library west

i'm in the library right now with 3 folders, 3 textbooks, a calculator, 2 open word documents, and seemingly endless amounts of work to do. the most immediate assignments are some math and my rome essay (both due tomorrow). however, i also have a few chapters of bio to read, 2 weeks' worth of online chem (OWL, loves it), a paper on the Virtual Child, aaaand i'll stop. anyway, instead of working on anything important, i'm thinking about how effing good one tree hill was last night and how badly i want Pinkberry right now (sorry ice cream, i'm dreaming of a different dessert). but far more exciting is something i do quite often but never cease to be amazed by: listening to music in a busy environment, watching people interact without hearing what they're saying. every time i do this, which is essentially all the time, i feel like i am watching the most unique movie i've ever seen. one of my favorite thinking processes while i'm in this position is inventing storylines that go along with whatever i'm listening to. for instance, there is a trio of students sitting at a table in my view. it is two girls and an african man (i cheated, i listened to his accent when i muted the song volume for a few seconds). i'm listening to wet sand by the red hot chili peppers, and africans make me think of africa, which in turn makes me think of the dessert, and that makes me think of dunes, and dunes are made of sand, which circles back to wet sand. as per this connection, wet sand is the perfect song to be on the soundtrack of their interaction. it also helps that wet sand has a really nice rhythm, and would be great on any movie soundtrack.
it is now about 3:40 into the song, and the climax is building. coincidentally, there was just an enormous surge of people entering my floor of the library. now i am speaking in the past tense: as that part of the song was building, the people came closer and closer to me, and the space around me became increasingly busy. i felt overwhelmed when the song reached its peak: kiedis jamming out with such intensity combined with seeing so many different colors of shirts at once made me a little panicky. but the music served its purpose and gave me a perfect ending: the traffic in here slowed down, and the chili peppers slowly faded out, leaving me wanting to continue listening to stadium arcadium for the next three weeks straight.
i probably wouldn't have noticed this if i wasn't trying to create the soundtrack of my life, but hey, i did, and it's a pretty dopetastic album.

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Now playing: Jimmy Eat World - 23

happy birthday esther shira!

today/yesterday/february 10th is/was the first birthday of my niece, little esther shira menaged, child of natalie and (rabbi) eli menaged. this little "punum," if you will, is the cutest, funniest, silliest, sweetest, best eylash-batter you could ever meet, and i/my/family/the world am/is so lucky to have her. i can't believe she has been lighting up my life for a solid year already. although either her parents or i have/has to endure cross-country traveling so that i can listen to her high-pitched and shockingly cute shrieks, esther shira is a huge part of my everyday life. her optimism and curiosity give me endless joy and inspire me to learn as much as i can, because as her wise mom/my wise sister says that babies are always happy because they are always learning. so happy birthday to the littlest, happiest, most popular, and (sorry guys) my favorite party of my family.
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Now playing: Foo Fighters - Another Round

it's britney, bitch

feel sooo bad for brit. "britney lapses into a british accent." "britney hasn't slept since last friday." "k-fed gets custody." i feel like she's probably suffering from post-partum something, whether it be depression or a mild psychosis, but this is so sad. she has no control over her life, and now not even her kids, and people are relentlessly poking fun at and bothering her. and the media is going wild. i beg people.com to stop posting fug candid shots of her. i'd go bonkers too if they did that to me. and seriously, jamie lynn. wtf. you're 12. stop letting old guys stick it in you.

this one's for you, jc. enjoy the photo, because i love pregnant chicks so much.

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Now playing: Britney Spears - Toy Soldier

i want a pap smear

so last week i went to the school infirmary for my "annual." usually this consists of a consultation, a breast exam, i guess some other things, and a pelvic exam/pap smear, as well as STD testing if you ask for it. this time around, they told me that i don't need a pap smear, and that they won't provide them if you are under 21 and have not been sexually active for more than three years. and when i asked for one anyway, they refused to perform the procedure. their (they being the new national gynecological guidelines, but i bet you one trillion dollars that no private practice would deny you a pap smear) rationale is that you're not that likely to be exposed if you're young and haven't been having sex for that long, and if you have been, your body would get rid of the disease on its own.
this makes me so angry. the two qualifications for skipping the pelvic exam, being under 21 and having less than three years of sexual activity, potentially have no bearing on the likelihood of exposure to HPV or any other STD. it makes sense that the more exposure you have to sexual partners, the more likely you are to contract the disease. but say i started having sex two years ago and have had 50 partners since. just because i have been having sex for a relatively short period of time and i am relatively young does not make it unlikely that i have one of these diseases. it does not take three years to get HPV.
second of all, it is called a disease/virus because it is harmful. true, a younger person has a stronger chance of recovery than one who is older, but is there ever enough strength in someone to get rid of such a disease on one's own? this makes no sense. i'm actually pretty pumped for the lawsuit that's going to happen when a 20-year-old girl dies of HPV that was never diagnosed because her gynecologist wouldn't give her a pap smear. not pumped for the girl dying, just the potential overturning of this nauseating new guideline.
STD tests can be done in several ways, one of the most common being during a pelvic exam. not only do i think that doctors should encourage such testing and make it clear to the patient that a pap smear diagnoses only HPV, but i think that the new policy on pap smears is going to do horrible things for the anti-STD brigade that these health professionals advocate. STD testing for this age group is going to decrease infinitely, leaving infected girls untreated and unintentionally infecting others.
i'd love opinions on this one. if your response really excites me, i'll make a whole post just about you!

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Now playing: The Shins - Saint Simon