In Other News . . .

So what's up with me otherwise?  A quick summary:

I passed USMLE Step 3!  Woohoo!!  Really, the odds of me passing were vanishingly slim but you always worry on test day.  I was amused that I did worse as the patients in the questions got older.  Definitely affirms my training in pediatrics, lol.  Also my highest sections were Behavioral/Emotional, Musculoskeletal, and Immune/Infectious Diseases.  Fascinating, because it leads me to . . .

I'm like 95% sure I'm going to pursue fellowship in pediatric rheumatology.  It's definitely one of the least "sexy" subspecialties because: 1.) there aren't many procedures, 2.) it pays less, and 3.) it's not well understood.  But I find it fascinating.  It commonly affects joints (as you'd expect), but it can really affect almost any organ in the body.  And I seem to be one of the few peds residents who kinda likes (or at least doesn't mind) teen patients.  It's also a rather "rare" subspecialty, there only being 26 fellowship programs in the country (for about 60ish spots).  There's an estimate of about 1/2 the number of peds rheumatologists in the country as there needs to be.  As one senior resident described to me, doing this fellowship is basically a golden ticket to practice anywhere in the country that I so desire.  Yeah, I'll make less money.  But to echo one of the peds rheumatologists that I worked with, "I didn't come from money.  So this pay is pretty good to me."

It's astounding how stress and sub-optimal nutrition leads to weight gain!  I seriously gained like 15 lbs in residency so far.  No bueno!  I just started working out and slowly ramping things up.  I'm woefully out of shape, but that's what I get for being on inpatient rotations for 5-6 months in a row, working on average 6 days/week, and up to 80 hrs/week.  Where in there is there time for working out, much less healthy eating?!  For the first time in many months, I have the time and there wherewithal to realign my health to where it should be.  I've been a poor example for my patients.

Today I was eating lunch outside with one of my co-interns.  And she remarked how nice it felt to have the wind blow on her face, how normal it felt, and how sad that she was thinking that in the moment.  But it IS sad.  This residency thing is not something I'd wish on someone else.  Fuck that, if I could re-do things, I wouldn't re-do this.  But I've already come this far and I'm going to see it to the end.  Because at the end of it all, I have a chance to regain normalcy.

Recently got into a new show, Looking.  It centers around 3 gay friends in SF.  It's entertaining.  About halfway through like the third episode, I realize that one of the main characters, Patrick Murray (played by Jonathan Groff), is basically me in a lot of ways.  He wants to have a good sustainable relationship, but sucks at it.  He's conservative in his actions and tends to thinks before he acts (sometimes too much).  Anyway, a good show to check out.  :-)

Thanksgiving, Finally

Hey all,

Still alive . . . somehow.

Micro virology exam: check.
Laundry folded: check.
Things packed: check (mostly).
In bed before 12:30am: evidently not.

Anyway, this is perhaps the last chance I'll get to blog until I get back from Thanksgiving break. Not much to say, really. Did alright in my micro exam. I didn't do as well as I wanted, but not bad either. The class average better not be higher than my grade (of 86%)!!

I finally finished watching Top Chef: Just Desserts. Not as good as the original Top Chef, but entertaining nonetheless. I must admit, I partly watch it because of Yigit Pura. God, his desserts on that show are as delicious-looking as he is! Okay, that just sounds weird, but whatever.
Here are some links to more pics of (several shirtless :-P) and info on him: Project Q, Bravo TV, The Advocate.

And here's his YouTube blurb for the It Gets Better Project:


Lastly, for anyone who's ever played the game Pokemon, listen to this. You will be blown away.

Alright, that's all for now. Kind of a random post. Happy Thanksgiving!! :-D

Up The Ass

It's not every day that you can say you had your hands shoved up someone's ass (muscles).

Yes, Block 4 has begun - perineum and lower extremities. First things first, the professors bisected all the bodies at around the level of the kidneys (bellybutton area-ish) so now everyone's cadavers are in 2 pieces. o_O Then we had to flip over the lower half and dissect the butt to get to the pelvis.

