ahh, perspective 

enough with the weight crap

just wanted to post that I will (hopefully) not be writing too much more about my job.
it's just been in my head, so I had to let it out. hope no one was too bored by it...
much madness today, a semi-confrontation originating from my co-worker re: authority. From what I could tell, she feels like I talk down to her. I think that it doesn't have so much to do with my "job position" vs. her "job position," but involves her needing to learn certain things about life and me wanting to convey these things, but then having no goddamn patience to do it in a sugarcoated way. I am also assuming that I must at least occasionally use a more authoritative cadence in my voice, because I am trying to break things down logically and am not using the typical valley girl voice that every chick seems to emulate. what, I am supposed to use my phone voice? legend is it's like friggin molasses.
so anyway, am just learning how to use this beast of a weapon which my brain and all the crap I've been doing to it lately to open it up.
it's kinda like I am a whole new person.
or not.
H

take her to the squeezing room 

talkin to the fatties

so the coin has flipped and the phone calls with the skinny chicks are petering out and the fatties are coming back like a fucking plague of locusts. 300 lbs, down from 350, 270 down from 400. it boggles the mind that these people sound as normal as they do. call me insensitive/politically incorrect, but one can assume that morbidly obese people have weird voices to match they body - deep distorted grunts and gasping lungs, collapsing under the pressure of the weight of their bodies.
On the contrary: many of the obese women I speak with have beautiful voices. Many of the men I speak don't call to mind those creepy raspy voiced guys who have to be air-lifted out of their homes, the couches they were sitting on grafted to their bodies. They sound like nice, manly men. not girly men, ala Ahhnold. So that experience has definitely broken down some preconceived notions that I had.
but it is horribly fucking depressing. I mean, these people have all sorts of health problems that they tell me about. diabetes, lupus, cardiac problems, joints that snap like toothpicks under the weight. and don't even start me on the medication interactions that go on: one woman was gracious enough to tell me that she always gets yeast infections from the steriods they have her taking.
I just recently learned about how stomach bypass surgery works. They split the stomach in 1/2, creating one space for the food to go into, and another, larger space for bile. They also have to split the esophagus, creating tubes to the bile vessel and newly formed stomach. People who have these operations are not allowed to consume any processed sugar. they are allowed to eat only one tablespoon of food 6 times a day. they can not drink and eat at the same time. if they eat more than allowed they puke.
interestingly, you can get fat again with a bypass: you can slowly, slowly stretch that stomach out so that it can accomodate more food.
but really, who would want to? I would say only the really mentall ill, those who just simply can not live without stuffing their faces full of junk food. I understand that they do provide therapy sessions for people after their bypass, but apparently those sessions eventually end, and I really wonder how effective they are. these people need intense therapy to talk to through their deepest problems (as do we all, really), and after my glimpse into the field of psychiatric inpatient and outpatient care, I expect the worst out of many psychological/psychiatric services. they are run by undertrained, uncaring people who are equally, if not more, fucked up in the head as the people they are supposed to be helping.
rant. schnikies.
enough of the fat.
let's go eat twinkie-weener sandwiches.
H

man do I look tired 

this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it friggin shine

research is great. especially when you are involved in any kind of recruiting. you say the same spiel over and over again. mine is:
here at the university of pennsylvania we're looking at how genes affect body weight, and one of the groups that we're studying is women who have been thin all of their lives. And we're setting up assessments in ________ (insert white-bread US city here), the assessments take about 10-15 minutes, we take exact height and weight measurements, have you fill out a survey, and take a small amount of blood (very funny wording - we draw 6 10 ml tubes, which is actually quite a bit), and each participant receives $100. Does this sound all right?
my voice goes up at the end and then I wait for them to say "sure," or "that sounds good to me" or they ask all kinds of questions about location, when the assessments are, how they can't believe there are thin women in their town because everyone is so fat...
then I go on to:
I just need to ask you some background questions:
are you adopted?
what's your racial background?
how old are you?
how tall?
what is your current weight? - here's where the madness begins. some of these women are like 5'5'' and 100 lbs. ridiculously skinny
have you ever weighed more than that outside of pregnancy?
do you have any sisters?
If yes, how many and are any of them overweight or obese?
if they answer those question correctly then I move onto my spiel about how we are not scheduling right now, but will call them back, and then get addresses and proper spelling of names, etc.
I have done this over 250 times in the last week.
yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
I can do the whole spiel, except for the height and weight and age stuff, while doing completely separate things - checking my email, organizing papers.
i am super fucking perky though, go along with jokes and occasionally make my own "oh, your husband didn't pass on the message I left? they're good for that, aren't they?" hehe.
and then are the chatters who want to tell me their weight history, how they got down to 88 lbs while working as a nurse in the himalayas. how they can eat like a horse and not gain weight. bla bla bla. and here I am with my farmers build, hips and big shoulders, feeling like I could snap every one of these little ladies in two.
hold on - i am talking to one of them now...
..................................
so anyway, that is what I have been doing NONSTOP I might add, for the last work week. on and on it goes.
but hey, it's a fucking job.
H