Hey Hey!

My bro Rog hosted me in LA this past weekend and we had a great time!

ENT

Started otolaryngology today. Although I have to wake up at 5:30am on this rotation, at least it's starting to be light out at that time. Otherwise... it's excruciatingly boring. Dad spent a lot of time on this computer (I'm living at my parents' house for these three weeks, btw) tonight, so I gotta be quick tonight or I'll go past my bedtime. Laaaaaame.

Lookin' for Fun and Feeling Groovy

I'm feeling pretty effin' good. A weekend of camping with friends was fantastic (although I shivered the night through in my sleeping bag). I feel like I finally have the (VERY basic) hang of this whole medicine thing -- obviously I need a lot of improvement, but I no longer feel like a total bumbling fool when faced with a patient's case. Just partially a bumbling fool. I've got wonderful friends and family, and I've gotten the chance lately to work at stuff I care about (the Nutter campaign and JeffHOPE). To top it all off, the weather's been beautiful. Man alive, it's been a fantastic week.

Good v. Evil

I'm watching The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and I just got teary-eyed (me? never!). The poor men of Rohan are huddled in Helm's Deep, and everyone, including old men and kids, are getting suited up, and everyone's afraid, and many have despaired of living the night. They're trapped, they're doomed. And then they hear a horn and open the gates, and all these beautiful otherworldly elves come marching in, total badasses, in their cloaks, with their bows and arrows. The elves, who are IMMORTAL, are coming to risk their lives to honor the old alliance between elves and men, when they could easily be boarding that boat for the West. I dare you to find a more stirring scene. Honestly, this trilogy is one for the ages.

I think that of all movies, the Lord of the Rings series does the best job of showing a gathering threat, the frightened peace-loving (and somewhat selfish) people debating over whether it's their problem or not while time's a-wastin', and then the utter undeniable need to stand up for what you believe in. As Samwise Gamgee says, "There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for." You could say that the book, not the movie, is what does this, and that's correct, mostly -- it is a great book. But the movie is so vast and incredible, and works on such a huge scale, that I think it helps magnify the conflict.

It makes me want to sign up for the army. But then again, anything I'd be fighting against in this world is far more amorphous than the threats in LOTR. Maybe that's one reason LOTR is so satisfying -- the clarity of the fight between good and evil.

Fun Activism

For two hours today I cold-called old ladies for Michael Nutter and again, it wasn't bad. He even walked around the office today, and we made eye contact but I was on the phone, so we didn't talk. He's pretty busy and all anyway. Looooove him. I just know that if I had a suggestion or concern, he'd totally address it and not evade it with politico-speak.

Another thing I did was help out for JeffHOPE, the huge student-run organization that runs clinics at homeless shelter. Tonight's is the toughest, because it's the biggest men's shelter in the city and in fact is the intake shelter (men entering the shelter system have to come in through this one). It was my second fun volunteering activity of the day, and it was fun because I had two lower-years along with me and got to teach them. I loved teaching them; I think they respected and liked me, and I got to show them interesting physical signs like clubbing. I also pushed them beyond their comfort levels and I could see them gain a little confidence as the night went on. It was five hours total, which usually just knocks me to the floor, but I finished tonight feeling like I was walking on air.

The third activity on the agenda today, although it was the earliest, was a one-hour lecture on neuro-ophthalmology. Interesting, and then I got to come home and take a nap.

This is basically what life will be like for me in retirement, hopefully. Learning, teaching, and helping out good causes. Nice work if you can get it. ;)

Political Mania

...or hypomania, at least.

I volunteered for Michael Nutter's campaign today for a couple hours, and it was actually fun. I just wrote addresses on envelopes, stuffed said envelopes, sealed and stamped them. Then I entered names and personal information into a computer database and listened to the guy next to me cold-call people and go through a spiel and then ask them point-blank whether they're going to vote for Nutter in the May 15th primary. And I was happy the whole time and have been reading online stuff about him and his campaign this whole afternoon and evening, here and there.

So I'm down to volunteer for the campaign for this whole week, basically. Still thinking about how many hours I want to put in tomorrow, seeing as I have to go to a one-hour lecture, possibly go for a jog, and participate in JeffHOPE, my school's community service organization where we go to homeless shelters.

