stacy b-log

Random bits of sports trivia... obscure events in world history... state capitals... lines from Monty Python films: My brains cast off the detritus of 36 years like an ion stream, making room for mixtures, compounds, elements, molecules, intensive and extensive properties, matter, mass and volume.

As the rust (a chemical reaction) flakes off the gears of my mind, I retrieve snippets of chemistry from the long-locked closet of learning. Reviewing the Periodic Table of Elements last night, I remembered Ni (nickel), Au (gold), Fe (iron), Be (beryllium) right off the bat - and how often have you heard the word 'beryllium' since high school? But get this, since I took chemistry in high school 20 years ago, THEY'VE ADDED NEW ELEMENTS!!! There's like 117 of them now - I think we only had about 100 when I was in school.

When I was in school... I have already promised my chemistry lab partners as well as my recitation team that I will not say, "When I was in school..." Of my three lab partners, one was born the year I started college THE FIRST TIME - that would be 1989. I didn't fare too much better on recitation - five boys plus me - and three of them were born in 1990. Another is GARRETT THE INVISIBLE MAN who didn't show up for recitation (which, by the way, is forced study hall) and made our exercises all the more difficult. The other is Dave who wouldn't say how old he was until I said, "Dude, I was born in 1971 - bring it." He was born in 1980 - and is doing the same thing I'm doing: Going back for his pre-reqs so he can get into dental school.

So at least I'm not the only one, but I know I'm still the oldest one.

My head hurts from all this learning. Last night was my first without post-work class this week, and I took time off to watch the Obama speech. I awoke in a panic this morning, thinking I'd already forgotten the definition of matter (anything that has mass and takes up space) but then I realized that chemistry serves as an apt metaphor for my brain matter: Chemistry takes up space formerly occupied by food and wine pairings... Italian grammar... Shakespeare's sonnets... and maybe the infield fly rule.

Dude, this is gonna be so hard.

Posted by stacy at 01:41 PM | Permalink

I am older than my chemistry instructor, Dr. Allan Scruggs. Not quite sure by how much, but I probably have a good year or two on him, which is fine - really - because if I had been a teenaged cautionary tale, I could have given birth to every single one of my classmates. (Not at the same time, obviously)

Yeah, I feel old - but then again, I'm 36 and taking freshman-level chemistry for science majors. At the bookstore today when I was standing in line to buy my 16.2 pounds worth of text book, lab manual, lab notebook, sexy protective lab goggles, student's guide and student's guide answer book, the kid behind me tapped me on the shoulder:

"Ma'am, is this a line to buy books or just T-shirts?"

"Well, I sure hope it's for books because I'm standing in the same line as you," I said. "And by the way, it's charming that you called me ma'am."

"Better than the alternative," he said. So much for respecting your elders.

Suffice it to say, you will hear this more than once from my fingertips during this semester: WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL (15 years ago), WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY OF THIS STUFF!!! THESE KIDS HAVE IT SO EASY!!!

I mean, seriously, Dr. Scruggs literally spelled out how to pass his class: He put the instructions in bullet points. Review 8-12 hours per week. Read a half-chapter ahead of each class. Read after class. Do the practice EXAM questions, and if we can't figure those out, take advantage of one of the THREE (3!?!) additional study periods where they review what he just went over in lecture. Download his notes off the Internet so I can preview before class, follow along during class and review after class. I don't even have to take notes - I just have to pay attention and read and show up and do the practice problems ($42 study guide) and check those against the practice SOLUTIONS (another $42 for the answer book- there's a nice little racket for you). I'm not going to say it will be easy, because truly, I could feel the rust grinding off the gears of my brains when he started talking about molecules and elements today, but still...

I may not be the brightest bulb in this stadium, but I'm certainly not the dimmest either. When he asked how many students were pre-med, about 60 percent of the hands went up... including mine. I will be interested to calculate the attrition - which is math that we salespeople do all the time.

Stay tuned... tomorrow we have chemistry lab and I'm wearing my goggles!

Posted by stacy at 08:47 PM | Permalink

It's been 15 years, three months and 10 days since I graduated, magna comes loudly, with degrees in English and History from Texas A&M.

