Cut the Cord

My mom is a micromanaging helicopter parent of the utmost degree. When i was still a minor, it was her absolute  right to parent in such a manner if she so desired. Now that I am an adult, she can still say whatever she wants, but I don't have to listen all that closely if what she says does not suit me. 

One could argue that because I'm living rent-free in a structure that she jointly owns and am subsisting mostly on food that she has financed, she still should have a say in what I do. I interpret it somewhat differently. If I were engaging in behaviors that went against everything she and my father ever taught me, she would have the right to ask that I either live within the rules of polite society or move out of the condo that she owns. I've banked enough money that I could support myself throughout the remainder of medical school if she pulled the financial carpet from beneath my feet. It's money that might be better spent on expenses when I am in an internship or residency and am not earning much money, but the vast majority of interns and residents survive on what they earn in their rather marginal positions.

Still it's good that I have the money that I've stored away. It allows for a level playing field in negotiating this game of territory as I'm finding my way to adulthood. It gives me freedom, in the event that a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce me under absolute despotism, so that I might  throw out such government and provide new power for my own future security, to borrow a few words from Thomas Jefferson. My mom can give me all the advice she wants. I can take it or leave it. If she doesn't like it when I leave the advice as opposed to taking it, she can evict me from the premises. If she evicts me, I can used my savings to live wherever i want. It works for me.

The situation in which my brother and I find ourselves is a bit unnatural. Brothers and sisters do not typically go off to medical school together. The fact that we did lends itself, sometimes through the most casual sharing of information with our parents on the part of either my brother and me, to intentional or unintentional blurring of boundaries. It's uncharted water for each of us to navigate. 

When i first began seeing the person I dated this fall, I asked my brother not to mention the relationship to my parents. It that I felt I had anything to hide from them so much as that I wanted to deal with the boyfriend on my own terms without any parental interference. I'm not sure how or even if they might have interjected themselves into the process even had they known, but it was easier with them not being in any way involved. It was not a hasty decision. I would do it again the same way if I had the chance to do it over. I probably will do the same thing again at least once. I won't marry a guy without allowing my parents to meet him first, but I can easily see myself carrying on a relationship of equal or greater length without their knowledge. My parents simply do not need to know every single thing I do.

In a few short years, my brother and I will each complete internships in cities away from each other and our parents. At that point the invisible tie that still provides a not-all-that-age-appropriate connection will likely disappear once and for all. Both my brother and I will always be connected to one another and to our parents in some intangible way. Right now, however, we're all a bit too connected. The metaphorical umbilical cord binding us all has entered the final countdown phase.

6 lbs., 1 oz. and 27.5 Inches in Length

This is how the cello was displayed in the store. It's a Maple Leaf make of cello. Get it? Cute, huh? As soon as I paid my money I disposed of the damn leaf.

Don't worry that the kid is unnaturally thin. It's a cello.

Today I dealt with the recent demise of a relationship by undergoing a bit of therapy. To be more specific, it was therapy of the retail variety.  I took money that had been removed from my bank account months ago for the purchase of a new violin and bought a cello with it. It was not needed for my new violin because my uncle decided a few months ago to buy for me the violin of my choice after my mom damaged my previous violin. I won't even address the sketchiest details of that fiasco.

I was actually doing myself a major favor by spending the money, as it had been sitting - nicely camouflaged -- at the bottom of a decorative jar, beneath a cluster of glass jelly beans. We all know that it's not terribly prudent to keep a large cache of money stored underneath a mattress or, for that matter, anywhere else in one's home. I've been too busy even to visit a branch of my bank during business hours, and I felt even more nervous about going out with such a large amount of cash after-hours to deposit it into an ATM. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway, about why it was such a great idea to drop the better part of  six thousand dollars on a cello, a decent bow, and a sturdy case. 

My brother casually mentioned what I was doing today to my mom in a text. My mother quite predictably went ballistic. Her stated reasons as to why my indulgence was such an abysmal practice centralized upon the premise that what I did was to sublimate my emotions, not actually dealing with them, but rather,  engaging in the most unhealthy practice of compulsively dropping a large wad of cash on an impulse purchase. She said it wasn't really about the money.

I shall share my opinion here even if no one desires to hear it because this is my blog and I can say whatever I want as long as it's not libelous. Almost anytime someone gives you the line, "It's not about the money," it really is all about the money. My mother is upset that I spent nearly six grand on a cello and related paraphernalia.  If I had gone out and wasted three hundred dollars on high-end cosmetics, she probably would have considered the practice not conducive to mental health, but she wouldn't have given a rat's rectum [shoutout to Knotty] that I had done it.

Before you find yourself too firmly entrenched on her side in this dispute, let me relate just a bit of my mother's retail history. When she was fourteen and a high school junior she purchased a new Trans Am with earnings from a gambling ring that she operated in her high school. She was still almost two years from being able to drive legally when she bought the Trans Am. (I'm not suggesting my mother let the car vegetate in the garage for almost two years. According to her siblings, she drove herself even to eighth grade in a second-hand Mustang she bought years earlier, also with gambling ring earnings. I'm just saying it wasn't legal for her to have driven the car.) One or the other of her parents must have signed for the car, but she would have been the one to fork over all the cash at the age of fourteen. I drive a freaking Honda Civic at the age of twenty. For the record, I consider myself quite fortunate to have the Honda Civic, as not everyone can have Judge Alex, who buys Lexuses for his offspring, as a father. I'm merely mentioning this to give you, the reader, much needed perspective in regard to my family's financial history.

Moving along to my mother's more recent history, she has not one, not two, but three grand pianos in her present home -- one for each floor of the house. The pianos are two Steinways and a Kawai, for the record -- which are not exactly Wurlitzers in the grand scheme of all things piano-related. That doesn't even count the baby grand that is in my room there and was purchased for me by my Godparents. My mother also purchased a 6'4" ebony Boston [a Steinway subsidiary] grand for the condo. My mother's net worth in pianos alone is equal to or greater than the combined wealth of the average two-income family in the U.S. Isn't that just really sweet as well as sensible? Is it normal to be too damned lazy to descend a flight of stairs to play a piano?

