parcelled consciousness

My husband and I were talking the other day, and I came to the realization that the way his brain is set up and the way mine is set up are two very different things. Which I would expect, because of gender differences. However, I conducted a very general, uncontrolled and nonscientific study over the last few weeks where I've learned that perhaps my brain is the abnormal one.
For instance-
I have a hard time visualizing anything. For me, day dreaming is work. I spend most of my time right here, right now. If I'm bored, I count things, or try to sketch something in the room, or draw a person that I can think about in my fuzzy visual frame. The way I recall people appears to have nothing to do with the way I last saw them, instead focusing on a moment that they were truly beautiful or ugly to me. I rarely fantasize.

I don't hear my own voice reading, inside my head, as I go through a book. I don't know if it's because I started reading before I had a really firm grasp of language, or if I'm just wired wrong. Either way, my reading speed is something like 750 words a minute, according to an internet source where you control the speed of the words and increase it until you just barely can read it. Reading is one of the view times that my imagination kicks in just fine, supported by the print and concentration. I lose myself and the world around me as I fall into a book.

I can't picture my brain as a rose garden, or as filing cabinets, or as hallways with rooms of storage. It's just my brain.
It's full of music, all of the time. and the way that sunshine feels. My proprioception is rather good, and my sense of space. I have a pretty good memory, but only when something is important to me. I have a hard time remembering faces or names, but not personalities or hugs.
I love to touch things, because I remember touch best of all.

and I'm fascinated by the fact that this is not the way that other people experience the world. Everyone knows that each has a unique experience, blah blah blah ect- but I want to know how you see the world, and why it's different, and what you remember.
How is your world made?

What is this connection, anyways?

I'm overwhelmed by the outpour of love and support that I've experienced lately.

(you all know I'm a spotlight whore, I won't lie)
but I guess I just figured that no one noticed me. I did the best I could and learned as much as I could cram into my brain.
Now, the last three days, really, everyone has been so positively glowing.
Being a favorite is something unexpected for me.

Now, before you judge this as emo, try to think of it as just an empirical data set.
I've disappointed nearly everyone I know for a long time.
I'm not kidding, when my dad got my graduation announcement, he really asked me why I was only graduating magna cum laude instead of suma.
So they're disappointed and proud, but I've got this filter, where I've learned that everything I'm doing is (and this is very important)
for myself

Since it's not going to be good enough for anyone else, the only person I have to satisfy is myself. Over the last four years, I've set strenuous goals for myself. and I've met every one of them.
No matter what, I always believe in me.
I've met my goals, and I'm super proud of myself. I've done so well, and I'm taking away so many honors, and I guess I was still seeing it through this view of "the only positive opinion will be my own" perspective. To have other people tell me that I'm a favorite, that I've changed the way they look at things, to know that I made a difference in the lives that I've been in contact with is intensely rewarding, even as it is confusing.

I usually feel so alone. And that's good too- a leader isn't part of the pack, and they can't be. But this bewildering week, I feel connected and cherished.

I think the true value of education comes not in the books we read or the classes that we attend, but in the lives that we've changed and the hearts we've touched, the people who have changed our lives and our hearts, and the joy that we've found along the way.

Thank you. Thank you for letting me change your life, and thank you for changing mine. Tomorrow is the last day of a wonderful epoch.
I'll miss you all.

one thousand pounds of awesome.

Today was an Amazing day.

