Intelligence?

What makes someone a genius - my super-smart husband who missed a grand total of 2 on the GRE after completely failing to study or my mother who always seems to know how to handle delicate situations? And please don't feed me Howard Gardner's theories, I really can't stand him.

I wonder about this a lot. How many people out there are just smart enough to realize they are good, but will never be truly great? I often get frustrated with myself in this way, though as I get older I realize that if I can just do one thing really well I will be content. This is not fair - I suppose we are all good at something (don't even start with H. Gardner!), but what really makes a genius?

Newton gave up any hope of a "normal" life searching for scientific truths. However, he also worked nearly constantly. . .does this mean if we all quit blogging and started reading and studying more we could all be great thinkers?

I feel like I could really handle the pressures of being a genius. So why am I not a genius? Okay, okay, considering my family history I guess I'm moving up, but how long is this going to take? Any neurosurgeons out there with some electrodes that might spark my genius centers?

What about someone like Abraham Joshua Heschel? Truly a great man and great thinker, but was he a genius? Who was smarter - Gandhi or Einstein?

What about genetics? Here's where people get pissed off. But we can say that certain breeds of dogs are smarter, and we can breed rats who are smarter or dumber. . .so why doesn't breeding count? We know there are many great male thinkers, but where are the women? Where are all of the black geniuses? Perhaps we have different innate abilities and disabilities (I hate Howard Gardner!).

Is there anyone doing this kind of research? I mean, without the political baggage attached to it. I want to know. I want answers! Oh, and by the way, Mozart definitely doesn't make anyone smarter, but Brahms might. . .

addendum: I absolutely am not racist. In fact, I think I make more effort than your average to understand people and to treat everyone with dignity and respect; I am just curious. Please don't misunderstand my questioning.

My Generation and a Feminist Rant

I got to thinking, dangerous I know, about my generation. We all claim that our baby boomer parents screwed everything up, but are we really doing much better? My generation seems to be the biggest failure in American education. Finally people started to notice that we are in fact rather stupid. Watch Idiocracy, it's absolutely not child-appropriate, but it has some elements that seem plausible, and that worries me.

So now that we're here, what are we going to do? I realized after I graduated from college that I knew very little of any importance. I had horrible grammar skills, virtually no knowledge of history, awful math ability, and I think that was because most people were just as uneducated or worse. Growing up, I didn't know that someday I would be ashamed of my lack of education. I passed the tests and looked great on paper, but I was scholastically challenged.

This has to stop. Why does it seem like nobody cares? When I go to Borders I am depressed to see scads of women sitting around talking about television actors and actresses, and other trite gossip. They talk about politics occasionally, and the words coming out of their mouths are stolen from their husbands and the media. They have no idea what they're talking about, and even worse, they don't care. Men don't do this as much. There is still some competition to know more than the other guy. Women seem to either fall into the "do-all, be-all" category, the super-achievers, or leave their brains behind with the first baby.

Why do I never see a woman reading "Nature" or "Scientific American," both of which are accessible to the general public? The "Women's Magazine" types make flames shoot out of my ears; I get so mad just reading the covers.

I came up with the term for a real woman of valor - feminatrix domestique. I think it's worthwhile to embrace the feminine, but loathsome to assume the damsel mode. Just as I believe men should be allowed to be men, I think allowing men to embrace the feminine sides of themselves is good too. We all need to find a balance, and I think men are doing a better job of that - or perhaps I just choose my friends wisely. . .

I hope I'm wrong. I hope there are plenty of 20-somethings out there that are going to jump all over this post, leaving my faulty ideas in the dust.

A bit of poetry -

If you'd just take my hand
I would feel safer
but leave the other one alone
so I can punch you if
need be

Medicine

I've had a lot of surgeries - 12 to be exact, and I loved my doctors. I'll share a couple of the other side of medicine stories from the patient's point-of-view:

When I was 8 I had my first surgery. I remember reading over the bill when it came to my parent's house and asking what a catheter was. My mother explained it to me and I was horrified that someone, even worse, an unknown someone had touched my 'private parts.' I vowed to never let that happen again. I mean, why did they need to do that? I had used the bathroom before surgery. . . At that age I didn't know why that's done.

When I was 9 I had 9 surgeries. For the second one I decided to 'prevent' being catheterized. My ingenious plan was to wear my underwear under my gown. I asked my parents to leave the room while I changed so I wouldn't be caught. Brilliant! Following surgery I was coming to and I found a neat little specimen bag with my little black underwear in it! I was too groggy to really care, but I told my mother that I needed to go to the bathroom. She told me it was okay, that I could just go. "Mother!" That was when I realized that the nasty little invader was still in me.

I spent a month in the hospital that year, during which I learned all kinds of neat things like intramuscular injections. The bruises took months to go away. I had shattered my femur bone and endured awful muscle contractions for two weeks. Then the morphine became a bit too much of a friend and I was cut off. Tylenol just didn't do it. Finally I started to heal - more surgeries to correct this leg that didn't want to come together. At least the epiphyseal (spelling?) plates (growth plates) were intact. I'm not very tall, and my legs didn't have to grow much, but at least they're the same length.