I'm not suggesting that my mother has spent money foolishly on a regular basis throughout her marriage. She herself has worked at decent-paying positions for all but a few years of her marriage, and what she spent on pianos probably didn't even touch my father's salary, the magnitude of which I don't know, though I'd have to guess that what he pulls in is substantial. What I am suggesting is that my mother is the proverbial pot calling the proverbial kettle proverbially black by complaining about my recent indulgence. My not-quite-six-thousand dollar purchase pales in comparison to the money she's spent in an arguably frivolous manner.

All sales of used merchandise at the store from which I purchased the cello are final. I've watched enough of courtroom TV shows to know that the only terms under which my purchase could be invalidated would be if the cello, bow, or case  had been in some way falsely represented. I did my homework. My cello is the real deal. The cello is here to stay. 

My mother needs to learn to look on the bright side. This figurative coin of sorts actually has two bright sides. Side A: I would have spent even more on the cello except that a high-end cello, while it sounds great when played by an experienced and talented cellist, is actually more difficult to play than is a bargain basement cello. I split the difference and went with a mid-level model. Side B: Even if I have a bona fide musical instrument addiction -- which I do not -- it's far cheaper than a drug or gambling habit even without the necessity of paying for related stints in rehab.

The song of the day for today should be a cello song except that I cannot actually play the cello yet, so instead, we will go with Gloria Gaynor's breakup anthem of the 70's or 80's or whenever it was recorded.

Ex-Factor

"The best way not to get a broken heart is to pretend you don't have one." -- Charlie Sheen ****

Love is probably overstating it, but I was in a relationship from the very end of August until now. A relationship of less than four months is not exactly the substance of which history's great romances are made, but considering my personal romantic history, it lasted practically a lifetime. Like many relationships, alas, it didn't stand the test of time.

My former significant other was and is a classmate. This makes things perhaps just a tad awkward, though not excruciatingly so. It wasn't the most intense of relationships ever, and the split wasn't overwhelmingly ugly. 

I'm still not entirely sure the exact nature of the split. I was there when he broke it off (in person; he's hardly a blatant anal orifice) so I know what he told me, but I'm uncertain as to whether or not what I was told was the real reason. My friend asked me why the guy would lie about his reason. Sometimes the course of least resistance is easier than the truth. Sometimes a guy tells a girl what he thinks will be the least painful thing to hear or what will make him sound the least like a jerk when his words are repeated to someone else. Sometimes a girl does the same thing, of course, but I didn't break it off with the guy in this case.

There was (and still is) a slightly-greater-than-four-year age gap between us. The age discrepancy was cited in the conversation that went on for longer than it should have, ostensibly because the guy felt guilty, as a contributory factor. I did nothing to encourage him to keep talking, to rethink his decision, or to do anything. If someone does not wish to continue a relationship of any sort with me, that's the person's choice. It's beneath my dignity to attempt to cling to anyone who is plotting an escape.

I didn't give away to this person anything that I cannot easily reclaim. The preceding statement was intentionally cryptic, just as the guy may have been cryptic in regard to what he said to me regarding his reason for ending things. Had I been older, would he have been more open regarding certain things he may have desired in a relationship? I have no idea. One thing the guy said was that in a few years a four-year age difference between him and someone else or between me and someone else probably won't be significant, but at this point it is. 

My brother and I are younger by more than a year than anyone else in the cohort. Most of the students in my cohort are considerably more than a year older than we are. The mean age right now is 24, years, 10 months. I'm 20 years, 11.4 months. I try very hard not to be silly and to be as mature as anyone else, but when the people here look at me, they seem to see someone who is not their equal in terms of age and maturity. I cannot change who I am.

I've never mentioned or alluded in any way to this person in my blog. I suppose I'm doing the ultimate mention now, although if you're not someone in my cohort, you haven't the foggiest notion as to whom I may be referring. My own parents have no idea. My best friends from places other than here have no clue as to what I'm talking about.

If I were Taylor Swift, I would probably write a song about the guy, and everyone who knew him would recognize him in the song. He should probably consider himself most fortunate that he's getting off with a mere anonymous mention in this equally anonymous blog.

This, too, shall pass.

I don't really like Garth Brooks --or, for that matter, any country artist -- all that much. I did, however, come across a lovely cover of one of Brooks' songs by  Celtic Thunder artist Colm Keegan along with cellist extraordinaire Laura Durrant. It's their video, and I hope they don't mind that I posted it, as it perfectly suits my current rather gloomy mood.

  ****  not necessarily a person after whom any sane being I know would choose to pattern his or her life                

Something I Never Discussed (a bit gross)

This is the place. (I actually borrowed that quote from Brigham Young, though he was speaking of something very different than anatomy lab. Or was he?)

I read an old blog allegedly written by me (in the interval in which it was written, only I had the password to this account, and I gravely doubt that a hacker would go to the trouble of gaining access to my leg just to make a single rather benign post) in which  I mentioned that I would share how it is to cut through human flesh, albeit dead human flesh.  I can see now that I never addressed that topic.

It's pretty gruesome, actually. The closest I'd ever come to it would have been cutting beef or chicken prior to cooking. Chickens are not all that similar to humans in an anatomical sense, however, so one could work as a KFC prepper (as in cutting the meat up long before it gets to the local stores) for many years and still have no clue as to what it is like to cut into a human. And one would be, if one is anything like me, perfectly happy to keep it that way. Cutting beef is a bit more similar except that the skin of a cow was removed long before it reached anyone's cutting board. If the hide were in place, it would be of a much tougher consistency than would human flesh be. Any attached vital organs would have long since disappeared as well.

I'm far from the reincarnation of Jeffrey Dahmer. The idea of controlling a knife as it descends through layers of human tissue in no way appeals to me. I refuse to allow my distaste for all things gory, however, stand in the way of attaining my career objectives. so I always used a scalpel as efficiently as possible in order to minimize my time spent in the anatomy lab.

