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Kolya

The journey of a thousand miles begins before the first step. It's the idea.

About Me

Une note spéciale à mon long demi-frère perdu Lev, à Paris : Je suis désolé que je ne pourrais pas répondre à votre message à temps, avant toi aie abandonné et aie supprimé votre profil. Je réellement ai pleuré des larmes de joie quand j'ai lu la première fois votre message. Je juste n'ai pas su le traiter, avec tout autrement dans ma vie alors. Les choses sont meilleures pour moi maintenant. Si vous lisez ceci, veuillez m'envoyer un autre message. Je veux tellement sincèrement finir par vous connaître, et te rends visite à Paris, ou à Moscou aussitôt que possible. Nous avons tellement pour discuter ! Je prie que j'ai de vos nouvelles encore, bientôt ! Être bien, mon frère. - NYKA special note to my long lost half brother Lev in Paris: I'm sorry I didn't respond to your message in time before you gave up and deleted your profile. I actually shed tears of joy when I read your message, and discovered you existed. I just didn't know how to process it. If you read this, please send me another message. I so earnestly want to get to know you, and meet up in Paris or Moscow as soon as possible. We have much to discuss. I pray that I hear from you again, soon! Take care, brother. -NYKmyspace is an 'effin crazy gig, yo'.Back to your originally scheduled curiousity:If there is any purpose and meaning to be found in surviving 400+ days spent in the hospital, then you'll find me looking for it in the 5,000 page journal I'm 'researching' for my upcoming memoir on Crohn's Disease, and the 10 years it served to both alter and illuminate the purpose and meaning of my life. I don't have that Harvard degree (just yet), or the career that started with all the promise of a $10,000,000 start-up, but I have 5,000 pages, and a story I couldn't have possibly dream't up, save the fact that I lived through it. From the Bay Area to Boston, Vancouver to Bear Valley, and Beverly Hills to Cape Town with Frankfurt deeply connected to Malibu somewhere in between, the absurdity of love and Crohn's have cut me a funky groove.And the beat goes on... I'm finally back in school, after 4 years of intense adaptation to a life lived in the paralyzing death ray of a killer disease. Thank God, I've managed to break free, and I'm studying documentary film at UC Berkeley for the summer. It's a start. I don't have to be at school until noon, which helps. I'm not 100% yet, but I'm back in a school routine, running rapids, and training for a marathon. I can hardly wrap my mind around how much has changed in a year. Last July, I could barely get out of bed, I was on 450 mg of IV dilaudid just to survive the day and I lived my life in utter seclusion, scarcely venturing beyond the warm embrace of my bed. I'm re-learning lots of stuff I think I should know, but to me that's the most beautiful sign that I'm actually getting better. If it's been a while since I've connected with you and you happen to be reading this, please feel free to welcome me back into the real world. Every ounce of your love and encouragement fills my heart and lights my way as I take these formidable first few steps; out of bed, sleepless isolation and disease and back into life lived fully by the delicious light of day :] I would love it if you made yourself a part of it!Update: I'll be studying at UC Berkeley full time in the fall studying Cognitive Science and Film, with the State underwriting my education until I'm an MD specializing in the treatment of Crohn's. I'm a little freaked out that I have the next 12 years of my life penciled in, but it's my dream come true. The other side of the bedrail...here I come! : p

My Interests

The endless, joyful pursuit of learning, knowledge and their distant cousin truth as discovered in: Love and Fear, Writing, Drumming, Aviating, Globetrotting, Snowboarding, Surfing, Goalkeeping, Handing out Halo Beatdowns, Spending Less Time in the Hospital/Making The Most of Time spent in the Hospital, Military and Church history (which are all too often overlapping topics of study) :p ...and exploring the intersection of Psychology, Physics and Spirituality, which would include the freakishly named cross disciplinary pursuits of: Psychoneuroimmunology, Biopsychology, and Quantum Particle Physics, most exciting to me as they serve to illuminate the finer points of Healing Music Theory and some other stuff that I really enjoy like Eating, Applied Psychopharmacology, and Love, of course the most organic culmination and worthwhile mental, physical and spiritual pursuit of them all. And in the mean time, you'll find me benefitting from EMDR, Psych-K, and the most assuredly brilliant work of Dr. Bruce Lipton Ph.D man, I never knew I was such a damn hippie until I wrote this. a quantum hippie, though, which I think, if you were standing next to me, would smell much better over the long run : )

I'd like to meet:

The countless amazing people I've lost touch with. Which is almost everyone, at this point. Send some love, I dare ya.

