shaped by it: I never doubted that I would pursue a career as well as a family. But this was an inchoate ambition, completely non-specific about how I would manage to achieve these goals. I earned a PhD in psychology in 1977 and started my first full time job as an assistant professor at the same time. I have been working full time ever since. In the midst of it all, I was married in 1976 to a man who was proud of my accomplishments but also enjoyed the dinners I cooked every night. We had a daughter in 1981. Our jobs were in cities two hours apart. We lived in between, separated from friends in both locations. Our daughter was in day care where we lived, an hour and a half from my work and an hour from his. I used every ounce of my energy commuting every day, giving 100 percent to my job, and worrying about whether I would be home in time to pick my daughter up before the daycare center closed. This pace took a toll on my marriage; my husband and I divorced just as my daughter turned five. After my divorce, I moved to the town where I work. Eventually, I got married again, to a wonderful man who is a much better cook than I am and prepares dinner for me every night.

I only had one child, who is now 24 and flourishing in her own life. But even without the responsibility of a young child at home, and even with a husband who does all the cooking, I remain busier than I have ever been. I love my work but I despair sometimes when I look at my daily calendar and see that I do not have even 15 minutes to gather my thoughts between meetings that are scheduled from 8am to 8pm.

I see that my daughter suffers from the same exhausting busy-ness in her job as a teacher, and she does not yet have children of her own. I see students at Smith College with appointment books that are nearly as packed as mine. The question that Anne Morrow Lindbergh raised in such a different context fifty years ago persists: How to remain whole in the midst of the demands of work and family. The missing piece is not only sleep. It is time to sit quietly and think; to reflect deeply on one's life, one's goals and one's understanding of success in the various dimensions of human experience.

It is to provide opportunities for reflection that Smith College is launching a new program for our students and alumnae. We want to educate women about the importance of developing a habit of self-reflection and we want to give permission to our alumnae to incorporate self-reflection as a legitimate ambition in their lives. Called the "Women's Narratives of Success Project," we will offer week-long workshops for undergraduates and shorter workshops for alumnae in which we provide structured opportunities to think through the dimensions of success and balance in life. We use the concept of narrative because we understand these reflections as stories that each woman tells for herself. We also know that the stories change as life circumstances change, so we build in the opportunity for recasting the narrative: one's story of success when one is 50 may be very different from one's story at age 20.

Work goals and family goals will be at the heart of the project: what kind of work and how much? One of the most perplexing problems for young women is deciding on a career path that suits them. Exploring with them the intersection between their unique interests, training and talents will be at the heart of the workshops. Definitions of success also entail one's financial goals and how one's career will meet them. It is our sense that women, especially young women, do not pay much attention to this issue, and it is only when they are divorced or widowed that the urgency of financial independence becomes acute. We must also ask how much financial success is enough? In the words of Laura Nash, at the Harvard Business School, it is important to discover how much is "just enough" to reach one's goals and allow pursuits other than money to enter into one's life as well.

We will raise the theme of family and suggest it is a choice, not a destiny. Does one want a lasting partnership in the form of a marriage or other commitment? How does one think about success in this regard? Does one want children? Will one work outside the home when children are young? How does one make the decision to sacrifice work for relationships or relationships for work? How do friendships figure in a life and how does one sustain them?

The project explicitly expands concepts of success to take account of life goals beyond work and family. How does one incorporate one's ethical values into one's life? How does one contemplate one's social responsibility and the legacy one leaves behind? Again, how much is enough?

Finally how does one replenish oneself in the midst of the competing demands one sets oneself? Do you value leisure? Do you ensure that you laugh and have fun? How do you look after your health and wellness? Do you build into your life a habit of exercise? How do you manage stress? More deeply, how should creativity and the arts figure in your life? What are the dimensions of creativity that infuse a life and sustain it?

Every person who contemplates these choices must confront the question of desire: are the goals I identify my own, or are they motivated by a need to fulfill the expectations of family, teachers, mentors and friends? Each workshop will provide structured opportunities for participants to examine family legacies and narratives of success. What stories have been told in one's family about "successful" women and how do these stories become embedded in one's own assumptions and expectations?

In addition to workshops and discussion, we plan to use electronic-portfolios so that each participant can rewrite her life story after she leaves the workshop. Workshops for alumnae will explore the way life experiences shape and change understandings of success. We expect to develop an electronic communication network so that women can share their narratives of success and our students and alumnae can learn from each other.

Ultimately, the goal is for women to experience themselves as agents of their own lives in the midst of intense pressures urging them in one direction or another. We hope to instill a lifelong habit of reflection, a practice that helps us locate and relocate ourselves on the multiple dimensions of success. We embark on this project not so much because we are experts in achieving these goals ourselves, but rather because we have failed at them. My own life has been immensely satisfying as I step back and look at the broad outlines. My own mother did not go to college and she did not work outside the home. I take pride in my education and my work. I am grateful for a supportive husband who knows who I am and takes as much satisfaction from my accomplishments as I do. I am wildly proud of my daughter. But I cannot say that all this happened because I took time to think through my own definitions of success as I moved from one stage of my life to the next. The price I have paid is not told by the meta-story of what I have done. The price is in the persistent experience I still have of facing too many responsibilities and having too little time to reflect on my priorities and ultimate goals.

When I do take the time to reflect, I find that my own goals right now are not far off of those Anne Morrow Lindbergh set for herself when she was in mid-life: "Simplicity of living, as much as possible, to attain a true awareness of life. Balance of intellectual, physical and spiritual life. Work without pressure. Space for significance and beauty. Time for solitude and sharing." (p. 112)

If the Women's Narratives of Success Project helps Smith students and alumnae understand the shifting dimensions of success in their lives and reach toward a daily sense of well-being, I believe we will have made an important contribution.

Addiction

I'm addicted to period films. Especially, it seems, anything starring Romola Garai. I wonder how the poor woman got herself typecast in that role and how she deals with being told by casting directors that her appeal is more in the past than the present.

Awesome Psychobabble

Sometimes, I feel like the 20's are a sort of extended adolescence. You no longer are that person you were in "high school," but you haven't exactly left behind all the prejudices, prides and pitfalls of that phase of post-pubertal "emotional attyachar." That being said, 23 is a much better look for me - both emotionally and physically - than 14, 15 or even 17 was. These past 3 years, I've found myself moving forwards, towards the career and life I have always dreamt of, while at the same time, battling and laying to rest demons of the past.

When I was a teenager I always imagined myself to be sort of a citizen of the world, with no true home and wandering ways - contributing my supposed genius for the betterment of humanity on a whole. I attended, sequentially one of NJ's best public schools and Bangalore's best international school, was President of my school's Model United Nations club, played Western classical violin but listened to Lata Mangeshkar's Meera Bhajans and Led Zeppelin in my down time with equal love. I hated all things British (except Prince William and Harry Potter) and loved all things American, refused to wear "Indian clothes" unless there was a particular occasion, had dreams of becoming a UN diplomat/medical professional and had a an almost ostracizing hatred for anyone exhibiting signs of being a "popular kid" at school. So yes, I'd say I was a pretty well adjusted ABCD.