One of my cohort mates suggested that people who have been involved in hunting mammals are slightly desensitized to the grossness of the whole process of cutting into tissue. This is likely true. It's not so true, however,  that I would necessarily recommend that anyone who is much like me go out and buy a certified Dick Cheney hunting rifle and commence with shooting away at anything on four legs that walks by. If hunting is something that a prospective medical school candidate likes to do or does of necessity, more power to that person, and the person may have a slight edge on the rest of us when it comes to not hurling during one's initial stint in the anatomy lab. 

In terms of the tactile-kinesthetic principles of functioning in an anatomy lab, however, there's as much dissimilarity between the mammals typically hunted and the ones one will dissect in anatomy lab as there is similarity. Think about it. Or don't, if you're squeamish and don't have to think about it.

A Most Tenuous Topic

Even this seemingly benign photo is probably doing more to red-flag this blog and to invite scrutiny from the testing Nazis than is prudent. C'est la vie.

Late in this calendar year I will take a test that is more important in terms of my future than has been any other test I've ever taken in my life. The SAT was important both times I took it. (Sometimes it really is worth it to take the SAT twice. My first time through it I did well. I nailed the thing my second time through.) The LSAT and mCAT were both important, as at those points in my educational career I wasn't entirely certain what options were open and needed to be prepared for either law school or medical school. I don't recommend preparing for both simultaneously. I didn't exactly do that myself. I took them eight weeks apart, which is probably closer than a sane person would take two of such vastly different tests of such magnitude, but it is at least doable at that interval.

All of those tests are ancient history and not entirely relevant anymore, however, as step numero uno of the behemoth test I'll be facing at or near the end of this academic year dwarfs every other exam I've ever taken.  People have been known to lose their sanity over this exam, or so I'm told. In fairness, some of those who supposedly lost their sanity in connection with the exam had only the most marginal of acquaintances with the very concept of stability. Still, the concept that it's a test that is known to screw around with everything one has ever thought of or felt about oneself even to the most confident of individuals on the planet is a point I do not take lightly.

You might have noticed that I have yet to mention the name of this exam. I won't, or at the very least I will not do so in today's blog. After reading the cautionary material, I've become so paranoid that I don't want to put anything in this blog that might cause it to show up on a google search and hence fall under  some test Nazi's radar. i intend to fly well under the radar on this one.

On the other tests I've taken, test security was addressed. With this exam, multiple sections concerning "irregular behavior" are in the earliest information disseminated to prospective test takers. When I read the term irregular behavior  I wondered if those charged with preparing students for this exam referred to the borderline Aspies, schizophrenics, and others with special needs who are likely present in the med school population just as they are in every other segment of society. I thought the ban on irregular behavior pertained maybe to self-stimming or to conversing aloud with the voices in one's head during the test. I thought wrong. Irregular behavior refers to anything that might interfere with the integrity of the test. We're not to share anything from the test with anyone. Not with lovers. Not with offspring. Not with womb-mates, i.e. twin siblings. Not with test preparation material publishers. Not with anyone.

Well in advance, we're already studying for this killer of an exam. We study to some degree in groups, though much of this study will be a very solitary effort. In one of my study groups, several of the members aren't particularly interested in prepping for the test. I'm a bit worried for them, though it's their own problem if they fail to see the light very, very soon. I cannot learn the material for them.

In the end, I'm a proficient test-preparer and a good test-taker. I don't procrastinate. Chances are that I'll be fine, though I do not underestimate the enormity of this milestone exam.

I'll probably write about this again in the upcoming months, as at some point classes will end and preparing for the test will encompassing nearly all of my waking hours. Then again, in the interest of test integrity and of flying under the radar, perhaps I will not. Time alone will tell.

It's My Brother's Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

This is essentially what my Godchild's sister (also my Godchild) looked like during most of the party except that her hair still looks as though it was painted on like a newborn doll's hair.

Today was my Godchild's first birthday. I showed up at his party about two hours before its scheduled start as I was asked to in order to help with setting things up. I helped with tables and chairs, tying balloons in strategic places, and similar rocket-science calibre tasks. afterward, I helped with the clean-up. I'm a dutiful Godparent. The main duties are to provide gifts for every occasion and to help with stuff such as birthday parties. Today I fulfilled both requirements.

The birthday boy was in perfect form. He didn't cry a single time until almost an hour after the party was over when one of his cousins pulled his hair. I felt like decking the brat who attacked him but I don't usually engage in hand-to hand combat with two-year-olds. Little does the hair-puller know that Andrew will be both bigger and smarter than she is within a year and will be more than able to hold his own if she chooses to continue her aggressive ways. For Christmas I may get him a karate suit and pay for his first year of karate lessons so that he can defend himself at family events. Do they allow one-year-olds in karate classes? He's quite mature as one-year-olds go.

Andrew's little sister, on the other hand (it's not a typo; he really does already have a little sister even though he's barely a year old; his parents have white trash ways), cried more than enough to make up for every kid there who wasn't crying. She's three-and-one-half months old, though she was born about six weeks early so she's still pretty small for her age. She screamed bloody murder pretty much anytime she noticed someone other than her mother or father or nanny (or I) was looking at her. She knows my voice from skyping so I was allowed to hold her and she didn't cry when I looked at her. I almost felt honored. My dad said she has my disposition. I don't think it was intended as a compliment.

