Blogtober 8, 2015: Speeder vs. Speeder (Fears)

Last night, when I was running on the treadmill in the basement, I saw a gigantic eight-legged fiend, scurrying along the wall to my right, and then settling down 6 inches from my arm.

I managed to stifle a rising scream. But that didn’t stop my spine from feeling like it's been doused in ice. Or my heart from jumping into my throat. Or my legs from turning gelatinous and quaky like they’re going to collapse.

I know I’m not alone in the world for my immense fear of spiders. Ron Weasley is a fellow arachniphobe. And this whole summer, my brother has been “at war with the speeders” (so called by him for their Olympic leg activity) as a result of the hole in his window screen that presented an entrance for these unwelcome visitors. There have been many a day when I found him standing on a chair, beating at the ground with a broom, warning me that another speeder is on the loose and advising that I, too, quickly find higher ground. (Isn’t it funny that when we’re terrified, we fail to consider things like the fact that spiders can crawl up just as easily as they can along the floor?)

My story gets worse, though. As I had only half a mile left in my work out, I decided to power through it, arachnid be damned. So I turned my focus back to the treadmill progress display and willed my eyeballs to stay away from the vicinity of the side wall near my arm.

It felt like the longest half mile in the world but I finished.

I victoriously looked back at where the spider sat, and HOLY SHIH-TZU ITS GONE.
   
This time, I couldn’t help it. I let out a blood curdling 100-decibeler that without a doubt woke the neighbors.

Suddenly it felt like every single part of my body was crawly. My legs, arms, neck, even hair. I started jumping around hitting myself in the head, convinced that the speeder found the opportunity to relocate there while I was speeding along on the treadmill. I must have looked ridiculous.

Theory has it: We’re terrified of things like spiders because they possess some of the “fear factors” that our primate ancestors evolved. These innate fears were developed to quickly identify potential dangers. Historically, our predecessors learned that hairy things and leggy things are dangerous and need to be avoided. So to this day, we have a built-in negative response to those factors. And spiders happen to have a lot of both (1) hairiness and (2) leggy-ness. 

I am facing something of a parallel in my working life. I have opportunities to work on direct valuations but I am so afraid of pursuing them. I think internally, I am afraid of failing. During my performance review, when I wanted to indicate my interest in direct investments, I nested it into a section on organizational changes (“Maybe there can be chances in the company for people who work on funds to also help out on a limited basis with direct investments?”) rather than directly coming out and saying, “I want to do work on direct investments.”  Maybe because I’d been told early in my career that I don’t have the skills to do them – that I would inevitably fail. So I’d always labeled it as “AVOID” like our early ancestors have done with traits like hairiness and leggy-ness.

But I am working on it. I’m not going to let a few words from when I was 23 dictate what I do and don’t try in my career, and I am most certainly not going to let a couple of spiders scare me out of working out in the basement.

xoxo,
the closing belle

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BLOGTOBER: Blogging every other day in October!

Blogtober 6, 2015: "Writing" my Wrongs

To be frank with you guys, I did not feel like blogging today. 

If you've seen my New YouTuber tag (not going to bother to link and plug my channel today since just really not in the markety mood), you'll know I consider myself to be someone with thick skin. Things don't bother me. If I mess something up, then I get over it quickly and fix it immediately. Done. 

But today I completely failed at something I've dedicated full steam to for over a year, and for the first time in the longest time, I bawled my eyes out. It is doubly upsetting because I feel that I have no TIME for this. I have so much going on this week and next. So many people relying on me for my contributions to things. So many deadlines looming. I. Have. No. Time. To. Grieve. And it feels ... crushing. 

I find myself turning to words for comfort (and hope to publish it here on my public blog in due time). In the mean time, here is something I wrote 2 years ago on The Closing Belle when I was going through another hard time -- a dissolved friendship -- while also wrestling deadlines and a busy schedule (back then it was graduate school applications).  

