Studying the brain is frying mine

There is this strange phenomena I have noticed when I have been studying for a long time. (Like today, when I studied neuroscience for several long hours. Which by the way, is an interesting paradox in itself: using the brain to study the brain. It’s like the dictionary definition of ‘dictionary’ or describing popsicles as tasting like popsicles.)
Anyway, back to phenomena. It seems that the longer I study, the crazier I get.
There have been moments in my past when around final exam time I crashed and burned and did things like ate my earplugs, jumped naked into the pond at the entrance of the university, lit several things on fire, got very very intoxicated, etc.
But recently, since I haven’t had a discreet beginning and ending to my semesters (I pretty much have to study all the time), the craziness gets spread out. Kind of like amortizing a mortgage over several years instead of trying to pay it off all at once. It sounds like the collective result of this would make me appear less crazy, but this week, since I have been in medical school for 11.5 straight months AND final exams are approaching in a few days, the episodes of craziness are becoming more frequent.
My family can testify. They will tell you, if you ask, that I have verbal diarrhea right now and frequently spazz out over little things. For example, while trying to explain to them at dinnertime an interesting concept about the brain, I was told to ‘hush up’, which only made me talk faster and louder.
I noticed the neurotic tendencies beginning to arise a few days ago. I decided to run away. I found a little bag and instead of studying, I spent about an hour filling little bottles full of shampoo and rolling my clothes so they would all pack in. I packed teabags, a screw driver set (just in case), some granola bars, a bible, a thin blanket, and a flashlight. I packed the bag and set it in a corner of my room and planned the note I was going to leave for my family. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be back on Sunday.
The only problem was, I wasn’t sure where to go. I didn’t have enough money to get a plane ticket. I was going to drive to Kelowna and show up at the McGoran’s, but then I thought, that’s probably the first place my parents would call looking for me. Maybe I should just drive as far as I could and sleep on the side of the road, huddled under my thin blanket and making tea and unscrewing things with my screwdriver set.
The phone rang this morning and it was a friend asking if I could pick her up at the ferry on Friday. I said yes without thinking, and then after I got off the phone I suddenly remembered that I was going to run away, and now I couldn’t, darn it, cause I had to go to the ferry.
After I studied for way too long today I went to the bank and then went to the maternity store across the street and walked in with my stomach sticking out. I stroked it as I looked at the clothes, as pregnant mothers always do, and gave a knowing smile to the cashier. Will this make me look fat? I asked, holding up a shirt. Honey, you’re allowed to look fat, you’re pregnant.
I contemplated neurological defects of fetuses whose mothers do drugs, while I tried on maternity tops and smiled at the very pregnant woman next to me. I bet she wondered what I was doing in there. I sort of did too. But I spent most of my paycheck on maternity clothes anyway.
The other night at 2 in the morning I had a sudden urge to sew. I sewed a dress on my mom’s machine and then crashed into bed. I don’t know what possessed me, but the next night, the same thing. I sewed a skirt. The next night at 3 I was up mending clothes. When I finally get to bed I lie there still, feeling my heart beat in my chest and the blood pulsing up my neck to my brain. When I hear the whine of mosquitoes I reach up to the light and turn it on and then lie there. Sound is interesting and confusing. A mosquito will often sound as if she is to your right or left (it’s the female mosquitoes that bite) but actually she is right above your head. If you’re trying to place the sound of the mosquito, look directly up and then listen. It has to do with the way sound waves from above you reach your ears. Anyway, I kill several mosquitoes. Then I lie back in bed and look at the black splotches they have left on the walls. When I am tired of that I turn off the light.
At any rate, it is already late and although I haven’t finished telling you my thoughts about craziness and neurological dysfunction, I do have some things I want to sew tonight. I am going to study neuroscience a bit more (please pray for that exam! It is on Tuesday morning, and I think it would be highly ironic if, while studying for an exam on the brain, I lost my mind) and then I am going to sew and then I am going to bed. But not until I’ve brushed my teeth. Maybe twice. My toothpaste is really good.