One of my aunts who was there illustrated perfectly why some old people should not dabble in technology. She took up violin this year at the age of fifty-something, and she plans to purchase a new violin soon. She apparently put several violins in her Amazon.com  shopping cart simply for the purpose of remembering what models she saw online and liked. She seems not to have discovered Amazon's "Wish List" feature. I told her about a particular brand of rosin that I use and like, so she used her phone to order it from Amazon. Instead of using Amazon's one-click feature, she put the rosin in her shopping cart -- with approximately thirteen violins -- and when she clicked "Proceed to Checkout" and "Place Your Order," she ordered over twenty-three thousand dollars worth of merchandise. Fortunately for her and/or her husband and for her offspring, who would like to inherit at least enough to bury their parents someday, she checked her order a few minutes later to see when the rosin was scheduled to arrive, and she noticed that thirteen or so violins plus miscellaneous violin paraphernalia [that she found interesting and wanted to consider buying later but was too lame to use the "Wish List" feature] also scheduled to arrive in the next week or so. She very nearly had a seizure. My Aunt Jillian's  brother spent the next fifteen minutes cancelling all her purchases for her.

Notice to Old People:   There are still things called stores in most places. You can buy stuff there. You don't have to risk bankrupting yourselves by accidentally ordering twenty-three thousand dollars worth of violins and associated paraphernalia when almost anything you would ever want can be found in stores.

English Usage, Choice of Words, Phoniness, and Returning Home

I took an online quiz that purported (NOT purposed, as a Duggar would say) to discern my age by the way I supposedly speak. The closest approximation of how a person talks that could be gleaned from such a source would probably be accomplished by allowing some search engine to scan one's twitter account or some similar source. There are obviously flaws in such a method, as how one speaks and how one writes, even for twitter, are often quite different. In my particular case, my writing doesn't differ from my manner of speech in a dramatic fashion except for the noticeable lack of typographical errors in my oral communications. In written communications that matter, such as in written assignments for school, emails to professors and advisors, and in similar missives, I proofread before I send. In my blog and in tweets, I sometimes figuratively tell typographical accuracy and the usage police who point out errors in such to go to hell. 

What the quiz did was to take the answers I gave regarding which words from a highly finite  selection I would use and to make a generalization based on my self-report. I was relatively honest, or at least as honest as I could be when, in most cases, none of the choices offered were words I would actually use. I was forced to choose in most case between trite words and phrases and to designate which were least offensive to my ears. 

In some cases people would give false answers either to sound more educated or, I suspect, in  truly sad cases. to sound younger than they actually are. I don't think anyone I would count among my friends, no matter what his or her age might be, could be justly accused of such a thing.

All of this notwithstanding, the computer-generated scorer of the quiz guessed my age at twenty-five. I'm comfortable with that. I do not need a computer to tell me that I'm younger than my chronological age.

I'm home for the very first time since starting school in late August. I chose this weekend to return home because A) it's my Godchild's birthday and B) my uncle chartered a private plane for his son to fly home and back, so I rode along for free. My bed i my condo at school is equally comfortable as is my bed in my parents' home, but there's something extra comforting about my room at home. I'm glad I'm not here every night and I'm grateful for the space going to school hundreds of miles away affords me, but still it's nice to be here for three nights.

Some people of both genders are obsessed with perpetuating the illusion of youth.

Political Madness

Just looking at his face puts me in a bad mood for an entire day. i'm not sure I can make it through the duration of another presidential primary. I'm hoping that the republicans are not stupid enough to nominate this buffoon, therefore elongating my misery.

Sex in Medical School and Other Fallacies

Life is moving along at its usual snail's pace. In my school we've just finished a unit on infectious diseases and have moved on to endocrinology, after which we'll transition to the final area of focus for the quarter, which will be on male and female reproduction.

I'm probably saying more than I should about my personal life here.  I'm relatively anonymous in this forum, however, so what the hell? I'll spill my guts.

It's a bit awkward in some ways to learn so much about the medical aspects of reproduction before having much practical experience in that regard. I wonder if, when it's time for me to experience all of that sort of thing, I'll obsess on the technical aspects to the point that I miss out on the essence of the experience. That would be sad.

I'm not the only novice in regard. There are a few east Asian girls and a  girl whose parents are from India who have no more experience with all things carnal than have I. Perhaps we should stick together during that part of lecture so people don't smirk at us too much if we turn red. Then again, having six or so girls seated together who are embarrassed by the subject matter would probably be far more conspicuous than finding our own individual spots where we can attempt to blend into the woodwork.

I'm going home for the first time this quarter for the Halloween weekend. A few people are coming with me. My brother is not yet sure as to whether or not he will travel home. He's already been home once this quarter. I had planned to visit home earlier but there was never a good time. My parents have both been here at least twice, and other relatives have been through as well. Beyond that, there's really little time to be homesick. This place has essentially become home to me though I don't love the bay area enough to settle here permanently.

Judeg Alex posted this link http://linkis.com/www.thrillist.com/en/lQ8sK . It ranks the fans of NFL teams in terms of their obnoxiousness. Whoever did the rankings pretty much got it spot on, though I probably would have ranked the Seattle Seahawks higher on the obnoxiousness scale. The godawful Pete Carroll by himself is arguably the single most obnoxious person associated with the NFL. Anyone who likes him is guilty of obnoxiousness by association. Some people would put the Harbaugh brothers in the same league. I really don't. I think Jim Harbaugh is mildly funny. He's a complete maniac, but maniacs can be amusing. Just the same, I'm glad he's moved back to college sports. He probably belonged in college all along. College athletes still listen to coaches to some degree. College coaches presumably get paid more as well, and Harbaugh has enough offspring that he needs every dollar that he can earn or steal. Pete Carroll, on the other hand, has no option of returning to the NCAA because any university who hired him would likely face sanctions for the next millennium.

They're not obnoxious.

No one here is obnoxious, either . . .

nor is there anything obnoxious about these people.

This guy is probably the least obnoxious Seahawk fan of all.

The Patriots fans are ranked as the league's most obnoxious. I can see the rationale behind that ranking. At the same time, even though I think he's dishonest and stands for everything that sports probably shouldn't stand for, I have a grudging respect for Bill Belichick. Anyone who inspires such paranoia in the opposition that they bring their own gatorade and [for good reason] fear that you're bugging their walkie talkies or going through the visiting locker rooms after you use them for any hint of your team's secrets is probably doing something right. I have no use for Tom Brady, though.