I started the morning by acquiring my favorite coffee from my favorite coffee stand- dirty chai with soy- and I paid for the person behind me. Someone has to start the chain. And Karma repaid me instantly, as I walked past my favorite professor's door and saw that they were around. I dropped onto the couch, as I have many, many hours in the past, and they said "You know, I wasn't sure if I was going to see you, and I was going to whisper in your ear at graduation, but you've been my favorite student in 23 years, and I was thinking about retiring, but you've given me new faith."
And I pretty much cried. I'm emotional, and o.k. with that.
My prof went on to tell me that they really believe that I'm going to change the world, and that I have so much potential. I believe them, and it made my day so full of confidence to hear it, right before I presented my senior research to the community.
One of my best friends took time out of his day to escort me to the awards ceremony and to lunch, and also sat through my presentation, even though it wasn't in his field and it took up a lot of time.
My presentation went really well. The room was packed, with standing room only, of people that love me and came to support me. They laughed in all of the right places and asked good questions. I feel like I covered the material way better than I did in practice sessions, and I didn't use the speech that I printed out against the option that I might freeze.
The president of the university himself shook my hand afterwards, and told me I did a great job. Some of the younger students said that my research made sense to them, completely, and professors in the audience still thought it was relevant. My advisor seemed really happy with it.
I went to a whole bunch of other presentations, and really enjoyed them all. I learned a lot. I struggled with a philosophical dilemma that I hadn't previously considered.
A friend bought me dinner, and I ate with a philosophy professor that I have always wanted to take a class from, and we had a wonderful discussion. He said that I'd made him consider a problem from from an angle he'd never considered, and would think about including that in his book.
I went to the nondenominational worship service and came to terms with the alienation and belonging inherent in being different, and maybe even considered it a good thing. After super bucket, I danced for an hour with friends, and got excited about moving to Portland all over again, and saw a gorgeous view of Olympia as I drove a friend home.
Overall, I feel encouraged and inspired. I wish every day could be this cool.

revolutionary

Che Guevara. We see him everywhere on t-shirts and other ironically consumerist products, but 90% of the people who buy that crap have no idea who he was.
A physician touched by the extreme conditions induced by poverty, Che came to a point where he believed that an armed resistance was the only way to adequately reset society. He was known for his tranquility, his penchant for tobacco, his apparent detachment from violence, and his class conflict ideals.
I sometimes wonder if I could get to that point. No one (should) get into medicine without a passion for healing, and people in poverty have a much harder time achieving and maintaining health. Even in our relatively comfortable American poverty, we accept untimely death because of lack of resources as a normal event. If enough children died in my arms, would I lead a revolution? Would I execute traitors in the name of a cause that would outlive even me?
I'd like to think that I wouldn't.
Even though I agree with most of Che's ideals, I think his methods were all wrong. Maybe that's all he had left- but it seems like rocking the Gandhi approach would work better in the end. Even though it takes more death, more anguish, more patience- the effect of peaceful resistance is more lasting and stable than a revolution fed on blood and passion. Blood and passion is better for economics and for capitalism- ultimately furthering the cause of capitalism with t-shirts and iconic prints.
I'll pray for patience, and for the courage to do what is right even at personal harm without even the dignity of a comeback as we seek to rectify this murderous society.

Religious Inquiry

I get so nervous, sitting through mass, that my stomach sends up continual mewls of distress and my hands lose circulation. Each time I go, careful to sit next to someone who knows what they're doing (and usually, also, someone who knows that I don't know what I'm doing), I know the whole time that I'm going to be lost and out of control the entire time. Though the routine as a whole is slowly beginning to become familiar I find that the particulars are always tripping me up. Little things, like being on the aisle instead of safely inside the row, eat at me, and I'm not sure why.

Churches are havens of safety. I'm not really talking about the southern baptist worship halls that I grew up with. The sanctuary there was just as chaotic as the fellowship hall, and there was no feeling of sacredness there, no sense of community and purpose behind the fire and brimstone I was raised with. But every catholic church I've walked in, even the ones filled with thousands of tourists, has had a hush of faith over it. Every ritual I've ever participated in has been filled with the ring of truth.
The first time I crossed myself with holy water, I'd been going for the just seeing how things felt curiosity. I saw all of the monks do it, as they passed the font of the refectory, and one night as I was leaving their dining room, I did it myself. It felt like a million tiny shocks, like the afterglow of intense pleasure, like I'd been dipped in solid gold for a second. And I started doing it every time I walked past a font- but only where no one could see me. I didn't want a monk to tell me that I was doing it wrong, or worse- that I wasn't good enough.

