Absence due to PackRat

I've just encountered the most addictive (for me) game on the internet. I was luring my friends to play with me but, now, I'm afraid that it's a mean thing to do. Because I can't stop playing! It's PackRat. It's part of facebook. I love it. I guess when I love things, I frequently obsess about them, but this is getting out of hand. I play at night, on weekends, all the time. I dream about it.
Let me explain: The game involves trading cards and "stealing" cards from your friends. Here's what the cards look like. You start out with a hand of cards and you try to make collections. The pictured cards are all in the "Sleep Tight" collection, as indicated by the icon in the bottom left corner. The bottom right corner is the value of the card so a high-value card can easily be swapped for a low value card but not vice versa. When you accumulate "credits," you can buy cards from "The Market." Like Barack Obama's and my approach to foreign relations, the best case scenario appears to be for everyone to team up and help each other. As far as I can see, cut-throat, every-player-for-herself PackRat hurts everyone (like my opinion on foreign relations).

So, you can only play with people who are your facebook friends. Consequently, since most of my friends don't play, I started asking the other players to be friends with me. This has turned out well in one instance. The friend who invited me and my one new friend help me get the collections that I need and I help them when I can (infrequently because, the longer you play, the easier the game gets for you, for several reasons). Also, I help the new friends I've lured on, in an attempt to encourage them to play, which helps me. In two instances, my random PackRat friends have turned out to be busts. One girl didn't know how to be courteous, I suspect. The other is a raving lunatic. Now, I didn't realize, at first, that you only screw yourself by being discourteous because, then, the things you are trying to collect get stolen and you have to keep them locked up tight, difficult for a newbie. So, I behaved badly and stole things from the lunatic. When my kindly friends explained to me how to play, I went back and apologized to the lunatic player. She snapped at me in return, lying, and telling me that that was the last card she needed to complete her collection. Also, she broke one of my locks (believe me, this isn't nice). Well, you can see the "vaults" of your friends, so I knew that she was lying about the card I had taken being the last one she needed and I found her a card that she needed, even though I couldn't find the one I had stolen. So, days pass and she seems okay. Until, at some point last night, the crazy lady decided that I was taking cards from one of her collections without asking. (By the way, I wasn't!) So she broke three of my locks and stole one of the cards that's really hard to make! Crazy! I de-friended her. It turns out that randomly picking packrat friends is not ideal.

Long story short, I've been thinking about this nasty packrat player all day. As soon as I de-friended her, I couldn't leave her any messages. So, I'm regretting that I didn't explain before I left that I hadn't taken any of her f-ing cards. Also, by the time she vandalized me, I had gotten a connection, via one of my other friends, to replace the card I had stolen. Maybe this doesn't makes sense, because I'm so comfortable with the lingo that I haven't explained things but the moral is that I have become totally overcome with this game, to the point that it is the primary drama in my life. I have written no blog entries in almost two weeks and now the only thing I can talk about is the lunatic packrat player. I walked to the bathroom (a long walk in my building) going over and over in my head what I should have said, before defriending the packrat player, and how that really would have shown her that she had made a mistake in treating me so badly. Crazy. I am totally crazy.

Depression as Mere Sadness

This article on depression was in the new york times today. The guy, in the end, decides that it is better to play it safe and assume that people are actually telling the truth and feeling overwhelmed with their sadness, than it is to try the "buck up little camper" approach to psychiatric treatment. I think that this is a very kind position to take. I feel that i have been in both situations, those in which I needed to just get out and get some more exercise and try a little positive thinking, and those, like now, when I'm feeling totally powerless and victimized in my job, in which I need some professional supervision to be sure that I don't veer into the dark beyond. I have never been to the dark beyond. I can only imagine that the severe depression that I have sensed, lurking at the edge of my psyche, must be nothing short of hell. I have heard people say that they have shock therapy to end depression because, even though it's excrutiating, and only works for a short time, these people would do anything to lift the veil of their depression. I have no reason not to believe these people.

