Just Some Fun

I StumbledUpon this meme and I thought that it was such a cute idea that I'd give it a try. The idea is you enter the answers to the following 12 questions into Flickr search (creative commons, so the photos you get are share-enabled) and you pick photos from the first page of results to make a mosaic.

The questions:
1) What is your first name?
2) What is your favorite food?
3) What high school did you go to?
4) What is your favorite color?
5) Who is your celebrity crush?
6) Favorite drink?
7) Dream vacation?
8) Favorite dessert?
9) What do you want to be when you grow up?
10) What do you love most in life?
11) One word to describe you.
12) Your Flickr name.

The picture answers:

Explanations:
1) Won't get this one out of me, sorry...that's someone else taking a beating, not me.
2) I love so much food it's hard to decide, but if I could eat chevre every day...
3) That's actually a picture of one of the teachers at my old school.
4) Blue, naturally.
5) Right now it's Matt Damon, particularly in the Bourne series. *swoon* (Is it weird that I want to pluck out that one errant hair above his eyebrow?)
6) Lots of these, too, but prickly pear margaritas are lovely.
7) I don't have one destination that would be my ultimate, but an adventure that includes some beach front property would be ideal. Cambodia definitely fits both bills.
8) Anything with dark chocolate and raspberries.
9) A good person.
10) Feeling whole. Weird pics on this one.
11) Gregarious.
12) Pocketdoc, naturally. Apparently I'm not the only pocket-sized doc out there!

Dear Hummer driver

To the woman in the white Hummer on Indian School and Girard on 9/22,

Part of me really wants to believe that you were just a performance artist making a post-modern statement about the oblivious, self-absorbed American attitude, but the more realistic, cynical, pissed-off part of me knows that's too good to be true.

The flashing lights on the poles outside Montezuma Elementary school? Those mean SCHOOL ZONE. That means that you need to slow down (the brake is the one on the left) when you drive between those lights and the sign that says "End School Zone." I understand that it takes 10 gallons of gas to get your Hummer up to 35, but you wouldn't want one of those 8 year olds to get blood and guts and gooshy stuff all over your white paint, would you? I mean, crushing all those itty bitty bones in their bodies might ruin your alignment or puncture one of your tires! I know you just dumped your little brats on the nanny, but some people actually emotionally invest in their offspring and care that they turn out to be productive people, so they might be upset if you killed their kids.

Maybe if you detached your little pink RAZR phone from your ear for just one second, you could actually remove your head from your ass and pay attention to the other people in the world around you, the environment, and the impact we all have on each other. Or you can tell your country club friends about the crazy bitch who rolled down her window and yelled at you the other day for absolutely no reason.

I love Dan Savage.

Context and caveat: Dan Savage is a no-apologies-about-it liberal and gay man with a sometimes hilarious and always topical sex advice column that runs in the Onion. He's often out to the left even for me, but I thought his most recent column had an elegant (in theory if not in language) example of the hypocrisy of Sarah Palin's philosophy.

From the September 10th Savage Love column by Dan Savage:

"Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin got her ass knocked up five or so months ago by 18-year-old Levi Johnston. Among the hobbies listed on Levi's since-yanked MySpace page—"fishing, shoot some shit, and just fuckin' chillin'"—was this revealing tidbit: "I don't want kids." But Bristol, says her mom, "made the decision on her own to keep the baby," and is now engaged to Levi "Shootin' Shit" Johnston.

As the adoptive parent of a child born to a pair of unwed teenagers, I'm certainly not in favor of abortion in all circumstances. But I believe that it's a choice teenagers should be able to make for themselves—with input from their families whenever possible—and, so it seems, does the GOP's VP nominee. Sarah Palin is pleased that her daughter made the decision—on her own—to keep the baby.

But Sarah Palin doesn't believe that other girls should be able to make their own decisions. Sarah Palin believes abortion should be illegal in almost every instance—including rape and incest. So Bristol Palin is being celebrated for making a choice that Sarah Palin would like to take away from all other American women. Apparently, today's GOP believes that choice is a special right reserved for the wayward daughters of Republican elected officials.

