December 2009
33 posts
Day 143
I took Rosie to the airport today. It was sad to see such a good friend and artist leave our midst but I think we were all thankful for the time we got to spend with her in person. Tonight I watched Almost Famous for the first time with Zahra. I bought it a while back because it’s Laura Tomlinson’s favorite film so I thought it must be good. And it was. Very good in fact. Nicely...
Day 142
Docking
Playing live is not my favorite thing in the world to do. When explaining that fact to a few people recently I used the adage “Why do I keep hitting myself in the head with a hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.” And tonight, after stopping, I will say it felt extremely good. But not because I thought I played a good show. Actually I thought I played somewhat...
Day 141
Building Up
Video by Laura Tomlinson
Today, I picked up my friend Rosie from the airport and later bought that really awesome long stapler that can staple booklets and what not. At night, quite a few people came over to the house to practice and party. It was really awesome to see everyone in my bedroom playing music together. I think we ran through our set of songs fairly smoothly. Also...
Day 140
Fields
As you can see, I went location scouting with Sarah Wilson today. We needed to find a good field, which, as easy as that sounds, can actually be quite difficult. The primary problem is finding a field that we can shoot on from three out of the four sides. The secondary problem is finding out who actually owns the field. It could be someone down the block or on the other side of the...
Day 139
I had a short practice with Polley and worked on editing some of the intros for the live show.
That is all.
Day 138
Merry Christmas from Iraq
This isn’t the best shot I took on Christmas Day but it’s my favorite because my cousin is looking into the camera and smiling from Iraq where she’s currently stationed. She’s in the Air force and had to leave her two small twin boys here under the care of my aunt and my mom while she’s away. But she was still able to watch the boys open...
Day 137
Christmas Eve ‘09
Photo by Polley Pantcheva
Ever since my cousins wedding, I have apparently been dubbed as the family’s photographer, which is fun. If only they knew how inadequate my skill set is…
Day 136
Life Is Grand
Day 135
Location Scouting
My friend Scott and I wandered through the docks of St. Pete today looking for a location to shoot a scene for a film in February. I don’t know if we will end up shooting there but the spots were nice and the weather was some of the best we’ve had all year.
Day 134
I had a great band practice tonight with Trey and Polley. Laura even joined in later with some Christmas songs. Polley has never played drums before but she agreed to try her hand at it for me and I think she had a pretty good time. At this point in my life, I would much rather play with inexperienced musicians who are really good people than really good musicians who are inconsistent people. ...
Day 133
This evening, I spent way too much time recording this new demo. Not because it is anything spectacular, just because it was hard to keep time with the piano and drums and guitar. I am not a good musician. I’ve never claimed to be. It sure would help me out a lot if I was. I just don’t have time to get better. Despite the off timing in a lot of places though, I do enjoy this demo...
“Winter of ‘83 (Demo)”
Day 132
The First Day of the Rest of Your Life Together
Today was my cousin’s wedding and Dan Nguyen and I were the official photographers. I had never done a wedding before so it was a good photography experience. It was a small wedding that was held outside on the beach and the weather was beautiful. A great day to start the rest of your life with someone I think.
Day 131
What is there to say really?
The test was awful. They’re always awful.
While many of the other people in my class claimed it was the worst test of the year, I didn’t think so but that can probably be attributed to the fact that I really loved all the material that it was on. Still, loving a subject as much as I love anatomy does not assure your competency in it as I have been...
Day 130
All studying, all the time. I did get my car fixed today though. Your car breaking down a couple days before a big test is not medically related but it gives you the idea that life still continues on while you’re going through med school. Med school students go through the same things as everyone else does with the added pressure of having to learn how to save lives. I’m not...
Day 129
I studied at home all day today. They gave us a pseudo-weekend before the test friday. The only interesting thing that happened was I received an email form the person in charge of my Medical Humanities Scholarly Concentration. It said I needed to propose some objectives I’d like to establish and areas to focus on between January and May. The thing is, I’m not really sure what to...
Day 128
Spending four and a half hours in the anatomy lab is not how I prefer to start my day but that is what I was made to do and really, given the privilege of doing on this morning. We dissected the lower leg and foot and I got to cut open a knee joint which was pretty cool. During the disection, at the table next to me, someone remarked on how we are having to learn all of this anatomy stuff so...
Day 127
A Day In The Life
Today was filled with studying and lots of it, as usual. Tonight though, while studying, my friends Dan Nguyen, Joyce and Scott came by and commandeered my house to shoot some scenes for a new short they’re putting together for a film contest. It’s supposed be on “a day in the life” of someone, so of course they picked Scott Howard as their main...