I don't know why there is so much "suck-it-up" sentiment going around all the time. People seem to be very un-sympathetic these days. Why do they even care so much? There are people with very strong opinions about how depressed people just need to direct their feet to the sunny side of the street. I guess I'm somewhat un-sympathetic to people who constantly miss work and have a zillion excuses. I think that it's because I hate having to show up on time and do things and I don't think anyone else should get out of it, if I have to do it. So, maybe that's it. Maybe, when times are tough, people get angry. They are having to suck it up so they don't see why they should make allowances for other people. But why are they so hard on the depressed? The depressed are not asking for anything from the critical people. And why would the critical people think that someone would choose depression? I have a friend who had a wife with severe morning sickness. In the third month of this poor woman throwing up every second, at the drop of a hat, the friend told me that they had not believed pregnant women before. The friend wanted to stress to me that morning sickness was very serious and that I should believe him on that. I was not surprised. I believed that it was terrible before. I had been told that it involved a lot of vomiting. And I've vomited before and it sucks. And no one would do it voluntarily, without some sort of psychosis. Do you know what's worse than vomiting? The feeling you have when you know you're going to vomit. And when that lasts a long time and you don't actually throw up but you don't feel like you can go anywhere far from the toilet because you can't tell... You know what can be worse than that? Never-ending depression. People need to stop being dickheads and just believe that it's real. What damage is done if they believe it and they're wrong as opposed to the damage that's done when they deny people's pain?

You, sir, are totally wrong!

I got sent an article (Schwartz. 2008. Journal of Cell Science. doi:10.1242/jcs.033340) which genuinely addresses how I feel, but only at the very beginning when the author is quoting someone else:

I recently saw an old friend for the first time in many years. We had been Ph.D. students at the same time, both studying science, although in different areas. She later dropped out of graduate school, went to Harvard Law School and is now a senior lawyer for a major environmental organization. At some point, the conversation turned to why she had left graduate school. To my utter astonishment, she said it was because it made her feel stupid. After a couple of years of feeling stupid every day, she was ready to do something else.

As soon as the author starts talking, he starts getting it all wrong. Here's his thesis:

I’d like to suggest that our Ph.D. programs often do students a disservice in two ways. First, I don’t think students are made to understand how hard it is to do research. And how very, very hard it is to do important research. It’s a lot harder than taking even very demanding courses. What makes it difficult is that research is
immersion in the unknown. We just don’t know what we’re doing. We can’t be sure whether we’re asking the right question or doing the right experiment until we get the answer or the result. Admittedly, science is made harder by competition for grants and space in top journals. But apart from all of that, doing significant research is intrinsically hard and changing departmental, institutional or national policies will not succeed in lessening its intrinsic difficulty.

And here's what I'd like to say: I think that my PhD program has not only given me a very clear idea of how hard it is to do research, I think that my PhD program has given me a very clear idea of how hard it is to maintain one's sense of worth while being constantly surrounded by people who think they are more valuable and worthwhile than you are simply because they have earned a PhD, or a faculty position, or a nobel prize or whatever. I think that my PhD program has also given me a clear idea of how hard it is to work inside of a hierarchical profession, dominated at the top by men, which inherently refuses to recognize new ideas while they are still new. Also, a profession which maintains its own sanctity and value to the point that anyone who seeks to criticize the system (e.g., the smart woman that is the subject of this man's essay) is labelled as one of the outside intruders who never understood or cared enough about its basic tenets. Let's all recall the Harvard incident. To me, this is the perfect example, not just of sexism in science but of non-science-ism. Scientists who have been successful seem to absolutely refuse to admit that anything could ever be wrong with the great institution of science. It's got to be the fault of the person rejecting science. There is no other option. Science is sacred, science is holy, science is exactly as it was intended to be by its maker, hold on, I mean by the big bang...or evolution...or whatever...

