2008

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Graduate College
Become a full-time worker, with benefits
Become an EMT
Join multiple dating websites

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't remember if I made an resolutions. This year I've already started my resolution to force myself to try to meet people by joining a dating website, 3 months prepaid.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My best friend in the whole world, my puppy/baby Trevor.

5. What countries did you visit?
No foreign countries, even though California was pretty different.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
A relationship, admission to a graduate school.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
May 11th, the day Trev-trev died. Consequently, I'll remember it secondarily as my college graduation.

I also keep remembering Sept 16 as the day I started work.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Graduating college.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not being able to save puppy. God, he just ran this year didn't he. Tears stay back!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No real illnesses or injury. Although this was the first time in a long long time I wasn't sick in the middle of Decemeber, coincidentally it's also the first time in a long long time I didn't have major exams in December.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My iMac.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My college friends who got me through the long haul in my last semester.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
My college adviser for showing such blatant favoritism toward his female advisees, and over looking me over at alumni weekend when I was standing right next to my female friends who he readily acknowledged.

14. Where did most of your money go?
California trip - totally worth it.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
NEW YEARS EVE: DECEMEBER 31, 2008!!!! I'm SO EXCITED FOR TONIGHT'S FESTIVITIES!!!

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Disturbia, Womanizer and Low. Basically because these were the songs that I always went around singing and people clearly connect me to these songs. Singing at work.. singing while dissecting... Although, I'll probably forget what year they came out.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
a) Much happier, because work is so much better than school.
b) Probably about the same weight.
c) Richer, although it's debatable.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Go to the gym.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Stressing

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
It was spent with family and friends the same way it has always been spent.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Nope.

22. How many one-night stands?
Zero. Le sigh, it would probably do me good.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
Battlestar Galactica

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
My former college adviser. I might have been close to hating him last year.

25. What was the best book you read?
Freakonomics

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
DISTURBIAAAAAA

27. What did you want and get?
An iMac.

28. What did you want and not get?
LOST on DVD. Seriously, it was the only thing I consistently told people I wanted for Christmas and it's like the easiest thing to get too.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Batman: The Dark Knight

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was in Vermont with friends. I turned 22. But people still consistently guessed my age as being much older.


31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
My dog being healthy.


32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
A continually step away from things like American Eagle, Abercrombie and anything like it. I totally succeeded.

33. What kept you sane?
Generally I'm the one keeping other people sane. I really am the only thing that keeps myself sane.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't like celebrities.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Prop 8.


36. Who did you miss?
Someone that I missed for the entirety of 2008? I don't think there was anyone. Must I really keep saying how much I miss my damn dog? I think you get the point.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
My friends from EMT class and work.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
I'm not sure if I really just learned this this year, but I finally took my own advice. I stopped trying to plan a million steps into the future and started just "throwing shit against the wall and to see what sticks." I became a lot less stressed because of this.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
I don't know have any relevant lyrics. I just god around screaming DISTURBIA!!!!

This Meme was stolen from Dr. K

That Guy

As I've previously said I'm one of the few males at my job - the only other being the physician.

Everyday the nursing staff takes lots of phone calls attempting to answer any question, relaying messages from providers, calling in prescriptions, etc. With so many calls being made, which often involve lots of people, mistakes are bound to happen. I'm not talking about life threatening mistakes. Mistakes like telling a patient a prescription was mailed to their house, and it never really getting done.

This happen to me today. Last Saturday a patient called saying they left a prescription at the office and wanted to know what they should do about it since they only have a 7 day window to fill the prescription. I hadn't worked that Saturday and asked the staff what was going on. I was told that the prescription had been mailed to her house and that she should keep her eyes peeled.

Today that patient came into the office. But first there were a number of messages from her saying she never got the prescription in the mail like the guy told her. So she came into the office, we updated her registration and she was given a new prescription. Of course she had to go on a little rant how the guy had told her that everything had been taken care of and that she saw the guy walking around the office today.

We get the point. You spoke to me and the information I provided you with was faulty.

This clearly was not my fault. Many times the faulty information we give patients is a pure accident and most of the time it doesn't come back to bite people in the ass because if the patient hears a female's voice they don't bother trying to place it. But when they hear a male voice, all of a sudden they make a mental note about it. So often patients call saying, "I spoke that THAT GUY and he told me..." This sucks cause anything I do wrong ALWAYS comes back to me, whereas if one of my female counterparts makes the same mistake it disappears.

Even patients that I've never met before know who I am. Everyone recognizes the 6'4'' male nurse in the office. When I introduce myself to new patients they often say, "Oh yeah I've seen you around the office before." Are people checking me out? Or is it simply because I'm the guy nurse? God knows the patients can easily talk about me outside of the office.

On the plus side any nice things that people want to say are easily traced back to me, which I think is more often the case. We have a little survey on the back of the check-out sheets asking patients to rate our performance. Patients rarely ever write negative things, but patients can easily write in who their nurse was because when they ask the front desk who that guy was, there's only me.

!!!

What e-mail do I get at 1:30AM? An e-mail saying I have an interview at one of my top choice schools!!!!!!!!

More later. Time for bed.

Nervous Breakdown?

Last year I kept a running tally of the number of schools I applied to and outcomes. I didn't do that with the PA schools. This may leave some of you feeling left in the dark. Allow me to shed a little light on my current situation.

Total number of programs applied: 18

Yes, that number is 1 - 8. States included NY, NJ, PA, CT, ME, MA, CA, MD

Total number of rejections: 10

Some of these came very quickly. Pennsylvania sent them out especially quickly. I think I only have like one active application left in that state out of 4 total. I suspect that I'm basically never going to hear from many of the remaining schools. That's what happened with most of the DO schools I applied to. I never got a letter saying what their decision was - the epitome of rude.

Total number of interview requests: 1

Yes, I know. This is really pathetic. I'm especially disappointed with this interview because I just found out I could only get a Certificate, as opposed to the Bachelors that I thought I would get. I'm not sure if this matters though in the grand scheme, since I already have a bachelors. I'm okay with the idea of getting a Masters later on in life. In fact I plan on getting it in something cool like Evolution.

Some people seem to be more frustrated with the state of things than I am. And I found out that people are even tip-toeing around the issue cause they think I might have a breakdown in front of them. This is not the case. My mental stability has been keep intact. I'm not totally discouraged, although I must admit I don't know why. I feel like I should be discouraged between the medschool and PA application saga, but I'm not. I think it's simply because I do have a job that I like.

So I wonder, do nervous breakdowns come out of nowhere or do people see them coming? The transition between applying to medschool and PA school went smoothly because I realized I wanted to be a PA. I had structure in life because there was a structured application cycle. I require structure in my life. It's the Capricorn in me. I told myself after college that I was going to stop trying to plan everything in my life, and I did, and I was happy. But I feel myself regressing back to those ways. I need to figure out wtf I'm going to do if I don't get into a program.

I feel there is no point in reapplying to PA school, unless I retake classes. To be honest, I do not want to retake classes. I just don't want to put myself through that. I don't want to work full-time and take classes. But really, it's more about retaking the classes, than it is about an overtime schedule. Some say that I should reapply simply because now I'm working full-time and have that experience under my belt, but I don't think it's enough to do the trick.

So I need to figure out my next goal. But at the same time I need to avoid the obsessive-compulsive way I use to attack things. If I go OCD again, then I will have a nervous breakdown.

I'm thinking the natural thing to go for next is nursing. There are attractive 15 month accelerated programs I can apply to. I can then go about getting an NP. But again, they require A+P and I don't want to go through that fiasco of retaking classes because they don't accept the A+P I took. Should this be the case though then I'm going to suck it up, take two months off from my job and take A+P over the summer.

Now even though going for nursing would give me a nice little goal which may keep me sane there is still the fact that I DON'T WANT TO BE A NURSE.

So when I consider the fact that I don't want to be a nurse I think about jobs I would enjoy. I do enjoy teaching biology. Should I be a HS teacher? But I don't want to have to get a masters in education. Plus, I don't know if I would actually enjoy teaching high schoolers. Teach college?
Should I try for a PhD? Thinking about this just hurts my head. Taking Subject GREs, researching school programs that I don't know anything about, and then doing research when I don't even like research. And then there is the pay which isn't what I'm aiming for, especially for a job that isn't in my first field of choice. Ugh.

Why couldn't I just have done better in school so I wouldn't be in this situation? I almost wish it was because I didn't try hard enough.

A Shopping Tip About Sizing

I realize that buying clothes for someone else can be a difficult task, especially when the person is no where close to your size. Let me share with you this piece of advice from a 6'4'' person: just because we are tall, does not mean we're fat. Go with a LARGE size when picking out shirts if the person is tall and average weight. And by average I mean not overweight. This needs clarifying since "overweight" is becoming "average." Every Christmas my family Kris Kringle gets me a shirt/sweater that is XL, and every year I add another shirt/sweater that doesn't fit me. This year not only was my shirt an XL, but it was also a Tall XL. I kid you not when I say this shirt fit me (reminder: 6'4'') like a girl's sweater dress. Let it also be said that I loved both of the shirts I got, if only they fit me correctly. I didn't get a gift receipt with them, and one doesn't even have any tags on it, so the chances of me returning/exchange are slim.