While I defined myself by my plurality and supposed intellect (let's be honest - I was and still am a total nerd through and through), the tight grip I had on this identity based on "openness and non-judgement" was about as false as it was a stranglehold on growing past the walls my assumed identity built around me. (Whoa! monster sentence. But I'm not going to change it. Decipher B*tches!) The past few years have forced me to confront situations and people that my previous identity would never have approved of. I've had to, like all of us do once past the privilege of childhood, get through disappointments and sorrow.

This doesn't always happen in large ways with fanfare and trumpets. Former anglophobic me now finds that the British are some of the most interesting people around. I actually enjoy their music, pop culture and yes, even the humor! I avoided all "dungeons and dragons" types like the plague, as I called gamers, in high school, but now, a sizable number of my crew embraces virtual reality over well, reality. And what about the desi angle, you may ask? Well, I've gone from a girl who didn't own a single salwar and scoffed at wearing "indian clothes" to her first day of college in Chennai, India to someone who can (sorta) rock a sari (*reminder to self: cross off bucket list*) and feels sometimes more comfortable in a salwar kameez. Now I'm sorry if all these supposedly life changing changes sound superficial and contrived, but honestly, it used to be these superficial and contrived things that defined my teenage identity. I suppose yes, that means that as a teenager I was somewhat superficial and contrived. Huh. And I thought I was a free thinking world citizen. Maybe those terrible teens are years where hormonal children try on everything bad or at least, most identifiably characteristic of an "adult" for size. Except it's all at once - hence the train wrecks.

All that being said, what I like about the 20's is that it gives me the opportunity to grow past the jingoism of my youth, the identity-brandishing abasement of things that were my opposite, into a little more settled, relaxed, embrace of who you really are and would like to be. You no longer feel the need to constantly prove and identify yourself to the world on a personal level (professionally, is another matter altogether), to shun "the others" who are not like you and to wear the Weezer T-shirt because god forbid people thing you're an N'Sync fan because you hang out with teeny boppers.

The twenties are sort of a decade of disabusement, or should be. It's a painful decade too because sometimes, hitting the reset button on beliefs you've held onto and people you have loved and trusted for a long time can be incredibly disturbing. I think I may have adult ADHD. Seriously.

Maybe it's just the natural progression of things. I mean, after all Prince William is both balding and married, the United Nations has failed to prevent yet another war and politically seems a bit of a banana republic, I've fallen prey entirely to the British invasion and they've given me a medical degree! I'd like to think that all human beings naturally progress from their teens into their twenties and that with the addition of a 2 to their age, comes a difference in the way they view the world. But when I look around me, and see the behavior of older adults around us - what with the hatred, intolerance, tunnel-vision and selfishness, I often wonder - what was their youth like?

Either way - this seems to be the decade that defines men and women for better or worse in the years to come. I suppose that regardless of what happens, I'm already me - that's my identity - and can just take it from there to wherever it is I want to go. As long as I can remain non-judgmental, open to new experiences and work a little harder, things will continue to look good.

:-)

PS - About the picture at the top of this entry. I don't know. I just like it. It reminds of hipsters. Who, by the way are about as horribly as un-twenty something and as close to teenagers as I can get. But I thought it was funny.

Human Rights

Not Passing the Barre

So this little improv intro to 'Time is Running' by Muse at Wembley back in 2008 is one of the reasons that I've decided to pick up the guitar again.

I decided to man up and take my dreams of rock stardom from the closet to the closest guitar teacher.

There were a whole lot of reason I haven't in the past. And looking back, they seem pretty lame.

• I was afraid I just wasn't cool enough to carry around a guitar, let alone a red electric one
• I know that singing isn't exactly my strong point, so I wondered what I'd do with all those chords and no singability
• I was afraid it would interfere with my violin playing, which I don't do so much anymore, but I didn't want what little skill I had built in the last 14 years to disappear 
• I didn't want to shell out the cash for what might prove to be another passing trend

However, after passing Step 1, the world seemed like a much more benign place, where things were still possible after all! (I guess making it through the mother of all exams really opens things up). If people could get through Step 1, then certainly, I could properly learn the guitar!

Anyway, so to my soul-mate, Google.com I went. And typed in those critical words - "Guitar teachers in Marathahalli."  To my delight, I found a "music school" about 10 minutes away on my favorite bus route, on the way to work called Guitar Crush, which was pretty much exactly what I had. It also turns out that the guitar instructor there, Armando, also taught electric guitar, which meant I wouldn't have to buy an acoustic and destroy my fingers on barre chords (which it turns out are difficult enough for me on the electric). I'm of course, still missing an amp - which makes my practice sessions sounds especially scratchy, plinky and utterly flat, but this way, I don't go overboard and play for like 3 hours a day. I do need to buy one though. 

Interestingly enough, they also teach Western violin. However, I haven't really pursued that at this school and have another teacher lined up for January - hopefully that works out. I think by the time I'm done with Step 2 and it's time to leave Bangalore, the fingers on my left hand will be freakishly strong. 

So I've been going to Guitar Crush for about 3 weeks now and I'm pretty satisfied. For some reason, a real teacher cannot be replaced by YouTube lessons no matter how good Martyzsongs is (incredibly generous man who uploads excellent free guitar lessons). Today I learnt a little bluesy power chord, A, D and E - ah! so much fun had I! 

But then, I also grappled with that horror - the B barre chord today. I pried my buckling fingers apart from each other as I desperately tried to get the guitar to make some noise. But alas! all I good get was a dull donk! 

To add salt to my wound the other student began to learn Led Zeppelin's Over the Hills and Far Away. A beautiful beautiful song that really inspires me. And here I was -  donk, donk , DONK, DONK, donk, TING. 

Right. 

Grrrr.....

Death to ye, ye olde devil! 

Anyway, that's my Sunday evening rant on music and pure evil. 

I promise though, that by next Sunday I will have that chord down and my middle finger will no longer buckle under pressure, but stand beautiful, tall, elegantly curved and strong. 

That's all for now!

Defeat?

I'm removing the words supposed to and should be from my vocabulary. (Feels like defeat).

There only exists what is and what will be and what can be.

Nostalgia

I'm currently caught in a whirlwind of nostalgia for college. For the days that to many people, end up being the best of their lives. It's only been about 11 months since school ended, but it already seems so distant, fading into the past.

I think it's a lot easier to deal with the end of something if you have solid rock to stand on with regards to the future. But when the future is uncertain, and the past is ebbing away - like today - you tend to feel a little lost. If nothing else, I am a girl who likes the ground under her feet. If only so that I can leap off it towards the unknown.

Everything aside, what I would love tonight would be my old friends back together, the beach, good music and incredible food.

Oh, nostalgia. 

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book.

Having grown up reading, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Harry Potter - this book was sort of a tongue-in-cheek tribute to all three without really trying to be.

I can't remember the last time I read a book that was so light-hearted without being trite.