Oh, and Sarah Palin also believes that birth control shouldn't be made available to teenagers, she opposes medically accurate sex education, and she backs abstinence-until-marriage sex "education."

Sigh.

The GOP has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence "education" programs during the Bush years. I believe this enormous investment of public funds raises the obvious question: Is our children abstaining? Sarah Palin's aren't. Despite this massive outlay on the part of the American taxpayer and the example set by her Christian parents, Bristol Palin became sexually active while still in high school. Excuse me, but if abstinence education can't keep the daughter of the evangelical governor of Alaska off the cock, what hope is there for the daughters—and some of the sons—of average Americans?

I'm a cad for even writing this, of course, because shortly before Bristol and Levi were paraded before cheering throngs at the Republican National Convention, the Palins asked the media to respect their daughter's privacy.

Another special right: When it comes to respecting your family's privacy, Palin and the GOP see no need. They want to micromanage the most intimate aspects of your private life. And if their own kids fail to live up to the standards that Palin and the GOP seek to impose on your family, well, that's a private matter between the Palins, their daughter, their God, and the thousands of screaming imbeciles in elephant hats waving McCain/Palin signs on the floor of the Republican National Convention."

Let's Talk, America.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a liberal. But I'm not a mindless Demo-bot; I disagree with my party AND the other one at times. That said, is it really that hard of a choice, America? I respect John McCain and I'm grateful for his service. I think he's an honorable man; I've read his books. (I think his wife is one step above a blow-up doll in the personality department, and I don't even want to start on Palin, but that's beside the point.) But McCain and the Repubs had their chance, and quite frankly the difference between the two tickets and their respective campaign messages is like, well, black and white.

No, I don't think that Barack Obama is the messiah (didn't you know all us liberals are Godless heathens anyway?). But when you look at what is at stake and who is applying for the job, is there really a question about who is best qualified to hold the most dignified office in our nation? Really? No knee jerks here, people. Think about it.

Yes, pretty speeches don't mean everything, but Obama is more than pretty speeches. He gets shit DONE, people. Maybe he doesn't have executive experience, but quite frankly neither does McCain. Obama decided he wanted to go to law school, so he went, and graduated top of his class. Then he decided to help build up neighborhoods in Chicago, and they flourished with his guidance. Then he went into government and rose through the Illinois state senate. When he set his sights on Washington DC, he got there. Then he decided that someone better than W needed to lead the country, and instead of waiting for that someone to come along, he DID SOMETHING about it. Talk about the American spirit. Talk about the American drive to innovate, to lead, to change that which needs changing. How can you not look at Barack and not know that this man genuinely believes in America, not just in the red white and blue and the abstract 'liberty and justice for all' stuff, but the real America, the good AND the bad. He's a realist, but he's also an optimist, and better yet, he's a pragmatist.

He inspires us because he KNOWS we can be better, America, and that makes us believe that we can do better, too. Isn't that the first step toward improvement? And isn't that what the Republicans are saying, too? Don't we ALL know that we can do better than we are doing right now?

When I Grow Up...

I can't count the number of times I've been asked, "So what kind of doctor do you want to be?" My trite response is "A good one," but I do wonder where I will find my medical niche. I used to think that it was Family Medicine all the way, but a few experiences I've had in the past days made me question my determination.

I was watching a resident perform a tracheostomy procedure last week and I realized that I felt...impatient. Heretofore, I've watched procedures and simply thanked the powers above that I wasn't the one in the hot seat--the one with the responsibility on their shoulders. This time, however, I felt as though I wanted to get my hands dirty, that I could do as good of a job or even better than the resident. A small revelation, perhaps, but still one of note.

This made me think: I'm a doer, not a watcher. I like to take action, to learn in a hands-on way. And I'd like to do procedures in my practice. There are really wonderful things about FM, but procedure-driven practice is not one of them, not unless you're in a rural area where you're actually an ER doc and pediatrician as much as you're a family doc. So maybe laid-back Family isn't for me, after all...we'll have to see.

