This Is Beautiful: Post-Move

 So my lab recently moved to a new space. It's been pretty annoying, I first cancelled all experiments in order to put shit into boxes, and then cancelled this week in order to unpack and also find things again. But it's finally starting to clear up and feel nice. The space is a lot bigger, has more windows, and I think will be pretty nice to work in. Best of all is that it has parking! I've been dreading work for a while because I didn't want to deal with the move, but after today I think it'll actually be nice for things to go back to normal.

“When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi

I picked up this book in between readings, mostly because it was available immediately on Libby. It sort of sucks, it is a cool book, but it just made me realize that I have to stop reading these medical books. Just completely, they are not my thing. And therefore this post will be a little biased.

The book follows the author, Paul, through his life including medical school and residency. He gets diagnosed with lung cancer in the middle of his training to become a neurosurgeon, and he talks about his treatments and conversations that he has with his wife, how their marriage was struggling and their decision to have a kid. It drops off eventually when he has to go back for third-line treatment, and from their his wife picks it up in the epilogue. Paul ended up not recovering with that and dying shortly after graduation, he got to see maybe the first year of his daughter’s life and was unable to finish the manuscript before succumbing.

There’s a lot of cool things about this book. First is that Paul has degrees in English literature so he clearly knows what he is doing with his writing. It really makes it a joy to read. And second, or similarly, he talks a lot about how he wanted to understand the human experience and particularly what it means to die. He starts by talking about death in literature, and from there goes to the doctor’s view of it, and finally death as a patient. He struggles with his diagnosis and the fact that he doesn’t want to die, even though he knows that he must. The book therefore holds a very interesting perspective for anyone who has thought about death and what it means to face it on a practical level.

I’m so done with these books though. A lot of the book talks about how horrible it is to be in residency and to be a neurosurgeon. Paul repeatedly says that it is a calling because if it was a job then it’d be the worst job in the world. But there is absolutely no momentum to change that. Whatsoever. And that frustrates me so much about medical training and medical school. People look down on those that pick “lifestyle specialties” where you get to have humane hours and a work-life balance instead of burning out. Paul shares a classmate of his even commits suicide after losing a patient. Why on earth aren’t we changing things instead of leaving everyone to get burnt out? It’s part of the reason why I didn’t pursue medical school in the end, there is a deep attachment to tradition just because and breaking you down just because. I couldn’t do it and take it seriously. I’m not sure I take most doctors seriously as a result.

Anyways so I have to stop reading them. I know too much and this veneer about how doctors are such good, brave people feels false and rings hollow to me. Even someone like Paul who I’m sure was a good person seems fake when taking into context the fact that doctors just don’t have the time and capacity to get sleep and care for people. It’s ridiculous. But also if you aren’t jaded like me, it is an interesting read. I just hate the taste that these memoirs leave in my mouth now.

This Is Beautiful: Halloween Costumes

 This year the whole family is going as bedsheet ghosts for Halloween, so I cut eye holes for the humans, cats, and dog. It's going to be tough to get them to all sit still for a picture, but it'll be so silly and fun! This is really the only part of Halloween I do anymore, but the taking of pictures and dressing up silly is still fun.

“How To Piss Off Men” by Kyle Prue

Now I have been a fan of Prue’s work for a while, my partner found him on TikTok with his series of the same name there, and we were thrilled when he came out with a physical book. Even better was when I saw he was coming to our town on a book tour, so of course we got tickets immediately.

The book is short, I read it while waiting for the book tour event to start haha. But he manages to get in stories about his grandfather and masculinity and how the different quips came to his attention. It manages to be an interesting view on men and how they are while still being a silly little book.

I would highly recommend it, of nothing else it spruces up your coffee table. But don’t get me wrong, I intend to study its contents very closely.

This Is Beautiful: Over the Garden Wall

 This past weekend my friend had an "Over the Garden Wall" watch party to rewatch the classic fall cartoon. It was so fun! My partner had never seen it, and I only just watched it over the pandemic for the first time.

It's really nice watching things specifically with other people, you get to react with them and turn it into a collective experience. And the cartoon is so fun and cute, it captures the fall weather and spooky season so well. 

Watch cartoons with your friends! It's a good time.

Re: Being an Adult Dancer (or trying to)

I'm so frustrated with dancing as an adult. Primarily with ballet, although this has limited applications to other styles of dance. I have performed other styles as an adult though, and ballet is definitely the worst ageism wise. 

Before getting into my rant, I was a pretty serious ballet dancer in high school. Never was professional level, but I have been taking dance lessons my whole life. I stopped performing after high school, but kept up with classes and performed different styles in college and post-college. It's not a priority anymore, but I don't consider myself to be an adult beginner by any means.

I've been trying to find somewhere, some studio, where I can perform in the Nutcracker again (or any ballet but that's the most widespread). And it is so hard. From looking online, your only options are if you go to a smaller studio that happens to put on its own production and takes its students. If you live somewhere that has a professional company that already puts on the Nutcracker, you're out of luck because odds are they're taking all of the audience. Or if your studio focuses entirely on the pre-professional kids, also out of luck because less resources go to the adults.

Since I'm in graduate school, that's more or less where I'm at. I still take classes through the university but since I'm not a dance major I can't perform anywhere (I'm getting my PhD in genetics for context, I'm not in the dance school). I start looking for something, anything, in the area that 1. has auditions where you don't need to be a student there, and 2. takes adults. There's nothing! So few places do this.

