Sliced heaven

So I've been eating a lot of toast lately. Toast is under-rated. Nothing improves sliced bread like a little toasting. I guess by extension, that would make toast the best thing since sliced bread.

Anyways, I've been alternating between 4 toast toppings:

1. Peanut butter and jam: A true classic. The go-to toast topping. Feeling down? Skinned your knee? Can't hit a golf ball straight? Somewhat concerned about the existence of true love? PB and J will fix you right up.

2. Jam and butter: Decadent. It's got a bit of cheesecake in it, in my opinion. Bridges the gap between breakfast and desert. For added sophistication, use blackberry jam. Eat with pinkies up.

3. Peanut butter and honey: If honey is good enough for Winnie the Pooh, it's good enough for you. Best in moderation, but having your jaws glued shut by peanut butter and honey is among life's greatest pleasures.

4. Butter: To give your sweet tooth a break. The best way to enjoy toast for toasts sake. For toast connoisseurs or those in a rush.

BUT, yesterday, I came upon a fifth topping: peanut butter and ice cream. There are no words. It is simply a slice of heaven in your mouth.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Ontario bound

My time in the maritimes comes rapidly to a close. It's been muchly enjoyable. I've accomplished much of what I set out to do.

I've eaten a lobster, a McLobster, and Lobster Sub.

Living in a call room for three weeks has been very bearable. I'll be looking forward to some variety in my diet. I've been eating the nursing station toast for breakfast and lunch and the cafeteria special for dinner for far too long.

I've been whinging a bit lately about how the reward for hard work seems to be more hard work. And how every mountain you climb seems to bring you to the foot of another ascent.
But then, I looked down at my pager and noticed it was 11:11.
Quick! Make a wish!

And I realized I couldn't easily come up with something to wish for. I really can't rightly complain about a life like that, now can I? So I tried to wish something for someone else. Did my best to squeeze in a wish before the clock hit 11:12.

Did you feel a warm tingle? That was me. And I was wishing good things for you.

Or it could be that you're doing a number 1.

Out spot. please.

I met Mr. P in clinic today. He is likely the most spry 79 year old I've ever seen. He shook my hand enthusiastically and we chatted amiably about both my career, and his (He is currently employed with a construction company). White hair fell upon a balding pate, and his bright blue eyes were set against skin that was bronzed from the sun. I wondered at his wonderfully preserved condition, and he told me stories about his mother who lived in wonderful health to the age of 106.

He had a mole on his back that itched. After years of nagging, his wife had finally managed to convince him to see a doctor about it.

He lifted his shirt over his head. I saw the mole. It was large, assymetric, multihued, with an irregular border.

The chances of Mr. P living to 106 are very, very slim. The chance of his even being alive in five years is very, very slim.

I know this from the books I read.
Mr. P has a bad spot.

But I don't think I believe it. I just doesn't seem likely that such a healthy looking fellow will be dead within five years because of a mole on his back.

We like to believe that our situations are special, unusual, outside the norm. But, as they say, numbers don't lie. And I know that the vast majority of the time, we ARE normal, we are NOT unusual, and we DO lie within the norm. But we hope anyways. And in spite of the numbers, I think we believe.

Dragonboat redux

I realize I have completely forgotten to mention how the Toronto Dragonboat Regatta went.

Actually, this is not an accident. As it happens, I kept it under wraps on purpose. Why the secrecy? I will tell you later.

We ended up coming in 2nd in our division. A team from Virgin Mobile (the cellphone people) also was in attendance. They were short people, so I rowed for them (along with some of my teammates) and we ended up coming in 1st in that division! So a grand total of 2 medals for the regatta.

I had hoped to be racing against my sister, but she unfortunately welched out of the whole thing. Ah well.

It was very good times. Our team even got caught up in an impromptu dance party while waiting in line for the ferry.

But the reason I've held off from doing a Dragonboat post is because I am now finally able to announce that I was awarded the "Most Spirited Paddler" award! The awards were presented this weekend. Since I wasn't be able to attend the end of the year shindig to receive my accolade in person, I was called a couple weeks ago to film a video acceptance, and told to keep it under my hat.

In conclusion, I give the dragonboat experience two spirited thumbs up.

Lobsters

I had the opportunity to poke around downtown today. The first thing I did was eat a lobster. I got into a conversation with a local, and the first thing she asked me was "Do you speak English?"

I can't really remember the last time somebody asked me if I spoke English. I'm beginning to suspect that there aren't any CBC's (Canadian born Chinese) here in Saint John. Course I was in a restaurant right outside where the cruise ships dock, so I think the area probably has a rather high baseline of foreigners.

I also went to see an act at the busker festival. Most of the buskers claimed to have bachelor of arts degrees. Except for that one guy with a masters in education.

I then went to get a McLobster at McDonalds.
The subways here have just started a Lobster Sub. Is this a local phenomenon, or can I hope to find such a product when I return to Ontario?

To the range

Things are going as usual here in New Brunswick. I saw my first ever real live unrepaired cleft palate today. I'm also getting pretty good about identifying odd spots on skin. There's a lot of spot spotting at this elective.

Ater work, I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather to go to the driving range with a fellow medical student. She had never been golfing before, and I tried my best to pass on Uncle Alex's tips and tricks. After one too many dinked balls, she went to the guys at the booth for advice. No one else was there, so the two fellows manning the booth came around to give us pointers. They also gave us a free bucket of balls. The lesson in all this is that it is handy to have an attractive female around.

A strong case for the East coast

One of the doctors invited me to his house for a BBQ this weekend.

