As mentioned in the last entry, I had to rework my travel plans at the last minute due to doofishness on my part when originally purchasing my ticket. The comedy of errors merely continued one after the other however as while working my way through security at JFK airport, I am pulled out of line because there is an “issue” with my bag.

Airport Security Susie (ASS): “This yours?”

No ‘sir’, not even a polite inquisitive tone. This obese woman has already made up her mind as to my threat level.

Me: “What, you mean the peanut butter?”
ASS: “Yes. You can’t bring this on the plane.”
Me: Why not? It’s peanut butter.
ASS: We dont allow this on the plane

Me: But why?

Now you have to understand, this is no ordinary peanut butter. During my week in New York, A friend, knowing of my love for things smooth and creamy, took me to a NY specialty store, Peanut Butter and Co. While there, I purchased a sampler of their peanut butter platter, and one of the ones I tried was white chocolate peanut butter. I immediately purchased a jar to bring back and enjoy in california, where I could taste a white (chocolate peanut butter) christmas. Now back to our argument

ASS: This is over 3 oz
Me: It’s not a liquid. It’s peanut butter
ASS: It’s a paste and therefore on the list. cant be over 3 oz
Me: What the hell becomes dangerous about peanut butter between 3 and 4 ounces?
ASS: We are not allowed to tell you
Me: Do you seriously expect me to believe that peanut butter poses a THREAT to America?
ASS: Sir, you cannot bring this on the plane
Me: but, but, its PEANUT BUTTER
ASS: there are things that can be done with this that they tell us and we cant tell you

I try to see her point. Maybe Allah loves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Maybe I could force the pilot to eat a spoonful and take over the plane while he tries to extricate it from the roof of his mouth. I should be thanking the TSA for preventing peanut butter terrorism

I think back to a friend from my college days who used to travel with a lot of technical equipment and sound gear and was constantly getting pulled out of line. At one particularly frustrating encounter, he (for lack of a better word) blew up at the agent and shouted “You idiots couldnt tell the difference between C4 and Peanut Butter!”

After which he was quietly taken aside by some larger TSA agents for a “random search”

Ah-ha I think to myself!
Me: It’s not C4.
ASS: what?
Me: It’s not C4, its peanut butter, here I will eat it right in front of you!
ASS: you cannot take this on the plane, you will have to go back to the end of the line and check it.
Me: What in my laptop bag?
ASS: its that or it stays here (with me where I will begin enjoying it the moment you are out of my sight)
Me: I hate you and you are a terrible person
ASS: merry xmas and have a nice flight

So 6 dollars down the drain. But the story does have a somewhat happy ending…I have since learned through visiting the website linked above that certain select whole foods markets carry this company, and the nearest one is only 20 miles away…so the last laugh will be mine…as soon as I get this C4 off the roof of my mouth

I can’t stop complaining about how cold it is–and luckily, it’s
not just me. It really is freakishly cold. Tomorrow’s
going to be the record-breakingly chilly: “The predicted high of 9
degrees at O’Hare would be the coldest this late in a cold season since
a 3 degree high on Feb. 21, 1963.” The entire area is under a wind
chill advisory starting this evening because polar gusts are coming our
way via Canada. According to the advisory, “the colder air will be
ushered in on northwest winds near 25 mph… which will lower wind chills into the 20 to 30 below zero range late tonight and Wednesday morning.”

Oh, and it might snow tonight

damn you old man winter. I am seriously reconsidering my stance on euthanasia.

So the question today, boys and girls, is this: what is my blogging personality?

Am I the same person online that I am in “real life”. I certainly think so, at least in the sense that i dont pull any punches. But then again, there are things I can say/type online to people I have never met that I would probably not bust out on first meeting them in person. Of course, the caveat to that is you people come here, so I can only assume that you share similar thought patterns and interests if you bother to make repeat vists.

But I digress. Every so often, i go back and reread some of my old posts to see how i have changed in terms of attitudes, writing styles, subscribers, etc. And I can safely say that from when I began blogging in 2003, i have definetly matured as a writer (though i realize applying the term “mature” to me must be done with tongue in cheek. as opposed to anywhere else. ha.)

