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A couple of days ago I had it all figured out. I realized that the secret to staying sane to grad school is to simply not care.

By “not care” I don’t mean “start being irresponsible.” I will still put my best efforts in whatever I do, but I will not care about the results - results being what other people might think of my work. I will not care about being the best in class. I will not care that I’m probably far from being the best in class because my classmates have more knowledge and experience than I do. I will not care that for me, it’s the academe or die. (The world won’t end if I don’t make it, but I really don’t see any sort of future for myself if I have to work in an office day in day out.) I will read what I can and study as much as I can and not care that in spite of the hours I put in reading all these things, there will still be a lot that I won’t understand.

I had that all figured out. The fire was back, and for once I sat in front of my computer looking forward to doing my paper instead of dreading it.

That all came crumbling down two nights ago when I spoke to a friend about my ideas for a paper and he reacted to it a little too critically. I suppose it wouldn’t be entirely fair to blame him for what happened to me after. He was just trying to help the only way he knows how, but I keep getting this sense of “What? I can’t believe you don’t know this yet” every time I speak to him about what I want to do. I realize that this sort of reaction affects me so much because those are the exact same things I tell myself; to have it echoed implicitly or explicitly by another person just confirms all the negative ways in which I see myself and my abilities. I ended up crying myself to sleep that night, and I woke up with an awful sense of frustration and hopelessness that stayed with me the entire day. Getting out of bed that afternoon (I slept through the morning) was an epic feat.

I don’t think it’s wrong that I put a lot of pressure on myself, but I have a feeling that the pressure is a little misdirected. Okay fine, a lot misdirected. Ale and Kristel both told me (on seperate occassions) that I focus too much on my shortcomings instead of what needs to get done. Kristel says I was very rigid on her and myself when it came to schoolwork - a funny observation, considering that I don’t remember a whole lot of studying going on when I was in college. It wasn’t uncommon for study sessions

to degenerate into drinking sessions within the hour

with a lot of gratuitous boob-grabbing in between.

(I kid you not when I say I didn’t learn jack shit about academic things in college. So now you probably understand why I’m constantly asking myself what the hell I’m doing in grad school.)

Anyway, so Kristel was telling me there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to get things done perfectly. My problem is that instead of just getting things done, my mind goes overdrive on the “perfectly” part and the insecurities that come along with it. Whenever I do anything academic, I work work work for a while and out of nowhere I freeze, panic, and think:

“Gah, I can’t do this.”
“Oh god, why am I not as smart as my classmates?”
“Maybe I’m better off being an office monkey.”
And the penultimate, “What am I doing with my life?”

So, now. The Rules To Staying Sane In Grad School:

1.) I will not care (see first paragraph).
2.) I will take things as slowly as time will allow me and do things one step at a time.
3.) I will lighten up on myself, ease up on the loft expectations, and focus on what I DID do for the day instead of freaking out over what I wasn’t able to do.

(Rules two and three sound like appendages to rule one but meh, who cares.)

To be perfectly honest, I still feel mightily discouraged - and at this point, I don’t think anything anyone can say to me will help. Putting all this down into writing is my attempt at pulling myself together, as if by seeing this on paper the rules will automatically apply and I will handle this all like a healthy human being. But I’m just as lost as I was two nights ago (minus the crying, at least). That overwhelming sense of dread is still sitting on my chest. The question “What am I REALLY doing?” still matters and still has no real answer.

Perhaps I’ll give myself another day off and catch up on my pop culture. Which is really just a better way of saying, “I will avoid serious thinking and anything academic by seeing my friends, zoning out to movies, reading fun books, and getting my ass seriously kicked in Scrabulous.”

The last time I saw the insides of an emergency room was when I limped into Medical City wearing my tae kwon do uniform four years ago. Since I still had my yellow belt tied around my waist, the doctors assumed that my sprained right ankle was the unfortunate result of a sparring match gone wrong. I decided not to mention that I didn’t even make it to my tae kwon do class because my foot landed the wrong way while I was walking to the martial arts room.

Four years later I found myself inside the same emergency room, but for a far less pathetic reason than my inability to cross the street without injuring myself.

It began as sharp, searing back pains thirty minutes before my last class ended. Thinking that it was just my scoliosis acting up, I made nothing out of it, but the pain intensified and spread to my ribcage and stomach fifteen minutes later. I managed to hold out until class ended - heaven forbid anyone should see me in pain or in distress - and collapsed on a bench outside the building. Everything hurt, and every little movement made it worse. Staying still didn’t help. I was shivering and sweating and crying all at once. With the last of my strength, I fumbled for my phone and called my dad to please pick me up, called Ale to say that I’d be home late because I might potentially end up in the hospital tonight, and called my mom to let her know what was going on.