I'll take it!

I got my score last night...I PASSED! I didn't do super-fabulously, but I did manage to add almost 30 points to my score. And hey, I'll take it.

Why I Love My Family

Last night at the dinner table, I explained to my mother what a "pearl necklace" is. She ASKED, people! While my dad and boyfriend chuckled, she just looked confused and said, "But that doesn't look like pearls! Why would you want to do that?!" Do other people's families act like this?

Arrrrrrgh!

When you read the title, think "Peanuts," as in Lucy and Charlie Brown. That's kinda how I feel: "Good grief!"

I was up at 5 today so my jangling nerves will (I hope) let me rest tonight, because tomorrow is...*dun dun dun* TEST DAY.

I know that I cannot possibly know everything. I know that everyone says not to study the day before. But they also say to make sure you listen to yourself and do things that will help ease your anxiety and frankly, not studying the day before an important test would make me bonkers. I'm definitely not going to put in a full 8 hours at the library or anything nutty, but I do not have the cojones to ignore the books all together today.

That said, I am definitely over-caffeinated at this point and can barely stop jittering long enough to type this, much less to read a pharmacology book. So I'm off to go do...something. Think good thoughts for me!

Wherein I count down to the test

On Friday, I am going to be 24 years old. I know, I'm a fetus. I don't feel particularly young, but I suppose I don't really know what it is like to be older, either.

Ah, Friday the 13th. I "rebelliously" (I know, I live on the edge) embraced the number 13 as a kid because it is my birth date, after all. Even better was my "golden birthday," when you turn the same age your birth date. On what day of the week do you think my 13 fell? That's right, Friday--I turned 13 on Friday the 13th. Oooh, spooky!

Anyway, my birthday (Friday the 13th this year, again) is not really the issue at hand. Because I am essentially a masochist (all medical students are--we turn to sadism later), I scheduled my step exam for that day. So it's T-minus 3 days and counting. I'm afraid. And I want to get it over with. And I want to be able to study more, although not really. What I really want is to go on vacation.

PS I've stopped hiding and I'm just telling people (if it comes up) that I'm retaking the boards. It actually is quite liberating.

We are all crazy, it's true

It is a beautiful Saturday afternoon here. There's not a cloud in sight; the birds are chirping, a gentle breeze is blowing in from the south. Sane people are spending this gorgeous gift of a day out in their gardens, playing with their kids/dogs/significant others in the park, and riding their bikes on the many mountain trails just outside of town.

And me? I'm in the library. There's a great big bank of windows just to my right out which I can admire the profile of the mountains to the east and imagine what that breeze that ruffles the leaves out there must feel like. I've been at the library every day for the past 6 and I'll be here every day until test day, but the thing that gets me is that I'm not the only one! Yes, indeed, the library is actually more populated with people from my medical school class today then it has been since Monday. I always knew that med students were a special brand of crazy, but seriously, this is a new level of proof.

Pride and Prejudice

There are at least two things that I need to learn. One is humility and the other is how and when to keep my big mouth shut. I've been less mindful lately and acting on impulse more than I usually do; it's probably symptomatic of being around a bunch of new people that don't really know me. It's easy to take shortcuts with people you are close to, but when you do the same thing around people that you don't really know very well, there's something lost in the translation.

I've also pissed off my roommate (the one I don't know, not the one I'm friends with) at least twice by being a complete dunderhead. I'm not really sure why it's always her that seems to bear the brunt of my obliviousness, but I've definitely come face-to-face with the outward appearance of my actions as of late, and they don't always reflect the good intentions I sincerely have.

I've got to buckle down on the studying front, too. I'm not here for but 5 weeks, and I've got a lot of proving of myself to do. Yikes.

Adventures in Chicago, Part 3

I'm in Chicago visiting for a few days; I'll post my other adventure entries soon but I had this one ready to go, so enjoy!