And yet, I still have some of the same habits I always did. I have a short attention span, i am an attention whore (though in my defense, to a degree so is anyone who maintains a blog), but i have a knack for finding out of the ordinary links and sites.

So now that I have gone off on this whole tangent, I submit the question to you: what do you people grok of me based soley on my writing. And for those who know me in RL does that mesh up?

…

With the deep thinking out of the way, lets move on to some medium thinking

How drug reps make friends and influence people: A chart
and the rest of the paper

seriously, i doubt anyone is REALLY under the impression that we are not influenced by drug reps, but isnt it sad that you cant even rely on someone being friendly without trying to pull one over on you? how in the world does any physican manage to trust people at all after even a year of practice. Hell I am only in my first clinical year and I have already learned the most basic lesson of medicine is that patients lie.

…..

And some lighter thinking

In a brief callback to the personality question I am a total gadget geek and slowly working my way toward status of “medblogger” I think.

www.medgagdet.com oh man do i love this site. Newest medical advances so I can actually hold intelligent conversations with residents and attendings and occasionalyl even impress them despite not always knowing about the studies

Also, speaking of studies, how do i get to do research like this? Haha censored space hamster porn

………….

And finally, a rant.

I seriously need to start charging for my friendship. Something like from the first time we meet, you get a two week free trial period of my friendship, after which there is a monthly fee to maintain it. If you upgrade to premium membership, you can also receive such perks as introduction to my friends with free lifetime memberships, or me “being there” for you. Why do I think this system will work? well clearly my companionship is a valuable commodity, seeing as how so effing many of the women I date decide they want it.

To elaborate. Went out on a couple dates with girl i met in the neighborhood. I am not even wasting time giving them internet pseudonyms anymore. Things seemed to be going alright, and the smack dab at the end of the 4th date, as we were walking back from lunch, she went into the whole “I am not looking for this right now” spiel. Looking for what? did you lose something? She gave a whole bunch of other excuses which to be honest I didnt really hear because I have developed a tendency to tune out one i hear one of those “it’s not you its me” speeches starting. Instead, I hear Journey and other classic rock bands.

To clarify: it is OKAY to not be attracted to someone, and not want to date them. It is ODD to not tell them this until several dates in. It is BIZARRE to expect to maintain a friendship with someone under these circumstances

So at the end of the whole deal, she finally reached the point where I tuned back in to catch the, “but I would really like to stay friends with you” bit. And here is where I finally just had enough.

Me: No, I don’t think so.
Her: huh?
Me: I dont think we need to remain friends. I already have enough. I was interested in dating you, and you dont seem to think its going anywhere, so we can part ways here
Her: Oh. well, …erm…, okay.
Me: It’s been fun though, have a good one.

About the only thing I did not do was walk off whistling.

At this point, I am guessing most of my male readers are applauding, and the female ones are thinking I am a heartless bastard or something equally insulting. Well you know what? I dont particularly care. I am getting pretty tired of hearing the same platitudes over and over again. As a third year, I have limited free time, and frankly, i would rather spend it with people I have invested the time and energy in becoming close with over the years through shared experience and common interest, not developing an entirely new friendship just because some girl doesnt want to feel awkward about not being interested in me. I was not rude, I was not spiteful, I was simply being honest. And I encourage everyone else out there to be the same. Stop wasting each other’s time, we all have better things to do.

Okay this is getting ridiculous.

A couple of days ago (and i mean literally 2 days thus far, not some cutesy like oh i cant quite remember when it happened but it was recent sort of way) I found there was a hunger inside me that wouldnt go away. Not having any snickers bars on hand, i decided to go to my fridge, therein to find some kind of food to prepare for nourishment.

Walking into my kitchen, which due to being at the hospital for most meals, i do not see on a regular basis, i discovered a strange smell and a stain on the floor. Okay, weird but not a problem…something probably just went bad, i will throw it out. Upon opening the freezer door however i discovered a nasty surprise. The compressor in my fridge had broken down.

What does this mean? well in short, the entire wealth of food in my freezer and fridge that i had purchased not one week before to sustain me through rotations had all gone bad in the space of a few hours. And things like the chicken and shrimp in my freezer had spilled defrosted goop onto the fridge and floor, hence the smell and stains.

