Wednesday, August 3. 2005
how you doin'?
shy? me?? ok so it's taken me some time to post anything--i figured most people wouldn't want to know what's going through my head (it scares me sh*tless half the time).
so for those that know me, im a huge travel freak...specifically civil aviation (check out airliners.net...it's like my morning paper...no, really, i'm serious, i read it before i read the bbc news site). imagine my dismay to find that an AF A343 had just crashed off the runway at YYZ in a heavy thunderstorm thankfully, of 309 people on board, there were NO fatalities (except for the plane of course, which i'm pretty sure is beyond repairable seeing as how it apparently split in two and was engulfed in flames for the good part of a few hours). congratulations to the crew for a good job evacuating all the passengers safely...
Sunday, July 31. 2005
Low res
Anyone else feel the resolution of the photos is too low? A width of 480 is kind of totalitarian, imo. I think I'm gonna switch up the layout soon, to something without the ridiculously large sidebar.
So studying in earnest for step 2 starts tomorrow. I'm kind of easing my way into it. 30 pages yesterday, 50 pages today (hopefully, I still have 15 to go), and 60 pages a day with 50-100 questions on top starting tomorrow. Eek. It's been a long time since I've put in 8-12 hours a day in front of a book. I don't particularly want to push back the date of my exam though... Meanwhile, I'll try to write some sort of a personal statement, ask for letters of recommendation, fill out my residency application and figure out how to finalize my schedule this year, etc. And here I thought I was done with this applying stuff 3 years ago.
So I've been jumping from hobby to hobby recently, and I've picked back up photography recently. This blog is probably to blame. Let's see how long I can keep it up, and how far I can take myself creatively. I've never been a really creative person, so it's something that'll take some time to develop, I suspect. Photo Friday (see my last post) is my latest idea on how to challenge myself to stay interested. They have a new theme each Friday, and everyone gets to submit one picture a week.
Anyways, back to work.
Friday, July 22. 2005
Year 4
Been a while. Okay, I felt kind of profound tonight, and so I started writing, but I just couldn't organize my thoughts. Tired. So here's a pic.
Mark, where are you?
Anyways, so year 4 hasn't been the amazing experience I was promised. Too bad. It's not all that bad though, and I have to say, it's nice not being a third year anymore. I miss all my friends though, and I miss having a team composed of my classmates. Fourth year seems to be full of rotations where I'll be the only person in my class on that rotation. Ugh.
It's funny though, how so many of the new third year students fear their upcoming surgery rotations. I remember mine fondly, as it was the only rotation I was part of a big team. There were seven of us from my class, and we worked together day in and day out for two months. Sure, it was a lot of hours, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It was still pretty incredible. It was the rotations like family medicine, where I would never see my friends at work, that were the tough rotations. I don't know how people do it.
And now a whole year of this. Weird. Anyways, I better get some sleep. Tomorrow starts my only full weekend off for this rotation. Maybe some studying. Definitely some time hanging out with friends.
Wednesday, June 22. 2005
The Two Faces of Medicine
It’s amazing how much time I can spend procrastinating three days before my last exam! I’m trying to memorize my notes, but I’m finding them much more interesting to read with my eyes closed. After an hour passed out in front of my books, I feel like I deserve a break. Perfect time to look up the origin of the staff and snake symbol commonly associated with the medical profession. It seems like there are two different symbols, one with two snakes and wings on top, and one with just one snake.
The winged staff is a Caduceus, the symbol of Hermes, the Greek messenger god. He is known as a great mediator, a diplomat, and best of all, the patron god of thieves! Insert managed care joke here.
The staff with one snake is the staff of Aesculapius, the Greek god of medicine. Aesculapius was trained by Chirion, a centaur skilled in the healing arts. Aesculapius’ disciples were among the first professional healers in western civilization. In fact, Hippocrates, aka Notorious HIP, was a member of the Aesculapius cult.
The confusion between the two began with a set of German medical texts that were printed with the Caduceus symbol on the cover instead of the staff of Aesculapius. The mistake was magnified in 1902 when the US Army Medical Corps selected it as their official symbol because they preferred its more streamlined shape.
Incidentally, Zeus killed Aesculapius in a drive-by lightning bolt attack after Hades, god of the underworld, complained that he was healing too many people. So I guess there is such a thing as being too good at your job.
Tuesday, June 21. 2005
Token of my love
Man, that last post was depressing. I promise I won't always be like that. So I noticed that Kimi thinks I stole the lighthouse picture, eh? That's okay, you're super cute so I don't mind. You can have my coat and the picture. ^_^ (But if you still don't believe I took it, check out my reply in the comments section of that post)
So I was sifting through Jay's board to find the thread where I uploaded the original lighthouse picture, along with all the pictures from that evening, and I came across Toma's rendition of a photo we took:
Man, I was dying. I had forgotten all about that. The best part? I had come up with lyrics for our single, off the top of my head at the time.
Girl, when push comes to shove / I'm gonna be the one to rise above / Fly you from here like a dove / That's just the token of my love...
I can't believe he never deleted that off his server. lol.