White Noise

I've been having trouble sleeping. Partially because there are not enough hours in the day to get as much sleep as I'd like and partially because I'm having trouble sleeping. I get in bed when I'm done with as much as I can do on any given day, and I can't turn my mind off. If I start to think about school, I try to avoid the obvious accompanying stress by thinking about something fun. A party that happened or is about to happen, football games, visitors, etc, but this just ends up stressing me out too. I used to be pretty decent at quieting my mind, like they tell you to do in yoga, and sometime in the last 3 weeks, I lost it. My mind is anything but quiet.

Nicole called me while I was in class today so I called her back once I got home and laid down. We hadn't spoken in a while and I literally was glad just to hear her voice. She was stressed about SAS and school and then she told me about her job. She's doing research on fetal alcohol syndrome. Instead of listening and enjoying the 30 minute rest I was getting, I fell into the nerd trap- inquire, expand, apply. (That's something I just made up.. it probably doesn't make any sense but I'm a little brain dead). What I mean is, I asked her about FAS, what the symptoms are, what it's like in her lab. Then we moved on to Russian orphans having their adoption fees waived if they suffer from FAS, which is very common particularly in Kaliningrad. And then I was back in my IR systems class which I left at 5pm this evening thinking about which of the many authors and theorists we had read would have a good explanation for Kaliningrad.

So a catching-up conversation with my best friend brought me full circle back into the class I was trying to digest. Is this what it means to be intellectually curious? It's painful. My brain literally hurts. What it really means is this is what it means to be a massive nerd (which Nicole and I readily admit to) since I'm sitting here wondering when I might have a minute to look up a few details about Kaliningrad. Apparently they have the high FAS rate because it's all prostitutes and former soldiers. So, in the end, my theory about why a non-contiguous Russian province bordered by two sovereign countries that has ocean access still exists might just be that no one else wants it. But that's never the answer.

Anyway, now my brain is back at full speed and after a cup of coffee and some dinner (care of Alison) I will sit back down to work. But I'm not entirely certain I can keep up this pace for 2 years.