Once Shy, Twice Bitten

"A friend's not a cheap little phony creep or a jerk trying to make a deal. A friend is a person who, most of all, cares about what you feel. And nothing is harder than learning a friend isn't real." -- Jason Robert Brown

Once upon a time, a prince from a faraway land was riding through the forest when he happened across a beautiful young maiden. She was weeping.

"Why are you crying, o fair maiden?" asked the prince. She showed him her hand, which was mangled and covered in blood. "I was feeding a beast and he bit me."

The prince unsheathed his sword. "Where did he run? I'll slay him!" he roared.

The maiden scrambled to her feet and clutched the prince's robes. "No, don't!" she pleaded, tears forming anew. "He's my friend, and he's been hunted and persecuted for so very long."

The prince gazed into her eyes, moved by the maiden's concern for the savage animal. He pried her uninjured hand from his chest and turned it in his own, examining it carefully. "Your skin is covered with scars. Are they all from him?"

"Yes. I keep feeding him and he keeps biting me."

"Why not just stop feeding him, then?"

"He's a beast, and biting is simply what beasts do. He still deserves kindness. I can't expect him to change his nature for me!"

The prince peered off through the trees. "Beasts can be tamed," he said. "He does have the ability to not bite the hand that feeds him, but he just won't show that courtesy to you." The maiden was silent. "Have you told him how much it hurts when he bites you?" asked the prince.

"All the time."

"Does he promise to stop biting you?"

"Always."

"Does he actually stop?"

"For a while. Then he bites me again. It seems like he forgets that I don't like being bitten. Either that or he doesn't realize how badly he keeps hurting me."

The prince ripped a strip of linen from his hem and began to bandage the maiden's hand with it. "In the faraway land where I was born, friends don't bite their friends," he told her. "Friends detest causing each other pain. You call your beast a friend, but remember: beasts aren't capable of compassion. In fact, it sounds to me like he thinks of you more as a meal ticket than a friend."

He bound off the linen in a perfect square knot, kissed it, and returned her hand with a rueful smile. "I'd tell you that your beast should be the one patching you up right now, but he clearly lacks the thumbs necessary for the task."

The maiden blushed. The prince gazed at her for a moment longer, then turned to mount his horse. "You deserve better than this, my dear," he told her as he gathered up his reins. He gave his steed a gentle nudge and it began to canter away.

With the prince's words fresh in her mind, the maiden sat to contemplate their conversation. She rose again, however, when the hoof beats of the prince's horse ceased. "Oh maiden?" the prince called over his shoulder. "A word of advice... forget beasts. Try for a prince next time." He winked and galloped off.

The maiden never bothered with animals again. And she met many wonderful princes who always treated her with the love and respect that a human deserves. And when the beast inevitably returned to her looking for another meal -- because, after all, he only ever sought her company when he was hungry -- she braised him in wine and baked him into a pot roast.

The End.

Stepford Made Simple

"I think you'll love hating this." -- Rutila

Yesterday morning, Rutila sent me this Brokelyn article with the above subject line. The piece outlines an unemployed woman's tips for being a successful stay-at-home girlfriend (with success defined solely in terms of keeping her boyfriend happy) and covers illuminating advice such as "keep the place clean," "keep yourself up," and "pamper him." And no, it's not satire.

As a modern woman who (I believe) excels at being both a badass man's world fighter and an old-school domestic goddess, I was offended by the article. The author's stated mission to keep her boyfriend happy at all costs was disturbing and her "tips" offered no practical advice for living on the cheap in NYC (which, funnily enough, is Brokelyn's mission). What bothered me most, though, was her assertion that her boyfriend should be allowed to leave his dirty laundry on the floor because he's a working man and doesn't have time to pick up after himself. I joked to Rutila that I should write my own list of tips in retaliation, but I let it drop when half of the internet beat me to the punch in criticizing the article and its author.

However, as the hours passed and my thoughts marinated, the idea seemed more and more attractive. The author of the original article may have missed the point with her list of "tips," but that doesn't prohibit me from sharing what I've learned about how to be both a workaholic and a Stepford Wife. These aren't orders or demands; they're just the time-saving things I've done to keep my home neat, and hopefully they'll be useful to someone out there. Thus, I present my personal pointers for...

