The ribbon came loose easily, despite how tightly it had been tied, and despite Ketran's trembling hands. The corset opened, and with a few tugs, fell away from Thallian.

"Well...?" Ketran asked after a moment, "How does it feel?"

( No answer. )

 Night eight. Little sleep. Proceeding with Experiment 342. Seems promising.

There was the ringing in the back of his head. Brief, a light stroke against his neurons. His heart leapt. Could it be him? Could he be reaching out from...wherever he was now?

Experiencing mental hallucinations, he scribbled down. The scritching of the pencil on his lab notebook and the flicker of the fire lighting the room were the only audible sounds. My kizier is dead and cannot speak to me.

He paused after writing that, meaning only to think it. The words stared back into him, and he threw down his pencil and rubbed at his eyes.

"I shouldn't be doing this now," he muttered to himself.

Ketran had managed to acquire a piece of Thallian's sister's hair, along with saliva from a drinking cup leftover from a seemingly innocent lunch meeting. The DNA it yielded gave him hope. If Thallian's mother and father had still been alive, he would have been able to get a complete genetic profile.

No matter. He would work with what he had.

He had sought out people with similar physical traits to Thallian. Acquired DNA from them through... well. Whatever means necessary.

He was so close, now. Piece by piece he worked to reconstruct Thallian's genetic profile. Nothing had remained after the fire... no, Thallian knew Ketran would try something like this, and wanted to make sure no part of him remained.

Ketran didn't care for Thallian's protest at his "necromancy". If Thallian didn't care enough for him to keep himself alive, then why should Ketran care how Thallian felt about being brought back?

He took a deep breath, and began to focus.

Several hours later, he held the dish in his hands. Had he done it? Would the altered fertilized egg take to the uterus he was paying Mariark to magically keep alive?

Ketran chewed on his bottom lip as he transferred the egg.

"Come back to me, Thallian," he whispered.

The gods had seen fit to burden Thallian with more than he could take. If they couldn't do their job properly, Ketran reasoned, then he would have to do it for them.

You Are A: Neutral Good Human Ranger/Wizard (2nd/2nd Level)



Ability Scores:
Strength- 8
Dexterity- 15
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 18
Wisdom- 12
Charisma- 11

Alignment:
Neutral Good- A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment when it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:
Rangers- Rangers are skilled stalkers and hunters who make their home in the woods. Their martial skill is nearly the equal of the fighter, but they lack the latter's dedication to the craft of fighting. Instead, the ranger focuses his skills and training on a specific enemy a type of creature he bears a vengeful grudge against and hunts above all others. Rangers often accept the role of protector, aiding those who live in or travel through the woods. His skills allow him to move quietly and stick to the shadows, especially in natural settings, and he also has special knowledge of certain types of creatures. Finally, an experienced ranger has such a tie to nature that he can actually draw on natural power to cast divine spells, much as a druid does, and like a druid he is often accompanied by animal companions. A ranger's Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that he can cast.

Secondary Class:
Wizards- Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

And I hope you guys get really excited about it with me, because I'm pretty excited.

So I mentioned in an earlier post that I was a video game developer. And I am! I've been working on getting Fata Morgana going for a bit now, and I finally have a few things to show for it!

The Official Fata Morgana Website!

It's going to be documenting our video game development process as well as maybe including some video game reviews, and general gaming goodness. It's still under construction, but it's getting there. If you have suggestions, lemme know. There's a wiki that's up and going to be updated as we get more character art together, as well as a soundtrack in progress! Feel free to follow it and leave comments with your ideas. :)

Fata Morgana Studios Twitter!