Crisis. Throw out my food, clean up the mess, put down some baking soda to avoid the smell lingering, phone up the building manager, who as expected does not answer the phone. Okay, so i walk down to where the manager lives and pound on the door until she opens it. I then kindly explain my dilemma to which she hands me a phone number and says this is not my problem, call the main office.

I call up the office which is closed (as it is when i get back from work) and play with the touchtone menu until i get the emergency response for maintenance. The woman on the other end informs me that a broken fridge is NOT an emergency. I say in my most polite, sweet, spin doctored voice something that would translate in real speak to :screw you, yes it is, get someone out here now you smug heinous witch” She wisely agrees to send someone out tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes (yesterday for those of you playing along) and there is still a fridge in my apt when i return from work. Only difference is, there are now some dirty footprints on my floor, and the fridge is bolted shut and looking even more beat up than when i left, with dents in the door, scrapes on the sides, overall filthy. I call up maintenance again, thankfully catching the end of business hours and once again explain my predicament. The woman agrees to have maintenance come at 9am and replace the fridge. I grudgingly agree, still with no food and a hunger gnawing in my belly, go out to go further over my budget for the month by eating at some restaurant

Flash forward to today…day three of josh’s unintentional hunger strike. Still no replacement fridge. I call again. the woman says she talked to maintenance and they replaced the fridge. I assure her, they did not. She has the gall to ask me if i am trying to open it from the correct side. I imply that her mother fornicated with a barnyard animal. She says she will call up maintenance again. I am giving maintenance approximately 30 minutes to call me back, i.e. the time it has taken me to write this post, and then i am calling every 10 minutes non stop until i have working appliances in this apartment.

See? Angry josh is still buried deep inside the calm, easygoing buddhist facade he endeavors to live by. But even the buddha only forgives you 3 times. Get me my damn fridge

-J

you know what’s ALWAYS bothered me? cold cereal mascots.

The Trix rabbit, for example. If I were him I’d be killing some kids. I remember a commercial where the rabbit went into a store and bought a box of trix with his OWN money, and once he left the store, a bunch of kids came out of nowhere and basically mug the poor stupid rabbit, all the while taunting him, “silly rabbit, trix are for kids”. And the freakin rabbit just sits there and looks depressed. wtf???

For that matter, what is up with the disguises. The trix rabbit has the freaking clark kent superman complex. All he does is hide his ears and all of a sudden he is just one of the kids. I don’t know about you internetland, but if I saw a 6 foot fucking RABBIT with his ears tucked under a baseball cap, my first thought would not immediately be, “hey there’s a cool looking human kid, let me go over and share some of my cereal with him.” In fact, my thoughts would probably be more along the lines of   “that’s a 6 foot fuckin RABBIT with his ears tucked under a baseball cap… what the FUCK was I just smoking?”

And another stupid mascot. Lucky CHarms. The freaking leprechaun can turn the MOON into a Marshmallow, but he is always just barely escaping from a bunch of freaking 6 year olds? WHy not just turn THEM into marshmallows? “They’re after me lucky charms…” EAT THEM BITCH

Come to think of it, what is the deal with cereal always being labeled part of this complete breakfast. Last I checked, cereal WAS breakfast. The commercials always show a big-ass bowl of frosted flakes next to a waffle, a pancake, toast, a banana, a grapefruit, some orange juice, mil….who the heck eats a breakfast that big? That is why america has a problem with obesity my friends

-J

Its rantin time!

I really really REALLY dislike the term yellow fever.

Where to begin?

In pop culture terms, yellow fever is understood to be when a male member of one ethnicity (usually caucasian) has a strong predisposition for being attracted to a woman of the asian persuasion. There have been a variety of reasons posited for said attraction, most of them being fairly insulting stereotypes having to do with supposed traits of asian women, including but not limited to exoticness, submissiveness, and a whole host of others i wont dignify by listing.

Now I am not denying that some males do have this fetish, NOR am I condoning it. My problem comes with the people who expand the idea out to mean that any male attracted to an asian woman automatically suffers from yellow fever.

Case in point: I have in the past, asked out several girls who are asian (of various backgrounds, if you actually care THAT much) and w/o fail this issue has come up either with them, their friends, or my friends, who i would hope would know me better by this point.