I found exactly one studio that's 2 hours away from me and says it takes community members. I reached out to confirm, and the woman on the phone said that "there's plenty of roles" and that since I'm 2 hours away they could "give me a part where I wouldn't be needed every weekend." And I thought that sounded perfect.

Audition comes, I drive 2 hours, do the audition, and drive back the 2 hours. From my perspective, it went really well and the students they had there weren't that much better than me. Casting announcement drops and I get a whole email saying "Congrats! We are so proud of all of you" and I didn't get cast. At all. All of the people I auditioned with have at least 4 roles each and not a one could be spared for me.

I'll be honest, I feel a little like I was hustled into paying the audition fee. Because they probably decided they wanted to prioritize their own students, or the distance would mean I couldn't attend enough rehearsals, or there's something that they knew in advance would limit me and they still encouraged me to audition anyways! What a waste of my time.

I've been like low-key in a depression since then, and my heart super hasn't been in dancing since that. And I'm terrified that if I reach out and ask what happened I'll get told any number of silly things from "my body type was wrong" to "you wouldn't be able to attend enough rehearsals." Because what's the point, I can do this thing my whole life and I'll likely never get on a stage again. Ballet is just such a young person's game, there are so few resources if you want to continue past the age of 18 non-professionally. I wish that this would change, but I doubt it.

This Is Beautiful: Apple Picking

 It's fall and that means it's cider mill season! Just got back from an orchard where we picked apples and got hot cider and a bunch of donuts. I love excuses to eat apple cider donuts, they are so good. And with the leaves finally falling, it really feels like summer is over and fall is here! It's lovely. Best weather at this point too when it's still pretty warm so you don't need a ton of layers but there's a bit of a chill that just energizes you! It's fall time babayyyyyy!

“Black Powder War” by Naomi Novik

This is the third installment in the Temeraire series, which I am definitely hooked on (you can read about the first book here and the second one here). It continues to expand the world of Temeraire, and develops Temeraire’s revolutionary thoughts which I am so here for.

Opening of the book has the squad in China, where their ship gets busted so they have to fly over land. As a result Laurence picks up a guide, Tharkay, who remains a bit of a mystery throughout the book, sometimes seeming sinister and other times helpful. They make it through the desert and from there get to Istanbul where their mission is to obtain 3 dragon eggs for Britain. From there it seems like a bit of a mystery as the officials there say that they cannot give them the eggs as the British ambassador has taken off before the payment was finalized. Laurence does some digging and decides to simply steal the eggs as they were paid for and finalized. They make off with the eggs and from there end up in Austria fighting off Napoleon. The albino dragon Lien has joined Napoleon and seeks to crush Temeraire and co for killing her captain. The egg holding a fire breathing dragon hatches so Granby finally gets his own dragon, and Tharkay saves the day by bringing back a group of feral dragons they befriended earlier, and the book ends with the whole squad heading back to England.

Alright so we are a little short on the action in this book, but there is a lot of traveling which is cool to see because then you see the towns along the way. Feels very “Game of Thrones” in that way. There are also some cool characters that get added, such as Tharkay and the feral dragons. You definitely see the rest of the world, and I thought the glimpse we get of Austria and Turkey were a lot of fun, although we aren’t there long enough to get a true picture of it. It feels a little untethered with all of the traveling around, but with the smaller crew it still feels close so it doesn’t matter as much.

Temeraire is determined to get back to England and liberate the dragons there. Laurence is trying to dissuade him best he can as he doesn’t think that Temeraire will be successful, at one point saying that they have to defeat Napoleon first, but Laurence is slowly warming up to the idea. I am fascinated by this plot point because it means the author has to reckon with how you change society to make others more accepted. There are some parallels for humans, for example a big point is that infrastructure needs to change so that huge dragons can navigate streets. Humans need to be less scared of dragons too, making a sort of case for a disability parallel or other marginalized groups. I think it’ll be so cool to see how this progresses.

I am excited to see them head back to England in part so that there are more consistent characters. Having characters appear for only one book is a little frustrating, but I’m hoping with this next book Tharkay sticks around for longer. I’ve mentioned previously that characters keep dying without much fanfare, and with this one it felt less like that because the crew was smaller so you can’t kill them off without implications.

I think that’s enough for now, but onwards to the next installment! It is great to dive into a long series that really has me hooked, I have not done this in a while.

This Is Beautiful: Fight Night

 So went to my first play of the academic year, and it was a lot of fun and also thought provoking! "Fight Night" is a play about elections, and it manages to be incredibly political while not mentioning politics at all (that's how it was described to me and I was confused but that statement is 100% accurate now that I've seen it). 

The play has 5 candidates, and you start by voting for which one you think looks cool, then they start talking about values and things like that and you keep voting. The first round they are able to combine votes though, and there's other surprises like a blind vote and such. I was curious how much actually changes when you vote though, with the combining votes they could get the same person off every time. And by the end the candidates were all suggesting different ways of doing things that seemed distinct from what they said earlier on. I'm not sure. But it doesn't make you think about voting, and the importance of voting too. 

Anyways I'm a huge fan of art that you can participate in, so this was cool for me. And its clearly making a political statement, so can't fault them for not trying to say something. Ended up being a cool night out!