Milk

I saw Milk this evening. It was fairly eye opening for me, seeing a little bit of what the gay rights movement in San Fran was like in the 1970's.

There was one scene in particular that spoke to me. Harvey Milk is with a group of gays talking about how they're going to get Proposition 6 (not allow gays to teach) shot down. And he makes the plan pretty simple. You need to get as many gays to come out of the closet possible, because people who know a single gay is more likely to vote for gay rights 2:1. This is a statistic that I already knew about. It was especially emotional when one of Harvey's friends admits that he never told his parents. He is then put on the spot to make the phone call. Ugh, I would not want to be in his shoes. Regardless of how great it was to come out of the closet to my parents it is NOT something I would want to do again.

This got me thinking back to my office party that I attended last night. All of the women are very open abut talking about their sex lives and nether regions. I think it's cause it's basically all women in the office, so it's the side of women most guys don't see. Add some alcohol and you basically have them stripping each other.

Of course the topic of discussion falls squarely on me. All of the women absolutely adore me. I cannot stress this enough. They start probing me about my last relationship, my last fuck, etc. I pull out the "separation of personal and professional card" and avoid answering any questions. It was not my finest hour. I don't think this totally counts as staying in the closet, but my reaction wasn't purely an issue of professionalism. This I can admit. But in all fairness announcing that you're gay to a room full of drunks at an office Christmas party is a little rough. Could you imagine that silence at a single table of 15+ people?

I'm slightly concerned about coming out at work because of the doctor. I really couldn't give two shits about any of the women I work with. But he's very Irish Catholic, conservative and judging by anecdotal evidence has no gaydar. I don't know how he would react to that situation.

As it is, he prefers it if I don't assist with female patients during Total Body Scan Examinations for the comfort of the patient, since there is a plethora of female assistants. But on the other side of the coin he does like having me around because he exclusively has me assist with male genitalia issues, and since I'm the only male it makes me especially valuable. I'm afraid that if he knows I'm gay he's going to start second guessing this decision and acting weird/feeling uncomfortable. He makes some comments towards me which are obviously a male bonding type of thing and I would prefer not to change that.

But the movie makes me feel SO GUILTY. Like what the fuck am I doing for the gay movement. I can't complain about not having rights and NOT BE OUT. People have this stereotype of gays, but me coming out can change that stereotype so quickly for the people who know me.

Ugh. More on this later...

From the Nurses Voicemail:

"Hi, I'm calling on behalf of my daughter who is a patient at your office. I was referred to your Doctor by a friend of mine for my question. My daughter has a wedding coming up and the.. err... umm... the boy has 2 brothers who have alopecia areata (patchy, not male pattern, baldness). I was wondering what kind of hereditary factors there are with this condition, like for her future children. We need to know if we should be proceeding with this marriage because of it."

True story.

Reason #1 Why I Need a Boyfriend

If waking up was a job, it would be one I would never apply for.

I generally set my alarm for 1 hour before needing to be at work. I hit the snooze button on my alarm every 5 minutes for the 30 minute max it allows. I then shower and dress in 15 minutes and leave for work. Fortunately I work 10-15 minutes away, so generally everything goes according to plan.

Today I had to be at work at 9:30AM. My alarm was set for 8:00AM. I told myself that I would keep it set at 8:00AM to allow myself some extra time to trim the facial hair. So I went through the motions on hitting the snooze button for a half hour, and at 8:30 I was almost ready to get out of bed. I told myself I still really had an hour until needing to be at work and that I would get out of bed soon.

1.5 hours later I found myself cursing at myself for falling asleep and then proceeded to call work to ensure to them that I was indeed coming in to work. Just 45 minutes late...

All things considered this is actually I huge accomplishment for me. In college I was notorious for being late for my first class of the day and it wasn't rare for me to sleep through them. I just have terrible sleeping habits and unfortunately as much I wish I could change my brain just doesn't work like that in the morning.

This is why I need a boyfriend. Someone to sleep next to me and kick me out of bed when I need to wake up. I know this makes me sound like I'm 5 years old, but I'm really not the same person when I'm all comfy in bed.

Arbitrary

I've noticed that some of the patients we have are less than than trusting of the Physician Assistants at our office. They'll often question their diagnosis when they don't like what they hear, and will show up at the office two days later seeing the physician. Sometimes the PAs never know about this, but as a Faux-Murse I know all goings on in the office.

I can understand the patient's reasoning behind wanting to see the physician. The PAs are not the definitive care in the office, and are less experienced than the physician. But the interesting thing is when they see the physician they 99% of the time agree with the assessment of the PA, and that other 1% can be chalked up to style of treatment.

A funny thing to point out is that the PAs put a lot more work into their patients than the physicians. When presented with a wart the PA will pare (scrap) before using liquid nitrogen (freezing). When a patient comes in with a face filled with close comedones (white heads) the PA will do a much more thorough job cleaning them out. The reason for this - those procedures don't get reimbursement from insurance companies, but since the P.A. income doesn't depend on reimbursement they don't care about spending extra time with them. And in reality the physician shouldn't care about spending a little extra time with the patient because it ultimately doesn't affect the number of patients they're going to see. (PS - this is the main reason why I hate private practices, because patients become nothing but a symbol of income)

I've also realized from working in healthcare that physicians are by no means perfect. I think a lot of people get caught up in the title of "Doctor." They think there is something totally magical about the profession. I was talking to a friend of mine who's in medical school that I finally realized that medicine is not as complicated as it once seemed. I use to feel very leery of explaining conditions, medications and such to patients. But after a while I realized that the things I was telling patients was the exact same thing that the physician was. It's not rocket science all the time. Medicine is not a total science. In fact, it was quite a shock to me just how arbitrary medicine can be. This is especially highlighted when patients ask the simple question, "How did this happen." We don't know how you developed that abscess on your ass, or why you have terrible psoriasis, etc.

You know back in the day when I was applying to Osteopathic Medical (DO) schools I claimed that one of the reasons I prefer ed it over Allopathic Medical (MD) programs was because they treated the cause of the condition, as opposed to the symptoms of the condition. I feel like the majority of the work we do is just treating the symptoms, because we don't truly understand the cause of the disease. We throw a bunch creams at you until one of them clears up you skin. It often seems like total guess work. And actually, that's exactly what it is.

So what am I trying to some up in this multi-directional post? I guess I'm just sharing my reflections on just how abstract medicine can be. PA vs Physician? Protopic vs Ultravate? Allergic reaction vs Arthropod Assault (bug bites)? Honestly, sometimes it doesn't even matter. Medicine is not even close to the perfect science that some people think it is. Healthcare providers are very human. You know how at your job you generally know what you're doing, but often you still need to improvise. Well as scary as it is, medicine is the same way.

Shout Out!

Big shout out to Bramasole_iowa from a forum for saying he likes my blog.

I'm a tramp for praise, regardless of the terrible Catholic guilt I'm plagued with.

It's Britney, bitch

I just heard a bunch of Britney's new songs via You Tube. Shit's hot.

Back to the Medicine

You would never be able to tell from the past few posts that this is suppose to be a medically themed blog.

Today I think I came to the realization that I can never go into pediatrics. A couple of weeks ago we had seen a 1 year old for a standard diaper rash. We recommended the appropriate barrier creams, and all was well.

Said child and parents came in today for a follow up visit, but there was a new problem. The child had evidently developed some "boils" that had developed maybe 4 days prior, but had gotten much larger overnight. I took a look and sure enough there were two very swollen lumps on this baby's inner thigh and butt.

The doctor came in and was surprised by the fact that the "boils" that the parents had described actually were in fact boils. The baby was only concerned with them when her diaper was being changed and otherwise was running around the examination room as happy as ever. He decided that he wouldn't I+D (incision + drainage) then since they didn't seem to be bothering her and antibiotics would have a good possibility of clearing it up on its own. We of course took a bacterial culture for good measure anyhow.

We were about the send them on their merry way when all of sudden the mother had a moment of clarity and innocently said, "You know, her father was hospitalized back in February for MRSA." **Screeching of tires**

Oh boy did that change everything. Sure the father had been symptom clear of a MRSA infection for a good 9 months, but you don't mess with that. An I+D was going to be done now to try to bring some relief and possibly get a better culture.

Let me tell you, telling parents that their infant has the potential of a MRSA infection was 100% harder than actually holding that screaming kid down while trying to do the I+D. They knew all too well what MRSA was and they were terrified. The look on their face almost broke my heart right there in the room. Granted, I know that a MRSA infection can be totally treated fully without any hospitalization, but I'd never seen it in such a young patient. Of course we don't know for sure if it is MRSA, but the antibiotics we gave her is going to kick the crap out of whatever that poor kid had.

Question:

Can someone please explain to me what the difference is between gay marriage and civil unions with all the perks? I hear about all these people that support civil unions but not gay marriage, and I just don't get it.

