To Kvetch or Not to Kvetch?

In the beginning, a bar mitzvah — literally, the point at which a young man is included in the religious majority (age 13) — was marked by the young man reading the final portion of the Torah reading and giving a teaching on that week's passage, often followed by a meal. The main focus of the bar mitzvah was that this young man was now responsible for his religious choices and could be counted in a prayer quorum (minyan), not to mention be able to lead a service. 

For a long time, a girl of bat mitzvah age simply marked the rite of passage by giving a speech and being the guest of honor at a celebratory meal. In traditional communities this is still true; in liberal communities bat mitzvah girls also read Torah, a relatively recent change (started by Mordechai Kaplan) given Judaism's long history.

What I don't understand is how, in the United States, some "unsynagogued" (the term "unchurched" seems inappropriate somehow) Jews have come to believe that having a bar or bat mitzvah ceremony is a condition for being considered Jewish, or for "becoming" an adult. In many American synagogues, what was historically a simply recognition of age has become, in some aspects, a performance. Not just of the child, but of the parents, the clergy, the tutor, the Hebrew school teacher, and the caterer.

Rather than just have the child lead parts of the service, read Torah/teach Torah, and be able to celebrate after the service with her friends and family, many congregations have the parents and child's tutor(s) make speeches about the child's accomplishments. Sometimes these speeches have the positive effect of reminding the attendees that 13-year-olds are capable of great insight and kindness, and that the child has worked very, very hard. Other times, the speeches seem to start with when the child is conceived, slowing narrating the child's entire 13 years. It's hard to watch the child standing up through these speeches, and harder to imagine their internal squirming and eye-rolling.

The issue I have with these speeches, more than how they seem to last forever, is how they abruptly break up the service, making sudden shifts between prayer and kvetching. When I go to my home synagogue, I go there to pray. Not to hear about how every bar/bat mitzvah kid from the synagogue is destined to become a tzaddik (righteous person) who also happens to be really good at soccer, dance, singing, drawing, theater, guitar and calculus. A prayer service is supposed to serve G-d. Not thirteen year olds.

Making Home

Last year and this past year too, I've found myself getting closer and closer to the point of wanting, nay, needing, to create my own space.

When I was a young child (birth - most of second grade), that space was my room, the smallest of the bedrooms in my house. The spring of his senior year, my brother tore his ACL playing frisbee (my family tends to get injured in stupid ways) and could no longer use the bunk bed in his room. So we half switched rooms until he moved out, when I got his room for good. The bunk bed got put away and I got my old bed. The walls were repainted and a wallpaper border was put up by my mom.

But the room didn't change very much since I was 8. My mom and I have talked about redecorating now and then, but at this point it seems silly; once I graduate the room will be turned into an office or guest room.

Last year, I had a lot of fun decorating my side of my room, taping a series of travel, scenic and family photos all over the off-white cinder block wall. This year I did a similar thing with postcards; it was harder to stick stuff to red brick but not impossible. My brother gave me a wall hanging he got in Mozambique, and I've also been putting up stuff I draw/color at the clinic. It brightens up the room a lot, but it's sad to think that in a few months I'll have to take everything down again and repeat the process next year and senior year.

Synchronized Swimmers Aren't Medical Authorities

One of the arguments commonly heard for high prescription drug prices in the United States (compared to the EU and Canada) is "the cost of research and development."

Apparently buying rights to catchy songs, finding professional swimmers, and animating magical balloons that instantly rid women of acne and mood swings are all part of drug companies' valued research efforts.

When I watch television I often end up seeing at least one ad for a prescription drug, often repeated several times. They often come with catchy music, for those of you who like to associate contraception, chronic illness, and cancer prevention with song.

Like the "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Every Day…" song in an advertisement for NuvaRing. Or the "Goodbye to You" and "We're Not Gonna Take It" songs from the Yaz ads, in which treating women's premenstrual symptoms is represented by ascending balloons. Apparently the balloon and music research costs a lot — Yaz is $50-65 per MONTH at retail price. If you have insurance, the co-pay is obviously much lower (around $50/3-month supply). But still. I don't think women who need the Pill care about TV balloons.