Outrun by a Very Old Man and an Interesting Case Involving the AntiChrist

the defendant

I had a really tragic afternoon today. My dad showed up while a study group was meeting here at my condo. People started talking to one another and the discussion was about money changing hands. I don't know exactly why I ever agreed to such a thing, but my cohort mates were betting on whether or not I could outrun my father at a distance of 200 yards. Someone measured the distance. We ran and I lost. I got a much better start than he did and was ahead of him until probably the final 15 yards or so. Even he admitted that I would have beaten him in a real race, as no one  races for 200 yards in an actual race. The man is something like fifty-one years old, and I'm not quite twenty-one yet. It was a pathetic display on my part. I would burn my running shoes were it not for the fact that the soles are rubber and would not burn very well.

Afterwards I was too disconsolate to continue studying, so I checked out things on the Internet while others were studying things that I already had committed to memory. I came across something a bit unusual.

True confession: I was disloyal to Judge Alex. I watched an episode of the Antichrist on the Internet, I would try to rationalize it by saying that 1) I'm not a Neilson Family;2) even if I were a Neilson family, I watching the episode on the Internet, where it could not be tracked by the neilson people, and The AntiChrist would under no circumstances credit. Still, disloyalty is disloyalty, and I admit to having been disloyal.

Disloyalty notwithstanding, the case was truly interesting if more for the back story than for the actual content of the case itself. It seems that the case was phony -- manufactured jointly by the plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses so that they could get a little cash and a free all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles out of the experience.  The production staffs and the judges themselves on most court shows pride themselves on being able to sniff out a ruse, but either this case fooled everyone or both the production staff and The AntiChrist thought the case was too bizarre not to air even if it was not for real. I'm not sure which of my two possible scenarios is actually true in this case.

The case involved an accusation by the plaintiff that the defendant had thrown two TVs across the room, one of which hit and killed her cat. The defendant's defense was basically that he was too drunk to remember what happened on the night in question. The plaintiff in this case was clearly nervous about lying on camera under oath, but she explained it away by saying to The AntiChrist that she was fidgety. The AntiChrist probably thought she was coming down from a meth high.

Both the plaintiff and the defendant were respectable actors, albeit in an understated sort of way on the part of the defendant. Arguably the most talented actor involved with the case was the defendant's witness, who interjected that he had a scenario that proved the plaintiff was lying. Judge Judy cut him off by telling him he had not been present when the cat was or was not killed. The defendant's witness responded, "OK, Mama," to The AntiChrist. That had supposedly been the particular witness' entire objective in appearing in court -- to call The AntiChrist "Mama." Unfortunately, The AntiChrist seemed not to have heard him. She's gone Kate Gosselin on litigants for saying far less than that.

Lines from the  hallterviews were among the best I've ever heard on The AntiChrist's show, or, I should say, were the best I would have heard if I actually watched her show on a regular basis, which I clearly do not. "He killed a dead bird and then lit it on fire." "They're straight; we hate 'em." 'Kate's nasty." ". . . underwear on the counter . . ."   "The guy's crazy but he's not a bad friend usually." "If the cat died it was a mercy killing 'cuz Kate never fed the cat."  "I didn't kill the cat. Jonathan didn't kill the cat. None of us killed the cat, because we only smash stuff outside." "It's ridiculous." "It's ridiculous, obviously." "I feel like my whole life is ridiculous, really."

The case is a classic, and all the more so because it was totally fabricated. Watch it if you're so inspired.  http://www.snotr.com/video/4051/Who_killed_the_cat

I  once read something written by Judge Alex on social media where he talked about the potential cost for anyone caught fabricating a case on his show. In addition to having to reimburse the producers for hotel fees, cash for meals, and transportation costs, the production company could even go after phony litigants for productions costs, which would be well into the thousands of dollars. I must ask Judge Alex if anyone ever tried to bring a phony case before him. My guess is that there's no way he would have ever fallen for this particular hoax, but then again, the case might have been funny enough that the judge would have been willing to look the other way in order to televise it.

Tests, Celebration Plans, Slut Clothing, and Unconscious Classmates

I had a major test at school on Friday. It was related to the GI system and was considered to be relatively important; a thorough grasp of the GI system is more or less essential for anyone treating patients. Not much of what we've learned in this series was actually new to me, but I approach all presented material as though I've never heard it before in terms of notes and studying, as I don't want to miss anything. I was relatively stressed going into this test until one of my cohort mates went into some sort of health crisis.  

I don't know if the student's issues were anxiety-induced or entirely a health matter. If the lecturer of our most recent section had been there, we probably would have been required to write up differential diagnoses of her condition along with lab and radiology orders. Fortunately both for her and for the rest of us, the lecturer in question was not present to add to her humiliation and to the rest of our workload.

I really hope my fellow med student is OK. No one with whom I've spoken has heard anything about how she is. I don't wish this sort of thing on any of my current cohort mates. There were a few students who were here previously that I found to be so unqualified and incompetent that I feared for their potential patients to the degree that even if something of this nature had taken the person out of commission, I wouldn't have been truly sad for them.   

The ailing student, who appears to me to be in her late twenties and hadn't  previously displayed any obvious signs of illness, was gasping for breath and was trying to walk up the stairs of the auditorium when she fainted. Raoul caught her. He and another guy carried her up the remainder of the stairs and into the corridor or anteroom or whatever the outside of our building that is still inside and leads to another auditorium is called.  I felt very sorry for everyone involved. The woman was wearing a top that crept up easily, and there was no obvious way for her to be carried that wasn't a bit awkward. Raoul tried in vain to pull her top to a position where it would cover her.  Poor Raoul is very proper and turned quite red at the site of the woman's bright purple bra.  

