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7 October 2002 (Monday): gateways

Medications with side effects suck.

I'm a pansy when it comes to being sick. I can be brave and cheerful when I have to, but I live in a warm, supportive world of people who actually sympathize when I gripe. In a way, I'd rather I were forced to get over myself already.

My parents, for all their wonderful-ness, do have one strange social behavior: serious reluctance to meet the person I'm dating. They'll urge me to invite friends over, ask how Lynn or Gaudior is doing, remember their careers and hobbies -- but never do they inquire after my boyfriend, or extend an invitation for him to come over. ("Never" isn't quite accurate. Zach started getting invited to occasional things about two years in.) I've decided that it must be a cultural mismatch; casual dating was frowned upon in their courtship days, and once you acknowledged that you were seeing someone, it was tantamount to getting engaged. Certainly your parents didn't get to know your beau until you brought him home one day and said, "he's the one." I suppose I should be grateful that they don't pry, but it's still weird. Soren's cool, dammit!

Oh, and thanks to M. Mellow for lending (giving?) me his GMAT test prep books. Is it perverse to admit that they're pleasure reading? I like quizzes with interesting problems. It's also nice to see that the exam seems to test the right things -- being able to discern exactly what a piece of evidence does and does not imply, for example, and knowing how to phrase statements succinctly and accurately. I'm getting more of 'em wrong than I should be, though, so I've got some work to do.

posted by enjelani @ 09:46 AM PST

Replies: 3 comments

I always get a kick out of reading the labels for side effects... it always amazes me how the side effects for cold medication often seem to sound very much like cold symptoms anyways.

"er, ahem... in case the placebo effect happens not to work..."

One of the 'commercials' in the movie Robocop (yeah, I know... blech) speaks to this exact phenomenon. It's not subtle satire, but 'tis worth at least a groan, right?

(Oh, the prep books are for keeps... I don't see myself needing them back anytime soon, I'm busy enough with things as it is. Glad you're enjoying them ;) If you like problems that much, I think I've also got some LSAT prep stuff around here somewhere. Now *that* would really be perverse! )

posted by m. mellow @ 07 10 2002 10:25 PM PST

mmm... LSAT...
gee what fun.

posted by dishi @ 08 10 2002 01:38 AM PST

Being sick has always struck me as wierd. To experience myself reduced in energy feels like Twilight Zone. Then magically to get better, like waking from a bad dream. Ain't life bizarre!

posted by theo @ 08 10 2002 08:27 AM PST