Covers

Sometimes I like to listen to and compare different covers of a familiar song. I was just recently doing this with "Rainbow Connection" one of my favorite songs. Here's the original Kermit, from Muppet Movie:

I like this Dixie Chicks version. Soulful, nice twangy banjo and guitar supported by fiddle-y strings, sweet hearty voices.

This Weezer version is good too (with Hayley Williams). Nice, quirky sound, expansive at points, a little edgier, but still maintaining that tender feel of the original; I also like the swampy sounds in the background, nice touch:

Willie Nelson. Ephemeral. Savory, easy, nostalgic feel. You kind of get the sense he has already found that rainbow connection.

This one, I don't even know what to say, but I think I love it:

I already posted about the Sarah McLachlin version another time. Definitely a bit more wistful sounding.

Today, a grasshopper

Today, a grasshopper landed on me while I was riding home. It was cute, and it kind of tickled. I was about to flick it off then I realized it would probably land in the road, get run over and smushed if I did that. So I let it ride home with me on my arm. As we rode our short journey together, I began to grow attached to it, or at least to feel some sort of affinity. Found myself glancing down to my arm, checking to make sure it was still safely clinging, hadn't jumped out into traffic of its own accord or anything, even though I could feel its tiny feet gripping - a little prickly almost.

(Thank you JessicaNarelle for the image)

I got home, hopped off my bike, leaned down next to a bush in front of my apartment, and off it climbed. Little hitchhiker... haha... nice knowing you, that short trip.

"Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness..."

Like a Boss

I like this meme.

ps I just realized the cat one actually doesn't say "Like a Boss" but that cat is definitely lying there like a boss.

How to Make Friends with your Lab TA

When he is talking about increasing the pressure in a system and uses inflating a bicycle tire as a real-life example, and then says there aren't a lot of everyday examples of decreasing pressure, you might say something about suctioning a drinking glass onto your face.

I do that every day, doesn't everyone?

Or, while asking him a question during the procedure, you notice he is wearing a shirt that has the same college as your former roommate. You ask if he attended there, which year? When he says 2011, a good idea is to say loud enough for many people to hear "What?! From undergrad???" as you realize/try to make sense of the fact that OMG when I graduated college, this guy was still in high school! 

Ok or not ok?

Well, since yesterday was so effing balmy, I stayed up and did some extra work ahead of time for my now crazy schedule - taking accelerated Human Physiology and Chemistry II simultaneously - Wednesdays are particularly brutal, 9:30 AM to 9:00 PM, fortunately one class got out early, so I'm writing about a little "moral dilemma" situation I had in Chem lab.

For lab today I made up an excel ahead of time/last night with the graph for our data (the graph would populate once we had filled the data into the table, which I also set up). Part of the post-lab assignment is to create a graph like the one that I had made ahead of time. After we got our data, I entered it into the table on my laptop, and we used the spreadsheet to do the calculations instead of doing all of them manually/on a calculator. My partner and I both copied the numbers into our lab notebooks. But then, he asked if I could send him the excel and the graph. I said that I didn't think it would be fair, because that is the assignment, that is the work he is supposed to do. I pointed out that we had written down the numbers we had calculated in class in our lab notebooks anyway, and said I could email him the raw data, but not the analysis part.

I don't know if I erred on the side of being too stingy, but whether I did or didn't, I guess it was probably the right choice ultimately, for me, because I would have felt annoyed having done the work myself and then just giving it to him for free.

Self-Insight

So. Thoughts since my big life changes.

I feel happy. I am challenged. I am working toward a bigger goal, something worthwhile. I am learning so so so much each and every day. I'm feeding my brain with a lot of new thoughts and information. Spending more time outdoors, in sunlight, exercising so much. My body feels great, my soul feels great.

So in the future I need to really remember that these are things that contribute to my overall well-being. Not  overlook or settle or anything like that. Make them a priority, wherever I find myself, whatever I end up doing with life.

Hopefully I'm learning to be in tune with myself and to recognize the absence of these qualities to life.

That is all.

Get Married, Have Baby

Apparently all the kids are doing it.

I am not opposed, I would like it at some point, but I have never met somebody I want to do that with. Aside from one somewhat disastrous two-year experience, most of my romance interactions haven't lasted more than 1-2 months and then I begin to feel like it's not really enhancing my life at all (except for in the most corporeal sense).

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a freak.

Wonder if all these people have truly found *THE PERSON* or are just getting caught up in hormones, saying, "meh good enough for my purposes" (i.e. married/baby), and then dealing with the lack of fulfillment by realizing that it's not supposed to be that fulfilling actually, it's commitment and tradition and stuff.

That is the one interpretation I can see. And then the other is you meet someone and form an initial, intense connection. Intellectual. Spiritual. Sexual. You get to know one another and that initial spark simmers down a bit but becomes something deeper. There is work, but it's rewarding work, because it's work that you want to do, because it pays off, instead of busy work or work that seems to have no reward for the effort.

Obviously the second is preferable to me, but I cannot tell if it is realistic. I just am not sure if it's too much of an idealization for a  romance relationship. Is it too Disney? Too fairy tale?

With time and effort I have repaired myself quite a bit from the damages of that two-year disaster relationship, and feel like I am in a fairly good place, so perhaps something like that is more realistic than ever before. But I guess I've yet to meet someone where we share all three of those things (intellectual, spiritual, sexual connection) AND a relationship. So absent any firsthand data, it's hard for me to see it as a possibility for me. And if I can't see it as a possibility for myself, then I have trouble imagining that ALL relationships - or at least the majority who post statuses or pics about it on FB after a like 3 month engagement - don't fall under that first category or interpretation I described.

Ah well. These are my current thoughts about things.

Sad Day

During my observation hours today I saw a lot of patients I'd never seen before but also two repeat patients (i.e. I was observing another time when they also had come in for treatment). The first was in her early 30s, had back pain, was doing quite better.

The second a man, much older, had gotten knee replacement surgery. The first time I saw him he was in a lot of pain, had very limited mobility. It had been several weeks since the surgery and his recovery was unusually slow. It was obvious that even bending or straightening his knee was causing him a lot of pain. He ended up having to have manipulation under anesthesia performed (basically they knock you out and the surgeon bends the knee to restore range of motion - sounds gruesome but apparently tends to be effective). That was a few weeks ago.

He was the last patient today and it was kind of heartbreaking. For whatever the reason he had lost almost all of the mobility that the knee manipulation had restored. It was almost exactly the same as the first time I saw him getting therapy. Even with assistance, his knee was not able to bend past 90 degrees, and even that caused him immense pain. He was shaking and kind of whimpering, eyes pressed tightly closed, and when he opened them, they were watery. It didn't seem like it should have caused him so much pain, and the PT I was observing said that even for people of comparable age, this is rare. It just appeared that his body experienced pain differently from most people, that he wasn't able to do - or motivate himself to do - his exercises because of the pain he was experiencing (even with a pretty hefty dose of percocet).

I don't know. It just seemed like, if he cannot do what needs to be done to restore the range of motion in his leg, it isn't unlikely that he will ever be able to walk without pain. I just felt kind of bummed out leaving on that note. The PT was really supportive and encouraging to him, but I think she felt a little bummed out too.