However, since the last time I read books seriously was in American lit centered school, this book felt a little foreign. Not in a bad way, but just, like something amusing, but not quite familiar. Like a funny exchange student I'd love to get to know. Of course, the very considerate authors helped me out with their frequent footnotes for "Americans and other city-dweller/heathens/etc."

I wouldn't quite call this the sort of book to take with you on a beach vacation, but rather, the sort of book you can carry around with you through life knowing that in it's pages is a sort of continuous private joke only you, the reader, are privileged enough to be a part of.

Hehe.


View all my reviews

Xanga!

Since Google is my soul mate, I tend to Google myself every few weeks (maybe he'll notice me!)

This time, I found my old profile on Xanga! I found my 14-18 year old angsty cyber self and my wonderful wonderful friends from Basking Ridge and beyond who commented on nearly every post.

Looking back on some of the entries I wrote before I started medical school, filled with apprehensions, excitement and more than a little dose of self-pity....I can't form sentences anymore, too many facts to understand and memorize and multiple choice questions to rally against (Step 1 on Tuesday!).

It was just nice to see that in spite of the fact that I was so scared and so unsure of how things were going to turn out, they really did turn out okay and I'm sure they will again in the future regardless of the fact that I'm now, without even a shadow of a doubt, an adult. It's just a different degree of uncertainty and stress I suppose. (Where will I live? Will I get the job I want? Will I end up with someone? Will I save the world effectively? Will I do well on STEP 1? What's for breakfast?). It's also strange to transition from the system of achievement in childhood, which is pretty low risk, high rewards (you study, you do well, you go to college, you study, you do well.) to the adult world which is all about learning to take risks and deciding which rewards are worth your while. I suppose in childhood, I felt secure and confident in going through the motions of achievement that I just don't feel anymore, and that's what kept me grounded. The friends, fun and social life, were the unpredictable high risk, high reward part of life (I was a pretty introverted, nerdy child).

Things have kind of changed - the people in my life, family and friends are the rocks and everything else revolves around that, regardless of how important it is. Besides of course, my need to save the world and make some small, effective difference in people's lives - even if it's only 1 person a year.

But for right now, keeping in mind that there were so many points in my life in the past where I was this, if not more scared, uncertain and and almost cowed by the circumstances, I need to go get started, face that thing that scares the crap out of me, and walk through to the other side - where a beautiful wedding and a metallica concert (maybe) await.

:)

Faithful Fear

I'm finally at the point that has been bearing down upon me since before I started medical school. The point of taking boards and officially jumping on the shaky wagon train that leads to a US Residency position.

I don't think I have ever taken an exam (except perhaps the SAT) upon which is placed so much pressure. I really feel like this is a do or die situation, and while I suppose that works to charge up some people, it only demotivates me.

Every other academic success I have had in the past has come from a calm, objective, controlled approach to the exam or test. Even during final year, as nervous as I was, I enjoyed my study holidays and dissociated myself from the fear of results. Other than prior to practical exams, I have never really let fear get to me substantially.

I can't say the same for this exam. I'm terribly afraid, not as well prepared as I'd like and really feeling the pressure -as I have these past 10 months.

That being said, I really feel like I need to rationalize the situation, I need to have a more positive outlook and faith in something larger - that would really do far more for me than the most intense studying.

I read the following on Conrad Fischer's blog. I really hope that as I write this, I can find a greater peace in the belief that Step 1, my preparations for it and ultimately, the results are all part of a much larger game - a game that regardless of my success or failure on these exams, I am already a part of.

Making efforts without seeing results is difficult. Un-requited love has a certain pleasure in the pain of the inability to connect, but struggling for our goals, making efforts, working and not seeing it go closer is more denervating. There is no heart lacerating endorphin surge with that effort. I have been contemplating the thousands of students and doctors I have been meeting in my travels around the outer geography of this American Civilization. America, you must remember, is an idea, more than it is a place. Because of the nature of my position, an enormous amount of anxiety flows my way from people. It lacerates me like a cold wind on a loveless day. People want reality to be different than reality. Some other answer than work hard, score high, apply wide, get your work double checked. Last night a woman comes to me apopleptic with paralytic fear “Should I take Step 3 now?” her fear comes across to me in an instant like a fragrance or perfume, I smell the fear and feel my own muscles tense. Turns out she has a 99 on BOTH step 1 and step 2. Everyone has fear. Our futures, mine too, are uncertain. Yours with USMLE and residency and mine with my book ‘Routine Miracles”. I am in the same boat as you, so I encourage you to have faith. If my number one goal is a mere external like book sales, then I will be anxious. If my goal is the beautification of this Civilization through the ideas of my book, then I am free. Faith: Making efforts in the direction of your dream in the absence of tangible results in front of you. When you are on your mission to find your residency, if your highest goal is simply a match, you will have more fear, less satisfaction. If you have faith, that an effort is NOT wasted if it is to make the world better, to heal the sick to relieve suffering and to cleave to HOPE and HEROISM then you will relax. I am in the same circumstances as you. Making efforts, not always seeing results. Let us renew our faith, originating in the beauty of the impulse that we started this voyage with, and know that we will come to a destination, even if we can’t see it at the moment.

It's now October 2011 and in pursuit of the unholy, demonic tyrant of the 240+/99 on the USMLE Step 1 I think I've forgotten why I even started this journey. Yes, the score is important, but more important than that is remembering the purpose behind all this madness. I've been distracted over the past few months. I've even doubted my reasons for wanting to be a doctor. After all, if I remember my 17 year old self - and the excitement with which I approached the unknown field of medicine, the eagerness with which I intended to save the world. And my 2009 final year self - astute, diligent, self-doubting and terrified yet determined to prove myself worthy of  being a doctor.

But they are all sound. I know.

If I keep my future patients as my ultimate goal (Which I can do anyway, since regardless of what happens with residency, I am already a doctor. I am already licensed to practice medicine in India - a country where there is no dearth of medical personnel. Even if this doesn't work out - I still get to do what I want. And if it does, I get to do what I want, even better) I know that I can get through anything.

I've been also learning to think ambitiously, and to some extent, this has corrupted me and my goals. It has set me back more than a few paces.

Ambition is important, yes. But it veils my reasons for doing what I want - and when I forget those, I'm lost.

I'm not 100% where I want to be, but already, I'm less afraid.

Stressing and Spazzing

1) 95-99% of immature T cells die while undergoing the maturation and selection process in the Thymus. While that statistic is very sad and discouraging for the T cells that start the process, it gives me hope.

The acceptance rate to residency, especially for Internal Medicine and such things is MUCH more than 1%.

If an immature T Cell (or people that get accepted to IIT or IIM) can do it - maybe I too will have my chance.

2) Salmon. They swim upstream to their birthplace to start their families - or lay millions of eggs - whichever sounds more poetic to you. Also, their sperm has the precursor of a pretty kickass antidote to heparin, protamine sulfate. Talk about multitasking.

I feel like those Salmon. Swimming upstream to the country of my birth to kickstart a new life. Or a pilgrim. In other words, an immigrant.

