White Coat Ceremony

We had our white coat ceremony today. It was really nice. They had us go up in groups of 7 or so to one of several profs/VIPs and they coated us facing the audience. Claudia got to go with me and take pictures, which was nice (to be posted soon).

I don’t know if this is done in US schools, but they had us recite the Hippocratic oath. Obviously, it’s a symbolic point at this stage anyway, but this was not your Apollo-loving “Do no harm” text of 2500 years ago (or whenever). No, this one had lines about “respecting human life in all stages and will not offer treatment [which goes against this]” (need I remind you we are in Mexico where 90+% of the population is Catholic? So am I, but that’s not the point…) What kind of politicizing bullshit is that? Needless to say, I stayed quiet. I have no intention of spending more than 1 day of the required OB/GYN rotation when the time comes much less actually become an “abortion doctor,” but to swear an oath…that’s crazy.

Anyway, it was a nice time regardless, even if a little stilted, because shortly afterwards we were shuffled to more lectures and presentations about orientation-related things. They gave us a nice lunch the first day we were here. It would have been nice to at least have had a mixer with a few finger snacks, drinks and a welcoming conversational atmosphere rather than a mere line item on the agenda. Ah well, I got it and it was very nice overall.

Apartment woes

One of the reasons I’ve blogged so little in spite of tremendous activity in our lives here is the hassle we’ve had moving in. A lot of our stuff was damaged in the move from the movers and/or the assholes at the bridge when they inspected the truck (in our absence, since we left ahead of the moving truck of course), so we have to follow up with that. Plus, since moving in, we have had the following to deal with:

• Termites–live termites that were eating the baseboards (now fumigated)
• Fumigator drilled holes in floor to put treatment, left us with ripped apart walls baseboards and — duh — holes in the floor!
• Cabinet doors falling off under the sink
• Dripping sink faucet
• Dripping toilet
• Dripping water heater
• Unpacking, organzing
• Oven that turns off on its own, leaving gas to leak out after flame goes out
• Oven that has no rack
• Unpacking, organzing
• No 220V plug (or 30A gauge wiring) for our electric dryer; moreover, since we can’t plug it in and it’s a stackable unit, we can’t even verify much less use the washer, even though it should only really need the standard 110V plug
• Trying different means of cooling. We tried a prison-looking evaporative cooler that not only did not cool, but raised the humidity to 95% wherever we put it. We bought a little 8K BTU A/C for the computer/study room, but no standard windows means I’ve had to try different planks of wood for the A/C housing. We’ve been to Home Depot (thank God there is one and they cut wood to specifications) many times.
• Unpacking, organizing, cleaning
• Organizing, cleaning
• Cleaning
• etc.

It’s a much smaller apartment than what we’re used to, as well as the fact that Mexicans are pretty small in general, so doorways/hallways, kitchen width, etc. all made for little Mexicans, not 6′ 350lb Americans.

The good thing is that our landord, an soon-to-be-retiring engineer, is a very straight-up, honest and professional man who is committed to make sure that for his part, everything gets fixed. It’s just the inescapable reality that this is Mexico and in Mexico things move slow, 9:00 AM means sometime before lunch, and after lunch means 3:00 PM or after. It took 2 hours to go to Telmex to get our phone service ordered, about an hour or so for Megacable with a 10 day wait, and on and on. Laundry is piling up, and we are having to clean up not only after ourselves, but after all the men that are coming by to fix things.

I’m just thankful that people are coming by. I just want it overwith so I can relax.

Medical Student, officially

Well, today was my first day, so I’m officially a medical student now. Since we’re really doing orientation, my first day was taken almost entirely by Powerpoint slides of various topics, as well as some pep talks, etc. We took our class photo today as well, but the genius that planned that one had us all looking into the rising sun at 9:30 AM, so half of the class is squinting and the other half is wearing sunglasses. Lovely.

I never really considered today to be Day #1, since it’s orientation. Classes start next Monday, so I really thought everything was official then. But when they stressed that as of today we were insured, that as far as immigration was concerned (a big deal here), etc. we had begun, it was kind of surreal to fully realize that I’ve arrived, not just physically here at UAG, but academically. My dream of several years has today been converted into reality. They say be careful what you wish for.

Classical music on TV

In the last 24 hours, I have caught two awesome classical music programs with no advance warning whatsoever. Yesterday was Horowitz concert in Vienna in 1988? (the same tour he did his famous return to Moscow) and today was the finalists in the Santander Piano Competition in Spain, with complete airings of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 (by two finalists) and the Beethoven “Emperor” Concerto. The Horowitz concert had minimal–less than 3 minute–commercial breaks between major groupings, and the latter had no commercial breaks whatsoever in 2 hours. That’s amazing. Even A&E’s Breakfast with the fArts has gotten so bad as not program classical music programming at all for 6+ months at a time, and has even had the temerity to cut to a commercial mid-movement!

