In Jesus’ Name: The African Christian Household

Saturday March 28, 2010. Yale Old Campus.

A ceremony to celebrate the cultures of peoples of African origins was held Saturday in one of Yale’s ornamental rooms, the Lindsley-Chittenden Hall 102 on Old Campus. It was a small ceremony featuring African cuisine, music, drama, and art. Everything was designed to represent the diverse cultures of Africa.

However, I just didn’t feel at home with one of the plays choreographed and performed by the Yale African Students Association club. The play, performed without a title, themed a stereotyped religious family from a West African country. I provide here a synopsis of the play:

The play begins with the four-person family of a church pastor waking up to a daily routine of prayer and cleansing. The pastor reads a passage from the scriptures, while the wife of the pastor shouts “Amen! Amen!” after each word. The pastor’s two daughters, hardly listening to their father, and paying little attention to their overly dramatic mother, mindlessly giggle at each other. The morning devotional ends with a resounding, “IN JESUS’ NAME!”

Time moves forward several hours and the family is now in a church. The wife of the pastor is leading a praise team. The praise session is executed with such cultist fervor – jumping, thumping, dancing, shouting, et cetera, et cetera. In sum, the church and the congregation can be seen in total disarray. The pastor, having invoked the Lord’s name many times in order to calm the congregation, settles on the pulpit to present the sermon. He preaches from St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans.

“Who will rescue me from this body of death?” He screams. “What a miserable man I am! Who will deliver me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?”

The congregation respond thunderously, “Mercy! Ay! Mercy!” The pastor’s wife is particularly vocal: “Ay, ay, ay! Aaay!”

Fast forward. A few days later, a youth from the church arrives at the pastor’s house. The pastor and his wife are away. In the house is one of their daughters. The young man flirts with the girl. Another fast-forward: A couple of weeks later, the girl shows signs of pregnancy.

The wife of the pastor gets very excited upon learning the news. She is aware of the ramifications of having an unwed pregnant daughter in the home. The neighbors won’t be kind to such a development. Her worries become realized when, on stage, two of her best church-friends jeer at her family.

“Did you hear?”
“The Pastor’s daughter?”
“What shame. And to top that, he’s the pastor.”

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing at the pastor’s home. The pastor alienates his wife and children. “They are not my daughters,” he denies. The wife is infuriated by the pastor’s disavowal of his daughters. When they were the beautiful young lasses, they were HIS children, but now that things have gone south, they are HER daughters! Eventually, the family seeks the counsel of a local elder. At the conciliation, the second daughter asks to make an important announcement. The audience is left guessing if problems will continue to plaque the pastor’s house.

Overall, the play was well acted. But the artists may have taken on themselves too huge a task. Evidently, the play was designed to to bring to light common misunderstandings about the African culture; yet, the manner in which the actors handled the issue was lacking. In their quest to correct stereotypes, they let themselves fall into the very murk they desired to lead their audience from. Personally, I found their portrayal of the African christian household distasteful and ignorant. Even among the most fanatical believers of the christian faith in most African households, there are very few that practice their faith in such cultist manner as satirized in the play.

It should be noted that the African christian household is often conservative. This, however, must not be misconstrued to mean that the African christian household is feverish and maniacal about their faith. True, unexpected occurrences such as unplanned, premarital pregnancies in the homes of faithfuls are treated with more than due excitement. Nonetheless, these events are rare and hardly representative of an entire community of believers. The African christian is respectable, courteous, and moderate. Cynics who want to soil the character of the African christian only do so because they do not appreciate the nobility of the African christian.

The play concluded to a resounding applause from the audience. However, whether the audience praised the beauty of the stage-act, or its theme is open to debate. What is clear, however, is that the play succeeded to convey one message: African cultures are still poorly understood, but the intellectuals entrusted with the task of educating the world about them are dismally incompetent at their job.

ABC: Ants, Birds, and Chicks

My home is in the western highlands of Kenya. The land is green with pasture and trees. We enjoy rain and sunshine all year, but sometimes the rain does not fall for weeks, even months. During these times, everyone becomes anxious. We all look up at the skies, we listen to the sounds of crickets, and we watch the birds.
When the rain is about to come again, the insects start migrating into new homes, mating and acting agitated in many other ways. For example, red ants, also called army ants, begin to build new nests. Their behavior during migration is fascinating. If you come across a migrating colony, you will notice a very organized hierarchy of roles. There is the tough-looking guard (soldier), the busy laborer, and the fat lady. The procession is well organized; one could think it was the model the cowboys used to round up their cattle and move them to new pastures.

Cowboys may have learned how to move livestock from Ants

The white ants, on the other hand, show completely different behavior when the rain comes. They begin reinforcing their nests and sending out their females to mate and conquer new territories. Just before the ants fly out of their nests, the laborers come up to the surface to open up little exits. Then, soldiers show up at the exits and stick out their little mandibles ever so menacingly.
When the white ants are finally ready to fly out of their nest, the drama begins. At the exits is a peculiar bottle-neck struggle for freedom. Four or more ants struggle through the exit, climbing over one another and pulling themselves back. Finally, the lucky one to get through leaps into the air and into an unknown fate.
The ants fly out in circles above the nest before taking off toward anything tall in the vicinity – trees, buildings, rocks. After some time, a swarm of ants circle about around a tree, a house or other tall structures. If the ants are successful at mating, a few hours later you will see pairs on the ground looking for soft soil to burrow under. Interestingly, the newly-wed couple does not walk (crawl) hand-in-hand, but in series, with the short, slim male following the longer, fatter female. At this time, they will have shed their wings, exposing their naked, shiny abdomens.
There are many ways whereby the white ants can be unsuccessful. For example, during the struggle to exit the nest, some keep getting pulled back. The struggle wears down others; while others simply get tangled in the grass around the nest. Here, frogs, cats, dogs, and other creatures that feed on ants may also show up to feed on the ants as they leave their nests. Also, people at home have acquired a taste for fried white ants. Still, some ants just fly about blindly into hot surfaces such as iron-roofs or rock surfaces where they desiccate to crispy pellets.
However, the largest threat is perhaps predation by birds. The birds are the happiest when the rain comes. They know that farmers will sow grains. They know that insects will emerge to feed on the verdant pasture. They know there will be plenty.
As the ants circle about looking for mates, the birds perch on nearby hedges, fences, and trees. From here, they swoop down on unsuspecting ants, carry them off to their diners on the trees where feasting is unrestrained. The party goes on until the birds are full or there are no more ants daring enough to fly blindly into the air. Oftentimes, there are too many ants to eat, and the birds fill up before decimating the ants.
Human beings are pretty similar to ants in many ways, a discussion of which is the subject of the science of behavior. I do not wish to engage too deeply in such discourse, but I will make one observation I have found fascinating at college parties.
Sometime back, I was curious about what was happening at one party in one of Yale’s colleges so I went in to take a peek. I entered the dance hall and perched on one of the window ledges facing the exit. From where I was, I could see attendees coming in or going out. I was at the ledge for some half-hour.
There was a group dancing at the center of the room. A few people were leaning on walls drinking from cans of Red Bull. There must have been something other than the energy drink in the cans, because instead of wings those guys must have had weights pulling them down.
The group was performing a dance that required pairing. Because the group remained relatively clustered in a circle, I figured the dance must involve some form of circling around or limited movement. Occasionally, a couple would walk in through the door and join in the dance. Sometimes, single men and women popped into the room to join in the drinking or dancing. The single women especially found dance partners via a strange mechanism. A single dancer in the crowd would “sense” the presence of a single lady in the room and emerge from the crowd to join her. The two would then enter the crowd and dance. This mechanism never failed.
Another less popular mechanism was that someone leaning on the walls would briefly sober-up and take the hand of a single person and join the dancing. Neither mechanism significantly favored single men entering the room.
As I watched, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between birds catching with ants and dancers grabbing their partners.

