My Favorite and Least Favorite Entries in Mindy Kaling's Book

I bought "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" when I was in Austin and knew I would have a fair amount of down time; I had an interest in the book for quite awhile but was previously unable to justify spending the money to own it as I always have a stack of books that I'm in the middle of reading and/or have already purchased and 'really should get around to reading.'
Anyways, the opportunity finally came for me to delve into some fun, and funny, reading!

I really enjoyed the book. It was easy to get through - something I really needed since my attention span was not at its best. 

Incidentally, both my favorite and least favorite entries in Kaling's book were in the same section:  "The Best Distraction in the World:  Romance and Guys." 

First came the least favorite: 

In ITALICS it reads "At that time I remember thinking, I just want to meet a guy who has not been, at one point in his life, diagnosed with clinical depression.That was my only criterion."

Wow. Really? Do a lot of people think this? Way to make a parade out of the stigma of mental health. But then I had to realize that this book is categorized as Humor and Kaling PROBABLY didn't feel as strongly about depression as it came off to me. Surely, this is not a general criterion for the generaly population when dating. Everyone is different and has different experiences, blah, blah, blah.

Now for the fun part!!!

First of all the fact that Kaling had the genius to write a section with this title - it's amazing! And it's so true (at least to me)! You may or may not have noticed, but I have a crush on Hozier - you know, the guy who sings Take Me to Church (seriously listen to the rest of his album though because it is AMAzing). So the reason I brought up Hozier is because he generally has some chest hair showing when making public appearances of all sorts. The timing of coming across this was extraordinary because my main purpose for making the pilgrimage to Austin was to see Hozier perform live! Don't you see! It's all a sign! I have no idea what the sign is or what it represents, but you don't turn a sign down when you know you have come across one.

My point in writing this piece: 1) To get back in to the swing of writing; I have had a lot of ideas but have been reluctant to give them any kind of reality or being. 2) To recommend Kaling's book to all who like to laugh and/or need a break from serious reading - I know you crazy college kids are having to deal with finals right about now.

So even if you hated this blog piece, go pick up a book! It's good for you!

No More Elephants In This Blog

                I particularly enjoy writing pieces that are relevant to current events. With Robin Williams’s passing, I thought it was time to write and publicly share this.

                I have depression. Dysthymia to be exact. Dysthymia is a chronic but relatively ‘mild’ form of depression. I’ve had two major depressive episodes. The first occurred in February 2011 and is the reason I took a medical withdrawl from UC Berkeley. It was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make, but it was the right one.

                I also have an anxiety disorder, which is actually probably worse (stronger, more present) that the depression. Apparently, it isn’t normal to remember being anxious in Kindergarten. This ‘dual diagnosis’ makes it more difficult to decipher the source of the problems I encounter.

                It sucks. No, I don’t want your pity. The last thing I want is your pity. I actually unfriended a high school friend on Facebook after meeting him for coffee because my pity radar went off.

                If you really want to do something, donate, anything, to http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/donate . I am very fortunate that I have an incredibly supportive family who has also financed the entirety of my vast and plenty mental health treatments. Mental health does not have the funding, facilities, or personnel it needs to really make a difference in the lives of every person (or even American) who faces a mental health disorder. I have experienced this in the forms of poor therapists who actually made me feel worse and poor urgent care facilities that are something out of Sylvia Plath’s writings and will scare you out of whatever it is you are experiencing, temporarily.

                In my Title Explanation, I stated that I metaphorically Lost My Boots In Berkeley. I lost my identity. I was a student, a scholar a researcher – not a mental health patient.

                For approximately three years, the treatment of my mental health disorders became my primary focus, which did not allow for the time or mental capacity to maintain my former identity.

                The combination of time away from school and a deluge of prescription drugs led to a deterioration of my intelligence. It was almost like I could physically feel it in my brain. Words would not come to me in conversation despite my desperate attempts to recall them. My memory was poor. My neurons weren’t firing like they used to. I began to say “Well, I used to be smart/intelligent.”

                It became obvious that in order to treat my disorders, I had to accept them, but it seemed like their acceptance would result in the loss of my former self:  My wants, desires, passions, personality – everything that made me, me.

                Luckily, I now know that this is not true. One of the most important lessons I have learned over the past few years is the importance of balance. I can see a therapist but also attend school. I can take the right prescription medications but also hang out with friends and have a good time. Tears are sometimes followed by laughter and vice versa.

