Being Bipolar

I'm one of the lucky ones. I was the kid that took apart the telephone just to see how it worked. I loved life because there seemed no end to what I could discover. Freshman year of college I learned what that curiosity looked like on overdrive. I experienced extreme joy living among people exactly like me. And then I started coming down from that high, and felt a depression I couldn’t understand. I told the school psychiatrist, She told me I might be mentally ill. I was scared. I was 18 years old, how could I be mentally ill? She told me I needed medication. Medication could change me; it could neuter my personality.

Bi-polar disorder is a mental illness that affects about %1 of the population. I've been on five different medications since I was 18, and had two severe manic attacks. The first time, in October of 2004 I quit my first job two weeks before my contract was up, and gave up $10 grand in compensation because I couldn't bring myself to show up for the last two weeks. I got over it eventually.

The second time, in October of 2005, I was in my sophomore year at Reed. In three weeks I pissed off so many professors, students and administrators that I was placed on involuntary medical leave. First I was kicked out of my econometrics class for yelling at the professor. Then my favorite political science professor told the dean of students to remove me from his class. My best friends didn’t want to see me.

I decided to transfer schools rather than go back to Reed and face the damage I had caused. I started at USC in the spring of 2007. No serious issues, just a few anxiety attacks, and I've gotten used to those by now. At the beginning of fall semester, I started to notice the same hyperactive symptoms that preceded my meltdown at Reed. My doctors agreed that I should be on a higher dosage of one of my meds in order to combat the symptoms and avoid what happened two years ago. The sadness I had managed to endure became depression painful beyond measure.

In order to avoid another manic attack, I had accepted some major constraints on my life. I can't get wasted at a party, because I might pass out and not take my meds. I can't stay up past 2 AM regardless of how good a party might be. I have to take my medication every night, so I have to know that I'll have them on me if I want to crash somewhere other than in my apartment. Most days I wake up from a full night’s sleep, and I'm tired and depressed the minute I get out of bed.

But these preventative measures are not a cure. The medication is only somewhat effective. It stops me from jumping off a roof or yelling at my teachers during lecture, but it doesn't stop the more mild versions of those same mood swings. One day I’m excited, the next I’m cold and distant. My professors wonder why I stop participating in class. My friends wonder why I suddenly want to be around them all the time.

I’m one of the lucky ones. The majority of people with my condition don't graduate from college. Most make it out of high school, but just barely. Many are not diagnosed until they've been put in a psychiatric ward for severely dangerous behavior.

I endure each bad day because I still have many good days. In spite of all my setbacks, I am going to graduate from college. In spite of all the days I feel worthless, I have some wonderful days spent with friends and family. And in spite of all my fears that my meds will stop working, I know there is still no end to what I can discover.

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Why so bitter?

David Brooks, (who I don't watch often enough) in his column for the NY Times attacked Barack Obama for being a Democratic politician and pandering to working class voters by talking about trade deals for most of his speech.

My favorite part comes when he can't resist the trademark snark we all love him for.

What I don’t understand is why the political consultants prefer this kind of rhetoric. Aren’t there windows in the vans they use to drive around the state? Don’t they see that most middle-class voters are service workers in suburban office parks, not 1930s-style proletarians in the steel mills?

American voters aren’t so stupid as to think their problems are caused by foreigners and malevolent lobbyists. When Obama speaks down to his audiences, it makes me so bitter I want to cling to my laptop and my college degree.

What Brooks understands, but doesn't want to admit, is that voters really are that stupid. Politicians do their best to agree with the sentiments felt by voters, and the best way to get angry at job losses is to blame something tangible, in this case, foreigners.

What Brooks wants to have us believe is that political consultants are out of touch when we play to the populi's gut feelings, that we are talking down to them. That may be true, but we're doing what works, and educating someone in order to win an election takes a lot more work than telling someone something they already "know."

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A short history of our war on germs

A few years ago the World Health Organization published this anonymous bit of doggerel titled “The History of Medicine.”

• 2000 B.C. – Here, eat this root.
• A.D. 1000 – That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
• A.D. 1850 – That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
• A.D. 1920 – That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
• A.D. 1945 – That pill is ineffective. Here, take this penicillin.
• A.D. 1955 – Oops . . . bugs mutated. Here, take this tetracycline.
• 1960-1999 – 39 more “oops.” Here, take this more powerful antibiotic.
• A.D. 2000 – The bugs have won! Here, eat this root.

