Biology is…

What a thing to see life march on so persistently in the haggard face of death.  The other day I held a beating heart on the tip of my little finger; watched it pulsate bravely on as if it was taking in powerful gulps of air, despite everything that should tell it otherwise.  A defiant reminder of the stunning complexity and sheer impossibility of our own existance and of the existance of all living things.

I won’t always be able to save lives but it will always be worth the try.  I can’t help but to feel that it is my duty to be a guardian of life, in some way.  I will probably always be pro-choice, and I will never become the animal rights activist that burns down labs to save the rats and frogs.  Or even be a complete vegetarian.  These are sometimes tough decisions to make, and tough opinions to defend.  But I do not believe this excludes me from attending to life with the same care, because I still ultimately always believe in the dignity that belongs to all life, whether it is a life fading away or a life that never fully was, or a life that will come to be.

When rat dissections came around I think I was supposed to be disgusted, plucking a tiny fetus from a pregnant female’s womb.  But no, it was incredible.  Every detail was there, when I had expected amorphous ugliness – four tiny perfectly formed paws, neat rows of indentations were whiskers were to one day grow, a tiny tail, with individual bones barely visible within.   It was stellar that an animal loathed every day, and destroyed in labs every day, was in reality, something that had come into the world with incredible precision and the utmost deliberateness. The finest details were as carefully wrought into the living matter of a rat as in ourselves by the delicate hands of nature.

When i see these tiniest of reminders of the soft boundary between ourselves and other creatures, my immediate sensation is a flowerchild-like oneness with the world.  It humbles me and venerates me at the same time, to feel connected with the smallest and most unappreciated creatures as well as the most complicated and intelligent creatures.  I feel life pulse through me, I see it pulse in a frog heart, and I feel it kick from the ouside of a mother’s belly.  It is one and the same and it flows between us.  I can’t hold it but fills me.   If it were a tangible entity I’d imagine it to be like water, pouring itself into different forms and one day leeching away, absorbed by something new.

Thanks, I am perfect, yes.

Non sequitor of the week from 2 high school age girls carrying huge abercrombie shopping bags onto the Muni:

Your nails are so perfect!

Are you hapa?

unhappy to be unhappy on a friday night.

Family

Mother, with your sleepyfaced surprise…

Brother = sheepish one-liners.

Cat: snubs me.

Father, your sweat and blood and malaria pills and 15 hour days sold for the taxes.

Celebritrashtalkin’

I gave up celebrity gossip blogs for Lent.   I feel a slight embarrassment in admitting that I spend time on these websites (I visit two) but in my defense I usually don’t know what most of these celebrities are famous for in terms of their actual work, since I only keep up with one TV show and rarely watch any movie thats not animated or about animals.   But I do have an interest in knowing who these people are since they seem to be so damn influential these days.

Anyways, here is an observation that I made.  Miley Cyrus, Disney star, constantly gets slammed for a) being “slutty” and  b) being kind of a spoiled brat  c) having big gums.  She’s 16.  Can we really blame her for making poor choices here and there?  I know that at 16 I was almost constantly thinking and saying bitchy things and even now I seem to constantly make poor choices.   I was also not very interesting to look at.  But because I’m not famous, I can be forgiven.  Yes, the girl is in the attention spotlight in front of millions of her young and impressionable pre-tween fans and should be a good role model.  But I feel sorry for her for a recent incident, that I think is getting deserved media attention:  Jamie Foxx recently said on his radio show that she should get gum transplants and hopes she gets chlamydia from a bike seat, and told her to go make a sex tape and do crack.  Isn’t this a bit disgusting and beyond childish for an older and succesful man to be saying about a teenager?  Someone who could be her father?  Jamie Foxx also has a daughter…  I could easily say that about her.  Anyone could.  And it’d be just as crude.

But here is something that really disturbs me: Chris Brown beats Rihanna, and yet somehow he makes an apology and thats about it.  He goes to court.  His commercial gets pulled.  But still, other celebrities said he should be forgiven, that he was young, that he made a mistake and apologized.  NO.  Chris Brown should be PUNISHED.  Chris Brown will probably come away from this unscathed, overall, even though he is a CRIMINAL.   And he hadn’t made any admission to what he did.  If you watch the Larry King interview he doesn’t admit that he abused (yes – ABUSED) Rihanna.  The only reason he feels bad is because he lost some money and the opportunity to sleep with someone popular in the industry.