Supernovas and Underdogs

On Thursday, February 25 2010, South Korean celebrity athlete Ms Kim Yu-na won her country the first ladies figure-skating and Gold Medal of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. She beat her competitors hands down, garnering at least 20 points above second place Japanese athlete Mao Asada. I watched, entranced, as she masterfully glided across the ice, gracefully executing complex spins and jumps. Her brilliance was unmatched. She was unmistakably a champion. At only 19, Kim Yu-na has achieved what most describe as legendary, and what many others deem simply miraculous. But I know that with every stride that Kim Yu-na took she carried the hopes and dreams of many. Her maxim – No Pain, No Gain. Very grand.
Aware of the impact she makes on her audience, and eager to inspire, Kim Yu-na has released a book, “Kim Yu-na’s Seven Minute Drama,” (published in Korean as 김 연아의 7분 드라마) in which she chronicles her steps to stardom. Supposedly, her book was written based off her diary entries recorded evening after practice.

South Korean Star Athlete Kim Yuna

Well, after all is said and done, Kim Yu-na has done her thing, and I must do mine. What do I do? I watch more TV, procrastinating when I can. If TV bores me with commercials, I watch videos online, primarily preoccupying myself with Japanese animations. I find amazing stories contained in the 2-D representations of Japanese lifestyles. Whether accurately depicted via these animations or otherwise, there is something comical about Japan and the Japanese way of life. Sometimes, the stories contained in them is just plain entertaining. Take a look at the following example, which is a transcript of a radio story that appeared in the Japanese Anime, Gintama, created based on Hideaki Sorachi’s manga by the same title:

Sorry, Jerry!

I will never forget about the first friend I ever had. It happened during the summer ten years ago. I was a shy and quiet child who always played by myself, so my father brought me a friend. That was Jerry. Jerry and I were always together. We went everywhere together. We did everything together just like real friends. I taught him many tricks.
“Wait!”
Jerry’s best trick was to wait. He would wait for as long as I told him, even when a feast was placed before him. I didn’t need any friends beside Jerry. That’s how I felt at the time. But on the other hand, an increasing number of children showed up who were interested in Jerry. The next thing I knew, I’d made lots of friends beside Jerry.
“Wait!”
It didn’t take long for my interest to shift from Jerry to other things. Jerry longed to play with me like we used to. Jerry would bark at me. That was when his best trick would come in handy. I would say one word to Jerry. “Wait!”
Jerry would always wait there for my return. Without moving an inch, he just waited for me to return.
By chance, my father’s store went out of business, and my affluent family fell to ruin. Chased by creditors, we were forced to escape only with the clothes on our backs. Though I was only a child, I was still able to understand what must be abandoned in that situation.
Perhaps he realized his own fate. Jerry would chase after me without pause.
“Wait!”
I delivered the usual word in a cold voice. “Wait!” I left Jerry behind without ever looking back.
A few months later, I returned to that spot. I had already moved to a faraway city, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Jerry. Jerry had to be fine. Somebody must have taken him in. In retrospect, I probably wanted peace of mind. I wanted to see Jerry alive as soon as I could, so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty.
Jerry hadn’t become someone else’s pet or a rotting corpse. Jerry was waiting as always. Without moving a step. Waiting for my return.
“Sad, isn’t it? He was abandoned there a while back. Kind people would try to take him with them, or feed him, or the like. But this boy refused to budge at all. In time people stopped paying attention to him. He couldn’t have expected his owner to return. Either way, it’s a sad story.”
I reached out to softly pat his head, and his eyelids slowly parted to look up at me. Jerry’s tail wagged ever so slightly. And then, he never moved again.
“Little lady… I see, you were his owner.”
“Jerry was waiting for me to come back! Waiting the whole time… the whole time… Jerry! How can I apologize to you? How many times do I need to apologize to you? You gave me so much! You taught me how to shed my loneliness when I was all alone! You opened up the world to me! You were my first friend! And yet… I… I did… I did such a terrible thing to my precious friend!”
“There’s no need for you to apologize. He was always waiting for you, and you came. What else did he need? He must have been happy to meet his owner in the end.”
“That is not true! He must hate me! Because I was the one who caused Jerry’s death!”
“Jerry isn’t dead. He’s still alive.”
“Where? Where is he?”
“Of course… RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!”

Chilling, wouldn’t you say?

No One is an Inevitable Loner

You’ve heard people praise some successful persons as self-made. You’ve heard some say that they overcame many challenges and trials to reach their present-day zeniths. That may be true, but it behooves every person to acknowledge the contributions of their benefactors. I believe every person owes somebody else gratitude for favors granted, opportunities accorded, rewards bestowed to encourage and guide.