Registering a complaint

I would like to contest the notion that this is the way that any period in anyone's life should look. For the past, oh, 7-8 months, maybe longer, I have spent approximately 1-2 days per week bolstering myself from a collapse. So, about 1-2 days per week for the past 7-8 months I become so discouraged and disempowered that I either sit at my desk and cry or go into the stairwell near my office to sit on a step and convince myself that it's not a good idea to walk away without this God forsaken degree under my belt. I know that, if I were to have walked away, at any of these points, I would have always thought that I was very close and shouldn't have walked away. The problem is that, at any of these points, had I known how far away I actually was, I may have made a different decision. I am not almost finished. I just have a carrot stuck out on a stick in front of my face.

So, the reason for launching into this thesis/theorem is that, when I sort of point this out to other academics I get some version of the following: "That's just how it is. I remember when I was finishing my thesis, my boss took a 1-year sabbatical and I just had to sit and wait for him to come back." or, "That's how it is. My boss gave me and my coworker the same project and then, when she complained that I was about to publish the same work that she had done, he told me to drop it and do something else, when I was ready to publish and she was just getting started." or, "That's how it is. My finger tips turned blue and I couldn't stop shaking for the last three months of my PhD."

Here's my assertion: This is not okay. People should not have their spirits broken/dreams trampled/lives dismantled in order to prove their desire to be an academic. This rite of passage is absurd, whether it happens to everyone or not. What if I were to die tomorrow? I would have nothing to show for all this hard work and my achievements would get me nothing at the pearly gates. I have improved no one's life, as far as I can tell. I have saved no babies, I have soothed no wounds, I have done squat but knock myself out for someone who has placed me firmly at the bottom of his priority list. So, what? Nothing. No one cares. I can't even think of a conclusion for my rant. Life's not fair. Suck it up. Fish or cut bait. If I don't like it, I can leave, that sort of thing. It's the best I can come up with. Hopefully I'm wrong about that pearly gates business and there is someone around me somewhere who has benefitted from my sunny disposition. Do you know what else I've noticed, in terms of my contribution to the planet? I park badly. I'm one of the people who doesn't seem able to position her car between a pair of white lines. I look around myself in the parking deck and everyone seems to be better at this than I am. I think I may also be a somewhat distracted driver. Great. I'm part of the problem. That's not what I wanted for my life.

Tiny piece of the "liberal blogosphere"

With my little patch of blogosphere, I just have one thing to say again: I don't think Sarah Palin is all that bad. Maybe it's because I'm not on the fence but I don't care about her missteps. I don't care that she dodged a question about the Bush doctrine and I don't think that her nomination is a farce or an insult to the country. I think she's a good vice-presidential running mate for John McCain. I think she was a strategic wild card pick but I think it was smart and I think they filled in a gap in John McCain's image. I strongly, strongly disagree with her politics. This is how I know she's good for the republicans. Also, I love Barack Obama and I don't care very much who's running against him. Also, I'm really glad to have someone whose wide open platforms I am free to strongly disagree with. NO, don't go to war with Russia! NO, don't drill in ANWR! NO, I do not support your boot-strap health care philosophy! NO, NO, NO! But, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I feel so much better having someone I can actually understand. I can sort of see why a person who is wrong about political matters might like the McCain/Palin ticket. I have no idea why so many people continue to support GWB and it scares me and makes me feel threatened.