Womp Womp

Tonight didn't exactly go my way.

Presidential pick, lost.
House of Rep., lost.
Arizona Gay Rights, lost.
Florida Gay Rights, lost
Arkansas Gay Rights, lost.

Prop 8 results are coming in at a snail's pace. I can't take it anymore and will be retiring to bed, so to awake to it tomorrow morning.

I hope Obama is actually able to bring the two parties together to actually make some decisions, as opposed to this Congress we've had that has accomplished nothing the past few years.

Closet Case?

Why is this guy from college, who I was friendly with but never really hung out with, sending me shirtless model-esque pictures of himself? He often likes to tell me about his work out sessions and yadda yadda. He says he trusts my opinions, but what does he want my opinion of? We speak way more on-line, post-college, than we did in person during college.


I called him out on trying to hit on me. It was funny, but I wasn't kidding. Hopefully he doesn't get too drunk next time I go up to school ;-) Kidddddddding. (not really.)

Murse?

I'm having a career direction crisis.

Getting into PA school is looking less likely every second. The is due to a number of things. One being that I didn't get many A's in my college science classes. Evidently A's are a must, whereas I was just happy to finish the class in the B range. Another reason is that I took Vertebrate Physiology and Comparative Anatomy, as opposed to taking Anatomy and Physiology 1+2. The schools just don't care that I took the harder classes. I also got terrible grades in Organic 1+2, both C+'s. And although these classes aren't necessarily required for PA school, they hurt me nonetheless. You know for being someone obsessed with scheduling and such I really dropped the fucking ball.

Many of my patients have been telling me to go into nursing. I don't really know why. I tell them that I'm apply to PA school, and they all say "Oh, you should be a male nurse! (as opposed to a female nurse?) There is such a demand for them!!!" I'm not going to lie, when I was a stupid undergrad I totally underestimated the role of nurses and would scoff at the idea of being a nurse. I have since come to have much more respect for them.

I looked into it. I would be eligible for accelerated nursing programs, which would allow me to get a BSN in 15 months. From there I would surely find a job with ease with a salary that's pretty decent for starting, but without much upward mobility.

Something that nursing offers is international traveling. Evidently, nursing is one of the few professions that is in high demand basically everywhere. I've heard that nurses can get permanent resident visas in Australia, and can even get jobs in England which are generally impossible to get since I'm not from the EU. Since I'm a very enthusiastic traveller this would offer nice opportunities.

The other things to consider in nursing are the master's programs to become a practitioner. As an NP I would basically be the same thing as a PA, but I probably wouldn't be able to get a surgical job. I don't know how I feel about that. I think I would want to be a surgical PA, but would I really? After working in an office setting I see that I could be totally happy doing that. I've also worked with hospitalist-NPs and I think I could really enjoy doing that also. I don't think I could handle doing primary care because you just see so much routine BS. Plus the pay would suck.

So yeah, I'm in quite the conundrum. But as part of my new post-college philosophy I've decided to stop planning far into the future, because the only thing you ensure by planning for the future is that you will eventually change your plan. Assuming I don't get into a PA program I think I'm going to take Human Anatomy and Physiology this spring/summer, as well as take some psychology courses like abnormal psych and developmental, because deep down I know that since starting and finishing college I still don't know whether I like psych or bio better. Wouldn't it be funny if I became a Psychiatric NP and could prescribe meds, whereas my mom is justing finishing getting her PhD in clinical psych and she wouldn't be able to?

One or the Other

The General Election is coming up. I'm supporting McCain, but I'm not in love with him. I'm less in love with Obama. I know that my vote will matter even less because of the state I live in. There is another vote that I'm more interested in that I don't even have a say in and results will not even directly affect me. That would be Proposition 8. Do I even need to explain it?

Oh wait, some of you are from out of country. Long story short - Proposition 8 is a vote coming up in California that would ban same sex marriage. Obviously, I support its downfall. The question I pose to some people is which would you rather: Proposition 8 fail, or your choice of President succeed?

Personally I would rather Prop8 fail. Why? How could I possibly care more about that than my President? Maybe I'm selfish. But I honestly think this country is going to go through some very hard, very unavoidable times regardless of who's President. I also think it's much more important who is in control of Congress. But I also don't know who I want to be in control of Congress. I'm conservative when it comes to economics, government influence, social programs, but I'm liberal when it comes to civil rights, and believing in evolution. Even when it comes to abortion I'm totally split. I'm not pro-life or pro-choice. I honestly don't think it has (or should) anything to do with women's rights. I think when "personhood" begins is much more relevant to the discussion. (Which I believe starts with brain activity. So bascially you've got 2 months to undo your mistake.)

I hate politics. This is mainly because of parties. No one can actually support their own views. They need to compromise in order to get the support of one of the parties. Are you going to tell me there isn't one person that thinks taxes stunt economies, big business should be regulated, Steve and Drew should be able to get married, and Global Warming is total bullshit?

The Characters

Work is going well. The doctor I work for is kind of harsh, but I honestly don't care. He'll say things to me like "If you can't shake the cortisone vial before filling the syringe then what am I paying you for?" And in my head I say, "If you wanted someone skilled in preparing injections then you probably should have hired a pre-trained person. And PS - you really call that meager wage 'payment?'" That's how I get through the day, and it works. I like my job a lot and I don't let anything like that get me down.

People tell me that he's been "yelling" at my a lot. But most of the time I think of it as him just telling me the right way to do something. It's really all about how you interpret his tone of voice, and I just choose to interpret differently.

One thing that kind of sucks about my job is there is like no sense of camaraderie. People seem to be very worried about just themselves and their job, which makes it very hard to get trained. New PA, as I'll call her, is super helpful and patient with me. She's the only one who really takes the time to teach me and show me how to do things. I feel bad for her cause she's really learning too, since she hasn't even worked in Derm for a year, so I feel like a burden.

Senior PA kind of gives me an attitude when I ask questions, or that she's above that since she's a PA and not a Medical Assistant. For instance, I can't ask her how to fill out a Lab Requisition because she doesn't do that. She also doesn't seem to ask me to do that much when I'm seeing a patient with her, or expect me to write much, which is bad and good. Bad because I don't get use to writing things down or getting use to preparing procedures, good because it's less work for me. I generally like her. I just have to beware her bad side cause I know it's a beast.

Nurse, is the only actual nurse in the office. She was somewhat helpful teaching me for like the first couple days. But she's one of those people who likes to do everything and must always be doing a million things at once since the office can't go on without her. She's not that patient and basically doesn't like to be slowed down by training me. In her defense though, she does do everything and really does keep the office running smoothly.

I have become much better though recently. I think Doctor might be starting to like me. Today, Nurse was complaining about all this work she was going to have to do tomorrow and Doctor said, "Hey why don't you have Guy help you?" The task he said was obviously something that was a little advanced for me and Nurse said, "No, no, Guy has enough to get use to." Doctor then said, "Well Guy is pretty useful." It was probably one of the nicer things he's said, assuming it was sincere. He's very hard to read. He can be very sarcastic, which I generally can read well. But no one in the office can actually tell when he's serious. I often assume he's being sarcastic and will play it off that way, but people claim that little things he says here and there are actually great praise from him. Who knows. Like I said, I don't care all that much what he thinks about me.

The Learning Curve

California was a great time in general. I could have done without going to LA, because basically it sucks a lot. San Diego was a pretty fun time, although I'm not convinced that anyone actually lives there. San Francisco is a pretty chill place, chilly too. It's a place I could consider living but I still think I like Boston better. I would definitely like to revisit though.

The job is... okay. It's rough goings since I really don't know how to do anything. Today was Day 7 and I feel like I've become more useless than I was Day 1. Is that even possible? I don't even know why I'm not catching on faster. I almost feel like I'm over thinking the whole job.

Here's a rundown of what I'm suppose to be doing.
- Bring patient into room
- Pull up chart
- Start the chart with the reason for the visit and preliminary questions about the issue.
And here's the first problem. Abbreviations. I have to go through the person's chart from the following visit to see what they did the last time they were here. But if I read some abbreviation that I don't know for a diagnosis, then how am I suppose to ask followup questions.

Unfortunately it's not as easy as just asking the patient "What are you here for?" or "What did you do last time you were here?" because often there are a million different things that the patient was here. Cause in dermatology you must find as many little, insignificant problems that you can bill for.

On top of the abbreviations, there's the handwriting. If the office is going to have computers in every room, than why can't we just type all the notes in? I feel like that makes a lot more sense than printing out a new follow-up sheet every time, and then having to scan it into the system. The only draw back I see to doing this is that you wouldn't be able to draw on the nice little figure of people. But hell I've only seen those diagrams used once as is. But really, the doctor especially makes zero attempt at having legible handwriting. Not fair.

So after the preliminary stuff is written on the chart I then have to transcribe whatever it is the PA or physician says/does to the patient. This is where I'm finding the hardest time. I don't know if it's that I'm thinking about other things, or if I'm just retarded, but I never seem to pick up on what I'm suppose to write down. Or even when they specifically tell me what to write down a fall behind because I have to think to long about how to spell and medication of something, and I need them to then repeat it. Very frustrating.

