Life: Continued

Okay, so, the thing I was waiting for happened. A volunteer orientation at Newton Wellesley. It doesn't sound exciting, but it was! I don't know why, but for some reason I really want to do some kind of work and/or help out at a hospital. I have a weird pull towards it. I don't know why. Maybe it has something to do with my obsession over Grey's Anatomy? And ER? And House?

No, I don't think I want to become a doctor, or a nurse, etc. Or maybe I do? I don't know. I just really want to try something new, and my thought process is: If I like all of the above medical TV shows, what are the chances that it's just a coincidence? I like more than the drama, that's for sure. So maybe I like the medical cases in the shows, too (even if, as I've heard tell, they're often unrealistic and would be impossible in real life)? In any case, I do want to volunteer somewhere (don't forget those college aps!), and why not here?

I like Newton Wellesley Hopsital. It's got a nice atmosphere. And of course, I want to take any chance I can to learn something by doing it and by observing it, rather than from a textbook.

Speaking of textbooks, school starts in a week. I am NOT ready for Junior year. Or maybe I am, with all the SAT prep I've done this summer, and all the math I've learned (or have pretended to learn :-P) at Cape Cod - the camp. Wow, all this indecisiveness really tells a lot about my self-confidence. Great. Well, in any case, my strategy this year will be the same as last. Just more extreme. Homework will probably take over my life.

Bye bye, life.

Oh, eventually I'm planning to post a story I wrote last year - it was for English class originally. I really like it, and I'd love to get as much feedback on it as is possible, that is, with the squashable amount of views this blog gets and all.

I'm keeping the world in suspense until then.

A Year has Come and Gone...

Has it really been a year? I feel like I walked into Newton South for the first time just last week. Somehow, freshman and sophomore year just blend in my mind. They feel like one continuous, homework-laden schoolyear. That's probably why my last post was at the beginning of freshman year - I've been working nonstop since then.

What's happened to my life?

Well, I guess I'll be logical and start with dance, since it's the first thing that comes to mind and the thing I think about most now... Well, actually, not quite, but I'll explain that later. I've had no dance partner in any style for about two months now, and no latin partner for... around seven months, I believe. Now that summer is over and I'm done being an airhead and thinking about everything that doesn't really matter in life, I'm starting to think again about how in the world I'm going to get a dance partner in the middle of nowhere. This might be news for anyone who thinks Boston is somewhere because it's considered a big East-coast city and a goldmine of colleges - but in the world of ballroom, it's literally nowhere. At least, it feels that way to me. Now that I think about it, actually, there aren't very many somewheres in the world of ballroom. Where would I have to move in order to have a choice of possible dance partners, and a choice of different dance studios and teachers - in other words, where would I have more than one option of where to take my dancing? There seems to be only one such place in the US, and if there are more, please inform me! NY seems to be it - there are way more dance studios in NY than there are colleges in Boston. Where else? Well, probably London, some cities in Italy, Moscow, and, as I've heard recently, several cities in Ukraine, including my home city of Kharkov. There are probably a lot of other ones, but as I'm being self-centered and pursuing this chain of thoughts for my own reasons, I'm mainly concerned that NY seems to be the only good place in the US. Or maybe it's just the closest.

Where was I going with this? Actually, nowhere. I was just curious to see how many people would read that entire thing.

Anyway, now onto what I've really been thinking about most... Well, actually, I'm a tad bit superstitious and I'm going to wait until after it (hopefully) happens before I talk about it.

Stay tuned! I'm not done talking about my life yet :-P

I think I have writer's block!!!

Okay, so I recently started thinking about entering a writing contest. So, naturally, I googled those two lucky words and came up with a load of possibilities. Having had a break from writing creatively for the whole summer I was weary of how quickly I'd be able to get back into "writing mode", so I chose one of the writing contest sites I found and began writing on its topic for this year as an exercise. I started off with the one thing that used to come most easily and naturally to me before, poetry.

