Mexico Medical Student |

This is a major departure from my usual posting, but I love Soviet-era culture. It’s not a “Oh, what a wonderful time it must have been during Stalin,” way but rather a never-ending fascination. I also love anything dealing with the CIA, KGB or espionage in general; I’m a total sucker for a good spy movie/story. Did you know that in Russian culture a wide-mouthed smile is perceived as someone laughing, so that Westerners traveling there would often get odd looks like “What are you laughing at?” when trying to be friendly? It’s like the norm is flat affect, and what we’d consider a chuckle is downright hilarity. Or at least used to be that way–perhaps things have warmed after 15-some-odd years of glasnost. A quick perusal of my music library also shows huge leanings towards 19th and 20th century Russian composers, by far. I even joked about subjecting my future child to Shostakovich as early as possible (before I even knew she was already conceived!)

Imagine my delight when I discovered a site full of authentic Soviet-era propaganda posters! (The linked poster’s caption reads, “Chatterbox–a gift to the enemy!”) I love the sneering, “I’m turning you in” look of the guy in the background–priceless. Through a small attempt at learning Russian about 5 years ago, I can read a little bit of simple words, but to enjoy the site you’ll need to make heavy use of Babelfish.

I know this is probably not for everyone (probably only me), but I thought I’d post something interesting and different.

Break out the potted meat and Boone’s–it’s a celebration, and nothing but the good stuff! Actually, I knew this last week, but didn’t pay much attention because I was too busy and somehow it didn’t surprise me. Except today I found out that the new spawn is 5 months along. Damien Sean Preston is 7 months. TWO FRICKIN’ MONTHS AT BEST (assuming her cycle restarted regularly immediately after delivery, which is unlikely) and she gets knocked up again! Jesus, Mary and Joseph…this chick is born to reproduce. Too bad she chose the guy on the corner that washes windshields.

Weaving this back to med school, I can say without having done a day of ob/gyn rotation that I know I’d never want to be an ob/gyn (OBG). No, it’s not the hours, the 14251:1 female:male ratio these days, or even dealing with the, shall we say, “messier” parts and functions (not the least of which is childbirth itself). No, I’d never be an OBG because I’d probably lose my license in the first few years of practice. I come from an area of high welfare mother prevalence, where having another child is a financial advantage to a degree (in spite of no job) because then you get more as a household, and one more mouth to feed isn’t that much more. I’m not kidding.

At some point I’d just snap, fake/forge a consent form, and I’d tie their frickin’ tubes under the pretense of some other pelvic procedure. I’d be doing society a favor. I’d eventually get caught, then not pay off my $500k student loan debt, be forced to declare bankruptcy, lose my wife and kids, yatta yatta. It wouldn’t be a good scene. Why put myself through all that? Better to stick a “safe” residency, like medical transcription or clinical transportation. heh.

I know Brit/KFed’s new bundle of trailerpark joy is not being funded on a dole, but I can’t help but draw parallels here. I know it’s insensitive, unethical and all that to say that some people shouldn’t [further] reproduce, but damn!

I am alone; Claudia left this morning back the states for her final weeks of pregnancy. It’s for the best of course, but I can’t help feeling it still sux. Even though I don’t always (usually) have time to go places as often as she would like and usually wind up just being homebodies, even though I am holed up in my study almost 80% of the time I’m at home, it’s still comforting to know someone is there, even if you don’t get to talk that much. I’m just not the person that sees a situation like this and thinks, “Party at my house!”  Although it’s not a bad idea… heh.

So, to pass the time all day while she traveled/got settled (because I couldn’t really concentrate for study purposes otherwise), I did the following:

• Watched History of Violence (pretty good), Flightplan (almost as bad as Contact–I am never watching a Jodie Foster movie again), and about 4 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.
• Played more Splinter Cell (Pandora Tomorrow, not started Chaos Theory yet) on Xbox
• Organized Ziploc bags (click “More” below before you think I’m OCD :P)

As you can see, there was absolutely no academic anything in the above. I feel good, because a day like today (save my wife leaving for 2 months) is exactly what I was aiming to have, at least part of the time, when I had my “vacation” a couple of weeks back. I feel like I’ve spent some decent decompress time, and I’m ready to move on, at least for now.