Speaking of that, I gotta work on my teaching. See, the cool thing about JeffHOPE is that it pairs up a third or fourth year with a first or second year student. As the third year, I get to teach a young'un. I felt like, last time, I didn't do a very good job -- sort of disorganized. Man, I'm almost a fourth year. This time has flown by (and in another, more correct way, it's gone by veeeeery slowly).

Slacker's Paradise

I've been having a lot of fun. It's pretty great to have no responsibilities.

Yesterday, I went to a Step It Up! rally to show support for a government cap on carbon emissions. And Michael Nutter, who is running for mayor, spoke, and he's awesome. I think I might volunteer for him this week.

That's about all that's happening. More later.

Word.

I sent out an email to my med school friends last night, inviting them to an impromptu evening over. So tonight Amy and Jaime and my roommate Diane and I sat around eating dinner, then played Asshole for a couple hours. I did pretty well -- never had to be Asshole and only once had to be Vice-Asshole. A couple of us even drank some wine. Even more of us shimmied. Anyway, it's nice to have nudged some social time out of my friends on a weeknight. ;)

Sybaris

It was a cloudy day, and I futzed around on my computer most of the afternoon. At one point, I opened my blinds and listened to the song "Feelin' Good Again" by Robert Earl Keen. It's been about a week and a half since my vacation (i.e. ophthalmology) started and I'm starting to feel normal again.

It is odd, though, to be on vacation with nobody around. My roommate is around, but usually somewhat unavailable. The weekends are fun, but the weekdays are so subdued. My roommate and I occasionally go out to dinner or sit and talk, but mostly we're in our separate rooms, because she's working or has worked all day and wants chillout time. It's totally unlike Christmas break, where my brother Rog was home with me and we were bored together and would just play board games or go for walks together etc.

Anyway, it's just funny to see these weeks go by. It's like the human race sleeps during the week and is awake during the weekend. People are "sluggish but arousable," as we say in medspeak, during the week -- I can sometimes get something together socially -- but usually people are too tired. Even now, when my friends are on easy rotations, nobody gets together. But suddenly on Friday night (actually, a little bit on Thursday), people are ready to have fun and make plans.

Currently watching: "The People vs. Larry Flynt." Heh, Norm MacDonald is in it. I guess I forgot that.

Book Review: Lolita

I just finished Lolita... by Vladimir Nabokov. Hehe when Seth and I used to read books aloud to each other, we would laughingly open each book by saying the title and author, as if we were on Reading Rainbow. "Drop City -- By T.C. Boyle."

Anyway, I didn't actually want to write a whole book review. Just a quick post to say that this book is great. Woooo! *devil horns*

No, let's see. The prose was indeed ecstatic, as John Updike says on the back cover. I despised the protagonist but also thought he was hilarious. It's definitely an erotic book, but in a sort of removed, thoughtful kind of way, which is interesting. Nabokov has an afterword in which he says that book publishers had a hard time understanding this book, because it didn't fit into the typical smut or romance novel stuff, in which erotic scenes start out tame and few/far-between, and then increase. So readers were apparently pissed off when the erotic scenes drop off halfway through the book. They didn't understand why the book wasn't fitting into their preconceived versions of what was supposed to happen.

Now that I have a lot of free time (ophthalmology makes me work about an hour a day), I get to start this book. Life is good.

Chocolate Salty Balls

There's a lot of Easter candy around. My roommate and her husband made each other Easter baskets, and I've been eating Starburst jelly beans, M&Ms, and fun-size Krackels all day. Blugh.

My actual Easter was spent at my parents' house. My parents and I went to a three-play marathon at Lincoln Center on Saturday (and received pins that said "I Ran The Marathon -- The Coast of Utopia"), and arrived home at 1:15am. Sunday was pretty lazy. I watched the Phils play terribly against the Marlins and fell asleep, awaking in time to see them lose. My brother and his family arrived, and I dyed Easter eggs with my 3-year-old nephew. Mom tried to reheat a glass full of dyed dark blue water in the microwave, and we heard a muffled BOOM. We opened the microwave and discovered blue egg bits all over the inside. I guess she hadn't seen the egg inside the cup of water. Anyway, it was a relaxing day.

I have an all-day practical exam tomorrow -- seeing actor-patients for six and a half hours and writing up notes on them. Whee.