Friday, September 30, 2005

On my elitism

I have a problem: sometimes I think I am smarter than everyone else. I used to even think I was smarter than spellcheck. I've written papers and emails using, all the word, 'reculant.' Typically, I scoffed as reculant popped up. "Silly spellcheck, doesn't have a very large vocabulary."

And by reculant, I meant reluctant.

Cutely enough, I also remember a story on NPR last year about G. Gordon Liddy's son, Scooter Libby.













Um, Liddy and Libby- not related.


I'm listening to:
The Auteurs- After Murder Park

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

I cannot believe they let Drew Barrymore put on that accent in Ever After. It's so jarring, it almost prevents me from enjoying a solid lousy romantic comedy.


I'm listening to:
Radiohead- Com Lag (2plus2isfive)

You told me you wanted to eat up my sadness

One hour and nine minutes of Bloc Party goodness courtesy of my friends at NPR. Now, if only they could arrange a date with my girl crush Nina Totenberg

I'm listening to:
Bloc Party- NPR's All Songs Considered
This Modern Love starts at 29:35

Labels:

I completely forgot that I woke up to President Bush's comment yesterday- NPR now via Wonkette:

Two other points I want to make is, one, we can all pitch in by using -- by being better conservers of energy. 

His discomfort is palpable even on a blog, I think.

Without mocking him, I like the Post analysis:

Although Jimmy Carter was ridiculed for his cardigan campaign, Mr. Bush's rhetorical U-turn is welcome.

I could be angry that this statement comes after 5 years of this administration's blatant disregard for the environment, but I'll be silent for once. Since I cannot bend my right leg, and therefore cannot drive for another few months, I'm doing my share: carpooling.

Monday, September 26, 2005

They're coming for me

During my MRI today, I think I got a tiny taste of what life as schitzophrenic could be (not really, not at all, but it is a cute anecdote and clearly the most adorable thing that happened today) like. For much of the 30 minutes, the machine just kept whispering to me "po po" and then again "po po." And trapped there- leg strapped in with my arms across my chest- I was a little freaked out.


I'm listening to:
David Bowie- Low

Sunday, September 25, 2005

The crazy med schoolers are all up in arms over a change in our Micro course. Rather than straight lecture/memorize 50 organisms format, we now have to lead our own small group discussions of infection cases. I personally am against this because I don't learn orally, but rather by writing information out myself. So while I'll still be learning the material on my own, I now also have to spend six hours in class.

I'm also reasonablly perturbed as we are expected to grade our fellow group members. I'll be given 100 points to divide amongst my 6 group members; I'll have to do the same.

But none of this is what they're all upset about Oh no. It's just the grades. Selections from two emails today as people wanted to "discuss" the "situation"

In the end, I know we are supposed to just learn the information, and become great doctors. However, the reality is that microbiology is a 10 credit course (correct me if I'm wrong) That is a significant chunk of this year. Getting accepted to certain programs is a competitive game.

We're all obnoxious overachievers looking to build a competitive application for residency programs - after all, that's how we got ourselves here, and it's kindof a hard personality trait to switch off at this point. To pretend that we aren't concerned with compulsively monitoring our progress in a 10-credit course would be delusional.

No. Actually, no not at all. This is what gives medschoolers their gunner reputation.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Hooray! I found the naked picture of Djibril Cisse! He sure is a dieux du stade, I look forward very much:
Next year, can we get my man Freddie in on the game? If they can make an exception for a soccer player, surely they can make one for this Swede:

I'm listening to:
David Bowie. All. It's going to be a long day as I try to remember cardiology.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Obviously I find some of med school, shall we say, stifling.

This was brought into relief last week when I attended an open AA meeting. We were asked to go for our Human Behavior course; I crutched on over and introduced myself to the facilitator.

I was moved by how thoughtful they were. Their interpersonal relationships and their roles in those relationships could be drawn upon to illustrate a step or their weaknesses. It was a level of introspection I’ve largely left behind the last year and a half. When I was living in Senegal, I kept a journal of exactly where my head was every day. Now that I’m in school, weeks go by in a monotonous whirl of classes and coffee shops.

I’m obviously happier this year. A lot of that has to do with the lack of dead body parts in my life. But I also think that I’ve become more mechanical in my studying, toiling through the day like a drone. While I’m certainly more at peace, is that because I’m no longer raging at all?