TiVo is not working properly (which is post in and of itself) and I had no VHS tapes to record anything, so I just simply watched and enjoyed. I’ve been in the country a week, and already I’ve seen more true artisitic programming (even apart from these) than I did in the US in the last year. I look forward to new gems I might find, if only I had a channel guide (and it was accurate…)

Trip to Mexico, Part 3 (final)

Well, I decided there’s not much to post. It was just an exhausting trip and we were completely beat.
The drive from San Louis Potosi was hellish. It took us almost 2 hours to get out of that place because the map was different from the signs, and the Pemex workers were sending us in all sorts of different directions. One sent me clear across town in the opposite direction, and there was NO misunderstanding in any kind of translation because I showed him the map–he was just talking out his ass…and I tipped him! Apparently there is no escaping the windy mountain roads out of SLP to go to the next town, Lagos de Moreno. The drive between the two was the worst of the whole trip. The roads were so bad, and we had to make so many stops before we got a cuota road again, that it took us almost 5.5 hours to drive what should have taken us a litt more more than two.

When we finally got to the apartment after getting turned around in GDL–again, because of no street signs and/or differences from the map–stuff wasn’t working like our cell phone and a punctured air mattress (so we slept on concrete, esentially). The next morning, the movers banged up so much of our stuff because they were too f**ing macho to call the people that were SUPPOSED to have come to help, so the guide that was only hired to find the apartment for the movers was one of two people who unloaded. After many things getting banged around, I finally said, “Woah, get some help here.”
“No, if we call them it will be at least 2-3 hours before they get here.”
I was like, “Who cares? At least you won’t be breaking/scratching my stuff,” but I was so beat, exhausted and more concerned that all the stuff got there (I wasn’t going to trust them to do the inventory AND unload…HELL no), I just had it.

The the unpacking began…

Trip to Mexico, Part 2: “The Sex Hotel”

(originally written 7/27/05)

We got to San Louis Potosi last night and we were looking for a hotel. The first one we saw coming into town looked WAY too fancy–stained glass front and a gated entrance is not exactly what we’re looking for in terms of just sleeping over for the night. The hassle was getting the equivalent of a true motel so I could back up the truck in front of a door on the 1st floor to unload the bed for the night and reload in the morning. All the hotels we were seeing (and some were ancient) were the classic enter-through-the-front style, not to mention we were trying to smuggle Lola into the room. Giving up while backtracking, I decided to just see how much the fancy hotel was.

I was shocked. Not only did it only cost us $30 for the night, but it had a private garage for my truck. In fact, the hotel room entered from the garage. The only other entrance was a service entrance into the garage for hotel staff. In fact, we didn’t even go to the office–we were buzzed in, instructed to go to #44, and a woman in a maid’s uniform met us there and did all the paperwork, etc. w/o my having to even leave my own room. The room was a dream–a suite w/a couch and coffee table w/raised bedroom, king size bed, central a/c (not a given in mexico, let me tell you), hardwood paneled floors, the works. We ordered Domino’s pizza and thanked God for our find. It was slowly unraveled to us what the probable value/use of this hotel was for.

In flipping channels on the TV (which was controlled by a panel on the wall next the bed, BTW, as were ALL room controls, suspiciously enough), Claudia found the Playboy channel. Ok, interesting, not really anything that makes me drop what I’m doing, especially after an exhausting day of travel. The next channel: hardcore porn. That’s right–full action XXX. Claudia was horrified; I was laughing my ass off. The “Venus” channel, as it was labeled, was the last channel on the lineup. Ironically, if you upped the channel one more, it would flip to channel 2, which was, of course, cartoons for children.

