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!"