Being the paranoid person that I am, immediately upon my return home, I went to my closet and sorted every item of my clothing into two sections: clothing that will protect my modesty in the event that I become unconscious during lecture and have to be unceremoniously carted out of an auditorium, and slut clothing. There's really no in-between. Either a garment will cover me when someone is lugging me up or down stairs, or, for practical purposes, only a hussy would wear the clothing item to lecture knowing what I now know about gravity, the carrying of an unconscious body, and related matters. 

My initial plan was to dress like a nun, or  maybe to wear one of Warren Jeffs'  women's prairie dresses that cover more than burkas, for the next two-and-one-half years. Matthew pointed out to me, however, that what shows when a person is in normal full-consciousness mode is immaterial.  Well-fitting shorts and a long enough top are more protective of  a person's privacy than most dresses are. Thus, the paradigms of proper clothing and slut clothing have shifted somewhat. The zebra-print shorts that I have on loan from my Taiwanese-American friend's younger sister are now on the "nun clothing" side of my closet, while a couple of  previously-considered-benign dresses have been relegated to the "slut clothes" section.

Most of us would probably feel nothing but sympathy for an under-the-weather peer. Still, having such a thing happen to someone else took my mind off the nervousness I was feeling  in regard to the multiple choice scantron test, and I was able to get through it more quickly than I usually do. I didn't rush,  and the questions, while difficult or unanswerable for anyone who didn't know the material well, were mostly straightforward and not designed to trick a person into a wrong answer. 

I had a professor last year who was totally into writing trick questions. It wasn't a major issue for me, as I semi-quickly broke his code, and even was able to help a couple people in a couple of of my study groups to understand how he typically twisted the words in his questions, and how best to un-twist them. He justified his ambiguity by saying that patients would not always be straight with us, and that the human body certainly would do what it could to confound us as interns and physicians. He was only preparing us for life as physicians and surgeons by speaking in riddles.  

Personally, I think he was full of nonsense and delusions of grandeur and probably fancied himself as the next incarnation of House, MD.  My dad knew the professor from when they were both completing their residencies here, and he said the guy was always full of himself. There's not much I or anyone else can do when a  professor is a complete jerk. In regular university classes it's mostly easy enough to schedule around a professor who's obnoxious, but in a medical school cohort [other than the few slots in which we'll schedule electives] where we move as a group for one session to the next, there's not really any getting around such a person. If this jerk teaches any elective courses, I suspect the enrollment in said courses is somewhere between incredibly low and nonexistent.

I just checked my December schedule. My first final exam will not happen until two days after my twenty-first birthday, which will be on December 2.  The scheduling is most fortuitous for me, as on that night  I plan to drink myself into a state midway between oblivion and alcohol poisoning, ideally slightly closer to oblivion.  Because of the lucky break in scheduling, I will not have to complete my first final exam of the year either hung over or still loopy. Praise  Jesus, Buddha, Maitreya, Mohammed, or anyone else who chooses to claim responsibility.

These shall remain a wardrobe staple. I probably should offer to buy them from my cohort mate's little sister.

USMLE Step 1

How do you say it in Espanol? Si se puede? (Unrelated to the topic, but are this guy's eyebrows amazing?)

The workload is very nearly killing me, but it's killing most of my cohort mates even more than it is killing me. Most people who have survived up to this point (we've lost a total of six from our cohort since starting, which is, I've been told, lightly higher than the mean of students to have departed at this point) will ultimately make it through school, and the vast majority should past this exam, which is the first portion of the three-step United States Medical Licensing Exam, although my program has a much higher-than-average acceptance rate because it is a relatively selective program. scores on this test, in addition to allowing us to advance in our programs, will be weighed heavily in our gaining access to quality residence programs.

This is presumably the final exam I'll take in which what was learned in undergraduate studies -- science courses in particular -- would still be considered relevant. After this, what we learned as undergrads impacts our ability to master the new material, but said content no longer in and of itself will be needed.  I'm confident of my ability to master the new material; however, up to this point, my grasp of undergraduate science courses been a major advantage against my peers, and I'll lose some of that edge even though we're not theoretically a competitive program at this stage.

It doesn't help me in the least for anyone else to do poorly, but even if it did, failing this test is not something I would wish on anyone in my program. We've all worked too hard to be bounced now, although most people who fail will just put in another year and repeat a few courses, then take the exam again. A five-year program is actually recommended for most students, although the majority of us will not follow that recommendation unless we're forced to do so by non-passing scores.

Some of what we're hearing about in lecture will help us, but a whole lot of the subject matter covered on the test  is ancient history. Some people like to clear their brains of everything ever learned in a given course once they finish it, but the science portion of our undergrad studies is crucial to scoring well on this test. Fortunately for me, I couldn't forget what I've already learned even if I tried.

We'll take two more steps of this test after the once we're presently facing. The next one will be near the end of Year 4 of med school, and is a bear of a test, part of which will involve preliminarily diagnosing and writing up findings, including the ordering of tests,  for ten actors posing as patients. I fervently hope the actors they have are better than the ones here. I'll go to Los Angeles to take it, where out-of-work actors abound.  L.A. should have the cream of the crop in terms of actors unless all the actors are from L.A. and fly out to the respective sites. (There are a total of five testing sites in the nation for this portion of the exam.)

The final step of the USMLE is taken after the first year of residency. It determines who will be licensed to practice medicine.

We still have the usual tests in our classes, but then we have this behemoth hanging over our heads, as in we can do tremendously well on our work in class yet still be held back another year by a poor showing. The makers of this test claim it doesn't measure one's ability to take tests but actually measures one's knowledge of subject matter.  I  find that claim just a bit incredible, yet still I plan to show up for the test as well-prepared both in terms of knowledge of subject matter and in regard to test-taking skills as humanly possible. If it's so easy to eliminate test-taking skills from relevance in any test, why have other test makers not consulted the makers of this test to find ways of minimize the effects of test-taking skill in their own tests?

I suspect test-taking skill will always be relevant, yet not so much as to to allow anyone to past this test on test-taking skill alone. Still, I will hedge my bets by taking the Kaplan course in addition to the insane amount of studying hours I'm devoting to this cause.

