Author: pseudoisaac

– Currently at St Olaf; plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose! (The more that things change, the more they stay the same!)

– Had a gas station French vanilla cappuccino that was really good at the time but not so good in the ensuing hour or two.

– Four-hour long MCAT practice test went well; apparently I am a retard in biology, but the verbal reasoning section was very good, as if that will help. And I did well in the physical sciences section despite not having taken college physics yet. Perhaps I will take it this summer.

– Betty once again on the out-and-out; portion of bowel that is ichemic is too substantial to derive much nourishment from food she eats. Saw her two days ago likely for the last time.

– One favorite quote in “House of God” so far: “If you want to scrog the librarian, you have to talk about Shakespeare.” If you want to get into med school, Isaac, you have to choke down more organ-ick chemisery and some more math, too.

– New Year’s party marked by outbreaks of random fires, a lot of strange smells, turkey somehow getting ground into carpet, hard man-nipples (why do we have those, anyways?), uncalled-for drunken player hation, and a sword being drawn at at least two points. But the Perkins night cap at 4am made it all worth it.

– Jan 1 is the day of the year you are most likely to be murdered, but I made it through. First day of “Water resource management” tomorrow, 8am sharp.

– Great aunt Betty much better; will recover and will hopefully live a lot longer despite what she’s been through with an ischemic small intestine.

– Not going to visit parents and Holocaust museum in Chicago due to unplanned stomach flu and planned four-hour long MCAT practice test on Saturday.

– Must find some way to spend $100 in gift certificates to Savers. Likely to possess thirty more pounds of clothing by the time all is spent.

– Went to church on Christmas and took communion despite utter inconsistency with beliefs; took comfort in thought of most others there likely not believing in spirits, either. Still, nice people.

– Why do I bother reading the stupid goddamn newspaper, anyways? I read the entire Strib this morning and now I can hardly remember a single article from it. What was the last really profound thing I read in a paper, anyways? Not only that, but I’ve been told that newspapers are written on a fifth-grade reading level, and that the articles are written in an inverted-pyramid fashion, with as much of the important stuff as possible as early in the article as possible. And I’ve heard that the best way to improve one’s reading skills is not to increase the volume but rather the difficulty of the texts. And I’m not planning on writing that kind fact-after-fact prose in my future, anyways. So the news is forgettable, it doesn’t help me grow all that much, it doesn’t contribute to my writing skills, and it stresses me out, anyways. I should subtract most of the time I spend staying current on the news and devote it to reading profound things like “House of God” and “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.”

I went for a run yesterday and it turned out to be the best run in recent history. The evening sky was completely black by the time I went at around seven, and it was so clear that the stars were stubbornly reaching out to this city dweller, for whom the airport to the southeast and downtown to the north usually obscure the rest of the galaxy. I was thinking about being more spontaneous in general and taking more risks, and then a suppressed elan du coeur expressed itself and I ran out into the lake. I couldn’t remember if the ice got thicker towards the middle of the lake or thinner, but I went for it anyways on fresh ice that had yet to be snowed upon, so it was slick as an ice rink. Had I fallen through, I might have thought, “So the Parcae spun.” In the middle of the lake I stopped for the first time to truly gaze at the stars, which refused to be ignored. I lay on my back on the frigid clear ice and let that old sense of wonder come back – the kind of awe that led me to plants and human bodies and rats and dinosaurs and all the other things I have ever been passionate about. I looked up at Orion and knew he would be around for billions of years after my death. I am an amalgam of matter imbued with a brief spark of consciousness, a tiny speck of thinking and knowing amidst this universe of mostly unconscious matter. Orion’s stars are just hunks of matter and yet they may give light and warmth to beings just like me, in a way coming to know itself. Then my ass and shoulders got cold and I had to get up and run back home. But still, this will stick with me.

– Betty is out of the hospital and in the care center at the complex where she has lived for the past ten years. After the transfer the nurses were trying to put the IV’s back in her arms and having trouble finding a vein, and finally Betty decided to just say no to all the artificial stuff and allow herself to die. So, no saline solution and no dextrose aka no water and no nutrients whatsoever. What’s the rule of three? Three minutes without oxygen, three hours without warmth, three days without water, and three weeks without food. So, having gone without water for the past three days, she has little time left until she dies from dehydration. The morphine has helped, but she says today was the first day when her quality of life in dying has finally slipped, which is hard to hear. She’s ready to go and just wants it to be done with, but of course she can’t speed it up just by willing it. She’s been so level-headed and calm and had such lucidity in dying. I hope I have same grace when I finally snuff it, wherever and however it may be.

– Ochem final went okay. Stupid goddamn aldol condensation…

– Moved shit to Olaf on Sunday. Not much crap left to go.

– LOTR trilogy (all three in a row!) at Riverside on 28 Dec; considering attempting it.

To start on a morbid note (or should I say a mortal note?): when I got back from class today I found a brief email from my parents that went like this: “Great aunt Betty was admitted to the hospital with vomiting, diarrhea, great pain, etc. and likely had a “stroke” of the colon. She probably would not survive surgery and likely has four or five days to live. We’re leaving by car shortly to come to Minneapolis and will see you tonight.”

Wow. Just a couple of weeks ago, Betty was sitting at the Thanksgiving dinner table, as spunky an old lady as ever, not having lived to the age of 95 without a fight. She still walked a mile each day and was as socially active as one can be at that age. But despite all she did to protect your body and her health, something could still go wrong in some corner of her body – an organ gone out of function, a normally ignored process or enzyme somehow inactivated. For Betty it was the colon, and what would be a matter of routine surgery for a young and resilient person is precluded thanks to the thinning of the colon that progresses with old age and makes recovery less and less likely.

I’m visiting Betty tomorrow. She’s lucid and says she’s ready for anything, including death. It will be sad to see her go. I’m going to tell her that her continuous growth throughout her life is the thing I would most like to have gained from having her as my great aunt.