I cannot name a single self-made person, but you can say that I am being too stringent. Therefore, I will indulge your skepticism and cite a few names largely associated with self-made: Benjamin Franklin, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Judge Clarence Thomas, Sean Combs, a.k.a P. Diddy, among a number of others. The argument for these self-made individuals is that they strove and succeeded. Such is the argument of the book, Strive and Succeed, by Horatio Alger, Jr. Fredrick Douglass, a man described as self-made had this to say about the triumph of the self-made people:

… dignifies labor, honors, application, lessens pain and depression, dispels gloom from the brow of the destitute and weariness from the heart of him about to faint, and enables man to take hold of the roughest and flintiest hardships incident to he battles of life, with a lighter heart, with higher hopes and a larger courage.

The evolution of the self-made person is marked by success in extra-usual circumstances. Without success, there is no self-made person. However, it is not ordinary success that we seek when we identify a self-made person; we also seek out their setting. We investigate the conditions they found themselves in, and what methods they used to extricate themselves and become visible. For Fredrick Douglass, his condition was the lowliness of the slave, his success was his visibility in the Black liberty movements. There are many such condition-success stories behind every self-made person.

However, do success and visibility under unusual circumstances suffice to define the concept of the self-made? Skeptics have argued that there is an element of chance associated with the notion of the self-made individual. They argue that events, time, locale, and fortune  favored these self-made people. Instead of crediting individual effort and sacrifice of the hard-working person, these skeptics extol luck as the primary inducer of success. There is no self-made person.

The counterargument offered by proponents of the idea of the self-made is that success is personal, marked by individual struggle in adverse situations. It is only those that work their best at their respective tasks that earn the title of the self-made. It is the position of the pro-self-made that those that argue for the contribution of chance are only feeding their incompetence with the excuse of bad luck! Only lazy, unambitious, unmotivated people blame their ineptitude on bad luck, they say.

Still, some argue that the concept of the self-made is a myth. And, there is some sense in their claim: no man is an island. It is inevitable to be with people and depend on one another. A self-made person had to have been born and cared-for in childhood. There are people who recognized their potential and supported them along the way, funding their enterprises and such. In essence, their very success is the culmination of the efforts of their benefactors. In short, the self is complex. There is no such thing as unaided success.

Self-made or not, successful people are on demand now as always. We need successful people to look up to, to measure our efforts by, to inspire ourselves. We need success to entertain us with hope for progress and empowerment. But, we often aspire to be like the self-made person. We find them romantic, heroic, sublime. We think to ourselves: “How marvelous to forge your way in the wold!” Such is the premise of the American Dream.

So, I ask, how can we identify self-made successful persons? Some have proposed looking at people and their environments, isolating those that rose from the ordinary to become extraordinary. There is a new school of thought suggesting a new way to seek out self-made individuals. This school merges self-made and aided success by introducing the idea of giving-back to society. According to this new school, a successful (self-made) person is a holistic hero. The successful person will not only celebrate his individual success, he will posses goodwill in his society. People admire and respect him, for he acknowledges the involvement of society by giving back.  With this criterion, persons successful in politics make a ready pool to draw from.

Such a criterion would effectively question the ideal self-made person, now wouldn’t it? Such has always been the dilemma with creators of “self-made people” lists. Fredrick Douglass, Barrack Obama, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford… all these were successful, but didn’t they stand on the shoulders of many in order to be visible? Is there no real self-made individual? Is is inevitable that people share connectivity with one another?

Dreams

In my dream I was in a world divided in two. There was a mountain slope settlement, and there was the mountain base settlement. I belonged in the slope settlement. In fact, I was one of the key players in this slope settlement.

As my dream unfolded, I was in the middle of a war. The slopes were fighting the bases. The cause of the war was unclear; rather it had been a long war that the initial cause was forgotten. But in my dream the slopes had the upper hand. The reason is that they still had food reserves and medical supplies. It can be surmised that their supply route was intact, although in my dream I could not determine this in all certainty. That is, I was caught in the middle of a war I did not understand.

We did not fight with ordinary weapons. I did not wield a gun, nor fought with the word. Instead, we fought with a “whim.” The whim was some kind of desire, or will. This will would materialize into a string-like whip, which would deliver varying types of injury on the opponent without killing them. The object of the fight was to break the opponent’s will. The slopes had broken the bases, time and time again. The bases had almost given up, except that they had enormous numbers to their advantage.

Every time the bases came up to attack they came in armies. Many of the slopes fell at the hands of their numerous, menacing fighters, but those that remained only became stronger. the war went on generation after generation. And this time, my turn had come to join in the fight.

The bases had come up hoping to steal some of the slopes food. We had to stand up and fight. I do not remember well how we did it, but we had built concealed ridges along the slope, and I was standing between two of them. A female fighter from the base was coming at me, and I was prepared to retaliate. Then, suddenly, I saw her face and I could not see any evil in her eyes. She was fighting for her life. That is the sort of feeling I got from looking at her determined pose. I dodged and caught her by the waist, her upper body slightly bent around my forearm. She did not struggle.

I pulled her back so that now we were looking at each other.
At that time I felt all of my reasons for joining the war diminish. As I gazed into her listless, tired self, I wondered why I had felt proud of the small victories we had enjoyed in this war. I looked at the general of the slopes and I felt a stinging disgust. I looked at her war general and all I saw was a man asking for a chance at some food. I made to shout something but stopped at mid-sentence. I stealthily withdrew from the fight, and disappeared into the slope. I woke up trying to open a door. I was holding my pillow in my hand.

Summer, School, and Society

The summer of 2009 was the most fun summer of my life, yet. I have never had a more fulfilling, exciting, and thrilling time in college than I had this summer of 2009. First off, I engaged in a journey of personal growth and independence through scientific research at the Yale School of Medicine. I have gone into research labs before, but this time was different from previous occasions because I had to act more mature. Greater expectations were put on my shoulders, but to borrow President Obama’s words in his eulogy speech at Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral, I “surpassed the challenge because of what [I] became.” At the end of my summer lab experience, I felt thrilled at my achievements. I have not published my results in the lab but I know that I have attained a more important goal than an article in Science – the fulfillment of having pursued independence in scientific research. The experience was not without hiccup, however. I recall several hurdles in the form of lengthy experiments that yielded little positive results, sometimes none. Nonetheless, every time I ran my samples on an electrophoretic gel, or through a spectrophotometer I felt as nervous as a debutante on her coming out party. My anxiety would be alleviated  by the appearance of any form of result – be it a messy band on the gel, or a flat O.D. curve.

