Day 3

Yesterday I left off with the question of what will happen after my next doseing. The answer is nothing, nothing happened after I was dosed today, which means I'm staying in the study. Last night just before I fell asleep, after watching Limitless because my roommates put it on, I started feeling a fever. So like I said before a virus seems to make the most sense. If I wasn't in the study I would have known right away that it was Gastroentinitas because I have had it several times before, except for the vomiting which through me off, but still that's a common symptom for most people. By the way if your not familiar with Gastroentinitas its what people mistakenly call the flu or the stomach flu. Although the two are very different viruses and affect two different bodily systems. Anyway this isn't what I want to talk about today.

I want to talk about the people around me today. One thing that seems to be just expected by the people in here is that you have a criminal record. I think they can tell that I don't, but they still respect me becauase I respect them and we get along pretty well. Essentially if someone were going to play that song, one of these things is not like the other things, I would be the thing. I want to make clear that I am not reffering to race but reffering to background I guess. The kind of background that you can see in someone. But I want to get more specific. I over hear a lot my roommates telephone conversations because its a small room and their lives are such a mystery to me. I often hear them talking to there kids and they'll say that they are working, when their kids ask them where they are. I guess its easier than trying to explain what they are actually doing and even though I don't consider it work maybe they do.

There is this commradery and general thoughtfullness by most of the volunteers here that was a little surprising to me at first. Although it makes sense, since everyone I have talked to has done studies before. Therefore if you weren't easy going and incapable of getting along with strangers in tight quarters, then you wouldn't last very long in a study that goes for a month. Its possible I might be talking to soon and eat these words later. But it seems the length of the study has distilled the general population to a group of considerate and easy going people. Of course there are exceptions to that theory. For example, one of my roommates took a shower for the first time today since the beginning of the trial. He stank so bad that we actually complained to the study cordinator who then talked to him and got him to take a shower. Besides the stank he is also kind of a loner and sits by himself most of the time. He is the only roommate that I have yet to learn the name of, in fact I don't think anyone knows his name. He's just refferd to as the guy who stinks. There was one verbal altercation today between one of my roommates and another guy who is a former Hells Angel. If there was one guy who I wouldn't want to do that to here, that would be the guy, but my roommate is the youngest here and is a little immature. Hopefully this won't be the beginning to something worse further down the line.

There is also another study going on here that is made up of strictly Asian males. There is a group of twenty something Koreans who sit around a table all day with their laptops playing Starcraft and they get really into it.

I spent most of my time watching Dexter in my bunk because I wasn't feeling a 100% yet. I finished almost the entire second season, watched The Graduate so I could write a paper on it and just watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose because my roommates put it on. I read a lot about that story a while ago and knew as I was watching it how much of the film wasn't true. On top of the scarcity of fact in the film it was also just awful and with that I will end my post.