Month: January 2015

All Things Senioritis

January 27, 2015
It’s the third week of the semester, and not surprisingly, my classes have progressed to their full-fledged relentlessness. As I reluctantly cling to the framework of a weekly routine I am quickly becoming… bored. There is life to live. I’ve found that my yearning for learning has been replaced with a need for a greater social presence. Unfortunately the social life I’m living leaves me running on empty like 90% of the time and my type A personality is practically suffocating under the weight of my procrastination. There’s something so enticing about ignoring the endless to-do list and downing a bottle of cheap bubbly before Lyft-ing all around Nob Hill. However, waking up with a screaming hangover and a blurry recollection of the previous night’s debauchery makes me feel even more hollow.

2015 is the year I’m on team Jenna. No one is going to love me more than I love me and the first step is doing things that make me happy. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to find people, places and things that make me happy and see, go and do them more. So here’s a [random, incomplete] list of all things happy.

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1. Getting As. I love As. More specifically A+s, 100%s. Extra credit? Count me in. Why? They make me happy.
2. Waking up early and meeting KP for coffee. Something about that human just helps me burn brighter. I’m more me when I’m with her and that makes me happy.
3. The feeling after a good work out. The mixture of sweat, fatigue and pride is truly unparalleled. And I feel happy.
4. Going to church. There’s a peace that comes with going to mass on a regular basis and my happiness depends on it.
5. Learning about Toxins. I love poisons, venoms, neurotoxins. The biochemistry just fascinates me and I’m pretty positive my graduate school education will involve human toxicology and that makes me ecstatic.
6. McAlisters. Sweet Chipotle Chicken Griller with Mac n Cheese. With ranch of course. Food makes me happy and pretending it doesn’t won’t make me happier.
7. Consuming ethanol and dancing like there is no tomorrow. Judge if you must, but there is something so rewarding about just drowning your inhibitions in a gin and soda and shaking your Kardashian like you actually know how to dance. I laugh and I’m happy.
8. Hearing people say they are on ‘Team Jenna’.
9. Finding a new song that I absolutely love.
10. Making ‘Gin-and-Gins by Jenna’ no matter where we go. Two ingredients gin and ginger ale, but it makes me happy, making others happy (and tipsy).
11. Drinking Moscow mules out of copper mugs.
12. Spending one on one time with my best friends. They are all hilarious and it’s impossible to be sad around them. Damn I’m lucky.
13. Making out. I just love kisses. Kisses make me happy.
14. My bed. Oh LAWD my bed. Sleeping on a cloud. Heaven = happiness.
15. Teaching Chemistry. I love being a TA. I love my office hours and help sessions. I’m excited I get to have my own class for 2 years. I know TFA is what I’m meant to do next and that makes me happy.

As the battle between weekday Jenna and weekend Jenna continues over the next 13 weeks I plan to have one goal. Stay Happy. As you may have guessed there are quite a few conflicting desires on the above list, and that’s alright. I’ve always been a master of balance and tolerant of fatigue.
“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
—Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre

How to Treat a Broken Heart, or Poison Your Lover, with Foxglove

As a female who has suffered from a broken heart, and entertained the idea of revenge via assassination, this article(http://naturespoisons.com/2014/08/05/how-to-treat-a-broken-heart-or-poison-your-lover-with-foxglove-digoxin/) really glommed my attention. Additionally, there is just something so innately enticing about the most beautiful things being the most deadly. Foxglove is a stunning array of clustered flowers, blooming from stems that can sometimes reach over six feet tall. Although stunning, underneath the myriad of pinks, yellows and whites, lurks a deadly toxin, digitoxin.

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Digitoxin is a cardiac glycoside and its affects, most prominently, are on contraction of the heart. This sugar-cloaked molecule stealthy binds to the sodium pumps in the cardiac myocytes. This hindrance causes a flood of calcium ions resulting in an increase of cardiac output. The outcome is an increase in pumping power, causing a greater exodus of blood, slowing the heart rate. Medicinally this is an excellent tool in treating a plethora of heart conditions. However this conniving compound has an extremely low therapeutic index, which means if you’re given just the slightest increase in dosage its effects escalate rapidly from helpful to fatally harmful.
Belgium felt the devastating effects of this toxin in the 60’s when a pharmacist assistant accidentally replaced an active ingredient in a common medication prescribed to prostate cancer patients with digitoxin. This study cracked cases of intentional digitoxin homicides wide open. One specific case involved an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor who wanted to rid himself of a girlfriend.
We all know breakups can be messy, so in lieu of any emotional distress on the female’s behalf, he figured euthanasia was the obvious choice. He insisted she needed a routine exam, and with a gloved finger inserted the poison into her rectally-as is the preferred route of all ENTs. He must’ve been the most conspicuous about the whole thing because she lived long enough to express her concerns to authorities and he was arrested for murder.
Despite its obvious shortcomings digixotin’s uses in the medical field are hard to ignore. If you’re suffering from heart failure, this is a potential shunt to consider. I mean you won’t be cured but at least you won’t parish indefinitely. Dr. Willaim Withering predicted the potential medicinal uses of digitoxin back in 1775. And it’s used today, remarkably frequently.

All Things Lonely

Today I want a boyfriend. Or girlfriend.  Gender in this case is irrelevant.