From: Drug Resistance Explained

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A Jewish soul is yearning

Last year I visited Israel for the first time through Hasbara Fellowships. My friend Abby who encouraged me to apply said visiting Israel and learning about the modern political issues facing the country would be a life changing experience.

Now, I work in politics so I'm typically skeptical about such statements, but I decided to go on Hasbara rather than Birthright because at heart I am an academic and wanted a trip with a strong educational component.

It turned out that for all the knowledge I gained about Israeli politics, what affected me most about the trip was not what I saw in the classroom, but instead what I saw in the reaction of one of my friends.

Leon was the only Russian Jew on the trip, and had been searching for some link between his version of Judaism and what he saw in Israel. It came in the form of a small Russian restaurant we found after a long search through the streets of Tel Aviv.

We walked in, sat down, and were handed the menus. They were not in English, and they were not in Hebrew. Leon's pride at being able to order in his native tongue and then show me the proper way to eat the foods he was raised on cemented why all the classroom knowledge was so important.

I came away from Israel knowing its history, knowing all the facts about the current political situation, but most important, feeling, deep in my soul, that Israel was a place where any Jewish soul could belong.

I want to come back this summer to learn more about the spiritual side of that great connection. Over the past year I have become even more interested in the spiritual side of my Jewish identity. It seems that out of my political learning in Israel last summer, I have begun to care more about my religious learning; to paraphrase Hatikvah, with an eye toward Zion, my Jewish soul yearns more and more each day.

If all goes to plan I will be studying in Israel later this summer and fall at the University of Haifa, to improve my Hebrew and learn more about Israeli history as I experience it. I will be finishing my college career in the spring at Hebrew University as part of a study abroad program through USC, having spent an entire year in Israel by the time I graduate. That is my hope, to be a student in my own land, ארץ ציון וירושלים (The land of Zion and Jerusalem).

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I've got a crush on Obama Girl!!!!

Obama girl, featured below, is a perfect example of how grassroots media can become viral and eventually make its way into mainstream pop culture.



"I've got a crush" was created in mid 2007, and was actually dismissed by the campaign (see the Wikipedia Article) It grew and grew on YouTube until three weeks ago, when Obama Girl was featured on SNL.

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One Glass of Dr. Pepper

Caffeine...our national addiction. I made the stupid mistake this evening of having a glass of Dr. Pepper with the pizza I ordered and am now paying the price. Because of various health reasons I won't get into, drinking a heavily caffeinated beverage after about 6 PM leaves me feeling both perfectly awake and ready to collapse at the same time.

I can imagine certain activities for which this would be an ideal mood, but at the moment I have reading to do and a very shallow ability to focus on doing it. Hopefully I'll get something done before I go to bed...thankfully I don't have any midterms tomorrow.

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LaShuv L'Tzion

An update for my readers: I've started a communal blog with some friends over at http://lashuv.wordpress.com The topic is Zionism and Israel more generally, with a wide range of viewpoints. Check it out in the near future as we hopefully add a few more writers and more posts.

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Rembering Our Brothers

Every night until I can no longer remember to do so, I will think of them as I say their names. I will remind myself of what they were doing when this terrible tragedy struck them. Their memory, for me at least, will serve as a reminder to follow in their footsteps, to learn more about my religion and in doing so, more about my own soul. Their memory will remind me of how important it is for Israel to work for peace, but never to negotiate out of fear.

These students died not because they were in a classroom, not because they were Israeli, and not because they were living in Jerusalem. They died because in their hearts they believed in something so strongly that even the most evil of acts could not for a second make them falter. These students died because they were Jews, and every night we should remember them, just as we would eight of our own brothers.

They are Yochai Lipschitz, 18, of Jerusalem; Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shiloh; Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav Hashahar; Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem; Roey Roth, 18, of Elkana; Segev Pniel Avihayil, 15, of Neveh Daniel; Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat; and Maharata Trunoch, 26, of Ashdod.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961933.html

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8 high school students are dead in jerusalem when terrorists, likely part of hamas, shot up a jewish school about an hour ago

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