Space Banjos of the world unite!
Serenity - the movie - is full of Space Banjos. Yes, I did say 'Space Banjos.' This is different from the 'Space Violins' of
Star Trek or the 'Lonely Saxaphone' of
Taxi Driver. At every scene change in Serenity, the Space Banjos play.
I never watched the cancelled TV show,
Firefly, but I picked up the movie from the public library and watched it yesterday at my new apartment. I was vaguely aware that Firefly was considered a '
Space Western,' but I guess I was unprepared for the actual Space Banjos.
About the actual movie itself, I don't know what I feel. The computer generated ships were actually more enjoyable than in the more recent
Star Wars prequels, but I never got much of a feeling on the characters. For example, Inara. I had no clue who she was or why she left the ship, though I later looked up that she was a 'Companion' (aka Space Hooker). In other words, the action was excellent, but the characterization was so-so.
I definitely recommend watching the 'out-takes' after you see the movie. They are really funny, especially when the fearless captain destroys a serious scene with adlibbed instructions about what to do with the dead to his crew. The deleted scenes are helpful as well to give you a glimpse of aforementioned characters that I didn't really know. I recommend skipping the Joss Whedon interview unless you are a huge fan because they go on and on and on and on about how awesome the fans are.
Other random news - the move into my apartment went pretty well. I'm spending this week getting exercise, forcing my body clock onto Med 3 time, buying Med 3 stuff like books, reading lots of books, and watching random TV I downloaded.
7 days till they let me see patients. I'll be on Gen Med 3 service.
One of my favorite wastes of time
For people who haven't noticed, I love watching TV. I have my favorite shows -
Grey's Anatomy (beware it plays music),
Veronica Mars, and
Scrubs, and then there are shows I watch in passing or just keep up with what is going on, like the O.C. and Smallville.
So for all the other TV junkies out there that never really have time to catch everything, I highly recommend -
Zap2it.com's TVGal. She has a new column every Monday with commentary about shows you care about - and shows you don't.
My personal other fav is
Television Without Pity. Originally a site to mock Dawson's Creek, it has expanded to recap many, many, many TV shows. A recap of a new episode typically occurs about 6 days after its first showing. Beware, recap reading is addictive, and I am not responsible for lost wages/sleep/sex/energy/time due to reading them.
It's things like this that help me survive in Med school. And just for you,
Anuradha,
here is a recap of a DOOL back during the Salem Stalker.
Looking good, it appears
In the midst of moving, I had a meeting at the Med school today. I picked out some random professional outfit that was OSU colors and headed over to the med school. In the underground hallway, I ran into this guy I taught Kaplan with. He was very much 'wow, I almost didn't recognize you.'
Me:"The clothes?"
Him:"Looking pretty good."
Aww, its nice to sometimes look so polished that you're mistaken for someone else. I didn't even think of whether he used proper English. And actually, now that I have thought about it, I don't care.
Nice weather, right? Wrong!
So I was on a date talking about how nice the weather was, and then the worst thought occurred to me. I was returning home for the weekend, and nice weather = hay bales. As a matter a fact, by returning home, I would be forced to participate in that valuable family passtime.
With Dad being so injured since his accident in April, we've been hiring different members of our high school football team to help out. My brother is both sick and in Columbus, so that leaves the daughters to bale hay. Except the married one.
And sure enough, I am home and baling hay. I'm dodging cows, coughing and sneezing like crazy, pulling wagons (I kid you not), and throwing 45 lb bales of hay in 90 degree weather dressed in sweat pants and long-sleeved flannel shirts.
There indeed is nothing quite like this. If you are lucky, I'll have photos to post of this thoroughly character building (demoralizing) experience.
The 'how many question'
Ene has tagged me in the 'how many question.' She asked 'how many times do I talk on the phone a day?' In my case, it is probably about 4-6 times a day. Between boys, family, friends, and the ever increasing AMA-related phone calls, I'd put the bar about there. For example, I have already spoken to four people today, and it's about 3pm. Maybe I will be less popular when Med 3 kicks up.
To pass this on to other people . . . please answer this question on your blog and pass it on by asking a question to two more people.
Stacey - how many times have you visited Ohio?
Anuradha - how many pairs of shoes are in your closet?
I'll be posting sometime hopefully on my last weekend at the
AMA conference. I promise that it was a blast.