The last major part of this job is getting treatments ready for the physician or PA. Am I like a moron or something for not knowing how to prepare an injection? Is this some kind of skill that I missed out on learning? I feel like everyone assumes I know how to change the needle on a syringe, or know what the name is for every tool. The answer is no I don't. And the only time I ever get any practice at it is when we're seeing patients and time is not to be wasted. So I end up looking like an idiot when I'm fumbling around to just get a freaking cortisone injection ready. UGH! God help me if they ever have me start doing injections.

This is not a difficult job. I really feel like I should be able to catch on to this faster. ROAR! And it's not like my co-workers aren't trying to teach me. They are, but I feel like it's my fault that I don't know how to do what they're telling me. They try to be supportive, but I don't accept praise well. I'm very self-deprecating.

At my interview I asked how long it generally takes for someone to get the hang of working in the office. I think they told me it generally takes 3 months to begin to get situated. I totally underestimated this learning curve. I really want to be useful and it's annoying me how freshmanic I am.

Employment

I accepted a job offer today. That's fairly exciting. It's a Medical Assistant position at a Dermatology practice, where they're very focused on teaching the assistants. w00t! It was pretty quick too. I applied through Craig's List some time last week. Got an interview scheduled on Tuesday, interviewed today, got an offer 2 hours later. Pretty sweet. An hour after that I found out that I didn't get a job at the local hospital. It's cool though cause I was going to withdraw my application from there today anyway. Sitting in a room with one other person all night watching a computer monitor probably wouldn't offer the same teaching experience. Granted, it did offer twice the pay...

This all went totally according to plan. I wanted to have a job lined up at the end of the summer, and start right after my trip to California, and that's exactly how it worked out. My new philosophy of throwing everything against the wall until something sticks is proving quite effective.

Two of my friends are really pissed with me because my job search lasted all of 17 days, and I applied to a total of 6 jobs. They've applied to many more than that. I've got nothing in terms of comforting them.

Update: Cablevision/Verizon

Today my grandma started making phone calls cause now she wants to switch our phone to Verizon. This would then complete the circle of bringing us back to EXACTLY from where we started.

I took charge this time and said, "No, I'm going to solve this problem without us switching again." So today I will be registering her pre-paid international call account. I WILL NOT SCHEDULE ANOTHER INSTALLATION FOR THIS HOUSE!!! ROOOOOOARRRRR

ps - Match.com and I made up.

Fuck You Match.com

Okay, so this really isn't Match.com's fault, but it pissed me off nonetheless. I'm not a paying member yet, but I was highly considering it when I saw this one guy and decided I would accumulate a list of people I would try to contact and then decide if it was enough people to warrant paying $40 for a month. Wouldn't you know it that the one guy who I really had my eye on, and looked like an active user ended up taking down his account no more than ONE DAY after I made note of him. I see the same freaking profiles on that website for MONTHS, and it's this one that decides to take it down.

This is why I don't want to join Match.com, because I'm terrified that none of these people with profiles are actually paying members, so it'll all be for nothing.

Whatever. I'm sure there will be more people that join in the future that I may have interest in. I'm going to put the whole thing on hold until after my trip to California (one week!), since I don't see a point in paying for a month when I'm going to be away for 25% of that time.

Leviticus 20:13

"If a man lies with a man as with a women they shall both be put to death"

You've heard this all too common quote from the Bible proving that homosexuality is wrong.


Well, if I lie with men one way, and never lie with women that way, then I'm never lying with a man the way I do with a woman.

QED

Score one for the homos.

Why You Don't Get Involved

I meant to write about this a while ago, but I think I started writing about something else instead.

I may have mentioned that after graduation I moved in with my grandparents, who live in the same town as my family. I did this mainly because they have a very nice, finished basement that they never use and plenty of extra bedrooms. Basically, their house has space for me which my family's does not. The strange thing that happens when you go to college - your bed room disappears, but a storage rooms comes out of thin air.

One thing that my grandfather has always complained about what how long it takes for the TV to change the channel. This might seem like a nit picky complaint, but in all honesty it is kind of absurd. It has nothing to do with getting a new cable box, it's just that Cablevision (tv provider) sucks.

Recently, Verizon began offering TV/Internet/Phone service in our neighborhood and claimed that things that use to bother you like channel changing speed were not a problem with them. They also made claims that their picture was better, and internet faster. Since my grandparents already had Verizon for their phone service I suggested to them that we switch everything to Verizon. My grandfather totally supported this idea, since it meant that changing channels would speed up. My grandmother seemed somewhat indifferent to the change, especially because she rarely watches TV with a cable box. The cable box is the reason that there is a delay. But I told her that overall it was cheaper to have TV/Internet/Phone with one company, so she bit.

Verizon comes and completes their 6 hours installation. I have no idea what they were doing for 6 hours, all I know is I got a significant portion of Freakonomics done. My grandparents were away in Florida at the time so I had plenty of time to adjust to the new service, so that I could address any problems that they would undoubtedly come across.

The first day came of my grandparents and Verizon TV's coexisiting. As expected, there was an issue. My grandmother had called me into the kitchen and goes, "Oh Guy, do you know where MSNBC is on the channels? I can't seem to find it on this TV listing you gave me." I must admit that my heart dropped, because my grandmother isn't blind or stupid, and if she said the channel wasn't on that list, it probably wasn't. I went over the list and sure enough it wasn't there. I even went online in a vain attempt to try to figure out how this channel could be missing. Evidently, the NY-metro area doesn't offer MSNBC on Verizon because of an exclusive contract they have with Cablevision. Who else you may ask has this exclusive contract? No one. MSNBC is the only channel. I to this day do not understand why this contract would ever have come about. It's especially odd since the rest of the NBC/Universal channels are offered.

I digress.

I tell her that it's not being offered, and that I don't think it's likely to be added anytime soon. She seems rather upset by this, which I find somewhat odd cause I didn't think she ever watched anything other than Fox News or CNN. I then say I will switch it back as soon as she asks me to and that it won't be any problem. She tells me to talk it over with my grandfather before making in decision, since he of course is the Master of the World.

Later that night I go up to his bedroom and explain the little issue we've come across. His response: "I don't give a shit if I ever see that channel again." He clearly won a bet with Chris Matthews, which Matthews didn't own up to.

Grandma enters stage left.
Grandma: Oh Grandpa, we're not going to get MSNBC.
Grandpa: Yeah, so. You didn't like anything on it.
Grandma: They would have some good programs on once and a while. I would be a nice change.
Grandpa: But you hated all of the people on it.
Guy exits stage left, fearing the possible divorce of his grandparents.

The ruling came in the next day. Verizon was staying. I felt kind of bad for my grandmother, but everyone in the family told me not to stress about it and that she would adjust.

Adjust my asshole. I heard about how much she missed MSNBC every day. Any time anything was ever mentioned about the TV, MSNBC would surely be interjected.

Hey Guy, could you show me how to use the remote. Boy isn't is strange how we don't get MSNBC.

Oh Guy, the channels seemed to have changed. MAYBE MSNBC WAS ADD!!

Oh Guy, while you're on the phone with Verizon ask about MSNBC.

Shoot me in the face.

But no, the issues weren't isolated to just that. There was an even more annoying, universal problem. Bare with me as a try to explain this. The remote can control both the Cable Box and the TV separately. If the remote was in the CABLE function, then pressing POWER would turn on/off the TV and CABLE BOX. If the remote was in the TV function, then the POWER button would only turn on/off the TV. But sometimes when POWER was pressed in the CABLE function, it would only turn the BOX on, and if you hit it again, then the TV would turn on and BOX turn off. To change the functioning of the remote you simply either press TV or CABLE. Someone who understand the fundamentals of how the remote works can easily fix this problem. Someone who doesn't is lost forever having the TV turn on and the BOX turn off. My grandparents being of the Greatest Generation That Ever Lived, fell into the latter of the two.

Multiple times a day I would have to turn the TV on for them. 2AM sometimes. Explaining that there was a difference between the TV control and the BOX control was nothing but an exercise in futility, which I practiced regularly. But in all fairness, the remotes really didn't work the way they were suppose to. Even when I came up with the ingenious plan to always leave the BOX on and only turn on/off the TV the remotes still fucked things up. Le sigh.

7AM. Only one thing gets me up that early nowadays - clinical rotations. I'm suppose to be at the hospital at 9AM, but not before my daily dose of TV woes. I enter the kitchen to the all to familiar, "Oh Guy, the TV doesn't seem to be working." *drops head and sighs* "But I think it's just cause of the storm last night." I wasn't even aware there was a storm the night before, especially one strong enough to mess up the TV. Generally, I would accept this excuse created for me, but I knew something was up.