I simply want the relationship where I can guiltlessly ask to be brought Panera for dinner, in bed.  And they do it because they want to.  Not because they owe me one, or so I’ll owe them one later. I want to feel the bed depress where another human sits, feel the emission of their body heat and all the other physical characteristics of knowing someone is next to you without having to look.  But most of all I just want the sensation of another human, the comfort that someone feels like existing next to me.  No intellectually stimulating conversations about how I want to cure cancer or how I cannot accept living a mediocre life.  No unbridled passion or deep connection that transcends time and space.  Just someone next to me I don’t have to impress, or even speak to at all.  Tomorrow I can move mountains.  Tonight I just want the silent comfort of a strong companion, because today I’ve felt weak.

All Things Pre-Teach For America

January 5, 2015

Greetings From Newark City Of Opportunity, NJTFA
I was accepted into the Teach For America Corps last May (2014). I made the cut for the junior deadline so I became a member an entire year early. Being a twenty-something majoring in biochemistry but having an extreme aversion to blood, I had absolutely no idea what to do after my undergrad. Teach For America felt like a dream come true. Defer loans, move to a brand new city and be like… a real adult, all whilst helping others succeed. Not to mention it’s only two years… I could do anything for two years. And it felt good to have a plan.

I shouldn’t be so nonchalant. This felt like an amazing accomplishment. The application process was intensive and only two humans from New Mexico made the cut. People were proud of me. I WAS GOING TO BE A TEACHER. I was proud of myself. Overflowing with ideas and hopes and happiness.
My assignment was unveiled end of October and I found out I would be teaching high school chemistry in Northern New Jersey. To be clear, this is EXACTLY what I had wanted. I haven’t had any interviews so I don’t know an exact location but I’ve learned there’s an 80% chance I’ll end up in Newark.

I’ll be moving from New Mexico to New Jersey.
When I purchase items online and am entering my address I’ll only have to change my state locale on the drop down menu by one line… But it’s an entire world away.

I’ve never been to the east coast before.
I mean… I went to Florida once in third grade on a cruise but somehow I feel that experience won’t be comparable to teaching inner city students in “Northern” Jersey.

So what happened? Why did I go from “overflowing with ideas and hopes and happiness” to being so blunt and avoiding exclamation marks? As my psychobiology of emotion professor once said to me “Ah, the gradual relief of enthusiasm by the punctate evolution of skepticism.” I read a blog. https://crowsandthieves.wordpress.com/
Ms. Taylor’s story of why she chose to quit TFA.

I had heard rumors about the difficulty some TFA members had with adjusting to teaching. Some felt under-prepared, unhappy, under-supported… So I began to do some research.

I’ve spent the last few hours reading Ms. Taylor’s story. Although she was teaching elementary school (I’ll be teaching high school) and we have very different beliefs and opinions, she splays her very raw feelings and experiences and how she struggled to keep her soul in tact. Not to be melodramatic or anything.

 I’ve decided to start this blog. Mostly for myself. So I don’t lose myself over the next 2.5 years. When times get tough I’ll need something to keep my fire. To remind me that I am made of love and grace and I can do anything.

Jenna, Read this when you waiver and remember why you started.

1. I will not quit. It is a two year commitment. I can do ANYTHING for two years. You chose this. People wrote letters of recommendation for you. You accepted all the praise and congratulations with open arms, time to earn it. There are people waiting for you to fail, and if you hand them your failure you’ll regret it. A regret that sits deep in your bones and is always there. The parasitic kind of regret you’d feel in your bones with cadmium poisoning.  The kind where they’d get so frail your legs would break just standing up. The kind of regret that will never allow you to flourish completely into the woman you’re meant to be.

2. What you’re doing matters. In my non-professional, non-documented poll-taking among my friends the majority of them have had shit chemistry teachers. If you can help ONE student have a more positive view of science, push ONE student onto the road to graduation, just help ONE student learn stoichiometry… then it was worth it.

3. You’re good at this. You’ve had years of experience teaching this. Help sessions, exam reviews, in class assignments, late night emails and last semester you even taught recitation. I know I’m no Alisha Ray or Dr. Knottenbelt but I’ve been privileged enough to work in both of their classrooms and on my hardest days I have chemistry teachers to try to imitate.

4. You have support outside of TFA. Not only do you have the images of Alisha and Sushilla to work towards… You actually have these humans that can help you. They are so full of love (for you, teaching and chemistry) and support and want nothing but for you to succeed. Use them as your resources.

5. Do not waste your feels on what else you could’ve done these two years. You made a commitment, there’s no turning back, there’s no time for regrets. Look ahead, you’re strong, you’ll do this.

Some predictions about how I’ll last through this summer institute:
Institute
a. I lived in a sorority house for two years. I know how to live in close quarters with girls, whether or not I like them is irrelevant.
b. Sleep deprivation, I have plenty of experience with. In 2014 I pulled 37 all-nighters. Although I’ve never had to go weeks on a perpetual lack of sleep, I feel much more equip to handle learning and accomplishing tasks than most of my fill-in-the-blank studies major counter parts.
c. I’m super organized.
d. I love learning.
e. You’re there for the right reasons.

Institute starts June 21 so stay tuned as I brace, adapt and overcome.