Hospitals Are Where the Home Is (And Why You Should Join Me, Not Pity Me)

I grew up in hospitals. My sharpest memories from my childhood are those blurred by anesthesia and Vicodin. I still recount stories to people of the best nurses, weirdest charitable visitors, and fluffiest therapy dogs.

I feel like modern media forms (i.e. literature, film, etc.) approach hospitals the wrong way. In fictional mediums, the creator chooses an extreme. The setting is either romanticized (The Fault in Our Stars) or nightmare-inducing (also The Fault in Our Stars). In reality, it just depends on who you ask. People who grew up as patients can have startlingly different experiences the same way as those who are parents/friends/lovers of patients.

And I know it often has to do with the reason you're there.

As weird as it sounds, I am fortunate enough to have a condition--a congenital birth defect called hydrocephalus--than a disease. It is ever-changing, but there are treatments. It is something that no longer has a life expectancy or an expiration date attached to it. This was a hard-to-learn realization that only happened after the death of a high school friend who was not as lucky.

Me? I'm glad that a majority of the time I was in the hospital, I was on an upwards trajectory.

I think for this to make sense, you might need a good explanation of what hydrocephalus actually is. I have spent a lot of time crafting my own, but I think you would benefit from the one that taught me everything I know:

"I was born with water on the brain.

"Okay, so that's not exactly true. I was actually born with too much cerebral spinal fluid inside my skull.  But cerebral spinal fluid is just the doctors' fancy way of saying brain grease. And brain grease works inside the lobes like car grease works inside an engine…But weirdo me, I was born with too much grease inside my skull, and it got all thick and muddy and disgusting, and it only mucked up the works. My thinking and breathing and living engine slowed down and flooded.

"My brain was drowning in grease."

                        --Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

If you haven't read this book, please do. Besides being a semi-autobiographical account of an extraordinary author, it has an entire passage on how books give you boners. And suddenly your questions about how this book could get banned are answered.

Now why I love hospitals?

1. Nurses are some the best people you will ever meet. 

Nurses do just about everything it is possible to do for you. As a kid, this means it feels like you are being waited on like a Disney princess with a shaved head. (They've now done all of the natural hair colors. That has to be next.)

Once when I was sixteen, two nursing students from the college I ended up attending spent three hours brushing out what was left of my waist-length hair after I told them my then-boyfriend was visiting. They spent half of their day at clinicals trying to make me look less like Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas, lamenting about how awful it was that a surgeon--whose main job is to have steady hands and be precise--could have shaved a head so haphazardly.

Another nurse routinely came into my room to help me with the Family Feud computer game I was playing, acting as family members two through five while my mom got to rest a little.

This isn't limited to pediatrics. I stayed in the grown-up hospital--I can't seem to call it anything else--last month for my latest round of surgeries, and had one guy on the night shift who talked to me about my favorite video games for half the night when I couldn't sleep. The next day, another nurse did everything she could to make me comfortable as I suffered complications; she even hugged my mom before going home. I don't think I have ever been so upset to miss my chance at a goodbye before.

2. It was the highlight of my social schedule.

I spent a lot of time out of school when I was a teenager, meaning I was constantly alone. I'm pretty sure this is when my habit of inner-monologuing started, if only because I had no one to talk to but myself most days.

In the hospital, there is always someone around to bother: doctors, med students, nurses, technicians, CNAs. And the best part? Part of their paycheck comes from their ability not to roll their eyes at the drug-induced babble of a teenage girl who was temporarily released from solitary confinement.

The weirdest part is I'm the most talkative while in the recovery room. Suddenly all I want to do is know the life story of everyone in the room. Even when I got my tonsils out last year, I wouldn't shut up. I just kept asking for more morphine so I could hear more about her kids.

3. DRUGS.

Seriously. Hospitals are like the State Farm of drugs. Nauseous? We've got you covered. Insomnia? We've got you covered. Ignorance? We…are going to have to get back to you on that.

But really. There is no better place to get sick because anything you would ever need is already there. One night I couldn't sleep from a steroid pack I was on to reduce swelling. I think they gave me three different types of medicine before I fell asleep, but they were determined to let me rest.

Another time I was in so much pain, the nurse managed to talk my anti-IV pain medication surgeon into letting me have a dose of morphine. If you have never felt the rush of going from decapitation-would-be-better-than-this pain to hallucinating the entire Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh theme song, I would, well, say don't try it. People who break their own legs for intravenous drugs are called addicts.

4. The swag bags.

This one probably applies more to my time in children's hospitals, but people love to give shit to sick kids. In a single hospital stay in July, I had a mascot whose tail kept hitting the medical equipment, two dogs, a high school basketball team, and Santa--yes, Santa--all visit. I was only there three days.

