My brain feels mushy. Perhaps it’s because I have a neuropsych test in three hours and I’ve had my nose deep into the recesses of a biology of psychology book. Perhaps it’s because of the thirty hour a week workload which requires that I work until 2am four nights a week- most of those school nights. Perhaps it’s the ending of the book, the kind, of sort of ending of the book (I am sending to publishers in a week or two at which point I will wait for more notes and start again), perhaps it’s just because I’m exhausted and haven’t been out to exercise today. Gotta get more blood to my brain.
Did you know that your brain consumes 25% of all your nutrients? Something that is only about 5% your body mass taking up 25% of your nutrients?Greedy little thing.
I’ve been writing this blog for over two years now, and there seems to be a general increase in spam. Which is interesting. Because I feel as though my mental inbox is less filled with nonsensical spam than every before. The clarity with which I am able to approach life is lovely, frustratingly lovely.
And yet, sometimes it is difficult to have goals. Sometimes it is much easier to flounder about, lost and apathetic. Gah. I got accepted to Cal State Northridge for Spring semester, and have already planned out the courses I need to take to graduate quickly. Little emails from my ego keep trying to block up that mental inbox, but I say, “No, I don’t need to go to UCLA for undergrad. I just need to finish. This fucking B.A. has taken me ten plus years. Let’s just do this, and get on with the rest of our education.”
Ten years. What poor planning skills I once had. Ha. Prefrontal lobes all messy, misfiring, high. Silly cortex.
If I have to identify the Thalamus one more time… Well… I’ll probably just identify the Thalamus one more time. Thalamic nuclei. Little fuckers.
My amygdala got all uppity when thinking about my neighbor. It was like, “Yeah, let’s go hooride on the bitch.” Then the rest of my limbic system was like, “Chill homegirl. Study for that test.” We are going to stay where we are for now. Go month to month. She has quieted down (thanks to a letter from the Landlord) and there is simply nothing in the area for lesser or equal value. Living in LA is so ridiculous. One day Jennie. One day.
My Anterior Cingulate Cortex is pretty pumped about the potential rewards of finishing a degree. It keeps me re-making the decision to attend class when I’m supposed to go. In fact, I wonder how I ever quit going to class. Like I could just show up test days, pass, and that would be sufficient. Ha. Orbitofrontal cortex was not really helpin’ me out with the whole impulse control thing like it was supposed to. Did you know there is a part on your anterior cingulate cortex that responds to physical pain, and that same area lights up when you experience emotional pain? No wonder mistakes lessons hurt.
I have to go get cookies for the study party. I was going to make them myself, but I worry about time, I keep doing time math in my head and I’d rather show up to the review early with store bought cookies than arrive late with homemade snickerdoodles. Next time will be better. This time is just fine as well. I’m taking my fragmented brain away from this post. Just needed a quick checkin.
I am here. I am present. I am taking care of myself today and after five p.m., I will shut down intellectually for a few hours and rev it up again at work tonight, to study for my Anthropology exam tomorrow. Keep moving forward. One foot in front of the other. Not only will everything be okay, but everything is already okay. Just. Remember. To Breathe.
Becoming Jennie 
Clair
September 26, 2011
Hang on, comment coming, but I’m still Googling half the words in this post! “amygdala ” .. okay, NOT a 60’s era rock group stealing from the Beatles …
Okay, I gotta get this on my Kindle so I can mouse over the words … my SAT test was Soooo long ago … vocabulary sucks .. 😉
Good luck on the tests!!!
Jay Sullivan
September 26, 2011
I am certainly glad to know that you have that lovely high quality well nourished brain of yours so well organized and self aware! Great! 😀
wills
September 26, 2011
Yeah! Everything is okay enough.
Invisible Mikey
September 26, 2011
Still love seeing you take that thousand-mile journey on a positive path, one step at a time.
One person’s Northridge is another person’s UCLA. I tried my damnedest to get into CSN, because it’s the only BS RadTech college program in the area. Couldn’t get in. Had to go to trade school instead, and take out mucho loans. Still became a Rad Tech. Still got the licenses. I’m helping people every day. No Dr. I’ve worked with ever asked where I went to school. If you have the papers and the chops, it won’t matter. Go through whatever door to your bright future opens.
(That working while going to school bit is indeed tough on the sleep cycle, though. Especially at age 50. I did sort of acquire the ability to ace tests while in a state of drowsiness. Little pink angels would fly into view and drop post-its with correct answers on my desk. I would love to see the PET scans for that state of mind.)
Brendan Connors
September 27, 2011
Showing up with something called snickerdoodles gets you +5 cool points from everyone in attendance though…
davy
September 27, 2011
“Sometimes it is much easier to flounder about, lost and apathetic.” No, not sometimes, ALL the time. Because that’s the nature of the universe. It goes from organized to disorganized just by itself. WE have to exert energy for it to do otherwise.
