Harry Potter 7!

MSN Movies is calling it Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I got an email last night from Borders calling it Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. No release date yet; she's still writing it. Whatever it's called, she'd better hurry up -- I'm anxiously waiting!

I'm also anxiously waiting for the next Harry Potter movie -- those kids are growing up quickly!

Um, Google is taking over the world

Will I resist? No!

I just discovered a new addition to Picasa, Google's photo organization tool. Picasa now has web photo album capabilities, so I can use Google to do pretty much everything -- blog (recent takeover of Blogger), organize my photos, publish my photos (here's my site: http://picasaweb.google.com/hwcummings), share documents (an awesome, awesome feature) with other people, and of course, an awesome email account.

(By the way, if you want a Gmail account, just let me know. You know you want one. You know you do.)

Did you ever have one of those days

that's just so full of coincidences it makes you wonder if there might not be something else out there making the world go round? Besides gravity? You know what I'm talking about. I remember in high school, learning vocabulary words in English class and then suddenly seeing them pop up around me ("surfeit" was one such word; and the Shakespearean couplet we were taught to go along with it has stuck with me to this day: "A surfeit of the sweetest things / A deepest loathing to the stomach brings." -- A Midsummer Night's Dream). Divine intervention? Coincidence? Or simply an awakening of the brain to things I previously would have glossed over? Who knows.

Well, anyway, yesterday was one of those days. And so was today.

Yesterday, while taking one of many study breaks (yesterday was not a good study day), I happened to check out the C-J website and saw this article about a local girl who got to meet Rachael Ray. This girl, whose name is also Rachel (normal spelling), went to NYC to attend a taping of Ray's new talk show, which I happen to have not had the chance to see yet this year. Well, the story mentioned that it was on at 3 pm on Fox, so I looked up at the clock to see that it was exactly 3:00. Weird. I turned on the TV and watched about 10 minutes of Rachael (deeper voice, typical talk show stuff, not that interested). The story went on to say that little Rachel enjoys making big Rachael's recipes, since they're pretty simple, and one of her favorites is something called honey nut chicken, a recipe with which I am not familiar. Later, as per my usual routine, I turned on Food Network while tidying up in the kitchen before making dinner (Shake 'N Bake pork chops, yum (yummo?)), and half-listened to Rachael Ray in the 6:00 installment of 30 Minute Meals. All of a sudden, I hear Rachael say, "Remember, this chicken has honey and nuts in it" and I looked up with a start. How bizarre! (I checked the website, and last night she was making Tangy Cherry Chicken, not Honey Nut Chicken, but still...) Plus, the 6:30 show featured her making her Macaroni and Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli, a recipe I myself have used and enjoyed, and one that I just sent to someone as part of a recipe chain letter email I received. More minor coincidence, since I think I've seen that Mac and Cheese episode about 20 times (but I'd never seen the cherry chicken one before, and I've still never seen the honey nut chicken one -- why does that always happen? You see one particular episode of Seinfeld, Will & Grace, or Friends a hundred times without seeing any of the others), but a coincidence nonetheless.

Today it happened again. I was flipping through channels tonight and saw about 10 minutes of a Futurama episode on Cartoon Network. It was a holiday episode that featured a scene that was a parody of the Charlie Brown kids ice skating scene -- only it was Futurama-type kids and slightly different music (Bender ends up falling on top of them and breaking the ice so they all fall in). I haven't thought about Charlie Brown in forever; that was Charlie Brown incident #1. Then, Eric was talking to our friend Duc online and Duc sent him a link for a video of the cast of Scrubs doing A Charlie Brown Christmas (the video itself is posted here at the end; see the link in the previous sentence for the accompanying TVSquad.com commentary). That was Charlie Brown incident #2.

Eric told me to pull up the video using the TVSquad.com site and search for the video, but I couldn't find it. Instead, I found this entry on the home page about a blog post Ken Jennings (of Jeopardy! fame) wrote regarding the dance styles of various Peanuts characters in the Christmas dance scene. (Here is the Ken Jennings post.) That was Charlie Brown incident #3. Very strange series of coincidences, if you ask me.

Will I worry about it? Maybe a little bit. It's easier than worrying about how much clinical genetics I don't know. Or about how much pathology I've forgotten in just the last few hours. Or about how every time I learn about a disease, I think of all the people I know who have it. Or could have it. Peptic ulcer disease (me); Crohn's disease (a couple people); gallbladder/liver problems from oral contraceptives (someone we know); pyloric stenosis (Eric's mom, which leaves a teeeeeeeny tiny chance for Eric's new niece to have it, but we won't know for another 1-3 weeks...); ear mites (our kittens; OK, I didn't learn about that one in Path). (And just to clear the air of other people's worry: there is basically a next-to-none chance that Lea will have pyloric stenosis. I just suffer from medical student hypochondriasis, only applied to other people so far, not myself.)

Anyway, the point is that I like to ponder these weird life occurrences. I guess it's nice to have something stop you in your tracks like that, when everything else is moving at such a fast pace. So fast, in fact, that I've developed a tic in the last 48 hours: a fasciculation (how's that for medical terminology) of my lower left eyelid, intermittent but frequent, at just enough intensity for me to notice it and for it to bother me, but not enough to always see it in the mirror). I think it's school-related; if it doesn't go away by Saturday then I'll go see someone.

Enough of the chatter; here is the Scrubs-doing-Charlie-Brown video:


Also, a video that was mentioned by Ken Jennings: the Charlie Brown dance scene set to OutKast's "Hey Ya," which is apparently a pretty old video, but I never saw it, so there:


Just one more day of studying, then one day of test-taking, then it's nothing but partying for the whole weekend! (Literally; three Christmas parties, Friday through Sunday, with varying levels of drunkenness to be expected.) Happy Holidays!

It's no secret these days...

...that I can't study during study week. I did really well yesterday, except I think I had a few too many coffees, which kept me up until 3 am, which meant I slept until noon, which means I have done absolutely nothing today. Oh well. Today was supposed to be Day 2 of Microbiology, and I already calculated that I can't Honor the class and it would be almost impossible to fail, so... I guess it doesn't matter if I don't know anything about fungi. Or viruses. (Hey, if you get a viral infection there's pretty much nothing we do for you anyway, so what does it matter if I know which virus gave you that cold?)

In other news, we got our first Christmas cards on Friday. Damn all you on-top-of-it people! I wrote my Christmas cards already, but we don't have any stamps, so I'll look more normal sending them out next week. We also got a Christmas tree last weekend and decorated it. How domestic. I'd put up pictures, but it IS study week and I really should be studying -- pictures take super-effort and a self-admission that I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing. The good news is, the cats don't seem too puzzled by the tree; they've pulled off a couple non-breakable ornaments, but they haven't tried to climb it yet or anything like that (whew!). (I'll put up pictures after Friday.)

Speaking of domestic, I noticed that our refrigerator is looking very grown-up these days. There's a birth announcement, a marriage announcement, a Save-the-Date for another wedding in March, and a picture of a baby we know sitting on Santa's lap. When did I become an adult and start receiving these things? It's kind of weird. In two years people are going to be calling me "Dr. Cummings" (!!) and I'm going to still feel like a 17-year-old.

If I can make it through this week, things will be golden. I'm really looking forward to winter break. We had originally booked tickets to PA for Christmas weekend only, but then I realized I have a lot more free time than that so I might as well go home to MD, too. The only problem was, we booked our tickets on a "real airline" (as opposed to Southwest), so exchanging the tickets was a real hassle. I was going to have to pay the difference in fares (fair) plus a $100 penalty (not fair), so it was going to cost me at least $200 to change my flight, depending on which one I picked. Instead, I booked a completely new round trip to BWI on Southwest for $150. I love Southwest. I canceled my Northwest flight and got a full credit, but when I try to use it to rebook later, I'm still going to have to pay that stupid $100 penalty. Argh. Sometimes I just don't understand the airlines. Even Southwest, as much as I love them, can be weird sometimes. Case in point: I can fly from Louisville to BWI non-stop (only an hour and a half -- I love it!), but to fly to Philly you have to go through Midway with a layover. Southwest just opened up service from Dulles and Reagan, also, but to fly Louisville to DC you also need to go through Midway. Why? If BWI is a non-stop flight, shouldn't Dulles be, also? Dulles is technically closer to Louisville than BWI, even... Whatever. Silly FAA. All I know is, I'm pretty close to earning my free roundtrip on Southwest. I'm flying home for winter break, then again for MLK weekend, then again in March -- two weeks in a row, actually! We're going to Philly the weekend of March 3 for a wedding, then I'm going home for spring break and a bridal shower the weekend of the 10th. I'd totally consider staying at home and missing a week of school to save the airfare, except that week in between is another study week, with a test on March 9. Can't miss that.