Proceed not for those with weak stomachs beyond this point . . . you've been warned.

After removing the skin from the butt, we had to clean off the fat and fascia over the gluteus maximus. That was gross. Fat is just so . . . yellow, and squishy, and greasy, and gross. Our guy has been generous to us - the lab table across from us has a woman bordering on obesity and she had inches of fat. Once we found the border of the gluteus maximus, we had to shove our fingers under there and find the ligaments, hence shoving my fingers up under his butt muscles. Those were some tough ass ligaments (pun intended)!!

And of course, the highlight of the lab. We had to insert a tampon into the anus, to "provide support" to the soft structures bordering the anus. We think it was just to plug up the hole so poop doesn't leak out while we dissect. The other guy in my group and I were quick to say "Not me" with regards to that.

So I gave Leslie the tampon which she so skillfully put in. Then she removed the applicator and had this look on her face, exclaiming "Was I supposed to take it out!!" The applicator had poop all over it. We all then kind of proceeded to "freak" at the grossness of this lab. Minutes later, we hear a lab group in the near distance freak at something. We concluded they also inserted a tampon into their cadaver's butt.

You know, it's good to know that despite cutting up the bodies and supposedly getting desensitized to it all, we're all still able to become utterly grossed out. Anatomy lab is also a great motivator to get one to at least consider losing weight.

---TANGENT---
I started watching this new TV show, V. It's about aliens, the Visitors, who come to Earth. It's a remake of a show way back when (that I've never even heard about until now). It looks like a good show, so I'm excited to see what happens next.

Also, it doesn't hurt that some of the main characters are hot. ;-)
---END TANGENT---

All-Consuming

Hmm, no one got or seemed to have noticed my reference in the title of my last post. I'm not too surprised; you'd have to be pretty geeky to figure it out. :-P

Anyway, I'm feeling somewhat better today. The cold, gray, cloudy, rainy weather isn't helping any though. Apparently we're supposed to get a frost warning for Sunday morning as the temperature dips to about 28F. Wtf, I hate the Midwest. Must . . . get . . . into . . . residency . . . elsewhere . . .

This morning I went into the anatomy lab with my lab group around 11:30am. We were there until about 3pm. Medicine is an all-consuming field, and is rightly called the "jealous mistress." At the moment, in my current state, that's sort of a good thing. See, the all-consuming nature puts me into a kind of trance. While I'm focused, all that exists are my peers, me, and the body (or patient) before us. While I'm in the anatomy labs life outside is put on hold. I am where no cell phone can reach me, no internet can distract me, no personal emotions/woes can waver me. We all become dedicated with one goal: to identify as many structures as possible and to learn from each other (and other groups' cadavers). We found the elusive torus tubarius (which I still think would make an excellent sci-fi name for a planet) right above the Eustachian tubes, we located the hidden levator veli palatini, and saw the internal thoracic artery (which was easy to find once you know where to look). On one body we saw the glossopharyngeal nerve (cranial nerve IX), which hadn't been successfully dissected out on any other body. While we moved from body to body, our purpose was solitary and almost nothing disturbed our trance-like focus.

This doesn't mean, however, that we didn't have some fun while poking around inside bisected skulls that look no longer human - indeed, some look like zombie aliens that would readily maul your own living face off. We would often encounter some structure whose name would evade our memory. One person with the probe would poke at it, another with the anatomy book would look up the possibilities, and the rest of us would concur (literally saying, "I concur") or not.

The trance is almost absolute. The "outside" world doesn't rush back until I change out of my scrubs. But when it rushes back, it redoubles its force, and I am exhausted. It's an . . . unnerving sensation.
-----
I got a ride back to my apartment from a lab mate, Leslie, because I didn't feel like walking 15 minutes in the drizzling cold. She asked me how the LGBTPM talk went, because she wasn't able to go though she wanted to. Apparently she's super-liberal and is hoping to transfer med schools (you can do that?!) to where her boyfriend is. She knows the dean of admissions at that other med school - who happens to be gay - because she worked for his partner at Planned Parenthood for a couple years.

