I don't want to become a punchline!

I'm really enjoying obstetrics and gynaecology. I'm giving this some serious thought as a career option.

I just got off the phone with my sister who said that her friends would make fun of her if I became a gynaecologist. That hardly seems right. All that training!

Depending on my mood, I sometimes see career decisions as being very stressful and sometimes I see them as being very exciting.

I'm living with some family friends in Brantford. It's pretty fanastic.

Babies in Brantford

I returned from BC this past weekend to start my Obs/Gyn rotation in Brantford. It is difficult to describe my time in Vancouver. I'll try in bits and pieces as time rolls on.

We had an orientation to the rotation on Monday. We were taught to do pelvic exams by a standardized patient. It's quite a bizarre experience. Our lady was SUPER talkative. It's always weird to have someone lecturing at you while your fingers are.. um.. inside. eeek.

Anyways, today was my first day at work at the Brantford General Hospital. It's pretty super so far. I spent most of my time seeing patients at clinic, but the day was punctuated by a visit to the ER to do a consult, as well as a visit to the ward for a delivery!

The birth of a child is: gross, wet, bloody, tense, painful, tiring, exhilirating, joyful.
You go from tense and painful to tearful happy in moments. It's really something quite special.

A brief from work

I'm on lunch break.

In the previous surgery, we took off someone's ear! Yow!

I don't know what Van Gogh was thinking.

Look before you leap!

Implicit in this statement, but seldom remarked upon, is the fact that sometimes in life, a leap MUST be made. Ironically, advice regarding the act of flinging oneself into scary uncertainty is ubiquitous in our society: Just Do It.

Dodgeball has an odd sort of Grace

I saw Dodgeball not too long ago.

It made me think back to those sweaty, pulse-quickening times of yore, when natural selection would make a brief visit into our daily scholastic routines, and rubber balls and aggression were mixed liberally with classrooms of children.

The rules of dodgeball are simple (Hit the person with a ball. Dodge balls thrown at you.) But as is with most things in this life, the rules supply just the baseline for what truly occurs.

To the stress of dodging balls, was always the unspoken understanding that it was infinitely preferable to be hit by one of the cool 'jocks' of the class. No matter how poorly thrown, it was very understandable that one could not avoid a projectile cast by one of the 'cool' kids. But so acute was the shame to be hit by one of the shrimpy nerdy kids!

The thing with life is,
dodge as you will,
it'll be the wee pixie girl,
the one in the sequin-flowered white sundress,
who nails you square in the chest.

Sweet sweet Vancouver

I am in Vancouver, and I am wondering why I ever left.

I watched the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants on the flight. It had it's moments. I would possibly have shed a tear if not for the social stigma associated with boys crying at chick flicks. The lady I sat next to was a PhD student in psychology. We talked about rhesus monkeys and whatnot. It must really suck when science discovers that your species is suitable for experimentation.

In the goal driven lives of our times, we associate happiness and fulfilment with the acts of accomplishing and achieving. Rare is it that we savour the moments BEFORE something happens, be it good or bad. Childhood has taught us all that Christmas morning is at times sweeter than Christmas morning. It is rare to be in a position to know that SOMETHING's going to happen. It's important to enjoy these brief moments of anticipation when they come.

Human Analysis 101

I'm currently living in a place I'm subletting from a friend in my class. I met her for the first time at our grade 8 graduation when we shared some sort of academic award. Years later in high school, I sat behind her in physics class, and years after that, we both set off to medical school together. We're living together for a little while, since I'm going to Vancouver on Saturday, and she'll have moved to Toronto by the time I get back.

Anyways, we were talking last night, and I told her about my Puzzle Piece Theory.

Let's call it Simon's Puzzle Piece Theory (SPPT).
Assume:
1. Everyone is a puzzle piece.
2. Puzzle pieces differ in their complexity. This fits a bell curve distribution with 'simple' at one end and 'complicated' at the other.
3. Simple puzzle pieces have waaaay more potential 'fits'

SPPT is an anology: finding that 'special someone', is very much like finding a puzzle piece that fits properly with the puzzle piece that is you.

People who are simple puzzle pieces don't have any problem finding people that fit. The trade off is that 'fits' are less precious since they are relatively common occurences. Complicated puzzle pieces have very few fits. The trade off being that a 'fit' is a very obvious and special occurence.

Additional conclusions to be drawn from SPPT:
1. You can 'force' a fit, but then unhappiness ensues (It's not optimal to have to change your shape to fit another!).

