Up for Air

Finally feel like I have time for this blog again. I was inspired by a story on NPR this morning by a woman talking about her expeiences in the blogosphere. Though she was a right-winger, I felt some measure of affection towards what she was doing and wanted to be part of it, so here I am again.

I've just finished my first full-time year of pre-med studies at UNC-Greensboro at the age of 33. School has been a great experience. I used to think that I was losing brain power year by year, but I've discovered it wasn't true. I just hadn't really been exercising my ability to think and expand my understanding of things. Besides, school is much easier as an adult! I actually show up to class every day. I'm interested, I do the work, and I get excellent grades. Why was this so hard when I was 16 to 20? Well, duh. My hormone levels alone made it practically impossible to concentrate.

Hopefully, I'll be starting a temp position on June 1 as a Research Assistant for a study at the UNC School of Public Health in Chapel Hill. I'm excited about working on the study, though a little apprehensive about the uncertainty of temping. Still, I've temped before, and what I'll be doing is great experience for medical school and where I think I'm headed.

So I have a few days off! What am I going to do with them? I don't like free time. Yesterday, I watched the entire Extended Version of The Return of the King on DVD. So good! So emotionally exhausting! It gets to me every time. Still, even as I'm weeping, I worry about its glorification of war and the destruction of an implacable, inhuman, unredeemable enemy. Tolkien's universe is easy that way: the Lidless Eye, orcs, goblins, and trolls are always entirely evil. No ambiguities there. But that's not the world we live in. I think of Iraq and Afghanistan and northern Uganda, where real wars are going on, with real people on both sides, suffering and afraid. And there is evil there on every side. I hope there are also moments of redemption.