How to Work 10 Hours A Day and Still Have Enough Time to Cook Dinner, Groom Yourself, and Not Leave Crap on the Floor of Your Apartment


1. Keep the place clean.


There's no need to ever throw laundry on the floor. Keep a hamper with three compartments -- one for whites, one for colors, and one for delicates -- near your usual changing area. Feel free to keep the lid open if you want to lob your clothing across the room instead of walking it to the hamper. Install a hook or keep a shelf for items that can be worn again before being laundered.

Keep side towels in the kitchen and in the bathroom. Get water, crumbs, or makeup on a surface? Wipe it up with a side towel as soon as it happens and toss it in the laundry once it gets skanky.

Stash a Swiffer sweeper in a corner and run it over your floors once every few days. I'm a long-haired woman who sheds, so this is quite necessary.

Taking off your shoes as soon as you enter your apartment keeps your floors cleaner AND ensures that all your shoes stay in one spot.

Keep a tray or dish on your desk, your coffee table, or any surface where small items usually accumulate. Let your small items accumulate in the tray instead of all over the surface.

If you don't have time to make your bed with meticulous precision each morning, invest in a thick comforter. It takes fifteen seconds to toss it over your bed and straighten it out immediately after you wake up each morning, and if your sheets are a little rumpled underneath, no one will be able to tell.


2. Cook dinner.


I can fill a hundred blog posts with cooking tips alone, so I'll stick to basics here. You'll save a ton of money and eat a lot healthier if you commit to cooking at least half of your meals. Learn how to steam, sautee, simmer, braise, toast, and roast. Learn how to make homemade stock. Learn how to handle a knife. Keep it simple and use fresh ingredients. Don't overseason.

Use fresh vegetables whenever possible, and buy them (and other perishables) as you need them to minimize waste. Since I'm in NYC and there's no shortage of supermarkets wherever I go, I usually make a couple of small trips each week instead of one big one. Get familiar with how long your perishables stay fresh, and if you buy a whole head of broccoli or a dozen eggs, make an effort to plan a few corresponding meals within their usable time frames to avoid having to throw anything away.

Make a habit of preparing a little more of each meal than you need so you have leftovers for a second meal (or lunch the next day). Keep a cabinet of food storage containers and portion out your leftovers for refrigerating or freezing.

Every time you buy bagels, bread, or rolls, put a few slices in the fridge for immediate use and freeze the rest. It'll last forever. Thaw in the fridge or toast directly from the freezer before eating.

Buy meat and fish in bulk. Before you freeze it, portion out the pieces into single servings and individually wrap them in plastic. On that note, almost any perishable item can be frozen for later use if you know you won't be able to use it fresh before it goes bad; just Google the best way of doing it.

Learn how to cook an entire meal using as few pots and pans as possible, and learn how to prep an entire meal with an 8'' chef's knife (tip for the small stuff, base for the large stuff). And make a habit of washing up while you're cooking... especially in terms of dirty dishes. When you're finished with an item, don't put it in the sink -- wash it out and reuse it, put it away, or place it in the dishwasher. There's no greater pleasure than to not have to deal with a sink full of dishes after dinner.

Wipe down your cooktop and counters after every single use. A little wipe goes a long way.

3. Keep yourself up.

Set aside some time on the weekend to iron all your clothes for the next week. This is what I do while I'm catching up on my week's worth of recorded TV shows.

Perfect a five-minute makeup routine. I cannot stress this enough.


4. Tackle bigger jobs on the weekend.


Set aside a few hours hours on Saturday or Sunday for things that can't be done during your daily routine. The trick is to multi-task by layering activities that require short bursts of energy over activities with lots of down-time. Throw your laundry in the washing machine (which shouldn't take long because, owing to your hamper, it's already presorted), then head back to your apartment and take half an hour to wash or vacuum your floors. Clean your bathroom while your clothes are in the dryer. Dust and make the bed while stuff is in the oven. Iron while your floors are drying and your freezer is defrosting.

5. Pamper your guests and cohabitants... but stay true to yourself.

Since keeping things clean and whipping up quick meals for yourself is a no-brainer at this point, feel free to extend the same courtesy to your houseguests. Only if you want to, though. Don't be a doormat; your houseguests shouldn't expect you to clean up after them and any blogger or article that says differently shouldn't be believed. It's not your job to cook or clean for anyone other than yourself (as long as kids aren't in the equation) unless you're happy and willing to do so. Keep a clear head, don't let anyone guilt you into pulling their weight for them, and compromise is key.