                The reason I am writing and sharing this piece is to bring awareness to mental health and all those who face its many disorders. Not talking about depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, etc. gives them a terrific power. It has taken me time, but I now know that my diseases are nothing to be ashamed of. So many people are hiding their mental health disorders for fear of facing discrimination and even ridicule. Many individuals are scared about mental health disorders because they do not have any knowledge about them. Luckily for me, the only time I have really faced discrimination has been in the dating scene. I can’t tell you how many guys have tucked their tail and run as soon as I said “I have depress….”

                My diseases are something I will live with for the rest of my life, but they will not define my life. And I have a lot in the life ahead of me.          

                I’m changing my major from Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in Genetics to Psychology. For one thing, it’s less of a mouthful. (That’s not really a reason I’m changing my major, but it’s a good point.) I have taken two Psychology courses and thoroughly enjoyed both. My decision to change my major is both a selfish and selfless act because I’m making this change to make my life more enjoyable – despite my passion for Genetics, I do not deem Organic Chemistry nor Biochemistry enjoyable. It is a selfless act because I hope to one day use my knowledge and experiences to help others who are struggling with similar demons I have faced.

                I may one day return to gene therapy. I definitely still have a passion for it and am fascinated by the field, but, right now, that track is not for me. I am considering merging my two passions by becoming a Genetic Counselor:  Someone who relays genetic test results to patients and advises them on choices they may or may not make based on those results.

                If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or comment on the post. I welcome and encourage questions and discussion.

                Did you just hear that? I heard a stampede of elephants that is the secrecy of mental health.

The Evolution of my views on Love and love

           That dreaded time of year is coming up again: Valentine’s Day. It’s been quite some time since I last posted. I apologize for that; I’ve been breaking in my “boots.”

            At this point in time, I don’t see myself ever getting married. I started dating a guy sometime around this past August/September. He didn’t know that I am not fond of the idea of marriage for myself. We went over to my friend’s family’s house one weekend after we had been dating a couple of weeks. We spent the majority of the day there, laughing, talking, eating a nice, home-cooked meal, etc. As the night started to wind down, he thought it would be funny to pretend to propose to me. He got down on one knee. He didn’t even have time to utter a single word before I experienced a full panic attack. Difficulty breathing, rapid heart beat, feels like a heart attack. Yeah, all that fun stuff. He quickly apologized and said he would have never attempted such a prank if he knew it would have that effect on me.

            Needless to say, I have a long way to go before I enter into a serious relationship.

The following essay was written in the Fall of 2009 and was part of my application to UC Berkeley.

            I lay under the covers beneath the warm, quiet light, reading a book as I awaited sleep to take me. There was one problem:  this book was not relaxing my mind. On the contrary, this literature was stimulating my brain. I knew this was not an ordinary book.

            One of the most enlightening experiences a human can have is learning that other humans share a philosophy about life similar to the one they have personally developed. Through a modern book, I learned an ancient philosopher developed ideas about life that I came to develop independently.

            One night, I began reading the book Sophie’s World. It didn’t take long for that incomparable sensation when you read something intellectually stimulating to occur at the back of my brain – almost as if my pesky little sister was using a feather to tickle my frontal lobe.

            As I began reading the chapter on Plato, I became excited. The fundamentals of his philosophy sounded familiar to me. I had somehow developed similar ideas.

            We both thought that ideas the human mind is capable of developing aren’t always realistic and can’t be manifested in the actual world.

            I talked to my English teacher about my exciting revelation and she recommended I read Phaedrus, a work by Plato. I couldn’t wait to delve into the writing of my new mentor. It turned out that we also have similar ideas about love:  true love isn’t really possible and humans always mess it up.

            After discovering that I thought in a way similar to an ancient philosopher, it felt as though I had received an endorsement to expand on my thinking. I now know that I have my buddy, Plato, to go to whenever I feel like I’m over thinking a quandary.

I wrote this on January 1, 2014 (wanted a good start to the new year) for an application to St. Edward’s University:

