WELCOME TO THE INTERDISCIPLINARITY

Despite my previous post being organized into two columns, this one will be formatted in rows! Hope no one like, freaks out or anything.

Drama/Romeo & Juliet

Disciplines include:

• English (analysis of storyline, deciphering archaic English, etc.)
• history (provides insight into 16th century England's culture & values; research on 14th century Italy required for costumes & set design)
• psychology (interpreting characters' emotions; also improves empathy skills by literally putting yourself in your character's shoes)
• public speaking (which, as I'm sure everyone knows, is according to polls scarier than death)
• memorization
• working as a team

Study of hiccups

Disciplines include:

• human biology (study of hiccup mechanism, which involves several different organ systems, including nervous, muscular, respiratory, and digestive)
• human evolution (hiccups are thought to be a remnant of ancestral regurgitation process that we never quite evolved out of)
• chemisty/pharmacology (to prescribe medication)
• application of scientific method
  • hypothesis of cause/cure -->
  • test (blood work, MRI, etc.)/perscription of medication -->
  • did it work? -->
  • restart from the beginning
  • repeatedly

Personally experiencing over two years of chronic hiccups have also brought me into the following disciplines:

• psychology (individuals react to my hiccups in a variety of ways, including:
  • concern
  • pity
  • shock
  • utter consternation
  • mistaking them for something else [most common guesses are sneezing, choking, and seizure/random spazz-out]
  • laughing
  • turning really awkward
  • freaking out about how cute these girl's hiccups are [nice little perk]
  • suggesting that I drink water [luckily people don't do this often, because when they do I struggle to contain myself]
  • and FINALLY
  • acceptance [standard protocol has become saying "bless you," because it allows other people to acknowledge the hiccup without having to think of something original every time])
• study of consciousness (one of the theories my doctors have given as to why I've had persistent hiccups with no apparent cause [even after extensive testing] is that it's a conflict between my conscious and subconscious minds [i.e. I'm too stressed and my subconscious is saying "Hey Lisa, quit your AP classes and calm the hell down" and I'm like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU'RE MAKING THINGS WORSE" and so the vicious spiral continues])

LAUNCH/DRAFT

I have two concurrent goals (one relatively short-term and more immediately important, thought not lasting; the other is more long term and arguably more important, although less immediate), so I'm gonna write about both, in two columns!

What am I passionate about? What do I want to do?
I want to be an amazing Juliet for our production, and at the same time deepen my knowledge of Shakespeare so I can kick some AP test butt in May :D	I want to cure myself and others of chronic illness. No doctor has cured me yet, and I'm sure there are countless others facing the same impasse. I'm confident that once I acquire the knowledge necessary to understand my illness and others' (which I'd like to say is only a matter of individual research, but I think it's more realistic to say it will take years of study. Good thing I'm going to college), I have both the intelligence and the personal sympathy (gained only by experience) to be an outstanding doctor.
How can I use the tools from last semester (and the Internet in general)?
I can personally say that our study of Hamlet has (indirectly) helped me immensely in my study of Romeo & Juliet. As compared to the first time I read the play in LeClair's class, this time around it looks so much more like English! And our adventures in memorization have definitely improved (and helped me codify) my strategies: see both my original and follow-up posts on the topic.	I know that the Internet contains an immense amount of educational and informational resources about almost everything. I've learned that the problem is not whether or not information is available; it's whether or not we seek it. (I used to stare at ingredients lists and be like "carr-a-gee-nan? what's that? well, whatever" but now [especially considering the advice I've gotten from my nutritionist] I'm like, "Dude! I'm not ingesting that if I don't know what it is" so I look it up and FIND OUT. Granted, the Internet [in this case, a virtually unlimited supply of "facts" and oftentimes conflicting advice] is no replacement for actual experts on anything, but it's certainly better than being completely clueless, especially on subjects that you wouldn't ask an expert about anyway [which includes pretty much anything that doesn't kill you, i.e., almost everything].)
What will I need to do in order to "feel the awesomeness with no regrets" by June?
I guess I need to figure out how to tailor my schedule in order to accomodate this commitment. In other words, I need to make sure that everything that I really need to do (such as homework, and getting enough sleep) gets done so I don't regret committing to the play (especially because I almost didn't: in order to focus on school, I haven't done a spring play since freshman year. I debated for a long time about R&J, but I had several compelling reasons that I did not have for either of the spring plays that I missed, including the fact that I can count it as part as my English curriculum [Shakespeare = excellent literature analysis and AP essay fodder], and that this is my last chance! My swan song!).	This question may not be entirely relevant to this particular goal, since it will span many years. In fact, this goal might actually have to suffer in order to achieve my other, more pressing short-term/high-school goals such as the play (see left) and my multiple AP classes.
What will impress/convince others (both in my life and in my field)?
If I'm lucky enough to get a prompt on my AP test that I can work to fit Romeo & Juliet, I'm gonna be able to refer to every scene by name, I'll have a complete understanding of Juliet's emotional conflicts throughout the play (having almost literally lived them myself), I'm gonna have an arsenal of Juliet monologues on command, and I'll probably have half of everyone else's lines memorized too. If the gods offer me the proverbial chance, I'm gonna write a Shakespeare essay like the AP graders wouldn't believe!	I can see the newspaper headline now: Sick Girl Cures Self After X Years Of Hiccups (where X = at least 2.5 [in other words, clearly too many]). You would read it, wouldn't you?
How will I move beyond 'What If' and take this from idea --> reality?
Lucky for me, I've already started this one! I even have 5 of my monologues memorized already :D	This goal is a little tricker. It's a bit hard to define the start point here: I've kind of already started my research. I've been focusing on researching all the medications I've taken (9 total) to see if the comparisons between the medications that did and didn't work shed any light on the cause of my hiccups. However, I've been stumped because the information I'm trying to work with is extremely technical, and honestly over my head. This is where I need intensive study, so I intend to major in neuroscience or a related field to get the education I need. So, I may be unable to move forward with this very much until I'm enrolled as a college student, but I doubt my motivation (or the cause thereof [heh]) will disappear by then, so I'm fine with waiting on this one.
Who will be the peers, public, and experts in my personal learning network?
For Romeo & Juliet, I have two sets of peers. First of all, there's my fellow actors in the cast, and secondly there's everyone in Dr. Preston's AP English class. If Dr. Preston likes this idea (which I'm sure he will), I hope to give a refresher presentation on the play sometime in March for everyone who has read the play already, but might not remember it well enough to write an essay on it for the AP test. And then, hopefully you guys can come to the play to see it LIVE!	In my study of hiccups and/or neuroscience, I have (at the moment) all my doctors, plus my brother (who is majoring in neurobiology). As soon as I get to college, my learning network will expand immensely — I'll have all my professors to learn from, plus all the other students in the major. If I wanted to, I guess I could probably try to expand my learning network into that sphere even sooner, but for reasons stated before I think I have enough on my plate for now. This is still an important goal for me, and I will revisit it this summer.