And I failed. I don't know why or how, but I couldn't think of anything. All the words I found on my paper after the nagging whiteness of the page made me write anything (as long as it was something) made no sense when put together. Nonsense! I had just written absolute nonsense! This had never happened before. Of course, I'd written the occasional poem where although I couldn't see it, I was sure there was some meaning buried deeply, very very (um, let me add VERY) deeply between the lines... But I'd never had a time when the poem I wrote turned out to be, at a second glance, just a lot of words mismatched/fitted roughly together. I thought I was past that stage in my writing development the last time I walked out of Countryside (elementary school).

Well, I guess I was wrong. After all, plenty of people have writer's block. And maybe this isn't it? I mean, I haven't tried writing any stories for a while. Maybe this is only a temporary lack of poetic abilities? Or maybe I never had them in the first place and somehow only realized that now... Whatever the case, I really hope that this will end ASAP (preferrably tomorrow) as I really want to enter one of those writing contests.

Catching the Common Cold...

Recently I've been hit by a piercing bullet: one that has left me coughing and sputtering - er - sniffling for air. This bullet was a virus, emanating either from a long sleep somewhere in my body, or from a gust of breath delivered directly to my face from someone very careless. So, naturally, I've had plenty of time to ponder - what was it that caused my cold?

For many people, the answer to this is more than obvious. Someone was carrying the virus before me and transmitted it, as I've already said, directly (and very rudely) through either my eyes, mouth or nose. I'm not trying to argue with that, because I know that that was in fact the original cause.

My main area of curiousity is: Did the cold start as an immediate result of coming into direct contact with someone infected, or was it due to my being dressed too lightly as to expose my body to too severe a cold (temperature) for too long, giving the viruses already settled in my body an advantage because of a weakened immune system

Phew, that was a long question. Hopefully still understandable. Well, I guess I'll try to keep my sentences a bit shorter as I debate the aforementioned issue.

These questions arose out of something said by my mother today after I mentioned an article published on Yahoo, arguing for the former possibility stated in my question (that one becomes affected with the common cold due to direct exposure to someone infected, NOT from the body being cold for too long). This article can be read at http://health.yahoo.com/experts/childhealth/2134/colds-and-the-cold. To summarize, the writer states that although being in the cold for a very long time can possibly weaken the immune system, the cold is usually not a significant factor in wether or not one actually becomes sick.

According to my Mom, there has been an ongoing debate about whether or not this is really true. She believes that cold weather is in fact a significant factor in causing the common cold. Generally I trust my Mom on issues like this. In this case, I'm not sure what or whom to believe. I googled "cold weather causes common cold", and the results I found supported only the argument of the yahoo article.

One of my immediate thoughts is, maybe the second belief (that the common cold can in fact be induced due to cold weather - note, though, that I am not saying that a virus "magically appears" due to the weather, I am only wondering wether or not cold weather can be a significant factor in starting a cold) is a Russian thing. I mean, my parents come from Russia - or, rather, the former Soviet Union. According to my parents, colds were frequent there back then (which was about 12 years ago). Supposing, for a minute, that the second possibility were true, this would not be a big surprise considering Russia's climate and all. Still, my parents have done a very good job, generally, in protecting me from and aiding me (rather, my immune system) in defeating colds. And most of the websites that are firm believers of the 1st possibility are American-based. So, who is right and who is wrong? Does this mean I should stop dressing in 30 layers during the winter (don't worry, I'm joking... but of course, every winter brings its surprises, so one never knows XD)? Or that I should dress even more warmly (if this is possible)? The answer to these questions is pretty important, I think. After all, it could diminish that amount of colds I and all people have to suffer through every year, which is not little I can tell you. Children suffer 3-8 colds a year on average , according to http://www.drgreene.com/21_1053.html, and adults 2-4, according to http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/cold.htm.

I'm unfortunate enough to say that I was one of those unlucky children who suffered in the higher range of average colds/year. Of course, being older now, the recurrence of these colds diminishes slightly year by year. But not by much, and I still get more than enough of stuffy noses during the night that give me temporary insomnia.

My point is, I think finding the answer to the question of whether or not colds can be started due to cold weather is pretty damn important. I'd be great if I could have some feedback on the said above - from experienced doctors and anyone who empathizes.