I've labelled myself, now I shall go back to lonely studying.

Sigh.

Well, if nothing works out. I can sit under a tree. I like nature. Maybe I'll have an Isaac Newton moment or something. Make my millions.

Shit.

But you can't patent a thing like gravity. Or can you?

The commercialization of the laws of nature. Every time something falls, I make a profit (if I were Newton). The Schaudenfreude millionaire.

***********************

I really really really REALLY need to get out :-P

Go With the Gut

"The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of them all"

- Mulan

Let's hope that the skinny old emperor from Mulan was right.

I've been so stupid.

Time to go with the gut.

No one is going to live my life for me - and I won't let them, so why should I live my life for them? That isn't respect.

- The Girl Who isn't Nearly As Grown Up As She Thinks

Homebound?

A while ago, I wrote about feeling like a foreigner in the country I live in.

The following quote by Jhumpa Lahiri probably best illustrated how I felt about the whole thing.

"For being a foreigner Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy -- a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity of from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect."

It's funny how a few years and meaningful friends and family can turn situations on their heads. It's time again for me to head back to the United States - the beacon of home, opportunity and possibilities - and all I can think of is how much I am going to miss India and how intrinsic it has become my sense of identity and home. When I moved here 8 years ago I wanted nothing but to finish school and go back 'home' as quickly as possible, but doing that now seems so difficult. I'm suddenly lost as to what I'm returning to. The whys of going back are clear, but the how's are a blur.

It's both unsettling and exhilarating to stand at home in a place that once felt foreign and look back at the shores of a former home and see a foreign land.

If I can take anything from this particular flip of circumstances, it's probably just that as long as I have the people in my life that make me feel at home, I am exactly where I need to be.

Bring it on, US of A!

Pho, Development and Me

"Know something about something. Don’t just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it around."- Richard Holbrooke

Today, I went with my family to a relatively new Vietnamese restaurant in Indiranagar, Phobidden Fruit.

Being the neurotic person that I am, I had Google-ed Vietnamese food before we headed out to the restaurant and was ready with an explanation of the basics of Vietnamese cooking. Well, at least that Pho was a pretty signature Vietnamese dish and that eating would involve an inordinate amount of dexterity, suction, hand eye coordination and creative utensil use. Pretty soon, my sister and I, the children of privilege that we are, began discussing the flavors and textures of the food we were eating - comparing it to Thai, Chinese and Malay cuisine that we had tasted. Then we caught ourselves sounding like food hipsters/travel channel addicts and went about slurping our Pho down with much more joyous abandon.

I'd never had Vietnamese food before and the idea of trying it for the first time in a restaurant in Bangalore tickled my sense of awe.
I'd lived in the United States for years, 40 miles from Manhattan, and was led to believe that it was the 'melting pot' of the world. That living there was the ultimate in human experiences, where everything was open to you. Sort of a harem of culture, the world in a microcosm, where there was an endless novelty of exposure.

But here I was, more than 8000 miles away from what I had always considered the Mecca of culture and diversity, in Bangalore, India, eating Vietnamese food as we talked about Peter Arnett, life in the United States and the economic challenges of young adulthood. How much more diverse can you get? And how much further away from the United States.

I'm 23. I've lived in 2 countries in 7 places and gone to 6 different schools. I've traveled to 16 countries. My first passport was issued when I was 6 months old. I entered medical school at 17 for which I had to learn a new language (although I was never quite good) and adapt to a new culture. To do this, I had given up an opportunity to study in Ivy league and other top schools in the United States.

My definitions of success and opportunity have had to change constantly.

All of this sounds incredible. And sometimes, I find myself basking in the glow of my experiences without really considering what they have pushed me towards. I sit on the throne of the "Third Culture Kid", presenting my "wonderful self to the world" and forget that living a rich life - culturally, economically, emotionally - isn't what I want to define me. Of course, it makes for great material for writing and easy conversation with people from anywhere, but it really is what I do with it that counts in the end.

I am so afraid that I will take this abundance of privilege and squander it somehow. That I'll be stuck in the First world notions of "experiencing culture" - eating in fancy restaurants, reading books and films by foreign authors, 'traveling', being a well developed personality- without really wanting to be a part of anything, ultimately, except my own life. I've found that it is an extremely easy trap to fall into. After all, art, food, family and economic security are the best anesthetic from having to really understand the parts of the world around you that don't add to your sense of comfort. Why bother with other people's pain when the life you live doesn't affect them adversely?

In the past, to even ask such a question would have been an ultimate sin. I often balked at the rich masses (well, from my perspective the rich were a mass) that were apathetic at the less fortunate majority of the world. I was convinced that it was my duty to lead a life in which I would give constantly to those less fortunate to me. A life of service.

These days, I don't think i think of it in the same terms. I no longer feel that a charity is a positive term. That the rich have a moral imperative to help those "less fortunate" beyond a certain point. That human kind are designed to help each other out in the hard times. All of these things, are a blessing, not a state of being.

Besides, if a lack of food, education and stimulation are the opiate of the poor, then the excess of those are the opiate of the rich.

But I love the opium of the privileged life. I find myself one among the very people I criticized of being insensitive to the needs of the greater world population. I'm less inclined to help anyone with abandon. (Ugh - writing fail today). I find the pleasures and pressures of my own life preventing me from even considering the world around me worthy of attention.

I don't like this change.

And in spite of all of this. In spite of the fact that I sometimes feel like I've sold out on my original dream to help those in need - I still do feel some strange pull towards it.

I'm not a bleeding heart anymore. That will get you killed or bankrupt. But I do honestly want to help those who need it most. I want to learn about the world I live in, the good and the bad. Even the very bad. I want to learn by experience, a trial by fire, not by intellect. There are vast limitations to book learning. And there is only so much fire you can take before you are indelibly burnt.

But most of all, I want the courage of action. The ability to put my knowledge to use and to make it a little less about myself.

Hope I figure it out.

But I suppose the way is scattered with screw ups.

Time to just go for it I guess.

Lawyered!

I was researching medical negligence laws in India for an article I am writing and discovered some interesting things:

• In the United States, the Mecca of medical malpractice lawsuits, most suits are filed under that clause of negligence in a civil case against the doctor, hospital or enterprise delivering healthcare. This falls under common law framework, ie Torts. (Don't actually know to much about the US System - this is what I gathered). Therefore, damages and awards can be given for not emotional, psychological, physical, economic and various other damages and previously, there was no cap on the amount of damages that could be awarded - though this has now changed with Tort reform.

• In India, there are three ways to prosecute for medical negligence.