However, my lab experience was not the height of my summer experience. The best time of my summer was spent wandering the town of New Haven. Summer in New Haven can go from hyperactive to plain serene. On the hyperactive days, I would find myself exercising my muscles stiff, sweat dripping down my brow, and my lips locked in forced grimace. I would blast reggae and dancehall in my ears until my head threatened to implode on itself, then I would watch some violent movie. Every time I never failed to amaze myself at my ability to maintain unclouded judgment despite the euphoria.

On the more somber days, I would take a walk around the dusty streets: hands in pockets, head drooped, back bent and thoughts focused. I recall one time I bumped into a parking meter when I was briefly distracted from one soul-searching walk. I was walking along Park Street towards Elm Street when I turned my head to look at the other side of the street. I noticed a young couple walking, hand-in-hand, in the opposite direction. But it wasn’t the intimacy with which they held each other that caught my attention. It was the young lady. She was beautiful, nay, very beautiful. I recall thinking that she was so fine it was almost unfair for her to be with the dude! I let my mind wander into imagination land where the fields were green, streets plush with rose petals, and the wind chiming with serenades. In this land, I was. She was. We were. Only the two of us, and a vast beautiful paradise. I was looking in her face about to say something when I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I was jerked back to reality only to realize too late that I had run into a parking meter just outside of the St. Thomas Moore Chapel.

I learned from my unfortunate experience with the parking meter but that did not stop my misfortunes. On several occasions, I felt either too excited or frustrated and I punched brick walls and other hard surfaces with my bare fists. Needless to say, the three scars on my right hand knuckles bear testimony to my impulsiveness and folly. A friend of mine commented that I was simply providing living proof that the Swahili proverb “Mpiga ngumi ukuta huumiza mkonowe” was valid. The proverb is translated: He that punches a wall only hurts his fist.

I’d like to think that my summer packed a punch. Now, school is starting again and I would love to carry that punch through the end of the semester. I am not certain that I can do that but my optimism has always received excellent ratings among my close friends. So, I will ride the wave of positive attitude and hope for the best. To start off, I have decided to engage in a humanitarian effort through my blog.

This is a jerrycan. For more than 1.1 billion people on Earth living without water, the jerrycan is a symbol of life and hope.

You will notice that I have added a new Widget on my sidebar. I have signed up my blog to stream Sprint ads, and have the proceeds go to charity in a deserving third-world country in need of water.

These past couple of months, my country, Kenya, has been hit by a severe shortage of water due to prolonged dry season. As a direct consequence, food supply has dwindled, subsistence crops have failed and folks are starving. The situation is exacerbated by corruption and lack of social responsibility of the ruling elite in Kenya. Kenyan leaders have displayed shameless indifference at the situation, choosing instead, to focus on mere politicking. The plight of the victims of famines is real in Kenya and other developing nations and must be addressed with urgency.

Therefore, I am taking action with the hope that many will join the cause to provide water to deprived third world nations. By clicking on the SocialVibe widget on the sidebar, you join millions other kind people around the globe who have come together to address the problem of water shortage in third world nations. Your contributions to charity will go a long way to support a frail mother in Kenya, Ethiopia, or Haiti. It will go a long way to help an orphaned teenager who has to travel kilometers each day to fetch water to  quench the thirst of her malnourished, underfed siblings. Your help is only one click away.

In order for you to help with the cause, simply click on the “Help Now” button on the widget, and rate the Sprint ad. That is all. By rating the video, Sprint donates money to help Charity:Water build wells and provide clean water to people in Africa.

If you would like to learn more about charity:water, please visit their website at http://www.charitywater.org/index.htm.

Mind Games

A phrase that I have found myself using many times this week goes, “It only appears that way, but it isn’t.” I started liking this phrase a couple of weeks ago when I heard it on TV. I have become quite the couch potato this summer, except that my bed substitutes for a couch. There are a few shows I have followed ardently, and some that I wouldn’t think twice before flipping the channel. My addiction to TV began during the Basketball playoffs season when all the hype was about James LeBron and Kobe Bryant. Both LeBron and Bryant are good players, and are definitely world the media sensation, but I did not watch the games because I wanted to learn how Bryant became an unstoppable basketballer. I watched the games with a view to emulating Dwight Howard [aka Superman] on the slam dunk. Suffice it to say that the season ended without my learning how to hold the basketball.

Anyways, that was more than two months ago. Since then, I have learned to hold the ball, make hoops, jump high enough to touch the net, and do a simple lay-up. That, and a few tricks such as dribbling the ball behind my back, catching it mid-air and making a backward jump to shoot. That is my game, and while I cannot boast to have challenged an opponent and won, I certainly have challenged my raging sportsmanship spirit.

I have juggled a few other things in my life as well. A few weeks ago, I was thinking very deeply about my social lifestyle. Of particular importance was the issue of growing into a romantic relationship. Without spilling too much beans, I will concede that whenever this subject crosses my mind, I immediately see at least five girls in my head. Needless to say, my thoughts have got me in trouble with my girlfriend on some occasions. I remember once I told her that I liked her friend, and she went berserk! For a few days after that incident I was paranoid. I thought that I was sick, unfair, and ungrateful. However, after some meditation I figured it must be pretty normal to find women attractive but not quite advisable to be open about it, especially not to your girlfriend. I do not understand it, though, because girlfriend is woman?!

This summer has had many learning opportunities for me. Take the theme of my research project – HIV-1. If you were to ask me about HIV two months ago, I would probably go on about how it is transmitted, what aspects of our lives would put us in greater risk of contacting the scourge et cetera. What i wouldn’t tell you is that in order for HIV to infect human cells, it must undergo a complex reverse transcription process. I wouldn’t say that reverse transcriptase is the classic machinery for reverse transcription, and I wouldn’t say that the enzyme has two subunits each with four domains, the purpose of which is to interact with DNA template and primer strands. In fact, I wouldn’t concern myself with explaining the mechanisms of inhibition of the quintessential viral enzyme. But now, I can. Oh yea, learning is fun.

I have learned a few other things, too. For example, there once was a guy who died of an umbrella wound. No, it wasn’t that simple. It involved sinister planning, delicate executions and perfect timing. It involved extensive research, intense knowledge and absolute concealment of human emotion. It was one of the most infamous assassinations the KGB ever carried out.