I'm listening to:
Super Furry Animals- Love Kraft

DH Lawrence can also KMA

Finally, finally finished Sons and Lovers. It took me an extraordinary 4 months- not in my usual fashion of spurts, but rather a few pages a week. Not because I’m so terribly busy, but because about half way through it became clear to me that I hated all the characters.

I find Paul Morel insufferable, and his mother still worse. I could claw Clara Dawes’ eyes out. I might be able to salvage some love for Miriam, but fool couldn’t rope Paul in at the end. They all make me seethe.

I’m listening to:
LCD Soundsystem- s/t

Thursday, September 22, 2005

You saw it here first















I must say I look forward very much to the ABC Made for TV Movie on the life of Judith Miller starring Maggie Gyllenhaal.

I'm listening to:
Serena-Maneesh- s/t

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

KMA, Times Select

Yes that's right, you can kiss my ass. I'll use Lexis-Nexis for my fix. And while that means that I may miss the Paul Krugman video, I'm actually ok with that.

Aww, damn.

Hail Victory


The Skins may now go 0-14; just beating Dallas at Dallas, the season is a success.


I'm listening to:
John Coltrane Quartet- The CompleteAfrica/Brass Sessions

Monday, September 19, 2005


How shall I spend the next 18 hours? I'm done studying for the exam; any further studying may disturb the precarious balance of information loaded in to my head. It's like Jenga in there; maybe I could reach another level by removing just one last block, but then again it might all just tumble.

Also, I'm very, very tired of looking at this shit.


I'm listening to:
Aesop Rock- Labor Days

Sunday, September 18, 2005

On empyema

It sounds so delicious. Empyema should be deep fried. I would enjoy it with a healthy dollop of sour cream. There could be cheese inside, or meat, or even some salsa thing. It wouldn't matter at this point, given that since Friday I've been outside exactly once.

Why, oh why, empyema, did you have to be a purulent pleural exudate resulting from a bacterial or mycotic seeding of the plerual space? It just isn't fair that a byproduct of a bad lung infection could sound so yummy.

I'm listening to:
M83- Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts

On blogs

I like to read Stephanie Klein's blog because it makes me feel better about myself. Because I'm a bitch. And so when Lindsayism, who's far better at being a bitch than I'll ever be, promoted these girls, I got pretty psyched.

But truth be told, this is the only blog entry that's made me laugh in a long time:

If we had the rest of our lives together, where would you take me? Hopefully, somewhere with food. Would you clasp my hand for take off and still give me the heart of things? A piece of bread? Some water with the juice of a lemon in it? Meat? Please, make it meat. So very hungry.


I'm listening to:
Devendra Banhart: Nino Rojo. Which is probably why I'm contemplating slitting my writs over this pulmonary pathophysiology mumbo jumbo

Saturday, September 17, 2005

On Bush at National Cathedral

I'm sorry: did we integrate church and state while I was studying yesterday?

Because otherwise, inside National Cathedral or not, President Bush has absolutely no business giving this sermon:
And in our search we are reminded that God’s purposes are sometimes impossible to know here on earth. Yet even as we are humbled by forces we cannot explain, we take comfort in the knowledge that no one is ever stranded beyond God’s care.

The creator of wind and water is also the source of even a greater power: a love that can redeem the worst tragedy, a love that is stronger than death.

When I heard that speech yesterday, I threw my wallet at the car radio. I'm still just as incensed a day later.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Unhappy Triad

In an effort to spend as little time in anatomy lab as possible last year, I dissected the butt while my partner dissected the knee. When it came time to demo our dissection, I just parroted back everything she told me to say (this strategy served me well throughout the course).

That's how I learned about the "unhappy triad." I remember blithely repeating back something like "the unhappy triad that occurs after a lateral knee blow, resulting in a torn medial collateral ligament, anterior cruciate ligament, and medial leminiscus."

These were the thoughts running through my head this morning as the sports medicine doctor mauled my knee until I cried. It looks like I'm going to have to wait for the MRI next week to confirm that the medial leminiscus tear; my Grade 3 (out of 3) MCL tear is making my knee too floppy to check the leminiscus. Awesome


I'm listeing to:
Sigur Ros: Takk...

My bit on Katrina

1. The Post compiled these statistics

The latest Gallup cuts to the chase and asks: "Do you think George W. Bush does - or does not - care about black people?"