1. Patients who pay for the services of a physician are protected under the Consumer Protection Act of 1986 which protects the contractual rights of the parties involved in the delivery and receipt of medical "service." This is not a tort law or criminal law and therefore, the awards are limited - especially by the court that tries the law. Higher level courts or bodies (district vs. state) can award higher amounts of money. Also, consumer courts work more quickly than the normal civil legal system which is mired with difficulty.
2. Those who receive free medical treatment are not protected by the Consumer Protection Act of 1986 as they are not legally receiving a "service" since they do not pay. They instead can prosecute doctors under "Medical Negligence" in a civil case under Tort Law. However, this system of justice in India is highly inefficient and embroiled in corruption. Not the best way to protect the interests of those who are already disadvantaged. It's like saying - here's free care since you can't afford to pay, but your nation protects you under an antiquated system that doesn't work so well if something goes wrong, versus those who can pay and are protected by a better law. I shall dedicate a post to this as soon as I get the article out.
3. If negligence results in the death of a patient, then a doctor can be tried according to criminal law.

From a Few Days Ago

Dear World,

Today, I’m disgusted with the world.

I'm disgusted with the fragility of good intentions, tenacity and honor against the pure perversion of circumstance. Murphy seems to be winning the war he doesn’t know he fights.

I’m disgusted with the fact that the world rebukes, like oil and vinegar, any attempt to look well upon it. That sometimes no matter how much you want to, you can’t see things the way you want to, but the way they are.

Yours,

Girl who has too much to be thankful for

The Attack of the GiAnT MiCrObEs

Okay I don't know if you can see the above picture clearly, but its from giantmicrobes.com - a web site that sells stuffed toys of the main soldiers in the war of infectious disease.

How cute!

They have amazingly witty taglines and characterization as well.

Anyway, this website has inspired me to say that I feel like a Stem Cell. When I should actually feel like a supercharged hippocampal neuron!

Gaaah!

License to Madness

From time to time I keep worrying that people are going to think I'm crazy. Especially when I post the link to my blog on social networking sites.

Isn't that shamelessly self-promoting? People are going to think I'm insane!

Then I realize, that most of the people I'm closest to, both my family and friends, already do think I'm crazy. (In a good way, I hope).

That gives me so much more freedom!

:-D

Goosebumps.

I've got goosebumps.

I don't know if its from Justin Nozuka's other-worldy voice, the cold or my fear of the upcoming exam.

*****

De-stressing to The Kooks, The Hush Sound, KT Tunstall and Saves the Day. Throwback to older and simpler times.

Are You An Only Child?

I miss working. I miss the hospital. I miss patients giving me quizzical glances on days when I'm tired and out of it. I even miss the - no, don't say it - discharge summaries.

I was thinking about how patients and sometimes nurses would sometimes smile at me and be generally compliant, but would then ask me in a very patronizing way at the end of my history-taking, "Are you an only child?" It's amusing to think about that now, with my sister terrorizing me on and off. I guess it was the fact that in an effort to be polite I never really yelled at them when I first met them and would ask a detailed history without the brusque, efficient manner that they were used to. It probably also had to do with the fact that on admission days and post-admission day pre-rounding, I invariably looked frazzled, but they assumed that I was a sheltered only child.

It really used to bother me - the fact that even as a doctor I was perceived as a child - but I suppose that while the white coat gives you authority it doesn't change who you are completely. Assuming that persona perhaps comes with a little more practice and a thickening of the skin.

When I finally do work again, either in this country or the US of A, I guess I'll have to do something to seem a little older.

Anyways, first Step 1.

Disclaimer: Only for those with strong stomachs

I've never seen a more perfect example of caseous necrosis. This adrenal really does look like it's filled with a cheesy (feta), hummus-like matter.

This by the way, is an adrenal gland diseased by tuberculosis.

Inclusive Development

I've been thinking.

Maybe I shouldn't look at the world around me and the people who populate it so disparately. After all, for a girl who thinks that syzygy (as used by Carl Jung) and confluence is the highest ideal, I am the first one to put myself alone in my own camp.

Huh.

Peter Pan Syndrome

I've realized recently that I take myself seriously far less often than I used to. I've gotten into the habit of a sort of whimsical approach to life that leaves little time for any constancy of purpose. Of course, I still have the same aspirations, but I really have to dig much deeper these days, to draw strength and action from them.

The reason is disdainfully obvious, of course. I no longer have any excuses to play with. I'm a proper adult whose life is in her own hands, as I have been for 5 years. However now, the stakes are very high.

That idea terrifies me sometimes.

It leads me down this easy path of whimsy and flight of ideas that gives me some excellent conversation starters (I am confident that the former wallflower, goal-oriented, painfully shy me could talk the ears off the most stoic Pashtun warlord or high school mean girl) and a feeling of unlimited freedom and possibility.

But where am I really, now that my whole approach to life has changed? The things that centered me, like career, school, achieving things are now not the only things that I find at the center of my life. Friends have become immensely more important. Family has become so much more important in a more genuine, less need-based way. The interests that I generally suppressed or put on the back burner in pursuit of academic achievement, now push their way to the front. Even at the 11th hour, when they really shouldn't.

If I look at all this optimistically, I'd definitely say that my life has become far more colored and rich. It bursts with things to be done, places to go, people to talk to, music to hear and things to learn. I have so much more to live for now, than I have ever had.

While all the above is wonderful and I'm eternally thankful to whatever power helped to arrange the above (some strange amorphous God like entity), I'm also disappointing in the lack of discipline I show these days. I'm also disappointed in the part of me that still hangs on to the self-destructive belief that I'm just not capable of taking for myself everything that I've ever wanted.

I am so happy these days. And complacent.

In the past, I'd have waited to figure out what was wrong, to work myself up in a fiery speech of resilience and self-patronage and worked zealously for a time.

Now, though I still do this from time to time, I mostly save the theatrics for friends in need or the hungry insecure part of myself.

In all honesty, I don't want the drama anymore. That isn't what I want motivating me. I don't need grand ideals and inspiring rhetoric. I just need to know that when I want something and have the courage and discipline to get it, I can live every day in fulfillment of that goal. That's really all I need to be happy anymore.

Sadly, I've been getting in my own way a lot of late.

I don't know if its the lack of courage, discipline or goals, perhaps a disappointing combination of all three, but I just need to grow up in some arenas of life.

The whimsicality can stay, but I guess it needs to be brought into check and not take over.

Ladies, Where’s the Ambition? « Clutch Magazine

Ladies, Where’s the Ambition? « Clutch Magazine

Here's what I'm talking about

:)

A Return to What I Do Best / Marriage & Lady Macbeth

Am I getting too old for angst-ridden posts written in quiet desperation in the wee hours of the night?

I've not hit a quarter century yet, so I think, perhaps not. That is, of course, assuming that there is a statute of limitation on angst. The only reason I'd think so is because I wouldn't want to be judged. Then again, I am writing on a platform open to all 7 billion plus people on this planet, but more scarily, my family, future employers and future......

Also, it's important to document this part of my personality; the 2 AM tragic diva who revels in negativity, insomnia, procrastination and warped pop-psychology.

Now that I have discredited myself adequately enough for my audience to know with utmost certainty that the following is all inanity, I can write the truth.

I am laying here, laptop in bed, hair oiled and wrapped in an old dupatta while I think of the things that bother me when I let them.