Our twitter account, which also documents some med school stuff and whatever is going on with me at the moment. XD

So what is Fata Morgana about, anyway? It's a cross between Harvest Moon, Pokemon, and a Final Fantasy game with a psychological horror twist to it. Your character is a monster breeder for the small village of Allendale, which is perched on the border between the warring nations of Kethera and Tyrugia. The Tyrugens have declared a Crusade by order of their four gods on the people of Kethera for being Transcendentalists, and therefore not having a god but more a philosophy. Your character breeds monsters for the soldiers for the war effort, and ventures out into the wilds to tame new monsters and create new breeding pairs. Your character begins to see things, small at first, until you begin to see actual dark beings manifesting in the woods, in town, even on your ranch. Not to mention the dark shadows on the horizon, and the cracks forming in your house.... Why are you, and no one else, seeing these things? What are they, anyway? Are you just crazy? You'll see when the game comes out! XD

Among other things, one of the important aspects of the game is the ability to build up a relationship with one or more of the many townsfolk and start a family if you so desire. Yes, you read that right, polyamory will be an option, as some characters are polyamorous, some are bisexual, gay, straight, transgender, or asexual. You can play your character however you like, of course! With polyamorous families, if there is a male and female component to the group, then biological children will be an option. For gay couples, or couples that cannot have children (a trans male and a female, for example), then adoption is always an option as there are plenty of orphans from the war. :) I've tried to make the game racially diverse as well, as Allendale is ruled by a POC, and there are many POCs in the town as both NPCs and romanceable partners. If I'm forgetting anything or being dense about an issue, feel free to point it out. I want this to be a game where everyone feels welcome to play, and no one feels left out. I want the game to be fun, with a good story to drive it, and enjoyable mechanics that provide a challenge but aren't grindy either. It'll be a tough balance to pull off, but with help from you guys I'm sure I can do it! Any input is ALWAYS welcome.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to, in addition to studying for med school (darn med school, getting in the way!) My internal medicine rotation is almost over! I've enjoyed it, except for the hours and the being on call every fourth day. I'm on call tomorrow, and 28 hour shifts are just...not enjoyable. Ever.

This is entirely whitemage and finch's fault.


( Image under here--Iscariot takes a trip to the beach )

I have my first round of class tests coming up at the end of this month. I've been studying pretty heavily for my giant Step 1 Medical Licensing exam in June, which will be eight hours long and cover the first two years of medical school. x_x The class tests have kind of snuck up on me, so I'm having a mini panic attack and trying to refit my schedule so that I can switch back over to studying for class while still keeping up with my strict Step 1 study schedule.

Exams include a reproductive biology final, and my third pathology, pharmacology, and fundamentals of clinical medicine/problem-based learning tests. We'll see how those go. I'm most worried about pharmacology. That class has been cleaning the floor with me all year. I still have a chance of passing, but it's a slim one. I'm not sure what happens if I don't pass. I may have to retake second year over again, which...while that would be pretty terrible, at least the second year of medical school is better than first year was. If that's what it takes for me to become a doctor, well, there you go.

Tomorrow is my OSCE exam, which consists of taking on four patients with various complaints, taking a full history from them and then proceeding to do a focused physical exam based on what their complaints are, i.e. an abdominal exam for someone with stomach pain, a neurological exam for someone with headaches, etc. I'm pretty nervous, but I'm always nervous when it comes to practical tests where I'm seeing patients. We only have 25 minutes per patient, and from what I've heard from students that have taken it prior to me, time can run out pretty easily on the headache patient. Here's hoping I can stay focused and not forget any important parts of the physical exam or history.

Other than studying I haven't been up to much. x_x It's literally pretty much all I do these days. I'm still slowly working on my journal article for my neuroscience professor. That will be ready for publishing soon, which is exciting. Once it's published I'll feel like I've really earned a white coat for science, even if my medical school one will take me another two (three?) years. My professor tells me that I put out PhD level work, though, and that I'm far ahead of the other medical students that he has working for him, which strokes my ego pretty nicely. It also reassures me that if medical school doesn't work out, I do have a pretty strong chance of doing well in graduate school in the pursuit of a PhD. I've always sort of planned on taking my MD into the research realm anyhow, so this paper I'm working on is a foot in the door regardless of what career I eventually end up with.

My novel is currently on hold, especially with exams looming. I'd still like to get into the habit of drawing something daily, even if it's just rough pose practice. I've been mentally planning out the next comic page, so maybe I'll have that for you guys sometime.