My last night here in Second City before I head down to the boot camp in Champaigne. It's called "Second City" (according to Nick) because it burned down once and then they rebuilt it, a second time. It occurred to me that San Francisco all fell down in an earthquake once and they rebuilt, too, but I guess that Chicago got to it first.

After the debauchery of last night (relatively tame on the debauchery scale, but red wine hangovers are still no joke), this morning was a little painful. Not terribly so; just a tad unpleasant for a while. We played the tourist game and went to the Magnificent Mile, which is just a large band of high-priced retail stores in downtown which Nick jokingly refers to as the 'Miracle Mile' because he's twice heard clueless guys seriously tell equally clueless tourist girls that the swath of capitalism lain out before them is, indeed, known as the miracle mile. And that's America, folks.

First stop was the Jazz Music Record Store, which may actually be a miracle to certain people. Then we went to have double 'cheezboorgers' at the Billy Goat Tavern (for the reference, go here). The skit is actually based off the tavern and not the other way around, and yes, the guys actually talk like that. Everybody gets a double, too, whether they want it or not. They only have Coke and no fries, just chips. If you ask for water, they say, 'River or lake?' It's definitely an experience. It's a tourist trap on weekends and where the reporters from the Chicago Tribune hang out on weekdays after work--they do serve beer, after all. It was fun to watch other hapless people endure the confusing verbal abuse from the guy working the counter. It was kind of a rite of passage, and then you were inducted into the club of people in the know.

We had our fill of bad-for-you food and traipsed off to indulge my retail therapy needs. On the way, we stopped at the Tribune building, which boasts rocks from all over the world as part of its facade. I touched a rock from the Great Pyramids in Egypt today! Wow! And, naturally, took the obligatory picture under the home state rock. (There's one for every state in the Union.)

Filene's Basement is not exactly the bargain-shopping utopia depicted in What Not To Wear, but I did find some good buys.

Sam is playing Banquo in a production of Macbeth right now (Incidentally, the last time I saw him perform? He was Macbeth. In an entirely different city.) so we went to see that at the Athenaeum. A very creepy job with minimal production fluff--the only props were weapons (naturally), a couple of benches and stools, and some goblets and wine. The sound was particularly effective at setting the mood--freaky whispering and ominous drumbeats in the background. Definitely the most eerie version of the 'cursed play' I've seen.

I was really happy to see Sam again--we all went out for pancakes and beer at the diner across the street after the show. Yes, pancakes and beer. This diner serves alcohol, so naturally I had to indulge the bizarre juxtaposition and have a Heineken with my giant pancake full of fruit. (Don't give me crap; Heine was the best option they had--it is a diner, after all.)

And that's that. Forgot to take a pic with Sam--I'm terrible at the picture-taking thing; it's always something I think about way after the fact. I'm still bummed I didn't have my camera yesterday at the Shit Fountain. Oh well.

Memorable quotes from the evening:
Sam: "Yeah, just the other day at work I stabbed somebody in the leg and didn't even realize it!"

Me: "Oh my God, there's a huge banana in the middle of my pancake!"

Reggio: [talking about Seattle] "Yeah, you know that big ol' pin thing they got?"
Me: "The Space Needle?"
Reggio: "Yeah, that's it! I went up there, too! Scared the hell outta me! Everybody else was ordering cappuccinos and I was like, 'Where the elevator? Get me down!'"

Geeks 2

WE WON!!!!! Yay! The night before I left for Illinois, The Tiny RumpledForeskins reigned supreme over Geeks Who Drink. Go team! For info, head to the Geeks blog.

Geeks

Just got back from Geeks Who Drink at O'Neill's. In a word? AWESOME! I'm totally hooked now, which kinda sucks because I'm not going to have the free time to do it all that often, but good times! For more, visit Geeks Who Drink.

Edit: incidentally, did you know that I can now type in my 'native Indic script'? I had no idea!

hee haw

I'm feeling like a real jackass right now--guess who forgot about their online test? Why oh why am I so irresponsible? Think I'll go read about genocide in Rwanda.