Like this whole marriage thing for instance and the fact that now that I'm in my 20s and socially obligated to fulfill my reproductive potential, I am no longer treated as the gender neutral, achievement hoarding happy little pack rat that I was. I'm suddenly a woman and must accept my role as one, complete with pain inducing heels and accident inducing saris.

Traditionally brought up Indian girls should not hit 23 without thinking about marriage, without welcoming the pressure, the onslaught of the circling MBA holders from good-families, preferably foreign-educated. We should welcome the zombie-horde, whether in the form of an actual 'match' or hypothetical situations, because well, it's just that time in our lives. Imagine that, 23 is the time in my life to welcome the idea of marrying a member of a hypothetical herd of suitably matched zombie men. Or since in my case, the discussion has only gone as far as theory with no actual frightening apparition on the horizon, perhaps we should call these elusive men ghosts, of a sort.

23 years of hard work, I’m at a crucial point in my fledgling career – unemployed and done with my Bachelor’s degree – and ‘the elders’ tell me that this is something I need to think seriously about. The kind of man I would want in my life. Hell, I don’t even know what kind of Shampoo and Conditioner works for my hair yet, how do I figure out what kind of man fits into my life? Assuming of course that they can be typed and sorted so easily into neat categories. (Not in my experience, excepting certain universalities).

All that sarcasm notwithstanding, I have nothing against arranged marriages or the idea of marriage. In fact, even though I sometimes wish I was off-the-beaten-path-enough to think that marriage was an obsolete social convention and that I'm better off alone or with endless versions of ‘the one’, I do want to get married someday. Mainly for the purposes of observing the progeny of the Squirrel Council and having someone around to tell me that although I do on occasion clean up very nicely, I should stop looking in the mirror, reflecting and get on with my damn life. Oh yes, that’s the dream, complete with a white wedding gown (read shiny pattu sari) and tiara (read stomach-fat-pinching vadlanam).

So, if I were my sensible USMLEing day self, I would say, what’s the problem. It’s just a matter of timing. You want the same thing, so just do your own thing and wait it out and this way or that, a suitable bakra will surely come along lay his head on the chopping block.

But my crazy night self rages at the injustice of it all.

Oh to be demeaned by these paltry considerations! When I have put my sweat and blood into my work these 23 years, am I now to be denied the fruit of all that learning - the ability to make and revel in my choices and decisions?! When I get married, shouldn't the man and moment be of my choice? But no - and all for the sake of diminutive man and obsolete custom. Biologically, I have no need for anything more than a sperm sample from a donor of vaguely Indian origin. To be pushed and prodded to think of that which has no place in my life, the yielding to destiny, the falling into my traditionally ascribed gender role. When all I want to do is be a great doctor and travel the world and live in an apartment in Manhattan.

Am I to be forced to say "I do" before I want to by the fear that the future holds nothing more than "Dying alone"?

Am I to say 'Yes' to traditions and definitions of my gender that until now have played no role in my life?

"UNSEX ME HERE!" I'd much rather say.

(You bet I’m going all Lady Macbeth on you. Mind it.)

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood

Stop up the access and passage to remorse,

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between

The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,

And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,

Wherever in your sightless substances,

You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry 'Hold, hold!'

I want focus.

I want determination.

I want the incandescent mind of Virginia Woolf's true artist.

and

I want the courage to want it all.

What in hell has the zombie-horde to do with all that?

MLE -ing

I have so much to do and 68 days to do it. I'm beginning to fear for my future.

I was supposed to get in 600 minutes today but instead got 273. That really is pretty bad considering that today was a good day. I seriously have to amp up my efforts because I know I can do this exam and do it well.

It looks like the Turkey post will have to wait. I've been working on it, but as usual, I've been waiting for it to be perfect and haven't actually put pen to paper.

Tomorrow 6 AM!

And an NBME this week too it seems.

Wish me luck imaginary readers.

PS - I know you're not out there, so I've been a little more liberal with posting my usually private shameful study schedule. Google stats tells me I'm the sole visitor to my blog, and although I keep telling it not to track me - whenever I clear my browser's history it seems to forget that preference.

Bumbling On.

- A

Turkey

Just returned from a 10 day trip to Turkey. I have so much to write about I don't know where to begin.

Hopefully I'll have a few pictures and posts up soon.

The Squirrel Council - A Tribute

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” - Anais Nin

When there are a million thoughts running through my head, how do I pull the right string and spin one of them into a blog post worthy of my readers' time and interest?

When my ever abortive, scattered, entirely non-linear "thought" process, my penchant for SAT words 7 years after the fact, and my entangling sentence structure blocks a smooth way forward, who rises to the occasion and saves me from myself?

I begin a sentence and by the end of it, find myself at the the opposite end of thought process. I argue and counter-argue at the same time that my mind whizzes through ten million solutions.

My taste for theater bemusedly labels this perpetual Brownian motion, 'genius' and sometimes, 'madness'.

My friend's call it 'The Squirrel Council."

Whatever it is, it's the engine of my soul.

I have no idea what the above sentence means. It's counter-intuitive and not even in an ironic or clever way.

You see what I mean?

However, I was trying to make a point before I erupted into that horror of a sentence. Apart from the judgement and labels and my fear of it's entropous nature, The Squirrel Council is what defines me. From its strange and unpredictable depths comes the amorphous

solid, the woman who is perpetually on not one, but at least five tangents.

Some of those journeys end badly. Like my ill-fated venture into sewing stuffed-animal monsters that created 'Horrible Little Guy AKA Robespierre' or my need to prove my worth as a team player by "excelling" at Basketball (which resulted in two fractures - though I'm not convinced that this story is over).

Most of the tangents continue on, sometimes meandering away to look at the flowers, before re-embarking on the trudge forward.

At some, not so wonderful parts of my life, the past three years for instance, I've fallen off all my tangents and seated myself neatly at the table of my own private reality. Entertaining as it was, it left little room for moving forward from things that I needed to leave behind.

But even in those last three years, while a part of me sat smiling placidly, frozen by good fortune and fear of losing it, life continued.

The Council has pushed me forward, not absolutely or chronologically. Sometimes in one dimension, and definitely not in another; jaggedly. Partially. Relatively. I've been self-possessed and mature in some realms, emotional, quelled by feeling and childish in others. The past, present, and future mingled and pulled me backward, forward, sideways or fixed me in the present and more often that not, the past.

A million thoughts have run through my head and I've nearly never pulled the right string, but yanked at the four that presented themselves and tangled them with all the others.

My ever abortive, scattered, entirely non-linear "thought" process has blocked a smooth way forward, and I stayed where I was in that knot of inexpression, longing and resentment.

All of this has happened before and it will happen again.

But whatever happens, this is where I am today. Where The Council has brought me. To complete imperfection.

Hopefully someday, to completeness in imperfection.

And that is the person who raises her head occasionally and saves me from myself.

Father's Day

Should I be concerned that my dad sent me this video on Father's day?

Does he have a latent desire to turn into a middle-aged brown rapper? Is he telling me he wants a lawn mower? Or is it those oh so classy 'gas station shades'?

It's okay though - even if he doesn't get his heart's desire he is still cool.

Because I AM his entourage

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Just re-read this book.
It's funny sometimes how timing dictates everything.
When I first read this book at 15, it's story of the decadent, corrupt yet stoic Jay Gatsby irreconcilably holding on to an incorruptible dream meant very little. I don't believe I understood this book or the discussions in class about it. Despite that, it made an impression. Through the years, as life took me through experiences I never expected, I remembered Jay Gatsby and his vision of Daisy.
The image of Daisy in flowing white on a sofa in West Egg on a hot summer's day never really left my mind.
7 years later, today, as I re-read the book, there wasn't a line in that novel that I couldn't relate to.
It was as if the experiences of the last 7 years brought me to the point of understanding the greatness of Jay Gatsby.
Whether in his triumph or tragedy, Jay Gatsby became an every-man of sorts.
The dark side of those things that are considered to be good. Too much of a good thing. The nightmare that lurks within every dream.
I don't really know what I'm writing.
All I can say is that F. Scott Fitzgerald, though he does not inspire joy or beauty, sees events for what they are and shows that to the world on the canvas of a novel with absolute mastery.
A true artist.
View all my reviews

Foldbot Assembly

My dad bought a Foldbot (folding aluminum frame canvas covered Kayak) some years ago and for a while it got no use other than as extra seating in our basement.

But 7 years and one continent later, we are trying to resurrect it.

Sadly, finding a clean body of water to take her out to is proving impossible. Environmental degradation, anyone?

Also, does anyone have any suggestions for places to take her out around Bangalore? Anywhere in a 2 hour radius is fine.

Well anyhow, a bright sunny day cool breeze and mangoes, lemonade and music is making this assembly day quite a lot of fun.

:-)

Summer Lovin'

It's summer baby! Time for swimming, sun and if you're me USMLE studying.

However, as any beauty magazine will tell you, swimming and the sun causes significant hair damage.

Oh yes it does.

I am about to embark to prove the hypothesis that beer is one of the best natural conditioners around. And have some fun doing it ;-)

Truth?

"Child, it's a very bad thing for a woman to face the worst that can happen to her, because after she's faced the worst she can't ever really fear anything again. ....Scarlett, always save something to fear - even as you save something to love...."
— Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind)

FRACK!

Continuing on the theme of things that have surprised me in life, I am in love with Battlestar Galactica.

Now, I'm still watching the 4th season so I don't know anything about how all this turns out and I'm yet to watch the miniseries.

I can't hold it in anymore. I've got to shout it to the universe.

I love this series more than a cold swimming pool on a hot Chennai day.

Why is this a surprise? Well, in high school I secretly turned up my nose at what I called those 'dungeons and dragons and anime' people. I mean the ones who talked only about that sort of thing. I was no cheerleader myself, in fact, I could have been head of the geek squad, so mired was I in all things geeky. But in the imaginary social order of high school, those strange cult-like boys and occasionally girls who walked about looking like they hadn't slept or bathed in days and said strange things like - gods, i don't even know what - repelled me.

Of course, fantasy and sci-fi are two different genres entirely and while I love the latter and can't get my head around the former. Believe me, I've tried. But ''those' kids as I snootily referred to them may have led me to this show earlier.

To the Light.

The Element of Surprise

My life has surprised me.

I work towards a constant, an ideal, but that journey has been strewn with the unexpected.

It's hasn't always been good surprise. As is expected.

Events, people, relationships and ideals that I believed in, held on to and was certain would bring me happiness did not. They were supposed to be the constants that marked a respite from my journey. These things were initially important by virtue of the joy that they brought me, but after some time, that dynamic began to change. They began to derive their importance from how tightly I held on and rarely gave me any joy. The worse I felt, the less of a stimulus I needed to hold on, to prove their importance to myself. And the less joy I got from them.

Many of these things have fallen away with time and distance and because other factors have forced my hand and brought me to unwilling surprise.

However, I have never given up something I held on to willingly or peacefully. Never without a fight with myself. I believed that holding on could revive anything and that giving up meant weakness. That the weight of significance was a good thing. After some time, my emotional ties to my ideals - both of people and principles - tethered me to things that did not make me happy.

And then one day, I was surprised.

I walked away, willingly, without a fight from an old God. And the freedom was empowering. I thought that if I cut the tie the emotion would dissipate and that of course would be the real crime. But it didn't. It just became less weighty. Less fraught with unnecessary significance. It brought me joy.

I was so surprised.

There have been good surprises too. So many.

I lived a life that at 16 I wouldn't have wished on my worst enemy. Now, I've had a great life - don't get me wrong - but at 16 I was a blindly ambitious, dogmatic young woman not open to any way but the one that I wanted. Regardless of why I wanted it.

I've met people and allowed them to change me and my life forever in ways I never would have expected. Something sacrilegious to the unhappy 16 year old I was. I knew I wasn't perfect, but the changes in myself had to come purely from within, I believed. That was true integrity. The outer world could play no role in my development other than the one I assigned it.

I've been unbelievably happy at times. I've grinned like a Cheshire cat and meant every single gleaming tooth of it.

I've even written incomprehensible blog entries and punted them out into cyberspace. Though why that surprises me I don't know. I've been doing it since I was in middle school.

The element of surprise has booked a permanent seat on this journey, I suppose. It has brought good things and bad. It has pushed me forward and held me back. Its made me who I am.

It has even created this middle school essay style post.

Sigh.

Shall try better next time.

When Tenacity Can Be a Bad Thing

"Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly."

- Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God

Computer Whiiizzzzz

So, ladies and occasional unfortunate men who happen to come by this page...

I have officially added a 'Share on Facebook' button to my blog.

To do it, I had to venture into the HTML.

To say I'm proud of myself (I just copied & pasted from another blog and had to edit some of the code) is an understatement.

Read on faceless minions!

In Intern: A Doctors Initiation

Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."
William Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night"

What leads a man into the 'noble career' of medicine? The answer to that question is deeply personal and for some of us, has not yet been answered concretely.

Yet, we practice medicine every day. We make the tough decisions demanded of us, work the long hours and give it the focus it demands.

What lies in the transformation from the naive, uninitiated non-doctor entering the profession for reasons stated in his application and repeated confidently at dinner parties, to the young physician, practicing though sometimes, without a concrete, guiding why.

How is it possible to feel lost in what is often considered one of the most meaningful lines of work in society?

These are questions that most young doctors grapple with, though almost never publicly. In my experience, they existed in a plane just above repression. They were the dangerous thoughts, the things that would lead you off the chosen path. Yet, they've remained the most pressing of all questions that come to my mind.

Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's book was a candid masterpiece. Its an accurate chronicle of the struggles involved in becoming a doctor. Its a synergy of his thoughts and the experiences that spurred them on.

It's like having a long heart-to-heart with an encouraging older brother who survived having greatness thrust upon him.

It's a book that every young doctor, especially if you're unsure of what you're doing wearing these shoes, must read.