The ads for Merck's vaccine against HPV, called Gardasil, are very similar to an anti-drug PSA, with attractive mothers and daughters talking about how they will be "one less" woman affected by cervical cancer. While these ads probably help to inform a lot of people about the vaccine, they aren't enough. Merck also has promotional materials in doctor's offices, clinics, my campus bookstore (in the form of special plastic bags that all had Gardasil fliers), etc. 

My campus health center waiting room is overcrowded with Gardasil flyers, including some with a sound card and headphones attached so that you can listen to a recording about the vaccine while waiting to see your doctor or nurse practitioner. The website for the vaccine has  desktop wallpapers, screensavers, and buddy icons, so that you can advertise the vaccine to all your friends — you can even get designs to iron onto a t-shirt.

I don't disagree that cervical cancer is a serious issue, and I'm glad that there's a vaccine that could potentially save millions of women from getting the disease in the future (not to mention genital warts, which are also caused by HPV). But I find it disturbing to see so much money spent on advertising the vaccine instead of on improving it. Especially when the vaccine is so expensive. It's marketed at $120 a dose, which not all insurance companies cover, and you have to have 3 doses over a 6-month period. That may be less money, in the long run, than hospital stays and chemotherapy, but it's still excessive.

In addition to devoting time to reducing allergic reactions to the vaccine (which contains yeast)*, I would also vote for reducing the pain associated with it. The pain I had from it — a burning sensation as the vaccine was injected that radiated through my upper arm — was made even worse knowing I'd have to go through it another two times, and is apparently a very common side effect. I can't imagine what that kind of pain is like for women who are afraid of needles or really sensitive to pain.

* = I know that allergies are also an issue with flu and chickenpox vaccines (which contain egg). Is it really sensible from a public health perspective to not have alternative versions of these vaccines? Seriously. As much as medicine can do amazing things, it is so illogical sometimes.

I'm not going to take it anymore. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, every day.

Art is a Powerful Thing

One day, I did a series of little crayon observation drawings — one of my neighbor's foot, another of a friend's face, and an attempt to draw a pelvic bone that ended up looking like Brain from the cartoon Pinky and the Brain (a deep, complex show about two lab mice who try to take over the world).

I posted pictures of the drawings on Facebook last night and ten minutes later my inbox said "17 new messages" — all of them comments from 4 individuals. This morning, there were 32 new messages since last night. I kid you not.

Having gone from drawing basically every day, all day, non-stop to only drawing a few times a week, it feels nice to get feedback on what you do accomplish. On the other hand, it feels weird to get stronger reactions to a 5 minute 3" by 3" drawing of someone's foot than to a 18" by 24" oil painting that took two weeks to complete.

When I regularly posted artwork on the gallery site deviantART.com, I found that my old fan art of video game and Disney characters still gets more traffic than my new paintings, drawings and photos, which feels very strange since I feel that the new pieces are way better in terms of effort and quality.

On the other hand, it's really neat to watch the conversations that develop from a piece of art, whether it's a crayon foot or Moorish tile work, and I am not about to tell people not to make such interesting comments like:

"That is the sexiest algae-green haired teletubby [referring to a portrait of someone, not an actual teletubby] that I have ever seen… I can not tell a lie… oh, and that mouse is[name of a friend]."

Meat… It's What's There

I tried to donate blood today but apparently my iron level is 10.9 (g/dL) — a healthy level for women is 12-16 and my iron's never been that low— so I have to go to the health center to have that checked out.

I'm sure I'll be told to eat more beef and take supplements. Somehow I thought I was getting enough iron, but I do tend to avoid eating dinner at the kosher dining hall on meat days because the dining hall meat is very fatty, greasy, and salty… the only low-fat/low-grease meat is deli meat, which isn't low sodium and certainly isn't as iron-rich as beef.

Weird as it sounds, after being vegetarian for 6 years I  also don't feel the need to eat meat every day, even every other day. If the meat is well-cooked and flavorful (like a roast lemon chicken or brisket), it is a welcome indulgence. But eating it more than twice a week just feels gross, and I hate thinking about how many resources are used raising livestock, let alone the working conditions in slaughterhouses. 

On the other hand, when it's there, and there aren't many appetizing vegetarian options, I eat it just because it's filling. I guess for the time being I'll just have to get over my aversion to cafeteria meat. Ideally, I would get some beef or chicken liver, since that stuff's super iron-rich and also has other nutrients, but I don't have a kitchen to cook it in, which is a problem.