And while I'm on the topic of Southwest, I just want to officially endorse Ding!, their desktop application that alerts you to short-term, users-only fare deals. I love it. Since you can always refund your tickets on Southwest (not always for an actual cash refund, but always for a full credit for future use, with no penalty fees), I book tickets I know I need to book, like the ones for March, then watch for Ding! fares as the date draws nearer -- if one pops up, I cancel my original flight and use that credit to book the new, cheaper fare. If Southwest wanted to hire me to be their Ding! spokeswoman I would totally do it. Maybe I should let them know that in case they want to consider it...

And finally, three news stories of note:

You may have heard about the desegregation cases the Supreme Court is hearing right now. One of them was brought against the Louisville public school system, because they bus kids all over creation to meet racial quotas to keep their schools relatively diverse. The mother of a white boy is suing because her son was denied entry to the closest elementary school to their house because it already had enough white students and instead has to take a 90-minute bus ride to the school he was assigned to. When I moved here a year ago, I'd read stories regarding busing and have no idea what was going on. Do they bus because they're a big city with a poor, black, inner-city population? Philadelphia doesn't do that. Because they're in the pseudo-South? I haven't heard about other southern cities doing that. It's baffling to me. I haven't thought enough about the issue to debate it here, but my summary thought is that the whole situation basically sucks, and I'm interested to see how the court is going to rule.

The second story was in today's Courier Journal, from the Associated Press, about a high school in Eastern KY that has a Confederate guy as its mascot. One of the school board members suggested the school rethink the mascot, since it is a symbol of slavery and oppression, but of course, he got shot down. This sentence struck me: "Lorena Hall, principal at Allen Central, said every few years, someone like McGuire will "stir the pot" about the Confederate symbols. But her school won't budge." The students interviewed in the story say the Confederate flag doesn't represent "those things" to them, and I believe them -- they see it as some sort of misplaced pride. But it amazes me that they don't understand why everyone else is upset and don't understand that they need to change. The last few grafs are telling, also:

" Allen Central adopted its school flag and mascot in 1972, when it was established to consolidate four other schools.

Nearly 35 years later, the students proudly attend school competitions and events locally and statewide, sporting their rebel T-shirts, jackets, hats and, of course, the school flag.

The Allen County students interviewed said they've experienced a lot of stares and whispers at events, but no major confrontations.

"We just tell them we don't mean it that way," Owens said. "

My goodness. I would think if you noticed that everyone else stares, you might wonder why, and wonder if maybe YOU'RE the naked emperor and the one in the wrong? When I checked the C-J website for the link I gave you above, I noticed a reader comment that said the story had been edited from its original AP version. In the C-J story, Tiffany Owens the cheerleader says, "To us it's not about the hatred." In the full version, she goes on to say, "I have colored friends around here and they never say anything." YIKES! This, people, is why, when people ask me how I like living in Kentucky, I respond with, "I love Louisville. I don't know anything about the rest of the state."

And here's the last one, an editorial from the Washington Post printed in today's C-J about Mary Cheney's recently announced pregnancy. I think it's great that she and her partner are starting a family, I think it's bizarre that her father feels the way he does about gay rights, and I think it's GREAT that U.S. businesses are so far ahead of the politicians (read the story). Really, who cares if gay marriage is legitimized by the state or country as long as your employer recognizes your relationship for partner benefits? (Obviously, I think it's better if these relationships can be legalized, but you get my point.) That's where progress is going to be made: by the people, doing what they're doing.

And now, back to the books. Did you know that all babies get antibiotic eye drops at birth to protect them from gonorrheal and chlamydial eye infections? It's cheaper, quicker, and easier than testing the moms to see who's positive. Just treat everyone, even if they don't need it, and you'll save some of them from going blind. Same with the first dose of the Hep B shot. That's my idea of public health: save everyone, even if it's against their will -- it's for their own good. :)

Got a new TV! After my hospice preceptorship ended early on Wednesday, I stopped by Douglass Loop to see if the new noodle place, The Pink Door, was open for lunch (it wasn't, so I went to Lemongrass instead). I wandered into a consignment shop nearby and found a 27" TV for $69. We've been sort of looking for a new TV for a while -- all we have are two 20" ones left over from college, but we definitely can't afford a brand new TV -- the LCDs and plasmas are obviously too expensive, and it doesn't seem like a good idea to sink $200-300 into a tube TV, even if it has a nice flat screen, when it's just dead technology. So we picked up the thrift store TV yesterday and it looks great in our new living room.

New living room? That's right, we rearranged on Thursday night. The couch used to face the bedroom, away from the kitchen, and that was good for watching TV, but guests never sat on it because they were blocked off from the rest of the goings-on. Now the couch faces the window, so people sitting there can be open to the kitchen if they want. We moved the wardrobe into the office (it was just a storage closet anyway) and now there's enough room in the living room for the Poang chair again, too. I really like the new setup.

And I really liked hospice, too. I went around with a CNA, which is one of the lowest health-care positions you can have, but arguably one of the most important, as well. Someone has to wipe dirty butts and give people baths, after all. Anyway, we made two home visits and I got to meet some very nice families and see what hospice is all about. I like the hospice philosophy and hope I get to work with hospice in some capacity during my career. Or, if I can't be blessed with dying a quick, tragic death at the age of 80, I'll definitely participate in hospice as a 99-year-old instead.

***************
I realized I never wrote about our second Broadway show, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which we saw at the beginning of November. It was a lot of fun -- I've never seen the movie before, so I wasn't familiar with the plot, so it was a real treat. The guy who played Freddy was probably the best, I thought, and I really liked the score, especially "Great Big Stuff" and "All About Ruprecht." The craziest part of the show were the lyrics -- really tawdry, base, tasteless stuff, like "fresh-shaved testicles on Christmas Day." Also a couple nice political sneers, including, "The Bushes of Tex/were nervous wrecks/because their son was dim./But look what happened to him." Go see it if you can. Up next: 12 Angry Men in January.

Bits and Pieces

I feel like my life has been in overdrive the past few weeks, and I keep thinking of things to post here, but then I don't have time to so they slip out of my head, probably never to be seen again. Here are a few of the highlights, though:

-Silent Auction: Our class's silent auction went really well. We made over $5000, even though we had a pretty low physician turnout, which was probably to be expected because it was a brand new event. If next year's class builds on our success they'll do very well. I'm really proud we pulled that whole thing off.

-Miami: A bunch of us went to Miami for a weekend to attend the AMSA regional conference. I was the slacker of the group and the only conference activity I actually attended was the free lunch on Saturday! The rest of the time, we sat by the pool, lounged at the beach, and shopped and partied in South Beach -- emphasis on partied. I don't know how people actually go to medical school in Miami -- I'd have flunked out by now for sure, with 80+ degree weather in November!

-Sick: My punishment for going to Miami was getting sick two days after I got back. I had a killer sore throat and thought maybe I should go to the health center for a strep test, but getting seen there is next to impossible. Luckily, I saw one of my physician mentors at a meeting Thursday afternoon and got him to take a peek in my mouth. He declared it viral (but offered me antibiotics if I wanted them anyway -- why do doctors do that?), and sure enough, by the next day it had moved out of my throat and into my nose and chest -- which is much easier to deal with. After loading up on assorted decongestants, expectorants, and cough drops at the store, I've been much better. I realized, however, that I should probably go get my flu shot before much more time passes...

-Turkey: We had a Miami reunion party last night (I know, it's only been a week and a half since we went!) and a pre-Thanksgiving feast. I made green bean casserole and banana bread and brought some leftover honeydew, and I also made the turkey, based on this recipe from Michael Chiarello, chosen after watching Food Network pretty much all weekend. I figured out something about turkey roasting theory. The Butterball theory is to roast at 350 degrees for a million hours and baste constantly to keep it moist. I think this actually dries it out. Instead, I used Alton Brown's method and roasted at 500 degrees for 30 minutes then at 350 degrees until the turkey reached 161 degrees. Then you remove the turkey from the oven, cover it in tin foil, and let it rest for 30 minutes and it will keep cooking to its final temperature (165-170 degrees). The salt rub gave it just enough seasoning, and the lemon and rosemary gave it wonderful flavor. Cooking it at high heat for a shorter amount of time keeps the turkey juicier than if you cook it at low heat for a long time and dry it out. This way, you don't need to baste, either!



A bad picture of me posing with a great picture of the turkey. My right hand was stabilizing a casserole that had been resting on the chair before I sat down. That's my new roasting pan, too -- original price $16.99, marked down by 50%, and bought with a coupon that got me another $1 off the roasting pan and a cake pan. I love deals.


