Some of them want to abuse you...

This poor girl, doesn't realize she's in a dysfunctional relationship until it's too late - too naive, too innocent, too ready to love. She assumes that people are as forthright as she is, she's completely clueless about what happens "behind the scenes", who works behind the curtain. Sheltered by her family, even into adulthood, she has an idealized vision of how a loving relationship works - compromise is, of course, key. So is commitment, since our culture and religion teach us that flitting from one partner to another makes a woman dishonorable - stand by your man, even as he becomes more and more abusive. All that's needed now is a loser to take advantage of her trust. A lamb to the slaughter.

He never seems like a loser though. That's the problem. He's a caring guy, has similar values, seems just like the kind you'd bring home to mom. And once he's met your mom, he knows that you've committed yourself to him, he begins to change. The care evolves, from calling to check that you made it home safely, to calling every couple of hours, just to check on you. Eventually, he's wants to know where you are, what you're doing, who you're with...every second...of every day. And you put up with it. Because it's just a sign that he cares. He doesn't want anything bad to happen while you're apart. He doesn't even trust your own family to look after you the way he can.

By this time, your loved ones know that something's not quite right. They ask you to think seriously about the relationship. They do care, of course, but you've made a commitment, one you won't break, can't break - if you leave him, he will haunt you for the rest of your lonely years. Who else would want you now? Besides, he not controlling, he's caring. And once he hears of the doubts they placed in your mind (of course he'll hear about them, lovers can't have secrets from each other, can they?), he'll question your commitment everyday - you will be tested, striving to prove that your love is worthy of his. And by now, you believe you need his love, that no one can care for you the way he does. Because he's driven away every other person in your life.

So when he yells, you let it go. He just needs to let it out. Better to have him upset for a little while than not to have him at all. You become passive when he's angry, but that only makes the situation worse. Obviously, you don't care about him, otherwise his anger would have more of an effect on you, you'd have a fire in your belly, you'd fight to be with him. So each time, his temper worsens, until, pushed to the edge, you finally respond. Then he's hurt, perhaps even shedding tears. If you don't comfort him for the pain you've caused, you don't love him enough. And you resolve to keep your cool next time. Because relationships are about compromise.

Already, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, but you don't see that. You don't know that you'll never be able to love him enough. Besides...who else would want you now?

Some things never change...

Crappy.freaking.doo.!!!

I had an assignment due at midnight that I thought I did properly. When I went to submit it at 11:55 pm, I had my three parts done and ready. It's supposed to be four parts. Argh!

Then I spoke with my brother. At 11:55 pm he was mailing off his federal taxes and wondering why everyone else at the post office had two envelopes while he only had one. He forgot his state taxes until I mentioned them to him just now. Luckily, he'd also forgotten that he filed for an extension on April 14th. Ahem...LOL

Sigh. Procrastination and flakiness. They run in the family. :p

These are my confessions...

I've had my profile on a Muslim matrimonial site for several months, complete with info about me, what I'm looking for, and my picture. Desperate, I know, but whaddaya gonna do? I checked my profile today and got an invitation to chat with a male member. All well and good, but this is the champ's profile message:

hi, iam32 yearsold live in canada , i like to meet nice lady for make smoll family.

Lucky me. Sigh.

I. hate. internal. medicine. sub-i.

Either one of the following two things will happen soon:

My medical team will be rearranged so that it doesn't feel like a ship adrift at sea without a captain,

or

I will be found in a corner of the hospital, in the fetal position, rocking back and forth, crying and sucking my thumb.

The only reason I'm not crying now is that I had a funny thought on the way home. Instead of too many chiefs and not enough indians, my team has too many indians and not enough chiefs... :p



I was also told earlier in the day by someone I generally like and respect that I'm making a bad choice by going into surgery because:

a) I'm getting old;
b) a surgical career will not allow me to fulfill my Islamic role as a woman.

I also need to give in to the "desi rishta system", otherwise I'll never have a fulfilling life. Blergh.

More of my romantic sufferings

The undergrad I went to had very few desi/Muslim kids, so we all knew each other. But, there were still enough of us that there was a normal group (three guys and me) and an outcast group (socially-awkward-guy). Anyway, our little MSA would put on events from time to time, and we actually managed to snag a few big names (John Esposito, Ingrid Mattson, Imam Zaid) in the time I was there.

A couple years into college, it had become painfully obviously that socially-awkward-guy was interested in me. Now, this was no ordinary nerd. He wore bowties and blazers to class, had a briefcase instead of a backpack, and carried a pager so his mom could contact him at all times. Of course, as the victim of his attentions, I was teased to no end by my friends. :p  But I was too nice (and too embarrassed) to say anything to him.