I do have a thing of unsalted almonds, though, and it's tough to complain about low iron when it's something that's easy to remedy. Hopefully it will pass over quickly.

What Makes a Good Copyright Violating AMV?

Arguably, the film Fantasia was not just the first music video (or, rather, a combination of long music videos) in the technical sense of pairing moving images and music.

It may also be viewed as the forerunner to the homemade animated music video or, as typed in YouTube video contests, the AMV. That is, the process of finding animated (or, in other homemade videos, live action) footage that brings new meaning to a particular song.

Some AMVs aim for sentiment, but not necessarily quality sentiment. Say, the pairing of well-recognized scenes from Disney movies to a sappy pop song without an effort to match the lyrics to the visuals or the Grey's Anatomy fan video whose aim is to say McDreamy/George/Mark/every male surgeon in Seattle Grace is soooo cute… enjoy 3 trillion 2-second clips of him. There are also the videos devoted to written (usually unwritten) pairings of characters. Some of these are kind of funny; most are not worth watching.

Others, however, take a step beyond the obvious, making unusual connections between separate films, giving someone a funny singing voice, contrasting a film's actual tone with the background song's tone, and somtimes all three at once.

Some of my favorites are:

The video with news clips of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, set to "Endless Love." There are several copies of this on YouTube.

Clips of Georgette (from Oliver and Company) set to "Prima Donna" from Phantom of the Opera. By YouTube user TheTerrierQueen.

Clips from almost every Disney movie set to "Hair" as an ode to, well, hair. The person who made the video found a clip to match just about every type of hair mentioned in the song (polka-dotted, twisted, braided, waxen, shining, down to there hair). By YouTuber agentcoffee.

The Firefly video to "All Theses Things That I've Done" by YouTuber cnstrikesback.

DaJugglingFool's video "Why is the Rum Gone: Remix" does a very nice job of sound mixing and pairing said sound effects with the video clips and adding unexpected clips (and audio!) from the Teletubbies, the Terminator and 24 into a video about Pirates of the Carribbean. 

I would post the hyperlinks, but haven't figured out how to do so in Blogger, which is why it will be a while before I make any AMVs.

Housing Drama

At my school, students apply to receive a housing number early in spring semester. This year, everyone got their housing numbers just before the end of February break.

First-years and sophomores are guaranteed housing. The two freshman quads are conveniently situated on campus and, while not luxurious, are in rather good shape (some floors have been recently renovated). One quad is two minutes' walking distance away from one of the major academic quads and three minutes away from the old campus center, which has one of the two main cafeterias, the mailroom, the campus convenience store, financial services, and the career center. The main library is also close by. The other quad is close to the other main cafeteria, the chapels, the science buildings, and the new campus center. 

The majority of sophomores live in a "quad" that is actual made of two large residence halls designed to blend in with the trees nearby. These buildings are in less good shape than the freshman buildings, but since almost everyone is close by, it is very easy to keep in touch with friends. The mixed humanities academic quad and nearby cafeteria are still reasonably close, as are the next major sophomore building, "the Castle," which is — surprise — built to look like a castle, the health center, and the gym.

It used to be the case that juniors had the following options: get a suite with 5 close friends (the suites have 6 single rooms and 2 private bathrooms), get a single or double in the recently built junior/senior dorm, get an on-campus apartment (there are 5, 3, and 2-person apartments), or get an off-campus apartment.

This coming year, there will be a brand new residence hall for juniors, composed of 4- and 6-person suites. However, the other recently build junior/senior dorm is no longer an option. During the fall, it will be used by study abroad students. During the spring, all of the "midyear" first-years will be housed there. While I appreciate the effort to accommodate the study abroad students, housing the midyears there poses many problems:

1) It further isolates the midyear students by placing them physically distant from the two freshman quads.

2) It also places the midyear students closer to upperclassmen parties, some of which involve drinking. (Over-21 students can apply for a "wet" room and legally drink in the company of other over-21 students, but these rules are not always followed).

3) It reduces the number of housing options for upperclassmen whose housing is already not guaranteed.

You can guess which of the three is most troubling to rising juniors.