She was shocked at how conservative our class and our med school was. As far as she could tell, there wasn't a single "out" person in our class. In the car ride back, she asked me if I knew anyone in the class who might be LGBT. *insert hesitant pause here* I responded, "Umm, yeah, me."

Did I just come out to her? Yes. Though I didn't use the words "bi" or "gay" (at the time), simply "I don't know what I am." It seems she has pretty good gaydar and thought I had been out back in undergrad but not here; she was mistaken with that, lol. While in PA, her best friend was so-called "King of the Gays" and she knew many many gay guys - hence her apparently really sensitive gaydar (if only I had that).

At this point we had arrived at my apartment. Upon stepping into my apartment, a sinking feeling overcame me. It was like confessing to a crime - how it gripped my chest. I laid on the couch for a while, napping lethargically. I then sent her an email asking her to keep what we talked about confidential between us - almost as if to absolve myself.

Her response later amused me. If only she were single, perhaps I'd consider my slight crush on her. But alas, the curse meant she of course had a boyfriend. I digressed, in there she assured me that my trust wasn't misplaced and that I should always feel comfortable confiding in her. Also, she offered to be my "wing-woman" should we ever go out to a gay bar/club or something. Fleetingly I felt like Ted Mosby with her as a female version of Barney Stinson (though she's more like Lily Aldrin in personality) from the show How I Met Your Mother, lol.

---TANGENT---
Oh yeah, the one remaining member of our lab group didn't come in to anatomy lab because she was busy shadowing the chief of surgery - scrubbing in and even assisting in a mastectomy (at least insofar as holding the retractors). Gunner. -_- Pfft, she doesn't even know the cranial nerves yet. Now I've got to get my game on.

It may be a while until I post again. Block 2 exams all next week. Joy. So not ready. T.T
---END TANGENT---

The Lizard-Spock Expansion

In my efforts to combat boredom I apparently watched the entire Season 1 of The Big Bang Theory. It's a hilarious show principally about a physicist (nerd) pursuing this hot girl across the hall. His 3 friends are also main characters. Episode 8 of Season 2 is called "The Lizard-Spock Expansion." It's basically an expansion of rock-paper-scissors to rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. The rules are as follows:

Scissor cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock disintegrates rock, and rock crushes scissors.

Apparently these are valid rules as an expansion of rock-paper-scissors. A helpful diagram is shown below:
Anyway, yeah, all that to keep my mind distracted. I've been feeling off lately. Unmotivated, lazy, depressed, lonely, etc. It took a bit of effort to prevent myself from eating ice cream earlier today. I'm not going to vent about it here - not yet, not now.

Last night I chatted a little online with my best friend from uni, JW-M. I'm not exactly sure if he considers me the same way I consider his friendship, but truthfully that matters little to me. He suggested that I should visit him on the other side of the state (about 3.5 hours' drive away). Sadly I don't have a car as both my parents need to work and my brother's using my car to get to work. So I might take a train out there and hang out with him for a couple days. On the weekdays it's about $26 each way.

I don't know, the more I think about it the more I want to go - the more I need to go. To get away, be somewhere new, etc. My trip to China was denied and the more I think about that it hurts. I'm not really in a position to be complaining, I guess. But still. :-/

---TANGENT---
I've gotten a couple responses to my challenge question. To those who've answered, thank you so much!!

To anyone wishing to answer or wishing to add more details to their current response, you have until Wednesday of this week (July 15th) to answer in a comment or email. Again, your responses will be posted anonymously so no one else would know who you are (except me >.>). Don't forget to say if you're cut or uncut - unless you're uncomfortable declaring so. While I understand everyone experiences orgasm (and the process of) somewhat differently, it'd still be interesting to know.

