Dr. SB's Hollywood husband got to watch the Transformers premiere WITH FRICKING GEORGE LUCAS. SITTING NEXT TO HIM AND SHARING HIS SNACKS. two degrees from anthony minghella pales in comparison to this.

one of the first-years had a pretty huge falling-out with her advisor and is now wandering from lab to lab in search of a new one. we were on the roster today, and doing everything in our power to dissuade her from joining us, not because we're mean, but because the advisor's hands-off (as in, across continents) mentoring style would not suit her at all. i tell this story because it's a very real, very frightening this-could-happen-to-you scenario -- not because of fallings-out, but, other unforeseen events; for example, dr. sabini passed away suddenly 2 years ago leaving his lab to scatter to the winds. i often wonder how it must feel to be a grad student of one of those 90-year-old nobel laureates, every day the feverish race, the silent prayer: please, not today.

i intended to work at home all day, but the heat is intolerable in my apartment, so here i am in the other green line goofing off and reading the new yorker. the review paper proceeds at an impossibly slow pace. i read 3 papers in order to write 2 lines, and the whole thing feels like it's falling apart at the seams. i have decided that as soon as the advisor returns from amsterdam or wherever it is i'm going to call an emergency meeting and break down in tears in his office. this will certainly be the last review i agree to write until i'm at least midway through my 3rd year -- what i really should have done is turned this one down and planned to spend the summer hammering down the foundations of my knowledge, instead of slapping together this piece of work in my current uninformed state. in fact, i've been a year now without anyone telling me THIS IS HOW IT IS, and i really need some of that, someone to sit me down and be didactic. THIS IS WHAT WE KNOW; THIS IS WHAT WE DON'T. you get some of that at least while doing a phd, right? or do they just allow you to go off the rails and redo experiments that have been done and write reams of nonsense and then at the end of 5 years tell you that you can't grdauate?

after a rather random and bizarre concatenation of events, i got to meeting this guy in old city to look at some of his art. he's leaving the states next week to return to korea, and is giving away a bunch of things, which i may or may not claim to bedizen the new pad, when we finally do get it.

artists are just about the only people who are, in real life, exactly like how they're represented in movies (i.e. incessant smokers, incredibly incisive, and either say 'fuck' a lot or act as if they're restraining themselves). this guy was also a stickler for not interpreting his own pieces, (there's only the art and the viewer! the art and the viewer!) as well as slightly sensitive when i offered my own. one example -- he admitted that people had called his stuff 'disturbing', but wasn't very happy when i gently suggested to him that the reason for that might be that they were falling in the uncanny valley. ah, the pitfalls. (plus...isn't "disturbing" a good thing? they are very...t.s eliot? we are the hollow men/we are the stuffed men/leaning together/headpiece filled with straw?)

also:

me: i do admire artists though, regardless of the quality of what they make. you guys make it worthwhile being human, you know?
him: actually, i think we're just fucking selfish.

just like the movies.

note to self: potbelly sandwich milkshake, this weekend.

a lot of the questions i get from outsiders have to do with people killing themselves. is it your fault? do you feel endless remorse? the short answer to the first question, apparently, is no. beyond a certain point, if someone is sad enough, and sick enough, and wants to kill himself badly enough, he'll find a way, no matter what you say or do.

i suppose this is true, although it does also hint at a built-in justification for incompetence. it's also very hard to accept, no matter how many times you say it to yourself. sometimes people just die. i was flipping through complications, by atul gawande the other day; his thesis is that we, as society, find mistakes by doctors and nurses impermissible, and by doing so hold them to essentially impossible standards. which is true, and perhaps even necessary. there's such a fine balance here; on the one hand, health care professionals are (tragically) human, like the rest of us, and on the other, if we draw the line anywhere beneath perfection, how do you ever define the criterion point for acceptable, especially with our modern insistence that a human life is of either undefinable or infinite value?

as for remorse, that's a deeper question. on house last season, foreman screws up and kills someone, and hugh laurie tells him at the end of the episode to go home, have a few drinks, come back the next day and do it all over again, that he can't offer forgiveness because there's nothing to forgive. i think what is closer to the truth is that forgiveness isn't possible if there's no clear concept of what sin is. medicine, flawed as it is, at least attempts to define what can be cured and what can't, when it's reasonable to pull the plug. psychologists have coarse instruments, "clinical judgment", and worse still, for people who are poorly-trained, half-baked, superstitious notions of a patient's prognosis. and people kill themselves, sometimes out of an orange-colored sky, and you wonder: is there anything to forgive? do i take this guilt upon myself? and sometimes, i think, you just really, really don't know.