I go to Fox News at channel 81, but the TV automatically goes to 82. Odd. But 82 isn't even what it's suppose to be. I go into the den and everything is working fine. Odder still. I check the internet to see if there was a change in channels, (Which still doesn't explain why the channels are different on the TVs) but it doesn't say anything. I call Verizon and explain the issue and they tell me that they did in fact change the channels that day. So why is the den still going by the old numbers? No answer. Ugh Verizon, ugh. Whatever, I get it reset.

I get back from class later that day and I'm called into the den by my grandfather. He basically tells me we're going to switch back to Cablevision because they just don't have their act together. I explain that means back to channeling changing delays and such. Doesn't matter we're switching, but with a twist. We're getting Cablevision phone service also.
The end.

No, not the end of the story. Just this part.

You Can't Have It Both Ways

On the O'Reilly Factor I had the displeasure of learning of the existence of a woman named Laura Ingrham. The topic of discussion was on the Bejing Olympics, but she had to make her views on gays kissing on TV known, which was the topic of the segment before her. She was saying how disgusted she is with this song "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. (awesome song) Specifically, she was outraged of some peck on the lips Whoopi Goldberg gave Katy Perry, during with award show. It was literally less intimate than how I kiss my grandmother. So fine, she's outraged about the gays taking over the air waves.

They move on to the main topic of Bejing, and more particularly how China is going to restrict internet access. The Chinese government is evidently not going allow guests to access certain websites, mainly pertaining to Tibet. Oh, how outraged she was that China would dare block access to these sites. You can't pretend that these people don't exist in Tibet. THEY MUST BE HEARD!

Ahem... Excuse me, but you were just saying before that there should be no homosexual acts allowed to be aired on TV, regardless of whether they're in jest or not. So I guess we should only censor the TV and internet as long as you're cool with it. Hey Laura, I guess you didn't catch this week's episode of Weeds. You know, where Silas is preforming full on cunnilingus on a significantly older woman. Granted it's Showtime, so they can get away with that more. But in this day and age Showtime is accessible to many a 12 year old.

I guess she's okay with minors hooking up with older women. Trust me honey, it's never happening for you. My gaydar tells me Silas (Hunter Parrish) is on my team. Sucks to be you. Stick to Army Wives. They probably get as much action as you do, minus when their husbands come home.

The Pilgrimage

My #1 Fag Hag and I are currently planning a trip to California. I was really hoping to save my money for a trip to Buenos Aires, but I doubt I will be able to afford it, or find someone to go with, so Cali will have to do.

Tentative Schedule:
Friday, Sept 5: Night flight to L.A.

Saturday: Sightsee - I personally have very little interest in L.A. but my hag insists

Sunday: Maybe check out a school for the hag
Drive to San Diego

Monday: San Diego Zoo and Sea World - sealllsssss!!!!!!

Tuesday: Beach Day, possible surfing lesson cause we're that cliché

Wednesday: Maybe check out another school
Drive to L.A.
Afternoon flight to San Francisco

Thursday: Sightsee in San Fran - I've been very resistant to SF because of feeling like a huge stereotype, but my dad says it's the best city of the three. I'm secretly petrified that I'm going to love it too much.

Friday: Alcatraz

Saturday: Red eye flight - allows for maximum hanging out in San Fran

I'm hoping that we're not going to be moving around too much. We wanted to see all three cities, and couldn't afford to spend too much time in any one place. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. But I warned my Hag that if I fall too desperately in love with any of those cities I would kill her because there is zero P.A. job market out there, and my current Goal City has an amazing P.A. job market.

Medical Post

I know you've been dying for a medical post. Well here it is.

For the EMT course we're required to learn how to take vitals, thus we need to own a blood pressure cuff. Also known as, sphygmomanometer. But that's an obnoxious word.

BP Cuff #1: Calibration is off. Readings are all too high. Needle doesn't zero.

BP #2: Needle gets stuck once it goes past 140.

BP #3: Replacement gauge for #2 isn't calibrated correctly. This time the needle goes past zero and starts at 300. All reads are too low.

Note to self: don't buy BP Cuffs from Wallgreens or Ebay ever again. I'll keep you updated as to whether I ever get a working BP cuff.

Gay Moment

I feel like I have to apologize about the lack of medical-ness of this blog lately. But my medical life is somewhat static right now. I'm in my EMT class, but it's not really worth talking about. My applications for PA school are done, so until I get a job after the summer I guess medical talk is at a stand still.

Which brings me to my disclaimer: I apologize for going GAY two posts in a row.

If you live in California, please make sure you're registered to vote, and also please consider voting AGAINST the BAN on Gay Marriage. It's legal now, but not if this ban gets passed in the upcoming elections.

I don't even think anyone who reads the blog is from Cali. I do, however, have a friend who is, and I asked him to make sure he's registered and to vote. He said that he probably wasn't going to because "it doesn't really matter to me much." Wow, thanks a lot jackass. I let it slide at the moment, but I'm going to call him out on it soon.

So This is the Single's Life

One of my top priorities this summer/"year off" was to make some kind of attempt to have a dating life. Although I'm doing slightly better than anticipated, that's still not saying much. I didn't really think I was going to make it to my first gay bar, or start online conversation with strangers. But sometimes I surprise myself.

Going to bars is kind of rough when you don't have anyone to go to bars with, or going with straight girls - that actually draws some strange glares. I've scoured the online dating/gay community thing and I'm not seeing a ton of winners. You wouldn't believe the absolute man whores that are out there. Seriously, do you think being shirtless and looking like an coke addict is suppose to be a turn on? I know it's common for the gays to go through a slutty stage, but I've always been advance for my age, and I'm choosing to skip that grade.

My biggest problem seems to be my location. Living in the suburbs isn't exactly prime real estate for single, college graduate, gay guys. I have a very, very major city nearby, (hint: scroll down a couple of posts) but who the hell wants a 40 minute commute for casual dating? All this tempts me to move to the city, but that's too impractical for me. I'm most likely going to be able to find a job around here after I get my EMT. I'm living rent free. And since I'm planning on going to school next year (and year after) it's probably smarter to save my money, than spend it on rent and other expenses.

I get really excited when I do searches for guys in Dream City. I see lots of desirable guys. But, alas, they are 4 hours away. It also makes me really nervous that this is my only chance to meet these guys. This is irrational though. There is no reason to believe that there won't be an equal variety of desirable men in 1-3 year to come.

So the future looks bright, but where does that leave me in the present? I hate the single's world already. Am I really just going to be sitting in relationship limbo for the next year?

Throwing It Out There

Can I just say how sick and tired I am of hearing all of this celebrity "news?" And more specifically I'm sick about hearing how this girls boobs are weird looking, this girl has too many freckles, this one has cellulite and this one is in rehab again. Can you blame any of them for having substance abuse problems when you have these kinds of jackasses talking nothing but shit about them? I seriously am fucking sick of it.

This one DJ, JJ on z100 (New York), does nothing but trash on all these girls. I fucking hate him. Well, I also hate him cause I think he's an awkward ass DJ, but that's besides the point. As far as I'm concerned his just a fatter, hairy, uglier version of Perez Hilton. And Perez is by no means a looker. Oh and he's always wearing these stupid ass do-rags. You know why? Cause he's totally bald. JJ, you're a white slob. You're not fooling anyone.

I'm now going to refuse to listen to Z100 while he's on the air.

Post-College Depression

I feel as if a lot of my friends who just graduated college are becoming really depressed. I wish I knew how to help them out but I don't. It all makes me feel like I should be depressed, but I'm not. Sure I'm not exactly where I want to be, but I realize that it all takes time and that life changes. You can't have super specific goal that if not achieved will ruin your life. If you keep general goals that you are constantly moving towards then it gives you a feeling of accomplishment. The hard part is figuring out that goal you want to move towards. I think a sense of productivity helps a great deal when combatting depression. And once a goal is met you shouldn't become static. Keep things fresh and have new things you want to accomplish. I'm accepting the fact that I probably will not want to work in medicine forever. I'm too scattered to stay in one profession. I accept this, and don't plan on freaking out if after 10 years in medicine I want to do something new. I need to find projects for my friends.

Disturbia

Which is more distubring?

#1 - Last night I have a bunch of people over. I go into the bathroom and see the tooth paste tube out and squeezed from the middle. I never squeeze from the middle. Also it should have been in the drawer. On top of this I feel my tooth brush and it's wet, and I hadn't used it since that morning. Someone used my tooth brush. Who does that?

#2 - I go to the dermatologist today for my yearly body scan. I'm very, very Irish, and very, very pale with many moles even though my skin never sees the sun. (That made me sound gross) So my PA whom I've gone to for over 5 years and love asks me why I never followed up on my positive biopsy from last year. I earnestly tell her that I never knew it came back positive. She told me that they sent something home and called. I tell her that I had definitely been aware to look for something in the mail, but they send something home regardless of the results. I also told her that she had told me they would call me with positive results and I definitely never got a call. She then goes, "Oh, yeah. There's no note here that they called." She then shows me my chart at the spot it would be written in.

Thank God she told me that they were just abnormal cells that needed to be removed, but not serious. Leaves me to assume they're basal carcinomas. I really should have asked, but she said not to worry, so I guess I left my guard down. I looked up what basal cells look like on the back, and it's basically exactly what was on my back - a blotchy, light brown, ill-defined bordered lesion. It was not super dark, as typical melanoma.

