Depression Is.... (My symptoms)

Depression is…..

- Uncontrollable tears – not sobbing, just tears – whenever you’re alone and sometimes when you’re not.

- Oversensitivity to rejection, real or imagined

o Guilt about feeling rejected

§ Frustration at yourself for feeling guilty about feeling rejected

- Complete lack of appetite

o Nausea when you don’t eat

o Nausea when you do eat

- Physical exhaustion from anything that expends either mental or physical energy

- Attempting to be cheerful when other people are around

o Physical and mental exhaustion at trying to be cheerful

o Resentment that other people won’t understand how hard you’re trying to be cheerful

§ Guilt over feeling resentful

- Uncontrollable annoyance at other people’s cheerfulness or good fortune

o Guilt over feeling annoyed

§ Frustration with yourself for feeling guilty about being annoyed

- Seesawing between insomnia and sleeping fourteen hours per day

- Uncontrollable annoyance or anger over things that are minor or even funny when you’re normal

- The desire to do nothing but stare at the wall, or maybe the TV, for hours

o Guilt that you’re not spending your time being more productive

§ Frustration that even when you try to be productive, things don’t happen the way you want them to

o Flitting from activity to activity trying to find something that will distract you for more than five minutes

Be nice to your baristas

I work at a coffee shop now, if you didn’t know. It’s a very busy franchise coffee shop; it kind of runs us all off our feet. Now, I don’t drink coffee, and before this I’d never made coffee. The learning curve was steep. But here are some things that I’ve picked up over the last month that I want to share with you, our potential customers.

1. Your default is not necessarily our default. There’s a reason that certain things say “By request” on our menu board – skim milk, decaffeinated coffee, soya. It means you have to request them. The time to request them is when you are ordering. If the barista has time, she’ll confirm whether it’s skim milk or not (for example) as she’s making your drink. Usually we don’t have time. Please don’t ask, as we’re handing it over, whether or not it’s skim. Certainly don’t ask, as we’re handing it over, whether or not it’s skim when you haven’t mentioned skim before. We will remake your drink if you want us to. We will then bitch about you in the back room. To summarize: if you want one of our “by request” options, request it.

2. Most drinks cannot be made simultaneously. This is why the queue gets so long. It’s not even the espresso in most cases. It takes 25 seconds for a normal double shot of espresso and 35 seconds for a normal triple shot. The part that takes so long is the milk.

The following kinds of coffees/hot drinks cannot be made simultaneously: lattes, cappuccinos, Americanos, hot chocolate, flat whites. Drinks with skim milk, soya milk, and whole milk also cannot be made simultaneously. Each espresso machine has three drip slots, so we can’t make more than three drinks at a time. Our favourite orders are the ones with three or fewer identical drinks. Our least favourite orders are the ones with four or more different drinks.

If you come in with an order of two lattes, one with skim milk, a cappuccino, and a hot chocolate, your order will take longer simply because we can’t make any of those drinks at the same time. We’re working as fast as we can, but we are limited by the fact that we can’t make any of these drinks simultaneously.

3. If the details don’t matter, then don’t let the details matter. If there is a genuine reason to have us remake your drink, we will apologetically do so. Genuine reasons include making the wrong drink (i.e., a cappuccino instead of a latte) or using something which, for a medical reason, you can’t have (not making decaf, for example). Using the wrong milk (whole instead of skim), especially if you didn’t request skim at the till, is not necessarily a valid reason to have us remake your drink. Putting too much or too little flavoured syrups into the drink is definitely not a valid reason to have us remake your drink. (see below) We’ll remake it if you ask us to, of course. We will then bitch about you in the back room.

4. The person making your drinks doesn’t usually know that they are your drinks. Here’s what happened to me the other day: I had an order for two vanilla lattes and a something else (can’t remember, not important to the story). As I was making the vanilla lattes, one of the customers waiting asked, “Is that the vanilla latte? Can you add a bit more vanilla?” I hadn’t seen the order be taken, so it was reasonable for me to assume that this order was for this customer, so I added a bit more vanilla (maybe two pumps more). It wasn’t until she asked where her muffin was that I discovered that her vanilla lattes were actually at the other counter, and that the vanilla lattes I had made were for someone else. (Who then said, “there’s extra vanilla in that one? I only want the normal amount of vanilla.” And I had to remake the drink. Seriously, the amount of flavoured syrup is not a valid reason to remake a drink.)

5. If you’re sitting in, please sit at a table that doesn’t have dirty dishes on it. When we’re clearing tables, we look for tables that don’t have anyone at them, but do have dishes. If there are dishes on an occupied table, we assume that they are your drinks and sandwiches, and we’ll wait until you leave to clear them. If you do choose to sit at an uncleared table, don’t give us sarcastic looks if we do realise that the empty trays aren’t yours. It was your choice to sit at an uncleared table. I have never known there to be literally no empty tables. I have known customers who bring the empty trays up to the till, because “there was nowhere to sit” even though I can see at least two empty tables within sight of the one they chose to sit at. These are the people who annoy me.