For the first seven years, I worked as a sportswriter, won some awards and had many adventures. There was a gap year when I got married and worked a soul-crushing stint at a hellhole I'd not care to recall. And for the past seven years, I've been in sales at Public Radio Partners, doing a job I love with people I adore, serving clients that are the coolest in the world, and helping fund my favorite nonprofit, public radio stations, KJZZ-NPR/Jazz and KBAQ-Classical.

But tomorrow - Monday, August 25, 2008 - at the ripe old age of 36, I'm going back to school - taking Chemistry 113, plus a lab, plus a recitation (?) at Arizona State University - so I can (hopefully) complete my science prerequisites in 2-3 years, take the MCAT (pass the MCAT), apply and get into to medical school.

I'm not quite sure of the medical term for what just happened to you, but in the real world, we call it a spit-check. Wipe the emesis off your monitor, and call me in another 15 years when I hope to be able to treat you for it.

Don't worry, none of my other three regular readers saw it coming either. Nor did my parents or my husband or my best friend or my employers or even me. So here's a little background... WAY background:

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a doctor - so much so that I took a one-year, unpaid internship in the recovery room of Schumpert Medical Center in Shreveport. I got to make beds, wheel patients to their rooms, empty urine bags and containers, sort supply cabinets, run mindless errands (that seemed REALLY important to me) and observe stuff that goes on in a hospital recovery room. I loved it.

As my term was coming to an end, one of the surgeons took me aside to have THE TALK: "Stacy, you are really inquisitive and bright. You're a hard worker. You're good with the patients, great with the staff and you've been a tremendous asset to us - we wish you could stay... But when all of the work is done, you're off in a corner, writing in your journal. We've all read your stories and loved them, and I just want you to think about whether medicine is what you REALLY want to do with your life. Medical school is grueling, exhausting, frustrating and hard. It requires a lot of sacrifice from you and your family - but it's only a means to an end - and you have to ask yourself, is that end what you really want, what you're called to do?"

To that end, I took the path of least resistance, accepted a scholarship - tendered primarily because of said writing skills - and enrolled in English at Texas A&M. Afterward, I stumbled into sportswriting, mowed the Ballpark in Arlington, completed the London Marathon, covered more than 100 high school football games, generated hate mail, fan mail and an invitation to the prom, cut sheet metal for a NASCAR Winston Cup Team, watched my very first story roll off the press at the Shreveport Times at 1:30 in the morning and saw my byline atop roughly 2,500 stories before I was done. In short, writing let me live a life writ large.

And then I parlayed the skills I learned in the sports department (meeting deadlines, asking questions, listening to answers, working well under pressure) into a sales gig at Public Radio Partners. Through sales, I've honed my problem-solving skills, fallen in love with radio (but not the soulless corporate kind), and discovered that it's not about my station or my client - it's using our wonderful medium to speak to the client's clients. I've learned to introduce myself unsolicited to complete strangers (not that I had a problem with that in the past). I do more research than I did in sports... and I've learned to be an entrepreneur in my own small way - I'm fortunate to work for really thoughtful people who give me room to try (and fail) new things... including this med school prerequisite adventure.

Which brings me to this new adventure - where did it come from? Why now? Why not?

About two years ago, I started working on my current novel which is medical in nature... and then about 18 months ago, I started playing cards with a bunch of doctors... and then, a few months ago, I had a neat conversation with my oldest friend Penny about what we would have done differently way back when - or what we would do now if we went back to school... and then a few weeks ago, sitting on my couch, I looked up at my husband and said, "I want to go to med school."

"OK," he said, "Let's figure this out."

Now I'm enrolled in Chemistry 113. As far as the med school prerequisites go, I face the most interesting academic challenge of my entire life: Two semesters each of chemistry, biology, physics and organic chemistry, which is what they say separates the doctors from the patients. I'll know soon enough: Back in the day, I satisfied my science requirements for the English degree by taking science for sorority girls, aka, meteorology (and I can draw a WICKED weather map, thank you very much!)

Though I graduated with honors from high school, I recall chemistry being a bitch for me - in truth, I can't say whether it was the fact that my teacher's first name was 'Coach' (it wasn't) or if I was just a typical 16-year-old girl who was more interested in boys and my hair than the periodic table. Honestly, how many 16-year olds know what they want to be when they grow up - and fully grasp what they need to do to get there? For that matter, how many 36-year olds know that?

