Long days
Imagination is powerful. When it’s far below zero and the sun hasn’t yet risen, as I’m riding the bus to a day of underground lectures, I close my eyes and imagine I’m somewhere else.
Imagination is powerful. When it’s far below zero and the sun hasn’t yet risen, as I’m riding the bus to a day of underground lectures, I close my eyes and imagine I’m somewhere else.
I’d like to do a catch-up dinner with you all. I’m thinking the weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. So, something like the 16th of January, we could all go out to dinner somewhere… hence the McRupekoeclapespe moniker for this post. Naturally, all others who I wasn’t able to wedge into the catchy name are absolutely invited. RSVP* here with regrets, suggestions, and acceptances. It will be awesome.
* I just learned this is an abbrevation of the French phrase répondez s’il vous plaît. Interesting.
Ostensibly, the reason for my total radio silence on tumbledry is clear: the second half of my first semester of dental school was extraordinarily busy. For example: for the first time since I began working out in 1999, I voluntarily gave up the gym for six weeks. I ran through gross anatomy flash cards on the bus to and from school, I ran through flash cards before sleeping, I ran through flash cards with Mykala, I ran through flash cards while walking across the train tracks between my bus stop and apartment, I woke up running through flash cards in my mind. Incidentally, I slept little. I skipped so many meals that by the end of the semester I looked at the mirror and was shocked to see someone who appeared quite gaunt. So, that would seem to be the full story. It is not.
November 12, 2008 was the biggest day of reckoning in my life. My mid-term test results in two big classes came back with some stupendously low numbers. I don’t mean just not good… no, my performance was earth-shatteringly bad. I crunched the numbers on the grades and realized that, if I didn’t do nearly perfectly on my remaining tests of the semester, I would be kicked out of dental school. I would be booted from what I’d been working toward for 5 years, with a shockingly large debt load, into the worst economy since the Great Depression. Those were the stakes — so on the night of November 12, I almost gave up. And I don’t mean that lightly. I didn’t almost decide not to go to school anymore. I almost gave up on myself completely. Totally. In an utter panic, I called Mykala and said I didn’t know what to do — she left very early from work and came down, just in time to watch me totally, completely melt down. Weeks later, talking it over with Mykala and later with my parents, I described the event as something snapping in me. In time, it felt like something snapped into place. At the time, though, I felt no such comfort from an alternate path illuminated before me: I was a caged animal gnawing my arm off for release. I didn’t know if I could go on.
It all boiled down to this: I had four final exams (2 lab, 2 lecture) split between histology and gross anatomy in which I had to perform unfathomably well. I had to step up to the plate four times and hit four home runs. Once I decided I might be able to do it, I focused exclusively exclusively on studying. Saturday night after Thanksgiving found me in the Histology lab, reviewing slides and trying to organize all the organ systems and their interrelating hormones. I attended lectures, then I rewatched them online, pausing every 30 seconds and writing down everything I heard. I remember spending five hours straight in the histology lab before the test, desperately trying to make sure I could identify organs in histological slides. The histo course director was absolutely amazing — endlessly enthusiastic and helpful, she did weekly tutoring sessions and stayed as late as 8pm to help me with all the concepts. And then there was gross anatomy.
In an effort to reinvent the way I had been studying for gross anatomy, I made a stab at a method I hoped would work: I diagrammed everything. Everything that I could possibly draw, I drew. I now have a binder full of schematics for structures like the external carotid artery, parasympathetic and sympathetic contributions to the Vidian nerve, dural venous sinus drainage, muscles of facial expression, sensory innervation of the skin on the skull, and on and on and on and on. The last night the lab was open before the final, I spent 13 hours on my feet, examining my group’s dissected cadaver in addition to all the cadavers of my classmates. I took a half hour break for a panicked dinner.
Then on January 1, 2009, between 1:30 and 2:30am, the U of M’s computer grading system FINALLY refreshed and I found out that I had passed my classes. I made it. More accurately, we made it — Mykala and I. During that living hell of endless studying, we grew closer to one another and grew more as people more than I would have ever thought possible (especially during such a time like this last semester). We came out on the other side more in love, more understanding of one another, armed with an arsenal of tools to tackle future crises… and me owing a huge debt of gratitude to my wonderful fiancée. I even became closer to my family: my mom answering all my phone calls, my dad emailing advice, and my sister praying for me and sending me the occasional funny video.
It was amazing. Terrible. And amazing. Life-changing. My entire worldview has been shifted, clicked into place, and I am a much better person for it.
And one more thing: never again. Never, ever, again.
Good news! In the past few days, Mykala and I put together our wedding website. You can find the product of our work at alexandmykala.com. We’re both really happy with how it turned out and I’m looking forward to including it on invitations.