Chicago Chicago
Let's hit the highlights of the AMA National Conference so I can then talk about my part in the action. For the most obvious,
Aaron became the new Speaker of the
AMA-MSS. Justin, from Wright State, got elected Alternate Delegate. As State Chair of the
Ohio, I can proudly say they are from my state, and I spent most of my weekend trying to use my OSMA funding on all my fellow Ohioans - temporary or otherwise. I believe the only thing I spent money specifically for myself was buying eye-liner - all 4 dollars.
Now for the rapid fire event summary, followed by Allie's own personal learning issues.
Thursday: Didn't quite finish the H&P for ICM before I had to run to meet Sanjida. We then had to wait a bit to meet up with Abbey at O'hare before heading to the Hilton. We unpacked and, while Sanjida was in a meeting, Abbey and I ran to the much loved Jewelesco or whatever it's called to purchase some groceries. I ended up putting on my favorite power suit/dress and going to regional meetings, state chair meetings, and the alcohol-less regional mixer.
Then Abbey, Sanjida, and I put on our formal dresses to hit the party at the AMA HQ. Abbey wore this halter thing, and I wore a dress that was given to me by my much smaller roomie, Nicole, who has recently left for Iraq. The dress was at least AMA purple, and I got to wear the black gloves. That was possibly a bad idea because after consuming a few glasses of boxed wine (Franzia) I was tipsy enough to not be annoyed with guys molesting my gloves. Yes, they kept touching my gloves and telling me how hot/sexy/raunchy/dirty I had to be since I had gloves on. I don't get it. Honestly, the gloves make me MORE covered than I previously was.
Friday: After four glasses of wine the night before, I could not drag myself out of bed until about 8:30. When I did get up, I checked in with the group and stole some bags so I could smuggle a lot of alcohol into the hotel for the Ohio Party. At the alochol-less mixer, I had promised the complainers that we would have beer and pizza at the party. Yeah, good plan, how do you smuggle 18 bottles of beer into a carry-on bag?
The Ohio candidate campaigns were in full swing, and when I ended up leading the Region V meeting, I had some resistance. Most of the chapter leaders were gone, so I had a bunch of people who didn't know how to ask questions to candidates trying to decide the questions. I eventually got our 'fun' question to be 'show us your best air guitar, singing and dancing not required but highly encouraged.' We changed it over to 'air instrument' after Justin laid down on the floor. Aaron played Roxanne on the piano, and one crazy girl didn't play an instrument at all but seemed to want to be
Lindsay Lohen or something. Trust me, there was blue eye shadow.
Skipping ahead to the Ohio party on floor 20, it was a college party at its very best. There were random people I didn't know there, but I guess turned out to be from my state. We ended up getting kicked out of our first room, so we carried the party (and my computer) to my suite, before heading to the club. Sanjida and I take turns sitting in the lobby chairs - see learning issues.
The club was the same place we went last year, a combo of dance club and karaoke. Erin D. was meeting one particular guy, Aaron K was selling his persona quite well, Sanjida was playing pool, and I was supposed to be dancing with Tina. This is the first time in over a year that I really let loose with my dancing, which appears to have a different effect with the straight crowd than it did with the gay bois. (learning issues again)
Saturday: After a taxi home, with a brief in the rain delay on my part, Tina, Sanjida, and I were in bed by about 3 to get up bright and early before 7 to cheer on Aaron and Justin. I missed the big moment because they were still tallying the votes when I went to a networking workshop. I ended up taking Ohio with me for real Chicago style pizza and then visited Magnificent Mile - where Roxanne let us take a chocolate shot from Godiva.
Then I probably dragged Tina and Sanjida to extra specialty meetings. The OB people were a little scary, but maybe because I'm not used to seeing old white men as OBs. It was probably worse for Tina and Sanjida who stuck out more than I did. Post that, we rounded up Ohio and headed to where we thought we were eating dinner, but they wouldn't seat us, so we ended up eating at the hotel resturant instead. I had a TERRIBLE Long Island Ice Tea and mistakenly ate some meat, which made me sick. Fortunately, Sanjida had just discovered Bloody Mary's which helped relieve some of my discomfort.
The older representatives of the OSU group and a significant portion of the AKFS campaign headed over to the med school party, where it appears that
Aaron had to take a celebratory drink with everyone he saw. It wasn't as fun as Friday, but my energy might have been flagging at this point. I saw Erin D. for the last time before she was an official MD. Our night concluded a little earlier than expected, but I needed the sleep.