There was also a guy who attempted to murder his wife but lived to become a renowned college professor. And that a few weeks ago a Kenyan lady who attempted to fight the toughening economy by swindling a West Virginia Bank of $1 million was arrested and charged with fraud. Damn, what a waste of a brilliant idea!

Another thing I learned is that the mind has a way of playing tricks on us – at least on me. For example, a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t help thinking about this dude every time I saw Judy Reyes portray Nurse Carla Espinosa Turk on the comedy show Scrubs. Then, as if by celestial intervention or as if through an epiphany I forgot about the dude. I no longer felt the presence that had plagued my mind for days. I thought: Dude, whatever that was!

Ever heard that phrase, “Out of mind, out of sight?”

The Scientist

The scientist walked up to her office earlier than usual that Friday. She was carrying a paper bag bulging with jars and chemical paraphernalia. She wrapped her right hand around the paper bag, clutching it at her side so tightly that the mid-section of the bag was heavily creased, and in her left hand, she fondled with her keys, trying to find the correct key for her door. A brown, slim handbag hang loosely from her left shoulder, and presently it slid in front of her belly as she bent to reach the door knob. Holding the door ajar with her left elbow, she carefully injected herself, sideways, into the dimly lit office. She dropped her keys on her table and pulled the dangling pull-string that was the switch to the overhead light. The light flickered for a few seconds, then gradually lit up the room. She sighed and set the paper bag on the tiny space still available at her table.
One glance at her office and you would immediately know she wasn’t the type to appreciate interior designs and decorations. All across her floor, papers and books were casually thrown in bundles and piles. She had a bookshelf, but it was already full with other publications, lab notebooks, and more papers. There were a few binders on the shelf, but those, too, were overflowing with documents and dog-eared print-outs. On her table, she had a Dell laptop hooked to a printer positioned posterior to the computer. There were a few sheaves of paper jutting from the printer tray and some had dropped around the base of the printer. A couple of pens and pencils were strewn on the table, and the book she had been reading last night was still open to the page she left it on. Her rotating chair was sandwiched in a heap of boxes and could no longer make the full turn. Consequently, she had to twist herself around so as to maneuver herself onto the seat.
She had a perplexed look on her face. Yesterday had not been one of her best days. She had been unable to understand some of her data, and had gone home, slept on it, but found neither insight nor inspiration from rest. She had woken up around four in the morning, thinking that she heard some strange noise in her living room. She groped around in the dark in search of the flash light she usually kept in her bedside drawer but remembered she had moved it the previous night. Her fingers felt something solid and cold. She grabbed it, squinted sleepily at it and made as if to replace it but immediately decided against it. By now, her eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness around her but her mind was still hazy from sleep. She slithered out of bed and slid her feet in her bathroom flip-flops, and silently made for the door. She turned the door knob slowly, pausing to catch her breath every time she thought she had the hinges creak. “I will have to call the repair man in the morning,” she thought.
She cautiously popped her head outside her bedroom door and peered into the hall connecting her living room and her bedroom. On her left side was the bathroom, and on her right, the closet she rarely used. It was filled with decrepit equipment she had felt too sentimentally attached to trash. The door to her bathroom was slightly ajar. The sound of water leaking on the enamel tub resonated with the ticking of the grandfather clock above the fireplace in the living room. She had got used to the rhythm of the ticking clock that she strangely felt at ease anywhere near clocks. Occasionally, she would sit under the city clock at the Square just to enjoy the monotony of the tic-tac-tic. Her friends often commented on her strange attachment to clocks but she often brushed their opinions aside as unsophisticated or simply jealous. Besides, she did not believe she had any real friends.
Presently, she saw something move in the bathroom. Then, she heard a clanging sound as her bottles of shampoo and assorted skin care products dropped on the floor. A gust of wind banged the door shut, and for a moment she thought she heard a thud inside the bathroom. She froze, and her fingers pulled on something. A loud bang blasted all around her. She fell back, as if catapulted backwards on a trampoline. She landed on the floor squarely on her bottoms. Her legs lifted up in the air and her arms flapped about in search of something to hold onto. Fortunately, her back was stopped by her bed. She let her head drop slowly and rested it on the bed.
She must have lay there dazed for a long time because when she came to, two men were towering above her face waving their palms across her eyes and saying something. She craned her neck forward to listen but their voices sounded incredibly distant. She gestured them to stay away, but they appeared unable to perceive her message. She parted her lips to speak. There was no sound. She screamed.
A shrilling sound awoke her to realize that she was panting and drenched in sweat. She was perspiring profusely. “What a nightmare!”
She pulled herself together and walked out into the adjoining bathroom. Everything was in order. There were no sign of entry. There wasn’t any trace of disturbance. She sighed with relief. She took a quick shower, changed into her bathroom robe and propelled herself into the kitchen. She grabbed a few slices of bread and slipped them in the toaster. She reached into the fridge, grabbed a bottle of orange juice and set it on her dining table. “Bing!” The toast was ready. She ate her breakfast silently. She tried to think about her data. She thought about the protocol she had used. She thought about the chemicals she mixed, their ratios, their dilutions, their storage conditions… Everything appeared to make sense, but her results! She kept drawing blanks whenever it came to mapping her theory to her empirical findings. But her data wasn’t the only thing bothering her. There was the matter about her nightmare the previous night. She tried to understand it – perhaps interpret it. She knew it must mean something, but what? She wondered.
Outside her door was a parcel. She examined it casually and immediately knew what it contained. She had ordered a protein purification kit delivered to her home address instead of her laboratory complex. Recently, there were complaints about packages getting caught up and lost in the snail-mail, and she could not risk losing her invaluable serum samples just because she could not have her purification kit. Of course she had had to bribe a few guys back at the stock room to have her shipping address changed in the system. Everything had to go through the system. Department policy – they had claimed – but she always believed that it was one of the many traps the academy had put in place to ensnare the mad scientists and curtail their evil plans for world domination through science. She had cursed the department policies, condemning them to hell, their proper habitat. She grabbed the parcel, threw it on the front passenger seat of her Chrysler Cruiser. She strapped her safety belt on, and sped towards her lab. Usually, she would leisurely cruise to work, but today she wanted to arrive a little early to look over her data one more time before she decided what to do next.
She pulled her chair an inch backwards, squeezed herself into it and punched a few buttons on her laptop. A few minutes of buzzing and beeping brought the computer to life and she began typing something on the keyboard. She opened her data file and fixated on it for sometime. It made no sense.
She decided to re-record her results from scratch. Grabbing a pen and some blank sheets of paper from the printer, she meandered herself around the piles of paper and out of her office. She took the stairs down to the basement where she kept her mice. Her mice were her happiness. She loved them. They were her little adorable babies. To her, the mice promised her recognition, grants, greatness… She felt uplifted every time she looked at their cute pink ears.
She dutifully observed all regulations for handling animal models used for scientific research. In fact, she added a few dos and don’t s to her copy of the Animal Models Guidelines for Use in Research Activities. After petting her mice, she vacuumed their cages, sprayed around their nest, replaced their rags and made them “feel comfortable.” She took short notes on each mouse. Gracefully and delicately she blew a kiss at the cages, turned back and walked to her office. She was exhilarated and completely satisfied with her work with the mice. She sank into her chair and began writing on her lab notebook.