Alright, so if you haven't answered, please please please send me your answer! Again, the post is here.
---END TANGENT---

The Value of Friendship

---TANGENT---
As James pointed out to me, we bloggers in this circle seem to go through cycles of depression and the like. He may post about it, we'll see. Several bloggers have been feeling down of late, like AJ and Landyn. Others might have "coming out anxiety" like Charlie and E. We should all be good friends and give them lots of love and encouragement, as well as the gall to drag them out of the mire of down-ness.
---END TANGENT---

On the outside I usually try to stay as calm and as stoic as possible, as it helps to quite down my emotions enough to allow me to think (and we all know how I tend to over-think). But unbeknownst to many, I have a tendency to soak up the emotions of others. So I often get happy when others around me are happy, and down when others around me are sad or stressed. Even if my own personal situation doesn't concord with those of others, the emotions of others sometimes take priority over my own. I don't know if this is a good or bad then when the lines between my emotions and the emotions of others become blurred.

A couple days ago I was in the bank depositing a check. As I stood in line my eyes began to tear up for no reason at all. I wasn't personally sad, I didn't keep my eyes open for a really long time, and I don't think it was an allergen in the air. But for some reason my eyes just welled up and although I didn't cry, I sure felt it.

I think it was the "weight of the world" kind of thing. How for a while now I've internalized the emotions infused into the posts of other bloggers, and how I've had to deal with my own things. I won't go into them here as it'd only make me sound emo or something, and I'm totally not an emo kind of guy.

I spent much of the evening bumming around in my apartment - without motivation, without inspiration, without want to do anything. I was just lonely and crawling by. Then I IMed my friend, JW-M. (For those who're new, he's probably my best friend from university here and is currently in China for a year.) He just replied, "Hey, I'm playing Neverwinter Nights (NWN) a bit, it's fun." Then he said something like, "We should make a module together!"

For whatever reason, that seemed to pull me out of my personal little mire of despair. Not sure why and I'm not sure why he has the power to do this. But I love him for it. It's totally trivial, really, designing a game mod together. We've attempted in the past with another game or two, but have never been able to finish. He assured me this would be easier if we made it as simple as possible just to get success. He said I could brainstorm storyplot ideas (he knows how much I like to think and come up with random creative things).

So in the span of 5 minutes, he had given me some kind of strange purpose in my life. I don't know, but it made me pretty happy. And it's utterly silly in retrospect - all this over him saying that we should do something with a game together. But hey, we all need random things to perk us up like that every now and then, no?

Other tidbits of my life in the last couple days:

- Apparently I did much better on my pathophysiology exam than I thought. I got an A+ with the curve.

- My cold is progressing on time. I now have a minor cough and a slightly stuffed nose. Great. Too bad my pharmacist friend told me that every study on cold and cough syrup indicate that they do nothing. Note that for the future.

- I went to go see the CSO concert. I don't think I've ever heard all of Beethoven's monumental Symphony #5 in C minor. It was something else. I may do a post on just how the conductor seemed to weave the individual parts of the music from each of the sections into what we call "music." There was much nostalgia in attending a concert.

- I watched Top Chef tonight (well, last night now) with two friends of mine. Oh how we love food, and thus that show. Her roommate also watched with us and would not stop talking! A part of me wanted to say, "Hey, I love talking to you, really, but I can't hear the TV and the volume's up at a decent decibel." After her roommate went to her room, my friend (in a very quiet hushed voiced) apologized for the loquaciousness of her roommate.

- My brother's birthday is today. I'm going to skip going to the gym and he's going to skip class so we can have lunch together.

- My friend, JW-F, will be flying into town late tonight. I haven't seen her since we graduated. It'll be nice to catch up and such. (If you ever wonder who these people are, they're generally listed in the panel on the right of this blog if they're "recurrent characters" in my life.)

Long Week (Addendum)

- I present "Exhibit A" otherwise known as my biotransformation (metabolism of toxicants) notes. Everything in cursive and the organic molecules in the margins are in my writing. I need to know this for an exam the day before Halloween. Grrr.

- AG-F, SR-F, and I went to eat Indian food tonight. We all got dosas (large crepe-like things) and naan (flatbread thing). We all suddenly got full within about 5 minutes of each other. And we're still full I'm sure, and it was painful to walk to AG-F's apartment afterwards.

- I got my absentee ballot in the mail! Yay!!

- I did my laundry on Monday. But I still haven't folded it yet. Yeah.