Taking chemistry, I'll know pretty fast. ... Truly, there is an Everest of steps between today and that far away tomorrow when I can even APPLY to medical school - but if I don't try, I'll never really know if this little itch in the middle of my back is the half-life of an old dream or just me being restless (because I'm certainly not young anymore). So the first step - it's a doozy - but in that, I look to an amazing inspiration: My own mom, who left her safe but soul-sucking job as a bookkeeper to become a florist at the ripe old age of 46.

I figure I'll turn 46 regardless - might as well be a doctor when I do (or at least know that I tried)... and to that end, I'm starting with Chemistry 113 tomorrow afternoon at 5:40 PM.

As I told my professor, I'll be the old one in the front row.

Posted by stacy at 07:15 PM | Permalink

I hate LinkedIn - the essential social networking site for working professionals...

Granted, I don't hate it as much as I hate the New England Hatriots and their coach Bill Belicheater, but I definitely hate LinkedIn more than I hate Harleys.

LinkedIn bills itself as the "busy person's" Facebook or MySpace - it's for people who do important things, like make money and broker deals. Mainly, it just annoys the hell out of me. Initially I signed up for it because I kept getting pinged by colleagues who used it, and I'd get emails saying, "Invitation to Connect on LinkedIn." So I accepted the first invitation... then the second... then the third and then I realized it wasn't so much an invitation to connect as it was an invitation to receive a ton of LinkedIn-generated, unsolicited email from people I already contact regularly - as well as a ton of unsolicited email from people I DON'T REALLY WANT TO TALK TO.

I got an "invitation to connect" from some guy who used to read my newspaper column in COLLEGE. I don't even know this guy - and even better, I DIDN'T even know this guy 15 years ago: IF I WASN'T YOUR FRIEND THEN, WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND NOW??? Or is this some kind of trophy hunt: You want to list me as your "friend" so you can show all your other "friends" that your "friend" is the former Stacy Feducia - the chic that wrote the buttcrack column back at Texas A&M? Are you serious? Graduate, dude!

I hate LinkedIn because I'm a salesperson. I make unsolicited contacts through my job all the time, letting people know I have a solution for problems they didn't know they had. It's a tough enough job without the knowledge that these poor souls are now being "invited to connect" by every other jackass in the universe with a cool widget to sell. Thanks, assholes!

LinkedIn is supposed to make my life easier by helping me "Find People and Knowledge I Need to Help Me Achieve My Goals." Well here are my goals - Tell me, LinkedIn, how can you help?

GOAL NUMBER 1: Not be found by every moron that didn't have the pleasure of being my friend in college. Looks like you already FAILED at that one, LinkedIn. Thanks, assholes!

GOAL NUMBER 2: Keep the onslaught of spam in my in-box at a reasonable level. Gee, not only can I learn about the "No1 Online Casin0" and "Cheap & Discount V1agra!" via email, but now I can also be annoyed by people I don't want to talk to. Now I get so many freakin' pings from LinkedIn that I don't have time to devote to online hobbies that REALLY matter, like keeping up with my favorite website, www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com. Looks like you FAILED again, LinkedIn. Thanks, assholes!

GOAL NUMBER 3: Maintain a modest level of privacy. When People magazine reporters call your UNLISTED PHONE NUMBER IN ARIZONA LOOKING FOR A QUOTE ON YOUR SISTER-IN-LAW'S PENDING DIVORCE IN CALIFORNIA, privacy becomes an issue. Now, because I made the fatal error of signing up for LinkedIn, anyone can find me ANYWHERE, including that chic that stalked me back in Fort Worth. Thanks, assholes - now I'm going to go buy a Taser. Where do I send the bill?

GOAL NUMBER 4: (And this one comes straight from LinkedIn) Control My Professional Identity Online. Well, when I tried to control my professional identity online by REMOVING myself from LinkedIn, I continued to be assaulted by "invitations to connect." Now every time a REAL FRIEND or a PROFESSIONAL COLLEAGUE THAT I REALLY LIKE sends me an "invitation to connect" I have to respond saying, "I like you and want you to be my friend but I don't participate in LinkedIn" and I sound like an UNFRIENDLY jackass, like I'm some kind of down-on-her-luck Luddite rocking back and forth on the side of the information superhighway with a cardboard sign that says, 'Thanks, assholes!'

