The Inner Light

Okay, it's time to put my nerd hat on. Why? Because last night Turg and I remembered just how much of a nerd I/we am/are. See, SciFi channel has been showing Star Trek: TNG . Sometimes we catch it, sometimes we don't. (Mind you, we have all 7 seasons on DVD, so we could just watch whenever we want.) Last night, we sat down for dinner and TV and turned on ST:TNG.

Usually, within seeing the first few seconds of any episode, either Turg or I* or both can identify what episode it is, and whether or not we're going to like it (see, nerds, geeks, whatever you want to call us). Well, the second episode of the four being shown last night started with a scene of an "unidentified probe" on th bridge viewscreen. On sight of this, I start tearing up. Why? Because it means that it's one of my favorite (if not my all time favorite) episode of TNG: The Inner Light.

This episode makes me cry everytime I see it. Every. Single. Time. In the same places. Crying. So predictably that I got a box of tissues out to be ready for it. Even Turg knows at what points in the episode I cry, that he kept looking at me to see if I was (in turn, I kept yelling at him to stop staring at me). Big ball of crying, snotty, nerdy mess. Crying at ST:TNG.


*Incidentally, just an example of total geekdom - on one of our early and most memorable dates, Turg and I sat in Pizzaria Uno for hours playing ST:TNG trivia. Yes, this is geek dating at its best.

Vagina vagina vagina

Okay, now that I have your attention.

This is going to be a post about the word VAGINA:
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural va·gi·nae /-(")nE/ or va·gi·nas
a canal in a female mammal that leads from the uterus to the external orifice opening into the vestibule between the labia minora

We are going to be talking about the word vagina and not about the vagina itself. Why? I started thinking about it when I read this article about the term "va-jay-jay" of Grey's Anatomy lore (in the New York Times, no less). Long ago, in a land far away, I used to be a grad student. I was a grad student who did animal experiments on mouse vaginas. I think most of you know this. At some point, I was talking about my work at lab, and someone (a female, FYI) asked that I not use the word 'vagina' before noon. "It was too early in the morning to hear that," apparently. Too jarring for sensitive ears. This request was seconded (and thirded) by a couple of more people in the lab.

I had always thought of that reaction to be very interesting. It's a part of the female anatomy. Perfectly natural. The general population doesn't react to the word penis in the same way. Why is the name of female genitalia more jarring?

I never got my answer to that question while I was in grad school. However, me being who I am, got childish glee from watching people squirm. Rooms full of scientists, listening to my talk at meetings and symposia, wriggling in their seats everytime I said the word 'vagina.' I even had one woman come up to me after seeing my talk and ask me how I could stand up there and not be embarrassed. Again, not something I would even think of, since it was my research, and since I wasn't saying anything dirty. Vagina.

But it does bring up a salient point. Why is it that the word penis (and every euphamism for that word) is more accepted in popular vernacular, not even blinked at, while the word vagina isn't? I guess that's what the Vagina Monologues was trying to point out.

I like the word va-jay-jay. Vagina is an anatomical term which, as pointed out in the Times article, "is inadequate because it is not inclusive enough. It does not, they have pointed out, include the labia and clitoris, the nerve-rich locus of a woman’s sexual pleasure." While "Vajayjay...is like your good buddy."

It's the best buddy a woman can have.

I need a Hiro...

There are very few shows that I watch on TV. It's pretty obvious that Grey's Anatomy is one of them. One show I haven't talked about is Heroes. CawfeeGuy posted about it a while back.


Tonight, there was a hell of a cliffhanger. A lot of shit was revealed, a whole bunch of answers and a whole shit load more questions. How far into the future did Hiro and Ando teleport? How is Linderman tied into it all? Does he run the "Company?" Is he opposed to them? How much does Peter and Nathan's Mother actually know? Will Mohindar die, or at least quit his whining? Can they all, in fact, save the world?

And there are 6 weeks before another new episodes. SIX FREAKIN' WEEKS. Sorry. Didn't mean to shout.

You spin me right round, baby, right round

So, MS recently posted about all the annoying, over-dramatic histrionics by Meredith on Grey's Anatomy recently. Well, apparently, the "all about me" attitude exists in real life too.


Recently it was announce that Grey's would be spinning off a show centered around Addision Montgomery. Whether or not it would work, we'll have to see. But Addision is such a great character, I have mixed feelings about whether she should stay on the show or have her own. Apparently, the cast of Grey's is none too happy. Particularly Ellen Pompeo, the impossibly skinny actress who plays the impossibly whiny Meredith. I specifically find this funny:

The source adds that “Grey’s” star Ellen Pompeo “seemed particularly peeved because she felt that, as the star, she should have been consulted.”

I never really considered her the "star" of the show. I know the show is called Grey's Anatomy, but the show has such a strong ensemble cast that, depending on the storyline or episode, any one of them could be the "star." I guess I just find all the other characters just so much more interesting.

Why I love Callie

Don't mind her. It's just the whole doctor thing... you know, 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, 4 years of med school. By the end we're in our mid 20's and have no idea. We're all social retards... It's high school, only with scalpels. We're 17. And I'm the girl sitting in the back of the classroom eating her hair.

For the love of TiVo

I love our TiVo. Why? I hate watching commercials. I want to watch my programs when I feel like it - I don't think I watched a single episode of Grey's Anatomy on Sunday. And I know I never saw InuYasha at midnight on Tuesday.

But the most recent reason why I love TiVo? The NPR podcasts. I love the radio show Wait Wait - Don't Tell Me. And now TiVo has podcasts of the episode from the previous few weeks. Which is great, because I forget to turn on the radio at 11am on Saturdays to listen. But there are a whole bunch of other catagories of podcasts, not just NPR.