Oh, and just for the record: Ellen Pompeo (Meredith on Grey’s Anatomy) needs a serious intervention for her anorexia. When a disposable surgical cap looks like some kind of clown prop it’s so big on you (I don’t want to think about the rest of her wraith-like body) it’s time to check yourself in. When Lara Flynn Boyle calls you because she wants to know your “secret,” that’s another clue. I’m just sayin’…

Read the rest of this entry »

I expected to use this alone time to see how my study habits changed, and I found out something very interesting: I can’t stop playing Halo 2. There is a Halo tournament next week that some friends from class are organizing. Nobody (at least that I know of) in it is any kind of fanatic player, but I thought I’d take the extra quiet time at home to dust off the Xbox and refresh my skillz.

Mistake. It interfered with studying for my Histology final, and that’s with my already having finished the game once when it came out! A mark of an awesome video game is if I play it regularly, because normally, a) I am not a gamer, b) I don’t have patience, and c) I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, so if I choose the game, there’s something good about it.

At the risk of sounding like a total geek (way too late, I suppose) here are some things I like/dislike about Halo:

• Incredible score, visuals, action
• Just the right balance of complexity and ease-of-play
• Halo2’s switch to the Convenant POV
• Regular save checkpoints: I don’t have patience to “solve” something in a RPG before I can turn the unit off to go do something else, and I have the luxury of playing for 30 minutes (improbable, but at least possible) to blow of steam
• I don’t like that Halo2 was WAY too short
• I wish there was some non-linearity in the game, although its absence is also what makes it so playable
• I hate The Flood. Every level that involves them makes my stress level increase 5x. I know that’s the point, but still…
• There are few things more satisfying than a cowardly swipe of a plasma sword behind someone’s back in a multiplayer game, that’s for sure, especially if said victim thinks he’s hidden waiting to snipe you.

It’s been fun, but it needs to stop because I am getting behind. Diversion is OK–even needed–but I need to space it out more. I chalk it up to being discombobulated with all the changes this week.

As for Histology, I am so glad this class is over. Hopefully the grades will be out by the end of the week so I’ll have the hard evidence I need to know that I’ll never have this teacher again! YAY!!

I’m watching the Oscars in the background which here in Mexico is broadcast on TNT live. I’m appreciative of the live feed, but do they have to dub? If they can close-caption live, why can’t they subtitle live? Ok, fine. I can deal, and the silver lining is that the dubbing voices are over the live voices, so if you tune out the Spanish, you can hear the original. But why oh why do they have to dub an actor biography over EVERY single clip that isn’t live? Basically, they do a nomination, show the clip, and instead of seeing the clip, I have to deal with sports-radio-style play-by-play stats. WHY?!?

I didn’t even realize today was Black Friday until I saw it on the news. Did I miss a national memo? Is my hypotryptophanemia (see yesterday’s entry) making me forget something obvious? A right-wing person I know blogged that he thought Black Friday sounded “[not] very Christmas-y to me. Sounds kind of perjorative and negative to me.” Aside from the knee-jerk “perjorative” comment (the last thing I thought was anything having to do with African Americans), I have to agree: there is nothing “Christmas-y” about waiting in line at 4AM at a Wal-Mart …. let me repeat that so it can sink in this time …. Wal…Fucking…Mart, not Nordstroms or hell, even Toys-R-Us……waiting in a line with people who are acting like ferrets on crack waiting to get into the store or (more like me) pissed off zombies who can list 100 things they’d rather be doing if you gave them 5 seconds but they are there because [insert spouse or family member] conned/threatened/blackmailed them into going. (yes Virginia, that’s a run-on sentence)

I have already alerted my family to the fact that if it can’ t be bought by a Mexican Indian (meaning indiginous Mexican, not an emigre from Bombay) it isn’t going to be given. As much as I’d like to not be a poor student once again to be somewhat more generous with presents, I won’t miss the buying frenzy that starts this weekend. There are some advantages to being here; not having to deal with “Black Friday” is one of them. I’m just waiting for someone to come out with the “Grandma Black Friday Smackdown” video from the inevitable assault-and-battery incidents that always occur today trying to get the hard-to-get toy fad or $10 DVD player.