"The Write Approach" (September 2014) 

I read somewhere … or maybe someone told me … that you’re more likely to do something if you write it down. My therapist told me to set aside “scheduled worry time” every day so that I can write down all the things I am worried about and then stew about them for some amount of time. Theoretically, knowing that I have a designated time to let my what-ifs run free would help me block out my worries when I need to (1) concentrate [e.g., when I am at work and my inner omg-omg-omg is keeping me from getting stuff done], or (2) relax [e.g., when my racing thoughts are making shut-eye nearly impossible]. So, really, according to that unidentified/unidentifiable source, and my head-shrink’s hundreds-dollar-per hour voice of reason, I should be writing in this thing more. This post will be kind of a mix of both – an impetus to get something done, and a scheduled worry time (my first scheduled worry time was 2 days ago, and I only had my phone, so I pretty much just opened a new text message and wrote down “omg what is going on/why?”) 

Today I feel like there is no way I can get done what I want to get done in the next 2 weeks. In college, when that happened, it was called everyday life. And I dealt with it with an impressive level of stoic consistency. But now, I am pretty helpless… and not sure how I regressed so much from when I was 19?! I’m not even talking about work – thankfully there’s not much going on there. It’s (1)the GMAT [11 days], (2) the Wharton interview [7 days], and (3)some emotional stuff that I’m not really ready to deal with yet but have to [moment of truth in 9 days but since we’re on the honest boat, I actually think about it quite more than I want to currently, haven’t stopped thinking about it, and probably won’t stop thinking about it after the event of the 9 days, no joke. Thanks, Anxiety].     

Anyone who knows me well knows that I like to self-diagnose. Call me a hypochondriac, but I spend at least 3 or 4 solid sittings a week browsing WebMD. I’ve actually been pretty accurate (other than the time I self-diagnosed “runny nose” and refused to stay overnight at the hospital when I in fact had bacterial pneumonia and nearly died). Anyway, all of that was written for me to say that I am pretty sure I have some form of anxiety, because I spend 99% of my time basically thinking about a few things, over and over, to such an extent that I have difficulty getting anything done. My therapist refuses to say the A word, though, probably because if she does, I’ll get a prescription from an MD, and will no longer require her leg-and-an-arm priced services. 

Today, though, I only have time to partially tackle one. And I choose GMAT, because it’s the one I have most control over. OK, what am I going to do about my 70^th percentile math score… and how am I going to do it in fewer than 11 days? I bought the Manhattan GMAT Advanced Quant book from Barnes and Noble on Friday, on the recommendation of just about every other MBA blogs out there. So far, I’ve been impressed by the material level. Over the weekend, I plowed through most of the book, leaving just one chapter, with its associated problems and the bank of additional problems in the back of the book (there are 15 “workout sets” in the back, and 25 bonus questions on the Manhattan GMAT website). 

I’m absolutely going to finish that final chapter today, and make as big of a dent in the workout sets as I can. I have social obligations every single night for the rest of this week (!!! how does this even happen?), so I know I have to really concentrate today, to maximize what I can finish. But beyond just factual knowledge and problem-tackling techniques, Manhattan GMAT has also given some good advice on reviewing your work and being honest and critical with yourself in terms of your approach. So I’m going to start doing that in the workout sets – honing my approach and minimizing the number of steps I take with each particular “type” of question to improve my time management.
Well, wish me luck, interwebs. 

Surprisingly, reading this piece,  from my 24-year-old self ("Today, though, I only have time to partially tackle one") rings so true today. I might take my own advice and take it one problem at a time :)

xoxo,
the closing belle

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BLOGTOBER: Blogging every other day in October!

Blogtober 5, 2015: Humans are feeble & other lessons from the Monkey Haus

My mom is allergic to anything with hair… or saliva … or pollen. So of course, having a mammalian housepet (or blooming plant) was out of the question. But that didn’t stop my parents from giving us a fur-filled childhood.

It started when I was 6 or so. On every reasonably weathered Saturday, my dad would pack us up in our minivan -- camera, carrot sticks and juice boxes in tow -- to spend a day at the library and zoo.

I loved those Saturdays.

Then, one day, we discovered the Bronx Zoo, a worthwhile 2.5 hour drive from our house in New Jersey. Even Momma would come with us, albeit with three years’ supply of Benadryl in her purse.

We loved watching the peacocks flaunt their plumes, hearing the strange calls of the colorful exotic birds, and petting the billy goats and sheep, their velvety noses nudging our palms for food crumbs. But our favorite had to be the monkey house. Even Momma, red-eyed and stuffy-nosed, would be excited for the monkey house.

