Ideas

Well here we are again. I’ve been thinking of what to write about, so I just decided to write about what’s been on my mind, which is mostly related to what I’ve been reading lately.

Obviously, my summer reading list consists of old philosophy textbooks and expository works on topics such as consciousness and ‘the mind body problem’, so I really only have philosophical issues on my mind. So naturally, I was recently reading an excerpt from a textbook from a class I never ended up taking (long story), but there were two articles (one about Edwin Abbot’s Flatlands and one about Zeno’s paradox of motion) that were just fascinating to me. Don’t I sound pretentious??

I’m not going to focus on the specifics; if you’d like by all means check them out and I’d love to talk about them, since I’m sure my understanding of the ideas are pretty elementary. But that’s the point- I love the ideas.

Ideas are things that really can’t be destroyed and just continue to grow (yeah that’s probably me unintentionally quoting Inception- interesting movie btw). They fester in our minds and often take over a great deal of our time as we contemplate and try and understand and focus our efforts on mental activity.  My point I guess is that these ideas sometimes take me away from the real world, from all the shit I deal with and allow me to live in a world of pure cognition, in a world where I can focus on something that is wholly the idea itself, and not have to worry about cancer and dying and all the other shit that goes on in the world. But on the other hand, these ideas are so important because they do relate to the world we live in. We don’t live in a vacuum where all that exists are our mental processes and our interaction with great ideas (or do we…..). I like to think there is some relation between ideas and the world. And that itself is a complicated idea.

I’m not positive where I’m going with this one, I just wanted to say that I love the idea of ‘ideas’ and thinking about things that make me explore my mind and the world deeper than I ever have before. So I just wanted to share some of what I like to do in my boring free time as opposed to you all speculating that I engage in more exciting activities. I’d rather serve you the lame truth.

Well if you have any favorites ideas, philosophical problems of your own, things you want to discuss, feel free to comment. If you’d like to spend a post or two exploring different specific ideas, I’m down with that as well. Just let me know via comment.

Toodl’oo for now!

New Iphone!

Allright guys, I recently purchased a new iphone, and need suggestions as to which apps to download and how to use it. Any tips would be helpful.
Any suggestions for good movies to download are welcome as well.

In terms of me, I had a very bad day last week, still recovering and hoping to bounce back. Planning a few trips in the near future to have some fun over the summer so keep in touch for now to see when any one of us can see each other. That’s all for now. But I’ve been reading alot more, so I feel some important ideas and questions a’brewin. So y’all better hold on..
That’s it for now, I’m out

Fourth of July Ramblings

Wow, another Fourth of July.

People keep asking me ‘what I’m up to’ for the day. I don’t ever really remember doing anything special except going to bbq’s, which I guess is what I’m doing today. But I think in our community, nobody throws huge Fourth of July bashes…or maybe I’m wrong.

Over the past few days I’ve been dealing with my depression as best I can. Things that help: useless expensive electronic toys, concerts, amusement parks. Basically anything unnecessary that will likely give me instant gratification. Sounds selfish, but really, trying to keep my priorities focused on things that are beneficial in the long run seems  a bit foolish in my position. If not foolish, than perhaps useless.

These are my constant ramblings that go through my mind, so I felt like sharing them. They are not at all important or even interesting, but you guys get a first class glance into the boring mind of Gilad. Feel free to comment with fun Fourth of July stories!

Happy anniversary America!

Depression

Well it’s been awhile, but I’m back. The rest of our trip was great, but it was also nice to be home from California to relax at home for a bit.

Sometimes I feel like when I write on this here blog I’m sort of covering up the important things with topics like music and baseball that people can easily digest. But the bottom line is that this isn’t at all easy for me, and I’d like to get that out, not necessarily for anyone reading this but for me personally.

I’m dying. There’s just nothing more to say. Sure there’s room for miracles, and last minute cures, but it really doesn’t look good. So how do I deal? I remember writing in my journal that any positive emotion of happiness or optimism or joy is tainted a bit by the knowledge of all this other shit. Death impurifies any positive emotion. I wish that the purity of life could somehow overcome in my mind and I could go about this different. And the truth is, sometimes it does; and those days I wouldn’t say I’m depressed. But the rest of the days the impurity of emotions causes depression, and I have to deal with this every day.

Every day think about what happens if I die. I can choose to ignore it and take life day by day, but that is alot more difficult than it sounds.

So this is a morose post, but hopefully there will be more happy ones as I try and enjoy my life as it has turned out. Thanks everybody for your continued support, and I hope you’ll all still continue to be there for me.

And acc. to Billy Joel I must be doing something right….

Take me Out to the Ballgame

Just how close is close?

Pitcher John Garland of the San Diego Padre’s flaming fastball just seconds ago got fouled into the backstop net, knocking over my brothers jelly beans that were resting gently on the other side. Yup, you’ve guessed it friends: Make a Wish came through again and hooked the Schwartz gang up with the best baseball seats I’ve ever had, on our current trip to San Diego.