An hour later there I was in the emergency room, trying to think beyond the pain so I could spell my unwieldy middle name. The nurse, for some reason, felt that it was important for her to make sure that Lardizabal was spelled with a Z and not an S. Then I was made to lie on a hospital bed, poked and prodded by fingertips and needles to identify where the pain was coming from, to rule out swollen pancreas, and to get a shot of whatever for the pain. “What happens if I have swollen pancreas?” I asked. I’m not even entirely sure what pancreas are. “You’ll have to be admitted to the hospital,” the doctor said.

As I laid still in my hospital bed, waiting for the painkillers to kick in, I was struck by a Profound Insight. You know, those corny, post-near death experience, moral-lesson-of-the-story epiphanies that make you swear that everything is going to change and you are going to become A Better Person after all this has passed. What I realized was this: our actions are never innocent. A seemingly harmless habit, such as starting your day with a cup of coffee, has far-reaching consequences that you won’t see coming until it makes you collapse when you least expect it. It seems like it’s okay to do whatever you want to yourself because it won’t affect other people - but it does, if there are people who care about you.

My parents are definitely be at the top of the People Who Give a Crap About Me list, and they’d take the hardest hit if anything happened to me. I have no idea what it’s like for a parent to worry about their kid, but I can imagine that it’s definitely no picnic. I’m the sickliest kid among my siblings, and when my childhood asthma finally gave way to acne during my teenage years I bet my parents were happy about never having to worry about medication and hospital bills. I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect their grown, 22-year old daughter to randomly wind up in the emergency room last night. Children are such a pain in the ass.

Girlfriends are a pain in the ass too. Especially when they get all sick in a hospital emergency room some seven time zones away. After I had given Ale an update on my medical condition, he told me that he found a 17-hour flight to the Philippines and that he was ready to fly out that evening if I have to stay in the hospital. I interrupted him and said that I’m fine, you’re fucking crazy for wanting to spend three thousand Euros on a plane ticket to here, and wouldn’t it better if you save your money and fly to the Philippines under better circumstances because really, where’s the fun in seeing me when I’m stuck to a bunch of tubes? Secretly, however, I was kind of hoping that my pancreas or some other major organ were indeed swollen. Especially when he started explaining that he didn’t want me to feel alone and abandoned and how he wanted to be there with me even if I’m sick and not much fun.

I couldn’t decide if I should feel relieved or disappointed when the doctor came out with the results and said that I could go home. I was already looking forward to spooning with him on a narrow hospital bed every night until I got better. I have to admit, I’m still half-wishing I did end up with swollen pancreas.

As for what went wrong with me, it turns out that I may or may not have an ulcer. I need to see a gastroenterologist to find out for sure but for now, the doctor forbade me from drinking coffee, softdrinks, and eating spicy food for the next two weeks. Spicy food and Coke I can stay away from, but coffee? You might as well ask me to stop drinking water! I’m horribly cranky without my morning cup of coffee and god, I don’t even want to think about how I’ll be able to do academic things without my caffeine kick. I forgot to ask the doctor if beer is among the Stuff Lauren Can’t Drink Anymore but since beer is carbonated and all, it probably is. Shit.

I could go ahead and ignore the doctor’s warnings, but I can’t ignore the fact that there are people who care about my health even if I don’t. When it was all over, Ale told me that he was so distressed about my being in the hospital that he ended up painting his skateboard black just to get his mind off things. That made me feel sad, somehow. People I care about shouldn’t have to paint their skateboards black so they don’t go insane from worrying about me. *sigh* I don’t want to think about how I’m going to go through life without coffee or beer just yet, but I think the least anyone can do for the people they love is to make them not worry. So I’m going to grit my teeth and try to handle the caffeine withdrawals as best as I can until I find out what’s wrong with me for sure.

I would like to develop a new skill. Unlike writing or cooking, this new skill I have in mind doesn’t have any practical purpose at all. I’m not even sure if I can call it a skill, really, but at the very least it makes for an interesting topic for those awkward social situations where you need to keep the conversation going but can’t quite think of anything to say.

Yesterday morning, Elliott Smith’s cover of “Because” came up on the random playlist at the exact same moment I happened to be thinking of a particular friend. I literally dropped whatever I was doing and stood completely dumbstruck by the freakish coincidence and by the discovery that the lyrics of the song was an almost exact reflection on his views on life, love, and beauty. “Because” is his favorite Beatles song. (Not long after the song ended, I received a text message from that friend. Life is full of strange coincidences.)