I was super frustrated yesterday morning because there was this awful circular debate about the Iraq war with the guy who wrote some book...hold on...Oh, man, I knew I recognized that guy! It was fucking Newt Gingrich! So, he's talking to Matt Lauer, of all people, about the Iraq war. And Matt Lauer points out something about how Sarah Palin strongly implied that her son is going to fight the people who made the September 11th attacks even though that's not true. And Newt Gingrich was like, "Well you're talking about the 2002 world. We're talking about the world as it is now. Al Qaeda is in Iraq now." I mean, I drooled coffee onto my shirt, my jaw dropped so dramatically. I'm not sure I'm eloquent enough to point out how this very argument illustrates how I've felt for the last eight or so years but here goes: The conservatives are now spitting and spoofing at the liberals for not understanding how NOW Al Qaeda is in Iraq, unlike in 2002. THIS, my friends, is EXACTLY what we understand! Your boy took a place which, maybe wasn't Disneyland, but wasn't filled with the people who had just attacked the USA, and he turned it into a safe place for Al Qaeda. George Bush gained ground for the people who launched the September 11th attacks! You're telling ME this? You're telling me? Seriously? You're the one who still supports this bozo! And then, (hold on, I need to breathe...inhale, exhale) And THEN I was listening to some stupid conservative radio morning show DJs talking about how liberals are always asking them what they see in Sarah Palin. And they're like, "You look up her voting record. I'm satisfied. I don't need to see what she's done." Hold on, I'm not the one voting for this lady! You...I mean I...I mean YOU...I am not asking because I want to know. I'm asking because I want to see that you know. And you don't! And they're like, "You big city boys ain't gonna trick me! I'm not doin' the dirty werk for ya! Yew look up what she stands for. I am votin' republican!" Oh, for crying out loud! Like it's somehow un-republican to discuss issues. And that is exactly what the party has become for me. They are people who refuse to discuss things. They want to scream insults at me and tell me I'm unpatriotic and immoral and that I don't understand and they don't want to speak in words that have meaning. I'm an educated person who has been paying attention and I don't think that the economy seems to be responding well to the Bush strategy. If you have something to say that explains this, help me out. They don't want to hear my side of the story. They just want to roll their eyes and talk about the biased liberal media. And they're winning! There are tons of them everywhere and they're winning!

So, as I said, I watched the RNC and I heard the positions of McCain and Palin and, for the first time in a hundred years, it wasn't so much smoke and mirrors. There weren't people standing there telling me what I already knew and pretending it wasn't horrific and ridiculous. There were people standing there saying things that seem like things that reasonable people might say. Things that I disagree with, but things that turned into words which formed images in my mind that I could understand. Thank you. Thank you for stopping the onslaught of the crazy fireworks sleight of hand puppet show that has been the Bush administration. I appreciate an opponent that I can see with my eyes, hear with my ears, and understand.

4am and all's we-ell

I'm sitting in my living room thinking about how it's a reasonable time for Emily to be awake and that she's probably at work being productive. I, on the other hand, am angry about my terrible lack of restraint regarding the espresso machine that my boss recently installed in my office. I've decided, therefore, that I might be more productive at work tomorrow if I blog now. I'm going to blog about the things that are running 'round and 'round in my mind:

(1) I never did like that Terri character on Project Runway and she was especially appalling this episode and I'm glad she's gone, even though her designs were often good, that drag queen outfit for example. On the other hand, I enjoyed silly little Blayne and I feel sad about his feeling slapped in the face. On yet another hand, Blayne's avant garde project was terrible. Terrible.

(2) Keith talks like a victim and annoys me so I don't feel sorry for him. I just dislike Terri over all. If I had gotten teamed up with Keith, I might not have wanted to work with him either. So whiney and demanding. Also, I find him sexist.

(3)...if you want me to, I could hang 'round with you if I only knew, that's what you're into...




(4) The points I intend to cover in my discussion section are as follows......hold on, if I rearrange the section about clone libraries, I can add a section about community analysis...wait, the discussion is already too long...maybe I'll take out the clone libraries all together...etc.

(5) I think maybe I should work outside of the office so that the new students will be forced to make appointments with me, rather than popping into my office at random moments and asking questions. On the other hand, it's nice to have the things I need on hand when I need them. On the other hand, being away from that blasted coffee machine couldn't hurt. Also I wouldn't be distracted by/constantly distracting my office mates. But, tomorrow, I have lab work to do so I have to go in tomorrow...then, Friday, I was going to go to the vortex for lunch. Maybe I could meet everyone there. Wait, did I say next Friday? I think I'm going out of town...