As children, we often initially fear things that do not actually exist:  The monster under the bed, ghosts, etc. For me, personally, I still fear something that does not exist here, in the physical world. I fear love. The kind of love that is all encompassing and life changing. The scariest thing about Love is that the average person thinks they have, at least at one point in their life, experienced it. But, according to Plato, the highest Form of Love does not exist here on Earth. My fear came into fruition when I first encountered Plato and his theories. Though it did make complete sense to me that humans are fully capable of thinking of, imagining, and analyzing concepts that are not possible of occurring in the physical world, it also led me to feeling disappointed. The scariest thing of all results when a person thinks they are experiencing the Form of Love. Generally, this develops into a brief happy period when everything is focused on this perceived occurrence of Love, but eventually results in a great, agonizing downfall when the people involved realize they are not actually experiencing Love. The root of this fear is my first failed relationship. I thought I had met the Love of my life and we would live happily ever after. Shockingly, this was not the case for my first high school boyfriend. I then began to look outward for signs of Love and was disappointed to find that I occasionally encounter elements of Love but never the full and complete concept. Couples will enjoy hours, sometimes even days, of blissful Love and Happiness, but then some element of reality hits and they are brought back down to Earth. There are bills to be paid, a family member has just been diagnosed with a chronic disease, the mother-in-law is still determined to break-up the marriage, you begin to realize your partner isn’t quite the person you thought he or she was when you first agreed to a committed relationship, or your partner has changed into someone you don’t recognize and don’t want to be with. My fear of Love represents my general fear and disgust of the world. As much as I strive for and desire perfection, it, too, does not, and will not, exist. Even if I dedicate the rest of my life to making the world a better place, the imperfections and tragedies will still significantly outweigh the Good in the world. I am still trying to figure out what I want in and with my life, but it is frustrating and disappointing when those things I begin to contemplate setting out to accomplish are either impossible or non-existent. This self-discovery has benefitted me in that I am slowly learning to cherish the small things and take one day at a time rather than plan the next fifteen years of my life. I am learning that it is healthy and important to have goals but also that there are so many things in life that are unexpected that we all just have to roll with what comes at us. I hope that one day, I am able to find a form of love. This love would be more about companionship and support rather than passion and change. It would be realistic, yet unexpected. It wouldn’t necessarily have to last a lifetime but be significant enough that its memory would bring a lifetime of joy.

One of my Facebook friends posted this link:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201401/7-reasons-most-people-are-afraid-love

Where do you and Love or love stand?

God Made Dirt, So Dirt Don't Hurt

During my first year of life, my dad worked for Mobil Gas. He was part of an exploratory team looking for possible new drilling sites around the world. I think I was about six months old when he made a trip to Nigeria.

Since I was a curious youngin’ I licked the bottom of his shoes as soon as I could get my little hands on them. My parents were both horrified; I don’t know who had the worse case of fear:  my mom, being the overprotective and cautious parent of her first-born, or my dad who knew where those soles had been. My mom called Poison Control who simply instructed to wait it out.

Fast-forward to the Fall of 2009. A pretty serious outbreak of Swine Flu affected the nation. My sister was diagnosed with the virus. I waited anxiously for symptoms of my own to surface since we were very close and spent a lot of time together. Weeks passed and it seemed as though the virus had passed through. To this day, I am convinced that by licking my father’s shoes after their trip to Nigeria, I was able to build up immunities to all kinds of ‘interesting’ diseases, including Swine Flu.

How To: Get Me to Do Just About Anything

It was my junior year of high school, and the Regional Solo and Ensemble competition was approaching. My private lesson teacher selected a Saint-Saëns solo for me to follow the previous year’s performance of “Le Cygne,” which granted me the opportunity to go to the state competition.

This piece, Allegro Appassionato, however, was far more challenging and complex than “The Swan.” In my mind, I had mastered the new piece. Though, there was a section about two-thirds through the piece which gave me some difficulty. It required playing two notes at once, on two different strings while shifting positions. I practiced enough that the muscles in my fingers, hand, and wrist knew where to be and when.

I played through Allegro Appassionato for my teacher and felt pretty secure with the performance. My teacher assured me that I had mastered the notes and bowings, but it was missing a key element: emotion. The majority of the piece was playful, a fairly easy emotion to portray, but that tricky section with the double stops hid an under-lying emotion I was not comfortable with: anger.

My teacher looked at me and said, “Erin, I’m sorry, but I don’t think you can do it.” If you know me well, you know that if I am really angry, my first physical reaction is to cry. Tears began to blur my vision. I began to play a few measures before the dreaded section and let my emotions grow and release, matching the notes, rhythms, and dynamics on the page. I finished with three resounding chords. I looked over to my teacher. She smiled, and said, “there you go.”

You Can’t Plan Happiness

During the summer of 2008, I attended a summer program at Brown University. It took me a few days to adjust to the atmosphere, make friends, and embrace all the freedom I was given. Once everything fell into place, I grew to absolutely love the campus and the city of Providence, Rhode Island.