Before receiving my housing number, I had discussed getting a suite with some like-minded  friends. We wanted to get a large group of people in order to increase the chance of more than 1 person getting a good number (the person with the lowest number in a group selects a room or suite and "pulls in" everyone else). When we got our numbers and checked the residence life website though, we found that the junior buildings with suites generally fill up by #1200. Junior/senior housing numbers start at 1000 and go up to 3000. My number, which was the lowest, was almost 1500. For the moment, it looks bad.

I'm hoping we can find a kind, like-minded classmate with a really good number. While I would be willing to get one of the on-campus apartments, they have a two less-than-charming traits:

1) The apartments are on the farthest edge of campus. Thus, in cases of inclement weather and morning sleepiness, it is necessary to use the campus shuttle system to get anywhere. It also cuts into the breezy socializing with friends that happens easily in a regular dorm building.

2) At night, the minimal, flickering fluorescent lighting, both inside and outside the buildings, combined with the harsh concrete, reminds one of those dark, shadowy apartment buildings where people run after each other with guns in action movies. At last they remind me of those shady movie apartments.

On the other hand, the on-campus apartments have one thing going for them:

1) I wouldn't have to commute.

Here's hoping it turns out for the best…

Adaptation

I clearly remember having no desire to have children — ever — in middle school, and through part of high school. Later on, I thought the idea wasn't so ridiculous in the far, far future.

Then, when I turned 20, I realized that at this age, several decades ago, both my grandmothers were married around my age and had their first child not long after.

Almost around the same time, and especially after working with children, I realized: not only is having children something I want, but it's something I can become capable of doing. I'm used to locking away the rubber bands and stray crayons from toddlers' hands, and I'm getting used to being seen as a grown-up with answers to everything. Even when it means answering rapid-fire questions about movie previews, how to color well, and the current movie playing, not to mention guessing games.

I imagine that both my grandmothers had some preparation for child-raising from their younger siblings, and know it used to be more common for women to marry and have children fairly early. Still, I am amazed that they took on those responsibilities so soon and, seeing how my parents and aunts and uncle turned out, so well.

Men's Pants vs. Women's Pants

Being 5' 2", I usually have trouble finding pants that don't need 3-5 inches hemmed off the bottom. Some major women's brands are kind enough to have a clearly labeled "petite" section of their stores, or at least to offer pants in short lengths. However, most stores aimed at the 18-25 demographic — H&M, Urban Outfitters, etc. — almost never have petite sections, and rarely even offer short pants. Tall pants, sometimes, but pretty much no short pants. 

When I went shopping with a friend this afternoon, one of the stores we visited had a few pairs of short jeans. Only two pairs of short jeans were in a size larger than 5. There seemed to be no shortage of regular and long jeans. I tried the short jeans but they didn't work.

Afterwards, we went to Urban Outfitters and tried to find pants in the bargain basement. No luck. All the women's pants' sizes were 25 through 29. I think it was based on waist size, but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be the "true" waist (around the bottom of the ribcage) or the high hip. Probably the latter. Nearby was a rack of men's jeans. I found two pairs with my inseam whose waist sizes looked right. I was a bit uncertain about translating my waist measurement into a men's waist size, but thought hey, this could be interesting.

The first pair was too tight. The other pair's fit was snug but not suffocating. The back pockets looked funny (in terms of placement), but I couldn't tell if it was the designer's intention or just that the pants were cut for a man. Overall, the pants didn't fit nicely enough to buy, but there was one feature which almost made me wish I had a better build for men's pants — the front pockets. The front pockets were about 7-8 inches deep, deep enough to carry a cell phone and iPod without worrying about them popping out, not to mention a wallet.

If even some of the practical features of men's clothing could be carried over to women's, it would probably not only result in safer cell phones but also less time wasted hemming pants and trying to figure out a brand's sizing system. But that would be too easy, wouldn't it?

Looking Good… on the Farm?

When I went to an all-girls equestrian summer camp out in the boonies, where the only guys around were the camp director and very old farmhands, there was still a strong expectation that you made yourself look good. 

Having previously gone to a coed nature camp in the Rhode Island boonies, I was used to wearing casual t-shirts and shorts or pants at camp. We had daily showers, but the days were so highly scheduled, with most of the activities outdoors, that there was very little time to worry about looking pretty. So the fanciest things I brought to the equestrian camp were a yellow tank top and a pair of capris. The riding helmet I had was the kind that looks like a bike helmet with a visor, rather than the black velvet-covered ones. 

