Expected Physical Signs

Image by Loui Jover

 Public speaking sucks. It's mandatory for final year medical science, so I put up with it. Still ...

Excerpt from AvaSykes.com

Ten a.m. came with the expected physical signs: burning eyes, stiff neck, headache. Oh, boy. My palms were sweat­ing as I walked to the podium, footsteps echoing through the virtually empty UCLA lecture hall. That was a plus. It lessened the potential for public humiliation. The only seats occupied were the front two rows. I squeezed my eyes shut a few times, trying to alleviate the sting ... eye drops might have helped, along with fresh contacts. They were prescrip­tion, for my mixed astigmatism, a near-far sighted combo, and tinted to keep down the glare. I had partial colour blindness too, but that’s another story. Bottom line, sleep deprivation wasn’t a good look. Hopefully, the examiners would be glued to the screen, and my riveting presentation, not my tired face.

It took a minute to password my way through security, log into my CloudBox — and bring up the visuals. I synched with the screen behind me and cleared my throat. ‘Good morning, faculty.’ My voice broke and I tried to humph without sounding like a cat coughing up a fur ball. This was not my favourite part of being fourth year: standing in front of a critical audience, my knowledge and abilities in question. Who in their right mind would want to try and explain auto-immune disorders to a group of scientists who knew hundreds of times more about the subject than any­one alive?

The mic gave an ear-piercing screech as I adjusted it, which didn’t help to calm me down. The lights dimmed and the large screen illuminated. The glare was so strong, I couldn’t read the notes on my tablet. Perfect. I sucked in a deep breath, and ploughed on.

‘Since the first wave of the Aftermath, auto-immune disorders have escalated, not just here in LA, but globally. These diseases cross all borders, cultures and peoples, tar­geting young and old alike. The epidemiology is hard to trace, but at its core is a potentially fatal flaw ...’ I choked on that. This topic got under my skin because I had one of those pesky flaws myself. At times like these, I could almost hear the clock ticking. I cleared my throat. ‘ … a potentially fatal flaw in the evolution of the human genome. Constant bombardment from microwaves, radiation and carcinogenic substances has caused an abnormal gene expression, includ­ing the conditional deletion of the Bcl-x gene from red blood cells, which becomes apparent when the body loses its abil­ity to tell the difference between self and non-self.’

I swiped the small screen on the podium, bringing up the next visual behind me. It showed a clip of a blood clot forming at 500x magnification, courtesy of APS — an­tiphospholipid antibody syndrome — in action. As I talked about causes and potential cures, moving on to my per­sonal favourite, hemolytic anemia and its variants under the umbrella of AADD — Aftermath associated degenerative diseases — my eyes came back to one of the examiners. I’d never seen him before, which wasn’t uncommon. UCLA hosted the largest science campus in the western US, and specialists in the field were invited in to evaluate fourth year students, especially ones like me who hoped to land an internship with the LA branch of the CDC, the Centre for Disease Control. This guy looked too young though. Maybe an intern auditing my talk? Who are you?

The thought floated through my head. Not a welcome distraction. Every time I looked, he was staring at me, his expression a cross between curious and accusatory. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Oh, hell! I had the freak­ing wrong slide up. I pulled my focus back to the presenta­tion and kept my gaze well away from handsome mystery man in seat A15. Sure, it registered. Handsome. 

Not helping.

Twenty minutes later, the lights went up and there was a brief, but slightly more than perfunctory, applause. On a scale of one to ten, for senior lecturers that was at least a nine, nearly a standing ovation. It made me smile, and in a momentary lapse, my eyes drifted back to seat A15. Big mistake. The floor was open to questions, and he took it as a personal invitation.

‘You mention the fatigue associated with auto-immune hepatitis. What test would differentiate auto-immune liver disease from other hepatic disorders?’

I swallowed hard, not because I didn’t have a damn good answer, but because his eyes were boring into me. Almond-shaped dark eyes. They had a wild look, or was that the unruly hair? It was like being on a witness stand, which I guess was the point of the exercise. He wasn’t coming across as an intern. His voice was too confident. I reviewed the role of typical histological findings in both AILD and other chronic liver diseases, finishing with a discussion of immu­noglobulins and various

triggers for immune response. He questioned again, and for a while, we had our own private ping-pong match going on. Then others had comments and questions for me and, while I engaged, out of the corner of my eye I saw him check his phone. He nodded vaguely in my direction and left. As he walked out of the hall, a linger­ing thought again floated through my head.

Who are you?

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From #TheBoodInTheBeginning An #AvaSykes #Novel
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I'd love to hear who your fav characters are that DON'T enjoy public speaking! --Kim
 
Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing urban fantasy, paranormal romance, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at AvaSykes.com, the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter.

She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month and runs Save the Day Writer's Community on Facebook and GoodVibeAstrology.com.

Marinating Ideas

Loui Jover

Ideas hit hard and fast, right? A bolt out of the blue! A flash of insight! A stroke of genius!

Apparently, no.

Ideas do not come in a burst followed by the classical Eureka exclamation. They are not Athena, goddess of strategy, born fully grown, bursting from her father's head, wearing armor, shouting a war cry.

Research shows that ideas are a slow punch. They fade in after lingering in and around the corners of the mind.

Steve Johnson does a wonderful TED TALK on this. The upshot is, ideas marinate in a stimulating, chaotic soup. When we finally articulate them, they've actually been brewing for a substantial amount of time.

The myth of writers taking those long, solitary walks in nature, returning with the genius idea, or the philosopher sitting quietly by the fountain with chin resting on fist until realization bursts to life like a chorus of Kookaburras (listen to a chorus of Kookaburras here) is only partly true.

What really stimulates new ideas is coffee.

 Okay, not exactly coffee, but the coffee shop.

According to Johnson, the consumption of coffee coincided with the age of enlightenment, not so much for the stimulating properties, but because drinking more coffee meant drinking less alcohol. Let's face it, the water wasn't  exactly bacteria and parasite free. It was safer to drink beer, rum and wine day and night, which dulled the creative edge. Ideas definitely became sharper with the switch to a cup o' Joe.

Once out of the drunken stupor and into a kind of "writers room" environment with diverse and stimulating perspectives, ideas went wild, and they've been accelerating ever sense. The chaos and unpredictability of like and unlike minds, bantering in a free-for-all is much more conducive to flipping on the new neurons in the brain.

The Muses by Maarten van Heemskerck

Johnson says your office should look like a Maarten van Heemskerck rendition of Apollo and the Muses.
Think about it. Are the Muses - representing the manifestations of creative ideas - ever drawn in isolation, brows creased, nose in the books?

Most images I've seen are festival like dalliances that seem to go on day and night without end. There is definitely a lot of dancing and cavorting.

What this new research, and ancient wisdom, tells us about cultivating ideas can be summed up in four simple steps:

a) drink less alcohol

b) brainstorm with others

c) allow ideas to marinate and grow

d) nurture more connection; less protection

What I want to know is, where do your new ideas come from? Isolation or collaboration? A bit of both?
xxxKim

Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter.

She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month.

Her latest release is "Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.