GOAL NUMBER 5: Use good grammar. FRIEND is a noun. It's not a verb. Granted, this applies more to other equally abhorrent social networking sites like Facebook, Friendster and MySpace. The fact of the matter is, the act of "becoming friends with a person" is the definition of the verb "befriend" - but in the universe of social netstalking sites, you're not even "befriending" anyone - you're just hanging their pelt of thrice-removed acquaintanceship on your wall of glory. Have fun with that! So no, LinkedIn, you and your unseemly ilk do not help me realize my goal of using good grammar, and now, I'm going to use my favorite word in its noun, verb, adjectival and adverbial forms on your lame LinkedIn ass: FUCK YOU, LINKEDIN - YOU HAVE FUCKING FUCKED UP MY GOALS, YOU FUCKING FUCKS. For those of you playing at home, here's how that breaks down: verb, adverb, verb, adjective, noun.

Oh, and thanks, assholes: In writing my LinkedIn screed, I've realized that I DO HATE YOUR SITE MORE THAN I HATE BILL BELICHEATER!

Posted by stacy at 08:11 AM | Permalink

My definition of "sports:" Athletic competitions between individuals or teams where the winner is determined by previously agreed upon rules and objective criteria.

There are winners. There are losers. The clock, the finish line, the knock-out punch, the yardstick, the checkered flag, the scorecard: These objective criteria determine who goes on, who goes home - or in the case of the Olympics this week: Who gets the gold and the glory (or the silver and salutations or the bronze and a nice trip to the pawn shop).

By my criteria, many of the most popular Olympic events fail to qualify as actual sports though they are, undoubtedly, athletic endeavors: Gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming and its diabolical twin, synchronized diving, regular diving, dressage... I mean, really - DRESSAGE? ... and of course, rhythmic gymnastics. And even though it's not in the Olympics, it is still my favorite punching bag: Cheerleading = Not A Sport ... though I'm sure the cheerleading stage moms are doing their best to garner their pastime a place in the five-ringed medal count. (And I will likely hear from them, but guess what, Wanda Holloway, the comment function is conveniently broken!)

Sport / Not A Sport - This is all you need to know to be the judge: IF THE OUTCOME OF A CONTEST IS DEPENDENT ON WHETHER THE EAST GERMAN JUDGE IS HAVING HER PERIOD, THE CONTEST IS NOT A SPORT; IT'S A PAGEANT

If you're not pissed yet, keep reading... you will be (but you also might learn something if you pay attention).

The not-a-sports defy objective criteria because all rely upon judges to determine at least part of the outcome. After all, have you ever heard of a Gymnastics World Record? Didn't think so, because it can't be measured - the bar will always move, and many times it'll move based on what 65-year-old Soviet-era male coaches or 58 year-old battle-axe judges think 16-year-old girls should look like. Consider: People actually told Mary Lou Retton she was fat. Are you kidding me?

Like gymnastics, most of the not-a-sports cluster in the "female" realm of competitive activity and thus historically have involved conformation to an aesthetic and not entirely athletic ideal - in part because girls weren't allowed to compete in "real" sports for fear they would overexert themselves. Yeah, talk to Babe Didrikson Zaharias and Wilma Rudolph about that.

But consider the aesthetic ideal as you watch the not-a-sports during the XXIX Olympiad (and others): The tiny gymnasts, the leggy figure skaters, the disturbingly thin divers... and whatever it is that dressage is judged upon. In real life, we call it "style points," and in the realm of many of these not-a-sports, it's not that far from a dog show. Sadly, to conform, these girls have higher levels of eating disorders and bizarre behavior than in the real sports. It's just as unhealthy as doping / steroids and just as far from the Olympic ideal - swifter, higher, stronger. Seriously: How do you reconcile the Olympic ideals with figure skating - Bitchier, glitterier, most likely to kneecap you in an alley?

This is not to say these gals aren't athletes - they kick ass, and could easily take you or me in a fight ... until they turn 35 and have the bone density of a 90-year-old. And truly, they experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat: It brought me to tears to see team captain Alicia Sacramone's falls on the beam and floor exercises... Let me just say this: I do not pretend to be more of an athlete than any of these women: I couldn't carry their maxipads... (not that they need them). After all, for me, tumbling is a by-product of attempting to walk. I don't do it on purpose.