I guess...

we can pry his gun out of his cold, dead hand now. Think Michael Moore will try to usurp power?

Edit: I could totally write for the Onion!

A word on the title

I had a friend wonder today if my blog title mentioned scalpels because I was planning on going into surgery. No, my dear readers, this pocketdoc is not destined for a spot in the OR, board scores nonwithstanding. I plan on doing other things in my life like having a family, and being a surgeon doesn't really allow for a lot of that. I just thought that 'scalpels and cephalopods' had a nice alliteration-type ring to it, happened to incorporate a symbol of the medical profession and some of my favorite creatures, and present a contrast between surgical steel and the jelly-like malleability of octopi and their brethren. I suppose it could have been 'stethoscopes and cephalopods,' but I like 'scalpels' a bit better...it sounds a little more edgy, no?

IBKC

If you like baby animals at all (and if you don't, you don't have a heart) and especially kittens, go to the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee link to the right. You will have a cuteness seizure from the all the cute.

First Day

Today was my first day of school. Last night, I lay in bed for hours jealously listening to the boy's even breathing and nocturnal chewing (he's the only person I know who chews in his sleep). I stared at the ceiling and wondered what today would feel like. I swear I barely blinked and the alarm went off.

And I went to school. It wasn't so bad, although predictably I showed up in the middle of a lecture and didn't have a clue what was going on. I steeled myself for the inquiries and I had already crafted a not-lying-but-still-not-admitting-I-failed response to "How did the boards go?" (answer: "I didn't do as well as I wanted to"), but a few people threw me a curveball I didn't anticipate.

See, our rotation schedules are posted. For medical students, schedules are everything. Well, grades and scores are everything, but schedules take a close second. We want to know what is going to happen and when, and we'll bitch up a storm if you don't tell us in a timely manner. The fun of asking people what their rotation schedule looks like lies in identifying who you'll be thrown into the scut with, who you'll be paired with on-call, and basically who in your class you'll be getting to know a LOT better for the next 16 weeks, if not the entire year. Also, there's the added fun of bitching about how hard X rotation is or how crazy Dr. So-and-so is. (In case you hadn't figured it out, medical students LOVE to bitch.)

I wasn't prepared for the "what service are you on?" wrinkle. I'm caught up in this dilemma because I don't want to outright lie but I also don't want to tell just anyone (and therefore, everyone--medical students also LOVE to gossip) that I failed. I could just tell them what my first rotation is and omit the start date (August, not April like everyone else), but what if they have that rotation in April? Then they'll be excited and want to talk about it, and I'll feel like a total liar and my guilt will probably get the better of me and I'll end up telling them anyway. That might not be too bad especially on a one-on-one basis, but today a guy asked me in front of four other people (that I don't know particularly well) what my first rotation was. I lied. I said I didn't know yet. And then I secretly resented him a little for being so cavalier with his question.

Somehow, I think this feels like being in the closet. I KNOW it's not nearly the same level of life-impacting, relationship-altering, reality-shattering truth as figuring out that you're homosexual must be, but I can kind of understand getting rankled at others' assumptions of your status. "Oh, are you married? What does your husband do?" must be an aggravating set of questions for a lesbian. It's almost worse when you know that people aren't trying to be insensitive; they're just ignorant, and you can't really blame them.

Nostalgia

I've been wasting the last few hours in front of my computer, perusing Facebook. A certain group of people who lived in my freshman dorm formed a pretty tight clique during college, and my friends and I resented them and their sometimes out-of-control antics. I knew at the time (but wouldn't admit then) we were insecure and kinda wished that we could be part of the whole dynamic.

I bring this up only because since graduation I've constantly felt as though my college experience was a kind of dream, something I vaguely remember but didn't exactly experience. That is partially due to the non-cohesion of my group of friends--the aforementioned group still stays in touch and participates in each others' weddings, but the people whom I considered my closest friends in college either don't talk to me anymore or are far away and doing their own things with people to whom they have grown much closer. (I'll write about the "not talking to me" thing in another post. I've got issues there, too.)