To us, it was so strange and comforting that monkeys acted so similarly to people. These are the lessons that I learned from observing them:

1. Love is universal. The way that monkeys pick their young for fleas is so tender that I truly believe other animals feel love the way we do.
2. The joy of learning and need for simulation are also universal. If you’ve ever seen a capuchin approach a new toy, I think you’d agree.  
3. We’re so feeble. Young humans are relatively helpless and fragile compared to monkey babies who can cling onto their mothers as they hop from branch to branch.

That last point really stuck in my mind. For years thereafter, I found evidence of this. Baby horses walk within minutes of being born. But a newborn human is (distance) blind, (mostly) bald, and unable to even hold up his own head.

I would learn later in an earth sciences class in college that this helplessness of human babies is related to our relative intelligence as beings. Some years ago, the climate changes in the African continent caused a recession of forestation, forcing some apes to adapt to living on flat lands. As our species predecessors left the trees to become plains-based primates, it became less critical for babies to be able to hang on tightly. Because of this, they were able to get away with more “wobbly” necks. This allowed their head size to become much larger compared to their body size, which ultimately allowed human intelligence to develop to today’s extent.

Man, am I itching to go back to the Bronx Zoo now that I’m back in the metro area!  Think Momma would go with me if I buy the entirety of CVS’s Claritin supply?

xoxo,
the closing belle

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BLOGTOBER: Blogging every other day in October!

Blogtober 4, 2015: Belle Tells | College Classes for a Finance Career

Hey guys!

For Blogtober Day 4, I'm vlogging about what you should study in college for a career in finance! Hope you enjoy!



If you missed my first Belle Tells: Finding your first post college job, you can go click on THIS LINK to view it.

xoxo, the closing belle


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BLOGTOBER: Blogging every other day in October!

Blogtober 2, 2015: Why is pee yellow?

My high school cross country coach always told us, if we were drinking enough water, our pee should be colorless.

Hmm.

This might be *TMI* but mine has always been a medium yellow. But I never gave it much thought until yesterday...

My mom has been scolding me about not going to the doctor, so two weeks ago, I finally acquiesced to getting my first annual physical check-up in... 5(?!) years. Frankly, I was not too excited for this because I eat horribly and I know it. Plus, I never go outside. Consequently, the last time I was at the doctor (half a decade ago), my lipids were through the roof and my vitamin D ... well, what Vitamin D?

So I fasted and then I went to get prodded and poked. They took my blood and urine. And gave me an electrocardiogram (Is this standard now?! Have I really been avoiding the whitecoats so long that EKG's are now part of check-ups?)

My heart seemed fine, since they whisked the readout away and never mentioned it to me again. (Dude, why do they always do this with medical results? It's my beats-per-minute ... or whatever the EKG measures ... Don't I deserve to know?)

But then, yesterday, my lab work came back...

And my blood urea nitrogen to creatine ratio was really elevated, several standard deviations above the normal range. UH-OH.

Of course, I immediately consulted my handy-dandy WebMD app. Yes, I know you're not supposed to do that and WebMD is like the leading cause of insomnia but I couldn't stop myself.

My boyfriend is convinced that WebMD sorts their results from most-to-least fatal. He might be right. Because the first thing the symptom checker found for me was "Kidney Failure."

AHHH!

You know what my immediate thought was, though?

IS IT BECAUSE MY PEE IS TOO YELLOW?!  WAS COACH TAL RIGHT ALL THESE YEARS? AM I DYING?

It turns out, urine's color comes from "urochrome," or "urobilin," which is a product that results from the breakdown of heme. Structurally, urochrome is a tetrapyrrole, meaning it has four pyrrole rings. Heme is more familiar in the word hemoglobin," the oxygen-binding protein component of red blood cells. Of course, red blood cells get a lot of use and turns over pretty quickly. Did you know that RBC's, when matured, also do not have nuclei, like other mammalian cells? This is because years of evolution have streamlined it to have one function - a very important function - to carry hemoglobin so that it can deliver oxygen to all the other cells that require it. Red blood cells do not divide - they're made in bone marrow. And they live for about 150 days.

Kidneys are there to filter out waste products that occur in all the processes that keep you alive... like the production of new and destruction of old blood components. Which includes urochrome, or the waste product of hemoglobin.

And that's why pee is yellow.

I'm going to go back to the doctor to get this all straightened out, and will keep you all in the loop!

xoxo,
the closing belle

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BLOGTOBER: Blogging every other day in October!