6. Please don’t complain to us about the queue. We’re sorry, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re honestly going as fast as we can. As I said above, we’re limited by the drinks that can be made simultaneously. I know it’s not your fault that the person two in front of you has five different drinks to be made and three sandwiches to toast, but it’s not our fault either. As with the tables, you chose to wait in this line. There are other options. We appreciate your waiting and your custom, we’re sorry about the length of the queue (from 8:00 am or earlier until almost 7 pm, sometimes with a momentary lull around 3:30), but we honestly are working as fast as we can.

Race for Life

There are a lot of differences between the UK’s cancer research fundraiser Race for Life, and the US cancer research fundraiser Relay for Life. Relay for Life is based on time, and you’re generally sponsored a certain amount for a time or a distance walked. Race for Life is a 5K (although some places have 10K events as well), and most of my sponsorship came straight in, not contingent on anything else. Relay for Life is also open to anyone – my family usually does it as a team event, and trade off shifts to walk. Race for Life is a women-only fundraiser, which I find both awesome and disturbingly sexist.

I participated in Race for Life in Nottingham this last weekend. My fundraising page is still up for a few weeks, if you want to donate. (www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/rachelandkendra) My friend Rachel pulled in a couple of her other friends, and together we were Team Pink.

Race for Life is a very pink thing. Pink has become the traditional colour for breast cancer support, and because it’s women-only, there was an awful lot of pink around. We helped contribute to the pink atmosphere by wearing pink wigs, pink headbands with either pink mouse ears or pink devil horns on them, pink shirts, pink leg warmers, pink face paint, pink grease paint on our arms, and pink spray-on glitter (which you couldn’t really see, but we knew it was there). It was so very pink, and we weren’t even the most pink team on the track.

I’d had big plans, when Rachel and I signed up in January, to actually get into the habit of running and be able to run the 5K without stopping. That didn’t happen. I started training pretty well – more consistently when it started getting warmer – but my ankles started hurting, and I lost my ankle supports, so I stopped until I could get more. Then, the week before the race, I did something to my foot – possibly exacerbated by the too-small shoes I accidentally wore one day – that made it very painful to walk. It’s something that’s happened before, and I still don’t know what it is other than “painful”. So when the race came around, I didn’t run more than about five minutes at a stretch (although, for whatever reason, running was actually easier on my foot than walking. But still – ouch). My goal is to be able to run 5K by next year’s race, whether I participate or not. This does, of course, depend on my feet not being stupid and injury-prone, however.

Our team name got a slight alteration when the day of the race came. It started raining Saturday night, with proper thunder and lightning and everything else that makes me slightly homesick for the Midwest. Sunday morning, it poured (and there were a few cracks of lightning). It rained, and rained, and rained. The sheets of water that came up from the bus I was on to get to the race went almost as high as the bus itself. The sweatshirt I was wearing was drenched by the time I got to the place where we were getting ready. My socks stayed wet until I got home several hours later and peeled them off. Given all the rain, we renamed ourselves Team Pink Drowned Rats.

But the rain stopped about an hour before the race started, and by the time we were actually going, it was bright, warm, and incredibly humid. I think by the end our faces were just as pink as our wigs.

It was interesting that we were one of the tamer groups racing. There were quite a lot of wigs – pink or otherwise. There were babies in pushchairs, puppies wearing pink boas and Race for Life signs, printed T-shirts with pictures and race numbers on them. But the best were the costumes. Three rabbits with “Durawell” batteries, and, the best thing, SpongeBob and Patrick. I was warm enough in jogging trousers and a T-shirt; I can’t even imagine how hot it got inside a giant SpongeBob.

About 5000 people participated, they said. Plenty of people ran, even more walked. There was an aerobic warmup at the beginning, including a performance by the Nivea Boys (Nivea is a sponsor of Race for Life) where they sang and danced to one of the cheesiest songs that was out when I lived in England as an undergrad. (DON’T STOP MOVING!!!! WOOOO S CLUB 7!!!!) I laughed hysterically for about thirty seconds, and then started dancing along. Because you have to, when you hear a song that brings up those kinds of memories.

At the end, everyone got a medal and a carrier bag with stuff – a breakfast bar, a bottle of water, some Nivea products, and entries to various contests. I haven’t really looked through it in depth yet. After the race, I went home with my wonderful housemates who’d come to support me, and we all just collapsed on the couch and watched movies for the rest of the day. But the reason that they were also exhausted is another story…..

I’m glad I participated in Race for Life. I wish things had gone differently: I wish I hadn’t hurt my foot, I wish I could have run the whole 5K, I wish I had been more active (and potentially annoying) about raising money. But every little bit counts, and I’m glad to be the European branch of my family’s cancer research fundraising.