- My calculator officially died. I need new batteries otherwise I can't do my epidemiology and genetics homework (what IS this, homework in grad school?!).

- I woke up this morning at 7:50am or so, to go help out at a flu clinic about 40 minutes away. We also helped with an anthrax emergency preparedness event. So in the event of bioterrorism, know that (at least in my state) the government has your back health-wise.

- I tried to play Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, with my friend TR-M (JR-M's older brother) because he's been wanting to play with me for like 4 days. Alas, our internet connections didn't like each other. We tried to connect to each other's games for about an hour before giving up.

- My friend JW-M, all the way from Beijing, notified me of the new Blizzard game developments. That effectively disrupted my studying for quite some time. The new Diablo 3 game just announced their 3rd class, the wizard! I'm SO going to play the wizard. Don't judge, just know that even future health professionals play video games from time to time.

- This firefox add-on called ctrl-tab is amazing! I'm so going to use this, as I tend to have like a thousand tabs open at once.

- Heroes is becoming more and more ridiculous, and yet I still watch that show. It's getting interestingly weird now, haha. SR-F was like, "I'm not watching this anymore." Meanwhile, I got AG-F hooked on it, lol.

- AG-F in lab, turning on the computer: "I don't know why I turned the computer on. It's because it has a button. If it has a button, it must be pushed. It's a rule."

- Several times this week I've wanked (I suppose everyone's using this particular slang nowadays) twice within 2 hours. I feel like something's out of balance, because that's way more than usual for me. And now perhaps I've said too much.

- JR-M's girlfriend looks kind of like Allison Mack (from the show Smallville). They could be sisters, except JR-M's girlfriend has blue eyes.

- When I go to sleep tonight, I'm not setting an alarm tomorrow. If I wake up at noon, so be it. And it will be glorious.

I think this brings my long week to a final close.

A Day in the Life of Me

I had such an amusing day. Well, I consider it amusing, I can't say for anyone else.

First a little snippet about yesterday. A PhD, MPH guy came to speak on the topic of epigenetics in my toxicology class (aka, anti-pharmacy). He was hot! He was tall, lean but muscular, had a rugged beard and voice, and was only wearing a shirt and jeans. He looked to be in his late-20s or early-30s at most. The podium was in my way from visually undressing him. XD

Now, today. I didn't have class today and when I woke up, I just did not want to go to the School of Public Health (SPH). Several of us were getting together to check our genetics homework around 1pm. Well, I got to SPH around 11:15am, so I decided to go to the gym. Going to the gym in the middle of the day is strategically brilliant, as it's rather empty and you don't have to feel super-embarassed when lifting weights. However, it also makes me hate my body. :(

You see, all the old men and women exercise in the middle of the day. And today I was running on the track behind two girls. I see an old man, probably in his 60s, stretching for a run too and I think he'll go at his nice leisurely old man pace. I pass the girl in front of me then suddenly the old man passes both us! And after I finished my 1 mile on the track, he was still going!! So not only did this elderly guy pass me, he ran more than me too! And in the weight room, there were some buff old men on the machines. Even the old ladies seemed fitter than me.

There's just something wrong with me, in my early-20s still, theoretically in the prime of my life, being out-gymed by people in their 50s+. Also, the locker room is NOT a pleasant sight. So many old men who don't make proper use of the towel. >.<

Well, anyway, I go to SPH and go through the genetics homework. Then I plop down and begin to finish my last online training module. Soon BA-M, a 2nd-year in a couple of my classes, comes by and tells us there's free food. The girl I was sitting across from and I quickly pack up our laptops, walk over to the other 2 girls we were checking homework with, and said "Free food downstairs." The speed at which binders and backpacks closed was unprecedented. We were downstairs next to the food within a minute. It was good food too!! Left over form some seminar. I feel that, as grad students, we develop some 6th sense about free food and we hunt down the free food all too readily.