We have four seat directly, and I mean directly behind home plate. First row! You can’t get any closer! As I jot this down in my notebook, I glance at the Toronto batters fifteen feet in front of me rallying shots into the outfield. Now watching a team lose is not a new experience; being an O’s fan, it is a tragedy I live through every day. But watching from this proximity sure is. It’s totally different ball game.

After an awesome pre-game tailgate, featuring a one use grill (yup never heard of that either), cans of Budweiser and wonderful meal thanks to my Aba Ariel and Shua, we finally headed into Petco Park. We dropped Yo, Ima Shua and Avital off at their amazing (but relatively horrible) seats in section 100 and headed through the private clubhouses, free food buffets and discount merchandise to our magnificent seats, virtual paragons of pure baseball watchability.

And here we sit at the bottom of the 2nd……

(Picture to come)

Music for Me!

Today is going to involve a little activity on your part, because let’s be honest, who doesn‘t love interactive blogging?

So I’m browsing through Urban Outfitters the other day, and surprisingly their piles of weird books is often a better collection of merchandise than their clothing. So I stumbled upon “Music Listography” bascially a book suggesting titles for music playlists, prompting you to fill them in. For example: What are your 20 favorite songs? (boring) Favorite Songs from the 90s, Performers you’d like to bring back to life, Songs you thought were about you, etc.

So I’m gonna ask you a sort of selfish question: I want people who post in the comments songs about me or songs that remind you about me. Then hopefully I’ll make a list with your contributions!

Rule 1- If I don’t like the band it won’t go on the list (no linkin park, nickleback,etc.)

Rule 2- Have a good time…I guess if that applies to this

Happy Hunting!

P.S. If  this may seem like a selfish attempt on my part to just have everything focused on me…..well suck it. I thought that’s what this blog was about.

Waiting Room Woes (Part 1)

First of all sorry for the hiatus. I know it must have been desperate for all of you, sitting at your desks and just waiting for a new post to magically materialize. Although it doesn’t quite work like that, I’ll do my best to try.

So..today was a hospital day. Due to pain in my chest and trouble breathing I got to have fluid tapped (removed) from my lungs to try and give me some relief. (Spoiler Alert!!- I can breathe easier! Yay!)

It’s always a bitch getting up for the hospital. Granted it was around noontime, I was still in significant pain because…Oh yeah! I couldn’t breathe! We drove to Hopkins, stopped at the pediatric oncology clinic and headed to get an x-ray. Now let me tell you about waiting rooms. They are very, very hit or miss. Chances are I’m tired by the time i get to these rooms and simply wanna lie down. But of course, most of the rooms just have uncomfortable chairs. No, of course they don’t consider the poor 19 year old kids want to sleep at 1030 on a weekday.

A small waiting room (without even two cushion couches!)

Ah then we have our next step up: this waiting room has both chairs AND couches, but the couches are small. These are the infamous two pillow couches of the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Long enough to reposition your body, but short enough to get into comfy nap position.

Once in a while you’ll stumble upon a miracle, and find an empty three pillow couch. Today this little miracle happened in the inner waiting room for the X-Ray. Given my luck I got to lie there for all of eight minutes before I was called in.

A little fancy, but you get the idea

Now I know what most of you are thinking- Just go inside the clinic and ask for a bed to lie down in; after all you ARE a cancer patient and nobody says no to you. Valid point. But there aren’t always available beds, and oftentimes for whatever reason, it doesnt happen.

I hope this has given all of you a fairly adequate description of the couch situation in the hospital. If you prefer a normal chair and are fine remaining comfortable in even the most stressful of situations, you are golden in a hospital. However if you are like me and need that extra comfort, whether to alleviate pain or to catch up on that sleep, keep an eye out for the two pillow couches, or the all coveted three cushion couches, THE luxury item of today’s modern hospital.

Hope that gives you an insight into how my day was, if only from one little perspective.

Next time on Waiting Room Woes (Part 2): The people you wanna kill in the waiting rooms, and the most ridiculous overheard conversations of my career.

Some good stuff

Hey in an effort to alleviate some of the stress and sadness of the last post, here is a picture of my beautiful baby niece avital, who is currently chilling with us here in Baltimore.

Enjoy the pic!

Fuck

Dear Friends,

Hey there

To start off, I’d like to say this is more than just an update blog. Hopefully it can be something a little bigger.

Well heres the deal: The cancer is growing, and the many treatment options we hoped would work have failed to stop the growth of disease. At this point, with no other curative options in sight, I’m going to take different chemotherapy drugs designed to slow the growth of tumors, but not kill them. Then it’s a matter of time….

Obviously we’d all like something to happen and out of nowhere fix everything, but there may not be as much time as we’d all like. And to be honest I don’t wanna be the kid dying of cancer, but somehow that’s how i ended up. So Fuck.

Yeah I know that sucks, but my reaction wasn’t really so angry. You just feel heavy as it sinks in, and you cant move and you have a distant stare and you dont process anything for a while. It’s not until a day or so later that you start to get scared and desperate. And i don’t want to be scared or desperate.

I just wanted people to know because chances are you’ve all affected me in some way and I hope I can do the same.

If people wanna keep in touch and keep updated on both my situation and my life, keep visiting right here!

-Gilad

Testing

Lets test this blog to see if the weirdness stops.