I immediately started forming a haphazard theory that maybe there’s a lot you can tell about a person by his or her favorite Beatles song. A song, in the most basic sense, is a poem set into music. Let’s assume that poetry (lyrics) is a reflection of universal human experiences, thoughts, attitudes, etc. Let’s also assume that a person loves a particular song because he or she feels a strong, personal connection to its message - the song could either reflect certain beliefs, philosophies, behaviors, or ways in which he/she perceives the self. Why The Beatles? Because you’d be hard-pressed to find a person who has absolutely no clue who the Beatles are and because I’m so out of the loop with pop culture that I’d be like, “Who? What?” if another song or artist was mentioned.

Testing out my theory was something that happened by accident. All it took was a single Tweet on Twitter*, and soon my friends were asking me what I have to say about their favorite Beatles song in 140 characters. It was a Friday morning and I guess nobody was in the mood to do anything productive.

FRITZ

Fritz started off the whole conversation when he said:

Fritz: Mine’s “I Got a Feeling”, tell me what you think.
Me: You work hard and party even harder. Also, you keep missing the jeepney and are usually almost late for work.
Fritz: WTF? You can tell that from a Beatles song?! Your reading powerz can kick Nostradamus’ butt anytime!

What a sarcastic, this Fritz. =P

ADE

Then there was Ade, who is probably the biggest Beatles fan among my friends.

Ade: My faves, as you know, are “In My Life”, “Come Together”, “I Am The Walrus”, and “A Day In The Life”. What does that say?
Me: That’s a lot of songs! Which one’s the ultimate favorite? My Beatles Song Personality Reading Abilities can only handle one.
Ade: “A Day in the Life”
Me: You can’t decide if you love and hate your routine and it drives you nuts. You’re also too afraid to go for what you really want.

Over Y!M, Ade confirmed that my Beatles song reading is in fact correct. w00t!

KLASSY

Klassy saw what was going on through Facebook and decided to join in.

Klassy: My favorite Beatles song is “Helter Skelter”.
Me: You try your best to depend on no one but yourself when you hit very low points in your life, but deep down you want someone who will help pull you back up.
Klassy: HUHLOLZ. Spot-on. You read me well :p

COCO

Coco: Butting in on this Beatles action before I go to sleep with “HelloGoodbye.” Also, “We Can Work It Out” and “Eleanor Rigby.” K.
Me: Based on Hello Goodbye, you like being around people who have more differences than similarities with you. Amirite?

Coco hasn’t gone online since yesterday so I guess I won’t know if I was indeed right.

MARCO

Marco: My favorite Beatles Song is “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
Ade: Um, you like circuses?
Me: You treat life or social situations as one big performance. You’re very guarded and put on different masks around people.
Marco: BLASPHEMY!

PAU

I know that reading sounds like a lot of bull, but what I really meant to say was that just like Come Together (which sounds like a safe pop song unless you pay attention to the whacked-out lyrics), Pau seems completely normal and harmless - at first. Then you get to know him and realize that he’s perfectly capable of running through a crowded street wearing nothing but boxers while screaming something really random like, “PROTECT YOUR VAGINAS!” Except I couldn’t say that in less than 140 characters.

Throughout the duration of Twitter Beatles reading, I realized two things. First, the less I know about the person, the more my reading sounds like a fortune cookie fortune. They’re not as specific as I’d like them to be, and I’ve got no clue if I hit the mark or missed completely (seriously - did I come anywhere near at all?). Second, the readings I gave to friends I know well (Fritz, Ade, Klassy) came not so much from their Beatles song as from the things I already know about them. Which got me thinking that maybe it works the other way around. Maybe I can only make a more or less accurate connection between personality and favorite Beatles song when I’ve achieved a certain degree of knowledge about that person.

Before going to bed last night, I asked Ale the favorite Beatles song question. To my surprise, he told me that he doesn’t really listen to the Beatles and that the closest thing he has to a favorite song is John Lennon’s “Imagine” - or rather, A Perfect Circle’s cover of “Imagine”. I said that if he could be a Beatles song, he’d definitely be “I Am A Walrus” - crazy, unpredictable, and scatterbrained. Sometimes I have trouble keeping up with him because he likes to jump from one thought to another totally unrelated one.

Was I correct? Well yes, but not in the way I expected.

“You do know what walruses are known for, don’t you?” Ale asked once he was done laughing hysterically.

“Um, no. What?”

“Walruses are the mammals with the biggest penises.”

See how that random bit of information came from out of nowhere?

As for me, my favorite Beatles song is “In My Life”. Explanation in less than 140 characters: I may not be good at showing it, but I love everyone who’s been a part of my life, even the assholes. I wouldn’t be who I am without them.

* Twitter, for those of you who aren’t glued to the Internet like I am, is a live micro-blogging tool where you answer a simple question (”What are you doing?”) in 140 characters or less. It’s great for finding out what your friends are doing or feeling and using that as an excuse to procrastinate.