And then, Italy.
The sacredness of the faith was impossible to avoid. The monk who traveled with us was forgiving and kind, and the people who were with me supported me and taught me, and I felt like I belonged, for the first time in my life, wholeheartedly and without reserve. Enough for me to try coming to mass back at home, where people can see me falter and stumble my way through a ritual that most of them have been raised with. Enough for me to ask endless questions, exposing my ignorance.

Tonight, at mass with my stomach roiling at the spiritual journey that I've been insisting it continue on, I walked up during the Eucharist to receive a blessing. The father laid his hand on my head, and said- quite simply- "God Bless You".

But I felt it, felt the love that washed over me in a physical and emotional wave.


Tomorrow I'll probably worry about whether I was supposed to kneel or stand after that blessing, and think about what all of the other people are thinking when I don't genuflect or make the right hand gestures at the right time. I'll worry about what the rest of the family will think when I decide to convert. I'll try to figure out how to be a better person, one day and one prayer at a time.

Tonight, I feel alive and whole in the glow of faith.

Confidences

I promise not to inflict too much songwriting on the world, but I can't help but to occasionally post lyrics. I have a hypothetical situation where I'll sing with a couple people, but on the off chance that this never hits the airways, I still wanted it out of my system.
__________________________________

Failure to Thrive
A billion memories churn
as cytoplasmic machinery spits-
every secret immortalized,
recorded in my cells, your cells.

A million chemical messages fly
as emotions blush and color.
Despite words not spoken,
my face tells you everything.

A thousand touches fade
as blood begins to quiet-
Silence falls again,
despite my memories, your memories

The wine we drank, looking out
on city lights; sang in my veins
as you sang in my ears-
A hundred remembered moments
lighting my skin on fire
like the embers you flicked away.

Confidences; failed to thrive once home
but the memories stay
in my body, your body.
___________________________________

Intellectual Parlor Tricks

"Science itself is irrational- founded on things we cannot possibly prove" stated my Vice President for Academic Affairs this evening. With this statement, I felt a rush of relief. It's exactly the sentiment that I've felt all along, that the Scientific Method is a type of magic, a priori and ethereal in nature.

We, as a western culture, are so fixated on the methods of empiricism that we fail to see anything that cannot be explained, and in the explanation of all we experience- rip the joy of simply being away. Our derision for things outside of the scientific method are founded either in empiricism or in a disdain for the collectivist culture of the eternal present- satirized by terry pratchett in the theif of time by the way of eternal surprise.

It's time that we find that the past does not equal the future, and for every solution, we must approach each problem with an idea of the uniqueness of the difficulty which must be overcome. We must embrace creativity, or even the unknown as we seek to end the problems that face our generation.

Landings are the Moment of Truth

"You're small, so even if we do crash, your momentum will be less than mine and you probably wont get hurt much." he said, either deliberately trying to make me cry or genuinely trying to use logic to calm my hyperventilating frame. I burst into tears, the airplane hit another pocket of stomach disrupting turbulence, and he looked mortified. Must have been trying logic, then.

Logic has its place, of course. Western science is all about logic, these days. We discover things because we reason they are there, then go looking for them, like the not-quite-a-planet Pluto. We discredit feeling, don't believe in magic, and control the masses with media and ignorance. I'm not saying that my traveling companion had the wrong idea. He is absolutely right- momentum does depend on mass, most of the time, and since we were coming down to the landing strip, I very likely would have only presented bruises to the emergency response teams.

Still, all options considered, I would have preferred a hug and an insincere "we're going to be ok."

I'm not much of a scientist for someone about to graduate (magna cum laude, beeteedubs) with a Bachelor's in Science, specifically biology. I enjoy writing, foreign languages, philosophy and dance far too much for the typical left brained drudge. I'm not terribly logical, throwing myself into the emotion of the moment more than I should. I love the magic of being alive, the sense of connection I have to the world, and the competition of conquest. I'm riddled with an excessive desire for the spotlight, where I may someday become a famous rock star. A classmate of mine tells me I look like a faery on a day to day basis.

Yesterday, my flight landed so smoothly that I could hardly believe we were really rolling down the Seattle tarmac.
It may be an omen.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow.