I know caffeine can make me paranoid, but this was too much. I was trying to sit there, studying, and the person who sat next to me felt like a filthy beast. Just this dripping, putrid sack of a filth who seemed to be emanating some bad something. I thought maybe he was just a pretentious ass, but later on I listened to him describe being sick. The last thing I need is to come down with this season's immune gift.

I finally just got the fuck out of there. I couldn't take the paranoia and claustrophic feeling. Things are better at the apartment. To calm down, I took a personality disorder inventory. I still score low to moderate for everything. Paranoid is high, but then I know for a fact my advisor talks about me and my work when I'm not around, sometimes positively and sometimes with a degree of criticism that isn't warranted. Apparently it depends on his mood.

I wanted to get more done today. Up until 3pm wasn't bad. I unfortunately decided to bend to my better nature and have a meeting with a student, though. She basically failed the first abnormal exam and wanted to go over every question, and ask why her answers weren't the right ones. Most of them are obvious to me, and the vast majority of questions were from the book. I gave her advice about how to tackle the analysis questions I write, about how to take notes--and after all that, an hour had passed.

I can just tell she's going to be a royal pain in my ass. She wants to meet outside of my normal office hours, to e-mail the prof about X, Y, and Z questions for an explanation. Frankly, I'm not paid to be that attentive. I've already done too much in terms of being accomodating.

I guess TAing is going ok, though. It pays the bills. Barely, but it pays them. I'm hoping to get mom's help in applying for federal assistance when I'm not busy all the time. I'm also hoping to find a loophole in case the government wants to give me that "well the state pays for your tuition, so technically you don't qualify" spiel.

Living on less than 300 dollars a month is not living. Thankfully I don't need to pay for gas, since I don't often use my car.

* * *

This weekend I can continue getting slightly ahead of the readings for my classes. Decent amount for the upcoming week. In addition, I need to revise the cognitive paper I wrote. I was directly told that if I made the changes the prof suggested, I'd get a good grade. He said it with a smile after having mentioned I'm one of the more active participants in the class, so I can only suspect: I write what he wants, do so competently, and I get an A for the course. Always a good thing when you're jangling a change cup at Uncle Sam in the form of grants and fellowships.

It's kindof funny: I'm already a professional whore; I just use my brain instead of my dick. I like the profession well enough, but grant money is damn, damn scarce for my little bio-medical specialty field.

* * *

Someone recently noted me about my advisor getting me to work in line with one of his grants. And they're right: that's just what I'm doing. But I got creative with exactly what kinds of studies I want to do. And, in essence, I can still pursue the same fundamental question that has become an all-consuming obsession: how do low levels of inflammation affect social behavior and negative mood, as as how can higher levels lead to withdrawal, depression, and/or anxiety? All without major immune activation...almost as if a lot of sudden bursts of anger, sadness, dejection could suddenly arise just from something as simple as some proteins being released.

Of course that's a major over-simplification, but people used to tell me that I'd eventually find an "it". I consider the above to be that "it". After all, I've largely ceased to care about low wages, constantly working, little time off, being alone for the most part, and several other conditions that used to bother me. I am consumed by a purpose that just feels right. I think this might be similar to the commitment some people feel for their religion. Indeed, to me, it's something unshakeable, something immutable that is a cornerstone and a foundation.

And at the risk of sounding like an irrational zealot, I sometimes feel like I'm meant to be doing this, that I'm serving some sort of higher and more noble function. I tend to think of God as being a unifying force that is infinitely experiencing and re-experiencing itself through small independent pockets of itself (i.e. us), but I could swear there's some higher purpose to it all.

Maybe that's just a fanciful way of my psyche to deal with what would grind down and break down most people. It could well be silliness, quite frankly.

But this is the first time in my life where one thing, just one thing, has rung clear and true. Well there's my mom, obviously, but I mean in terms of life and personal direction.

And so at this point...I honestly don't care what I have to give up. I attend to my needs, try to attend to those of others when they need it. But where I can, I dedicate time to exploring this one thing, just this one thing.

It's either dedication or stark quiet madness.

Actually I'm of the opinion it's both, but I do enjoy it.

Past all of this torrential bureaucratic horseshit that old white people have created as a means of enslaving and breaking the young, I do enjoy this profession (though I exclusively mean the federal and state government, rather than my superiors here and other scientists. They know all too well that we are whores of higher education). And I play the grant games, because the import, the interest, and above all the need to bring the truth of that one thing to others trumps all of the obstacles and obstructions.

Wow, that is grade fucking A ranting on my part.

Just in case the justice department or anyone in my lab ever reads the above: I love psychology, and my advisor has always had my best interests in mind; he could just say my ideas are shite, but he encourages them--he just wants them framed in such a way that they can be paid for. What I object to is the Herculean effort he, I, and we as a while put in to getting 50k dollars from an ever narrowing, ever less plentiful pot of money.

Good God I'm embarassed I've written all of this. Feh.

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