So, i think that this is standard insomnia crap. Song stuck in head, work concerns, over-thinking the last TV show I watched. Often, when I can't sleep, I also think about current events so it's nice to not have any of those lodged in the rotation. Although, now that I've reminded myself, I may rotate in some Sarah Palin material.

I'm going to go back and see if I can grab a couple hours before the alarm goes off...

For the sake of continuity...

I don't know if anyone would miss my blog if it were gone but, just in case, I'm trying to keep it going even though, today, I have very little to say. I am hating politics now because it's gone to the bad place, as we all knew it would. Things are vague again and difficult to understand and people are saying things that I can't figure out. I liked the days of the convention when people were being nice to each other and saying really exciting and hopeful things about the future of our country. Now people are cynical again. Also, I watched the RNC to sort of make sure I knew what was going on on that side and now I'm angry at my liberal friends who made no effort to find out what John McCain said. Especially when they're sort of going on and on about how whatever he is. Oh, right, what the democrats said, how just like GWB he is. Also, the internet gossip issues are pissing me off. I want to take people at their word and then just, everybody decide, based on the issues. But, I guess if I'd done that in the last couple of elections, I would have wanted to support the troops and be a good American without noticing that there was a puppet show going on to distract me from the fact that the government was being systematically handed over to extremely wealthy business owners. Damned oligarchy.

This is reminding me of the time my lesbian friend was going to protest Dr. Laura's show coming to the Baltimore radio station nearby. I asked her why she didn't like Dr. Laura and she said that it was because "She thinks I'm going to hell!" I pointed out to my friend that Dr. Laura is jewish and doesn't believe in hell, per se. I also pointed out that, if someone asked later, she should say that Dr. Laura doesn't think she, a lesbian, is a fit parent. The friend said that she didn't care about that because she didn't want children. Then she continued to the protest. I think I'm probably just as guilty of having half-information about issues as the next person but I wish we could all discuss things together. I wish we could stop knee-jerk hating one another. I also wish that I could understand other people better. I wish I didn't feel so angry when people oppose me. My husband says I'm not allowed to keep up with politics anymore because it makes me angry and shouty and interrupt-y. So, there you go. I'm both sides of this coin. I think I shouted at him and interrupted when he was explaining that he didn't see McCain's speech but that...I don't know what he was going to say next...

The difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull--lipstick

So, having listened to the speech today, I feel that I was right about Palin's version of feminism. I really think she's making the Republican ticket harder to beat. Small town people are going to love this lady. Hell, I like her and I really really hate her politics.

the Bechdel Rule

I didn't know about this rule but I like it. I heard about it on npr last night. It says that one doesn't watch a TV show or movie unless it passes three criteria: (1) At least two female characters, who ... (2) talk to each other about. (3) something besides a man. The person giving the report recommended a show called the Middleman on ABC family. I'm going to start watching the Middleman. I think that the Gilmore Girls passes the Bechdel Rule. What about the Geddans rule which requires: (1) At least two nonwhite characters in the main cast ... (2) in a show that's not about race. Yes, right? Lane Kim and Michel?

So, next the commentator/blogger asks us for our own rule and one person said they would like to see a gay character who: (1) doesn't die and (2) wasn't molested as a child. I would say that I would like to see show which takes place in the south and: (1) sometimes includes winter and (2) isn't about racism...(3) or the Civil War.

Death to the family

I'm investigating conservative feminism because this is the label associated with Sarah Palin. Initially, when someone said something like, "What do you think of McCain's pick? A conservative feminist, should be interesting." My initial reaction was, "Conservative feminist? WTF is that?" Days passed and I started to do my global learner skimming of what is said about Sarah Palin. I'm getting an image in my mind now of what I think a conservative feminst must be, based on the description of the Alaskan maverick vice-presidential candidate with five children, the youngest of whom has Down's Syndrome. The conservative feminist, I have gathered, is one of these wild west-type women with a big gun. I have to say that I like this idea.