2. With age, puzzle pieces lose their edges, so what WAS a horridly complicated puzzle piece can simplify.


Anyways, my friend thought this theory to be fine and dandy but then proposed a twist! Which I shall name after her:

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Hamidah's Addendum to SPPT (HASPPT):
Assume that complication goes up with education and ambition. THEN

1. Complicated puzzle pieces should NOT try and find other complicated puzzle pieces. It is too rare an occurence, and, given the general life course complicated puzzle pieces would follow given the initial assumption, it is unrealistic for two complicated puzzle pieces to be able to fit into eachother's lives. Instead, complicated puzzle pieces should seek out a different set of individuals, hereby dubbed 'plasticines' who are able to MOLD themselves around a complicated puzzle piece.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Intriguing. An attempt at characterizing complicated puzzle pieces AND a whole new subset of people! I will have to consider this in future revisions of SPPT.

Hamidah's addendum tackles one of the key issues that I haven't yet the gumption to address: What determines the complexity of a puzzle piece?

Connect Four

I played Connect Four with my old housemate the other day. I won many times in a row. I think he got discouraged about his mental muscles.

On one hand, I think it would be silly to make any judgements about one's intellect from games of Connect Four. What exactly are you testing with such a simple game? (For those in the dark, connect four is like tic-tac-toe, only you need to... connect four.)

On the other hand, if you lose consistently at such a simple and pure test of logic, it's gotta infer something right?

I should have let him win a couple games.

Take out or delivery?

I'm sitting behind the counter of my cousin's Chinese take-0ut place. There is a corpulent man in a black ballcap waiting for his sweet and sour pork. He specified that it couldn't be burnt. Before him, a mesomorph with army pants ordered two egg rolls. He paid for them in cash and was very careful to pocket the penny that was returned as change.

I have friends whom I only see once in awhile, but when I do see them, I know exactly what to expect. Things don't really change. Then there are the people with whom I speak with more regularly, but each encounter is sorta like that game you see on Extreme Elimination Challenge. You know the one where there's a wall with three paper doors, but behind two of the doors is concrete? The contestants have to run at full tilt and crash through a door, hoping that the one they choose isn't a painful one.

What is it that makes some relationships change so quickly, and some not at all? What makes a relationship stable? Be it a love relationship, a hate relationship, a love-hate relationship. Why do some relationships flow smooth while others jitter like waterbeetles on a pond? I have my theories.

My friend Greg has mentioned that my posts have been light on substance lately. So I shall supplement this entry with a bit of hospital gore. And a promise to clean his clock at foosball this weekend.

Anaesthetic drugs are frequently kept in little glass ampoules. When needed, the neck of the ampoule snaps off, and the drug can be drawn with a syringe. (It is not a good idea to have me around so many needles. I have already poked myself after just one day on the job. Luckily, the needle hadn't yet gone into the patient.) Anyways, the trick with opening these ampoules is that you must snap the neck off in the opposite direction to a little mark on the ampoule itself.

No one told me about this little mark. So it was that I was squeezing and wrenching on this little glass ampoule when it shattered into tiny little pieces in my hand. I wimpered pitifully and pressed my bleeding fingers into my scrubs. Fortunately, I managed to manfully draw up enough drug for the patient with my other hand. The OR staff where most unsympathetic. It is apparently bad form when the medical student loses more blood than the patient does.

Two for three

It's my first day of clinical anesthesia. We've spent the earlier part of this week in the classroom. I must say, my classmates and I have had crazy good times being in a didactic environment. It's a nice break to be spoonfed knowledge.

Anyways, it's back to the practical now. So far, I've gotten two of three intubations today. I wish I could have another crack at that last fellow. I was so hoping to carry a perfect intubation record.

Since my new place doesn't have a laundry machine, I made my very first visit to a laundromat yesterday. It was very warm inside, and so I got a bit drowsy. Just inside the door to the laundromat there's long bench. Naturally, I lay myself down on it and fell fast asleep. I woke up half an hour later.

I've had the ability to fall asleep ANYWHERE for awhile now (buses, trains, parkbenches, museums etc.). My niece attributes this to my trusting, somewhat oblivious nature. She said that she would never be able to sleep in some random laundromat. She said she'd worry about people taking her stuff and whatnot.

I think at a certain level, I just believe that things will be alright. It's not that I believe that unfortunate things won't occur, it's just that I think things will be alright in the end.

Souliers

I went with my niece for a spot of shopping today. They've issued special edition Terry Fox runners, and it was my intention to acquire a pair.

The concept is really quite lovely. They're replicas of the the shoes that Terry Fox wore when he did his run. Proceeds go to his foundation. They're blue shoes, with his name written in gold along the side.

Unfortunately, they make my feet look fat.

ah well.

On a brighter note, I did get some nice brown shoes.