An Open Letter to the Upper East Side After A Snowstorm

"Hardly dashing through the snow because I bundled up too tight." -- The Waitresses

Uggs are not snow boots. They are not waterproof and they have no traction. If you move unnaturally slowly and keep falling over yourself because you insist on wearing them, don't look insulted when I scoot past you on the sidewalk.

Rubber rain wellies are not snow boots, either. I thought this would be obvious, especially considering how loudly you were screeching "OMG my toes are COLD!" in the middle of the street. I know some companies make cold-weather inserts for them; perhaps you should invest.

I've ranted about this in the past, but I'll say it again: you do not need an umbrella in the snow. Snow is the solid form of water, so if it lands on you, brush it off. All an umbrella does is impede the visibility of the person standing behind you, i.e. me, and make already treacherous conditions more dangerous for everyone around you.

I understand you're young and in love. But walking side by side and hand in hand during rush hour after a blizzard isn't a good idea, especially when the shoveled path through the snowdrifts on most sidewalks is only a foot and a half wide.

Dogs do not need sweaters. They manufacture their own sweaters. However, if you insist on putting a sweater on your dog and said dog sits in the middle of the sidewalk trying to chew the sweater off instead of doing its business, "I wonder why he's doing that...?" isn't a bright observation.

Yes, I'm aware that you own a darling mom-and-pop establishment that, by some miracle, has stayed open for sixty years in a tough retail neighborhood. Good for you, and kudos on beating the odds! However, you have no excuse not to shovel your damn sidewalk. If the tiniest old woman I've ever seen has enough strength to sling snow around outside that deli on 74th St., you can certainly do the same.

If your awning collapses onto the sidewalk under the weight of all that snow, drag it to the curb so people can pass. Scaling the thing and vaulting myself over the top, mountaineer-style, isn't on my list of things I like doing at 7:30 in the morning. And circumnavigating your garbage involves walking in the street -- and puts me directly in the path of the oncoming M15.

And speaking of the M15, don't feel bad about taking photos of the three buses stuck in the snow in the middle of the 68th St. intersection. It's hilarious. One of the bus drivers chilled in his seat eating pizza and doughnuts for ten whole hours; I was watching from the window.

Lastly, stop blaming the Dept. of Sanitation for this mess. It's not their fault that a good chunk of their workforce was laid off and remaining staff members have to contend with restricted overtime.

Elements of Style

"Maybe it's been crazy and maybe I'm to blame, but I put my heart above my head. We've been through it all and you love me just the same." -- Neil Diamond

The fashion trends of spring 2010 need to die a quick, horrible death. But before I rant about why I can't walk into clothing stores without cringing any more, I need to define my own sense of style so you'll know where my feelings are coming from.

I have a typical southern European look -- dark hair, dark eyes, and an hourglass figure. Consequently, my current sense of style tends to recall the fashions worn by the women of classical Italian cinema. Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, and all of Fellini's women dressed themselves using a simple, flattering set of rules:

1. Wear curve-accentuating clothing to look sexy without showing too much skin.

2. Choose high-quality fabrics in classic silhouettes for a sense of timelessness.

3. Keep most of your clothing low-key and mix in a select few eye-catching elements. Use color judiciously to add dashes of drama.

4. Tailor your clothing to accentuate your best assets.

Though each of those women reached her prime more than fifty years ago, styles like theirs are visible on the streets of Rome to this day. The principles behind their fashions perfectly flatter women who look like me, and they're great guidelines for building a wardrobe that will transcend fads and pay for itself in the long run.

Their rules are amazing for me, in any case. I work in an environment where I need to dress conservatively, so looking good while keeping covered up has become an art form for me. My waistline is my favorite part of my body, so I like to show it off whenever I can. I buy quality items so they'll last me years. (Yeah, I indulge at H&M as much as the next woman, but I'd rather have one well-made Theory blouse than a dozen Abercrombie tees that will fall apart in the wash.) I wear a lot of black, grey and solid jewel tones because they complement my coloring, but I can never stay away from carefully chosen punchy accessories. I choose my skirt lengths, pants cuts, and shoe styles to provide the illusion of long legs and added height. And if something I own doesn't fit me perfectly, I get it tailored so it does.