It's even better if you stay around the holidays. After a surgery on Halloween, the nurses reverse trick-or-treated, bringing all of the kids candy. Anything food-related improves dramatically around Thanksgiving. And during Christmas, you have candy canes and cookies coming out of every orifice where you don't have stitches.

                                                            --

Hospitals can be terrifying, and, like I said before, that can often be from circumstance. But if you're lucky enough to be my kind of sick, these pros greatly outweigh the cons.

Like the truckloads of needles and foreign objects they try to jam into your body. Consensually, of course.

Except for that one tech who tried to distract me with a story about how her son was also afraid of getting blood drawn. I watched Harriet the Spy too many times to fall for that one.

Men-Hating Feminists and Other Oxymorons

Note #1: This is my first blog post after a long few weeks of medical complications, but I'm healed up and back to writing. I plan to write about it later, but right now, something else demanded my attention.

Note #2: I plan to keep the following post as little about politics as possible. While feminism is largely debated between all people of the political spectrum, I would like to keep this more about cultural issues than my own political agenda. I also know this in no way can cover the entire scope of the issue, but I wanted to clear up a few misconceptions.

Before I get started, let me give you a couple of definitions so we can be on the same page--and there is one less excuse for not following:

1. fem-i-nism. n. the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.

2. op-press. v. a) to crush or burden by abuse or authority. b) to burden spiritually or mentally; weigh heavily upon.

While fooling around on the Internet, something came to my attention. Women Against Feminism is a Tumblr completely dedicated to, as you would guess, women who do not believe in the feminist movement. Now everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and that is what makes this world exciting, but some of the arguments posted seemed to be the result of misinformation and logical fallacy. The two I'm addressing are, once again as you would guess, feminism itself and the concept of oppression.

Let's start with feminism. People have started to think that feminists believe that the only way to equality is to bring down men, but to me, that is counter-intuitive to the movement.

One, it would mean that women could only be equal to men if they just stop trying so hard and being so darn successful. This suggests that women are not equal in the first place, that men need to be handicapped for progress to be made. Any real feminist would want equality to be won on hard work alone, not by transferring the weight culture has put on women to men.

Two, feminism is meant to empower men too. With common sayings like, "Man up" and "Grow a pair" considered pep talks, and "You throw like a girl" and "Boys don't cry" considered an insult, this suggests a weakness not only in being female but in feminine characteristics. This means that any man that does not fall under his gender role is considered a lesser person for falling under her gender role.

But if that's the case, why do we not change the name of the movement? It obviously is meant to help both men and women.

That's not a good enough reason. Although in the end, feminism will help both sexes, it still needs to focus on bringing up women. We can only reach the desired equality by de-stigmatizing femininity. By doing so, expected masculinity in men will fall with nothing to compare it to, and a domino effect will occur.

Now that we have had a crash course on feminism, let's talk about oppression.

One of the biggest arguments I saw on this Tumblr was that women in the Western world are not oppressed when compared to other parts of the world. Here are a few examples that, without question, fall under that category.

• Indian women are still being forced to marry their rapists.
• Women in Yemen can't leave their own home without asking their husbands' permission.
• Saudi Arabian women are not allowed to drive, limiting their societal and literal mobility.

These all give you a gut reaction. "Oh yes, that is so obviously wrong. It deprives them of basic human rights." 

What it shouldn't do is lead you to believe that just because these things are not happening in the Western world does not mean that the oppression of women does not exist.

There is a logical fallacy called the fallacy of relative privation. This is when people make their argument by comparing extreme examples. One common use of this fallacy is when people chastise others for complaining about overcooked food when there are starving children in Africa. Just because that is true, it does not actually detract from the situation at hand. It does not, in fact, make the food in front of you any less burnt.

This means that because the cases of oppression in the Western world are not as extreme as the ones above, they in no way make the ones happening any more right. 

Here are a few contemporary examples of oppression in the U.S:

• One student's rapists were sentenced to expulsion upon graduation for assaulting her despite video evidence.
• Women are still paid 77 cents for every dollar men make in the same field. 
• The Supreme Court ruled that Hobby Lobby can choose not to cover four types of birth control based on religious belief despite research that shows they do not cause abortions. 

So just because you do not feel oppressed at the moment does not mean that you are in the free and clear. Every decision made like the ones above can potentially set a precedent that may come to affect you in the worst of ways. Universities may feel they are justified in their continued mishandling of sexual assault. Employers will continue to accept the gender wage gap. More corporations can start making the final call on your reproductive health.

As for me?

I need feminism because I can't agree with anything that takes choices about my health and well-being out of my hands.

I need feminism because my breasts are not the only things about me that make me beautiful.

I need feminism because I want feminine to stop having any kind of connotation and start being a neutral adjective.

I need feminism because my tendency for tears and love for children are not feminine qualities--they are human qualities.