When I came home, I decided that Brown would be my first choice for my undergraduate education. The application involved approximately three essays. The first essay was rather short, around 250 words, and asked the applicant why Brown was the right choice for him/her. In my opinion, I wrote one of the best pieces I have ever written. I impressed myself by including metaphors and analogies that not only displayed my desire to attend Brown but also were somewhat amusing, which I thought would be a nice relief to the reader after going through thousands of similar essays.

One of the other essays I included was more of a standard essay that I used for multiple college applications. A few days before the deadline, I submitted my application online.

In accordance with my pessimistic quality, I poured over my submitted application only to realize that I submitted an incomplete/unrevised version of the standard essay. I quickly picked up the phone and called the Admissions Office; while holding back tears, I explained my predicament. The staff member told me I could mail a hard copy of the correct version of my essay but he/she could not guarantee that it would be matched up to my application and replace the unfinished version.

Much to my dismay, I learned a few months later that I was not accepted to Brown University. I did not know what to do. My plan had been to attend Brown – I even told an alumnus interviewer for another, rather prestigious, school that I would choose Brown over her alma mater, which I am sure resulted in the placing of my name on that school’s wait-list.

Long story short, a few days before May 1^st (the deadline to accept a college’s admission offer) I fell in love with Berkeley and felt confident in my decision to attend its Molecular and Cell Biology program.

In September of my freshman year, I attended a seminar relating to the College of Letters and Sciences’ On the Same Page Program, which was about gene sequencing and the statistics related to certain genes.

During the presentation, I learned about Dr. Urnov, a Berkeley faculty member, who was involved in gene therapy experimentation. I sat up straighter and said to my friend, “I need to meet him.” It took me about a month to muster up the courage to send Dr. Urnov an email, and I was ecstatic that not only did he reply to my email but that he also wanted to meet me.

I met with Dr. Urnov in his office at Sangamo Biosciences (which just so happens to be the original office for Pixar – AWESOME!) and handed him a copy of my resume as well as a copy of the evaluation my teacher at Brown wrote.

He poured over the evaluation and saw the instructor’s signature at the bottom. “You know Donna?” he asked. It took me a minute to realize he was referring to my teacher at Brown who I knew better as Dr. Lizotte and replied, “yes.” He smiled and said they attended graduate school together at Brown. I was in shock.

Dr. Urnov graciously offered to drive me back to the Berkeley campus after our meeting. During the car ride we spoke about Brown and Providence. He mentioned that although he received an excellent education at Brown, he felt that the relatively small town of Providence did not provide an accurate worldview. Then, he looked me in the eye and said, “You made the right choice to attend Cal over Brown.” I smiled. I did not feel it was necessary to share the struggle I experienced in my rejection from Brown. All that mattered was that I had found my place.

Why I Consider Myself an Honorary Aggie

My grandfather is a class of 1943 Aggie. Yes…WHOOP! I attended my first football game when I was in Kindergarten, and since I diagnosed myself with ‘sensitive ears,’ I sobbed every time the cannon was fired. A&M slaughtered whoever their opponent was.

Fast forward a couple of months and it was Christmas season. I was hoping with my whole being that Santa Claus would bring me a goldfish. I was so happy to wake up Christmas morning to find that my wish had been granted. Goldie floated in a classic round bowl on the coffee table in the living room as my parents carefully guarded him/her? from our Golden Retriever, Belle, who seemed to think this gift was actually for her.

Fast forward a few months more to the summer. My sister had a friend over at the house. Of course Goldie was one of the attractions that had to be shown off. I made sure to supervise this interaction. In case you didn’t know I was INCREDIBLY shy when I was little….like it was debilitating. Anyways, Megan’s guest took great interest in Goldie. She asked if she could feed it, and I granted her permission. The young girl began to dump teaspoon-sized portions of fish food into the bowl to my utter horror. I didn’t know how to stop this madness. Then, to my great shock, she picked Goldie up! I don’t remember exactly what I did. I’m pretty sure I just ran to my mom in tears. About eight hours later Goldie was upside-down at the surface of the water. His/her? stomach was bulging from the excess food.

That night I was supposed to spend the night at my grandparents’s house. When dusk began to fall, and the sorrow of my great loss began to manifest itself within my soul, I began crying and sought solace in my grandfather. He hoisted me up onto his lap and began to tell me a story. It was the story of the first Reveille. I learned that she was just a mutt, but that the young men of A&M adopted her and loved her dearly. I learned what great joy this dog brought to these Aggies. My grandfather then began to tear up as he recounted the end of Reveille’s life and how sad all of his classmates were to lose her. He made a point of telling me that just because she was physically gone, she had made an impression on him, and he was sure this was true of every single other Aggie, and that was what truly mattered.