Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2005
Old Maid
I was in such a good mood when I came in this morning (unusual, I know, but I had an awesome weekend. More about that later), but there was this shitty email waiting for me.
A little background before the email: we are trying to plan a biomedical career fair. We sent out invitations over a month ago and the career fair is in 2 Saturdays. Last week, my coworker, Nande, and I started going down the list of the 70 people we invited and called each one of them. Some said they couldn�t come because of prior arrangements, some never called us back. Luckily we have 8 people committed to come and we�re hoping to get, at the very least, 2 more in the next week.
Then there is this lady who sends this downright nasty and condescending email. And mind you, this is the second time she has sent an email of this nature, although the first time (a year ago) I ignored it,
Here�s what she wrote:With the list of subject areas that you wish to cover, you pretty much
exclude most of the pure science department departments such as
chemistry and biology and yet these probably make the greatest
contributions to medicine in the long run. Surely you do not think
that MD's develop new drugs, do you? Most of them were happy to pass
freshman Chemistry. Even BioEngineering would be excluded from your
list. It seems to me that you are giving students a rather uneven view
of medicine from your limited choice of topics. In any case, from
your list, there are few departments on the Coral Gables campus that
would be of interest to you - maybe Psychology and Sports Medicine.
Beeyatch!! What does she think I am, an idiot? The nerve of this lady. So I wrote her back:Hi Dr. [Head-up-your-Ass who thinks you�re better than everyone else because you have a PhD]
The list of subject areas is what our core curriculum is based on. We only have a limited amount of time (Saturdays), so we cover what we can. However, we do discuss everything from engineering to chemistry. I rarely talk about MD's because that's all they think about when they hear about the medical profession/industry. I personally try to push many of my students to check out careers that involve mainly research or, for the ones that are only interested in computers, careers that involve coming up with computer programs that can help doctors, scientists, or researchers. We also tried to cover a wide range of careers when we mailed out our invitations (I even sent some to several Biomedical engineers). But to be honest, the majority of our responses come from MDs. Regardless, this is a career fair and we would be happy to have anyone from any part of the science world come in and speak with our students because they simply do not know what opportunities are available to them. And, I would hope that someone in your line of work would be happy to inspire some new blood.
Thank you for considering our invitation and I hope if you are not interested that you will pass it on to someone else that is. [Beeyatch!!]
K
I swear, I was livid. Some of these people think that everyone else in the world, but them, is dumb. If someone ever pointed out this lady to me, I would trip her.
Uggh. Now I have a headache and I feel really nauseous and I want to go home.
Like I said above, I had a great weekend.
Friday night, I went to M0nty�s Happy Hour with my old roommate, Brown. Of course the only reason he ever goes there is so that he can watch his girlfriend all night while she bartends. The only good thing about that is that I get free drinks and free beer all night. Brown and I drank from 6:30 to 11:30. Then we went to my favorite bar (Big Nimble wasn�t there) and I had my favorite meal (blackened snapper on Caesar salad � Yum!) and another pitcher. Brown started falling asleep at the bar and almost got us kicked out. Then he started whining about sleep. So we left and walked home. And he didn�t even have to work the next day. Loser.
I went to bed a little before one and woke up the next day around 7:00 (my curse). I watched TV and then got a call from Gus around 8, which brightened my day, although he was calling to get directions because he was lost. Hey, any reason to talk to him is fine for me.
Fast forward through the rest of Saturday which was utterly boring because I didn�t have to teach since my students were just doing research for their projects. I got home and started to clean. Then Gus called again. It was one of his married friends birthdays and all the couples were going out and he wanted to know if I wanted to come with them.
I meet him and his friends at his house and we all go to the Beach and have a really good time. Despite almost getting into a fight with some dumb-ass chicks. Then, on the way home, we ordered food from Fl@nnigans and we hung out at Gus� for the rest of the night.
I must say that I �m a lot more comfortable around all his friends now. Before, I only liked hanging out with one of the couples, but now, it�s cool. It�s like I feel like they see me as part of the group now. And it�s fun hanging out with people who can have intellectual conversations yet party like rock stars at the same time.
What�s really funny is that Gus told me later that when he told the girls that I was coming they were all like, �why�d you invite her? Now we can�t dance because she�ll blow us out of the water.� They were kidding, of course. But I find it hilarious that certain girls are always intimidating by black girls dancing. And they�ve never seen me dance before. They just assumed that I was good. That�s not to say that I�m not good, but I�m no J@net or Britney or J.Ho. I like dancing and I can hold a beat, but I won�t pull out any fancy moves unless someone challenges me. And no one has ever really challenged me so I don�t know what I�m talking about here. Although, I would love to settle some disputes on the dancefloor, a la those movies and videos from the 80s (Love is a Battlefield � Pat Benatar; Beat It � MJ, Fast Forward, etc.) cause that would be both cool and awesome.
Anyway, I spent the night at Gus�. We had incredible sex for two hours and then collapsed into sleep. Sex with him just keeps getting better and better every time. The next day, we spent the early afternoon cuddling on the couch and watching a movie. And before I left to my parents� house, we couldn�t stop kissing and basically had to pull ourselves away from each other. Needless to I was in an extremely good mood for the next couple of days.
It�s like now I feel okay saying, �yes, this is my boyfriend.� If anyone had asked me before, I would say, �I don�t know what�s going on between us. We�re just kinda dating.� But now, it really does feel like a relationship and one that�s gonna last for while. I looked on the calendar today and realized that it�s only been a little over 2 months since we started seeing each other again, but it feel likes so much longer. My brain is probably just including the time we spent together over the summer into the calculation because that was about 6 weeks to 2 months also.
I don�t know what I�m trying to say. All I know is that it makes me feel good. You know, after Zane and Big Nimble but Before Gus, I had convinced myself that I was going to be an old maid. I was sure that I would never have a relationship and that I would end up as a mean 50-year old spinster who had never been married and hated everyone and everything except for my 20 cats. It�s a slightly disturbing picture, yet I honestly believed it with all my heart. The fact that I was also completely depressed during this time didn�t help either. And then this thing happened between Gus and I completely out of left field. And I�m glad, because now I see the possibility for a different future. One that includes only one cat, my kitty Ginger.
summerroll at 2:06 p.m.