Sunday: I woke up b/c people had forgotten some of their stuff in my room. I ended up packing extra clothes into my suitcase. Anna ended up picking me up, and I was back in time to haunt the hospital and keep packing up.
Learning issues (identified at the end of any med student event)
1. Ohioans sure can drink, but that doesn't mean we can hold our liquor.
2. 'Thrones' is an excellent game to play in the lobby with 2 girls suffering from post-relationship stress and 2 guys from Wright State.
3. After drinking, pick targets you don't have to see again.
4. Always exchange phone numbers, if you don't, you'll miss dinner.
5. Erin/Aaron is a very popular late 1970s/early 1980s name.
6. "I don't punch; I strangle" does not deter guys.
7. Look at the taxi floor before you get in it.
He is everywhere
It has been two months since Brian Shaffer disappeared. Even though I am about to enter the unreal reality of Med 3, the sad reality of the truth cannot be escaped. Today they were teaching us how to use MedStar, and they had the websites on the massive overhead in Meiling. His missing persons poster with the reward was listed on the website - about 5 feet tall. Our class got really quiet then, so I hope they were all thinking about Brian, like I was.
It was apparent all of capstone. He was supposed to be in my capstone group, and a computer glitch forced us to 'evaluate' him in order to pass capstone. Even checking our grades, any med student can see the census go from 163 to 162 for the last test. His girlfriend updated her facebook today; he hasn't updated since March.
Two months. Has it just been two months? Sometimes it seems like an eternity. I know what I did the night he disappeared. I was on a date with a different Brian. We saw this huge chemical truck turned over on a 270 bridge. I remember thinking how neat it would be that the truck thing would be on the news. Then my friend Erin and I had some wine and fell asleep watching 'Charlie's Angel's:Full Throttle.' The next night I drove to the gallery hop and went to a birthday party at the nuthouse - or whatever it's current name is - all by myself, not having any idea what we were gong to learn about Brian.
I wasn't one of his super close friends, but I knew him. He and I had PCM together, and we had to do some herb/alt med presentation together in the beginning of the year because we had last names starting with the same letter. At the start of Med 2, I went dancing with him and his group and was all 'aww, look how sweet he and his girlfriend are together.' They seemed so happy and lucky.
I knew his mom had passed away, and I kept an eye on him from class. From far away, he seemed to be doing fine. I watched his girlfriend because sometimes the girl reflects the guy. She was doing fine. Everything was fine.
And then two months ago, it wasn't.
Fleeting weekend of fun
Now that boards are over, I have this one beautiful free weekend. (Other than next weekend in Chicago.) Okay, it was this one beautiful free weekend in Columbus, specifically.
Friday - post boards I got to go to a soccer party at Bash's house. I hung out with Amy and Sanjida, who were dressed as cheerleaders/ball girls/or something. It was a fun time. I brought salad because that was the only thing I was actually able to make because I hadn't actually bought food for a few weeks. I had a bag of spinach I hadn't opened, so I was able to throw whatever random vegetables I had into the salad.
Saturday - hung out with Amy. First we suntanned to get a start on that skin cancer. Then we went running for 2.4 miles around a park with a pond by Bethel - I think. I don't know. It was a pond. After that I rented my storage space for the next month, and then went out with Amy to see
X-men 3 for the second time. I still enjoyed it.
The evening really got going when I headed over to Mel L's boyfriend's house for a mini party. A bunch of my fellow med school ladies were there and Mel's brother were there. We made our way to Spice where we met up with tons of other random med students. I tried to be very careful about not touching the other med student guys. I worry about that. I actually probably said that a few times.
Sunday - my exciting moving day. Most of my furniture is going to be gone in a few days. And soon I will be homeless. At least I will be in beautiful exotic
Chicago.
Step 1 is actually an IQ test
So I took Step 1. It was rough. I mean, I knew things, but I didn't feel like that was being tested on what I studied. The test was more of this intuative/apply the concept test rather than 'did you learn anything' test. Somehow it seems like it wasn't a question of how much studying I did; it was whether or not I looked at the tet's random diagram and just knew what to do. I'll know how I did in about six weeks.
Fingers crossed that I did pass. I'm performing a boards exorcism on my house. It's very exciting and cleansing. I'm considering setting them on fire.