Music:

pearl jam, mother love bone, temple of the dog, mad season, tori amos, apc, u2, dredg, jeff buckley, explosions in the sky, muse, thomas newman, the tea party, buddha bar I-IV, secret chiefs 3, incubus, coldplay, sarah mclachlan, hooverphonic, radiohead, ours, tom petty, neil young, dmb, rage against the machine, rush, tool, deftones, nirvana, soundgarden, stp, toad the wet sprocket, better than ezra, halfway, natalie merchant, 10,000 maniacs, nin, live, our lady peace, soad, mars volta, cold, mr. bungle, johnny cash...by no means a complete list, though it be a highly cherished, scratched and faded one.

Movies:

The Boondock Saints, Pi, American Beauty, Moulin Rogue, The Shawshank Redemption, Requiem for a Dream, Donnie Darko, DiG!, The Devils Advocate, Lords of War, What the Bleep Do We Know?, Fight Club, Jarhead, Almost Famous, The Bourne Identity, The Doors, What Dreams May Come, Contact, Dogma, American History X, What About Bob?, Good Will Hunting, Apocalypse Now, Boiler Room, Garden State, Trainspotting, Napolean Dynamite, Half Baked, Zoolander, The Devil's Own, Back to the Future, Office Space, Magnolia, Good Morning Vietnam, Glory, We Were Soldiers, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart, The Aviator, LOTR Trilogy, Dances With Wolves, Legends of the Fall, A River Runs Through It, (yes, I like disappearing into long occasionaly sleep inducing period epics) Life is Beautiul, The Messenger, Matrix Trilogy (minus meaningless cash register revo'poop'tions), Pirates of the Caribbean, Muppets in Space, The Incredibles, Monsters, Inc., Goonies, Waynes World, Tommy Boy, Father of the Bride, The Edge, Conspiracy Theory, The Big Lebowski, Caddyshack II, Space Balls, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Dr. Zhivago, Water, Swingers, They Live, and Godzilla Movies, occasionaly Mothra and a Harry Potter movie or two.

Television:

The Muppet Show, SNL, Scrubs, Entourage, Numb3rs, Over There, Boston Legal, The West Wing, Modern Marvels, The Office (BBC & NBC), Late Night With Conan O'Brian, The Apprentice (my ex-girlfriend was on the German version, made it to the finale and lost...no joke) Breaking Bonaduce, (my rehab, my therapist, the bed I slept in...all on the show- a very surreal experience to see the people and places in your life unexpectedly staring back at you from the TV) ER, Family Guy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Three Wishes, Mail Call, Chappelle's Show, The Mind of Mencia, I Love the 80's, The Daily Show, School of Rock, South Park, Rescue Me, My So-Called Life, Behind the Music, Band of Brothers, Biography, The Simpsons, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Most Extreme Challenge, Air Wolf, Knight Rider, The A Team, Fall Guy, Dharma & Greg, Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Real World, Hogan Knows Best, Pimp My Ride, Today, E! True Hollywood Story, Score (the concept is great) and yes, unfortunately I have to cop to it- Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. haha, no I don't. That show sucks. But the DVCPRO100 they shot it on and dipped in honey looks pretty dang tasty and adds amazing cinematic depth to an otherwise very shallow show. {dreamsequence: And maybe one day I'll have an iPod chock full of the TV episodes I've somehow managed to transfer from all the DVD's I've burned off the Tivo...anything and everything for the oft neglected cause of stamping out acute emergency room induced boredom once and for all, people : p...end:dreamsequence} Hooray for gratuitous commentary! Hooray!

