You'll be reading it four times.

If you had asked me whether, as a child, I would be disappointed to find a library closed on New Years Eve, my answer would have been a yes.

As an adult, that answer is still a yes. I am still disappointed to find the library closed.

The only difference is how much more disappointed I am today.

And that's the story of how I used the word 'disappointed' four times in as many lines.

Hope 2012 was kind to you, and that 2013 holds rewards for your hard work.

Yes another post

Perhaps you've guessed by now that I can be introspective at times. Its only taken 73 blog posts for me to get to that point, in case you haven't figured it out. Occasionally, though, its nice to hear outside criticism of my study efforts.

One such weakness, which was noted by a study partner, is that I often get obsessive with trying to figure out a specific mechanism or pathway. For many of these searches, online encyclopedias have been a wonderful resource. However, at other times the search can become too in-depth. Simply trying to find the opening and closing of ion channels in cardiac myocytes...that one took over 3 hours. One professor I highly respect explained the cycle using 4 channels. A review textbook provided by the school had no less than 9 channels. After the first hour, I was reading into published research articles instead of bothering with review textbooks. It was only when my study partner pulled me aside and taught me what I wanted to know, that I could breath a sigh of relief.

Well, going over an older lecture that was an adjunct to the obsession-inducing lecture, I found the answer that I was looking for. My study partner was wrong. But it doesn't matter anymore. The chances of that specific question popping up are minimal. However, simply KNOWING feels good. That turmoil inside my mind that searches to find truth using science and reason has subsided (for now). But for every battle that is won, hundreds of others are lost. Some to chance, some to errors in texts or in my understanding. The majority are simply under the heading of "this is the way it is, but we don't know yet why" or "we THINK it might be this, but the research is still ongoing." Sometimes, there are multiple truths, such as drugs that work by multiple mechanisms.

Part of the reason I chose medicine is because I knew there is too much for me to learn in a lifetime. More research will probably be published this month than I could read in a lifetime. I'll never be full or bored. But once in a while, its nice to stop feeling hungry.

Then again, I know something that my study partner doesn't :P

Adventures in Dog-sitting

This has been a tough week.

How tough can it be? Walk a dog. Pick up poop. Repeat. Doesn't really take a rocket scientist.

Well...I found out that my patience is somewhat lacking. It can get frustrating when a 15 minute dog walk has   reached over an hour. It can get frustrating trying to control a dog when your neighbours apparently had some kind of raw-hamburger fight in your parking lot. And when your dog apparently has a taste for cat poop.

But it's getting better. I'm getting more used to dealing with frustration.

The cat is much sweeter. Only has a tendency to drool, which is a little disconcerting while he sits on my study notes.

Run normal BMI boy, run!

So over my time in Dominica, I gained a bit of med school weight. Probably around 15 pounds or so over 1.5 years of stress, stress-eating, and sedentary studying. Since my return, I got a gym membership and did some exercise off and on, but I wanted to set up a routine that didn't involve having to wait 20 minutes for some guy to finish huffing and puffing on a 15 pound bench press. The treadmills are typically free, so that's what I'm hoping to use.

I wanted to try and move myself from the 'Overweight' category on the BMI scale into the normal range. And yes, I know that BMI isn't that useful, but it gives me something to aim for. Calculated that to burn off one kg of body fat (~7700 calories), I'd need to run about 500 calories per day for about half a month. From past experience, I know that 500 cals per day is doable, and doesn't take up much time and isn't too tough on my knee. Then I came across a study suggesting that most treadmills actually overestimate the calories burned by ~20%. So, what displays at 500 on a treadmill will be closer to 420-ish. 7700/400=19.2 days. That pushes my goal to about 20 days unbroken, or more realistically, 1 month overall.

Except that after I weighed myself today, I found that my weight has dropped nearly 4 pounds since school ended. What gives?

The only thing I can think of is that I've stopped eating out with friends for lunch, and have mostly been sticking to veggies with occasional salmon. I've also been trying to further reduce my living expenses since moving to the new apartment (side note: Publix is overpriced) so I have been trying to eat less food.

If all goes well...I'll still technically be overweight, but hopefully my pants won't feel as tight :P

Also, I can't remember why I thought this was important and needed to be typed up. If you made it this far, congratulations, you have nothing better to do than read me rambling.

The 100% pet for me

One of the things I learned from taking care of a dog and cat for a few days is how simple and easy it can be to provide happiness to animals. Feed them, pet them, play with them. It is so shockingly easy that it makes me feel guilty for not doing it all the time.