Straight from the Not-Actually-News department, George Takei, the helmsman on the original Star Trek series, has finally come out of the closet publicly. I guess he thought we should all know, but anybody who has seen him in anything since the “Next Generation” Star Trek movies and other appearances since kinda had their gaydar klaxons blaring “Red Alert!” anyway.

“The 68-year-old actor said he and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years.” Good for him. Out of respect for Sulu, I won’t make any “where no man has gone before,” or “final frontier” jokes. It would be wrong and in bad taste.

Apparently, their DBAs are also good-for-nothing…”PLACE EPISODE TITLE IN HERE” makes trying to find out what’s on TV just that much more fun!

A side note, I found out today that Rainman, the movie with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise is called Cuando Dos Hermanos Se Encuentran (”When two brothers find each other”). I think I’m going to take this box back and see how many billing cycles it takes for them to credit my account…

The Red Sox lost the AL East series yesterday (much to Jessica’s chagrin ) but they lead the pack for the AL wild card and will probably play the Yankees AGAIN.

Even though I never watched it in the US, I record the CBS Early show because it’s the only “network” news we get. Imagine my surprise when I hear this flithy comment by one of the weekend anchors:

And when children are getting ready to watch their cartoons…

(video is slightly off-sync with voice, couldn’t fix)

And this little ditty is about Doc Phil, you know the advise guru who is all about being an ADULT and taking responsibility and appropriate behavior. Looks like the Doc needs to listen to his own advice.

According to the NY POST:

So, what’s gotten into America’s lovable, rationalist pop-culture shrink? I do mean Dr. Phil, a man who was unknown before Oprah gave him a forum. Now he is behaving like a Diva Deluxe. Last Friday, the good doctor was to speak at an obesity forum being held by California’s first lady, Maria Shriver. As a condition of his appearance, Phil insisted the governor introduce him. In between, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s calendar filled up and he felt he had to cancel.

Maria had Dr. Phil called, not once but twice, telling him the governor could not introduce him, just in case he wanted to back out. The day of the symposium, she arrived to find Dr. Phil sitting, pouting. He refused to speak. Finally she insisted he talk to her, and he said, “I am not happy.” Maria said she was so sorry but they had called twice to advise him of the change. He stormed, “No one called me.” An aide said nervously, “Yes, Phil, they did!” Dr. Phil was still irate: “No one told me!”

The great analyst of “getting along” continued to huff and puff. Someone said nervously that perhaps the governor could come by after all. Maria said, “No, we are not redoing the governor’s schedule. Phil, I suggest you just leave if you feel this way.” Dr. Phil insisted he had to use the bathroom first. Maria indicated it was down the hall. Dr. Phil said he could not use a public bathroom. Maria said calmly, “Well, that’s the only one we have. Use it or not. Take your camera crew and go.”

After the doctor availed himself of the facilities, he came back sheepishly and said, “I might as well stay now that I am here.” Maria told him he didn’t have to and she advised him, “My 7-year-old doesn’t act the way you do.” When Dr. Phil pled exhaustion from being absorbed in the Katrina rescues, Maria told him, “You’re tired? How do you think those people feel?” So just in case you wonder, this exchange was not leaked by the first lady. Many people experienced this exchange, and it’s the talk of California and TV land.

I used to like him but then I dunno, he and Robin got to me. I admit it, I keep waiting for the proverbial foot to drop. Maybe he will be found with hookers from Hollywood and Vine, or better yet, hookers from Santa Monica. Get Doc Phil in tight leather pants and a pink boa wrapped around his kneck.

Look, I don’t know the man or have anything against him but something about him has always creeped me out a little bit. Maybe it’s his good ol’ Texas boy attitude, or his Texas twang or shit, maybe it’s his bald head. Whatever it is, I do hope this story embarasses him enough to come back to Earth.

Hehe.. I am happy this has gotten out. And way to go Maria for putting him in his place…