So... what am I seeing when I go shopping lately? Neutrals and whites all over the place, which make me look pastier than I already am. Florals and big prints everywhere, which would be awesome if I didn't get lost in patterns. Blousy shirts and frilly dresses seemingly designed to hide the best parts of my body. Embroidery and fabric embellishments, which screw with my silhouette. Activewear, see-through shirts, and metallic lame, which look cheap and won't last me more than one season. Military jackets, which I've been wearing for years already. Clogs and Oxfords, which are ugly as hell. And, worst of all, SOCKS WITH HIGH HEELS, which is an easy way to make one's legs look six inches shorter than they really are.

Sophia would not approve. And neither do I.

Debug In Reverse Order

“Reaffirming and strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation is essential to meeting the challenges of this century. That’s why I am committed to making the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education over the next decade a national priority.” -- Barack Obama

Five year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because their parents and teachers don't make science fun.

Ten year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because that's not what the cool kids do.

Fifteen year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because their classes are too difficult.

Twenty year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because they realize that they can make three times as much money working in finance and consulting.

Twenty-five year olds stop pursuing STEM careers because the job market denies them opportunities to do so, despite the fact that they're fully qualified to work in science and love it enough to have stood by it for a quarter of a century.

I applaud the President's efforts to reform STEM elementary education and rehabilitate its image among children, but technical knowledge is worthless if those of us who are passionate enough about science to study it at the college level aren't encouraged or even allowed to exercise our skills in the workforce. I'll gladly use my engineering degree to help America meet the challenges of this century, but in return, I should be able to find a technical job in America without killing myself and, once I've got one, I should earn a salary that's not an insult to my level of expertise. Just a suggestion.

Leave Unsaid Unspoken

"Another day is going by. I'm thinking about you all the time. You're out there and I'm here waiting. And I wrote this letter in my head 'cause so many things were left unsaid." -- Simple Plan

A couple of years after she wrote I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith wrote a romantic comedy based on the novel. The play was produced in England in 1955, was poorly-reviewed by London critics, and has been out-of-print ever since. As a result, I paid entirely too much for an ancient old library edition in hopes of gaining a different perspective on my favorite novel. I received my copy yesterday and devoured it in two hours. The content was largely the same -- the plots are identical and 90% of the dialogue is lifted right out of the novel. There was one major change that I didn't entirely agree with, though.

The novel is driven by Cassandra's love for Simon. They're friends and intellectual equals, but their "relationship" only exists in Cassandra's head. No romantic notions (aside from one platonic kiss) are ever verbalized or made tangible, and it doesn't matter that we never find out what the hell Simon is thinking because Cassandra has completed her arc of personal growth.

The play is also driven by Cassandra's love for Simon, but since they don't really talk and they don't really connect, her love basically comes out of nowhere. Then, at the very end of the play, all of that unspoken amazingness I blogged about two weeks ago is replaced with this:


Yes, it's the ending that most readers long for, and it's an ending that makes sense given the rest of the play. However, it turns a beautiful, moving story into a mediocre romantic comedy. Cassandra still turns Simon down, but it's not powerful, not tear-inducing, and, frankly, not good. I'm taking the author's advice (and yes, she actually wrote this instruction in a preface) and I'm currently giving it a re-read. Hopefully that will help.

The House That Ruth Did Not Build

"Then the night turned cold, colder than the moon. The stars were white as bones. The stadium was old -- older than the screams, older than the teams. There were three men down and the season lost and the tarpaulin was rolled upon the winter frost." -- Paul Simon

Last Saturday afternoon, I paid my first visit to the new ballpark where the New York Yankees play their home games. I can't verbally call it (and won't refer to it in print as) "Yankee Stadium," which should give you an idea of how I feel about the place.

That sounds a little cruel. The Yankees' new home is a beautiful -- no, downright stunning -- ballpark. Photos of Yankees legends are plastered everywhere, most notably in the Great Hall (where soaring thirty-foot high banners portray the greats in black-and-white on one side and color on the other). The fair portions of the field are the same dimesions, even down to the short porch in right. The exterior is resplendent with gold leaf and shining white limestone and cathedral windows and looks like Yankee Stadium did before its 1975 renovation. The facade crowns the seats instead of the scoreboard and Monument Park has been restored to center field, just as they looked in 1923. Most of the dirt was carted over from across the street, so today's Yankees technically play on the same soil that Ruth and Gehrig and DiMaggio and Mantle did. The new ballpark is perfect, but nevertheless, it didn't feel right. I spent three hours sitting in a seat that's technically mine but felt nothing like my beloved Section 9, surrounded by forty thousand strong while a majestic deserted ballpark quietly rotted a few hundred feet away. I cheered and chanted and enjoyed the game, but I was always acutely aware that Yankee Stadium is supposed to sit on the opposite side of 161st Street.