I'm not wallowing in self-pity here; I'm amazed. I'm impressed that some people can maintain their friendships over distance and time and foster that "group identity" feeling even when the group doesn't physically exist anymore. And I'm envious and a little sad.

I'm trying to grasp why I even care about this and it's difficult to define. Here's an attempt at what I've got thus far:

We all crave validation for our existences; we have to feel as though we matter, and the only way to do that is through other people. You only gain meaning when you share what you feel and what you experience with others. When you're part of a group, your life becomes bigger than what occurs in your skull and is now an inextricable part of other people's existences, of their lives and their experiences. There's a sense of security there, of having your life linked with others'. If you lose those connections (or worse, you realize they're invalid), your experiences untether and you lose meaning.

So that's why college has no meaning for me. I think. It could be bullshit.

Reasons

So I've decided not to let this beat me. I don't really believe in God, per se, but I do think that things happen for a reason. I don't mean that fate or destiny or some invisible hand guides our every action; I think of it more as finding your own meaning in the events of your life. Things don't just happen to you--that's a victim mentality. Yes, sometimes shit happens, but shit happens to everyone and if we all just laid down and said, "Poor me," then nothing would get done. And really, in the grand scheme, how much of that shit is just minor details anyway?

Before I took the test, I was freaking out at my parents' house. My mom sat me down and said, "What's the worst that can happen? You fail, right?"

"No, actually," I said, "the worst thing that could happen is that I barely pass. Then I can't retake the test, so I'm stuck with my shitty score."

And what happened? I missed barely passing, I missed the worst outcome by one point. That means that I'm not stuck with that score, that I have a second chance to fix it and really blow the test away. If that isn't a reason to kick some serious ass this time around, I don't know what is. I'm taking it as a sign that I can do better, and I know I can.

So yesterday I went to financial aid and figured out how to pay for the remedial course that I decided to take after talking to the learning counselor person (who, by the way, is an angel) for 45 minutes. I went over to my parents' house and told them the news and what I intended to do about it. They were surprisingly supportive and very pro-active, basically saying that shit happens. And my mom told me that she failed her pharmacology boards the first time she took them. I guess we're more alike than I thought.

I have a meeting with the Dean on Thursday, and I'm going to tell her that I'm leaving for Illinois in May to go to studying boot camp. I hope she'll see that I'm taking this second chance for all it's worth. It'll be a month of non-stop lectures, tutoring, and studying that I have to pay a pretty hefty amount for, but it's supposedly the best program, and I guess now I've got something to prove.

First Post

So...
I've given in to the cyber-demons. I have always thought that blogs were ridiculous; venues for the self-absorbed and under-noticed to vent their little grievances and feel vindicated. I guess I've joined their ranks.

I've been inspired (you could call it) by two of my fave bloggers (found here and here), both of whom are strong women and have been through a lot, emerging with writing skills and humor intact.

I definitely don't claim to have seen a fraction of the hardship either of the two above ladies have experienced; in fact, my life has been damn near a cake-walk compared to the amazing stories of V and W. However, I've always loved to write and I've been woefully negligent to my hand-written journal lately, so I thought that I might try dragging myself into the 21st century.

That said, I was wondering tonight as I washed dishes and stared vacantly across the "Central-American ghetto-esque" landscape that stretches outside my apartment if anyone else I knew was, at this moment, screaming in anguish at their test scores. I imagined the cut scenes, rapidly flashing from one cramped apartment to the next, focused on the gaping mouths of my colleagues as they read their cruel results on impersonal monitor screens across the city. Surely I wasn't alone in my agony? I didn't wish failure on anyone, not even the smug, too-cool-for-school assholes that sat in the back and smirked at the profs, but surely I couldn't be the only one who failed, right? And what do I do now?

I'm in the 99th percentile of failing. It's a "High Fail." That's like winning first prize in the shit-eating contest. And all because of one measly point.