My mom is pissssssssed. I'm kind of indifferent, which is probably a bad thing. I'm chalking it up to a lesson learned - always call to hear the results of your tests, don't assume they'll call you.

Thoughts?

Alive

I'm alive. I successfully graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Science. I'm currently taking an EMT course in hopes of working in an ER at the end of the summer as an ER tech. The class makes me kind cry because of how much I already know. Why cry? Cause I'm bored shitless and they dumb everything down so much that it hurts. The entire human anatomy in 2 hours? Sweeet...

I know. I'm a cocky jackass.

Job Results

So I didn't get that job I interviewed for. They told me today that they found someone else to fill the position. Today I checked Craig's List for more jobs and I'm fairly sure they reposted the job opening because it specifically had two very different locations and job responsibilities for criteria. So basically even when I'm compared against no one I'm not wanted as a worker. Fucking swell.

Sleep, a Necessary Evil

Yesterday I slept until 1PM. I then feel back asleep at around 5PM, until 8PM. No wonder I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. At 7AM I gave up trying to sleep and went to campus to study and go to my 9:30AM class.

Now I'm trying to stay awake until at least 8PM. My game is so weak it's unbelievable. I had some coffee before I was tired and it destroyed my stomach. I hate my school's coffee. This means I can't handle drinking anymore coffee. I also have a class at 6:30-7:45PM and I need to study a lot tonight. I think sleeping in the afternoon is going to be inevitable, which will just further screw up my sleeping schedule. I don't know how I get myself into these situations.

I <3 White People

A new website that I'm in love with. Basically because it's the story of my life.

Stuff White People Like

Outraged

Have you heard of this new movie coming out, Made of Honor?

Basic premise: guy and girl have been best friends forever. Guy never ties the knot with a girl because he's assumed to be a casanova. As soon the girl gets engaged, guy friend falls wildly in love with his best friend. He then tries to break up his best friend's wedding, and win the girl.

Where have we heard this story before?

Oh right...


My Best Friend's Wedding. One of the only chick flicks I've ever grown to love. I don't care how McDreamy you may be Patrck Dempsy. Julia trumps you forever.

Cardiothoracic Surgery

Finally got a taste of surgery - aortic valve replacement. I've come to a great conclusion.

Dealing with unconscious patients is infinitely better than dealing with talking ones.

Causing a Ruckus?

I may, or may not have caused a ruckus in the comments section of The Stranger's blog, Slog. It had to do with whether it's right to have higher taxation of the upper class since it hurts them less. It's a very liberal audience, and I'm a stubborn moderate. Yes, I said moderate and that's what I'm going to keep on calling myself regardless of the fact that I don't believe in socialism. There are plenty of "liberal" ideals I support.

If you actually came to this site via Slog then feel free to comment and continue the discussion. I enjoy it.

The Interview: Recap

Every issue that I was hoping wouldn't come up did.

- Directly asked what I was looking to be paid
- Admitting that even though I have all those "clinical experiences" I really have no surgical experience
- Needing to admit that I would only be working there for a little over a year, until PA school started

We'll see. When it comes down to it I'm still (really) cheap labor and I'm still totally brighter than what's required for this job. I should hear by the middle of next week.

Terrible Person?

I just finished watching The English Patient, sparked by seeing that Seinfeld episode one too many times. I've always suspected that I was a heartless person. Well, I kind of know that I'm a heartless person. This somewhat troubles me. But after seeing Brokeback Mountain I thought there was a glimmer of hope that I might have a heart. Evidently, this movie is suppose to really tear you apart inside, so I thought I'd test myself.

End result? Nope, didn't really get that worked up. If you haven't seen it, and plan on seeing it, STOP READING FROM THIS POINT ON!!!!

I don't know. There was something about their relationship that kind of bothered me and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was married. My main problem was with the Count. He seemed kind of crazy, irrational and obsessed. I almost felt like he didn't love her as a person, but as an item. She was like a prize that no one else could have, and he needed her like a drug. I don't know, I guess some people would call this love. I don't know what would need to be different to make it more acceptable to me. I thought the love story between the nurse and Sayid (from LOST) was sadder.

Don't get me wrong though, I did enjoy the movie. I wasn't pleading for his death like Elaine, and I would gladly watch it again. In fact I would gladly watch it again to see if there was something I missed in the development of their relationship, but I'm fairly sure that I got an accurate picture of it.

The Interview

Last night I sent my resume out to a job advertising for a medical assistant/surgical tech position. Generally I wouldn't consider myself qualified to be a surgical tech., since I don't even know what they do, but I fulfilled the requirements listed. It's the perfect job for me. They said it particularly well suited for people looking to expand their medical and surgical knowledge and skills. Considering that I want to be a surgical physician assistant I figured this was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. It also said that applicants should be good at reassuring patients before, during and after procedures. I'm good with patients, they like me, I can handle that. PLUS the practice is in my town.

I wasn't too hopeful about hearing back though, as I'm not professionally trained in anything related to surgery, or being a medical assistant at that. Also I generally get the feeling from this web site that jobs posted need to be filled sooner, rather than later. So I made it clear that I wasn't going to be available to work until after graduation, May 17.

Less then 12 hours later I received an e-mail asking if I was available to interview this upcoming Monday. OF COURSE I AM.

I'm assuming they actually looked at my resume and determined that I was indeed technically qualified and capable of performing the job. So I'm going to go into the interview with a positive attitude assuming that it's just them making sure that I'm not a nut case. Hopefully I can fool them.

The practice also looks very, very elite which is why I'm giving as little descriptive information as possible. But basically I have to look really well put together, and bring it.

An Experiment

To help study for genetics tests the professor has each student submit 5 review questions along with possible answers, the correct answers highlighted. To study for this I will be using mainly Wikipedia with the review packet. My notes are fairly useless, since we are barely given any, and the textbook is horrible. It reads more like a history book than a science text book.

I'll let you know how this goes.

So Far, So Suck

Attempted to get my animal behavior study observation done today. Woke up early. Had breakfast. Made a cute little lunch to eat at the zoo. Printed directions from Google Maps. It was all going so well. I was looking forward to spending time with the otters.

I made one major mistake. I followed the directions.

The google map directions took me to the middle of fucking no where. It claimed that that was where the zoo was. It wasn't. It brought me along the most off roading road I've ever been on around here. We're talking single lane (for both flows of traffic) and made entirely of large rocks.

I gave up, came home and looked at the directions again. The actual directions are the easiest thing in the world. How the fuck google maps had picked that specific road for the zoo to be on I'll never know.

I've now decided that this is a sign that I should spend the afternoon studying for tomorrow's Genetics test and not try to cram all night. This is going to suck the big one.

I think I'm going to skip my classes on Tuesday and try again at the zoo. There is a 40% chance of thunder storms. I'm going to pray it doesn't happen. Odds are on my side, but that's never helped me before anyway. Should it not work out I may have to ask for an extension on the paper. It's due April 10, but if I have to wait until next weekend to go to the zoo, then that means I can't go over my data with the professor until the week the paper is due. I may still be able to get it done on time doing that. It's just cutting it kind of close.

Missing: Glasses

Last seen on my face while in bed reading The Golden Compass. I had fallen asleep while reading it and then woke up later in the night. But when I got out of bed this morning I couldn't find my glasses anywhere. I've looked all around my bed, thinking that maybe they fell off my face while I slept. No luck.

So what the fuck did I do with them while in a sleeping stupor?


[Edit:] I found them no more than 20 seconds after writing this. They were under the blanket that I keep at the foot of the bed. I guess they did fall off and somehow travelled down my comforter to under the blanket. Magical glasses I tell you.

Yes, you are forgetting something.

One of my favorite things about graduating soon is that I will no longer be travelling back and forth from school to home many times a year.

The reason this makes me happy is because I always inevitably leave one of my beard grooming devices behind. Recently, I left all of them.

Insult to Injury

Damages to the person's car that I hit = $700
Rental car for 4 days (when it's only being used 3) = $300

1. Why for the love of God do they need to rent a mid-sized SUV. Fine, that's the car that I damaged, I'll ASSUME that they need that size car for work. Cause chiropractors have big things to move back and forth to their practice... Yeah, that's right. I Googled you. I know where you live and work.

2. If one more person gives me the advice, "You should probably stop getting into accidents," I'm likely to committed homicide. Honestly people, you act like I have a coke addiction and I ask this to happen to me. I commit ONE accident that involves damages to someone else's car and all of a sudden I'm WISHING this upon myself. If that's all you can possibly say to me, then save it.

I can't wait for this to be over. (So I can just have something else happen)

[Edit: addition]

Up until now my brother and I have been sharing a car. We got one to share his senior year of HS (my sophomore year of college). The main reason we got it was because my brother was a pain in the ass and would refuse to take the bus to school, and always had to get picked up after sports. Then during the school year of my junior and senior I would use it and during breaks and summers he would use it.

