And whose heart is not a hungry fish?

WHY AM I AWAKE

I should not be awake because I have a busy week ahead of me, but I had a really amazing day and it feels like my brain is full of sunshine and fireflies and YAY. That is a really crappy simile that I should be shot for because fireflies do not come out when it is sunny, and it sounds terrible but I don’t care.

List of excellent things that happened today:

1. I hung out with a new friend from high school. Unfortunately, I only realized how many awesome people I got to grow up around once I went off to college and stopped being crazy. Thankfully those awesome people are welcoming enough to give the quiet girl in the back of AP Biology with twitchy eyes* another chance without backing off in vague alarm. I got to have some awesome conversations with someone who shares my fascination with psychopharmacology and advocacy for the mentally ill— he’s an incredibly brilliant and hilarious person who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he went off to college, and he’s faced the fallout and the treatments and hospitalizations with optimism and a sense of humor. RESPECT. FOREVER.
2. DISCOVERED THIS:  http://seaquence.org/   A most superb time waster. 
3. Glorious weather— clear skies and enough of a breeze to keep it cool. Not even drunken catcalling from St Patrick’s day celebrators could bring me down. :D
4. I finally figured out how to install the necessary software for my tablet pen. I now can do digital art with pressure sensitivity, and it’s amazing. Drawing requires so much less fiddling with controls now, and it’s much more fluid. I’m considering illustrating some stories/essays I’ve written and making a terrible amateur graphic novel to post online. 
5. My parents took me out for Korean BBQ, and we had a great time. My dad spent most of the time geeking out about how easy his new Minority Report-esque gloves make navigating his ridiculous 4 monitor setup. My mom spent her time talking about the people she’s met at church, and the volunteer work she’s doing (thankfully, she doesn’t mind that my dad and I are athiests). It seems like they’re both very happy now that I’m stable and relatively healthy, and it’s good to see them finally living their lives for themselves. I’m lucky to have parents like them. 
6. I realized that I am finally free of my insane caffeine addiction. I haven’t had any coffee for several days, only a bit of green tea— no headaches, this time! It’s nice to have a clear head without my heart pounding constantly. I don’t think as fast and my work goes a bit slower, but I take fewer wrong turns. 

I’m very grateful for this day :) And hopefully, this doesn’t sound too obnoxious and I don’t delete this entry in shame tomorrow when I am not being a rambling insomniac. 

*I was recently informed that in high school, when I got really tired (aka couldn’t sleep for enough consecutive nights that I started hallucinating in class) I had trouble focusing my eyes when talking to people, and suddenly mid-conversation my eyes would vibrate really rapidly and sort of ZOOMFOCUS very intensely on the other person’s eyes. No wonder people thought I was quiet in the “it’s always the quiet ones…” way. GAH. REGRETS, I HAVE THEM. Hopefully today’s late night is not a sign of the old sleep troubles returning. 

lose - lose (but lose slightly less) situation

I went to BCS’s Bidwell lecture yesterday about industry/academia’s general lack of progress in developing better drugs for neuropsychiatric disorders. It was simultaneously very inspiring and frustrating— the gist of it all was that pharma companies are dropping out of drug discovery just when new tools in genetics could give biologists a new boost.

I really hope that we can start looking beyond SSRIs for new treatments. I know that antidepressants have come a long way since they were first discovered. They have much fewer side effects, but they still don’t work so great. I’m currently on Lexapro (which is known for being really mild) for both anxiety and “double depression”. It works well in that it obliterates them both, with the side effect that it also obliterates most of my other emotions and makes me kind of apathetic (but not physically tired). Failed a test? Meh. Problem sets? Don’t want to do them, so I won’t. I am very grateful that I have it, of course— the blankness is nowhere near as bad as the constant THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END SO PUKE ON EVERYTHING feeling, but it does leave something to be desired. 

Fingers crossed. And possibly a field to consider for grad school.