daniel and wife laura had a bunch of department people over for sangria and mexican munchies. i swear to you, they make the best pico de gallo in the entire world; it makes me want to swear off store-bought salsa for the rest of my life. it was all very summery, very rachael ray, with the languorously-turning ceiling fan, ice melting in glasses, and a bowl of dark, sweet cherries, picked from a new jersey orchard not two hours before.

and one more thing

-- i have finally convinced myself that people do have hypnagogic imagery of video games they've played during the day, even though this isn't something i've personally experienced.

(except for that one time when i dreamed i was in the mushroom kingdom, but i think that was because i ate cheese before bed.)

APSS '07 (5)

my talk was scheduled for thursday, the very last day of the conference (of course). this meant no sleep on wednesday night, despite my best efforts to convince myself that it didn't really matter, nothing really matters (anyone can see; nothing really matters to me). it's funny how your mind can just lose control of your body when you're anxious. i really pity people with GAD.

the actuality of it wasn't bad at all; all the things they say help really do -- looking for the friendly face, being yourself etc. q&a caught me a little bit off guard -- i was so relieved to be done that for a moment i forgot that people get to ask me questions. fortunately, i'm quite aware of the all-time #1 piece of advice for fielding questions from the audience, which is to preface every answer you're unsure of with "that's a very good question". that way, the questioner is too busy basking in the warm afterglow of being called smart to actually pay attention to your subsequent answer. works like a charm.

APSS '07 (4)

they bring us up to the 52nd floor of some swanky hotel, and unleash us on an open bar, and pretty much all hell breaks loose. people start telling me stories about the history of the lab that i don't think i was ever meant to hear, and i kind of grin stupidly, and nod very slowly. for the longest time i'm sure i have it under control, but the champagne is slow-acting, and soon enough i catch myself telling gurpreet how much i admire the works of khushwant singh and r.k. narayan, a bad sign. i compensate by eating more -- the bacon-wrapped scallops are very good. our server is roxanne (you don't have to put on that red light), and she refills our glasses too often, and flirts with mb. i hear someone try to tell someone else about an upcoming research project and making little to no sense. "but the wheel's off!", is, i think, the appropriate exclamation, but who ever comes up with these things? the sun sets, slowly, and late (it's nearly the solstice), and i feel like i want to retire to a balcony, glass in hand, and just say to someone, anyone, who's out there: "i say, my good fellow, isn't it simply a splendid evening?". and he would say, in reply: "it most certainly is, dear chap, it most certainly is."

APSS '07 (3)

we went to hell's kitchen* twice, because it was nearby, but also because it was that good. highly recommended: lemon ricotta pancakes (melt-in-your-mouth), the all-american breakfast with bison sausage (8,000,000 calories), mahnomin porridge, and the walleye b.l.t.. minus/weird points: we were told there would be a 5-minute wait the first time, and waited 20, then were told we would have to wait for 20 minutes the second time and were seated in 5. i would have waited 20 both times, though.

* no relation to the TV show

APSS '07 (2)

to be honest, from a scientific standpoint, i wasn't terribly impressed with anything that i saw. in the first place, there are so few groups doing research directly related to mine that i tend to already have tabs on their work; in the second, i think it was a slow year for sleep and neuroimaging. still, i continue to enjoy the fact that the pond is small; at least this way people know i exist.

APSS '07 (1)

Minneapolis, MN

Unless you're bloody rich, a lot of the appeal of travel is purely romantic. The reality everyone knows. Having your sense of time and space get thrown out of whack, living out of a suitcase. Getting lost. Unwholesome food. My romantic self, though, always seems to have my sense of reality in an armlock, which is why I would unhesitatingly get in a time machine and visit the 16th century, or, as the case may be, not absolutely dread flying out to the Midwest.

annoyance

"When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again"

i get to give a full WAIS tomorrow for the very first time, with all the real equipment and everything. i know it's lame to say so, especially since in our police state they inexplicably allow fresh grads to administer it (wtf?), but it's very exciting, and i shall make like a real professional and do it with aplomb.

