The Mad Cow - Hormones and the mind

You've heard the old joke... Why do they call PMS, "PMS"... because "Mad Cow Disease" was taken.

Without going into details of the ebb and flow of my hormones, I have come to realize that once a month every month I come to the realization that I am unattractive. After I finally noticed that I have this same thought every 28 days, I have learnt to laugh at myself and think "this too will pass". However, even armed with this self-knowledge I cannot prevent the thought from popping into my head. And between the moment of that thought and the moment of realization, I am often truly saddened.

We all, in some way witness the link between chemicals and thoughts. I think of the clinically depressed, and I wonder... even knowing that they are depressed, they cannot stop the thoughts from coming. Unlike me, they cannot laugh it off... because it never passes.

Smoking Gun?

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/emschool1.html

How to get a visa

Went home for Xmas and got my H1-B visa. The guy who interviewed me was crazy cute... I wonder how one gets into the foreign service? The window next to him was servicing the other types of visas. There were 20 rejections to every visa granted. People cried. Worse than that the whole process was kind of inhuman - waiting in line in the sun.. being shunted from here to there with no order or explanation. The US embassy in Jamaica really needs to learn how to treat human beings.

I got my visa a week later. It's a simple process if you have a job like mine I guess. It's a simple process if you are educated too and have a history of travelling. Next step... green card?

Anyway, on the way back into the country yesterday the customs officer looked at my documentation, smiled and me and said "welcome home". He was so warm, yet it sent shivers right through me. Is the US my home now, even if it doesn't feel like it is? Is Jamaica my home?

I saved my first million JA this year. I'm thinking of buying an acre of land out in Lucea. Is this a smart business move or just a way to mark my territory?

Morbid

I worry now that

every single day dream ends

in some form of death

Inspired

He tapped his bare chest
and the sound... it echoed in
every part of me

Health

Sick as a dog right now. I conducted a phone interview with a nurse at my GPs office. A couple of hours later I was picking up my prescription at the pharmacy near work. I am glad I got the antibiotics... But two things make me uneasy:

1. While I did briefly speak face to face with someone behind the desk at the labs, I never saw the nurse

2. How much is this going to cost me?

Recruiting and Social Capital

So here I am on the other side of recruiting.... playing my part in the interview process for the firm on my old campus. I feel luckier than ever now that I actually see the randomness that goes into whether you get an interview or not....

And just in case you were wondering... knowing someone on the inside does help (social capital at it's best/worst) and groups tend to unconsciously replicate themselves... that's why it's so hard to introduce diversity into the corporate world.

Theresa Ines tonight at the Beehive

O sonho é
Pra cada mulher
O que se faz
O que se quer
E vai
Vai seguindo como dá
Junta tudo o que se tem
E espera um novo alguém

All women
Have the same dream
To be true
To our heart's desires
And keep moving
The way we can
Gathering all we have learned
To share with someone new

Sounds familiar. Sounds like it could be true, but is it?

Are you Happy? Sad? Jealous?

This last week's economist ran an ad that started "Are you Happy? Sad? Jealous?; Understanding the importance of your emotions in 24 lectures from an award winning professor." It's an odd little course you can order from Dr Robert C Solomon and the write-up goes on to claim that,

"By probing these thinkers and presenting his own views, The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions will lead you to a remarkable conclusion: Emotions have intelligence and provide personal strategies that are vitally important to our everyday lives of perceiving, evaluating, appraising, understanding, and acting in the world."

Maybe it was reading those words, or the hours of what I now realize was subconscious agonizing that finally put a light bulb over my head. Either way, something became clear yesterday when a work colleague gave me some mixed news. She told me, that she had a clandestine wedding - she got married after 5 months of dating some guy - and that she was quitting the job next month because "consulting was just not for her." Putting aside the fact that she is probably not telling me the whole story, the news washed over me in waves of unfamiliar emotions. I felt ... cold shock, followed by a brief dip into sadness and then a brightening, clear, honest jealousy.

That's right, jealousy... and it felt so good because with it came realization... no, I do not want to be married right now, but I do want to be free of this job. It has nothing to do with my ability to get the job done. No one at this point could possibly accuse me of laziness. It's not even that I am not cut out for the work force. I simply derive very little pleasure from the work I do and the people I work for. In fact, now that I am admitting things to myself, I think it has been making me a little unhappy. I have made a terrible mistake. I have made an even bigger mistake letting the job get in the way of me preparing for my future and doing the things that make me happy.

Don't worry. I am not quitting and I am not going to stop working hard. I just feel light and clear. Now I know why I have been feeling a bit off. It is resolved in my mind and now I can emotionally de-invest and reapply myself to the things in my life, present and future.