Books:

The Message, A Course in Miracles, The Biology of Belief, The Breakout Principle, A Return to Love, Ender's Game, The Alchemist, 1776, Blink, The World is Flat, Next, It's Not About the Bike, The Oligarchs, A Normal Totalitarian Society, Rules for Revolutionaries, The Catcher in the Rye (the literary anthem of every kid who had occasion to read it atop their boarding school bunk bed) The Mozart Effect, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, American Soldier, Paths Beyond Ego, Psychopictography, Who Stole My Money (the best book by Richard Kiyosaki the Cash Flow guy), Healing Codes of the Coming Biological Apocolypse, The High Flyer, Quantum Healing, LOTR, Chronicles of Narnia, Dead Man Walking, Rogue Warrior, Blackhawk Down, The DaVinci Code, The Music of Primes, The Devil Wears Prada, Fab...the most prized tomes on the shelf, most read entirely, a few read mostly, and all discussed at great length with the most voracious reader I've ever met. (my mom)

Heroes:

John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mike McCready (they all lived a full life in the face of debilitating Crohn's) My mom, Bruce Lipton, Rob Williams, (who've illuminated so brightly the possibilities of my own path out of disease) Lance Armstrong (same as last parenthetical side-narrative) Mark James (for continuing to infuse me with hope, when I all but have none) and anyone who looks me in the eye when they're talking to me. And Dr. Baird Smith, the brilliant pediatric laparoscopic surgeon who gave me my first belly scar. Ali Bissell, even though she doesn't know me anymore- (she told me to seek out laparascopic surgery, when Children's Hospital in Oakland insisted on a foot long, midline incision, complete w/ ostomy.) And of course, Steve Jobs, for the lovely, spiritual machines, that have been the engine of creation for so many people, for so many years.

My Blog

California Love

Just as the world was about to feast on my humbled remains last fall, I launched a Hail Mary application to UC Berkeley. It was the only school to which I applied.* *because Community College is open,...
Posted by Kolya on Fri, 02 May 2008 11:53:00 PST

Graduation Day

Hello everyone,  I’m having surgery today at UCSF Mt. Zion, for what will be the 5th and hopefully last time they will have to remove obstructive scar tissue from my small intestine.  ...
Posted by Kolya on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:37:00 PST

Still in the Intensive Care Unit, 'waiting to exhale' : )

Well, the good news is that the surgery went well.  The surgeon was shocked at how I managed to get around considering the significant size of one of the strictures that had developed, though und...
Posted by Kolya on Mon, 15 May 2006 08:01:00 PST

The Operation is Back On

Well, it turns out that I will be having the operation tomorrow afterall.  The anesthesiologist initially called it off, but the surgeon stepped in and suggested that we go ahead with it as sched...
Posted by Kolya on Wed, 10 May 2006 07:10:00 PST

A mustard seed in action...

This time, 24 hours from now, I'll be in San Francisco, at Mt. Zion, under general anesthesia, having my belly worked on.  Actually, in the process of writing this, I just got a call from the hos...
Posted by Kolya on Wed, 10 May 2006 04:07:00 PST

From High Atop UCSF Mt. Zion

Just a quick update before my mom leaves, and takes her ThinkPad/Sprint Card wireless internet access- my only internet access....(cringe)It's been a month and 4 days since I've been in the hospital, ...
Posted by Kolya on Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:31:00 PST

Patient Controlled Analgesia

I've been in the hospital at UCSF Mt. Zion for exactly 32 days now, in case anyone was wondering.  I desperately want out of here.  Alas, I am tethered to a PCA pump, which dishes out 2 mg o...
Posted by Kolya on Sun, 12 Mar 2006 07:55:00 PST

Last night, I was on Loveline

Every now and then something comes along in life and rockets you straight to the heart of sur-reality. Like when you have a migraine headache, and your defense is a synthetic opiate.  And th...
Posted by Kolya on Fri, 20 Jan 2006 03:01:00 PST

The Biosphere of a Monday night in Bio 10

So I randomly call up a friend today, one whom I've been missing for weeks, but tragically, have somehow failed to call, between the flu, 2 weeks in bed living the life of a Tivo hermit, mentally crac...
Posted by Kolya on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 05:12:00 PST

We've got rhythm, pulse is good, will transport

Ok, the truth is I've been hanging out with way too many paramedics and fire science majors. Well, only three actually. And the real truth is, I've been journaling all along the last three weeks, ...
Posted by Kolya on Thu, 22 Dec 2005 04:46:00 PST