I read a Louis L'amour short story about a woman who had lost her husband and was living alone in "Indian territory" with her five children. The male protagonist sort of happens upon her and narrowly avoids being shot. Another woman like this is the love interest of Dustfinger in the book Inkspell. I know, from my Halloween costume fiasco, that this reference will be lost on everyone but the idea is the same. Woman living alone because of the death of her husband, left to care for her children the best she can. Makes a living by the sweat of her brow and defends her children tooth and nail. All the men in the village call her derogatory things like, "firecracker" and "a real pistol" but it doesn't matter. She is what she is. I'm loving this new idea and so I started to look up "conservative feminism." Here's the sort of thing I found:

Conservative feminism criticizes the feminism which "adopts a male model of careerism and public achievement as female goals, thereby denying women's need for intimacy, family, and children." They fear that "equality means death to the family." They often reject the popular feminist epigram, "the personal is political."

What!?! This woman has been nominated as a candidate for vice president of the United States. Talk about the "male model of careerism and public achievement," that can't be right. So, then I found Margaret Hoover's description:

I am a Conservative Feminist. This is a woman who will allow a man to take her to dinner, but will also at times, pick up the check. She knows she can open the door for herself, pay the dinner bill, put on her coat, order for herself, but remains unoffended by acts of chivalry on behalf of men. In fact, she encourages them as signs of respect– and who knows, someday she might actually need help with the door. Fortunately, she wont have been hardened by a lifetime of being too proud to accept the assistance.

Pfft! Are we seriously defining ourselves by how we behave on dates? I don't care how Ms. Hoover behaves on dates. How did she make it big in television and political talk culture? This may be what defines her feminism more than her preference for soup or salad. I guess that what we're talking about here is feminism that embraces femininity. And I guess that this is what Sarah Palin has done, in my brief experience. She was a beauty queen but then she became mayor of a tiny town and then governor of, square-foot-wise, the largest state in the country. I guess I'm having trouble seeing how that needs to be different from regular feminism...until it comes down to politics. Clearly these women are pro-life, but what else? Here's something from a website called "Rightgrrl!"

...spunky, calloused, informed, bold, and principled. A quick study of Palin news clips shows that she’s your typical conservative - more green than the Left would have you believe, pro-life even when tested, able to fire a gun, eager to drill domestically (especially in ANWR), tax shy, and pro military.

So, I think that these women are against the victimization mentality that some people associate with traditional feminism. (And, my experience with many Georgia Tech women is consistent with this particular theory.) I'm down with that. I'm totally into the tough debutant image. Love it, in fact. It's not me but it's fantastic. So, I guess that, in this case, the idea is that this woman is a feminist because she is. And that she's a conservative because she's free to think whatever way she wants. More power to her. We disagree and that's fine. I won't vote for her (or McCain) because I think there is too much at stake in association with our disagreements. But, at the same time, I'm going to argue with those who say that "conservative feminist" is an oxymoron, even though it was my initial knee-jerk reaction. What are we fighting for if it's not the right to move freely through life without the restrictions of our gender? If this woman wants to be wrong about politics, more power to her. I actually really like her, at this point. I'm not voting for her, but I like her. Bravo, John McCain. Way to make this an election that will be historic one way or the other. Also, maverick you and maverick Sarah Palin absolutely will shake up the right, even as you are forced to cow tow to your party. And that will be terrific. Hopefully you won't win, but, even if you do, let's kick the old tired politics in the ass. The media is against us but we can do it. We can talk about issues and brave ahead. Let them call you pretty. You are pretty. Also, you'll kick their sorry shriveled pasty asses if they cross you. Love it. Totally into it. Let the games begin!