Congrats on being accepted to Cal State. And thanks for keeping us in your hectic life.
michael92105
September 27, 2011
Sounds like you need a meeting…
L.C.
September 27, 2011
Dear Jennie,
So glad to hear you have taken some community action about your door slamming, tent covering, and intrusive neighbor. What a courteous thing you have done for all those other people affected by her actions. In doing so one would guess that the rest of you have also accommodated her idiosyncrasies into your lives in some meaningful way. Pumping some foam soundproofing into the walls that divide you may also give peace of mind to more parties than two.
Because of the varied reactions your readers had to the distress of you and your neighbor one would guess that all of our brains light up in many different areas when confronted with onerous conflict. Odd people get so bent out of shape over conflict only when it becomes dangerous or painful. The rest of the time it is, “loving working with others” – teamwork. Live and light up your brain, good luck Kid, LC
GB
September 27, 2011
Jennie,
Keep at the studies … I had to retake my 2nd year exams at University; 8 x 3 hour papers in 5 days. I will never know how I managed to get through, particularly following a summer without any support from the University.
GB
sogetthis99
September 27, 2011
Feel free to delete this entry if my juvenile sarcasm is not in the spirit of the blog. As one who took classes in Calculus, Geomorphology, Plant Taxonomy, and others (along with the lengthy list of prerequisites need to take these classes) merely because I thought I would “feel” smart (i.e. not dumb) after I took these classes, I can empathize with your being able to put the words amygdala, biology of psychology, Thalamic nuclei, Anterior Cingulate Cortex, and snickerdoodles together in a meaningful way. I used to be able to do something similar with “solifluction”.
Might I suggest some further reading for use during those bathroom breaks contrived just as a way to switch between subjects. It might also help with breathing.
Check out:
– “English as a Second F*cking Language” by Sterling Johnson, or the more updated
– “Watch Your F*cking Language (How to swear effectively, explained in explicit detail and enhanced by numerous examples taken from everyday life)
These might help harness the true power of the F*cking Force when attempting to rip memories to shreds from the past.
And for those moments when things seem really bad check out how much worse other people have it, and had the courage to take a picture of themselves in the process:
http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/
becomingjennie
September 27, 2011
This is an incredible comment, and I will be purchasing the books. Immediately. Thank you.
stewart
September 27, 2011
Great to see you doing so well Jenny, Your blog today made me smile:) Grats on getting into Cal State Northridge. You will have that dergree before you know it. I think you are gonna make a great phsycologist!
Hoosier
September 27, 2011
With all that brain vocabulary, sounds like you’re suffering from a variety of “medical student’s syndrome”.
joseph vasta
September 27, 2011
Your brains are working overtime. Making you a smarter woman. This is cool. Even at the age of 42. Yes 42, I still go into mental overdrive from stuff that I learned back in college. Not to worry!
Jeffrey Zukowski
September 27, 2011
Good luck on your tests. Welcome to the world of mayhem. In my chosen profession I find that my life becomes a whirlwind like you are experiencing quite often. But what gives me solace most of the time, is the fact that it will all end at some point. Also, in the craziest of moments of the madness, I just like to stop and completely change my head space to something joyful, like my childhood vacation spot in the 1000 Islands. I can see it in my mind, smell it, and feel it on my skin… a smile eventually washes over me that is every bit as calming as an hour of meditation and breathing exercises and as refreshing as 12 hours of sleep after a long day. It’s brief, but it feels great and it helps. I am sure that you must have one or two things within the confines of the many a fore mentioned sections of that brain of yours, that you could use for a brief cerebral getaway now and again when necessary. I highly recommend it. Happy places are good places to visit, however briefly. Enjoy your trip. You’ve been doing great so far, keep up the good work. I, for one, am proud of you and your successes. Now, take a minute to travel to someplace joyful…..
ecwashere
September 27, 2011
What I <> I read was that you were studying for a “neuropsych test,” as in before you go to the neurologist for an “examination.” WTF! Will she study before a “blood test?” How did I reach such a conclusion, you may ask? Because of “executive functions,” I would answer.