Yes, I am very involved in and interested in Japanese culture, language and food. This does NOT mean that i must have a japanese g/f to complete the set. This is NOT pokemon people

Yes, I have found and do find asian women attractive as individuals. This does NOT mean i feel the need to impregnate every asian on the planet.

Yes, I have dated several asian girls…but you know what? i have dated indians, hispanics, and caucasians too…does this mean i suffer from fetishes for any of those races? No, because they are not asian, and therefore it is apparently a perfectely legitimate attraction with no ulterior motives.

THAT IS FUCKING LUDICROUS

Seriously people, grow up. I and many others are attracted to the individual, NOT the ethnicity. And for those of you out there who ARE attracted to someone for the sake of their ethnicity alone, you are in for a long string of disappointing relationships, because eventually the novelty is going to wear off.

Not to mention the fact that most people are generally weirded out by the fact that you are so fixated on one aspect and one aspect only of a person, so you are unlikely to even succeed in your goal of obtaining your grail.

So cut it out, you are ruining things for everyone with your own perverted form of racism.

HOLY CRAP! did i just say RACISM???

yes, yes I did. because that is what it is on both sides of the spectrum. Observers stop assuming that all attraction comes down to race/ethnicity. Fetishists, stop acting in a way that make people think that. Be attracted to whoever, but dont expound for hours to anyone who will listen on inumerable imaginary virtues held by your chosen race.

Seriously, people make me so frustrated sometimes.

Will this post change anything? I doubt it, though I would be pleasantly surprised if it did. Nonetheless, it has been something that has irritated me for a long time, so i figured i would get it off my chest and maybe, just maybe an intelligent discussion about it can start somewhere, sometime.

-J

“got this crazy idiosyncrasy
it’s affinity to serendipity
and in this eternal epiphany
no hypocrisy or duplicity”

Dispatch-Bats In the Belfry

While last time I briefly ranted about the axis of idiocy, i felt a slightly more in depth clarification of how things have come to be this way is needed. How did the axis first form…I mean, everyone has their origins right? Bruce wayne saw his parents murdered, peter parker got bit by a radioactive spider, even the fantastic four went joyriding through gamma radiation. (and by the way human torch? gayest battle cry ever…FLAME ON…anything you say, seacrest)

How did four ordinary students who were perhaps a bit on the inquisitve side become the overpowering force for sheer stupidity that they are today. It all began with a simple raising of the hand, a mere four months
ago. From this initial promise of m2 life spewed forth a mass of churning,
ugly, indistinguishable questions from indistinguishable
question-askers. However, as a result of environmental influences,
these people have changed, morphed, and evolved into their present,
differentiated conditions.

It has been said their are no stupid questions.There are however, a lot of inquisitive idiots. Here are the main species of offender

Emptus Brainus – You know who this is. Approximately every five
minutes, this particular species will raise his or her hand. Not out of
a desire to annoy or show off, but rather because this person simply
does not get it. By it, I mean anything the lecturer is saying. For
example, a slide on “Four causes of Pulmonary Edema” might be followed
immediately with a “So which are the four causes of pulmonary edema?”
Or a slide stating “The active site is very nonspecific, so that MANY
molecules can fit in it” with a picture of six different things fitting
is followed with a “Does that mean these types of proteins can fit six
different molecules only?”. It is not long before a “Can you help me
tie my shoes?” or “Why is my tinkle yellow?” question will appear in
class. It makes you wonder how this person made it this far? I mean
seriously, how the hell does someone like this get into medical school?
Do you really want this type being YOUR doctor? I sure as heck don’t.
This raises the question: how does one know how to avoid such creatures
of idiocy?

Phrase that pays: The wheel is spinning, but the hampster’s dead

Toolus Maximus – This particular species sadly does not even realize he
or she belongs to the Question-Asker class. Instead, this person basks
in a false sense of coolness, faking a sense of idiocy by choosing to
raise his or her hand and say something that makes him or her sound
dumb to look cool. You all know what I mean. For example, when the professor asks if there is anyone who did not cover this topic in first year  (which is an M2 lecture and which we all had together), this person will raise their hand and play on the lecturers mistake trying to pretend they were just a really smart M1.  Oh please shut the fuck up. The beautiful irony
is that this person is only demonstrating how BIG of an idiot he or she
is anyways, and, more importantly, how this idiot personifies all that
is “Tool”-ness (a word that evades definition but is so important and
all-encompassing – perhaps I will go into what really defines a tool
some other time).