When I was a mentor to a freshman in high school, my mentee was in L<3VE with Chris Brown, and so was her 4th grade sister and her high school cousins!  I do NOT want them forgiving someone like this anytime in their lives, someone who beats them or anyone else.  What a terrible example.  Kick this bastard off the air.  I don’t care if he has “talent” – he blew it.  One chance is more than most people get in the fame game.  Open up the market for someone who deserves to be there.

Susan Boyle

I, like many others, was shocked and thrilled when I saw Susan Boyle performing on Britain’s Got Talent.  She was either going to be amazing or painfully bad.  I’m glad she was amazing.  I don’t know why but there was something about it that made my day when I saw the performance.  People are not gifted because they are discovered, they are gifted because they were always that way.  Susan Boyle for the win!  I’ve never posted a link before…but huzzah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

but if you’ve heard that listen to some of her other performances. 

Rape

I was reading a story about a 13 year old girl who got raped.  She was being followed by a man for a few blocks, and finally asked a woman to help her.  The woman told her to “stay away from the man” and walked away.  A short while later, the man pulled her into the bushes where he raped her.

Another recent case that I saw a few weeks ago:  A young woman is in a subway station at night, when a man grabs her and began to rape her.  She cried out for help, seeing two subway attendants standing nearby, so the attendants nearby pushed their “help button” and waited and watched from inside their stands.

They waited and watched from their stands.

No one has to be a hero.  Or do they? I have to wonder why no one would help.  But its not uncommon.  The case of Kitty Genovese  is a classic example that comes up in every basic psychology and social psychology class.  Kitty Genovese was stabbed outside of her apartment complex – she screamed for help.  Many people heard her.  Even watched from the windows above.  And… no one called the police.  Her attacker left her and even with the immediate danger gone, no one came down to help.  So the man came back and stabbed her again.   And again.  It wasn’t until much later that someone called the police.

These are by no means the first cases like this, and although I wish the world were otherwise, they won’t be the last.  Why?  Sometimes people don’t feel responsible for the situation at hand.  Sometimes people feel they are doing all that they can.  The subway attendants pushed their help buttons – what else could they do without putting themselves in danger?  And other times, some people think, “someone else will take care of it”.

But is it right to take distance when someone is being brutalized?  Isn’t it our duty in some way, as citizens, to uphold the law, to protect the rights of others?  I suppose the most obvious argument is that you have the right to your own saftey, as well – so if you already called for help, you’ve done all you could to protect the victim, while keeping yourself safe.  But I can’t be satisfied with this – because I know that if I was about to become the victim of violent crime, I would hope passerby would help me.  I have always lived my life with the philosophy that in the end, you don’t really have anyone but yourself.  But in a desperate situation, who wouldn’t be praying for a miracle?

What is it in a person that makes it okay to be a witness, and not a hero?  No one has to be a hero, and I can’t predict how I would react to the same situation.  If I were strongly outnumbered – maybe I’d have no choice but to not help.  But it unsettles me all the same.  Are there still people out there who will help you if you scream?  Is it too trusting to think that someone might be able to at least call the ambulance the moment they see you?  Is it too much to ask someone to try to interrupt the situation when your own life is at stake?  When I read these articles I was not shocked.  But I was so disappointed that the present answers to my questions were not what I would hope to hear.

no titles

i’m a wrecking ball on the swing from the let go!

On Disabilities

This is for anyone who has ever asked me where I work on Sundays. Its something pretty personal but there are a lot of important things to say about it.

For almost over two years now, I have come to know a person who loves listening to Johnny Cash and the Red Hot Chili Peppers on loop. He gets straight to the point and will give a forceful NO! when he is pushed into something he doesn’t want and smile and laugh happily when he sees we are returning home from a day out. He has a voracious appetite for spicy Jamaican and Mexican food and always exclaims his signature NO! when I offer him a cold glass of water. He has a colorful and distinct personality of his own and everybody who knows him knows it. It is easier to see a few things different, though. With extreme physical disabilities, he can’t walk, his fingers are knurled around eachother, and arms are held in a tight perpetual flexion, making it really hard to put a jacket on. He is also pretty much limited to saying “no” and “yea” (and the occasional “ow” – for which I am sorry) even though its completely obvious he recognizes people, and understands when we ask yes or no questions enough to make his own decision. So the once-premed Christina somehow fell into this summer job of taking him out and about on outings. You know, just to get some fresh air. Some days I hated it, some days I loved it. Let me make it clear that I don’t think I am that good at what I do. All I have to do is push the wheelchair and be only slightly entertaining and I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. But every day I’ve done it I’ve walked away with something else to say about it.