Now if only they would podcast Car Talk...

Hour 3 - I am so on Team Addison

I felt like I just took a ride on the craziest emotional rollercoaster. Meredith and Derek deserve each other. Derek certainly does not deserve Addison, because he's too wrapped up in doing what he thinks is the right thing. Problem is, in trying to do the "right thing," he ends up doing it all wrong. Same with Meredith. Meredith sees in Derek what she figured out about the Chief. And she so desperately does not want to become her mother. I thought she had let go when she let Doc go. I was wrong. Meredith doesn't deserve Finn. Derek doesn't deserve Addison. And Derek is to chicken-shit to tell Addison the truth.

Christina Yang has lost her edge, she says. "I will not be responsible for making you less human," the Chief tells her. And we've seen it. She got scared. She ran. She didn't have the answers. And in the end, it was okay. Because she took Burke's hand. And that's the only answer she needed.

Karev put his issues aside to care for Izzy. And it's more obvious to me than ever that he actually cares for Izzy. He didn't say what he said for his own benefit. It wasn't selfish. He said it because it was the truth. And he tells the truth. But this time, it was a real truth. Something more true about Denny than I thought possible to come out of his mouth. And he said it, not for himself, but for Izzy.

George has gotten stronger and stronger. And he tells Callie the truth. She's in love. He's not there yet. And he was man enough to tell her the truth. To not run.

I will continue to say over and over just how awesome Bailey is. She rocks. Because she doesn't take crap. But she cares for her interns. Truly cares. She's a softy behind it all. She is more human and more real. And she, in times most insane, keeps it together.

I have to watch it again. Have to.

Addendum:
1) I love the look Callie gives to Derek when she finds them.
2) Burke went to Hopkins!! YAY!!!

Hour 1.5

So I'm watching the Grey's Anatomy 3 hour season finale. I'm at hour 1.5 and I'm freaking out. My heart nearly dropped out of my chest at the end of hour 1. I started crying at about 15 minutes into hour 2. Breaking for dinner because I'm freaking out.

A week behind

Okay, so I'm a week behind on Grey's Anatomy. This will be remedied. But it took me until last night to see the episode about being "Scary and Damaged." And there are a lot of things that could be said, but I'll refain until I see the two parter from this week. SA, I took a peek at your "summary." Oh-my-God - I thought I was on a freakin' rollercoaster. I can't wait.

More to come soon...

Karma, part II

Okay, MS. I agree with a lot of your points. And lots of bad things happen to "good" people and vice versa. And that everyone's yardstick is different. But my hope is that, out there, through whatever trials there are, some balance may be struck. (Sorry, that bit of Eastern Philosophy that probably comes with the genes.)

Granted, life is hard. And life rarely seems fair. But I am with you in trying to put as much positive energy in the world. And hope that the positive energy breeds more positive energy. Is it wrong to hope that the good you do and the love that you give will bring good to you? And not because that's what you're looking for, but just because? That there are consequences for every action, no matter how mundane. Is Karma all that much different than "do unto others?"

I know that my life and hardships will never compare to that of most people in this world. It would be foolish to believe so. I have had it good in the grand scheme of things. And I am always grateful for all that I have, most especially the people I love. But it helps me, in some small way, to believe that the pendulum will eventually swing back when things seem to be down.

How can one believe in Karma and practice medicine? - as Cristina Yang said. That's probably one of the reasons I could not practice medicine. I would think too many things are unfair.

And just as a note: The small part of me that believes in reincarnation is sure that I will come back in my next life as a lab mouse.

Karma

I think most everyone who know me know that I am very particular about what I watch on television. Well, I don't watch television anymore... I TiVo everything, because I hate commercials. Anyway, there are a select few shows that make it onto the TiVo. And some of them remain on the TiVo completely unwatched, at least for the moment (ahem, Desperate Housewives - I'm waiting for the whole season to be done so I can watch them all in one shot). To my utter surprise, the one show I did not expect to become hooked on has made a permanent appointment in my TiVo - Grey's Anatomy.

This week's episode was about Karma - good Karma, bad Karma. Life's unfairness... how things never turn out just how you imagine they would be. How good people seem to get crap and the not-so-good walk around content. How things always seem to, no matter how long ago they may have happened, come back and bite you in the ass (or in Addison's case, the vah-jay-jay, as Bailey calls it). Or that a bad experience may have helped you dodge a bullet later on.

I believe in karma. I always talk about "karmic retribution," the idea that every bad action you make will cause something bad to happen to you. But that's the negative spin on it... and mostly something I joke about. Seriously, though, I believe that there needs to be a balance. People who have had it way too easy early in life, who walk around believing the world is their oyster, will go through periods where things are completely unfair, where they can't seem to catch a break, get a date, make a deadline, whatever. People who have been through crap, where nothing seems to go right for a long time, will come to a point where things are good - and because of the bad, they truly appreciate it. And the pendulum always swings.

I have, by no means, lived a charmed life. But I believe that the hell and pain of graduate school (and all the things that happened in my life during that period) is being paid off by the happiness I have now in work and life in general. And I know that hard work helped to get me here. And whether it's deserved or not, I appreciate it all the more, I think, because I've experienced some every negative things. And I also know, that while I was in that negative place, I did not believe that it could get any better - I could not see the positive that would eventually come from it.

I know that the pendulum is still swinging. And that eventually, it will swing back in the other direction. But the balance is needed. People cannot appreciate the good without the bad... or else they begin to believe that they are entitled. And I never want to feel that way.