Overhyped Terrifying Life Experience

This saturday I went through a couple of different terrifying life experiences. One by choice, kind of to face a stupid fear.The other was not by choice at all, so it felt a bit like a violation.I will discuss both of these terrifying experiences now that I've had a couple of days to mull over my reactions to them, as I now understand a bit more about why I reacted as I did. I'm a firm believer in the value of a little bit of time when it comes to understanding a problem.

First comes the experience that I chose to undergo.Ever since I've been a seventeen year old vegetarian, I've developed a somewhat natural fear of "strange meat:" I came to placing the fear though, when I was reading Phillip David-Guerovitch's account of the Rwandan Genocide: "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families" that the meat I feared eating the most (outside of raw fish a fear I conquered already) is goat. I'm not sure why, probably some kind of lame American imperialist idea of the meat not being clean, or being inherently poor. I had this idea that it would be gruesome, that the texture would be wrong, and any other kind of worry.

On saturday night I tried goat meat for the first time at the "Bombay Bistro" in downtown Minneapolis. I ordered a Goat Korma, basically goat meat in a really tasty hot curry sauce. The dish was red, or at least redish.
I got an order of Naan with it, basically indian flatbread, or as Vanessa and her brother referred to it, an Indian Tortilla. (Also note the similarities to Ethiopian and Somali food.) The sauce was amazing, complex, and hot enough to force sweat to collect on my brow. I dipped my bread in it alot, and ate as much of the sauce as I could.

My approval for the meat though, wasn't really there. I wasn't prepared for it, and was a bit stunned by the consistency. There were tendons, fat, tough muscle and even the bone. It felt the most like eating a real animal, a former living thing of any meat I've had in years. More than beef knuckle, more than a whole roast turkey.
It was good, alot of it. I'm a little sensitive to texture, so the sudden switch from fat to connective tissue to muscle was jarring, but I ate a lot of it. I enjoyed it, but just couldn't bring myself to finish it.

Once I had faced the goat devil. The money devil came. I don't know what creates more anxiety than money, so it's probably the most boring thing to mention. It did cause a problem though. When we finished, I quickly gave my check card to the waiter, he went over and ran it, and told me there had been an "error" with my card. I took that to mean it had been declined, and slipped into a sort of deadbeat zone of terror that I haven't been in since I was 15 trying to use a giftcard for something worth more than the card.

I was worried that somehow the 800-some dollars in my checking account were gone, the result of some bad decision on my part. Vanessa had to pick up the bill. I felt emasculated, weak, and like a child in a place for adults. I left angry, claiming I wouldn't come back to the Bistro (not to the waiter but to Vanessa) almost in a tantrum.

My cards strip is just bad. I have no money problems. They probably could have gotten it. I was worried over basically nothing, and the goat was a worthwhile thing to try, and has taught me that I should try a vegetarian or chicken Korma next time. In retrospect I realize I was being a bit of a baby.

song of the day: Muppet Babies Theme

How long does it take to move a legacy

Precisely one hour, twelve minutes and thirty eight seconds. That's how long it took me to move all of the effects of a deceased dental pioneer today. There's something perverse and voyeuristic about it, looking at their collected things, everything they decided to decorate their office with, dozens of personal letters, family photos, hunting trophies, ancient glass slides of teeth, cards with dirty jokes from the mid 70s, etc. It would have taken longer, had the work not been started months ago when the good doctor fell seriously ill.

I didn't realize at that time, that I was boxing up things that he would never look at again. I spent time laboriously cataloging various journals, slides, papers, etc with the hope that this former dean would return, or that his relatives would at least come and get his things for him. His things languished in our storage area for about 4 months, awaiting pickup, until last week the good former dean died. I don't know what he died of, other than the fact that he was ancient and past life expectancy, and that he was ill.

So, today my boss had me move all of these boxes out of our storage, to another area, a forgotten room up on the 15th floor (administrative) that is undergoing a remodeling. So, now this dead mans effects are up in an empty, forgotten room, along with furniture no-one wants, and a comfortable carpet.

It's just kind of strange.

Sinus Headache... real work

Yesterday I felt utterly terrible all day. Miserable even, as I was congested, stuffy, dry and in pain. My head hurt, my throat ached, and even my eyes couldn't being handle much light without significant fatigue. What I did accomplish yesterday was quite minor. I read about 10 pages of a novel, wrote a little bit, watched the movie "Big" with my room mates, went to Best Buy and Rainbow foods, and cooked a little bit. Otherwise, I accomplished next to nothing. What I consider my non-accomplishments from yesterday include:

1. Reading about the "Predator" series of movies, comics and other media for about 45 minutes on Wikipedia.
2. Reading about the Red Lake Reservation on Wikipedia
3. Thinking about buying a flash drive, then not buying it.
4. Taking a "candidate 2008 match test" on Ok-Cupid
5. Being Snappy on the phone (cranky)
6. Watching American Gladiators, Drinking Beer and eating Bologna
7. Listening to my room mates play "Rock Band" on the playstation

I then had intense dreams about real people in my life, including a return to the bizarre traveling odyssey dream that I had starting this weekend, involving a trip around the central/southern midwest with various family members and not quite right looking friends. My cousin Dylan was involved this time. My dad was a smoker again, and did it in the car (which he never did while I was a child.) Also, my grandfather who died this year was alive in the dream, but fearing for his life. He didn't look exactly like how I remember, but younger, maybe only 55 or so, with a salt and pepper beard and carefully trimmed moustache.