Phrase That Pays: Back in the shed with you!

Knowit Allus - Not one of our particular axis of idiocy, this type of question asker is nonetheless present in many medical schools, although natural selection has normally gotten rid of them by 2nd year. No matter the lecture, this
person insists on demonstrating his or her outside knowledge (most
likely as a result of working as an EMT or other related health
profession, but this could also apply to a law student who spent three
years as a para-legal, etc.) by asking a question that is over almost
everyone’s head and by inserting as many complicated abbreviations as
possible. A typical exchange might go as follows:

Professor – “…so that is a typical acid-base case.”
KA
- “Would you want to administer the epi or naravac before or after
getting the ABG, or is that contraindicated by an increased PMI?”

Offus Highwayus- Perhaps a sufferer of ADD as a child, this type can
often be found pulling questions out of thin air, totally blind to the
fact that such questions are completely and utterly irrelevent and
wholly detrimental to the learning process of the class. Beyond that,
they are really fucking annoying too. Interestingly, the questions are
often KA-like and way beyond the scope of the class, and suggest that
there is a recent common ancestor between these two species. Often, once off the highway the OH takes every twist and turn possible, with a number of followup questions only barely tangential to their original question

Phrase That Pays: Hello Alice. welcome back from wonderland

Makus Sensus – Shockingly, one group has evolved that does ask
questions that are clear, relevant, and not long-winded. Atheists
beware: The evolution of this group ironically provides true evidence
for the presence of a higher being and true divine intervention. It is from this group that the heroes to combat the axis of idiocy will arise, and we must nurture and protect them until that time comes, for the forces of stupid remain ever watchful, if not very bright

And in case you were wondering, I am in the group Silent Observus-the predominant species who prefers to simply show up, let the professor do their thing, and then review the notes like mad on my own til I get the concept.

-J

Got into a pseudo fight with a friend the other day. Said friend  had
insinuated that I have loads of free time because during one of my
study breaks, I had emailed a website I thought they might enjoy. They
found this suspect, because when they called me while I was “in the
zone” studying for finals, interupting my train of thought, I didn’t
stay on the phone long, and excused myself to get back to work.

This bothered me probably more than it should have. But then again, i came to the realization of how totally defined
I am by my hard work. Other people are too, i suppose, but what else do
i have to show for it? No paying job, no major source of income besides
hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans. I can only impress
people by my perseverance and my knowledge (and my ravishing good
looks, let’s not forget those). So of course i was insulted;
telling a medical student that he or she is not working hard enough is
both  a) nowhere further from the truth and   b) insulting to one’s
core definition (what does a med student do? study, study, study

And
speaking of studying, pharm is intimidating. There seems to be not just
a mountain of information, but a veritable range full of black diamond
courses for us would be informational alpine skiers. And that is just
the symapthetic and parasympathetic agonists. Throw in some anti
hypertensives and cancer drugs and all of a sudden you are leaping for
the slopes from a plane…with no parachute…or skis.

Okay,
perhaps the metaphor is being carried a little far, but the point
remains it is difficult to try and teach my brain a whole new method of
learning and storing tables of info when it sees information and just
says “memorize”. Yes, pharm is a memorization course, but there is far
more information than can be held in my puny little neurons, especially
with the beating they have been taking from other exams, good or bad.

But
what a good little HMO doctor i will be….when quizzing each other
today, ritika asked me what drug should be prescribed for primary
pulmonary hypertension. My response? ” I don’t remember the name, but
it’s expensive” (if you were wondering it’s treprostinil @$93,000yr)

However,
gripe and groan though i may, the pieces of the puzzle are slowly
beginning to come together and a picture is starting to take shape of
how to organize it all.

Let’s just hope i didn’t lose too many pieces under the couch to complete it.

-J

More china posts coming soon–I know it is a poor excuse, but in trying to keep up with my actual school work, i have neglected the uploading and posting of china photos, including the ones of me eating crazy shit, and the trips to the great wall, which are probably among the most interesting of the photos i took. I assure you all i am properly contrite and will do my best to get the rest of the china posts finished before a year since my china trip has passed. That said, back to venting about class

Medical school memorization is a challenge, I think, because you’re going from storing arrays to storing tables and databases, really.

