Thanksgiving is a wonderful thing, except that it completely obliterates any good habits I might have had (which are few and far between. Oh dammit, I hate using cliches. They're a dime a dozen. Now there's a phrase that has to be old. I mean, you can't even buy a dozen pennies for a dime these days). It's like I've completely forgotten how to sit down and study. Plus my appetite knows no restraint these days. I love pie. And the word "exercise" has a bit of an ethereal and philosophical feel to it.
The real bother with being back in Loma Linda is that people know me. Now, even apart from my unwarranted reputation this is problematic. See, aunties know they can get help with yard work. Classmates know they can get help with school stuff. Churches know they can get help with music, specifically brassy, trumpety music. That last item is particularly bothersome because I'm quite out of practice. Plus I'm about half as good as I was in high school, which wasn't all that special. I mean, I don't think I was outright terrible. I was probably in that nice middle area where no one would actually remember having heard me play. I'd bet that there's no one who went to high school with me (and who wasn't in band. and let's also discount any stalkers; they're not real people) that remembers me actually playing. I can hardly remember me actually playing. (Except for that one time I played the first movement of the Hummel for chapel, only I had to play it twice because we had split chapel for some reason. And even then I can't remember playing; I just remember being nervous as hell and it didn't help that the two girls I admired most (at the time, though I still think highly of them now, to be sure (and I say this because it's true, and because many of you may know very well who one of those girls is, and because I never know who reads these things (and I know one of those girls has a myspace account)) were in separate chapels but both sat close to the front).
Well that was unnecessarily long. Kinda fun to remember high school though. That's kind of what medical school feels like. Maybe it's just because the class size is smaller, which means you're limited in every class to sitting next to one or two of the same 120-170 (depending on how well the students tolerate the particular lecturer) people. And so, everyday, I sit in the back row and wonder if Kijak or Brian are going to show up for something besides religion and chapel (which are required), watch to see who tries to sit next to who, zone out during the lecture I might have to explain to Danelle and Sarah later, and wait for Tyler to entertain me. And since we're all in the same class, it's not like people in the school have different things to talk about, so we just sit around and agree how we hardly get anything out of Nava's lectures that we couldn't get from the powerpoints or how entertaining Dr. Wilcox is or how wonderful a lecturer Dr. Lewis is (Ndio!) or how we hope we don't have EBM or how nice it is not to have our cardiac ascultation test next Friday.
In some ways, it's a nice thing, because you have enough in common with everyone that it's not hard to make friends. Or at least it's not hard to find something to talk about. That being said, it's ridiculously hard to find something to talk about that's not school related, and therefore many conversations run a risk of being very boring right from the start, only since we are so consumed by this whole med school thing we don't realize how boring any given med school conversation might be, and so we have it anyway and feel quite good about it because it's at least pleasant company. And people generally are quite nice. Or at least smart. Or funny. Or full of him/herself, in which case I end up entertaining myself, usually at the other person's expense (but not to their knowledge, if I can avoid it).
Well, I'm kind of on a roll here, so I'll just go ahead and answer some general questions that people seem to ask me a lot. I will include my normal terse answers that tend to discourage further questioning, so that it actually feels like we're having a conversation here.
(Non med school people) Do you have to study a lot / (Med school people) Have you been studying much?
(Non med school people) Well, a lot by my standards. I study most every day, which is definitely new, but it's not more than 2 or 3 hours. / (Med school people) Some. But I'm so behind!
(Non med school people) How's [insert name of someone they know kinda casually] doing in school? / (Med school people, usually the ones from Andrews) How's your sister?
(Non med school people) Oh, (s)he's doing fine. Hangin' in there, ya know? / (Med school people) Busy, as always. Crazy girl. Oh, but if you see her, ask her about a birthday massage.
(Non med school people) So what are we doing this weekend? / (Med school people) So what are you doing this weekend?
(Non med school people) Church, mountains, football? And this time let's not forget to call Jay/Jonny. / (Med school people) Not much. Studying some.
(Non med school people) How are the lady-types? / (Med school people) How are the lady-types?
(All) [well I usually lie and say something like] Oh, I don't have time for that [but really, my attention just isn't particularly piqued. I suppose I'd be accepting applications. Can't promise to look at them, but I have lots of random stacks of paper in my room, so they'd fit right in and be thematic and all.]
I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
Top News Stories:
Studies show that study time is most effectively interrupted by phone calls, as a series of yappers puts an end to John's medical education (for the day). This happened around 10 a.m. (which, (co?)incidentally, is when football begins on Sunday mornings).
Hordes of Orcs fall to John's sharp blades and button mashing skillz. 1337 pwnage. t("t) noobs.
Prayers against Saints appear to work as John witnesses Steelers' victory on the Nielsen's new HDTV. (Or rather, I think it was a less than new TV but that it finally had the HD part of it working/connected.)