I'll skip the more private details of my medical history, but I will recount what it was like to almost die. . .twice. The first time the anesthesiologist made a huge boo-boo. I was a stocky kid and must have looked much heavier than I was. I was way over-anesthetized, and some pretty heroic measures were used to 'fix' the problem. I was half-way through a long procedure and started waking up. The surgeon swore, the anesthesiologist swore, and all I remember was hallucinating and seeing some pretty awesome stuff (oxygen deprivation will do that). The second time I was in recovery after a surgery where I lost a lot of blood. I don't remember what happened, but I wish they had just gone ahead with a transfusion. I was weak and dizzy for weeks following that.

One more good story (this one will keep you away from hospitals. . .) I was recovering from another quite invasive surgery. I had lost a lot of blood and was in a lot of pain. I was taken up to my room at about 9:00 PM. The night was so long. I was in so much pain, but not enough to call out. My call-button had fallen onto the floor. At 8:00 AM I was checked on for the first time. The nurses panicked. I guess they thought I'd sue. I was treated like a queen from there on out.

Why in the world, then, would I want to be a surgeon? If anyone knows about what it feels like to be a patient I do. I also love medicine and am endlessly fascinated by the human body's givings and misgivings. Now we await the MCAT scores. . .

A Bit of Poetry for You

Excuse me
how do you get to
the train station?
You know what -
nevermind
I'll just walk until I find it
No really,
I like the rain
We understand each other
I've nowhere to go anyhow
it's kind of nice
I don't have a change of clothes
I'm already soaked
It's pretty funny actually
and besides
I don't have any money
it sure beats the hell out
of where I've been
what I've seen
what I've done
I love the smell of
summer rain on flowers
and fresh-cut grass
Sometimes I wish I was
a tree-
unless you're too tall
lightening and all
but at any rate
I should let you get going
but hey
you really should get out in the rain more
often
What's that?
Sure you can come too

This one I composed in a coffee-shop amidst unhappy and lonely people:

Metallic sculptures
hard lines
consummate angles
Friendly conversation
little glimpses
into unknown lives
beautiful faces
shining eyes
troubled smile lines
big soft chairs to cushion
you
like arms
the ones that don't hold you
Happy music
for sad people

Taking out the toilet. . .

So we're getting ready to sell our house. I never want to be a home owner again! However, I have learned how to remove a toilet among other things. Today I patched holes in walls and woodwork. Tomorrow I rip up the kitchen floor. Oh yeah, and scraping and painting a garage is loads of fun. The flooding of the kitchen a few weeks ago was also a real joy. . .

At least I still have open access to my espresso maker. For that I am truly thankful. Moving the refrigerator also got me to clean it, so I suppose that was a bonus.

What it that?! I think I feel some biceps on me! Perhaps this isn't so bad after all.

Tisha b'av

The road to religion in my life has had many curves. I was raised Catholic by a Neo-Pagan set of hippie parents. However, I was also reared in a large Jewish community, and took care of the Rabbi's children for several years, and I have some Jewish relatives. Once I moved away from home I left religion behind.

My husband and I knew a Jewish woman (secular) who died unexpectedly. I really liked her wit and I loved talking to her. On a whim that evening I started looking for Jewish sources to nurse the wound that had formed in my heart on the day of her passing. I had lost someone who was a real gift, and I barely knew her.

The more I read the more it made sense. The more I read the more it didn't make sense. But one thing impressed me more than anything - Jewish life is based on scholarship and debate. One does religion as a way of letting those deeds fill the heart and mind. This is exactly what I needed.

I talked to my husband about it. I thought he would think I was crazy (crazier?), but instead he started reading and realized that yes, this is a good thing.

This past Tuesday we celebrated the Jewish holiday (if you want to call it that) Tisha b'av. It's a day of mourning commemorating the falling of the two temples, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain among other atrocities. We sat on the floor at the rabbi's house and read the book of Lamentations, or rather, it was chanted. For the next 25 hours we fasted.

Fasting wasn't too hard, but the body does go into a depression, both physically and spiritually. I felt so sad by the end of the day. I wanted to eat and drink, but not as badly as I wanted to understand why people are cruel. Why does anyone need to suffer at another's hand? I do mean people. Why are people terrible to one another? Why are people careless? I don't know. Why didn't I stop and help that man in a wheelchair in Chicago? He was throwing-up. He was all alone. Was he drunk? Did that matter? Why didn't I stop, go back into the restaurant and get him some water and moist paper towels? I don't know, and that burden will be with me for the rest of my life. Every day I try to be a bit kinder. It's not in my nature, but I try. Maybe someday I will be able to say, "This time I was a great help."

Shalom.

Idea Thief

So I was teaching a cello lesson the other day when a student's mother pointed out that Ani DeFranco was coming to town. Now, I am not a man-hater, I am merely sceptical about most people. You see, I think about what I'm doing and how I affect other people. When I have something to throw out I think, "Could I recycle this somehow?" I like to reflect on myself to see how I am doing. I've kept journals since the 4th grade. I think it's important to make good eye-contact with one's self. Back to Ani - The title of my blog comes from one of her CD's where she talks about the little fish swimming around and around. Always they are surprised by the little plastic castles. They are too stupid to realize that they keep swimming around in circles. I decided a long time ago not to swim around in circles, and not to let my life be led by what other people think. I'm odd. It's true.

I play the cello, write poetry, love animals, and shy away from anyone who seems to be shut off from their frontal lobe. Someday I want to be a surgeon. Am I smart enough? I guess we'll find out soon enough. . .

Little Plastic Castles

So I decided to start a blog. Am I interesting? Some may think so. I am a cellist and a medical student wannabe.