DATE: JAN 11, 2008
MODEL BATCH #: ME17
CONDITION: EXCELLENT
REMARKS: Experiment has proceeded smoothly. Model 17 shows no sign of toxicity. Possibility of success (is high).

She continued writing. She made various remarks about other mice and their conditions. She made thorough observations and deductions. At the end of each page, she signed her name, wrote the date, and drew a smiley face. A new day in the lab had began. This was her place of joy. She loved the lab. She loved her work.
Joe J. walked in just then. Joe J. was her assistant. He managed all inoculations the mice received. Although she did not mind keeping her mice for her study, she certainly did not want to see them in pain. Joe J. did not seem to mind. Besides, she never actually wanted to have him for as her assistant. The decision to have Joe J. was forced on her by her colleague and supplier of mice batch. She was repulsed by the idea of having a male assistant, especially one who would report her work to a third party. However, her colleague would not give her the mice she badly needed unless he had eyes on the inside. Joe J. turned out to be those eyes.
Ordinarily, she would let her pride ride but this once, for the sake of the research grant she really needed, she was willing to bend a little. She promised herself that this was her first and last time she would allow herself to stoop down to such humiliating level. She decided to accept Joe J. as her assistant, and she was now trying to accommodate him as a man. Everyday she gave him specific instructions. He handled the squeals, the writhing in pain of the mice as they received their injections, the works! All she wanted to do was collect data: body heat, weight, breathing patterns, pulse rates, et cetera. She would also visit the cages every morning to dust around and build some trust with the mice. This way, Joe J. would be the classic villain, and her, the charming protector of her mice. She figured that it would be easier for her to collect more accurate data. The assistant disposed of any dead mice at the end of the day or at any other time untimely death occurred. She was determined to finish first phase of her ground breaking research at whatever cost. Of course, these costs did not include watching as her little mice kicked violently and died. She wasn’t going to feel their bloated carcasses.
Joe J. arrived at the lab to find a sheet of paper with instructions posted on his desk. He knew without looking the contents of the protocol on his desk. He sank into his chair and closed his eyes briefly. Yesterday had been quite the day for him. Last night, he had gone home late after injecting the final daily dose of poisoned serum to four of the five mice in the lab. He had remembered to turn off all light, leaving the cages as dark as the night of the solar eclipse. The mice had squealed, scurried frantically towards the walls of their tiny solid cages, and then slowly and cautiously settled in one corner. He enjoyed every moment of their misery, and found it extremely gratifying each time. He liked to feel superior. He wondered why the rodents were not kept in one cage. He thought that he might try combining them all in one cage just to see how frightened they would get in the dark and ram into each other confusedly before they could realize their mutual misfortune and huddle at some far-side corner. He had laughed at the idea, letting his boisterous gurgle reverberate throughout the empty basement room.
He was jolted to his feet by the sound of shattering glass. Unconsciously, he had dropped a beaker on the floor. Hurriedly, he cleaned out the mess but cut his index finger in the process. He cursed. Slamming the door behind him, he hop-skipped into his 4WD Toyota RAV-4 and sped into the night. He looked in his rear-view mirror and thought he saw a flicker from one of the lab windows but he did not stop to check.
Today, Joe J. had arrived a tad earlier than usual – by exactly one minute. He sank into the creaky chair the scientist had assigned him, rubbed his palms together and let our a heavy sigh. He twisted once, but fearing that he would break the decrepit chair, he sprung himself to his feet and launched towards the freezer where he kept the various toxins with which he treated the rodents. He pulled an ice bucket off the top of the freezer and filled it with ice. Dropping several vials of dilute and concentrated venom in the ice, he made for the basement, grabbing a box of Latex gloves on his way. This was the first of the five inoculations she had scheduled for her mice today. Joe J. knew the routine. It never changed. It had not changed for the past seven months.
Back in the office, the scientist was busying herself with transcribing her notebook into her laptop. All around her table were papers – publications in which she had featured – and several animal literature. Everything was strewn haphazardly about her. She had pulled some of her awards and certificates of recognition and was reviewing them. She was very proud of her accomplishments. On every award she was decorated with, she made a smiley face at the left bottom corner. She made ornate frames for her award photos, but she hung them casually on the wall above her desk. She was brooding over an article she read on one of the publications at her table when Joe J. walked in. His expression told her that not all was well with the mice.
She had seen that look enough times to know exactly what message it encoded. In the course of one year working the the X2C2 avian virus strain, she had come to not only expect such news, but treated it as milestones of progress. She started this work for the money and she wanted to report as many instances of setbacks as she could in order to procure a hefty grant package, the idea being that more obstacles to overcome meant more time and money invested in research. She was investigating the mechanisms of ligand binding and release by cellular degradation systems in an effort to suggest ways to mask the virulence of the virus on hosts. She chose a mundane procedure to use in her study – that of treating the virus with synthetic compounds, then injecting them to see if it had any effect on the mice. Her hypothesis was that once the virus was treated with the compounds, it became more passive and more readily amenable to degradation by cellular proteases.
Only a few months earlier, she identified a potentially strong compound that interacted sufficiently strongly enough with the virus. She was elated at her discovery and could picture herself on the fast track to getting that elusive grant. Besides, she badly needed a newer award to display on her wall. If only, she could provide more evidence, more proof that her work was deserving of a government grant… That was when she approached her colleague for her first batch of mice. That was also the time Joe J. joined her lab and life, to keep an eye on the little rascals, as her colleague often called the mice.
“Have you disposed of it?” she asked Joe J.
“Yea, see, that’s the thing. The rascal isn’t dead. It’s sick.”
Sick. That was a very unusual thing to say, especially in a lab that is supposed to kill mice by giving them disease. She was dumbfounded. Joe J. looked unaffected and clueless about the absurdity of what he had just said.
“OK. I’ll be a minute” Joe J. walked out.
The scientist didn’t know what to do with a sick mouse. She had always depended on Joe J. to dispose of any dead mice and make a report of its final moments. Joe J. would fill in a form describing all precautions he had taken to ensure safe disposal of the mice carcasses, and all precautions he took to clean the vacant cages and so on. She made these guidelines herself, so she would know when protocol was followed and when Joe J., in his negligence had violated regulations. Every morning when she inspected the cages, she would tell whether Joe J. had been sleeping on the job or not. Everything was going just fine so far. But today there wasn’t a dead mouse, there was an ailing rascal.
She went down the basement several minutes later to see the sick mouse. Joe J. was standing by the exit. He showed her into the farthest cage: “On your right,” he added. The scientist bent over to get a close-up look at the mouse. It seemed fine. The mouse made tiny whiny noises as if excited by the unusual visit by the good guy, as the scientist had successfully conditioned the mice to discriminate between her and Joe J. She felt some relief at the seemingly healthy state of her mice. She was beginning to wonder if Joe J. had showed her the wrong cage when the light suddenly flicked and went out. The mice scattered around scared in their cages and startled her. She jerked herself up as he hands flew up in the air. She turned back to look at Joe J, as if to inquire why the lights went off but she saw a looming shadow in place of Joe J. She was terrified. She chocked out a cry. “Don’t kill me, please!”
The shadow came crashing in her face. She fell, her head banging on the concrete floor. She heard a crack, but couldn’t feel any pain. She watched as a puddle of blood formed on the floor inches away from her eyes. Her eyesight grew hazier each second life ebbed out of her. She tried to look up, but could no longer see clearly. A distant, blurry silhouette paced back and forth in front of her, becoming more and more distant and faint. Something huge approached her eyes. It seemed to pull her by the nose, but she couldn’t feel the pinch. She didn’t resist. She couldn’t fight back. She was getting tired and sleepy. She wanted to close her eyes.
The evening paper sold out every copy. The front page featured a grisly photograph of the body of the scientist, nose bitten off by mice, eyes gorged out and clothes shredded. Her skull was cracked at the forehead, from what the coroner described as “a blow from a blunt, metallic object.” The article was short but powerful. DEATH: ANIMAL RESEARCHER MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD. The article described in lucid detail the ghastly state in which the body of the scientist was discovered hours after death. Police had received a tip from a man who confessed to having killed the scientist, but had failed to act on the information believing it to be a prank call. A freelancing journalist had got wind of the phone call and decided to investigate the story. The article continued to state that police had released a picture of a man believed to be the prime suspect in the murder of the scientist. The public had been urged to remain vigilante and report any sightings of the man fitting the profile released by the police. The article concluded by discussing the irony of the life of the scientist who was dedicated to killing mice only to be ravaged posthumously by the very rodents she was poisoning. The police chief was quoted as saying that he vowed not to rest until the man responsible was brought to justice.
The scientist had died.

