Why Today?

This has been a terrible allergy week and the thing I struggle with most in the peak of hayfever season (which I fear we haven't even reached yet) is that my eyes itch and burn and swell shut. When it's bad enough I'll have swelling well down into my tear ducts so that my face looks like a lumpy puffer fish and has blotches all over. For whatever reason I always suffer more in my university town than at home. So this morning was a puffer fish morning and wouldn't you know it, our Clinical Director asked me to give a 15 minute impromptu talk, ON VIDEO, to show to the 3rd years in preparation for the APPIC process. The poor buggers. As if it isn't bad enough they have to go through this at all, they get to kick it off watching a video of a wheezing puffer fish. Gah.

I decided to call in sick and just came home. Couldn't sleep though, because my head was too full and the back of my throat itched too much, so I've been at the neighbors' listening to the rain pound on their awning. I love rain and we need more, AND it washes the damned pollen out of the air, so if all goes well maybe tomorrow I'll be able to breathe again.

On more intellectual topics than snot in my brain, I seem to be clashing more and more with my teachers and supervisors. I wonder what that's about? I have always said what I thought and been quick to comment in classes, but somehow lately my comments seem to be perpetually at odds with one mentorish figure or other. Is this a rite of passage, developmental milestone, or just a nasty case of narcissism? Today at least I wasn't alone. Came to loggerheads with my only male classmate over perspectives on a divorce/custody mediation video. He absolutely hated the woman and completely exonerated the man. The prof had a similar, if less intense, response. After a few moments of impassioned discussion I realized this was a gender/cultural misunderstanding. At least one of my classmates argued as vehemently as I, and two others agreed with us in the hallway. It was a bummer though, because the (male) mediator had the same view as the two men in our class and as far as I was concerned it undermined his entire performance. The prof thought the mediator's interventions were 'masterful' while I thought they were insensitive and biased. So I didn't get much out of the class and the whole episode undermined my respect for the prof's ability to teach me this new subject in any usable way.

I hope I can get this argumentativeness out of my system before Intership begins. Humble humble humble. I get just 7 weeks to feel superior for finishing my coursework and then I get to go back to the bottom of the pile.