-Today: Finally, a day off! I have a lot of cleaning and packing to do, though. We're leaving tonight to drive to Charleston, WV (there's nothing there; it's just halfway between here and my parents' house) before we make the rest of the trip to Leonardtown, MD, tomorrow. We're eating Thanksgiving dinner at dinnertime on Thursday to give us plenty of time to hit traffic and the forecasted rainstorm. We're taking the cats with us, but I don't think they know that yet; I haven't bothered to try to wrestle them into their harnesses yet. I'm looking forward to being home for the weekend. I haven't been home since July, I think I've convinced my sister we should make my citrus rosemary turkey again, and my mom is just landing in DC as I write (she was in Hong Kong, helping my grandmother, who had emergency gallstone surgery a couple weeks ago). I have a ton of stuff to do and I'd better get at it if we're going to leave at a reasonable time tonight, but I can't go before announcing the biggest news...

-Baby Lea! Eric's sister finally had her baby, 10 days overdue. She had acupuncture after 40 weeks to stimulate labor, and I guess it worked -- she was worried about having to be induced or going past 42 weeks, at which point she would have been forced to deliver at the hospital instead of at the midwife birthing center. Anyway, Baby Lea came into the world on November 21 around lunchtime, weighing in at 9 lbs, 7 oz, reportedly with a head of dark hair. I've heard she's gorgeous, and I'm anxiously awaiting photos. I'm also anxiously awaiting Christmas, when I get to see her! I also realized, however, that I never finished making my baby presents, so I might be doing some knitting this weekend... or just buying lots of cute little baby clothes!

Busy!

Halloween: Didn't do anything; was studying for my test. Did attend our first intramural floor hockey team, where we were beaten, 3-1, by Kappa Delta, but I got the one goal for our team! I followed that performance by forgetting about our second game tonight, stepping out of the shower at 8:10 and realizing the game started at 8:00. Oops.

Test: Went well enough. I'm 2/3 done with the fall semester. Almost 1/2 done with second year. I need to start thinking about what board review books and review programs to buy, but I'm not that organized yet.

Speaking of boards: I had a sort-of plan to study for all of May, and take boards right around Memorial Day. Now it looks like Paula's wedding will be May 20, so that weekend is shot, and we just found out Eric's cousin is getting married in "early May," so that will probably be another weekend shot. I haven't scrutinized the calendar yet, but I think I can push boards back by just a week and still have time to go on a post-boards vacation before third year begins. We're thinking Scotland, but nothing's definite yet. Next week when things die down I'm going to talk to a travel agent about our options.

Weekend: Eric's dad came in on Thursday night and we went out to watch the UofL-WVa game, me with my stack of flash cards on the table. Ate at Baxter Station Bar and Grill on Friday for the first time, and it was really good, minus a weird blip with the service, then we saw Borat. Borat was really funny -- really horrendously and offensively funny, but funny. Saturday we had brunch at Toast, which is always good, and then pondered going to the Breeder's Cup for a little, but it didn't work out.

Election Day: Today was the first day I've ever voted in person for a national seat. In 2000 and 2004 I voted by absentee ballot, and I can't remember if I even voted in 2002. Today I voted for John Yarmuth for Congress, incumbent Tom Riner for State Representative, and incumbent Jerry Abramson for Mayor. I didn't know anything about any of the other people running (or anything about any of most of the other positions -- what's a PVA?), so I left them all blank -- better safe than sorry. It turns out I'm 3 for 3; I wasn't too surprised about "Mayor for Life" Abramson or Riner, but I am supremely happy that Yarmuth beat Northup. He is 100% in favor of universal healthcare -- let's see what he does! We're waiting to see if Baron Hill beats Mike Sodrell in Indiana -- I'm being optimistic, despite the billboard on I-65 that declares, "Baron Hill Supports Abortion" in huge letters. Also, a Union pollworker assaulted a voter in Louisville today after the voter didn't vote for any of the judge elections (glad it didn't happen to me!). Yay also for Santorum losing! Boo to Eric, who missed the deadline to register to vote in Kentucky and also neglected to get an absentee ballot for Pennsylvania. It's a good thing neither state needed him; he's off the hook this time.

Crazy week: I've barely recovered from test week, still haven't finished doing laundry, and have definitely not gotten back into the rhythm of going to class, but this week is going to be very hectic. Thursday night we're seeing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, then all day Friday I'm setting up for our class silent auction, Friday night is the auction, and Saturday morning I'm getting on a plane at 5 am to fly to Miami for the AMSA conference. So I essentially need to be packed tomorrow night, but we all know that's not going to happen. Right now, I need to prep for my hepatic encephalopathy case tomorrow and get into bed, because I have to be up early to attend an autopsy!

BSC Headquarters. A must-read if you were ever a fan of The Baby-Sitters Club series. A girl about my age (woman?! I have to come to grips with the fact that I'm a grown-up now) is re-reading the BSC series and blogs about them as she goes. I myself have not had a chance to read much if yet, but Paige says she became so engrossed that, upon finding it, she read the whole thing in a day.

Giant Microbes. Not news to me, but it might be to you. I have the original four, a college graduation gift perfect for a micro major (thanks, Eric!). If you feel like spending $130 on me, feel free to get me the rest. They're so cute! I do have minor nerdy issues with a few of them (like why they decided to include Streptococcus in triplicate), but overall, I can't resist!

Fried Coke a hit at fairs. That's right, folks. I had just heard of fried Oreos and fried Snickers this year, and tried a fried Snickers in August (admittedly good), and now they come up with this. Sounds too bizarre, if you ask me.

More food

Eric and I have a general rule that we try to eat out at least twice a week but no more than three times. This allows enough freedom for a running-late-so-can't-make-lunch lunch out and a last-minute Qdoba dinner or late-night Taco Bell run, as well as a nice-ish dinner out, without breaking our wallets. Last week, though, we cooked every night, and most of them were either semi-involved or new recipes. I can't remember a couple days, but here are the highlights:

Tuesday: Lasagna. Yum, as always, with Pillsbury crescent rolls to boot.
Wednesday: Jambalaya. I didn't have any celery and we used a Lipton Rice Sides Dirty Rice packet to mix it with instead of making white, but it worked out well (I channeled Sandra Lee's "Semi-Homemade" cooking that night). This week I saw Rachael Ray do "Jambasta" -- jambalaya over pasta instead of rice... interesting concept, may have to try that one sometime.
Friday: Chili -- first batch of the season! Since I was feeling rather meaty from the first part of the week, we made it with ground turkey instead, and added cinnamon, per my friend Paula's recommendation (she won a chili contest by using cinnamon). It was REALLY good, and in a demonstration of how disgusting Eric and I can be with food, the entire pot was gone by midnight.
Saturday: Sausage and corn chowder. Didn't have any potatoes so it wasn't as hearty as it could have been, but it was still really good -- a nice, warm comforting dish on a chilly fall day.

Also on Friday we saw our first Broadway show of the season -- All Shook Up. It was really cute -- basically, an excuse to put a bunch of Elvis songs into a musical. The guy who played Chad, the blue suede shoe-wearing, guitar-playing, jukebox-loving "roustabout," had an iffy voice -- some songs of his were great and others made me clench my fists in the hope he would make his next note -- but he had a really great variety of songs and he played his stereotypical role well. The lead female, who played Natalie, was great, and I thought her best song was her rendition of "A Little Less Conversation" in a deep voice (the plot involves her dressing up as a guy to get closer to Chad -- think "As You Like It," etc). The woman who played Sylvia, Natasha Williams, was absolutely amazing and pretty much stole the show, I thought. The set design was also really fun. Overall, it was a good time, not the greatest musical in the whole wide world, but very enjoyable, and I think it will make a really good high school musical once the copyrights are released -- very "Grease" or "Bye Bye Birdie" -ish.

On Sunday we ventured into the East End and had dim sum at Jade Palace. It was the first time I had been there, although I remember reading reviews by Robin Garr back when I first moved here, but I've had really sub-par experiences with Chinese food in this city, so I had been cautious. You can get pretty much any kind of cuisine you can name in Louisville, completely authentic and delicious, and I thoroughly enjoy having great Vietnamese, Thai, and Mexican places to go to. There are Bosnian restaurants and tons of African restaurants as well, but I haven't tried as many of those yet. But it seems, for the most part, that the only Chinese food is takeout, and even though the people at Wok Express, right across the street from me, are authentically Chinese themselves, they only stock ingredients that allow them to make Chinese-American food (which I can't fault them for at all; even I get a strong hankering for roast pork lo mein, salty wonton soup, and deep-fried egg rolls -- especially during test week!). The other authentic Chinese restaurant, Oriental House, was pretty good for certain dishes, and I was impressed that they had any sort of mien (wheat noodles in soup) at all, but it wasn't the kind I liked best. Plus, they boasted of offering dim sum, but when I ordered it, I could tell it was the pre-frozen kind. If you want Peking duck, though, that's the place to go -- they supply it to every restaurant in town, apparently.