After I had finished my work, I went to a store to find a present for my friend, RZ-F, who will be visiting tomorrow (and her birthday's on Monday). I didn't know what to get, but then I saw the head massager!! It was great, I surprised my friend SR-F with it. If you've never tried one of these things, you must, it's great. People's reactions to it the first time are hilarious. As my friend, JW-M, described to me, "It's like a sex for your head. It feels like your head's kind of having an orgasm." Well, something like that, but that's what my brain heard.

Later in the evening, SR-F, AG-F, and I watched the new episodes of Heroes. That show's getting a bit too weird . . . I'm not sure if I'm going to keep watching. Anyway, we decided to go to Buffalo Wild Wings afterwards because AG-F really wanted something spicy. On the way, we were talking about lab and such. In particular, how grad students all laugh when a professor says he/she has "an army of undergrads." Haha, oh to be an undergrad minion/peon/slave.

It seems my old researcher has a new undergrad working for her now. At one point, she had 3 working under her including me. She has had the most undergrads out of anyone in my former lab. So she really had an army of undergrads to do her bidding. Man, now I want my own undergrad minion/peon/slave. Just one! I should get a research position first though . . . which I'll have once the administrative dust clears!! One day, when I become an attending, I'll have my army of residents and med students. Oh, that'll be fun. And my pharmacy friend, SR-F, will have her own army of residents and pharmacy students. :P

So yeah, that was pretty much my day. I just love having amusing conversations with my friends, who're all in grad school, as we reminisce about undergrad and wanting undergrad minions/peons/slaves of our own some day.

---TANGENT---
A while ago, Hypnos sent me a song called Heria Psila (Hands High) by Mixalis Xatzigiannis. It's a Greek song that's been stuck in my head on and off. A little while back I decided to see if I could find a music video on YouTube. And I did, and this Greek is HOT!! :D

---END TANGENT---

Inspired

I finished my last final exam yesterday! That's a good feeling - the last final of my undergraduate career. I'm pretty sure I did pretty well on it too, so I should get an A in that class. I'm having a somewhat rough time believing that in a few days, it'll be graduation and many of my friends will be leaving very soon thereafter. That's rather sad. There's always the reunion . . .

Anyway, after my exam I went to where JW-M works and just watched an episode of Top Chef, haha. I was inspired to cook something "real." So when I went back to my apartment, I cooked a side of "herbed" fried rice. Basically, fried rice with the requisite white rice, scrambled egg, mixed vegetables, and soy sauce. To that, I also added garlic powder, black pepper, and parsley.

The main dish was a kind of new pork based off of a pork dish I'd made before. Basically, marinate the pork in soy sauce, rice wine, black pepper, garlic powder, oregano, and thyme overnight. Those flavors soak in rather nicely. Next day, chop up a little ginger and a whole onion. Saute the ginger briefly in a wok (or pan, but I use a wok because that's all I have) then add the pork. Cook the pork evenly on both sides, add in the remaining marinade. Then add the chopped onions. Saute the onions around a bit. Add a little chipotle ranch dressing and ketchup, mix it around, and it creates a nice saucy glaze on the onions.

Then serve and eat. Mmm . . . it actually made my pork taste a little like steak. The oils and fats drain rather well on a plate, so it stays put and not on your pork or onions. Pork was rather tender too, so that's good. So that's my recipe. I don't measure out exact amounts, only what "looks" to be right, haha.

---TANGENT---
So I was browsing the news yesterday, and I came across an article about how masturbation reduces prostate cancer risk. Well, I suppose I'll get on that (and I'll enjoy it too, haha).

Also, when I was looking at my 100th Post post about 2 days ago, Blogger did something weird where it erased everything partway through #34 on my list. Grrr. I've since gone back and re-entered #35 to #100, but I couldn't remember all that I wrote the first time. So some of them are new, many are repeats from the first time, and those are almost certainly out-of-order.