Restarting, take 29348

I am lying on my bed, in my pajamas, watching the darkening grey sky that is either a result of the Icelandic volcano or just normal England spring, and it’s 8:30 pm. Why am I in my pajamas at 8:30 pm, you might ask? Well, because this week I started an internship. It’s supposed to be only four days a week, but since this is my first week, I’ve gone in every day – to make myself known, to let myself get to know the project and the people.

It’s a four month internship, so I’ll be there until the end of July. Four months of sitting in an open-plan office, making databases and sending email. I honestly could not be more thrilled. I said, after last fall, that I needed a quiet office job, and that is what I have right now.

Plus, the database I’m currently making is of research case studies from every school in the university. I get to read representative research from every field. How could I not love this? I said in an email to my supervisor today that I keep getting distracted from building the database by actually reading the case studies. I keep finding out about research centres that are based here that I had no idea even existed. Like the Centre for Evidence-Based Dermatology, which is actually in the same building as I am.

It’s amazing how hope and energy come back when you have something external to do. I’ve picked up some writing from a “content mill” (where you get paid by pageviews, for the most part), plus this internship, and I’m starting to feel like a productive member of society again. And even though I’ve been fairly tired when I’ve gotten home this week, it’s been the kind of tired that makes me yawn, not the kind of tired that makes me unable to do anything but stare mindlessly at the computer. (Instead, I stare mindfully at the computer. Or something.)

The tiredness also may have something to do with the commute – I’ve walked both ways every day. There is a bus combination that could do it, but honestly with the waiting and the changing it would probably take about as long. And it’s been mostly nice outside. Like I said at the top, the greyness of today is either due to typical English spring or the Iceland volcano that’s pushing an ash plume across the British Isles and northern Europe today. Tuesday afternoon was drizzly, and I probably should have taken the bus, but every other day has been fine or sunny. It takes me just under an hour to get to the campus where I’m working. Home again takes a little bit longer if I stop at the store for some food (even though I really should be eating what I have in the house, by the time I am coming home I am so hungry that I can’t focus on “what do I want to make tonight”). As the weeks go on, I’m sure that I’ll get used to the hours and the walk and the lack of snacking (or manage to snack more) and I’ll be fine. I’m developing some calluses on my feet already from the shoes I’ve been wearing.

I really am excited about the project I’m interning on. It’s sort of a University-wide practice for the research assessment that’s coming up in a couple of years – the guidelines and requirements have changed, and no one really knows what to expect, so it’s probably best that we figure it out before the real thing comes. It manages to satisfy my mild organizational obsession with the database creation and the file-naming, it lets me be in thrall to academia and research (even if it’s not my research) for a little while longer, it lets me work with adults who know what they’re doing, and work on things that I kind of know how to do, and am getting better at every day (even little things like “go to Marie and ask her to do this thing” – that’s something I’m getting better at!)

I’m already not looking forward to (late) August, after this job is over and after my mom goes home. I know that this summer is going to be fantastic, and I won’t want it to end.

Quick sports thoughts

This is totally unorganized and possibly incoherent, since it's 3:30 am. I may write more later. I may not. But for now.....

That was one of the best, most competitive Super Bowls that I’ve ever seen. I am so, so, so, so glad that the Saints won. I said on Twitter in the first quarter: “You know how I said I would be okay if the Colts won? Apparently I lied.”

The final score does not reflect the game. It does reflect the fourth quarter. That was an amazing interception. When the two-minute warning started, I thought for a little while that Peyton Manning would be able to pull it off, especially after the Saints penalty. All it would have taken would have been a quick touchdown, an onside kick recovered by the Colts, and one long Manning completion, and it would have been different. But the Saints defense stepped up and stopped them.

I also said to various people that it’s too bad that the coach can’t be the MVP. Drew Brees deserves it, no question, but the unusual play-calling was such a factor in the win: the onside kick to start the second half (seriously, who does that?) and the challenge on the 2-point conversion (which I’m very glad did not end up being the game-winning play, because it would have sparked off the whole challenge/replay debate AGAIN) are the two most obvious examples, but through the whole thing it was a very tight and well-called game.

I love The Who, so I liked the halftime show. It felt a bit incomplete, though – although maybe that was just because I knew it was only half the Who. Townshend is still awesome, and seemed to windmill every time he could. Daltrey may not be quite as perfect as he was a few decades ago, but can still bring it. Now I want to play Rock Band…..

Obviously I didn’t see any of the commercials. Apparently I didn’t miss much. Interesting (and kind of sad) that one of the best-played Super Bowl games was one of the worst in terms of the advertising.

Bring on the Olympics! Once again I am in the UK when the Winter Olympics are in North America. I anticipate a looooot of curling airtime, and a lot of late nights trying to catch figure skating and skiing.