For now, though, it's back to the books for me.

At 2:30am last night -- "It was late, and she wondered if they'd come back again. Her eyes were drifting shut, but somewhere on the streets of New Orleans they prowled the night, wide-eyed, hunting for memories to lose the next morning."

My parents, sister, and I drove out to New Orleans for the weekend for a wedding. It was a long drive, nearly eight hours instead of six thanks to being constantly assaulted with road construction. We threw our things in the hotel, then quickly visited the family of the friend getting married before finding something to eat. I love the city, but not the seafood so much. Cajun spices are a little too hot for me, but the French influences suit me just fine.

As you might have gathered from the little snippet I wrote above, the family went out to Bourbon Street to bar hop. I stayed at the hotel since it's really not my thing. I will never understand drinking for the explicit purpose of getting drunk, nor do I understand the appeal of a bar. If you're with friends, it's usually too loud to have a decent conversation. I'd prefer a piano bar or a jazz lounge. It's New Orleans. There have to be some awesome jazz lounges somewhere.

I'd much rather see New Orleans during the daytime. There's such an amazing historical and cultural allure to the city. If I am to see New Orleans at night, I'd prefer to just walk the streets and take in the architecture. It's not that I dislike being out at night. I'm far more of a night person, and I think cities are gorgeous at night. Just not when drunk.

It's raining, though, and everyone is sleeping off their hangovers this afternoon, so it seems that sightseeing isn't going to happen. I should probably study since I skipped class on Friday and have four hours of class to catch up on.

Only five days of class left, and I'll be finished with my first year of medical school. Well, not after two and a half weeks of marathon testing. Still, no new knowledge after next Friday. I'm not sure I'll know what to do with myself after the 16th of May, when studying suddenly isn't compulsory...

So today I deleted my ancient high school blog. I hadn't posted over there since September 2005, which is about when I switched over to LJ. While I downloaded the blog before deleting it, I had considered just letting all of that data disappear. I don't think high school me would recognize me now, and that's a good thing. Stagnation is something that really bothers me, and I hope that in several years when I look back I will have grown just as much. I don't like high school me much, but I am pretty fond of how I am now. Hopefully I can look back on myself fondly in the future.

Ultimately I didn't delete the blog because I can't exactly delete how I was (though I can hide her in dropbox), and overall I wouldn't want to. Even if it is a bit embarrassing. Without that foundation, I couldn't be who I am now. I've come a long way from a rather close-minded, judgmental fundamentalist to someone that still suffers from foot-in-mouth syndrome from time to time but tries to check her privilege, accept people for who they are, and stand up for people who can't.

I was raised in an exceptionally racist, homophobic, anti-feminist rural Texan household, (okay, maybe not that exceptional given the area) and I still suffer from some of the latent biases it has left in me. Whenever I catch hold of one, I attempt to exorcise it and move on. I really enjoy going home to the ranch and seeing my parents, and if we can keep away from those particular topics, all is well. The upcoming election has made it much harder, and I usually get into arguments with them at some point. Neither of us will budge on our viewpoint, so it usually winds up with awkward silence and anger on my end.

I still go home, though, because it's better than sitting alone in Houston. I have met a few people, but haven't befriended anyone in medical school. I feel that apart from our common struggle to cram ALL the knowledge into our heads, I don't have much else to connect with them with. It's too bad because I know there are a lot of geeks and nerds in the class, but med school has taken over their lives, and a lot of the interests we may share have been replaced or put on the back burner. Besides that, I still want to be a Catholic priest as opposed to a clinician, so there's a pretty large gap in the base enthusiasm for medical school between me and the average student.

For those curious, I'm doing much better in medical school this semester. After the withdrawal effects of my meds wore off, a lot of my energy came back. I still have a lot of fatigue, but it's not as much as before, and I honestly think it's just depression-related. In other words, it's the sort I'm used to and know how to combat 7 times out of 10. I've been much more inclined to draw and write, and I had missed having creativity come naturally instead of having to force it out of guilt.