There have always been issues with us and sharing the car. There have always been issues between us period. We're very, very different people and just don't get along in general. Sharing a car was the worst thing to ever happen to us.

Now that I'm graduating and will need the car full time it was decided to get my brother a car. When we got the first car I was given the option of a standard Toyota Highlander, or standard Subaru something. I only fit in the Highlander, so that was it. I love my car. My brother never liked it, because he somehow comes from a very different lifestyle than me. He shits on economical Japanese cars. Whereas, I shit on cars that are not at all dependable or economical.

When it came to him getting a car it wasn't a matter of him picking between two already approved cars by the parental unit. He was looking at Volvos, Volkswagon, and other luxury SUVs. He just got some fully loaded Mercury Mountaineer with more gadgets than all of my family's cars combined. Granted, my car adds nothing to that.

Am I spoiled? Absolutely. Is he spoiled? Absolutely. But was this fair? I think not. You want to know how he got the better deal? Because he's the one that bitches, moans, pleads, bargains, etc. with my parents. I never asked for a car. I was offered one and bit at the chance.

I didn't drive that car for a year. And it was offered to us 3 weeks before I went back to school, after an entire summer of biking to work. But the option of us getting the car was brought up months earlier. We only got it once threat of my parents driving my brother to school came closer to reality.

Meanwhile, my brother is the one who keeps getting moving violations raising our insurance premium, and I'm too afraid to bring my accident to light because of what may happen to our insurance premiums, thus leaving me bearing the brunt of my actions. Whereas, he gets off free.

What does this teach us? The squeaky wheel gets the oil.

Okay, I'm sorry. I know I was being a little spoiled bitch right there. I just really hate cars right now. And there are just so many more issues between me and my brother and how we're treated differently that I had to rant.

Words of Advice from Baba

Baba, the Ukrainian immigrant grandmother of my fag-hag says when looking for a boy he must

• have a good heart
• be a nice person, and loyal because you don't want them to runaway and leave you with your children
• he can't be a drug addict or an alcoholic
• "Don't hang around with gay people. They have diseases."
• "No black people, they bad people"
• "No mexicans, they mean people."
• "You have to marry your own kind, a nice Ukrainian boy." (In reality any slovic boy will do.)

It was a different time people. We think it's funny in retrospect.

The Great Balance: Work vs. Life

A lot of people have been asking me what I plan on doing after graduation (May 17), especially if I don't get into any medical schools. I tell them that even if I did get into a medical school I probably want to go to Physician Assistant school instead. I get many blank stares with this one, mostly from family. I tell them about how the physicians I meet are not all that happy with their lives, and that it seems that the profession almost dictates how you lead your personal life. People don't seem to understand what I mean when I say this. Unfortunately, I don't have any family members in medicine to better explain what I'm trying to say.

From what I can see through medical blogs and talking to people it is basically impossible to have any kind of social life during medical school and residency. That means that for the next 7 years (minimum) I will basically just be going through the system, almost isolated from the outside world. In medical school you are basically limited to hanging out with your classmates because they have the same crazy/limited schedule as you. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of the hard work. If I were afraid of work I would have dropped out of my major a looong time ago. It's the fact that for 4 years of my life, I won't have one.

Okay, fine. Let's say I do go to medical school. I'm 26 years old and finally out of school and working. I start residency and am committed to this residency for another 3 years, minimum. Some say that it is possible to have a social life, and I believe them. I'm sure it is. But lets look at the economics of the situation. Now I know some people will yell at me for bringing up money when talking about the noble profession of medicine, but I'm not talking about getting rich here. I'm talking about being able to pay bills. As a resident I'm looking to be making about 45k a year, while working 80 hours a week. (BTW, while working 80 hours a week, and sleeping 8 hours a night - ha, like that would really be happening - I would 4.5 hours a day to myself.) That comes out to $11.25 an hour before taxes. Okay, so paying off that debt from medical school won't be happening any time soon. Oh, and by this time I'm 29 (minimum) and finally starting my life, aka have a pay check to do things with. I had a breast cancer surgeon confirm that you cannot start "creating your life" until you get an attending's salary. By that I mean getting a house, car, vacation, let alone be able to finance a family. She was 39 and said she had just reached the point in her life that she had been aiming for. (Even though she was still working 12+ hour days) She also didn't want kids, but she was legitimately happy. She's the definition of "marrying your job." God bless her.

I see myself going into Internal Medicine. 1. Because that's the most interesting to me. 2. Because for the love of God I cannot, will not, spend anymore time in school. I've been told time and time again that with the debt from medical school, and the bills of regular life primary care just doesn't cut it. And by cut it I mean that between the amount of time I spent in medical school and residency the cash I would be making just isn't reasonable. If I'm going to spend that much time in school I think I deserve an above average salary. If that makes me a jerk, then so be it.

So let's look at what I could expect should I go the PA route

I take the next year "off." I apply to PA school and in the meantime get an medical office bitch job. (read as: medical assistant) We'll get back to the perks of this "year off" later.

So I start PA school at 23. Have two years where I don't have a social life. Fine, I can handle that, especially since I just had a year off. Come out of it at 25, still ahead of the game compared to medical school.

Now if I go PA I think I will definitely want to be a surgical PA. The reason for this is because I know that PAs see the routine in whatever field they go into, and honestly the routine in primary care is just not going to cut it. I need to be a little more stimulated than seeing cold, after cold, after cold. After working in the ER I don't think I could handle the routine there even if I was a physician. I hope that as a surgical PA I would be able to do a lot of pre and post-op care, but even if I was mainly first assisting I think it would still be a cool deal. What specialty to go into as a PA is a totally different post. So depending on whether I did a PA residency or not I start actually working at 25/26, as opposed to the 29 (min) of being a physician.

Now lets look at the PA economic deal. 2 years of PA school < 4 years of medical school. The salary of a surgical PA I estimate to be anywhere in the range of 80-120K. This is plennnnty of money for me to live happily. (taking into the consideration the investment I put in to get to this point) Whereas the average IM-physician averages something like 150K. And he has more debt to take care of, spent more time to get there, and I presume dedicates more of his life as an attending to work than a PA does. I've also had physicians specifically tell me that from an economic point of view PAs win out.

Then there is my whole personal life situation to take into account. I've recently "come out" (I fucking hate that expression) and am a bit socially retarded when compared to my peers. And I don't mean "retarded" in terms of intelligence, but as in I'm "behind" in the game. If you think about it I have the dating experience of a 13 year old. I have some life experiencing to make up for, something that that "year off" could definitely come in handy for. Also, should I ever decide to start a family the flexibility of being a PA comes into play. I could either work as the "bread winner" or I could be the stay-at-home-dad and easily get some per diem work.

I think too much.

So this is the end (for now) of the longest post in the history of my blog. I don't know why you bothered reading the entire thing. My life is not that interesting.

PS - I'm not editing this beast. I'm not as dedicated to my blog as some others.

Spring Break '08

Spring break has been pretty uneventful so far, and is likely to remain that way.

For St. Patty's Day I went into "the city" with 6 of my friends. I thought that it was kind of a weird mix of people, even though we're all close friends, but it turned out to be a fantastic night. We've yet to have a bad night when we venture into "the city."

The other day we went to a Dave and Buster's, which i had never heard about. It was a very cool atmosphere. Bowling, bar, food, arcade games (which don't work after I buy credits for them).

An interesting topic has been coming up regularly this break, the man crush. You know when one guy just loooooves hanging out with another guy in a completely non-sexual way. One of my friends seems to have a million man crushes going on at any given time. He just starts obsessing with hanging out with them, getting chicks with them, doing EVERYTHING together. It's kind of funny to witness.

I read an interesting socio-biological journal article about males bonding with each other. They hypothesized that the "man crush" is a way for a lesser man to climb the social ladder by become associated with "higher up" males. They said this this is clearly seen to happen in some primates. It also went a little further saying that this could also lead to sexual relations with males, where the lesser male is generally the submissive of the two. This was very common practice in ancient greece and other old societies. It's even seen a lot today. It is very common in the gay culture for younger men to be attracted to older men, 10+ years. This is especially true for the younger gay males. I have to admit myself that I'm often surprised by how many "older" guys I find attractive. Whether that remains true as I get older is yet to be seen. But still you see this all the time at bars. A guy's "wing man" is often of a "lower rank" than the primary guy. But the wing man seems to be just slightly more desirable because of who he's associated with. Trust me, I'm fully aware that this is not the intent for using wing men, but it's an interesting observation.correlation nonetheless.


PS - all of a sudden I'm getting all these comments. Did I recently leave a comment somewhere that sparked some people wandering over here?

PPS - I'm thinking maybe I'll start writing about some more socio-biological topics, since I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Why I Looooove the Midwest

I'm not going to go into my trip to Ohio this weekend, because if I did then that would solidify the fact that it actually occurred. In fact, I'm possibly crossing that line right now.

Sally Kern, I'm sorry that the gays harassed you for wearing white after labor day and telling you that wearing over-sized sweaters was out of style. But I don't think that exactly constitutes terrorism.