The architects and designers of the new stadium tried VERY hard to pay homage to the history of the Yankees, but at best it all seems a bit cartoonish and at worst it feels like a slap in the face. To illustrate the former, consider that the foul territory has been cut in half to bring expensive seats closer to the diamond, the cathedral-esque exterior hides a shopping concourse, the gleaming white facade hangs over "cheap seats" that have been halved in quantity, and Monument Park is hidden under a corporate-branded sports bar.

I'll use a longer example to illustrate that slap in the face. When Thurman Munson, the famed catcher and former captain of the Yankees, died halfway through the 1979 season, none of his teammates could bring themselves to clean out and reassign his locker. It sat in the clubhouse untouched, looking exactly as it had the last time Munson hung up his jersey, for the remainder of that season... and the season after that and the season after that. For the next thirty years, Munson's locker was only disturbed for cleaning; the clubhouse was renovated around it, lockers were assigned and deserted and reassigned without heed to it, and subsequent Yankees captains were relocated to the locker next to Munson's. It was a private tribute made and maintained by those who shared a special bond with Munson, whether by friendship or by the ties of pinstripes. But when the Yankees moved across the street after the 2008 season, Munson's locker had to be moved as well.

The current captain of the Yankees dresses next to an empty locker before every home game, but it's not Munson's. The space adjacent to Derek Jeter's locker stands empty as a tribute to all lost legends... while Munson's locker stands upstairs in a museum, encased in glass, visible to fifty thousand people a day.

It's a perfect microcosm of everything that's wrong with the stadium itself. My Yankee Stadium, with its rickety frame and uncomfortable seats and peeling paint and quirks and nuances and undeniable baseball magic, has been replaced with a Stepford Wife fascimile and put on display for the world to gawk at. The Yankee Stadium I called home may not have had cathedral windows, but I worshipped there for fifteen years, poured hundreds of prayers into those walls, and emerged with just as many secrets and divine inclinations.

I'll get used to it eventually. I'll keep going to the games, and as my time spent in section 211 starts to approach my time spent in Section 9, I'll start to build a new set of memories to cherish and a new set of prayers to live by. But last Saturday, for the first time in my life, I sat in Yankee Stadium and felt homeless.

The Price of Kindness

"Stores are never nice to people. They're nice to credit cards." -- Edward Lewis

I'm cautious by nature and I have New York sensibilities, so I'm instantly suspicious when strangers are kind to me for no apparent reason. What? I was raised to believe that a random person -- the type I meet once and will likely never meet again -- will never go out of his way to endear himself to me unless he can get something out of it, and with few exceptions, that has held true throughout my life. This intrinsic distrust of human intentions especially extends to two groups of people: gorgeous men and salespeople, and since the former can easily spawn half a dozen blog entries on its own, I'll only be discussing the latter today.

I've done a lot of shopping and worked a little retail in my time, and I've developed a few prejudices from my experiences:

• In an H&M or Old Navy, I don't expect the sales help to ever acknowledge my presence.
• In an Ann Taylor or Express, I expect one greeting and maybe one check-in if I'm not well-dressed. If I am well-dressed, I expect a couple of check-ins, a little help finding sizes, and minimal fitting room support.
• In a J. Crew or Banana Republic, I expect to be ignored if I'm not well-dressed. If I am well-dressed and I show genuine interest in full-price items, I expect a warm greeting, lots of check-ins, and lots of schlepping of items to and from the fitting room. If I am well-dressed and I show more interest in the clearance rack than the full-price items, I expect to be ignored after this becomes apparent.
• In an Abercrombie, Hollister, or Pac Sun, I expect to be treated as if I am not cool, trendy, and/or hip enough to set foot in the place. I do not shop in these stores by my own choice. If someone drags me to one and I am treated nicely by the sales help, there is no doubt in my mind that they're making fun of me while I'm not looking.

My expectations also vary based on location -- I generally expect non-Manhattan salespeople to be nicer to me than Manhattan salespeople. (Perpetually nasty Roosevelt Field Mall employees are the exception.)

