December 2010
30 posts
Day 507
No Swimming
So I was supposed to record electric guitar in a real studio tonight but that fell through. Luckily, I figured out that my six year old laptop doesn’t produce the same tapedeck, thin sound when recording rhythm electric that my new desktop does! Hooray for old technology! So Kevin and I spent the evening shuffling through effects on my Vox amp (which is apparently now...
Day 506
My friend Trey and I went to his aunts house to record some piano for the songs we’ve been working on together. She has a brand new grand piano that sounds magnificent. Too bad it wont seem that way in our recordings since the piano will probably be lower in the mix once we’re through.
At night Polley and I watched two films.
The first was Charlie Bartlett. I really enjoyed...
Day 505
Bar Lights
A friend of mine had a little party at a bar in St. Pete with some interesting tiny chandeliers. Apparently I was impressed because most of my photos were of them.
Day 504
So I tried to do some HDR photography today. Key word being “tried”. I took some brackets, photos with multiple exposures, downtown but when I came back home and tried to pull them together using a new program I downloaded I wasn’t impressed with the images. To be honest, I didn’t really put any time into learning the program so I shouldn’t expect to much but I...
Day 503
I saw Black Swan tonight. It was good. Very good. But not really my cup of tea. I’m not sure why. It was well done in all aspects I think. Natalie Portman’s performance was spectacular. I liked how they didn’t try to make it longer than it needed to be (it was well under 2 hours). There were no bright colors at all, and that fit the theme of the movie well. Also, even...
Day 502
I have been seeing a lot of movies lately, some quite artful, some not, so I’ve decided not to document every one of them but only the ones I feel I have something to say about.
Polley got me a Diana lens for Christmas! What am I gonna do with a Diana lens and no Diana camera? Take photos of course. How? With the remarkable, yet quite simple, adapter for canon DSLRs that she also got...
Day 501
There is an excerpt from “The Crack-Up” by Fitzgerald that I think explains one of the main reasons why I have not dropped out of med school yet:
“to be like a little boy left alone in a big house, who knew that now he could do anything he wanted to do, but found that there was nothing that he wanted to do”
I could try to explain further but I don’t think...
Day 500
Five-hundred days sounds like a big milestone or something but I’m not even half way done with med school. I may, however, be halfway done with the worst parts of med school. Maybe.
Day 499
Trees & Trees
I took all of these photos of only three trees. I guess I was long overdue for some photography adventures. I saw the yellow tree on the way home and decided to photograph it. There are few things that make me happy as a spectacularly colored tree does. This one was only a block from my apartment.
I night I saw Tron Legacy in 3D. It was a fun...
Day 498
Editors Extraordinaire
The three people who are in the arts and humanities scholarly concentration in our class met at our faculty leader’s house today to sort through a few years worth of drawings made by med students. Our objective as editors of what will probably end up being a coffee table style book is to pick drawings that we feel are distinct, interesting, and represent the...
Day 497
Trey and I recorded another song today at his place.
I found out my grades for the last test. Pretty decent on everything except micro. There’s always one class that escapes me even when I do okay in the rest. More often than not it’s been micro. It seems like no matter how hard I try I can’t do too much better than I’m already doing.
Late at night, I watched...
Day 496
I spent a lot of time looking for fonts today for the silent film slide I’m using for Outwatch the Bear. I finally found the one I wanted and inserted it into my newly created video only to find some resolution problems with it. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Luckily, it doesn’t seem like it’ll be too big of a problem to fix. And I only have one more video left to edit for that project...
Day 495
In the Studio 9
Jean Weatherwax is a pretty fantastic person all around and was kind enough o lend her trumpet skills to the new record. Trey Tomlinson was nice enough to let us use his place to record. Afterward, Trey and I recorded some other stuff for fun that may be released at some future date.
Good day.
Day 494
It’s always hard to gauge how you did on a test right after it. I feel that I did better than I expected on a couple subjects and probably not so good on a couple. I guess we’ll find out next week. At least the computer issue was a success. The tech guy for the school let me borrow a laptop from the office of educational affairs and it had no slowdown at all! I finished the test with 36...
