Worlds

It’s too difficult to be a full-time scientist and have lengthy, enjoyable, leisure time. I feel I have no choice but to be a part-time scientist. 

Just think about it 

So many articles pushed out by journals every year, by full-time academics who live in the post secondary world, where words have significant meaning. Each time a handful of papers is added to the evidence base for one of a million diseases we advance treatment, or disease state understanding, which is translated to actionable items to us, the part-time scientists and full time healthcare workers, akin to the shouting of brief directions by a farmer to his workers. In order to fully become a competent scientist, I need to stay up to date on the evidence and refresh what I know, but there’s no more capacity on that right now.

I feel so far removed from this world, that even now, reading scientific literature gives me a headache. I hated reading papers in undergrad and i still hate it. I’d rather dedicate my time to learning about the useless, such as how to wield a palette knife or the newest generation of tamagotchi. This at least gives my brain some stimulation. Perhaps my brain has craved this for a long time. 

This world of part time scientist fits me better, but there’s always guilt in not dedicating enough time to my craft, to benefit patients or society as a whole. Don’t even get me started on optimism and how it benefits leaders in the healthcare system. To be explored later.

There’s the creeping feeling that I’m not supposed to be doing this, which started in pharmacy school and now makes me stop and think at least once a year. 

Is the world of science the one for me? Have I become jaded? Is my inner chemistry somehow unbalanced or undergoing changes as I grow older? Careers can be changed, I keep telling myself, but despite these doubts I keep chugging on. These appointments cannot be missed. The work must get done. Bills need to be paid. 

Hamilton

pros:

lovely nature and trees (have yet to go hiking)

very comfy house. 

can get back to my hobbies and am making progress on my book (the three-body problem which K has his own copy of!!) 

being on my own, seeing all the things i can achieve (which is a lot so far). testing my independence and pushing it one step further by living alone, driving alone, running errands alone. 

gas stove

cons: 

the pass to like ratio. opened up hinge to see what it was like and there were lots of caucasian guys working in .... construction and receiving? ooh one crane operator. Gianluca moved back in with his mom since his stepdad got sick and realizes that's a "-ve" for some people so puts it as his first thing on his profile. Blake loves the ocean and sharks. you think you've found someone attractive, but hey he's a pipe fitter. everyone loves tacos and tequila. 

the neighbour. someone who tows your car for being in your driveway without informing you is guaranteed to be a little crazy. 

I've been agonizing over whether to buy or save on shampoo...the longer time goes on the wider the sunk cost gap grows. which leads me to...the fact that I couldn't bring a lot of favourite things (favourite sunscreen, favourite clothes, COAT??) to hamilton. 

more to come!

story

sally and nathan were a potential couple long before they became friends. 

nathan met sally on a dating app. they started talking during the pandemic [long dark winter] and studied together. he was up in the north and she was in the city, and he enjoyed her alternative pace of living. 

sally found nathan’s presence soothing and his sense of humour wholesome and kind. she was finishing up her degree while nathan was just starting his. they had different backgrounds but she was okay with it. 

things started changing during the tail end of the pandemic and lines started appearing outside stores. sally took the opportunity to meet more people, and soon she was going on other dates with men in real life, instead of over video chat.

nathan’s life remained the same. 

that was possibly the reason why nathan was so keen to ask sally out, but she kept deflecting.

in the end sally made a decision and told nathan she wanted to be friends instead of something more. 

so they were now friends. friends that sometimes joked about sex and made suggestive jokes with each other. the bond was seemingly still there.

over time, sally becomes fed up with dating. she returned to nathan on a video call and ranted about her life. nathan seemed to enjoy the updates, but sally didn’t know that he was also going on dates with other people. 

he told her one day offhandedly as he was planning a city [toronto] trip. his new girlfriend lived very close to sally, and sally supposed that was the reason he told her. she wonders if he would have said anything if new girlfriend didn’t live in the same city…

sally its now single. she looks back on the [pandemic] long dark winter times with nostalgia. she remembers a time with nathan where they shared a mutual understanding and  camaraderie. sally sees the world as her oyster, any and all people on the neurotypical bell curve are compatible to her. 

 

Thinking about my calgary friends

 I woke up this morning with the idea that I should go to starbucks and buy a pumpkin spice latte and drink it outside on a patio. The first day of October demands a day such as this. Yesterday and Thursday I barely went out, so I need to make up for all of it today. 

 There were some police cars outside my building today. It seems like some glass fell from my building? Seems like such a small issue for 4 cop cars and a couple lengths of police tape. 

Later

It turned out to be a person that jumped from my building. Poor person. Their body was covered by a blue tarp but my roommate said she could see the body when they removed the tarp for a second. The first day of October, ruined for them. 

 Sure, i’ll go to a restaurant or an event at nathan phillips square alone but only if i’m feeling particularly spiteful or liberated one day. Most of the time I feel sad or lonely about the idea of being on my own all the time, and i think i really need to unpack that. 

Leave society

 This is always something i dreamed of doing. Moving to a small town and cutting off contact with everyone. Solely for the purpose of regaining my humanity and life force back from modern society

There would be a couple of adjustments. Like not using a smartphone and only basic mail and internet functions on the computer. 

Maybe i feel this way because living in the big city has done some harm to me after all. Instead of intellectually thriving and growing i feel all of my knowledge decaying. I feel depressed even after a course of antidepressants.  Maybe there’s a process to these stages of grief because when winter comes and the cold preserves my brain better I’ll think otherwise. But still, staring down the edge of an icy cliff on a beaten trail in the hamptons sounds nice too. I cant wait to escape into my library books. 

homeless people in toronto

it finally happened today. the normally out-of-control homeless man outside of 7-11 was found passed out on the sidewalk. a fire truck came and took him away.  

earlier today i went running and while walking home on yonge street, i passed a woman who was wearing only a t-shirt and turquoise panties and had paint on her feet and legs, and was muttering to herself. it always feels precarious walking on the same side of the road as these people, but the cruelest thing is that no one knew how she got here. so no one can help her unless they want to cause a scene. 

yesterday during my shift at the st. lawrence shoppers a bruised and disheveled woman came for her daily witnessed dose of (a very high dosage of) narcotic drugs, but there was a shortage of one of the drugs. obviously, she did not care to understand or even listen, and instead spent 20 minutes standing at the counter yelling about how she has to wait and how her ice cream that she just bought was melting. it was frustrating, but i can't imaging what her life must be like. there might be signs of domestic or sexual abuse, and human trafficking (which is on everyone's minds right now because of the campaigns going on), but we have to see past that in order to do our job. you try to express yourself, but no one is hearing you.

is it worse to live amongst perfectly dressed and clean people in a sterile city or living among these cases of humanity at its lowest and feral state? 

to me, muting life feels wrong and as a result i feel as if i've lost the creative, imaginative life force. i can't see anything past the surface right now.