Dear Mum and Dad

Dear Mum and Dad,

This weekend was bustling with Yale’s Commencement activities. I watched silently as Yale seniors became graduates one after another. I watched as the realization that I will soon join in the throngs of graduates and that I will soon join in the insufferable throes of economic down-plunging slowly sank in. I watched as the frenzied applauses and the frantic cheers drowned the crowd attending the ceremonies in chaotic jubilation. I watched, as Yale alumni Christopher Buckley (Yale ’75) delivered his keynote address to the Yale graduating class of 2009.

This year’s Commencement ceremonies were in every bit exciting for me as it must have been for the seniors. I got to see from up close exactly what it feels like to graduate at a precipitous time in the US economy. I talked to a few of Yale’s seniors and although some of them felt that they were well prepared to pull through, you couldn’t miss their anxiety in getting into a world of uncertainty and unchecked competition for survival. In his keynote address to the Yale seniors, Mr. Buckley attempted to calm their anxiety, saying that the future isn’t set in stone. Quoting a French philosopher, he argued that the future is bound to change unexpectedly from what we would imagine it to be. He also quoted a Yiddish Proverb: “Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.”

Mr. Buckley used many other proverbs and quotes but his punch line was his cavalier solution to the problem of uncertainty of the future – whatever! According to him, “whatever!” is the ultimate answer to life’s most existential problems. As an example, look at the following series of philosophical quotes he used to expound his observation:

To be or not to be – whatever!

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – whatever!

Ordinarily for an English student, such quotes are necessarily profound and worthy of at least two pages of etiological essays. An English student would use even more quotes to explain the contexts of the two quotes above. The student would turn the seemingly plain sayings into broad arguments demanding conscientious research and dedicated note-taking. However, the present generation found a better and a faster way of suffocating arguments in their infanthood using “whatever!” Whatever, man!

Personally, I find the usage of “whatever!” typical of an escapist and a defeatist perception of life. I believe that if an argument is due, then cogency must be allowed to run its course. A clear, logical explanation must be sought for every manageable problem. Of course, I do not deny that there are circumstances that can’t really be exhaustively debated but if anything can be sustained, it has to be arguments. Heck, I watched as a few Yalies received awards for outstanding performances in extemporaneous debates. Gosh! EXTEMPORANEOUS!

Talking about awards, I couldn’t help gasping and gaping at the awe-inspiring prizes being conferred on both outstanding teachers and students. There were prizes for practically every area of intellectual and athletic disciplines. There was the award for best essays, best contribution to research, best exemplified moral character, and athlete of the year among many other awards. Yale seniors were showered with accolades and decorated in medals of success and overachievement. Yea – overachievement. It seemed that the Yale graduating class of 2009 really outdid themselves. Strange thing, though – some names received more mention than others.

Oh yea, before I forget I will mention here that the citations read just before the prizes were awarded were a bit methodical and mundane. There was one particularly clichéd phrase that was used excessively: “we have not seen anyone like ___ in a very long time.” Mind you, the speaker of these words quoted the phrase, word-for-word from last year’s speaker without due acknowledgements, I daresay.

Mum and Dad, the looks on the faces of the parents of the graduating class were phenomenal. There were smiles, tears, pride, joy, perplexity and on some, disbelief. It was quite a sight to behold. I found myself thinking about the day, a year away from this day, when you will hopefully show the same faces, too. Then, I thought: What face should I put on?