Anyway, I hadn't tried Jade Palace yet, and I took Eric and my friend David for dim sum on Sunday. Results: I can't wait to go back!!! They have the basic dim sum dishes, both pushed around in carts and pictured on a menu for non-speakers (or half-speakers like me) to point at, fresh and delicious and almost as good as most dim sum I've ever had in this country. PLUS, they have congee (rice porridge) and mien -- the kind I like, with shrimp dumplings. We stuffed ourselves silly and brought home leftovers, and I managed to try the congee, but I just didn't have any extra room for noodle soup, so I can't wait until I get to go back and try it. The best thing is, now I have somewhere to bring my mom the next time she visits! Thank goodness for comfort food.

Next week is my next study week -- another big round of tests next Friday, so we get the whole week off to study like mad. Since I need to learn about nematodes -- that's worms to you laypeople -- I thought you might like to read about them as well: Dinosaur fossil spills its guts, out come worms

I was going to post a couple pictures here, one of Eric and me at Cadaver Ball a couple weekends ago (when I got drunk out of my mind and made a very large fool of myself... a good reminder of why I usually don't drink with people from school), and another of my sausage and corn chowder, just for the heck of it -- but I can't find the USB cord for my camera, so I can't download the pictures yet.

Snippets

Confident students do worse in math
Interesting. I always hated math, despite being above average in it -- at least, until calculus and the senior slump hit. I took AP BC Calc on a pass/fail basis, relishing the ability to squeak by with what probably amounted to a D- average, since we only needed three years of math to graduate high school. I took the AP test, managed to pull a good enough grade out of my ass to place out of college calc, and haven't touched math since. Thank goodness doctors don't need to know much more than simple arithmetic!

Project Runway -- I can't believe Jeffrey won. What a wacko. I apparently have no fashion sense whatsoever, because I don't see anything innovative, interesting, or appealing about his designs. I was rooting for Michael the whole time, but I agree that his Bryant Park collection fell short. I really liked Laura's collection, and I think she's very marketable, but I suppose for the competition she has a limited range. Uli had a great collection, but I guess they chose Jeffrey because he had a good collection (so they say) and had done well throughout the competition. Too bad he's an ass. Around his family he seems like such a nice guy, but as soon as his son is more than 100 yards away, he turns back into a huge prick. In addition to the $100,000 to start his own line, he won a mentorship with INC, which doesn't seem to fit him at all. INC is a huge line carried by Macys -- I don't see Jeffrey meshing with Macys very well at all. Oh well, at least my Wednesday nights are freed up a little bit -- now I only have to watch one show instead of two while trying to study for my Thursday quizzes.

Speaking of which, Lost was pretty good last night, I thought. I liked that they finally went back to the creepy island storyline, although the sudden, unexplained, and completely accepted appearance of another polar bear seemed odd. I thought Eko was going to have been captured by that weird black smoke monster thing. And another weird thing about the hatch implosion (besides the fact that the three men were not imploded along with it) -- apparently it wiped out any reason for a button to be pushed? Was the electromagnetic force not a natural occurrence to begin with, or was it all created for the purposes of the Dharma Initiative so that the button had a reason to be pushed?

Finally, two videos stolen from my friend Dora's blog. She finds such cool stuff.
First, a video from Harvard showing the inner processes of a white blood cell. So fascinating.
The Inner Life of the Cell

Second, a video by Dove showing the evolution of a model from un-madeup to billboard, in 60 seconds. Crazy. If I had a makeup artist and hair stylist working on me every day, I'm sure I'd look gorgeous, too -- no Photoshop needed, even. Dove Evolution

Congratulations, Paula and Jeff!

When your best friend calls you and leaves a message saying, "call me back, I really need to talk to you," and her usual voicemails are more along the lines of "just calling to say hi, call me back whenever," it's a safe bet that she has BIG LIFE NEWS to share. In this case, Paula called me on Sunday and left that voicemail, but I was napping on the couch and missed the call. Upon hearing that she "really" needed to talk to me, I immediately grew suspicious. Yesterday, our other friend Jamie, who never calls me, called me, and I refused to pick up, growing more suspicious that I knew what Paula's news was, and afraid that Jamie didn't know that I didn't know and would spoil the surprise. I wanted to hear it from Paula, you know? I even made Eric call into my voicemail to listen to Jamie's message to make sure it was innocuous -- which it was, but that only made me more suspicious...

I finally got to talk to Paula earlier today, for about 2 minutes, and it's confirmed -- she's engaged! I called Jamie back afterward, and we had a nice, long talk about it, among other things, but I don't get to hear the full story from Paula until after 11 tonight, when she gets out of her ER shift. I couldn't be happier for her and Jeff!

no amount of vacation is ever enough

Whew!
It's 1.5 weeks post-test, and I'm completely behind again. Last week I took off to recuperate, and then this past weekend I took a trip east to hang out with my friends, and now all of a sudden I have a ton of stuff to learn ASAP and I'm exhausted all over again. Recurring theme for 2006-2007: can't wait until third year begins so this vicious cycle is broken.

Like I said, I went east this weekend, and I had a great time with my friends. We went to a winery in southeastern PA, stayed overnight in Wilmington, DE, and picked apples at an orchard in Media, PA. The only funny thing about the whole trip was that Eric also flew east for the weekend, to his parents' house in Chester Co., PA. Both of our flights left Friday evening at the same time; mine direct to BWI, his to Reagan National for a layover before heading to Philly. On Saturday when we were at the winery, we were actually IN Chester County, less than 30 minutes from his house and from my old place in Philly. When my friend had booked our hotel on Priceline, the next closest hotel they offered her was the Philadelphia airport hotel. Everything about it was so funny -- I flew to Baltimore to drive to the Philly area, and Eric flew to Philly, and we were so close to each other the entire weekend but didn't see each other once.

Apple picking resulted in us bringing home a full bushel of apples -- if you picked a 1/2 bushel, they gave you a 1/2 bushel of red delicious free, so we got roughly 52 pounds of apples for $21, which is quite the bargain. But it meant I had to carry a 15-lb open-top box of apples onto the plane, which elicited many odd looks, from the check-in counter all the way to the plane. It's not as though I can't buy apples in Kentucky, you know? Anyway, last night I made apple-cinnamon muffins, an apple coffee cake, and regular apple cake. I brought a bunch of it all to school today to share, but we still have a significant amount left, and I for once don't intend to eat it all myself. Plus we still have about 10 pounds of apples left. Sheesh.

1/6 done!

I am now 1/6 done with second year. Five more tests and I'm done with pre-clinical medicine. Well, that's not completely accurate, since after those five tests I have to pass that ONE HUGE TEST to actually be able to get into third year... but we'll worry about boards later.

Test went well, although I couldn't fall asleep last night and so consequently went through 8 hours of testing feeling woozy and tipsy. I guess that's what residency is going to be like, so maybe I should get used to it now? On the bright side, I proved I can pass a test being the equivalent of half-drunk, but how does that translate to patient care? Will I only successfully treat 70% of my patients when I'm half-drunk? How about when I'm full-drunk? A recent issue of JAMA was devoted to the theme of medical education, and it was chock-full of really interesting articles. One of them, a study of interns' compliance with the 80-hour work week regulations, cited a study that found that being awake for 24 hours causes performance decreases comparable to a blood alcohol of .10 (JAMA. 296(9):1063-1070). Scary stuff. (By the way, the study found that 84% of interns in the study period reported ACGME violations.) If any of you are JAMA-ers, I highly recommend the Sept. 6 issue.

Another article in that issue discussed the value of pre-medical requirements. Dr. Emanuel of NIH proposes dropping physics, calculus, and orgo from the pre-med curriculum and instead adding biochem, genetics, molecular biology, ethics, and statistics. Then, we should drop some of the unnecessary biochem, genetics, and molecular bio from the medical curriculum (eg, Krebs cycle) and make more room for biostatistics and medical ethics. Overall, I think his proposal is great. I, for one, certainly could have done without two semesters of orgo (OK, OK, it was three...), and I think some more biostats would do most of my classmates some good. Emanuel calls physics/calculus/orgo what they really are: weed-out classes. Granted, if the powers that be think weed-out courses are necessary, then biochem can certainly fill that role. But wouldn't it be nice if we fostered humanism in medicine at the pre-med level (that would be the ethics part), rather than creating gunners gunning to get into med school, then arriving in med school planning to gun their way through the next four years?

Anyway, that's enough heavy thinking for one night. Especially a night that has me feeling half-drunk.