I commend your “observation avisée” as prefrontally superb, because it is this dorso(back)-medial(middle) prefrontal cortex which is thought to be primarily responsible for these “functions”: error correction; overcoming strong habitual responses; incorporating new experiences (“inserting” new information into the memory “stream”); imminent danger response; and decision and planning. In effect, these functions save us from ourselves. But so does the Program, but that’s another story altogether…
I was calmly driving in NoCal when I heard an interview of Malcom Gladwell on NPR, shortly after the release of his book, “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.” He examined the situation of Amadou Diallo, the unfortunate victim of “executive misfire”; NYPD rolled up on him, and in a matter of 7 seconds, from beginning to end, shot him 40 times. Yikes! Apparently unknown to Gladwell, the dorsomedial PFC is made up of highly “stumuli-sensitive” cells, as well as thought to be linked to the visual cortex and a direct pathway to “movement-toward-objects” motion; all meaning that it is acutely “sensory.” What should have happened was the PFC, identifying “sensory conflict” (they say Diallo “reached” [for his id], someone “heard” a gunshot), would instantaneously issue a corrective control. Instead, in the stupidest 7 seconds in neurological history, the consequence, shall we say, “c’est tragique.” Unfortunately, Gladwell ascribes all this to, as near as I can tell, “intuition,” but ends up (I believe unknowingly & mistakenly) supporting a mental “coin-toss.” I didn’t buy the “probability” nor the book.
And how do we know these things? Trauma & disease pretty much sums it up. Sure we can CT-MRI-fMRI-PET scan your head, but basically, all we see is bloodflow (the “lighting up”). With things like an EEG, we can also determine electrical activity. But trauma & disease allows us to determine anatomical “function” by observing symptoms and pathological process. Phineas Gage set us on the modern road by surviving a metal rod being blasted through his frontal lobe (there is a very cool CT “re-creation” of his injury at the New England Journal of Medicine site), turning him into a rat bastard for the rest of his days. What does this tell you about the frontal lobe? Hint: psychopaths and paedophiles have a significant instance of front lobe disorders. And imagine, the most prominent examiner of neurological disorder of our time, Dr. Oliver Sacks (author of “Awakenings” and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”), suffers from “prosopagnosia,” an inability to recognize faces! You are fortunate that our knowledge has reached such a level, layer-upon-complex-layer, that it is fascinating, tedious, and awesome to study in a structured form. Trust me, a lot of clinicians talk shit for science.
Hey, there are benefits to being a site “guest”; you don’t have to help doing the dishes. But I suppose it’s only polite to offer…
L.C.
September 29, 2011
Dear Jennie,
My guess is you are being a little hard on your self when you said, “This fucking B.A. has taken me ten plus years.”, because it is not taking anywhere near that amount of time. Lamenting the length of time makes you sound stupid like you have been struggling in school. Truth is you were doing other things, including a very successful acting and directing career.
And true some of those ten years were also spent researching some strategies for your well-being, which in hindsight might be viewed as less successful choices and addictions. I get the sense there is a lot of sadness about not having managed your career, finances, professional and personal relationships more productively. Both your past successes and short comings are in the past.
In the present you are confronted with who you have always been – a very bright accomplished loving person –
It is always hard to find the right balance of strategies — be in and enjoy yourself in the present. The present communities are where you live – enjoy it all, right now, the good, gorgeous, bad, and ugly; Good luck, Kid, LC
Tana H.
September 29, 2011
Jennie,
I’m really relating to you today. I started class on Monday and today I have been reading the psychoanalytic therapy theory chapter for my advanced counseling and psychotherapy class. Thanks for being my study break. 🙂 A good book to read about brain chemistry and how it chemically effects mental health and how to effectively improve mental health is “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life” by Dr. Daniel G. Amen.
If it makes you feel better it took me 9 years to get my B.S in Social Work (yea, I love the irony of that degree) because I took two years off to be a Mormon missionary (have I got stories for you) and a year off after I had my first kid. I spent a lot of time putting myself down when there was no reason to do so.
I put myself down again when I decided to go to grad school because I had been a stay-at-home mom for almost a decade. Guess how many therapy session it took to get over that? Yep, at least one too many. And you what? I have a lot of real life experience that I only would have got by being a stay-at-home-mom. So I feel like I’ve already been in life’s Masters program and now I just have to be legitimized by going to school.
I think you’ve been in life’s Masters program as well. You’ve got skills and abilities from running your own business that will definately carry over to this new part of your life. Don’t ever feel bad about where you’ve been. You have been on your path to becoming Jennie and you are doing a good things.
theduffboy
September 30, 2011
“Not only will everything be okay, but everything is already okay”. Onward and upward, Jennie!
anonymous
October 1, 2011
“If I have to identify the Thalamus one more time… Well… I’ll probably just identify the Thalamus one more time. ”
lol
Joel
October 2, 2011
Cal State is good system, and a good school. In fact, the Californian system is unique in the world of universities and a great model for state education that allows for specialisation and a wide variety of courses on public funding. Don’t worry too much that it’s taken you so long to get your degree. I took 3 years to get my first degree, and 5 years into my second, I still have more than a year’s worth of subjects to go. It happens. Life happens. For me, I got married, got jobs, partied, made and lost friends, moved houses, got sick, got well, gained weight, lost weight. It’s been weird. But that’s a pretty interesting early 20s. Sometimes, for some people, it takes chaos initially to create the conditions for stability. Like evolution.
sogetthis99
October 4, 2011
Frustratingly lovely??? At first an oxymoron. A possible question for your support team: Is it possible that the (pre-2009) Wanna-Be-Good-Witch-of-the-South was an adrenaline junkie and that her Good-Witch-Twin-Sister-of-the-North has this shared quality? If not stop reading. If so I’m not sure what advice I would give except to offer it up as a possibility for discussion with those around you.