Day 493
After pleading with an associate dean in person about the computer lag time during tests today, he promptly stomped out of the room to find another associate dean and together they came up with a plan to let me use a school laptop for tomorrow’s test. I’m not sure if this will work out and I sort of think they just did this to pacify me because they didn’t offer it to the other...
Day 492
This test is gonna be a monster. Nothing is coming together in my head like I feel like it should. I’m tired. The end.
Day 491
We had a terrible pharm lecture today on diabetes. What was so terrible about it? The guy didn’t even give us the NAMES of the drugs he was talking about!!! What the heck?! He just told us about the chemical classes and what they do. That’ll be real helpful when I’m in third year. “Um, I’m not sure what drug you’re talking about Dr. Soandso but I do have a...
Day 490
I can’t believe it. I actually finished all of the studying tasks I set out for myself at the beginning of the day by midnight. Crazy. I can’t remember the last time that happened. Its 1:30am and I’m doing some practice pathology questions. I’m four for four so far. Cross your fingers.
Oh yeah, we had CPS evaluations today. Our group and facilitators our awesome. ...
Day 489
I studied with my friend Rajiv tonight and it was pretty awesome. The difference between Rajiv and me is that Rajiv is Indian and I’m not but also, Rajiv has great intuition. It’s not that he studies more or memorizes more (although he probably does those too), it’s just that he tends to pick up on what the professor’s think is important about a topic and concentrates on...
Day 488
I think I stepped foot outside my apartment one time today.
I think.
Day 487
I realized that I dislike the material in this block more than any other block today.
Also, I heard some stories of the kindest and most innocent girls in our class having to awkwardly manipulate foreskin during the male GU exam. Poor girls.
It’s nearing midnight on a Friday night and I am one of five people in the library (including the librarians).
Med school is so glamorous.
Living...
Day 486
Study, Study, Study
Day 485
My first rectal exam.
Ahhh, the true spirit of the holidays.
It’s better to give than receive.
Trust me.
And my group gave it alright. Five times to the same guy in less than an hour.
Plus we palpated his penis and testes and internal inguinal rings. That part was actually pretty cool because the guy had a hernia and we could feel it coming through the ring. However, the prostate...
Day 484
Waking up an hour later than I had planned to was not an ideal way to start a morning that had me scrubbing in for five surgeries before noon but it actually ended up being the best day yet that I’ve had at my surgical LCE. The surgeon didn’t even really care that I was 15 minutes late (I thought he would verbally destroy me). Instead he called me over to look at the piece of colon he was...
Day 483
Another CPS case finished off successfully, a somewhat unnecessary scholarly concentration meeting and a PD didactic on examining the penis. Oh and five hours of lecture. I also called up my LCE surgeon’s office in an attempt to stealthily get his operating schedule from his receptionist and then study the operations so I could look like a star in the OR tomorrow. I wasn’t expecting the surgeon...
Day 482
Cultural Fiesta 2010
A few of my friends performed at the med school’s annual Cultural Fiesta. Above are some videos of Omar Qazi performing original songs including one he wrote for our class with the names of literally everyone IN our class. Awesome.
It’s Sunday, the start of a new week, and I’m already dreading my surgical rotation on Tuesday.
Danielle Kurant and her friend...
Day 481
Study, Study, Study
Day 480
We had a patient come and speak with us this morning about her experience with breast cancer. Her surgeon was the same one who gave the speech at our white coat ceremony (a favorite of mine), and he was there as well to share his view of the experience. As with all of our patient interactions in the classroom, it was time well spent. Her story was touching and made the science show itself for...
Day 479
I am currently listening to the December EP from Sleeping At Last. Brilliant. Their best EP yet I think.
Also, I’ve managed to teach myself how to tie two different, one handed surgical knots. One, the way I learned how a while ago and one, the way my LCE surgeon wanted me to tie them. It’s nice to practice something purely mechanical once in a while.
Day 478
“On Secrets and Giving Our First Pelvic Exams”
It is a strange honor to be given, to be let into a space where only lovers are welcome.
We are the keepers of secrets.
Your best friend in seventh grade.
The aunt who raised you.
The tiny diary under your mattress.
And now we have come to ask something of you. Those words you whispered. We desire to whisper them. Those...