I need feminism because there's no reason equality should still be a debate in the twenty-first century.

And I need it now. 

Don't Meet Me Halfway: Story in Video Games

If you aren't close to me or haven't lived with me, you should know that I play video games. A lot. However this is going to make it sound like I play only a narrow kind of game. This is not meant to boast about what all I play, so I will not make a list qualifying myself on the topic. The more you read this blog, the more you'll understand all of my interests. If you have any immediate questions, comment below or message me.

Also, this will contain gameplay and basic story structure spoilers for Bravely Default. Read at your own risk.

Everyone who plays video games remembers the first time they were sucked into a game and why. For me, it was Final Fantasy X, and its story. To make it as simple as you can make the plot of a twenty-first century Final Fantasy game, the main character Tidus washes ashore in Spira and ends up following summoner Yuna and her protectors on a pilgrimage to defeat Sin.

This journey and Spira itself does not make a lot of sense to Tidus at first, the game doling out information as slowly as it probably would have traveled in the game's anti-technology society. But the pace makes it satisfying. At every little turn, you learn something about the religious leaders of Yevon or the pilgrimages of past summoners, and then the game throws battles at you while you mull over the new knowledge; the next piece of insight only comes after enough time has passed to make the player crave more. By the time the true nature of the quest and the church who preaches its necessity is revealed, you are shocked. At the same time, you do not feel as if the game was holding out on you. In hindsight, you see the evidence that points to the game's conclusions but appreciate the script writer's ability not to make it predictable.

This brings me to the contract.

You cannot break a contract you have with your player. For example, when writing stories, you tacitly agree not to trick your readers. This does not mean that they always deserve a happy ending, but it does guarantee them a gratifying one. You cannot kill off the main character without real reasoning and an inescapable death. You cannot let everything that happened in the novel end up being only a dream or delusion. You cannot let the reader think they are reading a story based in reality only to introduce fantastical elements halfway through. Readers do not want to be duped, and neither do players.

After spending a hundred hours replaying FF-X when the PS3 HD port was released, I picked up a newer, handheld JRPG: Bravely Default. The game and I hit it off right away. The characters developed from tropes to full-fledged people, the humor was biting and unexpected, and the battle system had a new but easy-to-utilize twist. I enjoyed going from temple to temple, awakening the crystals and acquiring new jobs.

Anything remotely spoiler-y is below this point. Beware.

I knew from some online research that the game was eight chapters long, but as I reached the near end of Chapter 4 and nearly fifty hours of gameplay, I became concerned. The game sounded like it was about to conclude. I hesitantly went into what should have been an endgame sequence, only to abruptly have my progress reset. No, my game file was not erased, but all of the good I had done over so many hours had vanished. Every boss I had beaten, every NPC I had helped, every problem I had solved--gone.

Upon looking closer, the Internet cleared something up. Yes, the game is eight chapters long, but four of them are reiterations with little variation. That means that in the first four chapters, you awaken the crystals of wind, water, fire, and earth--one per chapter. Then in the next four chapters, you awaken them again--four per chapter. For those who aren't doing the math, you have to awaken the crystals twenty times if you want to reach the true end to the game.

At a hundred hours and not ever reaching the end of Chapter 7, I switched my 3DS off.

I felt tricked. For so many hours, I was promised a satisfying end through satisfying gameplay. This is not some kind of franchise installment meant only to get me geared up for the next game (Final Fantasy-XIII-2, I'm looking at you). Sequel or not in the making, it is meant to stand alone.

And honestly, I have no beef with repetitive gameplay. I grew up on platformers and point-and-clicks. I came into my own on RPGs and action games. I do not mind grinding. I do not mind long hours. Hell, I do not mind twenty "Game Overs" if I feel like I am getting something out of it. But here I was not, and here I was promised it.

The storytelling essentially stopped.

In the first four chapters, the plot's pacing coincided with the gameplay. In the last four chapters, barely any new information is given to the player, but he or she is asked to do ten times the work. For every fifteen hours of gameplay, only a handful of new facts are learned. That's like reading a thousand pages of a novel for only a hundred pages of story.

Before my still-open wounds from this game cause this to turn into a rant, I'll conclude it here. It is really saying something when I have been willing to pound through to the end of a bad game (Yes, still looking at you, FF-XIII-2) to find out the end of the story, but not the end Bravely Default. The reason? No matter how convoluted the story in some of the worst games I've played, they never stopped telling it. When a game is story-driven from the start, you cannot let it suddenly become solely mechanics-driven during its last half.

Bad or not, the first ten percent of a game you should help you see if it is worth playing through to the last ten percent. The player needs to feel reassured in reaching the end gameplay, not relieved.

Why I Could Never Be an English Major

I know what you are thinking. But you went and got a Creative Writing degree! Isn't that the same thing?

You can't see me right now, but I'm laughing at the very idea.