In other news, it's been raining all day today -- thunderstorms, too. We're under a tornado watch until 2 am. Tons of lightning and thunder, but it's not bad on a night I get to stay inside, snuggled up on the couch or in bed. I'm just afraid that my car is going to be flooded tomorrow -- the convertible top has finally kicked the bucket, and one of the seams is wide open. I keep duct taping it together, but it keeps opening back up... It's going to cost me $700 to get a new top, but I don't think I have much of a choice right now. Mechanically, it works great, especially since I just sank $700 into it a couple months ago to fix something under the hood.

Finally, my last comment, and then it's time to have a glass of wine and watch Will and Grace:
The Grey's Anatomy premiere was last night. Medically, it's pretty much crap. They use nursing stethoscopes. The surgical residents are constantly in the ER or NICU or some other odd place -- I do NOT understand that. Does that hospital only have those 5 residents? Oh yeah, there is Callie, the one random ER resident. Plus, bubonic plague is NOT spread by person-to-person contact. Maybe if McDreamy had cut himself while doing head surgery on that woman and their blood had gotten all mixed up, then there would have been a risk for contamination. But otherwise, the plague is spread by the fleas that live on the rats, and you only get sick if you hang around the fleas or the rats. So the quarantine storyline was a bit implausible. However, there was one golden moment in the whole episode. Callie is talking to Finn, and she is explaining why Meredith is a dating idiot. "We're socially retarded. Four years of high school, four years of college, four years of medical school, focusing on science. Then we graduate and we're 28 years old and we have no idea what to do. We're all 17 years old. This is high school with scalpels." Great line. Great concept. How true.

dorks, not nerds

I've had a discussion with numerous people over the years, namely, whether smart people like to be called dorks, nerds, or geeks. I found the above quiz linked in adspar's blog, and decided to take it. Granted, it only measures nerdiness, not nerdiness compared with dorkiness or geekiness, but nevertheless, I am nerdier than 51% of people who take that quiz. I find fault with the quiz, because it seemed as though there were a lot of computer-related questions (I didn't actually count them; that was just my impression), which I wouldn't necessarily know. One of the questions asks what Internet browser you are using to take the quiz. I use Firefox, but that's only because I have computer nerd friends who told me to, not because I'm a computer nerd -- does that count?

What's more interesting is that people tend to identify strongly with either dork or nerd, and have strong opinions as to why they've chosen that one. In my experience, people my own age do not like the term "geek." The nerd quiz author actually has a little explanation of his own here, including Merrian-Webster definitions of nerd and geek, which I've copied:

Nerd:
Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) : an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits

Geek:
Etymology: probably from English dialect geek, geck fool, from Low German geck, from Middle Low German. 1 : a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake 2 : a person often of an intellectual bent who is disapproved of

Here, also, is dork:
Etymology: perhaps alteration of dick
slang : NERD; also : JERK 4a

First of all, doesn't "geek" sound better than "nerd"? I don't think of myself as unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept (observations to the contrary welcomed). The definition of "dork" doesn't really help any argument, unfortunately.

Perhaps they ARE all the same, and I am fully aware that it doesn't really matter. However, I tend to identify with "dork" -- my definition would be someone who not only has a lot of knowledge, but who also finds it cool. Case in point: In an ethics discussion we had a couple weeks ago, we were discussing reproductive scenarios, such as a couple who divorces, then finds out the woman is pregnant. The father doesn't want to keep the baby, but the mother doesn't want an abortion, so the father fights to not pay child support. Our facilitator said, in the context of the discussion, "Unfortunately or fortunately, these things occur because men cannot have babies." Which made me turn to my friend and say, "Unless you're a seahorse!" at which point she gave me a look like I was crazy. Crazy? No. Cool? Absolutely! Dork.

Or maybe it's best to just combine them, as the nerd quiz guy says. Gerd, neek, gork, whatever -- although that last one is something else entirely, and it's something I aspire never to be. That's why I'm a DNAR, people! (More on that last thought at some other time.)

By the way, I just re-took the quiz, changing a couple answers that could have gone either way the first time, and here are the new results:


I think it says something about my nerdiness that I wanted to go back and change those answers to see what would happen to my score...

Tests, round 1

I can't believe that I've already been in school for five weeks. It seems like it's been forever, but it also seems like it just started -- that's the wonderful dichotomy of medical school, I guess. I have the next week off to study for my first round of exams -- we call it block testing. We have a week off to study, then we test for about 7 hours straight on Friday. Each block lasts about an hour and has about 45 questions, all mixed up from each of the three subjects we're being tested on (Path, Micro/Immuno, and Intro to Clinical Medicine) -- it's supposed to emulate board testing, and it's supposed to be good for us. I like it, actually. It's nice having the week off to catch up, as opposed to having to cram test studying into the week while classes are still going on. Unfortunately, I have a lot of studying to do this week. I was caught up for the first 2-3 weeks, then the last two have been just crazy, and I'm a little behind right now. In addition, I've already forgotten the stuff I knew two weeks ago :( This isn't going to be a very fun week.

On the other hand, I really like this year better than last year. Over and over, I had heard that second year was much harder, but everyone likes it because it's more clinically relevant. Boy, is that true. It's MUCH harder -- the workload, mostly, not that it's conceptually that much harder -- but it's MUCH more enjoyable, as well. I like learning about diseases in Path -- putting together clinical scenarios with underlying disease processes. I wasn't a huge fan of the memorization aspects of immunology, but I like it conceptually. And I love microbiology, so the rest of the semester will be fun (we just started it). Even ICM, which I've always stuck up for, has gotten better. We just finished a whole section on medical ethics (fascinating stuff!) and healthcare financing (obviously, an issue I feel strongly about).

Speaking of healthcare financing, I got a chance yesterday to meet two really cool people: Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, and John Yarmuth. Dr. Woolhandler is a Harvard primary care physician who is one of the co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program. She came to Louisville to give a public lecture on single-payer health care and to give a lecture on single-payer systems at the Kentucky Medical Association annual convention. In fact, the focus of this year's KMA meeting was covering the uninsured and underinsured, which I found really surprising, because I've always thought of the KMA as a much more conservative group -- it shows how much the problems with the current healthcare system have resonated across all groups, patients and physicians alike.

John Yarmuth is the democratic congressional candidate for our district here in Louisville. I like the guy a lot, mostly because he has extremely strong views on healthcare -- as a first-time candidate and unknown, he's really been pushing the single-payer cause hardcore, which is very impressive. He told me that his opinion, from speaking with people, is that the people are very much ahead of the politicians on this issue. The politicians are the ones preventing this from going forward at this time, but hopefully that will change. (The other cool politician who was in town this week was Barack Obama -- he spoke at Slugger Field on Thursday, and I heard he was awesome, but I wasn't able to go.) Here are the interesting things I learned at the KMA conference and Woolhandler lunch yesterday (plus some additional things that I already knew but maybe you didn't):

-In the 1960s, the pre-Medicare average physician salary was 2x that of the national average salary. After Medicare was enacted, it was such a good payer that the average physician salary became 5x that of the national average salary. (My new argument for people who keep countering me with the fact that Medicare is a bad payer; yes, there are currently Medicare cuts in the works, but we still need to fight those, even if we go to a single-payer system.) When Medicare was enacted, it created a whole new pool of patients/customers: the elderly, who had previously not been seeking medical care.

-If we create a single-payer system, there will be 46 million new customers who now have insurance. If we create a single-payer system, there will be an estimated additional 40 million new customers who now have good insurance. (There are currently 46 million Americans without insurance, and probably another 40 million who are underinsured.)

-Underinsurance is a big problem: In 2005, 22% of insured Kentuckians reported not going to a doctor even though they thought they needed to, because of cost. Twenty-one percent did not take a medical test, medical treatment, or complete follow-up visits recommended by their physician because of cost. An astounding 26% did not fill a prescription they needed because of cost (or filled it incorrectly -- "stretching" a month's supply to last two months, which can be a serious problem). And 15% did not see a specialist when they or their doctor thought they needed to. These are people WITH health insurance who cannot afford health care!

-Anecdotally, one of the largest groups opposing universal health care is medical students (surprise, surprise!). Apparently, we apply to medical school claiming we want to help people, but then we get greedy and think a single-payer system will create paycheck cuts for physicians. Or, to give us the benefit of the doubt, we get scared at how much debt we're in and are worried we'll never be able to pay it back (I myself am going to graduate with about $250,000 in medical school debt. Add on undergrad and my master's degree, and it will probably be about $300,000). Then, we graduate from med school and residency program, go into practice, and see the reality of how little we get paid under the current system and how wasteful it is, and sign onto the cause. (I heard that from someone who heard it from someone -- I have the attribution, but I can't verify it, so don't hold me to it. However, it does agree with the reactions I've gotten from medical students as opposed to physicians when discussing universal health care.) And yes, a few physician salaries are likely to decrease if we go to a single-payer system. But if you're currently making $600,000 and you get cut to $500,000, I think you'll survive. The current average salary for a primary care internist is $160,000-180,000. That's not a small chunk of change, by any means, and that's pretty much the bottom of the barrel. The highest-paying jobs in this country are physicians, and they still will be, even under a single-payer system.