At the equestrian camp, showers were limited to twice a week (ten minutes each), because the camp relied on well water and we were sharing the water with 45 horses. Yet this was when I got my first "makeover." The girls who instructed me had brought along hair straighteners and massive makeup kits, along with multiple "going out" outfits (we went out to the movies/ice cream parlor about 1-2 nights a week). After plucking my brows, doing my face, and straightening my hair (which I don't need at all), they wrote a list of clothing and shoe stores.

I wonder what became of these girls in college, where it's socially acceptable to go to class in a hooded sweatshirt and yoga pants (or even leggings). Perhaps they got the fancier hoodies at the campus bookstore and wear velour track pants instead of baggy sweatpants or plain yoga pants. Maybe they still bring a copy of Seventeen or Cosmo to the gym to read at the treadmill. But mostly I wonder if they still offer to curl their roommates' eyelashes and give them fashion-oriented shopping lists.

Just for Fun - Favorite Names

Some of these names I ended up using for characters in short stories/pseudonyms in essays, etc. Most of them I would consider giving a child in the future; some I can only see on the page.

Names for a Girl:

1. Ruby Blue (after the song by Róisín Murphy) with the Hebrew name of Ruth (after my great-aunt and the Biblical Ruth). 

2. Lydia (I first heard of the name in a book I read in 5th grade about a New England mill girl).

3. Leah. I like the way it sounds and feel the Biblical Leah doesn't get fair recognition.

4. Chana (Hebrew version of Hannah). Pretty name that goes with a good story about prayer. 

5. Adelaide/Adelheid. These seem better for middle names/literary characters because they're hard to spell but I love the meaning ("noble kind") and how they sound. 

Names for a Boy:

1. Daniel. Nice name shared by a lion-surviving prophet and one of my best friends.

2. Joseph.

3. Reuben.

4. Mordechai. Comes with a nickname — Motti — that works well both in childhood and adulthood.

5. Benjamin.

Looking at a list of popular boys' names for 2007  (http://www.thinkbabynames.com/popular/1/United+States), I would like to know how Logan is #17 and Jayden is #18. Coming from the Boston area, when I hear Logan I think "airport," and somehow Jayden sounds like the name of someone in a trashy teen drama (as in "I saw Jayden at Madison's locker!") or a character in a sci-fi movie. Although I think part of the reason I don't like it is that it sounds like Jason.

There were some interesting girls' names too, but nothing too weird aside from Destiny (which was #41, 5 spots ahead of my name). 

Researching Health Careers

In an effort to explore good "helping" careers (by which I mean direct helping; obviously there are many ways to help people), I've been trying to read up on various health careers.

The past couple of weeks, I've gone bookstore cruising, hanging out in the health reference sections. Of course, one of the downsides of this approach is that 98% of the books are aimed at current/prospective nurses and physicians. I have yet to see a book entitled "So, You Want to Be an Occupational Therapist!" or "Thinking About Health Administration?" alongside the test prep books and the Physician's Desk Reference.

I figured that my hometown library would have a bit more diversity, and it did, sort of. The book I picked up titled "Careers in Medicine" turned out to be a guide on getting into medical school (it's hard). Also got a book detailing every incarnation of therapist in health care, which did a good job of providing a neat summary of each job's day-to-day expectations and education requirements, and a collection of nurses' stories of memorable experiences in areas ranging from a nursing home to a refugee camp.

On the other hand, a lot of the health career books were written in a rather… how should I put it… light style of prose. One was actually entitled "Cool Careers for Girls in Health" as though there was a counterpart entitled "Cool Careers for Boys in Health." It was clearly written for middle school-age girls; there were entire pages with quotes from health professionals in large print surrounded by big zigzag lines.

The other health profession-focused books tended to be test prep books and (very old) textbooks on specific health topics. So, I've decided that the next place to try should probably be my school's pre-health resources. From looking at their website and mission statement, the university pre-health society mainly focuses on medicine, dentistry, public health, and veterinary medicine. It wasn't clear what resources are available for other health careers.