HACKING MY EDUCATION

1) What do I want to know?

• I want to know how to control my illness instead of it controlling me.
• Furthermore, I want to learn how to help others with the same.
• I want to know if there's shame in taking pills to fix my problems.

2) What experiences do I want to have under my belt?

• I want to have the experience of a return to my pre-illness competency/success so I don't have to consider myself handicapped anymore.

3) What skills do I want to demonstrate?

• I want to find the skills necessary to manage my illness, and demonstrate that I can function just as well as a healthy person.

WHAT'S IN THIS FOR ME?

From my comment on Dr. Preston's post:

"My ultimate goal for this semester is actually a bit more general, and applies to all my classes, not just English. My struggle with my health has made it very difficult for me to keep up in school, and this semester I will make a determined effort to use every possible tool available to me (that includes not cheating on my stupid diet that I hate, I'll even exercise if my doctors say I have to *shudder*) to maintain my health so I can avoid falling behind."

Besides my chronic hiccups (which I really can't do anything myself for), I've also been struggling with my blood sugar (which, luckily, I actually do have some control over). When I was eating a normal diet (which really wasn't that unhealthy), I continually suffered from energy crashes which my doctors and I finally figured out were associated with carbohydrates. I went low-carb about four months ago, but it was only about two and a half months ago that I went radically low-carb. At first I only cut out the obvious carbs, like bread, cereal, potatoes, candy, etc. and allowed myself a limited amount of "treats," like a quarter of a muffin if that's what my family was having for breakfast, and bittersweet chocolate for dessert. It helped, but it wasn't enough.

Two and a half months ago I cut out almost ALL carbs: in addition to everything I cut out before, my new diet dictated no fruit, no dairy, and absolutely no cheating lest I relapse. To my surprise, the change not only prevented crashes after meals, but also allowed me to actually wake up in the morning without the assistance of coffee. I had felt like a zombie every morning for literally years, so as sad as this sounds, suddenly feeling "good" came to me as a shock.

However, sticking to the diet was a challenge. It was terrible at first — each morning I jealously eyed my mom's orange while I ate carrots, and every evening I fled the table after dinner so I wouldn't have to see the dessert the rest of my family enjoyed. It got easier over time, though. You can get used to almost anything if you try hard enough. The one time I decided I couldn't take it anymore and started eating fruit again, my condition got worse immediately, so I'm no longer seriously tempted to eat anything forbidden.