-Nearly 1/3 of medical expenditure in this country goes to administrative costs. If I have a primary care practice, I might be paid $40 for a typical patient visit. Say $10 comes from the patient as a co-pay, and I need to track down the other $30 from the patient's insurance company. I pay an office person (who needs to be qualified and educated in this field to know what they're doing -- it's not a minimum wage job) to fight the insurance company for my extra $30, and God forbid it becomes a real fight and the insurance company doesn't want to pay. It's very likely that what I'm paying my office person to get that $30 comes very close to $30 itself. At some point, it becomes not worth it, and that's why more and more physicians are moving to fee-for-service systems. Sad. (That particular story came from a lawyer who gave us a lecture yesterday; it was about his wife, a psychiatrist, and what she actually went through.)

-Only about 50% of employers offer health insurance to their employees. Many small businesses can't afford it. Ford is offering $140,000 cash to employees if they'll sign away their rights to lifetime health coverage, which they were initially offered when they started working there 30 years ago -- that's a sign that even the top employers can't afford health coverage. Apparently, the president of GM and Hillary Clinton were talking recently (this is supposedly in the Congressional Record but I haven't checked) and GM said that health care was killing them. Clinton asked why they didn't push for universal health care and then she'd sign on. GM asked why SHE didn't push for universal health care and then THEY would sign on -- I guess at this point, the manufacturing industry doesn't want to break with Bush, but the time is going to come. Right now, everyone is waiting for someone else to say that the emporer isn't wearing any clothes -- let's see who finally says it. It's dumb for health insurance to be tied to employment. It's done that way for historical reasons (I'll tell you the story if you like), but it doesn't make sense anymore.

-And the bottom line is, there are plenty of things that work in a market system. Electronics, groceries, clothing stores -- these should all function in a supply-and-demand system. But health care is a basic human right, and everyone should be on a level playing field. There's no reason that health care should be fought out in a market system. Market systems have winners and losers, and that's all well and good. People should not have to fight to be winners or losers to ensure a healthy life.

So that's my re-affirmation of the single-payer cause. If you want more information, you can check out Physicians for a National Health Program; www.kyhealthcare.org, which is a joint project of PNHP-KY and Kentuckians for Single Payer Healthcare, a layperson group; the source for those percentages I quoted up above; AMSA's section on universal health care; and, to be fair, the AMA site on the uninsured, although the AMA is only supporting Bush's system of tax credits and health savings plans (if you don't know anything about these, you can find plenty of sources yourself. I think they're one of the dumbest ideas in the world.).

Now, here's to a productive week of studying! There's no point in championing a cause if I don't graduate!

untitled

Had a great weekend with Eric's sister and her husband. I didn't get a whole lot of studying done, but then, when do I ever get a whole lot of studying done? Ate at Toast, the new breakfast/lunch place downtown, and at Melillo's for dinner. Saw a Bats game -- a winning one at that -- and rode around on a surrey at Waterfront Park. My favorite part was singing the surrey song from Oklahoma and "A Bicycle Built for Two." The only downside to having guests is that, as usual, I gained a few pounds this weekend. We'll see if I can will them away...

Today we bought season tickets for the Broadway series. I'm really excited for it -- it includes All Shook Up, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Twelve Angry Men, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Spamalot, and The Lion King. The first show is in October, and it wraps up with The Lion King in June -- I'm in for a year of culture!

For now, it's time for bed. Here's to dreaming about pathology!

Fried Snickers, anyone?

A HUGE thank-you to my friend Chris for buying me a deep-fried Snickers at the state fair the other day. We were there working an exhibit with a Ford GT aimed at getting adolescents to promise never to smoke. I heard about these concoctions -- a Snickers on a stick dipped in funnel cake batter, deep fried, and doused in powdered sugar -- and Chris was kind enough to buy me and Jenn one each. What did it taste like? Heaven. No, seriously. Heaven. The entire Snickers gets oozy and melty inside the batter. It's the taste of the Snickers without the solid-ness of a Snickers, coated in sweet batter and sugar. YUM. I can't imagine it's very good for you, but hey, at least I'm not a smoker! And I don't know if it was the sugar, or the adrenaline rush from sitting in the GT, or the fact that Chris shared a desire of his that left me with a mental image of him enjoying the car by lying inside of it naked, but I had weird dreams that night.
~~~~
Just uploaded some pictures from my camera from the last month, and found these:

Berry tarts from when we went berry picking last month. The tart shells were from the freezer section of the grocery store, but the lemon curd-cheesecake tart filling was homemade, as was the gelatin glaze on the two on the right. They were *really* good.









Moxie in the box we brought the blackberries home in. She took to it immediately, for some odd reason. I like to call her "Mox in a box" but only because it rhymes -- this was the first box she was ever actually in.









You may have heard this story on NPR last month: At Waterfront Park here in Louisville, the city Park Development Corporation manager had signs posted that read, "Danger! Water contains high levels of hydrogen / Keep out" hoping it would scare people out of swimming in the fountain. People have always swam in that nasty fountain, and people still swim in it. Kind of sad, kind of funny. Kind of outraging, kind of pathetic. I just noticed that the story got posted on Wikipedia, too.


And finally, the Scrabble board from the best Scrabble game of my life. I beat Eric 416-275, which has never happened before and may never happen again. I will cherish it forever.

Things I want -- My birthday is in February (hint, hint)

Love it.

Like it.

Good for people who went to DHS (not me).

According to the blog name, this one should be for me.

But I think I like this one better?

OK, now I'm seriously going to study. Seriously.

(Sorry, couldn't help it. This one's pretty funny. And yes, I know you don't care.)

Study.

Fame!

My babies are famous!

Moxie and Mojo on their respective KittenWar pages. Here are the pictures I sent in of them:


Moxie's doing well; her dumb blond look is hard to beat.
















Mojo's not doing as well, but he's hard to photograph -- since he's black I always need to use the flash, but then he gets squinty-eyed and ugly.









I might have to cheat (because you're only supposed to submit one picture per kitten) and post this picture instead.








Anyway, they just got on the site today, and they haven't had too many battles yet. I just spent an embarrassing and mind-numbing 45 minutes clicking through cute kittens in an attempt to vote for mine, but they never came up. If you see them, you'd better vote for them! Especially Mojo! Even if he's up against one of these "winningest kittens"! ESPECIALLY if he's up against one of these "losingest kittens"! >:O

I've also submitted Moxie and Mojo to StuffOnMyCat.com, CatsInSinks.com, and CuteOverload.com. Look for them soon on a computer near you!

It only took a week...

...for the all-out, mind-crazing, adrenaline-producing, ulcer-aggravating panic and stress to set in. I was doing pretty well all week, all things considered, and had a lot of fun this weekend. Then, all of a sudden, at about 7:30 tonight, I FREAKED out. Majorly.

Objectively, I'm not really sure why I freaked out. Nothing about my situation has changed since Friday, when I felt fine. I'm behind in immunology, have been all week. That's not saying much, because everyone was behind the moment lecture began last Monday morning, and I did a pretty good job last week at keeping up. I'm behind in path, but not too worried about that yet. And ICM is, of course, very manageable -- more reading and prep compared to last year, but that's my favorite class anyway, so it's no big deal. But I still need to figure out what kind of specialist to shadow this semester and get it scheduled; still need to finish my research poster (that's really going to bite me in the ass, I can just tell); still need to get many, many things accomplished to make sure our silent auction is going to happen; still need to figure out where I can get my hair cut in this town -- and find time for an appointment -- before I end up sporting a mullet. I think it was all that other, non-path and non-immuno, stuff that made me panic. (Crap. I just remembered that I need to start exercising again, too. How am I going to fit that in? More panic.)

I tackled it by organizing, which is my usual plan of attack. Gather the lecture notes I need for the week. Clean up the pile of trash that is my desk and my office. Clean the bathroom. Make a to-do list -- one of my favorite activities in the world. (Basically, when I freak out about being behind in school, I do everything to get my life back in order except study.) Came to a very conscious conclusion about what it's going to be possible for me to accomplish this semester outside of the school realm: I need to take my roommate up on his offers to go to the grocery store, run errands, and take care of the apartment. I was able to do those things last year, and was very able to do those things this summer and got used to it, but I don't think it's going to happen as much anymore. And hey, that's one of the reasons I have a non-med school roomie, isn't it? :) It's tough, though, realizing that I can't take care of everything in my life that I want/need to. I'm trying to learn to delegate my leadership responsibilities more this year, and I guess I have to learn to let go of some things in my personal life, too.

I also think I have to try a new studying strategy this week. I usually try to be very thorough and read everything, but that's why I'm behind. Time to take the focused approach: only read the parts of the book the professors reference, focus on mastering the learning objectives, and get through everything.

If all else fails, I'll focus on going to sleep early so I'll at least be awake for lecture, taking my ulcer meds so my stomach doesn't hurt, and wearing my new knee brace so my knee doesn't hurt any more (wrenched it playing softball the past few weeks). Then I'll be OK physically, at least.