Although you could try skydiving during study breaks. Or re-kindle your waterfall climbing techniques by free-climbing man-made structures. Although these seem to be as risky though as the Witch-of-the-South’s nighttime practices. Perhaps next quarter you could enroll in Microbiology without taking any of the prerequisites. I had the prerequisites and it scared the shit out of me. I never took it.
Food for thought since there might really not be anything that needs “fixing”.
Stephen
October 4, 2011
Jennie, I love ready what you write, because it makes me feel like I’m talking to myself. Not that I’m studying the same subjects as you, but I must remind myself that each day is better and that I must remember to breathe. By the way….you are amazing. I hope you know that. I put “You are amazing!” as my opening message on my cell phone, so every time I turn it on, I know.
michael92105
October 5, 2011
Dear Jennie–been to a meeting yet? Hope so…peace of mind is so hard to find when it gets crowded out with being too busy. “Be still and know that I am God”, I hope yoga helps you a bit with that…
firstverb
October 6, 2011
Miss Jennifer,
Happy 30 months or 2 years 6 months, not sure how you mark the days. 30 months sounds like a long time most people are half way done paying off car loans at this time. 2 years 6 months sounds more like it. My 2.5-year-old can get around by himself pretty good, yet still wears diapers and needs help going potty. He can, if left to his own devices, create all kinds of mayhem and chaos. Denis Leary said, “…it’s like having drunken midgets around the house…” Which is pretty close to the truth, young kids need all kinds of looking after and direction to keep them on track. You have over the last years transformed yourself, becoming this amazing butterfly. Not sure how things would be without the wonderful Mr. Man, please give him an extra hug today.
SPAM, no just a full and overflowing day. Some stuff gets sloshed over the sides of that cup of life you’re drinking from. My wife, (a crazy woman that also doesn’t know when to much is on her plate), has so many things that she is keeping track of; work, kids, play dates, church functions, the girls dance classes, sons science club, doctors and dentists appointments, keeping us all fed, and the list goes on and on. Sometimes things get forgot, like maybe running the van out of gas or locking the keys in, or loosing credit cards. A few weeks ago on returning from church at 9pm she left the van running with the lights on, I discovered it at 2am when coming home from work. It’s all important, it’s all necessary, it all part of having one of these life thingies, it is also self induced. You once wrote me the following, “A ton of delicious food on my plate but nothing so overwhelming that I can finish all that I’ve been blessed enough to receive…” Well I’d like to remind you, that as much as you have on your plate. Life is also an endless buffet so you can always go back for more, and you don’t have to try everything at once. I know you’re wanting to accomplish and do everything right now, all the stuff that you missed out on. Please take time to rest every now and then. You are needed for the triathlon of life, not the 40-yard dash.
Have a glorious day.
Nicky
October 7, 2011
Oh wow. You want to be a psychologist? I looked into it but couldn’t get my head around how long I would have to study again. Great job for you. I’m sure you could help a lot of some of your old friends from the porn industry.
I admire your courage to take the leap to get out of the industry and become a poor student again when you were used to making really good money.
Are you addicted to Dr Drew’s reality shows as I am? It makes me thankful for the boring, “normal” life I lead. My issues are nothing compared to some of the addicts issues on the show.
Good luck with your study hun 🙂
Dave
October 12, 2011
I heart your blog posts. And your work ethic. Really cool to see someone on their spiritual road too 🙂 Thanks for sharing a lil bit of your life with us
followtheleaderagain
October 12, 2011
uhhh.. What’s planking?
Christopher
October 13, 2011
I know how you feel. I’ve always been one to rush from one day to the next, always impatient to get to the next thing, workaholic, educationaholic, never stopping to smell the roses, you might say. I spent the first 34 years of my life always working towards something, always chasing something. Very recently I realized that there is no such thing as a better life, or a worse life, or even an average life. There’s just life. If I spend my entire life preparing to live it, then I’ll die as less of a man than someone who has lived his life from the moment he was born. The complexities of existence, especially within a community of millions, are so complex that nobody can really predict what will happen to whom, or why. It just happens. You’re born. You die. Those two things are certain. So it is for those moments in between that I now live. Not preparing. Not becoming. Being.
andrea
November 16, 2011
This post made me laugh as a nurse it made so much sense and reminded me of a story my instructor told us about the brain and how to remember the parts.