In the morning, we looked at the room service menu to get some coffee. It was then I found that not only could we get coffee and juice (which we did) for 10 pesos ($1) each, but for a mere 5 pesos more, you could get lube delivered to your room. The breakfast and lube of champions at your slippery fingertips. The pricing for the room was on the back of the menu and the fine print of the room price was the final piece to this puzzle:

• The hotel is on the outskirts of town
• It’s a gated entry with private garages for each room so no one needs to see your car
• Hardcore porn included with room
• Lube available “anonymously” through the serving window
• Room is priced in 8 hour increments

All this leads to the inevitalble conclusion that this is a sex hotel for one to covenitnely take a lover/mistress/etc. and be completely private throughout the entire affair. One more odd thing about this place: it had not a single trash can. One just leaves trash wherever–they’ll come pick it up. Apparently, general trash is the least of what these people probably find lying around when guests leave…

Trip to Mexico, Part 1 (long)

(originally written 7/26/05)

Well we finally made it into Mexico–a day late. The movers took forever to load the stuff on Monday, not leaving until after 3:00pm, so we just scrapped the day. It was very hard because the whole reason we came home in the first place was to help with my dad’s illness (and on Claudia’s side to help w/her family responsibilites), and my parents just came back in from Dallas this last Thursday. It’s been a mixed bag because I’m obviously elated to see my dad back and doing so well, but logistically it’s been horrendous because four months of their stuff was added to our stuff downstairs, time was not totally available to spend with them as much as we would have liked, etc. Even though we had the extra day, it wasn’t like it was a freebie to just relax–we still had an entire truck bed full of stuff to load. Once loaded the evening before, it was clear how much little knick-knacks one forgets/doesn’t think about (such as toilet paper, paper towels on the road) that consume your thoughts as they kick into “Oh God, what if I forget …. ”

But we left, crossed the border and had NO problems whatsoever. No red lights at either the bridge or the checkpoint. Claudia was hilarious because she was convinced we had to declare our stuff (and our dog, Lola). I told her our mantra was NOTHING TO DECLARE. Those are our magic words. We really don’t declare anything because other than possibly Lola, there’s nothing that wouldn’t be considered “personal effects” or need a special permit for.

However it was clear that driving that first highway from Ciudad Camargo to Monterrey that Mexican highways pretty much suck. There’s no shoulder, most always just one lane for each direction, and sudden, unexpected potholes that just appear. I was convinced that I broke a tire rim w/in the first hour when I struck a lunar crater-sized pothole at 70mph. Getting behind 18-wheelers is the worst, although I discovered that they signal with their turn signal when the oncoming lane is clear to pass.

That is, unless you have Angry Truck Man on your ass. I swear, for 90 minutes I was competing with this pissed off pickup truck driver who knew EVERYONE on the road since he waved to everyone else. He obviously didn’t know me, because I think unless he was waving with one finger, he wasn’t waving hello to me. I’d pass someone, and he’d come up on my tail, then speed ahead of me, then slow down, repeat. It was annoying but funny at the same time because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out if he was working or just driving for the hell of it.

On our way to Monterrey we passed through a town named Dr. Gonzalez. I was hungry but as we were to find out for our whole trip, there isn’t a single frickin’ place to eat anywhere unless you like shack taco/torta stands. There are no McDonalds, no Burger Kings, Dairy Queens, Whataburgers or even frickin’ real consumables in gas station/convenience stores. Hell, half the gasolineras don’t even sell food, you just get gas. Anyway, in this town, I needed to take a leak but there were no bathrooms even in the “restaurant” (a term used if one sells food and has a chair to sit in outside). I asked where they went, and they pointed to a non-functioning toilet that they flush by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl, if it’s not backed up even then. I looked at it, and the opaque God-knows-what contents combined with floating cigarette butts was a bad portent of things to come.

We finally get to Monterrey, or what I thought was Monterrey–it was actually a town called Apodaca, just 15km or so before Monterrey proper. It was full of maquilas (factories) for Whirlpool and a bunch of other American products. Other than the scenic mountains that were slowly coming up as we neared Monterrey, I felt the feeling I’ve always felt about that city–grimy, hot and industrial. The mountains, while picturesque, even underscore the rocky, desolate feel that is Nuevo Leon at this point. There is no greenery hardly at all. Hell, even pulling over to walk Lola was a challenge to find a tuft of grass for her to scope out to do her business.

We finally made it through Monterrey on the way to Saltillo to turn off to the autopista de cuota (paid toll) where they charge you for the privilege of what we take for granted in the US: a shoulder and two lanes of thru traffic. I’d gladly fork out money each and every time. Hell just to have a shoulder to ease into when an 18-wheeler comes at you not really minding the yelllow line on a curve is a blessing, much less an entire median. It’s also not just the lack of a shoulder for space reasons–once the pavement ends for the lane, IT ENDS. There can be inches of height difference between the pavement lip and the adjacent ground, so having your right-side tires slipping down to unpaved ground by 4″ at 70mph is not a good thing.

We finally made it to San Luis Potosi, pushing through until 9pm, to stay the night and have what we hope is an easy 3.5 hour drive to GDL tomorrow.