We had scheduled an event, but our budget didn't allow for a halal, catered meal; so my parents agreed to donate the food, and my mother did all the cooking. While setting up the food, she immediately recognized socially-awkward-guy as the person I had complained about to her many times. Now, if you know me and my family, you might be surprised to learn that I get my trouble-making streak from both my parents, not just my dad. So, amma-dearest got right to work. I spent the next couple of hours wondering why socially-awkward-guy was playing so enthusiastically with my much, much younger brothers (who looked at him like he was green and had horns coming out of his head) - and why he kept complimenting me on the tasty shaami kebabs. WTH?

After my mom 'fessed up to "encouraging" him with tales of my cooking skills (LMAO), I was even more mortified than I had been.

That week, I decided to take matters into my own hands and ask socially-awkward guy to leave me alone. It didn't go so well. I don't think that the conversation was helped by my decision to conduct it in a very public place (the middle of the line in the dining hall). Things continued to go down hill after I told him that I was uncomfortable with his behavior and couldn't deal with "the charade" any more. If I recall, his immediate response was a vehement "Astaghfirullah, sister, how could you think that?!" Our interaction became much more normal after that, so I thought that everything was ok.

No such luck, of course. He emailed my friends asking whether they thought he was interested in me. Then, he angrily confronted me when they all said yes. Because, of course, I must have planted that thought in their heads. Um, yeah. 'Cuz I'm evil like that.

Dear God, why can't you just send me a nice, cute, normal guy? Haven't I suffered enough? :`(

Shady "rishtas"

Note: Rishta = marriage proposal sent to a woman's family by the prospective groom's family.

So the topic of awkward rishtas came up recently. Here's my contribution:

Just after high school, we went on a trip to Pakistan. We spent an afternoon at some relatives' home. I was just glad to be somewhere that I could check my email, but I was polite and made small talk.

Fast forward a few months. I'm at college and I get an email from their son asking if I would mind emailing with him because he was trying to improve his written English. Well (doh!), I agreed. We chatted back and forth for a while; then, out of the blue, I got an email declaration of "love". Shocked, I told him off and told him that I wanted nothing more to do with him if he was going to behave in this manner. Then, a couple weeks later, I got another email telling me that because of the shock of my rejection, he had fallen ill and had spent the whole time since then lying in bed, unable to eat. This overly-dramatic back and forth went on for a bit, and I eventually stopped responding.

Psycho-boy then started sending me an email every ten minutes. The first couple I read, and they were just one liners, so I deleted the rest. Finally, I got an email with the subject line "why are you deleting my emails without reading them?". Keep in mind, this guy's career specialty was internet security. Gah!

Anyway, eventually, he stopped.

Then a few months later, my dad got mad at me out of the blue. I asked my mom why, and she said "well, you should have been more open if you were interested in so-and-so". Huh?

I told her the truth about what had happened. It turns out, his dad had called my dad to express interest. My dad said that we weren't interested, and so the guy's dad said something along the lines of "well, your daughter disagrees with you, she was the one pursuing my son". WTH?!

Alas, the truth prevailed. My dad called to tell them off and hasn't spoken with their family since. :p

Anxiety (attacks)

I don't know if many other people have this experience, but whenever an important event in my life is looming, I tend to dream about it. But these aren't normal dreams. They're weird.

Just a few, for your viewing pleasure.

1. In the weeks before I took the MCAT, I had a recurring dream/nightmare. In the dream, I would wake up suddenly, check the time, and find that I had ten minutes to reach the test center before the exam started (which was 20 minutes away). On top of that, I couldn't find any form of ID, which is a requirement before they'll even let you in the room. Needless to say, I made sure everything was in order the night before the actual exam.


2. I was very scared about my first histology exam - so many structures to remember, and this exam included microscope identification too. Eeek! A couple of days before the test, I was exhausted, so I decided to take a nap on the couch. I was woken up by my friend who found me sleeptalking. I had started dreaming about a particular type of cell in which the mitochondria settle at the bottom of cells. In my dream, the mitochondria refused to stay where they were supposed to, and I had become quite vocal in my concern about this state of affairs.


3. Last year, I had this dream:

On match day, I opened my envelope and found that I was accepted into my top choice of residency program. I was all excited, telling my friends, really happy, and so on; but then I woke up with my heart pounding because I realized that I hadn't actually signed up to participate in the match and it was too late to sign up now - I hadn't matched anywhere! I started to freak out.

Then I woke up for real (yes, it was a dream within a dream :p), heart pounding, about to freak out again, when I realized that I couldn't sign up for the match because they weren't accepting applications yet.