"A record of the year of infection" reminded me of a book I just read--Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. It's a sci-fi book about time-traveling historians who accidentally send an undergrad back to 1348, the year the bubonic plague hits England. The premise is pretty far-fetched and silly, and it ends pretty much the way you would expect, but for some reason it made me really sad after I finished the book and I couldn't stop thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the madder I got about the fact that the characters in the book had to die of the bubonic plague (sorry for the spoiler). Then I started getting mad about the fact that anyone ever had to die of the bubonic plague, and that people die for all sorts of silly reasons like getting mugged or getting hit by a car or being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a tree branch falls or an earthquake hits or someone decides to drop a bomb on your village. Or because you get cancer after being chronically exposed to all the carcinogens in your food, air, water, etc. that are the result of poorly regulated industries and guidelines that have not caught up to our current understanding of health risks and safety levels. That kind of thing makes me feel very mad, and very helpless.
My gmail inbox is a mess, and so is my life. :(
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wow kelly. your reaction to the book was so poignant. (is that the right word?). you're like a sensitive poet-scientist. i'm definitely going to read that book, now. it sucks that people die unluckily, but it's pretty damn lucky that all the events happened exactly as they did to lead up to your birth (which occurred on the same day as my birth!).
ReplyDeleteAnd how are you a mess, kell? I don't believe it...what's stressing you out in your life these days? you're one of the smartest people i know and you're always getting things done, and done well. plus you have th gorgeous hair worthy of a pantene pro-v commercial. go ahead and clean that inbox if it's bothering you, girl. after all, every minute is an opportunity to change.
That book does look good. The black death is so utterly fascinating. Did you know it's extremely high on the bio-terroist threat list?
ReplyDeleteI've been stuck on Cat's Cradle for the past few months. I know, terrible of me :(. Maybe I will develop a better habit in terms of reading when I'm in grad school. I will definitely ask you guys for suggestions when the time comes!
did you guys know that some guy studying the bubonic plague at our university died recently, and all of a sudden? The story is here:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1711
it was a weakened strain, though, but the cdc was all up on that shit. and then one week later, the ENTIRE building of cummings (in which he had his lab) was blocked off an ambulances and firetrucks were everywhere. we were trying to have our group meeting and they kicked us out of the conference room, so we met on the science quads instead. i'm not sure if it was related, but the metal-head/hippie looking post-doc in our lab totally thought it was. (what is it with metal heads and conspiracy theories?).
the more i think about what kelly said, the more i realize how the shittyness of bad luck far outweighs the goodness (forgive me, it's late, i'm not super articulate) of good luck. in the morning i'm an optimist, by late evening, i'm a pessimist. *sigh*
woah, thanks for sharing that Liz. How crazy...
ReplyDeleteAlso, the doctor I am shadowing does a lot of mission work. One drug rep randomly was like "I heard people who come back after mission work become more detached from reality". I thought that was kind of a rude thing to say. And then this doctor said "No, the American people are the ones detached from reality. This is not a reality".
I actually have been thinking about that a few times today. I drive my car, have clean water, well-fed, and complain about acne. It's just utterly ridiculous, but this is pretty much (for the most part) all that we know :-/
yeah, i mean, how do you resolve that? it's all the luck of the draw, but i guess if you are lucky you have to not take it for granted and make the most of it everyday and do what you can in your own way to help out. i mean you can't save the whole world, but at least you can do what's within your potential...right?
ReplyDeletealso, i love apoptosis. programmed cell death. so elegant, almost oddly romantic (not in the valentine's day sort of way [fuck valentines day by the way] but in the literary sense).