Tough Choices

At work, I have access to a small, semi-organized cart of coloring books. There are several hand-assembled books of photocopied word searches and coloring pages, as well as some hand-purchased ones. For a while, when I had free time or simply wanted to color along, I took pages from a mandala coloring book. Mandalas, in Buddhism and Hinduism, are elaborate concentric diagrams with spiritual significance (Wikipedia explains it better than I can). They're also really fun to color.

I felt bad using the hospital's coloring books so much though, so I moved on to playing Solitaire when the clinic was quiet. My older brother, in his unbelievable practicality, suggested that I do my homework instead. I decided that I would rather color and play Solitaire.

So, I decided that tomorrow I would go on an epic journey to Borders and Barnes & Noble in search of a good coloring book. Or perhaps two; they're not that expensive. However, I'm not sure which type to select. A fancy "grownup" coloring book with geometric designs or historical costume? One of those finely detailed anatomy/physiology coloring books for science students?

I'm tempted to get a 4-year-old girl coloring book, which I never had as a 4-year-old (I'm not sure if it was a lack of interest on my part and/or my mother's lack of interest in nurturing gender roles/stereotypes). There's a Disney one I saw on Amazon about Cinderella; one half is about her life pre-Prince Charming and the other half is about her wedding planning. It is almost too sickeningly cute. 

Update: I found a good compromise between "boring" and "sickeningly cute" — a coloring book with finely detailed cat pictures, and another with snowflakes.

On the Grey's/Private Practice Crossover

There are some spoilers, for those who didn't see the two-hour crossover.

While it is interesting to see Addison make dramatic appearances at Seattle Grace, especially when accompanied by four of her and Derek's friends, I didn't enjoy the switches between Addison's practice (in LA) and Seattle Grace, which seemed to happen every 5 minutes.

While there were three ridiculously complicated cases in Seattle — brain cysts caused by parasites (Addison's brother), a pregnant woman's aneurysm (complicated by the fact that the baby has heart problems), and a man with colorectal cancer who has withheld his diagnosis from his daughter (Owen's former fiance) — the most drama in LA was a couple's fight over whether or not a man in a relationship with a woman could be best friends with another woman (seriously? how did you people get through life?) and a woman coping with postpartum depression. 

The Private Practice/Grey's connection, outside of Addison's past ties with Derek, felt very weak. I think they could have squeezed in another case, maybe a small one in the clinic, instead of forcing the viewer to see 15 shots of the Seattle Grace entrance and the LA beach. It has been nice to see Izzie back as queen of the clinic/the only resident consistently teaching the interns, and no longer whining to/obseessing over/making out with Ghost Denny. (I would like an explanation for that soon, because usually making out with fiance ghosts is a bad sign).

On another note… in twenty minutes, my February vacation begins (and with only two homework assignments!), which will probably mean more posts.

489 years is too long…

For my English class on Witchcraft and Magic in the Renaissance, I had to watch a silent film called The Passion of Joan of Arc whose script is based on the court transcripts of Joan of Arc's trial and execution.

The short version of her story is that Joan heard the voices of saints telling her to save France, and she not only aided the French army in the Hundred Years' War, but also (indirectly) helped King Charles VII become coronated. However, she was captured by the English, tried for heresy, and executed by burning at the stake. A fuller summary of what happened is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc

From Joan's responses to the judges' questions, her faith is clearly strong, and she views her service to G-d humbly. It is clear that her trial is heavily motivated by politics (the hatred between England and France, the issues of Charles VII's succession, the desire to bring down a national hero of France…), and the Holy See found her innocent 24 years after her death, declaring her a martyr.

Understanding that it takes a long time for someone to be canonized, I still don't understand how it took the Church 489 to canonize Joan of Arc, especially given how much she was respected in France before and after her death. Even though I'm not Catholic, I feel like it shouldn't take half a millenium for someone so genuinely religious to get canonized… I wonder what made it take so long??

Days Like This Make Me Want a Younger Sibling

Today was a little slow at the clinic, but there were two very nice moments.

There was the little boy playing at a magnet table (a covered sand table with magnets underneath that move things over the sand… I should post a picture of it for illustrative purposes). The magnets, which are attached by strings to the table, are used to move, in the case of this table, plastic frogs and lizards. I told him that there was another magnet table with boats, but he explained very emphatically, "I like boats, but I also like animals!"

"What kind of animals?" I asked.

"Reptiles," he answered with great enthusiasm.