That's about it. This blog post has been brought to you by the deletion of another blog, as well as the sneaking suspicion that the ability to express myself outside of creative writing was disappearing entirely. (Articulation and written eloquence comes with practice, and my update record speaks poorly of me. >_>)

I've been looking back on 2011 and thinking about how unstable it was for me. I had no idea where I would be at the end of the year, or what I would be doing. I was still an undergraduate with my boyfriend in our apartment at the beginning of the year. We broke up pretty early on--it was evident we were better off as friends, and living together was not awkward afterward.

I remember graduation, and how I cried because I knew dad was not proud of my accomplishments there. I made arrangements to go to Canada and work for a year while I fixed up some plan for myself. One email signaling that I'd been accepted to med school changed everything, and I found myself in Houston.

Houston was more or less as foreign to me as Austin had been when I first arrived. The Houston zoo is literally right beside my medical school, and I haven't been there yet. The metrorail train system takes me to school and back home. It took me a while to break out of my apartment cave to ride the train downtown to the cathedral for mass. If you haven't guessed yet, medical school is really time consuming. I shouldn't have been surprised; it's not advertised as anything other than that. It's certainly much harder than undergrad, but again that's not a surprise.

What was a surprise to me was how much my antidepressants were holding me back. I never wanted to correlate the intense fatigue I started feeling late 2008 with the fact that I had started taking an SSRI. The antidepressants WORKED. For once, I could talk in front of a class and not worry about having a nervous breakdown. Social interaction didn't bother me as much. My rage/suicidal episodes were practically eliminated.

They relaxed me. I loved it. I started sleeping more. A lot more. It was pointed out to me as 2009 went on how much I napped. By the time fall 2009 came on, I was sleeping in class (something I had never done before except on a very rare occasion). By the time 2010 was getting over with, I was sleeping through classes in my dorm on a pretty regular basis. I also noticed that my concentration and memory were dulled. I didn't pick things up like I did earlier in college. I could skim something unfamiliar once or twice and have it--I think I got a 98% or something in genetics because of that. Instead, I found myself reading the same paragraph five times, then having to stop and wonder what subject I was working on. (Interestingly, 44% of people on Effexor report amnesia as a symptom. Memory was definitely an issue for me.)

But I could still manage. Sure, my grades fell, and it bothered me. I went from straight A's in subjects like organic chemistry, calculus III, and physics (and more, all in the same semester) to C's and B's the following semester. I was still making it, despite sleeping 18 hours a day; despite sometimes only waking up to eat, and then going back to sleep for a day or two.

Yeah, that schedule somehow worked in undergrad. Not so much in med school.

I was reluctant to blame my antidepressants because I was too afraid of my chemical imbalance on its own, and too afraid that nothing could contain it like my current SSRIs did. But in the middle of this semester at medical school, I realized that I had to do something.

I couldn't change meds in the middle of the semester. Not when the result is more or less unpredictable. So I fought my fatigue until this Christmas break, and then went to the doctor to make a change. I have to say...it was a good call on my part to wait to switch meds.

When I read a book containing heroin/substance-of-your-choice addicts going through withdrawal, I had little pity for them. I couldn't really sympathize with them, because I had no idea what they were going through. It is difficult for me to describe Effexor withdrawal to anyone that has not gone through something like that. I had stepped the doses down, and eventually wasn't taking any. I was also taking my new meds, and hoping that they would sort of pick up for the Effexor. God, was I wrong.

First are the "brain zaps" you will hear people going through this complain of. It literally feels like your neurons have disconnected from one another, curled up into the fetal position in the darkness of your tissues, and started firing completely at random. It actually does feel like little painless zaps of electricity running up your arm, or neck, or in your head.
While that is going on in the background, the migraines come. They are constant fading in and out if you so much as dare to look at anything but the back of your eyelids. And if you can handle the headache and look, then be prepared for the nausea. Those two are generally paired, and pretty common. Once they get going, only sleep will banish them.

Once you lie down in a quiet, dark place, the anxiety hits. Literally ANYTHING your brain can come up with to freak you out with, it will. Every hideously depressing scenario, every existential, philosophical worry will be projected into your head. But eventually even terribleness gets repetitive, and you somehow fall asleep.