Anyway, I've enjoyed two surprisingly pleasant shopping experiences lately and the events left me feeling so happy about life that I have to share them here. The weekend before last, I wandered around a J. Crew aimlessly for a while, collecting various items off the sale racks, when a very perky blonde lady approached me and asked if I needed any help. Before I knew it, the items in my hands were placed in a fitting room reserved for my use, she was suggesting jeans for my body shape and helping me choose sizes and colors, and she continued to help me and give me clothing advice and bring me new pieces despite the fact that a line of people now waited for fitting rooms. The lady working the cash register didn't ask me for the name of my attendant, but I gave it to her anyway along with a few words of praise.

I went shopping and was shocked by good service once again today -- only this time, I was in SoHo and decided to browse around Uniqlo after remembering that my cousin once got an enviable pair of jeans there. I found a style of dark denim I liked, pulled a 2, 4, 6, and 8 off the shelf (which I always do, and which usually pisses off salespeople immensely), and entered the fitting room. The attendant smiled, encouraged me to take as long as I needed, and told me to come out and let her examine the fit of the jeans once I determined my size. The second I pulled open the curtain, the attendant swooped over, checked that the waistband didn't gap, and dropped to one knee to pin my hems to the correct length. She then informed me that, should I choose to purchase the jeans, the store would alter them to fit my body... free of charge. "So bring these up front to the register, go get yourself some lunch, come back here with your receipt in about two hours, and they'll be ready for you."

I was stunned; this was a relatively inexpensive store and these were forty-dollar jeans, for heaven's sake! I asked more questions in search of a loophole or a catch -- and I found none. Turns out that the company believes that every single one of their customers should walk out of the store with clothing that fits their body as perfectly as possible. Thus, they offer free fitting and same-day tailoring on every pair of pants they sell.

Not only is it amazing customer service -- my jeans fit perfectly right out of the shopping bag, which NEVER happens to me -- but it's a fantastic business model. I'm sharing the news with anyone who will listen, and I'm planning on going back tomorrow morning for some colored denim that I can pass off as work pants!

College Confidential

"Progress and changing, growing then giving up. Somehow, we're never quite prepared, but I understand it. When you need a friend, you could count on anyone. But you know I'll defend the tragedy that we knew as the end." -- Brandi Carlile

Classes are back in full-swing at the metropolitan arm of the Ivy League, and for the first time ever, my days of attending them (or dreaming about attending them) are behind me. It's a surreal enough feeling that all of my friends seem to be blogging about it, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring as well.

In terms of academics, I was damn proud to call myself a biomedical engineer when I started college and I'm damn proud to call myself a biomedical engineer today. I loved nearly every aspect of what I studied, my courses spoiled The Mad Scientist part of my personality rotten for years, and I can't wait to return to my roots to truly work as a BME someday. Yeah, it would have been nice to have some time to take some art classes or finish my English minor or actually breathe during college, but I can't even entertain the thought of studying something else now that I know what I'm capable of surviving. I'm a BME now and forever... I'm just doing something else for a living until the world catches up with me.

My college extracurriculars followed the same pattern as they did in high school: I started off with a few carefully chosen organizations, then all of a sudden and with no recollection of how it happened, I found myself involved in everything. I loved being involved in as much as humanly possible, though -- I'd rather not sleep than see something pass without my input -- so no hard feelings there.

I dreaded living on my own before college -- after all, no one in my family ever has -- but now I can't wait to get back out there and reclaim my life again. I learned how to cook, how to iron, how to balance a checkbook, how to hold down a job and classes and still find time for play, how to eat for a week on twenty bucks, how to manage my time and a household. I started college a scared kid and left college a completely independent woman with a perfect sense of who I am and how I like to live. I never thought in a million years that I would ever make a good wife or a good roommate, but now I'm sure I would.

I'd like to say that I graduated with no regrets, but there are certainly a few things I would change if I could do it all over again. I wish I had made friends during my first two years of college; maybe I would have spent more nights out having fun and fewer nights alone and miserable in my dorm room. I wish I had formed study groups early on instead of trying to do every problem of every homework assignment by myself for three semesters; maybe my GPA would have been high enough to actually get into a Ph.D program right away. I wish I had the courage to act on my feelings when I found someone attractive; a few lives would certainly be different today. I try to tell myself that everything happens for a reason -- if life didn't play out the way it did, maybe I would have turned out less self-reliant, less respectable, less well-rounded, possibly pregnant. However, considering that the friends, coursework teams, and personal relationships I eventually made were all directly responsible for the awesomeness of the second half of my college experience, it's pretty easy to silence that voice of reason.

