« Happy New Year | Main | Life In Our Nation's Capital »
September 26, 2002
To Hell and Back
From what I can gather, the next three years of my life will be filled with "Damn, I have a lot of work" and the like. I'll try to spare you from hearing about every time I'm frustrated by schoolwork.
To hell...
The last few weeks have been something else entirely. On September 11, I tried to avoid all of the memorials and such. It wasn't that I didn't care, just that I didn't choose to deal in the same way as others. In the morning, I read my email archive from that week last year, and then I tried to avoid tragedy and calamity for the rest of the day.
So tragedy knocked on my door. That afternoon, one of my closest friends came by my apartment and told me that he had a brain tumor. This is someone with whom I have traveled to 10 countries. Someone with whom I have shared huge parts of my life. Not just an acquaintance. What do you say in that situation?
School and a flat tire had seemed like too much drama to me. I was absolutely floored. He was going to the doctor again and would have surgery the following week. He had to write a will. At 25. Despite all the thought I had given to the subject of people dying young after I heard about Gene, I was completely unprepared. For a week, I didn't sleep well. Everything I ate made me ill. I went to temple for Yom Kippur and had a fight with God.
And of course, school went on without me. Or, at least, without my full attention. I had better things to do than study. Of course, there was nothing I could do. But I couldn't concentrate on reading about torts either. I played a lot of solitaire.
When I heard from his mother after surgery last Thursday, I nearly collapsed with relief. It seemed like surgery had gone extremely well. Full recovery expected. I hadn't slept a minute the night before. After two hours tossing and turning in the dark, I just gave up and tried to study. Thursday night, I had a good meal and I slept. Hard.
On Monday, he came home from the hospital. He is walking and talking like normal. Miracle of modern medicine indeed! He had brain surgery and was up and about in a few days. Obviously, not not quite up to 100% just yet, but it's astonishing nonetheless.
I feel selfish for even caring about my classes or mentioning that it was a rough week for me, given what he went through. All these nice people here keep asking how I'm doing. Can they do anything for me? Do I need anything? What to say... Obviously, I was not doing all that well. But I really wasn't the one with something to complain about.
... and back.
But now he's recovering and I can concentrate a bit on getting myself back in order. I got my car fixed. I'm doing all my work. I'm going to the gym and eating well again after a week off.
Yesterday was a good day. Not just ok, but outright good. The first in a while. I went to a meeting for the Student Intellectual Property Law Association (SIPLA) and ended up elected as Vice President. I was one of 15 students invited to attend a moot court session where Lawrence Lessig will be presenting the Eldred case before a panel including Miguel Estrada, Bush's number one candidate for the Supreme Court. I went to the gym and found that depsite the week where my world was on hold, I'm still down six pounds since school started (22 since January). I got my work done in time to get six full hours of sleep.
Get on with your bad self, Buddha!
Posted by buddha at September 26, 2002 01:32 PM
Comments
Hang in there jubu. Glad to hear your amigo is doing well. barcelona sends her love. The ramblas says she misses you.
Posted by: shoop at September 27, 2002 04:36 AM