The Path Not Taken: Sick-less and fancy free.

My adorning fans. Or at least, somewhat adorning fans. I realize that some (most, all?) of you are not that interested in a blow by blow encounter of my adventures into research! Truth be told, I’m not all that interested in my blow by blow encounters (in life or on paper). So in this post I’ll focus on non-work related items.

While I could recount the fun things we have done these past two weekends,

(Go to the beach and play frisbee croquet)

(Give-in and make the blueberry-blackberry galette)

(Go to Marin and fly kites and ride horses)

(And then make delicious dinner/muffins)

I shall instead dwell on something less pleasant. On Wednesday of last week, I was sitting in my room at around 10am, and like a good girl, working, when my roommate (who was supposed to be at work) bursts into the room and announces that she has been throwing up since 4am that morning. As soon as I hear “throw up” and “since 4 am” I try to suppress a highly visible gag and my inclination to inch my chair farther away from her room.  I am only moderately successful. But what then? I have a potentially very contagious thing not mere 4 feet from me that may periodically spew contagious substances. Before I can make up an excuse for leaving her vicinity immediately, I am given one – a quest to find and retrieve the holy grail that is gaterade. I may, or may not, have taken more time then was needed on this quest. I went to one place where there was only Powerade, and decided that as I was charged with finding “Gaterade” my quest most continue (I’m not sure even trained athletes can tell the difference let alone a sick girl)! Once I get back and carefully deposit the gaterade without touching any potentially contaminated surfaces, I go into my room (I have a two room-double) and close my door explaining that “I have work to do.” That afternoon I was even less successful in being a supportive, selfless roommate. Right after lunch I dashed off to the library to do work. When I got back from a meeting, I checked my e-mail and found out that my roommate went to Vaden (the college community health clinic) and since she was so dehydrated and couldn’t keep down liquids she had to get an IV. Later I learn that she walked, to and from Vaden out of lack of other transportation.  While I did have the fortunate excuse of being at a meeting, I couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty.  But mostly, I felt relieved.  Luckily, once she got back, she slept for the next 14 hours and felt much better the next day.  Enough that she was even able to go to work!

Even though I completely avoided any human contact with her, hand sanitized constantly and periodically clorax bleach wiped various common (and uncommon) surfaces (door knobs, refrigerator, my desk (?)), I was in constant terror the rest of the week of recieving this plague. Every night, I would go to bed wondering if I would wake up in the middle of the night sick, barely able to contain myself before I got to the bathroom.  Therefore, before I went to bed at night, I configured my trashcan close to my bed and a water pitcher within spewing distance. This terror, and suspicion, consumed me so much that I felt ill. I had constant indigestion, and faint tones of nausea. Luckily (or something) I had experience with these pseudo-symptoms earlier this year when many of the Branner (the dorm I lived in) residents came down with a terrible stomach flu. As my mother says “You don’t know you have the flu until you start throwing up” so despite my indigestion, I had to force myself to eat meals. But day by day went by, and despite my terror induced nausea, I remained throw-up free. And once I passed into the safety zone of +3 days after the sickness invaded my home, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders and ate a large 4^th of July feast without fear that it would come up sometime soon after.

So what is the point of this pathetic tale, other than the fact that I am a terrible roommate and a tad (or more than a tad) psychotic? Well, surprisingly enough it fits into this blog’s reoccurring theme of my general lack of direction.

Sometimes, I am unsure of whether “Economics” is the right fit for me. I sort of meandered my way into the department and while I have really enjoyed the classes I have taken, I still don’t know if this is what I want to do with my life. What will I do with an economics degree? Go to grad school? Become a consultant? An i-banker? Sub-prime mortgage seller? It’s all a bit unclear.

On the contrary, I have always have an ambition to become a doctor. On Scrubs they make it look so fun! When I worked in my Mom’s lab as a measly office worker, I would often go visit my mom and we’d look at slides together. She would show me slides that had cancer (rather of people with cancer), and other terrible diseases and it was super fun! I can see myself as a doctor, white coat and all. I can’t really “see” myself as an i-banker.

So why didn’t I take all of the pre-med classes? Get ready for med school so that I could start and apply this summer? Erm… I’m not sure.   I didn’t start my first quarter with a load of chem and physics classes, and then, later on it seemed like too much of a hurdle. But recently I have always wondered if I went down the wrong path.

In an economic fashion, I think I can now reject that hypothesis. If I can barely stay in the same room as my sick roommate let alone wipe her brow and hold her hair while she is throwing up, I think I am not cut out for a doctor’s life. Now, I could be like my mother (who is a pathologist) and shun human contact (only microscope contact) with live patients, but I believe that with my ability to manufacture fake symptoms I will not be able to physically survive Medical School.

While I can’t accept the hypothesis that I should become an economist, at least I can reject one of the many alternatives.

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