However, the fact remains: the second half of college, especially senior year, was AMAZING. The time since has been amazing as well (albeit in entirely different ways), mainly because the people I met and things I learned in school have carried over into my post-college existence. If college did nothing for me aside from decorating the set and populating the cast of characters of the sitcom of my life, that's more than enough to make it all worthwhile.

Bloodletting

"Have I lost my way? The path of least resistance is catching up with me again today." -- Brandi Carlile

Mom found a bunch of unused Barnes & Noble gift cards in my stash this morning and commented that I never read for pleasure any more. "I don't have time for it," I responded, and she shrugged. "You didn't have time for it. Now you do." Thus, for the first time in a year, I picked up a book that wasn't filled with medical diagrams and transport equations: Vincent Lam's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures. From what I gather after twenty pages, the book follows a group of people from pre-med classes through med school through their early years as doctors. And even though it's well-written and interesting, my ESC is acting up and preventing me from fully enjoying Lam's work.

"ESC" stands for "Engineering Superiority Complex," and you'll be hard-pressed to find an engineer who doesn't have one. In order to obtain our degrees, we had to study copious amounts of science and math. However, while pure scientists could ace their classes simply by memorizing their textbooks, we were forced to understand the material deeply enough to manipulate it, apply it, and use it to solve technological problems. Our GPAs end up lower than they should be as a result of this expectation, but we emerge from our studies with a deep appreciation for and innate knowledge of what makes science tick.

And maybe I'm doubly biased in this respect, but I think the most valid justification for the existence of ESC is the difference between bio/chem/neuroscience pre-meds and BME/ChemE pre-meds. At Columbia, engineers felt so much disdain for "normal" pre-meds that they avoided using the term on themselves; my friends would always say "I'm a biomedical engineer who is going to med school" instead of "I'm a pre-med" out of fear of incurring the unholy wrath of their fellow BMEs. Most med-school bound BMEs study biology by learning the concepts, their applications, and all of the math behind their every nuance. Most normal pre-meds memorize what they need to know to get into med school. And because the system is flawed and rewards regurgitation rather than passion, regurgitators ruin the curves in our classes and get into med school before we do.

This seems like a gross generalization, and I would readily admit it probably was one if I haven't seen it proven with my own eyes. In the last semester of my senior year of college, a few of those med school-bound BME friends of mine decided to take a normal pre-med physiology class, and because I had nothing better to do and could use the study time, I tagged along to their lectures. All of us had already taken two semesters of quantitative physiology as a BME requirement and expected the non-technical version to be a piece of cake. It was; the material required minimal complex thought and no computation. However, the normal pre-meds in the class often described it as "the hardest class I've ever taken in college." Moreover, every time the professor would ask a question that required any deductive reasoning, the normal pre-meds would recite the textbook and hope for the best. At least once a class, the following exchange would happen:

Professor: [asks a question]
Pre-med: [gives an answer]
Med school-bound BME: [nudges me and points to his class handout, where the pre-med's answer appears word-for-word]
Professor: [asks pre-med for clarification]
Pre-med: [pauses and re-phrases the regurgitated answer]

What prompted this rant? You see, in the first story of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, one character -- with a perfect GPA and an infallible studying technique -- gives a thoughtful, inquisitive, brilliant friend (who is failing his pre-med classes on grading technicalities) some advice:

"It's not that concepts are unimportant," Ming reassured Fitzgerald, "It's simply that they're not essential to scoring top marks."

If that seems ridiculous, it absolutely is. And yet that's the mindset of most of the people I know who are attending the country's top medical schools in the fall. It's sad and scary that America's med schools are filled with Mings while many of the Fitzgeralds in my life -- brilliant innovators and thinkers to whom I'd gladly trust my health and well-being -- struggled to even get interviews.



Pardon the rant; I have a lot of venting time on my hands, apparently. It's finally starting to dawn on me that, for the first time in years (and possibly my entire adult life), I have time to sit around and do nothing. Well, not nothing; I'm working on my pulp-comic cartooning skills, I made pizza from scratch today -- dough and all -- and grilled it on the barbecue, and I'm putting a dent in my KnitPicks laceweight sampler by making fingerless gloves, the finished one of which can be seen above. I'm not sitting in front of the TV for eight hours a day by any means, and yet I still feel like I'm wasting my time.