I get feted with lobster whenever I do a placement in the Maritimes. This is a very good thing.

Also, the other day, one of the OR nurses gave me an ice cream bar when we were between cases.

I have to say that the hospital staff here are very friendly.

Outdoor Golfer Simon

So it turns out that I'm a 10 minute walk from a golf course/driving range. It's an "aquatic" driving range. It means you're golfing into a lake.

I made a rare venture outside to go hit some golf balls. I can't keep from slicing the ball. The fellow at the driving range told me I had a good accent. At first, I thought this meant I was starting to talk like a Maritimer, but then I realized he was complimenting my command of the English language. It's nice for us kids who learned English as a second language to get that sort of validation.

I'll head back out in the weeks to come. Even if my swing doesn't improve, I can go to amaze the locals with my linguistic abilities.

Indoor Bubbled Simon

So I'm living in a hospital for the next three weeks. My room has a bed and a desk in it. There is a shower down the hall. I eat a bagel for breakfast and a bagel for lunch. As a treat, I eat cafeteria food for dinner. Every morning I leave my bed and in two steps, find myself by a patient's bedside.

"Bubble-living" (A state of being where anything outside your immediate environs ceases to have importance.) is something I'm quite familiar with. Whether it was at Queen's, or French Camp, or Nerd Camp, my universe shrunk each time, so that I lived in odd little pseudo-realities where the rules of existence were tweaked and twisted. At Queen's, it was normal for an Asian kid to wear a kilt every Saturday to dance at Football games. At French Camp it was normal to dress up for random theme nights at a campus bar that only ever played the same 15 French dance songs. At Nerd Camp, it was normal burst into spontaneous applause.

Actually, I think Bubble-living may be inevitable. The world and it's problems are gigantic and crushing to an unbubbled mind. It's a real treat to be able to retreat into a small insular bubble, but I think it's important to exist in the biggest bubble you can, to keep expanding your bubble and keep introducing new things into your existing bubble.

This is all rather tangential. My actual point was going to be that my current bubble is really small. But I'm wondering about that now, seeing as I have the internet to let the light in...

No, the real point of this post is to declare that if I want, I don't have to step outside for the next three weeks!

Isn't that something? Half of me wants to do it, just to say I did. It'll be the longest I've ever been indoors. I already cheated a bit though. I stepped outside today after my nap. The air smelled like the ocean.

Homeless

Moving is incapacitating. I've done nothing but attempt to pack my life into boxes for the past week. I haven't studied, I haven't worked. All I've done is eat, sleep, and move. I gave my keys back to my landlady yesterday, and now find myself in a curious position: homeless.

What I'm saying is that my lease ended in one place, and I chose not to find another one. All my belongings are scattered to the wind. I left some stuff with my downtown cousin, some stuff with my mountain cousin, and LOTS of stuff with Sherm. I'm taking my a rolling suitcase, a duffel bag, and a backpack, and I'm hitting the road.

My current plans have me moving cities once a month (roughly) until sometime next year. The plan is to exist rent free by staying with family and friends.

So if you've ever wanted the satisfaction of putting a roof over a homeless person's head, now is your chance!

Mulberries

The tips of my fingers are stained purple from the mulberries I've been picking from the tree in my neighbors front yard.

For the past weeks, the sidewalks in and around Hamilton have been littered with these blackberry-look-a-like berries. I've never seen anyone eat the, so I assumed they were inedible.

On the way to school one day, I had picked one off a tree to try. I quickly spat it back out. How pissed would my parents be if I were to keel over from eating poisonous berries?

A couple days ago, I was mentioning the berries to my nieces as they were helping me move. They told me that the berries were totally edible. And that they were called mulberries.

For the next few days, I ate berries by the quart. Standing in the sunshine, enjoyed their sweet nectar and painted my face and fingers a purplish hue.

The most tragic thing is that I've spent 3 summers in Hamilton, and I only discover these berries now. I left Hamilton yesterday, and my plane to New Brunswick leaves today. I really don't know if I'll ever spend another summer in Hamilton. But if you were to ask me to list the best things about doing medical school at McMaster, the mulberries would easily be in the top three.

Ah mulberries. Our time together was brief, but so very special.

Happy Canada Day!

I went with my neices to see the fireworks for Canada Day. Here in Hamilton, they have them set to music. It's fun, but you miss out on the hissss and boom that naturally punctuate and accentuate such an event. I usually spend Canada Day in Ottawa. The high school crowd usually gathers, and it's always nice to see how another year has grown people up.

My classmates from medical school are all starting work about now. This is terrifying. To think that you might go to a hospital and be faced by one of my peers! (To those same classmates: I believe in you! Break a leg.)

I'm in the process of packing right now. The goal is to get rid of all extras, and take essentials only. If any of you have ever coveted any of my stuff, now' s the time to speak up. The only untouchable is my tablet.

Speaking of my tablet, I spent the weekend re-installing everything on it, so now it is a much leaner, cleaner machine. It was probably the most techie thing I've ever done in my life. I had to follow an online tutorial and burn my own Tablet XP boot disks. I must give props to Arlen, my childhood tech-support guy, who was always a phone call away, even from his current abode in Seattle.

There's a certain reliability to childhood friends I think. I recently had to probe Vik and Greg (Not as bad as it sounds... but more time consuming.) for one of my projects. I don't think either was chomping at the bit for a week of early morning probing (At least I wore gloves?), but it can be difficult to say no when you share so many experiences and memories.

I suppose the point is that if you have your friends long enough, they become sort of like family that way.