Though the powers that be have figured out ways to make gymnastics more "sporty," it's still a competition that borders on being a pageant, and so, I throw myself on the spears of 10,000 rabid not-a-sport parents and present for your increased knowledge and ease of understanding, an event-by-event analysis of SPORT / NOT A SPORT.

Synchronized Diving: Not A Sport - I prefer to call it gravity-assisted gymnastics. Anytime a commentator discusses "pretty form," you can warm up the microphone for Bert Parks.

Anything in the X-Games that has "Freestyle" in the Name: Not A Sport - It's entertainment for the ADHD masses.

Dressage: Not A Sport - It's modeling on horseback, but the horses have better teeth and I have yet to see a horseback rider that looks like a Brazilian supermodel. And by the way, WHO EXACTLY IS THE ATHLETE HERE? If you consider the horseback riders to be athletes, then you have no argument against motorSPORTS.

Figure Skating: Not A Sport - Any event that has a sub-category called "ice-dancing" shouldn't even aspire to sports status... It has Atlantic City Boardwalk written all over it. Curling is a sport. Figure skating is a Disney show coming to an arena near you.

Boxing: Not A Sport - It's organized crime. See Don King. Olympic-level boxing and amateur boxing straddle the tightrope between Sport / Not A Sport, but as soon as a judge is called upon to render a point on a punch, the sweet science becomes a contest. (And those of you who know my abject worship of Muhammed Ali know how much this pains me to say.) Sadly, my new favorite passion, Ultimate Fighting Championships, also straddles this balance beam of ball-busting pseudosportism.

Diving: Not A Sport - It's proof that gravity exists. I like to call it pretty falling... then again, you've never seen me go off a diving board.

MotorSPORTS: Sport (no question) - And this includes motorcycle racing, NASCAR (shudder), Formula One, go-karting, motorcycle racing, IndyCars, lawn-mower racing, drag-racing, tractor pulls and did I mention, motorcycle racing? See dressage - if you consider the horseback rider to be an athlete, you can no longer look my husband in the eye. Besides, the first one to the finish line, or the one that pulls the sled the furthest, wins - doesn't matter how they look when they get there.

Bowling: Sport - Seriously, you cannot begin to think about style points in this competition (that's a compliment, Yvonne). The winner in bowling is determined by a scorecard, and they exert themselves while they do it. Therefore it has more right to be in the Olympics than RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS. Bowling = Sport.

Cheerleading - Not A Sport. It's a sideshow... which is why those girls are on the SIDELINES and the real female athletes are spiking volleyballs and draining 3-pointers and pitching no-hit shut-outs. When was the last time you saw a cheerleading "team" attending one of their school's girls athletics events? And isn't their mission encouraging the student body to support their schools' teams - rather than flaunting their student bodies in underage auditions for future roles on stripper poles? NOT A SPORT.

Synchronized Swimming: Not A Sport - It's a motion-picture dance number. Sorry... this historic "women's" pseudosport doesn't even believe in gender equity, i.e., they won't let boys participate, regardless of how well they conform to the aquatic ideal. Screw You, Syncrhonized Swimmers!

Rhythmic Gymnastics: Not A Sport - This is for home-entertainment purposes in the Bertinelli household. The ribbons... Pat loves the ribbons.

No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em: Not A Sport - Yes, it's broadcast interminably on ESPN... and yes, it's an event in which I can actually participate, but to compete at its highest level, aka, the Olympics - YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO QUALIFY, YOU JUST HAVE TO BUY YOUR WAY IN. Plus, though my heart was racing at the World Series of Poker, you can drink a beer while you compete so it doesn't qualify as an athletic endeavor. In fact, women's gymnastics is more of a sport than poker... and women's gymnastics is not a sport. Ergo: Poker = Not A Sport.

That said, I will bravely face the onslaught of pissed off not-a-sport parents. As they say in cheerleading (not-a-sport), "YOU BITCH!" But as they say in beach volleyball (sport), football (sport), field hockey (sport), golf (sport), basketball (sport), hammer-throw (sport), rowing (sport), bass-fishing (sport) and mountain biking (sport), BRING IT ON!

Posted by stacy at 08:02 AM | Permalink