I got my answer in the faces of the many Yale seniors receiving bear hugs and flashy kisses all around me. Parents and family clustered around them like flies on bees upon a flower. Everyone wanted a piece of the scholar. I wanted a piece of them. If only I could feel the hem of their flowing gowns, I would be forever inspired. If only my fingers could feel the cardboard hat!

The Yale graduates all wore pretty smiles on their weary faces. They hugged everyone courteously and accommodated every one of their guests. There were some with only one guest, and there were some whose extended family emigrated into Yale for the ceremonies. Some seniors wore sashes; some just couldn’t stand the warmth of the academic regalia. But all of them wore the Smile. It was the only other thing they shared. The other thing they shared was their graduating date.

The Yale Commencement 2009 was not only exciting but it was also illuminating. Every speaker had their own charisma, every performer, their special charm. I saw people with extraordinary talent and exceptional performances in academic and athletic fields. I met people whose mere presence was inspirational. Everyone was just spectacular.

Go Yalies. Party on!

Sincerely,

TK

To the Best of My Knowledge

Bleeding Heart

A few weeks ago there was a Blood Donation Drive organized by Yale and the Red Cross society. Students were asked to sign up to donate blood and save a life so I thought that it might be a good idea for me to participate in the event. Part of my reasons to volunteer for the drive was to gratify my own ego and feel proud to have contributed to a good cause. See, I don’t really care for the notion of the greater good because I believe that deep down inside each one of us is a selfish, cynic personality that makes us indifferent about other people. The only difference between people who we often consider as selfless and charitable and those we perceive as mean and stingy is the degree to which they yield to the persuasions of their darker alter egos.
Regardless,  I signed my name very happily on the weather-beaten piece of paper that the kind student coordinators casually placed on the table outside the dining hall and registered my intention to donate blood. I met with the blood-drive people two afternoons later.
I was asked several embarrassing questions. I filled in a few survey sheets, without which the blood donation process wouldn’t run smoothly – or so I was told. I answered all their queries honestly and to the best of my knowledge. “Standard procedure,” they quipped. Unquestioning and completely submissive I sat on one of the dilapidated chairs they provided as I waited nervously for the man in the white coat to come up to me and suck the life out of me. My chair squealed at my every twitch. I tried to sit as still as I could so that I could not disturb other volunteers whose sluggish eyes seemed to beg me to escape from the dimly lit basement room beneath the Church of St. Mary. I felt their piercing gaze looking deep inside me, beseeching me save my skin from the unforgiving tapered hypodermic needle that thirsted for my blood.
Once in a while the volunteers clenched their fists as if in protest, only to unclench the same fists seconds later in abject subservience. The collecting bag delicately laid on the side of the bed gradually swelled as more red fluid gushed into them. I was transiently transported back to the days I used to watch a tick suck up blood off the back of my dog, Chris, and swell until it was firm and round. Without hesitation I would pluck the blood sucker off, and placing it between my index finger and the thumb I would suddenly snap it, splashing the coagulated blood all over my fingers and face. The experience would give such an inebriation that my eyes would shine with bewilderment. However, watching the plastic collecting bags fill with human blood, I felt uneasy and nauseated. I turned my face towards the ceiling in order to suppress the sickening sensation that was threatening to cause an upwelling in my gut.
Presently, the man in white came up to me and asked me to lie on a vacant bed that had just become available after a volunteer had dragged his bulk off to the snack table to replenish the fluids he had surrendered to the bloody needle. The man in white was mumbling something in my ear but I couldn’t fully comprehend it. I lay on the bed, my eyes fixated at the ceiling, absorbing nothing, yielding nothing. I lay there a couple of minutes before the man in white bent over and talked directly into my ears. “Sir, which arm would you prefer?” he queried. Before I could decide, he was already disinfecting the skin just below the right elbow. He caressed my arm with gentle strokes, stopping periodically to prod for a juicy vein. I watched silently, thinking to myself how much he must have enjoyed poking at my arm. Every stroke, every poke, every touch – all of the movements – were a reenactment of my experience with the tick. My blood cuddled in my veins.
Soon the man in white triumphantly announced that he had located the bloody vein. He told me to still my arm as he prepared to insert his sharp, intruding hypodermic needle beneath the skin and into the vein. He removed the needle from its plastic packet and holding it up to the light, examined it for contamination. He flicked it once…, twice, and then pushed it inside my arm in one swift motion. The needle was big and insulting. I felt it nudging at the inside of my skin like a splinter caught beneath the skin. I relaxed my arm and almost dropped to rubber bulb the man in white had given me to squeeze. Dark red blood rushed out of the wound into the coiled tube that led into the collecting bag beside the bed. The man in white asked me how I felt. Although I thought I detected some sarcasm in his voice, I humbly replied that I was fine but under my breath I was seething. The bloody needle was eating away at my veins. My lifeblood was being drained away into the plastic chalice on the floor. What do you expect?!
Then, as if responding to my silent protests, my blood stopped flowing. The man in white looked disquieted. He asked me to squeeze the rubbery thing in my hand. I squeezed. It was firm and the sensation in my fingers reminded me of the tick. I froze.
My arm had begun swelling around the point of entry of the needle. I was starting to feel uncomfortable as the anticoagulant inflamed the wounded skin. I was on the verge of unplugging the bloody contraption out of my arm when the man in white leaned over, frowned and jerked the hypodermic needle out; spilling some of the blood it had sucked in the process. A few drops landed on the bed. He gave me a cotton swap to press against the wound to stop the bleeding. I continued to lay there for a couple more minutes trying to imagine what might have gone wrong. I theorized that perhaps the tube was blocked. I reckoned that it shouldn’t have been any fault of mine. I eat healthy foods. I drink a lot of milk. There shouldn’t be a problem. The man in white looked at me long and hard before he gallantly declared he had identified the Pandora’s Box. He reasoned that I must have been dehydrated. He advised that I should take a lot of water before I could ever again think about donating blood. The fault was with me.
But I refuse to admit that the fault had to anything to do with my diet or fluid intake. I think that the problem was purely psychological. I wasn’t prepared, mentally, to let go of my lifeblood. Perhaps a counseling session might have been due before the procedure. The whole experience was chilling. To the very best of my knowledge, I don’t know why I froze!