~~~~

Ate at La Rosita again last night, and it was just as good as the last time. They have these amazing corn tortillas that are sooooo good -- so much better than plain flour ones. (Of course it's the carbs I'm attracted to!) Had sopapillas for dinner -- yum, yum, yum!

Then we saw Little Miss Sunshine, which was pretty much the funniest movie I've ever seen. I'm totally in love with Abigail Breslin, who played the little girl Bo in Signs. I didn't stop laughing the entire movie. Steve Carrell was great. Alan Arkin was great. Greg Kinnear was great, and I don't usually like him -- same with Toni Collette (I know they're good actors, and I'm not criticizing their talent; I just usually don't like them). I can't wait until I get to see that movie again -- and that doesn't happen very often!

School started

After a week of orienting the first-years and having fun partying all week, I went to bed Sunday with the depressing feeling that I, too, had to start medical school back up again the next morning. Ugh. I picked out my clothes the night before, laid out a good plan for getting ready in the morning, including making my lunch, and then I stood in the shower for about 5 extra minutes, which on top of snoozing one extra time (9 minutes) made me late. I had to wake up Eric and get him to drive me in because I didn't want to be late for my first class. I walked in at 8:04; apparently, at 8:03, Dr. Lockwood, the path course director, asked all the class officers to stand up so he could see who they were. Oops. For the rest of the day I had people asking where I had been. I didn't really care, and I introduced myself to him after class, but it was just the fact that it was the second-largest attendance our class has ever had (after the first day of first year) and everyone knows I was late.

Other than that, this week has been pretty good so far. I really like path -- at least, I like it when I'm sitting in class, looking at the pictures and only having to understand things in passing. It's interesting, you know. I haven't yet tried to actually memorize everything I need to memorize, so we'll see how I like path in a couple weeks. We also started immunology, and so far it's basic stuff that I remember from undergrad, so I have a few days to stay ahead of the curve on that one. And in ICM we're doing an ethics block, which is much more interesting than I thought it would be. If a doctor fudges a diagnosis or clinical sign to get insurance to cover a test, is that lying? Is it wrong? What do you do if you know a patient's family member is a match for a living organ donation but the family member doesn't want to donate? What do you tell the patient? Interesting stuff, and they're doing a good job with it, which is a surprise. What's not a surprise is how off-kilter my own moral compass is; I always seem to want to do the wrong thing. Guess I need to work on that :)

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We came up with a new goal for meals: eat out at least once a week, but no more than three times. We're doing this for the financial aspect of things. I think I'll be able to do this pretty well, because I often get free lunches at school and stuff -- in fact, I'm getting free dinner tomorrow night for participating in a research study, then free lunch on Friday for a meeting, then we're going to a Bats game Friday night with the school where we get free dinner, so that's going to work out really well, and since we got Qdoba last night for dinner, that means we can eat out on Saturday AND Sunday if we want to!

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My mom got fired from her job last Friday after a week of craziness. (Background info: she's a barber on a Navy base for the base barber shop.) A week earlier, she had been called into a special meeting where she was asked if she had ever given free hair services. She admitted to having cut my brother's hair one day after work and to having another barber in the shop give her a hair trim when there were no customers -- these are things that all the barbers do. A couple days later, she was sent home and told she didn't need to come back until they gave further notice; she and another barber were sent home on the same day. Later in the week, barbers #3 and 4 were sent home for the same thing, but they went ahead and quit on the spot. After barber #5 (the manager) came back from vacation a day later and had been apprised of the situation, she decided to give notice as well. Barber #6 was finally questioned and then she, my mom, and barber #2 were all fired officially. Barber #6 was a full-time hire, so she has termination rights, while my mom and barber #2 were the equivalent of contractors (sort of) so they don't have any termination rights.

Anyway, they were all fired for providing free hair services, which for all of them included cutting each other's hair and occasionally cutting a family member's hair -- never providing free services to clients. They even insinuated that my mom had done something wrong by keeping the shop open 5-10 minutes late at times to cut the last customer's hair. What crap. Where the story gets interesting is the fact that barber #7 was NOT fired. In fact, what everyone has determined is that barber #7 was seen pocketing $20 as a tip when it should have gone into the cash drawer a couple months ago, and when she was turned in and questioned about it, she got really pissed and decided to get even. So she waited a while and watched everyone closely, keeping notes on what everyone was doing, then called the regional corporate office and said there was shady stuff going on in the salon, then cleaned up her own act so that she was not fired while everyone else was. What a bitch. So apparently there's only 1 barber working the shop right now, so I can only imagine what the lines are like. On the one hand, it sucks that my mom lost her job. On the other hand, she wasn't totally in love with it, because the atmosphere was always really catty and vicious like that, and she's not that good at holding up under that sort of negative environment. I think she should just open her own shop, like she's often thought about doing, but she's worried about the huge financial risk. The Navy shop was good because there was a very steady stream of business due to high volume and low prices (a man's haircut is only like $7). You can't survive in the civilian world with prices like that. Such injustice in this world. On the up side, though, since my mom now has lots of free time, she might come visit me!

WE WON!!!

10-2! I hit a single and can't remember how I got home after that; got a walk and was sent home on another guy's home run; and then struck out (but we were already up by that point)

Eric hit a single, then a triple, then got walked (which took him to second due to coed rules)

Our record is now 1-8 or 1-9; we've lost count.

BUT, we're now on a winning streak!

What a week!

This past one AND this coming one! And the one after that, now that I think about it...

Last Tuesday: worst softball game of the season, and by an unfortunate coincidence, the only one where we had a fan to cheer for us (Eric's mom)

Last Wednesday: dropped my car off at the dealer, had breakfast at Jerry's J-Boy Restaurant on Dixie Highway, then lunch at La Rosita (YUM! Definitely have to go back), my last research class of the summer (yet another waste), picked up my car from the dealer (too expensive, so took it somewhere else), and had dinner at Steak n Shake. Tied for second place at Molly Malone's pub quiz, and called it a night.

Last Thursday: got trained to teach BLS. Need to learn CPR? Give me a call. If I had any extra free time at all, I'd consider starting small group lessons, because I could make a TON of money! Tried to take my car to the new mechanic I was trying (Volksdoktor; great name, great service, great price!), but ended up calling AAA for a tow instead. Swam at the hotel where Eric's parents were staying (and fell asleep poolside for an hour), saw Scoop and had pizza at Bearno's. Scoop was pretty good, I thought. Worth a matinee admission or Netflix. Cute, entertaining, a couple of plot holes, but overall not bad.

Last Friday: Ran a bunch of errands, including shopping at Meijer for the first time. Impression: similar idea to a Super Walmart, but less Walmarty, which is a definite plus. Great produce selection with great produce prices! The only downside: it's quite far away for me to go to regularly, so I guess it's back to Kroger :( Cooked dinner for Eric and his parents, with this menu from Giada De Laurentiis: tuna spiedini (kabobs), Mediterranean couscous salad, and a twist on a classic trifle. Everything had lemons in it, which was the theme of the episode. Everything came out really well, and I would definitely make all of it again. The funny thing is, when I first saw the episode, what attracted me was the Italian lemonade, and that was the only thing I ended up not making, partly because I ran out of time and partly because I just didn't feel like squeezing any more lemons. A few changes to Giada's recipes: I added green peppers to the kabobs and in the future would take out the fennel and pre-cook the red onion a little bit; I used fresh whipped cream in the trifle instead of mascarpone cheese (I had it on hand) and raspberry liqueur instead of creme de cassis. I also made them as not-so-mini-individual trifles instead of a large one because I don't have a good dish for it. Dinner was followed by a visit to the First Friday Gallery Hop, which was a lot of fun, and a visit to L&N Wine Bar for dessert drinks. It was a really nice night -- the heat finally broke and it was cool out. Too bad that didn't last.