Enjoy the Arrested development reference while I try and sort out my life

Copley Square, Boston

My crappy blackberry camera doesn't do this justice. I was walking to the T past Copley Square yesterday and looked up. This is one of my favourite buldings in Boston... it is completely reflective. On a clear day, it shines bright blue and looks almost metallic. On a day like this it mimics the cloud-cover and blends into the sky...

Borges

"Hladik had rounded forty. Aside from a few friendships and many habits, the problematic exercise of literature constituted his life. Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned."

- The Secret Miracle, Borges

Some say the mark of a good writer is that they bring to light something that you think you already knew, making reading and writing the art of playing with recognition. Above, Borges has put his finger on one of my greatest fears. Hat's off to you dear sir.

I suggest you also give him a read. In this round of flirtation, I particularly liked Inferno, I, 32, The Witness, Kafka and his precursors, The Library of Babel...

My commute

Got a note from HR that I have to start paying NYC income taxes. I hit some kind of threshold. Now the constant commute to NYC is costing me more than my life; it is actually costing me money... prorated by the number of days I work in each city.

Let me tell you... two half lives do not make a whole

Must

write

think

love

The spark of feminism

"Among the many important questions which have been brought before the public, there is none that more vitally affects the human family than that which is technically called 'Women's Rights.'" Elizabeth Cady Stanton as quoted in The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler

Why are women required to be subservient to men? Why are we paid less? When did this happen?

Retired confessions

"I don't know what I want. I am hoping and I'm afraid that that's the only thing holding me back. What if I am actually held back by ability? What if I never discover a passion?"

Today I retire that confession, though it still haunts me. But I can put it behind me because I am now more sure of my ability than ever before and i am beginning to understand what is important to me. I'll - instead - let you know a little something new about me. "I am a judger. I judge people and I am not ashamed. Dont get me wrong... I understand we all have moments of weakness. I just think that expecting less than the best from someone is the worst kind of condescension; a fine line from the tyranny of lowered expectations. "

Think Less

" One of your strongest skills - your high level thinking - is irrelavant for you current position at this company." - My manager to me last monday

How utterly absurd...

The Mother Land

Hopped into a taxi the other day at Logan airport and the taxi driver wasted no time in asking where I was from.

"Jamaica" I said proudly, and he was shocked because the driver of the taxi behind him (who had seen me approach and enter this cab) had sworn that I was Ethiopian or Somalian.

Now I had never thought I was an odd looking black woman until I went to Ghana - where my people (and most Jamaican people) are actually from. There, a Ghanaian man looked at me dispairingly and said I couldn't pass. Then while I was at Oxford, back when I frequented a Lebanese store, the owner was one day shocked to discover that I couldn't speak Arabic. Apparently I have the look of some mysterious arabic-speaking people. Then I began to think... one grandad was a whitish jew, the other was a dark skinned black Cuban of unknown decent and unusual features. One grandma had the Ghanaian roots - with some Scottish (?) mixed in - and as for the other... no one really knows! I do, however, know that my brother has no cheekbones and epicantic folds in his eyelids and that my own Ghanaian people would disown me if all they had to go on was looks. Which country would open up it's arms to me? Where can I go and blend in? Everyone should have a mother land - it would be a comfort to know that while I stick out among all these Bostonians, there is somewhere where I can go and be called one of "us".

So I was thrilled when this taxi driver finally named a country for me. I have no idea what Ethiopian or Somali women look like... but perhaps they look like me :).

In Honour of My Grandpa

Is this grief I feel?

Or confirmation I've

not been sad before

Sometimes I don't even know what to do with myself. It was good that it ended, but that logic cannot fill me back up.

And who will defend me?

check this out

My friend is here visiting from NYC and we were sitting in the living room discussing the H1-B. It's that time ladies and gents. At the end of this month the lawyers will send in our applications. 50% of them will be automatically rejected - randomly chosen to not even be considered. The other 50% will await the kindness of the US government to see if we can continue to work here.

As if our futures were not uncertain enough there is the added complication of the bail-out, the stimulus bill, the depressed economy. My friend is telling me that companies on the TARP - troubled asset relief programme - are not allowed to apply for work visas for their foreign employees. "Buy American" has become "Hire American" and is disturbing in both spirit and effect. Every time there is a problem this coutry kind of rolls up into a ball - like an armadillo, or Buster from Arrested Development. Will they do more harm than good this time? we will have to wait and see....

Ahoy G20!

I got published!!!

Math! How I love thee!