Fish and kidney pie
The bad news is that I have another kidney infection. I am completely exhausted, feverish, in pain, and have little appetite. After dealing with internists who shook their heads at me I went to a urologist today. Just wanted to make sure it actually is a kidney infection since I keep having clean urine cultures, and I don't ever care to repeat the great 4 month long debacle of recurrent, back to back kidney infections of 08 and 09. Sitting among the elderly, the men, and the elderly men, I wondered if I was in the right place. Indeed I was, and the doctor was very agreeable. Whether it was the 800 page biology book I was studying out of or his normal manner, he was attentive and not dismissive about what I said. It was refreshing to have a dialog with someone about my health rather than sitting back and letting the smart person with an advanced degree telling me what's up. I got a shot of gentamicin in the hip, and then came the catheter. "Here comes the catheter" are not words one ever hopes to hear, but it could have been worse. It helps to keep a sense of humor about these things. Imagine one is Eddie Izzard, really. Tomorrow I go in for a CT scan to make sure it's not stones, but the fever and absence of red blood cells in my urine point elsewhere. I would be totally cool with my diagnosis being vasculoureteral reflux instead of something scary like igA nephopathy, but I guess that's out because I'm not bleeding out my pee-hole. The internet is a wondrous thing, but also a terrible thing that lets you Google your symptoms and find frightening diseases like that last night, which I was kinda sorta wondering if I had because I just came off an upper respiratory infection and there's the whole no bacteria in my urine thing. Maybe they are stealthy bacteria.
The ok news is that school is done with soon. This will bring respite, but first it brings finals. My math final is comprehensive. Ouch. I don't know about chemistry because I just had an exam. Biology is comprehensive but only 50 out of 225 points will be on things before the last exam. I was aiming for straight A's, and I am actually getting 102% in my extremely difficult biology class, probably the hardest of all three. But I've been sacrificing a bit for bio, and while my test grades are all stellar, I missed a couple of quizzes in math (one day the bus was half an hour late, the other was the first week or class and I was having my heat turned on) and my lab scores in chemistry are only average due to stupid mistakes I made. I'd still LIKE all A's, but I've been giving it my all, more than I thought I could, so I suppose I'll be content with what I get.
I'm still pretty isolated here in LB. Jeff has some friends here that I really liked the few times we hung out, but I've just been too busy for it. His friend's sister lives a block from me, literally, and we both agreed we'll get lunch some time... but I just had to cancel plans with a friend for tomorrow because of the CT scan, so I don't really feel like I can make plans.
The good news is that I am narrowing down what I want to do with this whole marine biology thing. Well, not really, but I'm figuring out what interests me. (By the way, why does everyone want to know what I am going to do with it? And why are they surprised that I'll be in college til 2012? I am actually working hard at this, not ordering my degree online.) A link through New Scientist led me to the homepage of one of the labs at Scripps. They are into the same things I am! Like:
Microbiology:
the ecology of marine viruses, bacteria and phytoplankton, and the roles these organisms play in marine food webs and biogeochemical cycles. Also of interest are microbial symbioses in hydrothermal vent orgamisms, bioluminescent fish and invertebrates, and reef building corals, microbial adaptations to pressure and temperature extremes, and the use of bacteria in bioremediation and biotechnology.
Ecology and evolutionary biology and conservation:
community structure in the deep sea benthos, coral reef ecology, genetic structure of invertebrate populations, invertebrate and fish taxonomy and biogeography, evolution and paleobiology of colonial life, speciation in the sea.
Lately I've been pretty fascinated with coral reef ecology, taxonomy, deep sea and hydrothermal vent organisms, extremophiles, and biomedical applications of marine life. Things I am not interested in very much are fisheries management, physiology and development, genetics except where it concerns phylogenetics, physical chemistry, and marine megafauna. I thought maybe I'd go into conservation but just imagining the politics and things like impact studies makes me roll my eyes, so maybe not. Not surprisingly, I'm attracted to the rare, the exotic, the unknown. Like a recently discovered species with a bizarre life cycle that likely represents an entire new phylum.
I shall sign off now, as I think that was enough of a post to make up for months of mostly silence. God, I have so much to talk about, too.
The ok news is that school is done with soon. This will bring respite, but first it brings finals. My math final is comprehensive. Ouch. I don't know about chemistry because I just had an exam. Biology is comprehensive but only 50 out of 225 points will be on things before the last exam. I was aiming for straight A's, and I am actually getting 102% in my extremely difficult biology class, probably the hardest of all three. But I've been sacrificing a bit for bio, and while my test grades are all stellar, I missed a couple of quizzes in math (one day the bus was half an hour late, the other was the first week or class and I was having my heat turned on) and my lab scores in chemistry are only average due to stupid mistakes I made. I'd still LIKE all A's, but I've been giving it my all, more than I thought I could, so I suppose I'll be content with what I get.
I'm still pretty isolated here in LB. Jeff has some friends here that I really liked the few times we hung out, but I've just been too busy for it. His friend's sister lives a block from me, literally, and we both agreed we'll get lunch some time... but I just had to cancel plans with a friend for tomorrow because of the CT scan, so I don't really feel like I can make plans.
The good news is that I am narrowing down what I want to do with this whole marine biology thing. Well, not really, but I'm figuring out what interests me. (By the way, why does everyone want to know what I am going to do with it? And why are they surprised that I'll be in college til 2012? I am actually working hard at this, not ordering my degree online.) A link through New Scientist led me to the homepage of one of the labs at Scripps. They are into the same things I am! Like:
Microbiology:
the ecology of marine viruses, bacteria and phytoplankton, and the roles these organisms play in marine food webs and biogeochemical cycles. Also of interest are microbial symbioses in hydrothermal vent orgamisms, bioluminescent fish and invertebrates, and reef building corals, microbial adaptations to pressure and temperature extremes, and the use of bacteria in bioremediation and biotechnology.
Ecology and evolutionary biology and conservation:
community structure in the deep sea benthos, coral reef ecology, genetic structure of invertebrate populations, invertebrate and fish taxonomy and biogeography, evolution and paleobiology of colonial life, speciation in the sea.
Lately I've been pretty fascinated with coral reef ecology, taxonomy, deep sea and hydrothermal vent organisms, extremophiles, and biomedical applications of marine life. Things I am not interested in very much are fisheries management, physiology and development, genetics except where it concerns phylogenetics, physical chemistry, and marine megafauna. I thought maybe I'd go into conservation but just imagining the politics and things like impact studies makes me roll my eyes, so maybe not. Not surprisingly, I'm attracted to the rare, the exotic, the unknown. Like a recently discovered species with a bizarre life cycle that likely represents an entire new phylum.
I shall sign off now, as I think that was enough of a post to make up for months of mostly silence. God, I have so much to talk about, too.