Growing up, I read. Not just school assignments. Not just when a new book came out. I read everything. I got a library card at the age of three, so young my mom had to sign it for me. After that, we would go once a week and raid the shelves. My card got used as overflow because the fifty-book limit on my mom's card was never enough.

Now you're thinking, isn't that an argument for why you should be an English major?

Still laughing.

Here is how I operate: I read, and I forget. To summarize, to analyze, to theorize. I love books but can never catalog the events and quotes and figurative language. On all of those standardized tests in school, I scored lowest on reading comprehension, and that was with only a thirty-second break between the passage and the questions.

Fast forward to college.

Despite holding onto the writing program with a death grip, the degree still had more literature requirements than anything else. Don't get me wrong, I had a few classes that changed my opinions on different writers and novels in a Dead Poet's Society kind of way. Jane Austen went from contrived and melodramatic to witty and understated in one semester. I unexpectedly fell in love with Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent after a rocky start with Heart of Darkness. One teacher even convinced me that it was worth rereading Faulkner's As I Lay Dying despite how much I hate the stupid people that populate Yoknapatawpha County.

But the same reason stayed and a new one blossomed.

I enjoy simplicity. In language, in word choice, in...synonyms. But still, I come from a place where there is no need to use an archaic and overly-complicated word when there is a basic word instead. Writing is not an excuse to show off your vocabulary.

On the other hand, your (stereo)typical English majors wants more. They want words with ten definitions and conjugations. They want the long, dramatic ballads of Whitman and Wordsworth over the artistic choices of Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath. They want Middle English over Hemingway's use of the word "nice."

Writers prefer to put their complications elsewhere, whether it be in the plot, the characters, or the structure. I'd rather spend time figuring out whether the protagonist is a hero or a villain than spend time figuring out what even happened in the paragraph I just read.

Bartender, I'd like the English language, straight up, please.

What Not To Expect When Reading This

In case you are somebody I did not strong-arm into reading this, let me explain something to you:

I grew up under the impression that if you want to write for a living, someone will pay you. Silly, right? Well, the truth is that when I was a kid, that was actually true. There were print publications galore before the Internet became more than a fad. Newspapers and magazines were the best way to consistently consume accurate and insightful news (and in my opinion, still are). I even had one professor explain that there used to be a middle class for writers. They would develop a small but consistent following and release novels once or twice a year, receiving an average, steady paycheck.

Now people read more about what the kid they knew in middle school ate for breakfast and watch motivational videos that are mainly meant to inspire ad revenue.

So if I can't get a job writing, I want to at least explore the idea of writing for public consumption instead of academic consumption. Anyway I'm definitely qualified. I:

A. Have a computer with Internet access and

B. Think I'm really funny.

With that being said, I have a few promises of what not to expect from this blog:

1. More pictures than words

It is not in my nature. I made an Instagram a couple of years ago, but don't bother looking because it has a whole whopping three pictures on it. Most photos on my phone are out of either relative necessity (i.e. dressing room shots because I can't buy anything without asking my mom's opinion first) or pure accident (i.e. twenty screenshots of the home screen on my phone from where all I wanted to do was turn it off).

When someone can successfully explain how a twelve-year-old I babysit can take a picture of a desk chair at school and come home with twenty likes, maybe I'll reconsider.

2. Clickbait inspirational videos

A few months ago, a lot of intriguing titles of links started popping up everywhere. Of course I would follow them, thinking I was in store for some sweet story that would brighten my day. Under the sarcasm, I like to see the best in people. But every time I would look, I would find a video. Every. Time.

Videos bother me because I'm paranoid and lazy. Seriously, it's not that I'm too good for them. I just don't want anyone to hear what I'm watching and judge me, but, at the same time, don't want to find headphones or go somewhere more private. If it's not something I can watch silently in a room full of people, you've lost me.

3. Lists on lists on lists

Most twentysomething blogs and websites are compiled entirely of lists. I don't know what started it, and trust me, I'm a sucker for them sometimes. Throw me anything about Parks & Recreation or the nineties, and I'll eat it up. One day I even looked at thirty potatoes that looked a little like Channing Tatum. God, forgive me for I have sinned.

But that's not my style. If I list something out (oh hey, I'm doing it right now), I plan to elaborate. Be prepared. Cue dramatic music and Scar from The Lion King. 

4. Political tirades

We all have that one friend who does nothing but send people and share links to "insightful" and "unbiased" articles from authors whose views are so slanted that I'm surprised they don't have vertigo? Me too.

I do not have the patience to research and provide you accurate information about what is happening in Congress. Why read my bumbling paraphrase when there's Google so you can find the real thing? Politics is something I read about, not write about.

If you are as tired of these things as me, you have come to the right place. Keep up with me while I channel my morning-coffee creativity.