Saturday (Eric's dad's birthday): Morning visit to Barnes and Noble for a few CDs, lunch at Max and Erma's (I had a really good roast beef and brie sandwich), and 18 sweaty holes of golf at Fuzzy Zoeller's course in Sellersburg. I've never played 18 holes before, and the last time I played 9 holes I was awful, but Saturday went pretty well. I had a number of shots I was proud of, so maybe this whole practice-makes-perfect thing will work out eventually. A dip in the pool was followed by a late dinner at the Bristol downtown, which was delicious.

Sunday: Brunch at Sweet n Savory Cafe on Bardstown Road, said goodbye to Eric's parents, and went to the White Coat Ceremony for the incoming med school class. We managed to sell all of our leftover T-shirts and a few of our new travel coffee mugs. Dinner was Qdoba -- yum! -- and a relatively early bedtime cause I was exhausted and had developed a cold.

Monday: After sleeping sitting upright all night due to my stuffy nose, I made it to school by 8:30 to meet and greet the incoming students. I hung around at school until lunch and came home to take a nap. Picked up my car from Volksdoktor (diagnosis: needed a new fan motor and fan control module; price was $590, which was $300 less than what the dealer wanted. I have definitely found myself a new mechanic, but let's hope I don't need them again for a while) and went out for Night #1 of orientation social events. Pre-partied at Lauren's house then walked over to Molly Malone's for lots of drinking and socializing. Finished the night by walking to Spinelli's for some very delicious Philly-style pizza (the guy is actually FROM Philly! From Manayunk, actually! I can't wait to try his cheesesteaks -- he says they ship in Amoroso's rolls!!) and cabbed it home at 2:30.

Today: Slept off all of the drinking and Dayquil (not a good combination, I know) until 11 am, then went to school for a couple hours to have lunch and buy some used textbooks. Now, I'm planning to take a nap and get ready for yet another softball game (this one is our best chance of winning, if we're ever going to win one). Not sure if I'll feel up for going out again tonight, but we'll see.

Tomorrow: Long day at school with orientation stuff. Facilitating the second-year panel. Running the book sale in the afternoon. Heading to Dr. Ganzel's house for dinner to direct traffic and schmooze some more. Thursday is going to be another busy day at school and another hard night of socializing -- this time at Fourth Street Live. And Friday I'm teaching my first two BLS classes, so I'll be at school from 8-4, followed by our cookout at Cherokee Park. My goodness, I'm busy! If I ever get a free minute this weekend, I have to iron and put away the mountain of clean clothes on my bedroom floor, work on my research (that's right; after an entire summer of having nothing to do, I NOW have data to analyze -- VERY bad timing!), and finish my first immunology quiz (that's right; classes haven't even started for me yet, but we're getting our first quiz tomorrow -- VERY bad timing!). I can't even think about school starting yet. Ugh.

If I survive this week of fun and next week of school, I'll let you know. Keep me in your thoughts :)

Health news updates

Plan B may be available without a prescription
This is great news. I think an age restriction on nonprescription sales of the morning after pill are appropriate, and the idea of putting them behind the pharmacy counter is just common sense. I couldn't understand the "controversy" last year when people were saying behind-the-counter sales wouldn't work. Tobacco sales are age-restricted; pornography sales are age-restricted; here in the Midwest, they card you at the pharmacy counter for cold medicine. Why would Plan B sales be any more difficult? At least they've started the talks back up, and something good may come of this yet.

Gardasil approved to prevent cervical cancer
Gardasil added to vaccination schedule
These stories are more than a month old, I know, but I just can't stop being excited about it. Merck's HPV vaccine is going to change the incidence and prevalence of cervical cancer over the next 50 years. And yes, I admit that I'm slightly biased, having worked on the HPV vaccine project at Merck for a year, but that doesn't change the facts: it's a great vaccine. Every woman under the age of 26 should go get it. Guys should go ahead and get it now, too; not only will it help curb the spread of HPV to women (indirect benefit), it prevents against the two most prevalent strains of genital warts, which is a direct benefit to you.

Why can't people understand?

That not everyone has to be the SAME?

I was reading someone's blog this morning (the author and blog shall remain anonymous for various reasons) and found this (the author recently went on a trip to China and is now posting her journal entries online):

[Our tour guide] "said only 3-4% of the Chinese people have a belief system and that most are aetheist like her. A sad statistic. They follow systems of conduct like confuscianism. I can see why so many organizations are trying to send missionaries here... though these people do not seem hopeless... maybe some realize it. [I saw one church during my whole stay in China, and it was in Shanghai. I find is so utterly odd that they have so many supersitions and they believe in evil spirits and luck and things like that, but they do not believe in a god. Who made up all of their superstitions? Do they not understand how stupid it is? At least, I found it to be stupid. It IS neat and the superstitions are so old... but they are just that... I dont believe that wearing a red shirt will give me luck or that spending money on new years will mean bad fortune and lots of spending for the rest of the year. Its just silly.]"

Why are people so ignorant? It makes me really mad. When you hear that most Chinese people do not have an organized belief system, they are referring to the big monotheistic religions: very few (comparatively) are Christian or Muslim or Jewish. MANY are Buddhist or Taoist or simply are Chinese, which consists of a nice mix of a lot of stuff, including Confucianism. They believe in the existence of multiple gods -- many were Buddhist in origin but have been updated and adapted to Chinese culture -- such as Guanyin. She only saw one church, in Shanghai -- HOW MANY TEMPLES DID SHE SEE? Is it possible that a temple is the Chinese version of a church? Why is a church the only legitimate house of worship?

Some have pointed to the Chinese practice of "ancestor worship" as a weird practice. Personally, I hate that term; when used in that way, "worship" sounds so derogatory, like in the term "devil worship." Seriously -- what positive two-word phrases can you think of that use the word "worship"? No one refers to "Jesus worship" as a practice. Anyway, it's not ancestor worship -- it's paying your respects and honoring those who gave you life. You remember your ancestors and hope they are watching over you from the afterlife. It stems from the traditional large, unified Chinese family system. Sure, you give your dead ancestors food and wine to keep them happy, but this is just symbolic. Is it any more crazy from an onlooker's standpoint than EATING "the body and blood of Christ"? I think not. If you were dead and were going to be remembered, would you rather be given food as an offering or be eaten in effigy? Which sounds more respectful, really?

And as for superstitions, these may be slightly more pervasive in Chinese culture than American superstitions are in America, but I don't think they're stupid or crazy -- at least, no more so than American ones. If you stop calling them "superstitions," then maybe you won't think of them as stupid. Call them "traditions" instead, and you might see them in a positive light. Yes, the Chinese think red is lucky. Is that any stranger than American brides wearing white on their wedding day? They think the number four is unlucky (because it is the same sound as the word for "death") so they often don't have a fourth floor of buildings -- here, the number 13 is unlucky (can anyone tell me WHY? At least the Chinese have a reason!) and some buildings don't have a 13th floor. There, the number 8 is lucky (because it rhymes with "making money"), and here, it's the number 7 (again, can anyone tell me why?). IT'S THE SAME THING! Why are Westerners afraid of black cats or walking under ladders? The black cats I can't explain, but walking under ladders just makes sense in terms of your safety -- and likewise, many of the Chinese superstitions just make sense. Why should you return home at New Year's? The same reason people return home for Thanksgiving -- it's a family holiday, and it's important to keep your family ties strong even if you don't live nearby anymore. Why do we eat turkey at Thanksgiving? No clue. Is it so strange that the Chinese DO have reasons for eating certain foods (for example, a whole fish represents good fortune -- because traditionally, you'd have to be pretty fortunate to be able to afford a whole fish, rather than just leftover bits, right?)? If you ask me, Chinese customs are much less "stupid" than American ones, since they have logical explanations.

They do their yearly big house cleaning right before New Years; we do ours in the spring. There are so many parallels between the two cultures, yet in America we call them "traditions" or "customs," but we refer to the Chinese ones as "superstitions." Give me a break and get off your high horse.

And do not even get me started on the missionary comment. If you think that people have to believe in YOUR god to be right in this world, I really want nothing to do with you. How do you think a civilization survived thousands of years without YOUR god if it wasn't doing SOMETHING right? Did you ever think that if our society tried to create positive change by focusing on building strong families, we might get somewhere? Why does positive change have to come from sitting in a church praying to a single god? Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?

I'm so mad, I can't even think about this anymore. This isn't really directed at the blog author. It's more directed at everyone who thinks this way. People live in their small little worlds and have no clue about the huge world surrounding them. People don't have to be Christian to be good people. They just need to be good people to be good people. I'd rather follow a good "system of conduct" than an organized religion. I wonder what percentage of Americans have an organized belief system? It's probably a majority, but does that mean this is a country full of wonderful people. Far from it, let me tell you.