Is it this easy to make people happy? Why don't I do it more? Do I have to spend more effort? More time? More money? Is more expected of me? Do people even want to be happy?

This train of thought is brought to you by A1 Steak Sauce: Go Steak or Go Home.

PS

PS: the steak turned out great. A tiny bit on the well-done side. I'll try again today, but using the oven only, and see how it compares.

First impressions

So I tear-gassed my new roommates within 20 minutes of meeting them.

While I moved all my belongings into my new apartment a few days ago, I've been dog/cat/car/house-sitting 2 lovely pets. Thus, last night was the first time I spent any appreciable time at my new place. After talking to my roommates for the first time, I decided to make some dinner and try my hand at a thin slice new york steak cut. I added a lot of chili pepper.I planned to fry it on the grill to crisp the surface, and then toss it in the oven at 400F for a few minutes where I was conveniently also baking potatoes. I also had the brilliant idea of adding chili peppers. Forgot to turn on the fan. Smoke escalated quickly. Chili tear gas resulted.

So, hurray for first impressions.

3 to 2

I have 5 pairs of keys jingling in my pocket.
One for my old apartment, from which I have emptied the last of my belongings.
One for my new apartment, in which I have yet to unpack.
One for my friend's apartment, which i am currently house-dog-cat-sitting.
One for that same friend's car, which I am car-sitting.
One for my bike lock, which is...currently locked.
And yet the only home I want to be in is the one I don't have keys to. Because my brother lost them. And scratched my bike. And missed my traffic ticket appointment.

On the plus side, every step I take sounds like a Christmas carol.

I'll be down to 4 keys by the end of the day, and down to 2 keys within a week.

This post is entirely meaningless. I just thought I had a lot of keys.

Put down your pencils

So. I'm done with school.

Breath it in deep. That's the smell of freedom.

Well...I am no more free than I was on Thursday night, on the eve of my final exam. I still have my Comprehensive exam, my USMLE Step 1, the Canadian version of the USMLE that I need to take for visa purposes, my Board exams after each rotation, USMLE Step 2 and 3....maybe a few years of mandatory residency in underserved communities.

But I am no more constricted than I have been for the last few years of my life. I can still quit and decide to become a...'job-person'? 'Not-student'? 'Tax-payer'? Is that what they call people with jobs?

My formal education is over. It's been about 20 years of sitting in classrooms and taking tests. Much of it has left me unfulfilled. A fictional study I imagined for the sake of this paragraph suggests that X% of people wish to excel at a task and build up an identity for themselves, and I am part of that X%. However, excelling as a student of the medical sciences meant that I had to try and remain competitive in terms of applications. That meant trying to take courses in which I had no interest that were deemed mandatory by some committee for most of my adult life. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that almost the entirety of it has been redundant.

Its a bit of a punch in the gut [note: I decided to retract balls, as Y% of my readers may not have testes] to realize that many years of my life has been meaningless in the pursuit of meaning. My own father felt that the compulsory military service in his youth has been a similar waste of the best years of his life, and chose to immigrate rather than have his children go through his own experiences. Strange, that these compulsory prisons follow us so diligently.

Today, I can cover in 3 weeks what would have previously taken an entire semester of undergraduate education. I feel my wits are at their sharpest (or at least as sharp as a wooden knife can get) and my professionalism has never been...professionaler, and my wallet has never been emptier. For a self-proclaimed slightly-higher-than-average-intelligence person, it comes as a realization that I am actually-below-average-intelligence, as almost all of my current education could have been covered with the cost of a $10 library card and a suggested reading guide. For those that have difficulties picking up a book, there is no adequate substitute for a good lecturer, but videotaped lectures do a pretty decent job for a fraction of the price. We are born into social structures that have existed for hundreds of years, and continue to build onto a solid foundations, but at a heavy cost of time and debt. A young person may gladly trade his time for money, and an older person may gladly trade money for more time, and any professional needs to trade both.

I applaud the trend of universities and institutions offering their course lectures for low/no cost (well-known among them are TED, Khan Academy, MIT/Yale/Berkeley, but I have no doubt that hundreds of others exist), as well as the rarer institutions that teach and additionally certify these students. I also have a hope that one day we will see institutions that build from the ground up to utilize these low-cost alternatives, instead of sticking them on like a post-it note. Hopefully, I'll even play a role in them one day.

PS: I was originally going to write about how I haven't gotten off my couch since my exam on Friday (and yes, it is currently Sunday), how I finally got out of this couch-induced rut, my search for a new apartment, revelations in my last semester of lectures, and my study plan for the coming exam. Apparently, I also shouldn't keep my bananas and tomatoes in the refrigerator.