zot, in society hill, is one of the better belgian pubs in town, with a classy location and a drinks list as long as your arm. i met thomas and ewa there for a We Love Summer dinner -- all of us will be away for mostly-non-overlapping periods during the break, and figured we'd better get our jollies while the going was good. thomas, unfortunately, loves beer but has the Asian gene, which usually means three ecstatic sips and then a long mournful evening of passing his glass around the table. someone needs to manufacture an aldehyde dehydrogenase pill and make a killing in china, stat (p.s. if you do this, some of those billions are mine). i got to try gouden caroulus, which was just amazing, sherry-sweet and very pleasant. also, petrus (rock? or wrong language?) and leffe, both very nice. totally going back just for the beer, or maybe to eulogy where the list is as long as both your arms, and the tables, i'm told, are coffins. the food wasn't too shabby either -- herb crusted bone marrow, potatoes in various guises, mussels in a tarragon creme sauce. tom wanted waterzooi (he had actually planned the trip for wednesday in particular because it was their special du jour), but they were out, so he had a rather morose beef stew instead. there was no chocolate, which made me sad, and reminded me of the fullerton chocolate buffet which made me even sadder. alas. we walked down penn's landing after the dinner and stared out at the delaware, and thomas said it reminded him of looking across from sentosa to the mainland at night, which it did -- black, bottomless water, and the warm promise of the other side.

clinical training started today. there was no grace period, no how-tos for dummies, just the high-wire and no net beneath. learn by failing. learn by saying the wrong thing. look a total stranger in the eye, and control your terror, and try and find out what's wrong with him.

i think i'm afraid i'll be bad at it. not afraid to try, but afraid that this is finally something so massively beyond me that i'll wade into the ocean and never touch bottom. that the thing i reassure myself with -- that i and everyone i know are damaged, fucked-up, struggling for the surface, and that when it comes to clients it's just a matter of degree, a tendency not a diagnosis -- may not be true, is not true, that there really are more things on heaven and earth that are dreamt of in my philosophy. that i'll be too empathic, or not empathic enough. that people who try to help others should not themselves be desperately trying to keep it together, beating it into themselves that it's ok as long as you let go of it all and not take anything so damn seriously.

how seriously to take it, that's the thing. that's the trick. i can't take it absolutely seriously. i can't take anything absolutely seriously any more, because that's how you truly go mad, like soldiers in wartime who can't find a way to make light of the situation when their brothers-in-arms are blown to bits by a claymore. perhaps that's the thing to hang on to, that yes, many things are horrible -- people slashing their wrists, starving themselves to death, following the voices in their head onto the railway tracks -- but ultimately, there's either God, in which case all is well, or oblivion, in which case all is meaningless. and either way, it's possible to imagine a large-enough space that the sum total of all uncured mental illness, no matter how awful, is still nothing, insignificant, lost among the vastness of whatever infinity is real.

i wish i could go back to college. in college you know who you are.

conversations in the lab between grad students

me: i don't believe it. we're almost halfway though this year.
daniel: which year?
me:this one?

---

me: look at this cool textbook. i got it for free.
daniel: where'd you get it?
me: i just picked it up.
daniel: you do realize that's called stealing.

rouge on rittenhouse square has an extraordinary cheese platter at only $18 late nights, 10 varieties with fruit and caramelized walnuts. i wish i knew how to identify cheeses; anything beyond cheddar and brie is just either Tasty or Not. fortunately the deficiency has at present no practical consequences, but if i ever do have money to spend on nice things (unlikely), cheese gastronomy is something i want to learn.

The Advisor summoned me today to discuss what i'd been doing the past couple of weeks (nothing), and what i was planning to do with the rest of the summer (write this very intimidating book chapter, finish my data collection for our smaller study, prove the Riemann hypothesis, climb K2, win the Tour de France). Somewhere during the course of the conversation he said something like: "As you start thinking about your dissertation...", and i didn't really hear the rest of it because i went into a kind of coma. I'm definitely in denial that I'll ever actually produce a dissertation; it is one of those mythical events so far in the future as to be inconceivable, like the colonization of Mars. What does a dissertation even look like? I refuse to believe that it's merely a bound collection of paper. In my mind, it's like whatever was in Marcellas' suitcase at the end of Pulp Fiction, incandescent, not fit for the eyes of mortal man.