Even if I can't do much to ameliorate my main illness, I'm glad I can at least do SOMETHING to improve my health. So, maintaining my diet is one of the things I plan to do this semester to avoid falling behind in my classes because of my health. I'm also taking some new medicine, which I'm hoping will improve my energy and ability to keep up in school. Hopefully, 2014 will be a good year for me.

LIFE AFTER THIS BLOG POST

Earlier during the break, I wrote my letter to my future self at FutureMe.org. Two, actually. I sent the letter to myself one year in the future, and then decided to send it to myself ten years in the future, too, with a short postscript.

It was actually sort of a theraputic experience for me. There's been a lot on my mind lately, and that's what I wrote about. All I set out to do was tell a story, but soon enough I realized I had written seven pages. I don't think it really matters WHAT you write about, as long as it's natural. Y'know, stream-of-consciousness style. Then, in the future, you not only receive the actual content of your message, but also the connotative information about your past self's thinking style, emotional state, and all the subtext that you might not even know you were communicating. Beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and identity are all things that change so gradually that you might not be able to tell when, or how, they changed. Those, even more than memories, are likely to be lost in time if they aren't recorded.

I know I'll always remember the sequence of events that happened because of my chronic illness, but I don't know if I'll always remember how I felt during the time I was sick if I become healthy in the future. And it's VERY important to me that I remember, because I know I'm not the only one who's suffering. I might be going to college to become a neuroscientist, because I dream of curing chronic illnesses like mine. If I can remember my frustration at my illness and desperation for a cure, it will make me that much more motivated to help those who are in need like I am now.

A POETIC INQUIRY

Since my Big Question is mostly about serendipity (and not like, love or flowers or nature or other typical sonnet fodder), I wasn't sure how to find a sonnet related to it. After unsuccessfully scouring an online sonnet database (organized by author — not very helpful in my case), I tried again with a web search for "sonnet serendipity." I had to sift through what probably amounted to three standard Google search pages of results, and visited about six different websites until I found this huge page of sonnets. One in particular caught my eye, but I couldn't find any details about the title or the author. So, I went back to the search page and searched the first line of the poem. That got me to this page at PoemHunter, which revealed the poem as "Coincidence Coins Serendipity" by Johnathan Robin:

More than before she finds felicity
At hand, within, without, without a doubt.
Unfortunate conditions round about
Divert attention from her need to key
Emotions into opportunity,
Coaslescing energy to flout
Man made blocks, internal locks, whose rout
Appears essential for heart's harmony.
Unperturbed, frustration fought, she
Defeats dismay, demands free flight. Love's drought
Ends offering expansion, joy throughout.
Coincidence coins serendipity.
Meaning, which below horizon hid,
Comes clear: fears, tears, fade, open inner lid.

In this poem, I saw a lot of myself. Maybe a sugarcoated version of myself, but that can be dismissed by either (a) I see my situation as worse than it actually is, or (b) what else do you expect from a sonnet? Either way, I can still see a lot of parallels between this sonnet and my slow, halting recovery from my illness. For the first, I'm absolutely sure this isn't what the author meant, but the phrase "she finds felicity at hand" reminds me of my amulet bracelet that I've been wearing for months. It brings me calm, and in a way, happiness. Lines 3–5 ring especially true for me, as my illness has redirected so much of my time and energy towards necessities, and away from life's real opportunities that I would have taken in health. However, the rest of the poem is more disconnected from my story. The remainder speaks of joyful perserverence and a final victory, which (I struggle to phrase this; I don't know whether to say "...which I haven't achieved" or "...which God hasn't yet granted me", and I find myself getting emotional. I guess I'll just have to put it in the vaguest terms possible) is not true of my life. Still, for a girl two and a half years into waiting for a miracle, the title phrase "coincidence coins serendipity" offers the most precious commodity: Hope.

DECLARATION OF LEARNING INDEPENDENCE

Life isn't fair. I know this. You know this. Everyone knows this. But (as yet another installment in my series of Big Questions) could there be ways to make life a little more fair to those of us who have it a little less fair than others? This is my Declaration of Learning Independence. I will use SMART goals to work more efficiently in this class, other classes, and in life, so that I can triumph over my disability; and more importantly, I will use Collaborative Working Groups (such as Club 504 and Random Absence Mentoring, which I believe are now the official names) as a resource to improve my life, as well as the lives of others who are suffering from an illness/disability like I am. This is important to me.

REFLECTIONS ON WEEK 1

I expected this to be short, but it actually turned into a really long post... so read on for my musings on my illness, whiteness, and the Internet!

Big Question (plus me talking about my illness)

That's right guys, two for the price of one! This is an expanded version of the comment I posted on the main thread. I was considering making a special post to talk about my chronic illness, but when one of my Big Questions naturally led into it, I figured this is as good a time as any.