Scientology, Kabbalah, Mormon Fundamentalism -- It's All Good

Can you picture me as one of these two beauts? 

It seems that in real life I use the words fiasco and debacle rather liberally, much in the way that some people are fond of saying "um," while others are partial to sprinkling their sentences with like in almost random places. I, of course, would never use any word randomly, but still, it's conceivable that I may have overused one or both words. I plan after studying tonight to scour online thesaurus sources for possible replacement terms.

One of my professors said out of the blue today before he started his lecture, "Alexis, in your world, which is worse, a debacle or a fiasco?" 

I paused to consider the question. "I really don't know," I answered. "I believe the two words are essentially synonymous." (For the record, I checked;  fiasco and debacle are about as synonymous as synonymous can be.)

"What criteria do you use for determining whether to describe one situation as a debacle and another as a fiasco?" he pressed.

I may be a bit slow, but I eventually figure it out when someone is having fun at my expense. "Divine inspiration," I answered him in my most deadpan voice. Lately I've been watching Parks and Rec when I have trouble sleeping.  I channeled my inner April Ludgate as I answered him.  "God tells me whether something is a fiasco or a debacle." I stared the professor down with an intensity that would have made Aubrey Plaza [the actress who portrays the April Ludgate character on Parks and Recreation] almost envious. I say almost  because I gravely doubt either the character or the actress who portrays her is capable of genuine envy.

The professor looked away before I did, which was a victory of sorts. I believe I freaked him out ever so slightly. Kal Penn whispered, "Way to stand up to him, Cutthroat Bitch," from the row behind me.  Cool Guy fist-bumped me from his seat diagonally in front of  me.  He's more double-jointed even than I am, which allows him to put his arms behind him at very odd angles to fist-bump anyone who says something especially salient.  When the professor looked my way again as  he began his lecture, I gave him the sweetest smile I could ever fake. He's lucky I didn't roll my eyes at him. I can roll them practically all the way back where nothing but white shows, and it looks like a medical emergency is taking place,  I don't do this very often, just as I don't intentionally dislocate my arm (both arms, actually) at the elbow, then put it back into place)  very often anymore, either, because it physically hurts to do either of those things. If a cause is ever sufficient, however, I will pull one of those tools from my arsenal of weapons.

My brother told me that after lecture, the professor asked him what my religion is. I found it mildly telling that the professor didn't ask what religion my brother and I are, but asked specifically what religion I am, almost as though he acknowledges that I would never blindly follow any religion thrust upon me by my parents or any other accident of birth.  I considered this a sign of respect even if it was not intended as such. Matthew lied and told the professor I had dabbled in both Scientology and Kabbalah, but found neither to be spiritually satisfactory, so I was working to build enough capital to start my own religion and tax shelter.  Matthew is reasonably certain the professor took him seriously. 

Incidentally, this professor has virtually nothing to do with assigning even the perfunctory pass/fail grades we receive officially for the first two years of med school, much less the real grades that are, I'm convinced, tracked behind the scenes.  I'm not sure I would have done anything differently even if the professor happened to be involved in grading us.  There are worse things than having the person who gives you a final grade be afraid that you might put some sort of a hex on him.

Meanwhile, I must complete my studies for the evening so that I may find suitable  synonyms for fiasco and debacle. 

P.S. I wish Matthew'd had the presence of mind to tell the professor that we both had either escaped or been kicked out of a polygamous cult. I suspect the professor knows who my dad is, but he also probably knows that my dad had past connections with Mormonism. Many people can't quite shake the idea that modern-day Mormons aren't one and the same as the Warren Jeffs branch of Latter-Day Saint fundamentalism.  Having the professor believe I'd been a child bride at the age of twelve might have given me some serious street cred.

Isn't she positively fabulous? 

The Name Game, Part 17 (I've actually lost count)

The topic of naming one's children and the ignorance that sometimes happens in the process has come up numerous times in this blog. I must share with you one more instance of sheer idiocy involved in the naming of children. My Aunt Victoria's good friend has a sister-in-law (brother's wife) who is named Jamie, except that it's spelled spelled  Jammie.  Jammie has a twin sister named Janie, except that her name is spelled (you already guessed it, I'm sure) Jannie. 

Jannie had jury duty with my Aunt Victoria this week.  My aunt said that the jury commissioner  or whoever it is that calls out names (the one time I reported for jury duty, we checked in by handing to an employee slips of paper that had been attached to the summonses we had received in the mail, but the people who run this backwoods courtroom probably haven't even discovered computers yet and do everything the old-fashioned way, including an old-style role call to determine who among those who were called actually showed up) pronounced Jannie's name the way Jannie it should be pronounced phonetically, i.e. rhyming with Annie. According to my aunt, Jannie was furious and made it a point to approach the front desk from where the court employee was taking attendance  and to loudly correct the employee. Jannie said something to the effect of, "Can't you even read simple English?" to the court employee. 

The court employee was of Hispanic descent and apparently took Jannie's rebuke as a racial reference, which it may or may not have been intended to be. I haven't a clue as to Jannie's mentality when she said what she said. I just know that both she and her twin sister have been angry about their names being mispronounced for most of their lives. They're equally fired up when the names are misspelled.  My aunt says the sister-in-law of Jammie (my aunt's friend) has tried to explain to Jammie more than once that a word containing a vowel followed by two consonants, particularly when the word contains a double consonant, is pronounced with a short vowel sound. My aunt's friend didn't know if Jammie  thought she (my aunt's friend) didn't know what she was talking about or if Jammie simply could not grasp the underlying phonetic concept.

Things apparently got a bit testy in the jury selection waiting room at that point. A bailiff or deputy sheriff or someone wearing a uniform and badge, anyway, stepped in and told both women to calm down and asked Jannie to take her seat, which she did after briefly mean-mugging the court employee who had mispronounced her name. When roughly half the group was called to enter a courtroom, the uniformed employee with a badge accompanied the group. He approached the court clerk and spoke with her in hushed tones  as he pointed at a paper the clerk had in front of her. My aunt has a relatively keen sense of hearing, and she said the uniformed guy was telling the clerk that Jannie's name was pronounced /ja-nie/, not /jan-nie/ and that the woman would become very huffy if her name happened to be mispronounced. The court clerk's response was essentially, "Whatever."