Throughout your education, you memorize facts as arrays. That  is, one piece of information corresponds to the other. It’s all linear. Capital of California => Sacramento. P53 => tumor suppressor. Ben Affleck => Terrible Actor. But medical school changes that. It’s no longer so simple. It’s not just that this equals that, it’s that this is related to that as well as this other thing. Or you’re required to memorize categories of information on a certain topic. Just like a database.

An example may help. For each bacteria in micro, we have to know:

* How to diagnose it
* What syndromes causes
* How the lab identifies it
* Its antibiotic resistances
* How it causes disease
* What toxins it produces
* Where it infects
* How it is transmitted

So it’s not just the process of trying to memorize all the information that makes it so difficult; it’s the fact that you have to train your brain to start storing information differently. Streptococcus Pyogenes, the bacteria that causes Strep Throat, isn’t just a bacteria. Now it’s a bacteria that:

* is a gram positive cocci, found in chains or pairs
* causes Pharyngitis (strep throat), Cellulitis Impetigo, Scarlet Fever, and Pneumonia, among others
* can not be prevented with a vaccine, but penicillin and macrolides will treat it
* produces Pyrogenic Toxins that stimulate T cells
* produces F proteins that facilitate adhesion to tissues, Capsules that prevent phagocytosis
* produces streptolysins that destroy red and white blood cells
* produces M protein that prevents complement activation
* inhabits the ciliated upper respiratory epithelium
* is transmitted by aerosol particles, or direct contact with a break in the skin

And that’s just one of 10 bugs that we have to learn for JUST THIS QUARTER. See what I mean? It’s a whole other ballgame

Hence, less often posting—

-J

I’m Still here

Oh, finally time to replace the pics of my brother as a spirit guide. Life is just too full of amusing moments like that since i got my digi cam.

Loser of the Week: I usually try not too wax too political, mostly because I am a horrible debater, but I have to say I watched Bush give his congressional address tonight, and I am not impressed. He mostly seemed to be trying to defend himself (and weakly at that) against accusations that he rushed to war with no reason. In fact the best reason He managed to come up with was “well Saddam was definetly a threat and everyone is better off w/o him” No mention of an apology for inventing false info of WMD, no indication of regret for plunging us into this generation’s vietnam, or leaving us with a mess in the middle east that won’t be cleaned up in my lifetime. Merely the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the U.S. making himself look like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, trying to come up with justification for his actions with crumbs spewing from his mouth.

C is for Cover Up, there’s no W-M-D

Winner of the Week: However, applause to the American Constitution for guaranteeing citizens (me among them) the right to declaim our leader as an idiot and present him as such on television, even if it is not in our short term best interests. It is exactly that freedom that Bush is defending, if in his own misguided, deceitful, bumbling way. In few other countries could I make this post and be alive the next morning, and for that, I am proud to be an American.

Other things bugging me this week:

The premiere of Fox’s new show the Swan. Similar to the shows extreme makeover, and MTV’s I want a famous face, the twist added by Fox “How low can we go” Network is to then hold a contest among the surgically altered ugly ducklings to see who is the prettiest. Basically, to give a whole bunch of women extreme plastic surgery, leaving potential emotional and psychological scars, and then to tell all but one of them, even all we could do wasn’t good enough to make you win a prize. This is sick and wrong! Another disturbingly direct quote, “What we need to do is take your brain, and put it in a whole new body” It is bad enough that the women participating in this show have agreed to this sick little exhibition for our amusement, and even worse that people will watch this, but the person who should really go to hell is the one who thought we should put it on the air. I realize that this post seems as if it is in almost polar opposition to the one I wrote about self-esteem, but I was simply presenting my viewpoint, taken closer to the other extreme of the spectrum. People need accept themselves for who they are, and not be told they are horribly ugly or terribly beautiful. Our society is becoming way fucked up when things like makeovers and nipplegate obscure things like famine and war in the public eye

which do you think is REALLY the bigger threat?

-Josh

-that’s right…it’s Justin Timberlake

“gonna have you nekkid by the end of this post”