There was the idea that we were all in danger, and this "Bose Buch" that he had was somehow responsible for it and helping us avoid it as we drove through seemingly endless fields of corn on the outskirts of Lincoln or Omaha. How queer.

Today was a bit more productive, and after a bit of aspirin and a lot of water the headache disappeared completely. At work, I was more productive than usual, or at least putting in more effort than usual, as I had to figure out things I hadn't done before, and help someone move her office to another floor, while she was busy checking in patients.

So far today I've consumed: 7 styrofoam cups of water, 3 cups of shitty coffee, 1 turtle mocha, 2 aspirin, 2 cups of fountain pop (a citrus blend of lemonade and sprite), a Chipotle Burrito (Barbacoa, Black beans, Tomatillo red, sour cream, guac, cheese, rice) and a handful of dry Life cereal. I'm off work in about 20 minutes.

Song of the day: "Mind"-Talking Heads

Work, illness.

I'm at work again today. As a result, I've been waking up around 6:45 every day. I don't mind though, I kind of like the feeling of being half-asleep on the bus and watching that dead looking winter morning sky. Today I don't feel terribly tired, and I'm half-excited to be here, as the Dental students are coming back. I'm not sleepy.

I found out yesterday that two of my coworkers are in very bad shape, are terribly ill. They've both been gone quite a bit, but I wasn't aware of how dire the situation actually is.

One of them, he actually collapsed recently, and was in intensive care. None of us in the shop know exactly what is wrong with him, but there's a suspicion that he may have a liver problem. He's likely to not come back for some time, and it may lead to a bit of chaos around the shop, since he is one of only three skilled technicians working. That means that the work that he would normally be doing gets shifted onto the two remaining technicians and me. The hope is that he is ok.

Also, our receptionist went to get re-constructive surgery following her triumph over breast cancer. She went in for her operation perhaps 2 weeks ago and is still laid up. Apparently the surgery went badly, and she is in a terrible state of health. I have no idea exactly what's wrong, since I only get information like this passively, by eavesdropping.

This all just means that there are fewer people around in the shop. There are normally 7 of us, now down to 5, an almost third reduction. It should be interesting, and I hope these people get better.

Sabotage?!?

Today I'm at work at the dental school. It's New Years eve, so there aren't any students around, no patients, and no emergency sorts of concerns. So, this means that I've been working on routine maintenance projects around the school, changing filters, checking abrasive wheels, whatever, as well as cleaning up my workspace and trying to catch up on anything I've missed over the past few months. This means alot of wandering through completely empty areas in the school, and a lot of searching for stuff that actually needs repair.

I managed to find some things that were surprisingly in desperate need of repair, a grinding wheel that students use to trim excess crap off of models of jaws and teeth. The wheel itself, which is made of some kind of stone with a sandpapery exterior was missing 1 of the screws that ought to connect it to the machine itself, so it was slowly breaking apart. Also, one of the other screws was not in properly, partway into it's socket and lying at about a 45 degree angle, probably not helping at all.

The damage to the grinding wheel itself was catastrophic, and I fear that if it had been used for anymore than another week, it would have broken apart mid use, sending bits of sharp stone flying through the air like shrapnel, taking out unprotected eyes, potentially slicing open exposed arteries and sending brilliantly red blood spraying (arterial bleed) onto the eggshell white walls of the student support lab. I would have been to blame, and fired/sued.

I replaced the wheel, made sure the new screws were set properly, so it's not a problem per se anymore, but I wonder how it happened in the first place. Last week when I checked the machine it was in perfect working order, nothing out of place aside from a little bit of accumulated wax on the wheel. A screw like the ones we use to hold the wheels in place is meant to not come off easily, so I can't imagine it would have simply come out on it's own.

I worry that someone might have removed it maliciously. Or foolishly. But I can't imagine anyone taking that machine apart who didn't have a working knowledge of it. I don't know if I should tell my boss that the screw was missing, as I worry she'll blame it on my incompetence somehow. So, what should I do?

Song of the day: "Wink"- Daniel Licht

Bhutto

I read an AP article today about Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. She was killed, assassinated, in a suicide attack at a campaign rally. It was a hideous, cowardly attack that shows the failure of manhood in a way.

When we men don't understand or accept something, we want to destroy it. The first female prime minister of any country in such a patriarchal world is bound to rile people up, and make old men feel powerless, emasculated.

The thing that makes me feel better about it, from the perspective of a man shamed by other men, is that many of those who were closest to her, and her biggest supporters were men. These are the kind of people who upon hearing of her death, started breaking windows, destroying cars and clashing with members of other political parties.

The willingness to go to anti-social, irrational lengths for something a person believes in is something I like in all people, I just wish there were certain limits to it.

Well, politics is not something I plan on talking about too much anymore.

Assessment

I'm looking at my grades from the semester. I don't have all of them yet, but so far, so good. I have B+ in languages of the world and Beginning Hindi, which came as some surprise, as I thought I was getting a regular to low B in Hindi before the final, and fucked up the final. It was probably my worst post-final exam experience ever, leading to my first post-exam breakdown.


My hectic schedule did cost me slightly in my grades, since I completely forgot to do one of the assignments for my simple linguistic analysis course and ended up losing about 10% of my grade for it, bringing me to a C+ in a very easy course. If I hadn't forgotten that assignment, I imagine I would have gotten a B+ or A- in a course I never showed up to, which would have been pretty great.

Now I just have to wait on my biotechnology and conversation analysis grades.


Oh, and merry christmas/boxing day.

Song of The Day: "The First Noel"