In that particular courtroom, they had a little metal machine like one of those things used in bingo games. The metal bingo machine contained numbers -- not B10 or G 56, but presumably a number to represent each potential juror. The second number drawn, followed by the court clerk's checking of the list in front of her and calling of the potential juror's name, was Jannie's. The court clerk giggled, my aunt said, as she correctly pronounced Jannie's name. Jannie gave her a mild glare, my aunt said, as she took her place in the box, presumably because Jannie perceived (correctly in this case) that she was being made fun of.

Once potential jurors and two alternates had been seated, the voir dire process began. Each juror was asked by the judge to introduce himself or herself and to tell what his or her occupation was and where he or she was employed, along with the same information about his or her spouse of he or she had one. The judge asked each potential juror if there was an inherent reason the juror could not make a fair and unbiased decision concerning the case, which was a misdemeanor criminal case involving the theft of hogs if memory serves me  correctly. The judge referred to Jannie as "Mrs. Baumgartner" or something very similar. I obviously should not use her actual surname  here if I don't wish to be sued. I would prevail in such a lawsuit, as everything I'm writing is either objective fact stated truthfully or a matter of opinion. There's no libel here, but that doesn't necessarily stop a person from filing a suit against another, and I don't have time now or in the near future to defend myself against idiots. 

As voir dire proceeded, the state's attorney also addressed the woman as "Mrs. Baumgartner." When it was the public defender's initial opportunity to question jurors, it was apparent that she had not gotten the memo that the rest of them had read. She addressed Mrs. Baumgartner as "Jannie Baumgartner," rhyming "Jannie" with "Annie."  Jannie was predictably not pleased, and corrected the defense attorney, though not going so far as to ask her if she knew how to read simple English in this case. The public defender apologized and pronounced the name as Jannie had said it. Muffled laughter was heard from among the potential jurors, all of whom had previously witnessed the earlier confrontation between Jannie and the court employee in the jury selection waiting room.

Attorneys approached the bench and consulted with the judge, after which he excused two jurors presumably for cause, thanking them for their service. Two more jurors were called up through the process, who gave their basic info to the judge, told him they had no inherent biases related to the case, and were questioned by both attorneys.

Then the peremptory challenge phase began. The prosecutor excused Juror #9. Another number was drawn, the list was consulted, and the next juror was called and took his seat. He gave his basic bio to the judge, then tried to convince the judge that he couldn't be fair in this case because he had been a member of FFA in high school and had once raised a goat. The judge didn't buy his reason for his supposed bias and gave both sides had the opportunity to question the man. Next was the defense's turn for a peremptory challenge. She used her first challenge to dismiss Juror #2, who was Jannie.

As Jannie was walking down the center aisle of then courtroom, Aunt Victoria  tried to hide her face behind a book she had brought along, but her effort was futile, and Jannie recognized her. Jannie loudly said, "Well, hi  there, Vicky! I didn't even see you here today." she paused. My aunt said she felt her own face growing hot. Having other people know that this idiot even knew her by name was, in and of itself, sufficient cause for embarrassment for my aunt.

The judge said, "Mrs. Baumgartner, you're excused. You may leave now."

Jannie turned and looked at him, then turned back to my aunt. "Well, I guess that's one way to get out of jury duty," Jannie concluded as she finally walked out the door.

My aunt Victoria felt for some reason that she needed to explain herself, so she pleaded,  "I don't even know that woman. Seriously."  The bailiff commanded those inhabiting the courtroom to be quiet as the room erupted in laughter. The judge tried to say something to my aunt, but then put his head down because he could not stifle his own laughter. He put his hand over his face. Then the judge composed himself and said, "I don't care. It doesn't matter," to my aunt.

The jury was seated without my aunt ever being called into the box, so that story is history, and I'll presumably never know whether or not the defendant was convicted of hog theft unless my Uncle Ralph happens to read about it in the newspaper. I need to remember to ask him about it, because the trial is probably already over. Still, that's not the important thing here.

There are two points to this. One point is that there should be some sort of qualification process in place before a person is allowed to name a child and to decide how that child's name is spelled or, for that matter, even to create a child.  It wasn't Jannie or Jammie's fault that their names were spelled stupidly -- blame for that belongs squarely on the backs of their parents --  although if either one possessed any sign of intelligence whatsoever, they would probably comprehend just why it is that their names are consistently pronounced as they are.

Point Number Two is that intelligence or lack of it is obviously hereditary.

People Against the Ethical Treatment of Animals

This message is not necessarily sanctioned by the People Against the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

I kid you not about this. Until I educated him as to the truth of the matter earlier this evening, my brother honest-to-God believed that PETA stood for "People AGAINST The Ethical Treatment of Animals."  I'm not making this up. It's what Matthew genuinely thought.A friend of mind would be happy to know that I did NOT roll my eyes when Matthew earlier this  evening shared his wisdom with me.  

I'm working hard on trying not to roll my eyes even at the most sub-imbecilic  things that are shared with me or said or done in front of me. It's damn hard, as I think I've been rolling my eyes at idiocy for as long as I can remember. I was in the hospital when someone told me to stop doing it. Of course, being in the hospital at the time the person said it, it was not even close to possible for me to cease and desist with eye rolling on the spot. I suspect the gesture of rolling one's eyes was originally invented by a hospital patient.

But seriously, can you effing believe it? "People Against the Ethical Treatment of Animals"? And this guy is going to be practicing medicine in just a very few short years. He is good looking if the number of girls  see hanging all over him every chance they get is any indication of his sex appeal..Maybe he can get one of those Dr. Oz-like jobs on TV or something of that nature/