I asked him if someone ever came to his school and showed the class some reptiles. No, he said, but in first grade someone brought a horseshoe crab AND a puffer fish to the class!

So, I told him about a birthday party I went to in elementary school (probably around third grade) where a guy brought in a really big boa constrictor, along with a tortoise and a few other reptiles. The highlight of the presentation was when he had all the guests (around 20 kids; it was one of those birthday parties where basically the whole class gets invited) line up and hold their arms in front of them so that we could all hold the boa. It was probably about 10 feet long, and at least as large around as an man's arm. 

The look on this kid's face was just amazing. You could tell that he was just so full of interest; when another kid came to the table and he explained how it worked, he didn't say "you move the magnets UNDER the table…" the way the parents do. No, he said, "[the frog] is moving because of the magnetic forces!"

I had this brief mental image of him growing up to be a science nerd (a term I use positively), or at least watching Bill Nye with a big smile on his face.

The other nice moment came when one of the kids came over to the art table to do some coloring before going home. When her mother came over, she asked, "when will I be going back [to the doctor]?" Her mother answered, "hopefully not until your next annual checkup." Then she said, "but I want to come back and color with her…"

On a less serious note, I discovered that:

a) There are, in fact, TWO big screen TVs in the waiting room, one on each side, and they have different movies playing on repeat. 

b) My "arts and crafts" cart, in addition to not containing anything for post-grade 3 kids (except for cards), also lacks safety scissors and glue, not to mention Valentine's Day-themed activities.

c) Some kids *do* understand how VHS tapes work, or at least don't ask "what's that??". I was so relieved that when one girl asked "why isn't anything showing on the TV?" I only had to say "they have to rewind the tape so that it will be back at the beginning." When DVDs became standard, I realized that my generation's experience of rewinding VHS tapes (as well as fast-forwarding through almost ten minutes of previews) would soon divide us, in a very profound sense, from those raised on DVDs.

d) At least in the Sesame Street coloring book we have, Cookie Monster still eats cookies (apparently he now gobbles up fruit*). Even while swimming.

e) It is possible to follow a movie with not-so-accurate close-captioning, even when all you can hear are the scenes when Phil Collins starts signing about love, danger, and growing up in the jungle. (The movie-on-repeat on my side of the waiting room was Tarzan; it was a lot more intense than I had remembered but in a good way. Although the opening scene was still unbearably depressing).

* = I am really, really tempted to write an entry about how much children's television has gone downhill since I was a kid, no matter how obnoxiously pretentious it is for a 20-year-old to consider such things.

Revisiting Childhood Ghosts (Or Hand Dryers)

Over lunch today, my dad remarked that if my mom raised me on her own, I wouldn't have watched any Disney movies (except 101 Dalmatians). My mom is strongly feminist in a very 1970s Ms. sort of way, so she objects to Disney's portrayal of women and Indians (in Peter Pan; she didn't watch Pocahontas with me when it came out). I understand her points; you'd have to either be seriously racist or blindfolded and wearing noise-cancelling headphones to think Peter Pan portrays Indians fairly. But I think children pick up on much more on what's scary in Disney movies (and anything else they watch) more than sexism and racism. 

For example, I hated Pinnochio (and haven't watched it since elementary school) because of the scene when the boys turn into donkeys. Listening to a melody repeated in a particular Disney short (Mickey and the Beanstalk) made me feel annoyed, and then uneasy. I still can't stand the opening of the "Mysterious Theatre" skits that used to be on Sesame Street. As a young child, I was most afraid of certain noises, such as the noise of hand dryers and hair dryers, so I think what bothered me about Mysterious Theatre was the thunder crashing and creepy music. 

I used to have trouble understanding facial expressions and emotions as a young child (I was diagnosed on the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum), which I think made a lot of movie villains less scary. Even noticing anger was beyond my understanding, which would have certainly reduced the scariness of pretty much every villain on film. I wish I could remember the point at which emotions started to "click" for me; I can't even pinpoint when I no longer had to have special education teachers in elementary school, but it's become so clear to me in recent years what a difference they made, and I think that's something to be thankful for. 

The Medical Fairy Tale that is Grey's

We all know that surgeons have to be trained for several years after medical school, and that even "minor" procedures require careful planning and the coordination of several non-surgeons, from a patient's nurses and primary physician to the guys from transport who transfer patients and relatives involved in someone's care.