Foreign policy fails to negotiate a meeting with other local superpowers. However, verbal exchange remained positive, and it seems likely that the man-states will maintain a friendly relationship. (But not Borat-Azamat friendly. The damage done by that sequence (which was, of course, only for shock value, but still, yuck) was irreparably extensive. I have words to say about our Mr. Sacha Cohen, but this is program here is exclusively news-truth, not the unscientific, opinionated bigotry that you find in editorials)
Dessert platter at Jobe family's dinner for Uncle Chris's associates looks spectacular thanks to Christina and John's creativity and grape-arranging techniques. Actually the whole dinner turned out very well, but that was mostly Auntie Beez's fault. Fault may not seem like the right word, but it works in a way because my car is going to smell delicious because some of the food (that had been cooking in the oven in my house) spilled a bit during transport.
Sounds of a trumpet playing excerpts from famous John Williams themes could be heard throughout eastern Summit Ave. The source remains unknown. (I took my practicing back inside once I got most of the dogs barking.)
Crime and Punishment remains atop the book charts (though progress could be determined by a picometer)
Forecast: slightly moody with a chance of tirades in the early evening hours (which is when I expect the return of my parents and brother from the football tournament), but cooling down to subdued once the familial interrogation reaches its conclusion.
Thank you for tuning into this news bulletin. We now return you to your (ir)regularly scheduled lives.
I'm often inclined to believe most sayings that are short and sweet. For example, the classic "When two are in agreement it must be true," statement has very little grounding in reality, but that doesn't mean I don't both use and accept it.
Sometimes I just come up with little rhyming things that aren't really true, but I still might believe them because they're just so concise and poignant. (In other words, yes, I should write slogans for brand name products. So move over Mr. "From Nabisco, Ding!" man.)
In any event (barring, of course, a call from a company that is willing to pay me inordinately large sums of money for devising kitschy catchy lines), here's a little quip from today.
"A shorn mane doesn't mean the lion's been tamed."
Again, this may or may not be true. I only thought it because I cut my hair and it feels like people are treating me different, though it's probably my imagination.
Speaking of which, did the White Witch and her demons they shave Alsan in Narnia book 1? I remember Mr. Beaver or Mr. Tumnus or someone making a point of how Aslan wasn't tame, or safe, or something to that effect.
And now, if I were completely egotistical, I'd try to solidify this whole John=lion=Aslan=Jesus thing in your malleable minds. But I'm lazy. I also like to think I'm not completely full of myself, but I'm more sure of the lazy thing.
Happy Birthday Danielle. I know it's a day late now, but I'm OK with that, mostly because this isn't the first I've said Happy Birthday, but you know that.
(I think my sister has more "Happy Birthday" comments than I have total profile views. Maybe I need a sexier picture...or maybe it's sleep. Test week is so long.)
I'd like to consider myself 4-0 against the tests this week (at least based on pass vs. fail. Otherwise I might be 3-0-1, but ties count as passes so I'm 4-0). And that deserves some free time (apart from the nap I took this afternoon). Thus the myspace usage.
Test weeks are funny creatures (at least in my experience, which is only an opinion, but it's also true, so just believe it). Firstly (and this is really my only point, so don't be expecting a "Secondly"), they are very socially alienating. Most of my conversations start with "So, how're the exams treating you?" (the typical answer is "alright....") and they last, on average, less than 2 minutes and consist of test-related topics. Of course this is not surprising. It's the system. The education system says "We respect exam scores, and our respect is worth degrees and residency placements" and we, the students, who have bought into the educational system credos, say "Yes master. We will take your holy tests and determine our self-worth from the results."
If I seriously have to believe that to make it as a doctor, count me the hell out. It's not that I don't see the usefulness of tests, I just don't think their correlation coefficient with knowledge is very good (or at least I don't believe it's within any sort of 95% confidence interval. yeah, take that you stupid statistic loving system. i'm saying you don't measure up by your own yardsticks).
Look it's not that I think academia is a bad thing. But we get mad when our church or state leaders break church or state laws (i.e. act hypocritically). Shouldn't we hold the institutions of knowledge to the same standards? And at least religion and governments have some leniency for acting in the spirit of the law, if not the letter of the law; that is to say, intent is worth something. But education seems much more eager to hand out failing scores.
That being said, there are damn good teachers out there who understand that the point of instruction is learning, and that a test isn't always an accurate reflection of the learning that has gone on. Furthermore, I think (or at least hope) there is some part of academia that is trying to resolve the whole testing to learning issue. Or maybe tests are something akin to affirmative action; it's not a good system but it's the best we've got. Or maybe I just don't like playing by other people's rules (which, curiously, is exactly what sports and video games are, so I guess it's not that).
Or maybe I'm just making this all up/blowing it out of proportion. It's hard to say.
Oh, and Secondly, test week is driving me insane. Or maybe it's the headache that's doing that.