Among blacks, 21 percent say he does and 72 percent say he doesn't.

Among whites, 67 percent say he does and 26 percent say he doesn't.

Overall, 62 percent say he does and 31 percent say he doesn't.

Monday, September 12, 2005

On bruises

I think this is about the most personally relevant material I've studied (much love to my Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease):

So my leg smacks a chair or a boy or the wall, and capillaries break releasing red blood cells. The immediate blue of a bruise comes from the hemoglobin released from lysed erythrocytes. As these degrade, hemoglobin is released giving me a blue spot.

In a few days, the blue fades to green. This is biliverdin, a byproduct of the macrophages phagocytosing the debris. Finally, all that is left is the iron that holds hemoglobin together. This hemosiderin gives my skin that yellowish color that I find so appetizing.


I'm listening to:
Ambulance LTD: s/t

Sunday, September 11, 2005

I Saw You Walking

I saw you walking through Newark Penn Station
in your shoes of white ash. At the corner
of my nervous glance your dazed passage
first forced me away, tracing the crescent
berth you'd give a drunk, a lurcher, nuzzling
all corners with ill will and his stench, but
not this one, not today: one shirt arm's sheared
clean from the shoulder, the whole bare limb
wet with muscle and shining dimly pink,
the other full-sheathed in cotton, Brooks Bros.
type, the cuff yet buttoned at the wrist, a
parody of careful dress, preparedness-
so you had not rolled up your sleeves yet this
morning when your suit jacket (here are
the pants, dark gray, with subtle stripe, as worn
by men like you on ordinary days)
and briefcase (you've none, reverse commuter
come from the pit with nothing to carry
but your life) were torn from you, as your life
was not. Your face itself seemed to be walking,
leading your body north, though the age
of the face, blank and ashen, passing forth
and away from me, was unclear, the sandy
crown of hair powdered white like your feet, but
underneath not yet gray- forty-seven?
forty-eight? the age of someone's father-
and I trembled for your luck, for your broad
dusted back, half shirted, walking away;
I should have dropped to my knees to thank God
you were alive, o my God, in whom I don't believe.

-Deborah Garrison

Saturday, September 10, 2005

On Disseminated Intravacular Coagulation

Robbins has this to say on DIC, the syndrome that contributed to Yasir Arafat's death:
The prognosis is highly variable and depends, to a considerable extent, on the underlying disorder. The management of these cases requires meticulous maneuvering between the Scylla of thrombosis and the Charybdis of bleeding diathesis.

I fucking love this book.


I'm listening to:
Blur- Modern Life is Rubbish

Friday, September 09, 2005

Michael Brown is Dunzo

Is this the first time that someone in the administration has been removed for fouling up a job?


I'm listening to:
Pavement: Brighten the Corners

Paranoia Paranoia

My mother got me a Hypochondriac Wheel for my birthday last month. I laughed it off, because all those finger infections least year were practically medical emergencies. It was only as I sat in Health Services last week pointing to my chapped lips and explaining that my "cold sores" "had to be" "Herpes" that it clicked:

I'm going to be one of THOSE second year students. I'm going to spend large chunks of this year waiting at the student clinic for a doctor to diagnose me with a random (or not so random. 90% of Americans in their fourth decade have HSV1*) disease.

That seemed like a pretty bleak fate. Then this weekend I sprained my knee water tubing. And while my rush to the ER may have seemed a mite premature, there's no mistaking the diagnosis. And probably not the pain.

Serves me right?


*this I know because I spent an hour on MD consult reading about Herpes. Which was maybe some time well spent, because I actually do have to know it for micro

I'm listening to:
Dntel: Early works for me if it works for you

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Titles may be misleading

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, for instance, is not an autobiography, nor was it written by Ms. Toklas. According to the copyright page, it's a biography, but the more salient point is that Gertrude Stein penned it.

Nothing happens in Joseph Heller's Something Happened. Through 550 pages of nihilistic voyeurism, mesmerizing and gruesome though they maybe be, nothing ever happens.

It is my supreme hope that Clinical Microbiology made Ridiculously Simple, unlike these other titles, proves worthy of its name.

Otherwise, I'm kinda fucked.



I'm listening to:
Olivia Tremor Control: Black Foliage: Animation Music Vol. 1


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