Nightmares are common with people going through Effexor withdrawal, and are a risk for anyone when dealing with SSRIs in general. It's not really surprising, given the mental environment you were in just before falling asleep. You just get to live them now, rather than think about your fears.

And when you wake up, the cycle begins again about ten minutes after you're out of bed attempting to get SOMETHING done that day. I was extremely tempted to get back on the Effexor just to make the withdrawal go away. I used my ten minutes of non-migraine time to research the withdrawal, and found that it is usually treated with a few doses of Prozac. Prozac apparently has a similar enough mechanism to Effexor that the body will be happy enough with that and stop freaking out. Unlike Effexor, Prozac has a very long half-life and drops out of your system over the course of a few weeks--meaning little to no withdrawal.

Lucky me, my mom happens to take it. I asked her permission, and took one. The next day I was perfectly fine. Well, not perfectly. I've caught my dad's head cold; however, it should say something that even with the head cold I feel about a hundred times better than I did during withdrawal. I mentioned to the doctor that I had done this, and they seemed to think it was a fine idea. (It's funny how much more they listen to your opinion when you're in medical school. I have noticed this when discussing things with my vet as well.)

Speaking of which, I am still cringing at my grades from this first semester of med school. But, despite the hellish withdrawal period, I don't have the fatigue I did! Maybe, just maybe, I can get back to my all-A (or high B?) self.

Is it weird that I've considered going into psychiatry? I mean, on one hand maybe it would be encouraging for one neuroatypical person to see another neuroatypical person being successful at both controlling their problem and in the working world? On the other hand, I do have bad days (just like neurotypical psychiatrists have bad days, I'm sure), and I'd feel weirdly hypocritical. Just like I would never go into dermatology; I have a terrible complexion.

Before I start worrying about any of that, I need to get through 2012. At the least, it's starting off quite differently than 2011.

So on the 16th of June I was blown away by a completely unexpected email from the University of Texas Medical School in Houston saying they had an open spot in the 2011 entering class and it was mine. I could not sleep for days for a number of reasons. These included:

a) Being in shock.

b) Already having bought tickets to Canada and made living/work arrangements to a certain extent

c) Wanting a year off from academia

d) Wanting a year to be able to come home from work and have my own time

e) Wanting to chill with talon_serena

f) WTF I don't even

I'm not complaining about getting into medical school. 3000-4000 apply to a given school, 700-1000 get interviews, and then 200 get in. The odds aren't great, and it's an honor to have made it. I am a little disappointed with the timing. I was sure I wouldn't get in, and had essentially put it out of my mind. I was waitlisted...but I was certain I was far enough down the wait list and the odds were not in my favor. I made plans to move to Canada on August 1st, work a year, then go to graduate school. That has completely changed.

"But why has that changed? I thought you didn't want to be a doctor," you may reply. Good point, you. I pondered medical school vs graduate school for a while, and decided to accept the offer to medical school. I have a number of reasons for doing this.

a) UT Houston is an awesome med school in a great location. I do not know if I will be so lucky as to get into an awesome graduate school.

b) I can do a ton of things with an MD...including teaching and research, which is what I would have wanted to do with a PhD. I still may in fact get a PhD later. Who knows?

c) I feel better having something certain and stable in my lap rather than putting off the inevitable of choosing a career/life direction.

So there you go. I've been running around getting paperwork in order, finding housing in Houston, and all that jazz for the past while. Now, I am going to go make myself a drink.

Oh, but first, I jumped on the tumblrboat, and the first post consists of kitties. Audra, my now full grown shelter kitten that hates it when I study, Marilyn, named after Marilyn Monroe because of the beauty mark on her face, and Joey, the malnourished kitten my little sister found outside of her apartment the night before last being attacked by a dog. Joey was so weak when she brought him over the next morning he wouldn't eat, save from a dropper. Now he's much more energetic and eating kitten chow he's supposed to. I'm sure he'll grow from a homely kitten into a beautiful swan cat.