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!!
Well, I’m alone now–Claudia’s in Texas, having flown out of here this weekend to take care of some family and personal affairs there. I’ll be by my lonesome for a week. I miss her of course, but it’s also hard because it’s a break from routine. That sounds funny for me to say that since I’m the kind of person who has NO set routine whatsoever, but there are a few constants that I do take for granted. Being alone is cool for a couple of days, but after that it sucks, at least for me. I haven’t been married that long, but one gets used to these things quickly I think.
It also underscores a feeling I’ve been feeling for a while in med school: I feel very alone there, too. Sure I have class friends but not really anyone with whom I do anything with on a regular basis except for the special event which may happen a few times a semester. I understand that other students, particularly those with families/S.O.s, are going to maximize their non-study time with them (including myself), but there is something to be said for just hanging out and studying as a group or coordinating movies/activities among several people. It doesn’t help being an older student not into the “party” scene or intramural sports, since that’s where a lot of people focus their extracurricular activities (having blown out 90% of my left ACL a few years ago in an accident, I’m not going to change this very soon). I know that I don’t help sometimes by not being more communicative with others. I tend to be the person who needs to be talked to first rather than the one who initiates a conversation. I know certain classmates (both those who I talk to and those with whom I don’t) read this blog, so I’ll say that I’m not talking about anyone in particular with any of this–just that I feel disconnected from everyone and everything and I’m not sure if that’s just part of the process learning how to deal with time management, stresses, etc. or just my being somewhat dysfunctional. Or both.
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?!?
The first thing that alerted me that this wasn’t right was the stopping of cars, the turning on of brake lamps in through lanes cresting a small incline on a very busy street here in GDL. I was hungry and lunch was waiting at home. I cursed the traffic at a time when all should be smooth-sailing. As I got closer, I realized there was at least a body for sure on the road ahead of me, not more than three cars in front; I had just missed this accident by seconds. People were getting out of their vehicles, and I joined them.
The scene was a motorcyclist who was partially lying on his own bike, a small 200cc or so engine probably used for courier services, helmet on (thank God), howling in pain. A few people getting there seconds before I did asked, “What happened?” “Dude, are you alright?” “Are you OK?” Um, the repetitive painful screams and moans should say he’s had better days, but I guess people just go with their gut instinct, not knowing what else to do. I was told he simply lost control of the bike and they didn’t know what caused it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I could offer either, since there were already 3-4 cell phones out calling the appropriate help. At that moment I realized how totally, completely, absolutely lost I’d be if I actually had to help this man in a real medical way. I’m a medical student who almost certainly knew far more than anyone else there about anatomy, physiology, etc. (assuming nobody there was a medical professional) but was equally helpless. Thankfully I wasn’t in my “whites” since I didn’t have clinical medicine today, so there was no visual expectation–I was just another guy on the road wanting to help. This wasn’t a patient in one of our clinics having come in of their own accord or a patient in a hospital bed in a controlled, teaching environment — this was a stranger on burning hot pavement in the middle of the day on a now-closed highway with who-knows-what broken or bleeding inside.
Putting self-consciousness aside, I knelt down beside him and reassured him that help was on the way. He was obviously in pain, but there was no evidence of any airway difficulty. He was breathing rapidly but fully, and the few words he got in here and there showed he was alert and oriented enough to know what was going on. There were no external signs of bleeding. Not really knowing what to do (I knew I shouldn’t have stopped watching ER six years ago!), I put my index finger in his left hand and asked if he could squeeze my finger. Not stopping his painful utterances, he lightly but definitely squeezed my finger. I repeated for the right side. His left leg was partially draped over the seat of his motorcycle, and he was wearing regular shoes. I gently put my hand on his left ankle and when there was no painful reaction, I asked if he could feel my hand as I gently squeezed. He continued expressing his pain, but through it he said “yes.” I was going to check his right leg, when I saw a puddle of gasoline slowly making its way to his leg. The motorcycle was on its side and leaking gas from the tank’s cap. No one had noticed this!
“Help me get this thing up, it’s leaking gas!” I said, pointing. Two guys came to help, and taking care to support the guy’s leg, we got it up, putting it on its kickstand. At that point an astute cabbie who parked behind me said, “Hey, now that it’s up, let’s get the bike to the right lane so we can let traffic through.” I was already next to the bike, so I kicked it off the stand, but it was in gear and didn’t budge. I had no idea where the keys were, if it could go into neutral w/o turning it on, so I just pivoted the bike’s front, moving it little by little. One guy halfway helped, but it wasn’t much. Needing a bit more leverage, I reached a little too far to the other side and felt/heard a quick sizzle on my hand as I blindly touched fresh, hot exhaust piping.
“#$@&!” I screamed. I pulled my hand back to realize even more startlingly that the “sizzle” I heard was gasoline on my hand being vaporized. In actuality, the gasoline saved me from an almost certain nasty 2nd degree burn. As I type this, I have a mild 1st degree burn over parts of my left hand, but I was lucky. We got the bike moved, and in those 60 seconds or so, police had come in from the opposite side of the highway divider, so I knew the guy was going to be tended to by proper authorities. I wanted to stay and make sure all was well, but the rapid return of drivers to their cars (and the peek of an endless line behind me) meant I had to hurry back to my parked truck.
As I started to drive past, I saw the cyclist talking on a borrowed cell phone, still on the pavement. I thought of who he was talking to–his wife, mother, whomever–and the worry they’d have. If there’s a higher point at all to this post it’s that I look forward to the day where I finally know enough to make a difference when a similar situation presents itself again.