If you have time, you're welcome to go back and read what new random stuff I added, haha.
---END TANGENT---

The Things that Come Up

This is going to be an epically bad week for me. Had 2 quizzes yesterday, an exam this morning, a paper due tomorrow morning, another quiz tomorrow, and a Chinese presentation due Thursday as well as a really long Chinese homework . . . on top of everything else. Yeah, I shouldn't be blogging right now. Oh well.
-----
Anyway, I was have a conversation with DvF-M yesterday about epic literature, literally. We were discussing epic poetry like The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid. It started because he saw some ad on TV for the Beowulf movie that's coming out, and about how it totally ruins the original epic poem. Well, the poem was written in Old English before Latin influence, so many words and grammar in Old English doesn't exist in today's English. It's like reading Classical Chinese and modern Chinese - it's really hard to do. Well, we debated that back and forth about how already so much is lost in translation, that a movie couldn't be that much worse (well, I argued that).

Then we decided to discuss what's actually considered an epic poem or an epic. Really, the last epic written was The Lord of the Rings, by Tolkien in the 1950s. Are epics rare throughout history? It seems so, I think.

Incidentally, epic poetry is almost entirely absent from East Asian cultures. What they have is the epic novel, like The Lord of the Rings. Supposedly, the first novel was The Tales of Genji from Japan. China never had epic poems, as most Chinese (and Japanese) poems are really short. Apparently, words are intentionally kept out of the poems because they're implied, and "what's left unsaid" was considered artistic and beautiful. Chinese poetry does have a certain flow to it, I must admit. It's also kind of hard to understand because it can be interpreted and translated in so many ways.

Now, the Chinese epics are all books or novels. For example, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, and Dream of Red Chamber (also called The Story of Stone). These are all ingrained into Chinese culture, as indicative of any epic I think. Journey to the West is the one I know most about, but still I haven't read any of them in English (and certainly not in Chinese). And that's why I'm going to take a course next semester in it, or at least I intend to. Epics for the win!
-----
Today right before my evolution exam, I was sitting in class talking to my friend, JP-F. She's taking animal physiology lab this semester and apparently, it's an amazing lab (I believe it). JP-F was recounting how in lab yesterday they had to do an experiment where the frog/toad they were using had to be dead. Well, some people weren't able to kill their frogs/toads all the way, so they were still partly alive, and it was quite disturbing.

At this moment, EC-F turned around to comment how amazing that lab is, lol. A few seconds more of discussion and JP-F mentions another experiment she found disturbing. In this one, they had to cut a rat's tail near the base where it meets the body to collect blood samples (I don't think they cut the tail off). Apparently, blood goes everywhere as the rats run around in pain (heck, I would).

I commented with something like: "In research, my lab cuts off the very tip of mice tails to get DNA samples. You can only cut the tails before a certain age because if the mice are young enough, the nerve endings haven't connected to the end of the tail yet, so they don't feel pain."

Okay, I must note that I dislike hurting/killing things with the exception of certain insects (flies, mosquitoes, ants, wasps, the like). I try to avoid stepping on worms and such, and I don't even like harming plants, well possibly because I love plants.

So anyway, EC-F mentioned how people cut the tails off dogs when they're puppies. JP-F and I looked at her in kind of a dull shock for a few seconds. So, part of the tails of hunting dogs are cut off, and some other dogs have their tails "modified" for aesthetic purposes. I would imagine that it'd hurt, and EC-F and JP-F certainly agreed. Then EC-F was like, "The dog thing is kind of like circumcising male human infants. It hurts but they don't remember it."

Well at this point, with the mentioning of that one word, a really weird and uncomfortable feeling came over me. It wasn't like a chilling effect. It was more like a "my stomach collapsed and all my internal organs are rearranging themselves" kind of feeling (you get the idea, yes?). It was quite uncomfortable. All I could manage to say was, "That doesn't make it right nor acceptable." (And seriously, just because babies don't remember it doesn't make it right nor acceptable.) Why does that one word - circumcise (and its variations) - disable me so when said out loud? Here I am - someone who has no problems dissecting a mouse or frog, who can watch surgeries and eat pizza at the same time (actually, that's a short scene from the first season of Grey's Anatomy, but I could if the situation came up) amongst other things, but that one word makes me shudder. It's weird, and it's kind of like my fear of heights.
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Okay, change of topic. My Chinese presentation is taking too long. Grrr, it sucks that it has to be all in Chinese (logically). I just happen to choose a fairly difficult topic to talk about and am having to look up translations to words I'll probably never use again. I guess I'll work on it later. I had contemplating not sleeping tonight, but that wouldn't have been a good idea and I've never pulled an all-nighter and don't intend to.