However, watching surgery on a medical show makes transplant procedures and open-heart surgery appear simple, even to the person who knows better. Incision, incision, witty banter, a few deft hand movements, more witty banter, and it close up! The involvement of scrub nurses and anesthesiologists, is of often neglected, as well as post-op recovery. A surgery that often lasts over 10 hours is condensed into a 5 minute scene, and none of the surgeons show a trace of physical fatigue or a drop of sweat, let alone faded eyeshadow. 

I hate to say that watching Grey's has affected my view of medicine, because that statement almost makes it sound like I've begun to expect all male doctors to look like George or Derek. The latter is certainly not true. If it were there would probably be a lot more people applying to volunteer in hospitals (not that volunteers have much contact with doctors, if any).

While there are many amazing, almost surreal moments in medicine, especially in the hospital setting, the world of Seattle Grace is a worse fairy tale (in terms of its potential to mush your brain) than those adapted by Disney. Even if the doctors were semi-ordinary looking, the narrow focus on surgeons to the exclusion of other doctors, nurses (especially nurses), orderlies, social workers and chaplains produces the illusion that the work of the non-surgical staff is not significant enough to warrant mention outside of romantic trysts or searches for future organ donors (brain-dead patients on life support who only show up when a cuter patient needs a new heart or liver). I'm not knocking surgeons, but I think they get enough recognition and quasi-deification in the non-fictional world. 

Having spent almost all of my time volunteering around transport staff, social workers, and nurses, I realize that part of my opinion about non-surgical staff is shaped by these experiences. However, I think most people don't see, or at least better appreciate, the roles of these individuals until they or someone they are close to is hospitalized. And though people shouldn't rely on TV for a realistic picture of life, maybe medical shows could be used to provide a more inclusive picture of medicine*.

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* = I've only seen one season of it, but the drama series St. Elsewhere has the most balanced presentation of medical staff I've seen on a medical show. While the main characters are surgeons and medical residents, there are several specialties represented (emergency medicine, cardiovascular, OB/GYN, general medicine…), and nurses and orderlies get a respectable share of face time and dialogue.

What Movie Would You Bring to a Desert Island?

After another afternoon spent in a cycle of watching kids at the art table, cleaning up, coloring, playing solitaire, and watching the waiting room's featured film on repeat, I began to wonder what movie(s), if any, I would willingly watch on repeat during the surprisingly frequent quiet moments during my volunteer shift. That is, the times when there are no kids in the waiting room, or the kids who are there are either too old for coloring, not interested, or very shy.

The afternoon movie, to put it gently, wasn't particularly good. It was a direct-to-video Snow White movie, with outsourced animation that was roughly equivalent to the animation in Saturday morning cartoons. Not the kind of animation in a cartoon like Spongebob Squarepants or TaleSpin (which are both respectable cartoons), but the kind of animation that makes Disney's direct-to-video sequels look good. The voice actors didn't even get credits.

Clearly, I would not bring this movie to a desert island. Probably, I would bring Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, which you could watch with or without sound and still enjoy.

What would you bring?

First Day

Having worked in two rather large urban hospitals, I prepared myself for a busy first day — kids running around, art supplies being divided unfairly, and the like.

However, there weren't that many kids, and they usually weren't in the waiting room for long periods of time. At the busiest time, I had three kids at the art table and two nearby at one of those tables with several metal tracks that you push disks along that you always see in doctors' waiting rooms and preschools. The clinic had a small cart with several coloring books and a large box of crayons, nothing too elaborate or messy.

After the first two and a half hours of my shift, though, there were very few young kids. Most of the patients were at least 11, and the only thing I had in the cart for post-grade 3 children was cards. However, most of the older kids and teenagers had smart phones and Nintendo DS systems (imagine a Gameboy that is much smaller and less noisy).

So, I ended up spending most of my time coloring and watching the flat-screen TV nearby. While the coloring was fun, there was only one thing on TV for my entire shift: Beauty and the Beast. At first, I was excited; BatB is one of my favorite Disney movies. But then, after the movie was over, it started all over again. And again. And again. Yes, in one afternoon I saw one Disney movie 3 times in a row (well, to be accurate, more like 2.5 times) and colored with crayons for hours. I think I'm officially 4 years old.