It was highly anti-climactic.I went in, laid down on a hospital bed, nearly fell asleep while they were doing the prep work, and then once the drugs hit, I was out cold for the entire procedure. They apparently zapped a couple of polyps, and that was it. Now I’m home. Still feeling wobbly and woozy, and making typos all over the place, so I should stop here.

I get to go back through it in a few years, but yeah, not such a big deal. It kind of disrupted a day, but +1, will let a doctor stuff things up my butt again.

Four tiny little pills.

That’s bisacodyl, trade name Dulcolax. I just took them. My colonoscopy prep begins…NOW.

I’m also on a 24 hour fast, which shouldn’t be intolerable, since I’ve got padding to spare. Then this afternoon I’m supposed to guzzle down an awful lot of this stuff called NuLYTELY, which is basically just polyethylene glycol + salt, which doesn’t sound good.

I optimistically think I’ll be able to finish up my grading while doing all of this. Right? No problem? Reassure me!

Then bright and early tomorrow morning I get some good drugs, an anal probe, and a surprise. Will it be a good surprise, like a new kitchen set and an all-expenses paid vacation for two in Cabo? Or will it be a goat? It’s like “Let’s Make A Deal” in my colon!

This is a phenomenal deconstruction of the incoherence of Jordan Peterson — I do wonder if some of her sarcasm is going to sail right over the heads of the people she’s criticizing, though. This thing is full of post-modern neo-Marxist dogwhistles (oops, I just did it, too.)

Also, even though she strongly criticizes academia, I know very few people who are as entertainingly soaking in academic culture as ContraPoints. A lot of what makes her so informative is the constructive tension in her arguments.

Good morning! I know you all love to wake up to stories about exotic sexual fetishes, so here you go.

The idea is to replicate the act of being impregnated with eggs. Usually from an alien or insect. If you’ve seen the Aliens movies, you’ll get the picture. Many people find this sort of thing very arousing. The toys are simply phallic-shaped hollow tubes that can be used to insert gelatin eggs into oneself. There is a funnel-shaped hole in the bottom to receive the eggs, which are inserted one by one, forcing them up the tube and out the top.

There’s a video so you can see how it works.

OK, being injected with parasites isn’t one of my turn-ons, but hey, if that’s your thing, now you know where to go.

However, I’m concerned by the maker’s cavalier attitude towards infection.

We are not doctors, and we’re not about to comment on what is safe or unsafe to do to one’s body as it varies from person to person. I can say that I have used them many times without hurting myself, but frankly it is up to the person using it to know their own limits. For instance, if you are allergic to gelatin. If made properly, the eggs are firm, but rubbery, similar to the consistency of gummy bears. They dissolve with body heat rather quickly.

I have made gelatin plates many, many times, and while they’re nice and cushiony for embryos, they are also pure protein and a delicious medium for growing bacteria and fungi. Mmmm, carbon and nitrogen in an easily digestible form. Talk to a microbiologist — there ought to be serious concerns about the sterility of that lovely growth medium you’re stuffing up your whereevers.

We tend not to talk about this stuff: when we tell our undergraduates about graduate school, it’s all about getting to hang out with smart people all the time and doing science in a lab and constantly learning new things. We avoid talking about the grind, the fluctuating amounts of pressure, the unsupportive pricks who run some labs, and the fact that the whole enterprise is an engine for depression. You’re working on tiny, tightly focused problems in ways that no one has tried before; you’re going to fail and fail and fail, and only occasionally see a flicker of cheerful sunlight. It can be tough.

One scientist writes about the black dog of depression that haunted him throughout grad school.

The days merged into weeks; the failures continued. My supervisor called me to his office. He was unimpressed. I needed to do better, work harder, get it right. Walking back to my bench that day, a black dog walked with me. When exactly it had arrived I can’t say. I was 21. My ramshackle mental defences had been crumbling for a while. I’ll never know what tore the breach. It may have been an admonishment from a lab technician or just one more cloudy culture bottle. Whatever had splintered the final defence, depression was my new master.

It is amazing how we can maintain a facade of normality while behind it a maelstrom of disintegrating sanity roars. By Christmas, I was thinner and quieter, but still me. Time with family and fiancée kept the black dog subdued. It waited.

Instead of seeking help, I counted down the remaining days of holiday like a condemned man. Sometimes you can see deep depression coming for you, slamming doors of escape, tightening the orbits of desperation. Deciding I would kill myself was a relief. I wrongly felt that it was the only door left open. One place the black dog could not follow.

He didn’t kill himself, obviously. And he later found support from other people and clawed himself out of the pit.

But still, when I think back…I am not prone to depression, myself. This is not to say that I don’t experience stress or self-doubt, but that somehow I’m emotionally rather unperturbable (which isn’t always a good thing), and I don’t spiral into that bleakness I see in others experiencing depression. I’m lucky that way.

I can see how the circumstances of grad school can do terrible harm, though. I spent a lot of time alone, slicing away at a microtome or sitting in a dark room feeding copper grids into an electron microscope. There was one faculty member who literally hated me, who would hiss at me in the hallways and once hauled me into his office on a whim so he could tell me to get out of science, that it was his personal goal to destroy any career I might have and prevent my graduation. Less coarse-souled people than I might have been wrecked by that.

Fortunately, I was in one of the good labs — you know, the ones with a helpful advisor and a team of supportive grad students and post-docs, which also helped immensely. Still, I worried when my daughter went off to grad school. It felt a little bit like watching her leap into the maw of a wood chipper, although it’s one where some survive unscathed, others gather scars, and others get ground down to a pulp.

Not to discourage anyone, but you should be aware of this problem.