Some days people treat us like dirt. One time I crossed the street (on MY pedestrian green light!) and I guess we were slower than the folks making a right turn wanted us to be and so when we went by they slammed the gas and shouted out the window. It would be nice, if the city of Berkeley was actually paved properly. I don’t think there is anything more stressful than crossing 4 lanes of traffic with cars zooming on past and the crossing signal counting down from 5 and you are STUCK in a pothole in the middle of it all.

Most of the time, bus drivers are friendly when we get on, but other times… Sometimes we just walk. A lot of bus drivers passively do their job, wrapping the seatbelt around my client and forgetting that a seatbelt should go across the waist, and not across the elbows and arms. They are required by law to put this belt on him. But thats livable because I can fix a misguided seatbelt. Other bus drivers are friendly and do everything right. But once, a bus couldn’t let me on because there were already too many people on the bus so I waited for the next bus. I waved it down. It saw us and kept driving. How do I know this bus wasn’t overcrowded as well? Because someone who works for AC Transit giving sensitivity training to bus drivers saw the whole thing. I felt bad that the driver was going to be in trouble – I said it was surely an accident. Angry that I was the one apologizing, he said, “No, some people are just jerks.”

Other people go out of their way to be nice. Its not a bad thing. I just wonder what it means. On outings we always go to Baja Fresh. There used to be a real nice guy named Mike there. I would pay for one burrito (not for me) and ask for 2 cups of water, that was it. He would always ask, don’t you want anything to eat? And would come over to the table saying are you sure you don’t want anything? Its on me. And somehow I’d end up with something. He would always say, “If you are his friend, I will be your friend too.” My best to you, friend. Some people tell me I am the nice one for doing my job (yes I get paid). I feel incredibly guilty every time because there is NO way that I ever be as good at what I do as some of the other people who have the same job.

Other times are just somewhat uncomfortable. We go down to fourth street alot, the anomaly of that side of Berkeley. Porches and Corvettes lined against posh restaurants and boutiques. For anyone who doesn’t know 4th street, just across from the entrance to fourth street, there is an angry homeless man who sleeps under the freeway onramp and just beyond that there are a good number of crummy houses with cars parked on the lawns. No one has ever been rude to me on 4th street but I can’t help feeling like we look out of place against the window displays of pretty things.

One delicate slip of your genetic makeup – and you it could happen to you too. Your children. Fact of life. We hide it – or maybe we hide ourselves by putting ourselves in the kinds of situations where we cant see whats really happening. With good reasons, i suppose – it doens’t make anyone’s day to know that someone they love could possibly have anything less than a perfect life for themselves. No one wants to hear about all the ways a chromosome can go wrong. I get nervous sometimes after leaving biology classes where we DO hear about all that. How did I get lucky enough to slip past all the mistakes that could have happened with just the tiniest mistake out of my mind bogglingly long genetic makeup?

And another word on disabilties. I overheard a conversation where I think the argument was that everyone has a little bit of A.D.D. (Attention deficit disorder) and that ADD is just something people put on other people when they think they aren’t normal but in reality everyone is a little abonormal. Whether of not this was actually the meat of the argument – I think this is a terrible thing to say with potentially ill consequences. Yes, ADD is may be over diagnosed. Yes, Ritalin can be overprescribed. But Yes, ADD is an actual disorder – and zoning out for a bit does not mean you even remotely have ADD. A healthcare professional who diagnoses and treats behavioral disorders has a responsibility to know what does NOT qualify as ADD – in reality people, no matter how interested they are in the topic, can only pay attention for a maximum of 10-20 minutes. Thats just the way our minds work. People use the term ADD casually, to refer to a few minutes where they fell asleep in class or started thinking about the stains on the ceiling when they should have been thinking about quantum mechanics. Colloquially, “i had ADD in class today” means “I zoned the hell out.” We use it causally but it does exist as a real problem to millions of people where it is more than just zoning out and falling asleep in class. When we say it is not a real problem, we avoid it and people who need special treatment will not get it.

Simplicity

There are things in this world which are so complex we may not understand them in our lifetime. Nature yet holds delicate little details kept as secrets we will never be privy to. Yet, the universe, nevertheless, errs towards utter simplicity – nonsensically simplistic, even. The universe’s natural tendency is to run towards random chaos. When we drop a wineglass on the ground, it dissolves into nothing but shards, and we would be perfectly stunned if those shards were to leap back into the form of a perfect glass. When we die our bodies will rot, turn into dust, and eventually become nothing but particles randomly blowing across the world with no direction in mind – assuming that the world itself is even still in tact.