Monday, December 7, 2015

Alexis Is 21

My birthday wasn't quite this exciting, but it was fun nonetheless.


I'm twenty-one now.  As such I'm legally old enough for almost everything anyone else is other than senior citizen-types of discounts and privileges.  Some rental car companies will not allow a person under twenty-five to operate their vehicles.  If I ever need a rental car, I'll find out what companies rent to individuals under the age of twenty-five.  Otherwise, I don't really care.  The other obvious exceptions are the right to serve in the U. S. House of Representatives, for which I would need to be twenty-five, and  the right to serve in the U. S. Senate, for which I'd need to be thirty.  Another notable exception is that to run for or to serve as a U. S. president or vice-president, I'd need to be thirty-five.  The minimum ages for the various U. S. state governor positions vary by state. I have no intention whatsoever of aspiring to fill any of these positions or, for that matter, any other political office,  so the point is essentially moot where I am concerned.

In terms of minimum ages for political positions, even though it doesn't pertain to me, I'm not without misgivings about the premise. If the voting public knows how old a candidate is and chooses to elect him or her anyway, it should, in theory,  be the right of the  public to make a collective decision via the voting process regarding his or her fitness to hold a given office.  My mom and I discussed this recently, and she doesn't agree with me.  She believes that  in today's world, with a level of media coverage [that could never have been anticipated by Madison and the other founding fathers as they were drafting the pertinent statutes of our nation's constitution] and with the tendency of a large segment of our society to venerate the qualities of youth and physical attractiveness, a highly unqualified candidate could potentially be forced upon us by a voting public, the majority of which might very well be too ignorant to look beyond a candidate's glowing physical attributes. A similar case could be made in regard to candidates with other blatant deficits in qualification for our nation's highest office, but such an objective across-the-board disqualifier would be far more elusive to implement than was the simple age requirement. We all still may eventually be doomed by the public's stupidity in voting in a wildly unqualified presidential candidate, but the candidate will not be the rough equivalent of perhaps a thirty-year-old Brad Pitt, voted in primarily for his unprecedentedly telegenic advantages. Maybe my mom has a point, but enough with  political pontification.

My big day came and went without major incident. I did go to a bar to celebrate along with many of my cohort mates, many of whom actively look for any reason to get wasted. My brother came along to serve as my designated driver. While it sounds like a highly selfless act on his part, he wouldn't have had anything to drink anyway because he never drinks during the week when school is in session. Medical school is challenging enough for him even if he's not drunk or hung over. Matthew has also had far more opportunities to party than I have had. He looks older than I do, and hardly anyone has thought  twice about passing a beer to him for the past couple of years. 

I drank the two mixed drinks I had planned to consume on my twenty-first birthday: one mai tai and one strawberry daiquiri.  My alcohol consumption left me reasonably wasted but not to the degree that I was impaired the next morning. My conclusion regarding drinking is that while it might be something to do once in awhile for major celebrations when circumstances are such that my drinking would not place me in any sort of perilous situation, neither is drinking something I feel compelled to do. After consuming the two alcoholic beverages, I ordered a virgin strawberry daiquiri. I liked it every bit as much as I liked the one with booze in it. I don't feel driven to drink.

I'm in the midst of finals. It's rather intense -- something to which only other medical students can really relate, although law students and engineering students have tough programs with difficult exams as well. I've finished three tests and have four more to go. I should do well on them because I'm well-prepared, although I will study independently and with my groups until all of the exams have been completed. My school  has a pass-fail system for the first two years. Some of my cohort mates benefit from this policy. It isn't particularly helpful to me. I'm too obsessive to be content simply with passing, and I know the powers that be are tracking all of our actual scores and not merely whether we've passed or failed. This is still probably the best school for me for other reasons, but the pass-fail system is essentially lost on me.

This quarter will conclude for me just past noon on Friday, at which point I will be able to breathe comfortably for the fist time in over four months.


This video -- the official video for the song -- doesn't belong to me, obviously.  I played the song for a wedding awhile ago. The singer needed the song to be done in the key of C. I didn't really like the song then. Then I paid more attention to Christina Perry's recording, in which the song is sung in B-flat. It's just a full step, or an interval of a major second, in difference between this version and the song as I played it at the wedding of which I wrote, but it makes all the difference in the world in terms of how the song sounds. Sometimes subtle differences can be huge. That's how I feel about grades in medical school. Not everyone thinks there's a difference between a 100% and a 72% as long as one receives a passing score. I couldn't adopt that mindset even if I tried. I cannot escape the feeling that it may  someday matter in the lives of our patients.