Scratch That

Remember how I complained how all that vertebrate classification was taking up valuable space in my brain?

Jeopardy question (abridged): Proboscidea = ???

ELEPHANTS!!!!! w00tw00t


okay, back to six hours studying cat muscles.

OB/GYN = gross.

An open bucket laid at my feet. I open to it find several of dead sharks curled together in murky, green, gross water. I grab at one and as I pull up it feels like its vertebrae and separating and cracking. I decide that this is not the shark for me, so I pull at an easier one.

On its ventral (belly) side I saw some kind of protrusion, but didn't pay attention to much. I thought it was some kind of fin. I went to the sink and rinsed it off.

Well into dissection the "fin" catches my eye again. I then notice a little dark dot on it, and initially was like, "Oh wow, I had no idea that sharks had markings that gave the impression of a fake eye, and thus make predators attack the wrong end." But then I looked a little closer and realized this thing was not a flat fin. It was round. The next thing to come to mind was Lamprey. This is probably because I have the classification of vertebrates stuck in my head and Lamprey are VERTEBRATA-PISCES-AGNATHA-CYCLOSTOMATA-PETROMYZONTIFORMES!!! Ugh, the memory space lost because of this class..

I digress.

It then hit me like a tone of bricks. This wasn't a Lamprey. THIS WAS A MOTHER FUCKING BABY SHARK HANGING OUT OF THIS MOTHER SHARK'S VA-JAY-JAY! I honestly have no idea how this didn't catch my attention faster. I guess I'm kind of slow. But there is the distinct possibility that it hadn't slid out until after I had been messing around with it on the table, and that I made up preconceptions in my head.

I tell my table and they, along with the rest of the lab, explode with interest. They then encourage me to pull the sucker out. I definitely hesitated, since I have no idea how to deliver a baby shark. Basically, I grabbed the tip of it's head right between the eyes and gingerly pulled. It was a little tough at first, but eventually came out very easily. (Human women should look into somehow getting on top of this.) So we all ohh and ahh, and someone tells me to look in the hole for more. Boy were there more. Ultimately, we dissected the abdomen and squeezed out FOUR more pups, each of them covered in "yolk." One of them even had its yolk still attached and intact.

I'm not going to lie. I was legitimately grossed out by the entire thing. I only pulled out 3, and gladly allowed others do the rest since they wanted to. I think this means that I'm ill-suited for any career in OB-GYN. In general I should just stay away from vagina at all costs.

Now if I could only get my girlfriends to stop coming to me for advice about their birth control. There is only so many ways I can tell them, "I DON'T HAVE A UTERUS, AND HAVE NO EXPERIENCE WITH BIRTH CONTROL. LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Okay, Now Fuck Myself.

2 weeks ago, pulled over for talking on a cell phone while driving. Love how they catch me the one time I don't put it on speaker phone.

I'm told be a very reliable source that I should: 1. Buy a headset before the court date. 2. At the hearing I'll be asked if I owned a headset before the ticket. 3. I should respond with a certain answers. And that this will probably end up getting me off.

It seemed too easy, but I was told that it's a "community education" thing, and they're really just trying to get people to buy headsets.

Last night, I drive to Best Buy to get said headset for the "hearing" that was today. While doing that I get into my first car accident that was entirely my fault. Nothing major - I just rear ended a guy at a stop sign cause I thought he was pulling into traffic, and evidently wasn't. I had been to preoccupied looking to see if traffic was clear to move into. I'm so stupid.

Thank God the people were okay, and the only damage done was his car losing a reflector. We got a police report done, and I gave the other driver my name and number and told him to call me in case he notices more damage or anything when it's light outside. Funny enough, the only thing I had to write my number on was an auto repair business car. I insisted to him that my family did not own said company. I got a laugh out of him.

Back to the first car incident.

I go to court this morning, and walk to the "plea counter" after being the only person to set off the metal detector in a line of very, very sketchy individuals. The smells were interesting to say the least.

I pled "not guilty" and made myself look like a moron by asking the woman what the point was of checking "yes" when asked if I wanted a deposition. I'm still not entirely sure why I would check "no" if I pled "not guilty." I'm sure that will come back to bite me in the ass.

The woman then takes my ticket, and in a very authoritative manner stamps it and says without looking at me, "Your court date will be in 3-6 months. You'll receive something in the mail."

WHAT?!?!?!?!? I'm probably not even going to be living hear in 3 months!!!!! I leave the "court room" (read as: ticket counter) totally befuddled, wondering what the hell just happened. I even went back after getting in the elevator to confirm with a court officer that I indeed had to come back again in the distant future. Unfortunately, I was right.

I then get home and decided that this is the right time to see if I would have gotten any points on my license for this offense. The answer is no. I would pay a maximum fine of $100 with a $50 surcharge. When it is all said and done, I will probably end up changing my plea to "guilty" and paying the fine.

So lets recap what I've accomplished. I got into a car accident, which God knows how much it'll cost me. Bought a crappy headset that I'll never use (because I prefer using speakerphone) that cost me $21. Woke up at 6:30AM, when I didn't have to be up until 9AM. And will still probably pay the $150 traffic ticket.

You know what this tells me? I should have been pre-law. Oh... and look forward, if you plan on driving forward.

Fuck Science

I went into a legit depression today in the lab. That's not something that happens too often.

I was peeling and picking away at the facie surrounding my cats muscles and I just could not make anything out. I kept picking, and realized I didn't even know what to look for. I had no idea what I should be cutting away, no idea how to continue studying in general. I look at this dead animal and see nothing distinctive. The only thing that sticks out in my mind is "WTF AM I DOING HERE?!?!?"

I don't have the "it" factor required to be a science major. What that "it" factor is, I don't know. But when I look at the people who do have it, I sometimes hope I'll never have it. I see the people working in the field that i think I want to go into and I hope that I will never turn out like them. Why wouldn't I turn out like them? As I've come to realize I'm not all that different from other people. There is no reason to think that I will turn out differently.

I am coming out of college with some very strong interests though. Animal Behavior, Evolutionary Pscyh., Ethics. They're topics I enjoy reading about, enjoy talking about, things that I REALLY understand. They're things that I enjoy teaching others about, and love getting other people interested. I think this is something that have a knack for, have that "it" factor.

Who knows, maybe I can turn that into a career somehow.

Completing the Metamorphosis

I've come to love watching my daily Bravo! reality show at 10PM and then moving over to Lifetime for an hour of Will and Grace, Fraiser and Golden Girls.


Friend: That's really gay.


Either that, or I've completed my change into a 40 years old women. That would explain the eating peanut butter with chocolate chips straight from the jar.

ER Repeats

Why is it that every time I watch ER on TNT I see the same 3 episodes.

1. Dr. Green dies.

2. Small pox.

3. Episode after small pox.


I literally have probably seen each of these episodes 4 times. I need to stop having such impeccable coincidental timing.

How to Lose Your Eye Sight

This week's adventures brought us to the medical center's radiology department. I thought I would have a chance at meeting some happy doctors here, since radiology is one of the "lifestyle" fields. (ROAD - radiology/radiation oncology, ophthalmology, anesthesiology, dermatology) First I joined one of the physicians doing some films readings. Lots of ultra-sounds and CTs. I couldn't tell the difference between a fetus, a kidney, or a gall bladder on the ultra sounds. The physician was very happy when I responded to the question "what do you see here," with, "Absolutely nothing." He went on a little rant about how so many people are full of bullshit nowadays, and it's nice to hear someone actually say the truth, and doctors forget how many people are working alongside with them, and they become really self-centered and ego-centric. I've realized that physicians like to rant, and hit many topics at the same time. Then he started to go through some CT scans. I would say that he was scrolling in and out of slides at a rate of about 20 slides/second. It kind of made my head hurt. He commented that when most people watch him read CT scans they fall out of their chair. Good thing I was standing. He also spoke crazy, crazy fast into his recorder, and cursed, a crazy, crazy amount. I mean I'm definitely not shy about coloring my language. But this was just down right excessive.

Then I was following one of the PAs around as he preformed some tests. I got to see a CT-guided biopsy and an ultra-sound guided biopsy. Both of which were infinitely cooler than reading films.

Back in the reading room I started asking each of the PAs how long they had been in their profession and what other specialties they had been in. I was surprised that they had all been in other fields, since I had previously heard that most PAs stayed in one field because the learning curve was too great to want to change fields. Evidently that's not the case. And that makes me happy.

At the end of the day I told one of the PAs that I think I was leaning towards PA over medical school. He gave out cheer in jubilation saying that I was joining "the team." This was something that no physician has ever done in my life. The PA I shadowed was legitimately happy with his job and he's been working in the profession for over 20 years. This was very reassuring. After the PA had his moment a physician walk in from around a corner and said something along the lines of, "Yeah, that's definitely the smarter move from a totally economical point of view." I was kind of surprised about this because this wasn't something that I had heard from physicians before. He didn't actually seem to hate his job, and even he was telling me to become a PA.

Score another one for PA school.