Simply because it makes you feel at home with all of your feelings, positive and negative, about a profession that demands immersion.



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Honesty - Past excerpts from my Journal

On A Room of One's Own

I can imagine my home in the years to come. White stucco walls. A single window, or perhaps if I lucked out and got an end unit, several. A loft apartment would be preferable. Of course, it would look out over the Hudson, towards the home of my adolescence, New Jersey. Pre-war hardwood floors broken by chappas from India.

A cozy corner would be my sleeping area. A raised bed – or perhaps, if I were to spend all my money traveling, a box mattress. Next to that would be a lamp, something special, out of the ordinary. And several racks of books on the wall behind my bed.

The kitchen would be small, organized, and adequate. With plenty of storage space, and clean, unstained Tupperware. We’d eat on bar stools on the counter. Absolutely no clutter on the kitchen surfaces.

The multipurpose sitting area would house a corner for music. Musical instruments and shelves on the wall for CDs would be adjacent to the window with the best view.

No knick knacks.

The seating area would be somehow, surrounded by books.

In the final corner of my loft, which I've somehow imagined to be full of corners, there would be a large work table, just below the best window in the house. Pencils in a drawer and a bookshelf with closed doors and a single desktop computer or laptop with a docking station would comprise my workplace. Of course, I’d need a large white board and calendar adjacent to keep track of things. And perhaps a filing cabinet for bills and other such official papers.

The only decoration I would allow would be framed quotes and arrangements of good photographs. All the art would have to be in the fixtures and the furniture itself. I don’t want other knick knacks.

Now I am tired and sleepy. I shall stop.

On a Movie and a Book that Mattered to Me

From V for Vendetta: “Sometimes all we have left is an inch of our integrity, but within that inch, we are free.”

How I wish that were true! Though it is to a certain extent. No one can change your self-respect or the way you see yourself. But how do you take that integrity that sets you apart from the rest of the world and be a part of the world that surrounds you? Because is integrity essentially a divisive force? To be yourself you cannot be anyone else and if so how do you possibly reach people around you? And why am I after that anyway? I guess for the very reason that Howard Roark remains a fictional character. And is only a hero in a world of fiction. We live in society. Because man is essentially a social animal.

What is scaring me is that a part of me is beginning to understand Dominique Francon. I sometimes feel like her. That if my passion has to bear the insults of a world not worthy of understanding and accepting it readily, then perhaps I should just withdraw. If I can’t be myself I will just be one of them. But a caricature. After all, there is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn. So I'd rather be the best of the worst of it all than the best of myself, for fear of what I'd have to endure, and what they'd do to the beauty of my vision.

To be a woman is an experience no one can ever quite comprehend. Its not meant to be understood, just underwent.

****

I remember a time when I was surrounded by people for whom talent wasn’t a chance but a necessity. Passion wasn’t a rarity but a requirement. Perhaps it was a regimented approach to things that are essentially beautiful, but I felt good.

Now I look around me and on the surface I see so much dispassion.

But I realize now that what I see are not people who are broken, empty and have nothing to offer, but these are people who are different from me. Their passion lies in things I cannot begin to comprehend. Like family, duty, security.

Who am I to judge if it is making them happy?

I think I’ve lost all pretences of being a Westerner, but I am not quite Indian either.

I am quite purely, myself.

On a Reader who Lost her Way

I’d forgotten what it’s like to be possessed by words. To be entangled in a web of meaning, of depth, of veracity.

I find myself resisting what in the past so easily brought pleasure. All I had to do was fall into the words and everything else ceased to exist. There was no view other than what existed in that moment.

Now I stand back and fight their power. I refuse to be enveloped, to feel anything more than so called ‘reality.’

How did this change happen? When did a thing of beauty and comfort, become an anathema?

I think the greatest betrayal was the dissolution of the only world I trusted to be there at all times. There is no where you can escape, like into a book. To tide over every problem I had ever had.

At some point, I had to wake up. I had to realize that problems weren't meant to be tided over, but to be solved. It became irrefutably evident that there was a world I had ignored and was left out of because all this time, I was busy reading books.

Maybe I blamed the sting of adolescence on the balm of my childhood. The dream world dissolved into a planet I could not comprehend or control.

But really, I need that dream world back. My armor against everyday life. Actually, not armor perhaps, but my balm.

Environmentalism

Judging by organizations like green peace and the pervasive belief in the stereotype of environmentally conscious beings as granola bar crunching, birkenstock wearing tree huggers, it's safe to say that Environmentalists are a very passionate, vocal bunch.

In my own experience, volunteering at the environmental center in NJ in high school, enviromental issues have inspired me to great passion. 

Now, nearly 8 years after that stint in the environmental center, I find myself on a train from Chennai to Bangalore. Near Vellore,  we passed what is now a common sight in rural India. A dry river bed. Bone dry. Vegetated by those familiar thorny bushes (which, incidentally,  are not a native plant but imported from Australia or some such country) , ridden with bullock cart tracks and marked by makeshift cricket pitches, deserted in the wake of the nation's victory last night.

Now this river bed is a 500 m stretch wedged in between 2 villages. Who knows for how many years its run dry?

I passed this scene in my ultra-modern (for India) air conditioned train in about 4 seconds, but it made an impression on me. It made me wonder why such obvious enviromental degredation and tragedy is largely neglected as an issue by the news media and general public?

I have a few thoughts - and normally this would be a full post but as I am posting this from my phone, I'll have to keep it short to keep from getting texters thumb.

1) The majority of the educated in India live the fast paced life of the urban dweller & havent seen enough of rural India and nature to realize what has happened
2) Unlike nations like the US, most of South India has been converted to settled lands years and years ago. There were no virgin forests in anyones recent written or oral histories, let alone videos or photographs. So people dont see the difference.
3) There is no culture of environmental appreciation. Even in the Ramayana, the forest was a place of hardship, trial and pennance home only to devout hrishis who spent their. time praying for release and fearsome. rakshashas. Compare this to the American celebration of the great outdoors, where hardship = the pioneering spirit and traditional. values.
4) We are a culture of society and not individuals. Where is the chance of Man vs.  Wild when he has his whole clan backing him to cut the wild to pieces.
5) The people who do live out in rural areas are so economically disadvanteged as to not give a shit. And I almost dont blame them.
6) Greenhouse gases, fossil fuel. shortages and carbon emissions steal the thunder off any other contemporary environmental issue. Regardless of immediacy or importance.

Texters thumb. Ouch. Comment & tell me what you think. Will make this. a real post later.

Horrible Little Guy

... So, I was Bored

Meh

So this is me reaching for me dreams. Albeit intermittently and liberally sprinkled with episodes of Project Runway, Modern Family and Off the Map.

I am really going to need help on this one. After 5.5 mind numbing years with 5 months total of vacation, this is the last thing I want to be doing.
The roaring 20s it is.

The process of being a doctor is hard and frustrating.

Grown Ups

(c)Bill Watterson

To think I've joined the exalted ranks of the grown up.

I think I'll just remain a kid inside.

They're far more sensible.