Day 126
Warning
Today, my parents dropped off a bunch of my mail. It included my formal letter of notice that I have been put on academic warning. I was expecting this of course but it was still kind of a downer. The letter explains that I have to meet with an academic adviser of my choosing every month for the rest of the year. I’m really not sure who to pick though.
Thankfully, along with...
Day 125
Study Study Study
Day 124
Sticky Note Conclusion
So the sticky note experiment turned out pretty good! Around 50 people ended up participating.
If you can’t make out what the final sign says, just pause the video and read it. At the very least, Kimberly liked it.
I spent the full day studying in a variety of places on campus and spoke to three faculty members about how to do better on tests. I don’t know...
Day 123
My Left Foot
So we had this On Doctoring surprise activity today. I say it was a surprise because none of the class knew what we were going to do except myself who had been told about 3 months ago by our course director. To start the class off, the official photographer of USF Health presented a sort of photo essay he did on a figure drawing class that a few med school students took last...
Day 122
In lab this morning we didn’t really dissect anything. Instead, the professor did a dissection of the posterior abdominal wall and showed it to us. Afterward I met with him and my career counselor both of which tried to give me advice on how to do better. Nothing dramatically life changing unfortunately. I did manage to get an appointment at the learning center for tomorrow though where...
Day 121
Today, like most tuesdays, was a long, tedious affair with moments of brilliance and agony twisted together in a microcosm of the entire medical school experience.
First, in my morning rotation with the cardiopulmonary unit at TGH, I got to assist in two brochosocopies by operating the tiny claw device and extracting lung tissue for biopsies!!!
All this while wearing a sweater vest and...
Day 120
I Mustache You A Medical Question
As you can see, my friend Asef and I decided to have a little fun in between our two neuroscience lectures on basal ganglia today. We kept up our personas for a good 15 minutes to the chagrin of our fellow med students on the other side of the room. I think the DPT students we were sitting around probably used the experience as a positive confirmation of...
Day 119
Cultural Fiesta Fall ‘09
We had a celebration called the Cultural Fiesta today in which a ton of people from USF Health gather in a courtyard, share foods from their different ethnic backgrounds and watch various students (mostly 1st and 2nd year med school students) perform. There were numerous cultural dances and live music that included my friend Omar playing three of his own indie...
Day 118
Sweet
Another day of studying at home plus eating cookies.
Those two activities comprise approximately 95% of my life at this point.
The second demo from my thanksgiving break recording session is posted below. It’s the song that I wrote on day 108 while watching the hotel room scenes from Godard’s Breathless. Nearly every line is taken directly from dialog spoken in those...
“Hotel Room I-III (Demo)”
Day 117
Sticky Notes
So I had to come to the histo labs at 1 in the morning, 2 weeks before a test just to make sure no one was there studying. We’ll see if it was worth it…
I studied at home all day today which was surprisingly not bad thanks to my discovery of these awesome anatomy dissection videos from a doctor named Acland that our course directors posted for us online. ...
Day 116
Hands Up
I had the day off and by day off I mean I studied at home instead of at school.
Anyway, I made these graphics for the new myspace for The Culprit Life in between watching lectures.
Also, tonight I was studying anatomy in a coffee shop and a man who I knew from being part of the music scene here came up to me. He asked me if I was playing tonight and when I replied no and told him I...
Day 115
This day turned out much better than I expected.
My group had lab on and off all day, which I wasn’t to trilled about but the afternoon portion held one of the best lab experiences yet for me. In the morning we striped off most of the skin on Henrietta’s face. We literally had a face mask (terrible pun, I know but you get the visual). It was pretty hard to ID all the muscles even...
Day 114
My LCE doctor was on vacation so I worked with his partner who is the LCE doctor for my friend Wil. We made rounds on the pulmonary intensive care patients as usual but then we did a couple bronchoscopies (or rather the doctor did them while Wil and I watched excitedly in the corner like schoolchildren). During a bronchoscopy, the doctor uses a controller (that looks like a Wii nunchuck...
Day 113
That’s Legit
I went down to TGH to get my ID badge but as you can see, they gave me one with a big black spot on the photo. Awesome. So now I’m stuck with wearing this around till May.
After this, I returned to school for what I assumed would be a quick and easy 10 minute teaching of the parts of the cadaver my group (group A) had dissected to the other group (group B) and it was...