18 comments:

  1. Happy birthday! Sounds like you had a nice time!

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  2. It was a nice time. We won't really get a chance to celebrate as a group after the conclusion of the term because almost everyone will take off as soon as they can get out of here following Friday morning's final.

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  3. Thanks for the update. It was clear and concise. As far as your actual grades it would be the best for you to know what they are but you cannot. But we can estimate or guesstimate what they are. They are probably over 90 which means an A.

    Also they are probably the third highest marks in the class since you said that you are the third smartest person there and you do plenty of studying. You have some idea how you did after the test is taken. The scenes in the song above are from one of the movies where the guy is a vampire. I think he is around 150 years old. A werewolf also loves her but she loves the vampire the most. Who would you prefer as a boyfriend?

    I love you and want what will make you the happiest. Based on what you have said about Judge Alex, I think that after medical school, you should go to law school. Then after being a lawyer and winning some cases, then you can be a congresswoman at 26. Then you can be a senator and then President. I saw on Twitter a couple of women who are MDs and also have some fiction books they wrote.

    Now if you contact Judge Alex and he knows that he was very influential in your formative years, and you ask him what he thinks of my above plans, I bet he would say they are superb. Or you can just ask yourself would Judge Alex love that idea.

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    1. I won't be going to law school because I plan to get a doctorate in music performance after I finish my residency.

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    2. I know exactly what my actual scores are. It's just that everything is recorded as pass/fail. We still receive test scores. It's those scores that determine whether a grade is a pass or a fail.

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    5. It is funny that you had wild, curly hair. That is trademark of Jewish people. My female cousins ironed their hair. Also Albert Einstein and Bernie Sanders both have (or had) wild hair. Here is a picture of Einstein's hair.
      http://listingtostarboard.blogspot.com/2013/08/top-12-famous-people-with-bad-hair.html#.VmmejJBIj9Q

      Now Bernie Sanders does not believe that people need billions of dollars since it would take 1,000 years to spend it. Say you were a billionaire. You could buy the most expensive Steinway piano for under $2 million. You can also buy the most expensive violin with an estimated $20 million and the 2nd most expensive violin with an auction price of $16 million.

      In fact if you owned them, would you play them or let your mother run them over with her car (that is really funny)? Now that still would leave you with $962 million, starting out with only one billion dollars. You can also own the most expensive house (Bill Gates has that now with a house worth $150 million) for only 160 million and still have $802 million left.

      If I was a billionaire, I would make it a priority to make sure there was not any homeless children in America. Nearly 2.5 million American children were homeless at some point in 2013. Now maybe I could not house them all but I bet people would be inspired to help me.

      Once I saw this woman that I never see sitting on South street (all stores on street) in Philadelphia begging for money. She was sitting there many hours and I work the night shift-- on weekends. So I asked her why she was begging for money and she said that she was short on rent money. I asked if she got the $35 she needed, would she be ready to go home. She said "yes." So I gave her a free cab ride home and gave her $35. Sometimes good, honest people need a little help.

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    6. I've only had three exam scores below 100. They were all 98s.

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    7. Wow! You can write a best-selling book on how to get a perfect 100 on almost every test you take in medical school. Although you have to say that it helps to be a genius and an evolved subspecies! Thanks for telling me that. Maybe you can write a little article called How I Get a Perfect 100 in Medical School Tests.

      In fact if I were your father, I would be telling everyone that you get 100 on almost every test score in medical school. In fact this would happen if I were your father. I would go to a church and go into confession with a priest and he would ask me to confess. Then I would tell him that you get a 100 on almost every test you take in medical school. Then he would say "That is not a confession." Then I would say that I am not even Catholic. Then he would ask why I told him that. Then I would say "I am not just telling you, I am telling everybody." Even though I am not your father, I am so proud of you. So I have to go now and tell my friends that all of your test scores are 100 except for 3 that were 98.

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    8. In fact you remind me of something that was said in a movie called Looking for Bobby Fisher. It was a true story. This father was talking to a teacher and she did not like his son going to a chess tournament.

      The father said "my son is better at chess than I was at anything I ever did. My son is better at chess than anything you will ever do." Alexis, don't you know how great that is!

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  6. Happy 21!! Glad to hear you found a moment to celebrate.

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    1. The timing wasn't as bad as it could have been. I have three more finals (Thursday and Friday) and then I'll be finished. Matthew and I are spending a couple of nights at my former friend Claire's parents' house, but then we'll head home.We're going to Utah a couple of days before New Year's Day, and then will fly here from Utah. I'm totally ready for the break.

      How is school treating you?

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  7. Happy Birthday! Now you are a completely legal adult.

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    1. Thanks! there's something nice about being legal.

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