Eight miserable years full of reckless American leadership decisions have nearly passed and the only widely-consumed contrarian views came from network TV: sputterings of miserably incoherent, self-righteous, closed-minded sycophants. Sadly, the most coherent commentary presented has been ironic humor at the current administration’s expense. It’s funny and entertaining, but by no means a catalyst for action. The rest of the opposition to our leaders, as far as I can tell, is composed of scattered bumper sticker sales. So, I ask the same question asked by those who lived through the Vietnam War: where is the outrage? At this point, about the best we can get is this New York Times piece about Bush by Bob Herbert entitled “Add Up the Damage”:
This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.
The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks? Exploiting the public’s understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to nuke us: “We cannot wait,” he said, “for the final proof — the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
The piece is an angry enumeration of the mistakes of the past eight years of American leadership; it derives most of its force from the multitude of offenses it lists. Mr. Herbert calls for angry crowds in the street, protests, a public unified behind unanimous disgust with a leadership task horribly mangled. Unfortunately, one of the pieces of propaganda of the publicity machine that brought Bush to power follows: protest has been marketed as an “unamerican” activity. The smear campaign against social activism was so successful that protesting is now universally viewed as the domain of crackpots and extremists. I’m looking forward to a time in the future (who knows how far in the future), when people full of common sense, justified rage, and a commitment to change can march to get their ideas heard.
And yes, I saw Colin Powell’s 2003 address to the United Nations Security Council about Iraq before the war. I believed it. Yet, everything in it was false. I was duped, and I didn’t do anything when I found out. I’m guilty of inaction, too.
The story of why I painstakingly overhauled this website and then failed to post to it for almost two months will be told in bits and pieces. Until I reach the end of my current story arc, I defer to the readers that remain:
What’s new with you all?
And I mean this; even if you’ve never posted a comment before, now is the time. I’ve learned that it isn’t possible to extract much meaning from life without people around us, so I really want to know what’s up.
I sincerely apologize for failing to communicate with many/most/all of you during the tail of this last semester. I’ll return all calls, reintegrate myself with the world, and hopefully close any rifts that may have appeared.
In late 2005, a Marquette dental school student was suspended over blog posts which were critical of classmates and teachers at the writer’s school. No specific names were mentioned by the writer, but the punishments doled out by Marquette were extremely severe. Loss of scholarship, suspension, community service, demands for a public apology. This (as the article puts it) “draconian” reaction to public expression has caused me to remove tumbledry from public search engines. As a dental student, I’d prefer not to deal with the hassle of defending everything I write to a professional review committee. So, as of a few days ago, no Google search for my name, the phrase tumbledry, Mykala, etc. will pull up this page. Nope. We’re completely unlisted.
Unfortunately, unlisting tumbledry prevents the “search” feature on the front page from functioning. Why would I make this site less usable in exchange for privacy? I’ll take a little time to explain my thought process.
I’ve always had a conflicted relationship with tumbledry as an indexed, searchable, public place. While I love random visitors stopping by and sharing their opinions, I also enjoy the idea of a quietly hidden little destination where everyone feels safe. Furthermore, I’m fascinated by the idea of this space as an “über phone number”. That is, when you get to know someone pretty well, you give them your phone number. As years go by, they know how they can reach you. I like the idea of tumbledry as the internet version of this — when I meet you and get to know you, I’ll leave you my website address. You can follow where my life journey is taking me, and hopefully I can entertain you along the way. I love to think of the space as a way to stay in touch.
When searches for my name pull up random posts out of context, the system breaks down. So, to everyone: please keep visiting, and sorry the search doesn’t work right now.
Now, after this unlisting, I don’t know if I should list tumbledry on my Facebook profile or no. Hard to say. Thoughts are welcome.
Sitting here studying histology. This is the third time I’ve heard celebratory shouts and whoops from the St. Paul streets outside. What do these whooping people support? I don’t know! I’ve sworn off looking at election returns until I get some more studying done.
The suspense has almost killed me.
Wick Allison is the former publisher of The National Review, which describes itself as “America’s most widely read and influential magazine and web site for Republican/conservative news, commentary, and opinion.” So, you may be interested in Mr. Allison’s recent article, A Conservative for Obama:
Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man.
I offer two pieces of advice for tomorrow. One: consider the candidates, not the parties. Two: if you let large news organizations dictate the points about which you argue with your friends and neighbors, you are taking their bait, distracting yourself, and wasting time.
Musical shivers are “go” with Bloc Party’s new album “Intimacy”. Mykala sent me an email saying the album sounded pretty good, so I picked it up 15 minutes ago and gave the track “Signs” a listen while I ate dinner.
Whoah.
Re: that track “Signs”… I’ve never heard such good use of electronically syncopated bell sounds. Bloc Party sounds like this: take the accessible feel of late 90s alt-rock and blend in “emo” lyrics from the early 2000s — next, strip out the washed-out guitars. In their stead, inject a throbbing heart of interesting instrumentation, propulsive rhythm, and clever processing and you get Bloc Party’s barnburning sound.
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