Now, to quote my roommate, DvF-M: "You're a weird man, Aek." Well, that I am. :P

Well, Crap

So the state of things: crap. I try to refrain from venting/ranting, but sometimes I just have to let it out.

The apartment: is a mess (by my standards). I guess it's not that bad considering 4 guys live in the apartment, but still. We have cardboard boxes in a huge pile that's been sitting near the door since we moved in. Yesterday and today, there was a weird fish-like smell coming from somewhere. I swear it must be AW-M, as he's the only one that eats fish (tuna) in the apartment. I hate tuna, it smells so bad so fast. Anyway, took out the trash while DvF-M Fabreeze'd the whole apartment. It's better now. Oh yeah, it also seems that DvF-M and I are the only ones who take things out of the dishwasher, put them away, and put all the dirty dishes that pile up in the sink into the dishwasher. That's getting really old really fast. The apartment also desperately needs to be vacuumed, as the last time was when we moved in at the beginning of September. Note to roommates: I AM NOT A MAID.

My health: I'm over my cold, for the most part. I've had this lingering residual cough for the last week or so. It's really annoying as it "flares" up at night and early in the morning. I've woken up in the middle of the night twice already hacking my lungs out. That is not fun. And while I've been going to the gym 3x a week with JW-M and JL-M, I can't help but feel like I'm still getting fat. Which really makes no sense, since I can see muscle developing underneath it all, and I don't eat that much (which makes me really hungry at random times), and I tend to eat rather healthy (i.e. I cook most of what I eat, so I know exactly what's going in). In any case, I still need to sleep more.

Social life: is scant. For whatever reason, I'm really out of the loop with all of my groups of friends this year. Somehow, my groups of friends has dwindled to 3 circles from more than 6 freshman year. This is very sad, as we all don't live in the dorms anymore (one of the few things I miss about the dorms) and live scattered on opposing sides of the campus. At least I've made time to see some friends, but it's just a bit weird that it's practically scheduled. Like Friday evenings at SR-F's and JW-F's apartment for dinner and watching the week's Heroes and House afterwards. Great shows those are; I don't watch much TV, but I watch those. I also used to watch Grey's Anatomy but haven't wanted to watch it since the actor who played Preston Burke left the show. That, and the drama's getting a bit ridiculous. Anyway, yeah, seeing friends really only a couple times a week is kind of depressing.

Family life: may be somewhat strained. Usually I don't mind talking to my parents on the phone, but I just can't stand their nagging in person. Now I don't even really want to talk to them on the phone. I know they mean well but it's so annoying. And some of the things they say makes me go "wtf." Like when my dad said my evolution and ecology classes weren't "real" sciences classes - umm, yeah, they are (they may not be "hard" science classes, but they are legitimate science classes). I know I'm getting frustrated and I can sense the rebellion in my voice when I talk, and I don't approve of this. I feel like I just want to be left alone for a while, except that's really just delaying things.

Non-classes: is alright, I guess. Research has started, and again my PCR (polymerase chain reaction, for anyone who's curious) isn't giving me clean results. I suspect contamination from somewhere, which would suck. At least one of my friends, AG-F, is working in the lab right next to me. It's good to have someone in your same "tier" to talk to. Normally I go in, do my research, then leave. But I can actually talk to someone now while doing stuff, and that's cool. She also let me have a mouse to practice a dissection on. The gory details are somewhat interesting (to me). I don't like touching mice when they're alive, as I fear they'll bite me. But once dead, it's like "whatever." I decapitate the mouse, then bisect the head, then scoop out the brains from each side, then I take out the cochlea which is part of the inner ear. This part wasn't so hard. Now, to clean the cochlea of surrounding tissue under a microscope using a tweezer as a blade . . . needless to say, I completely crushed one of the cochleas I extracted. It sounds gruesome, and it is. It's definitely not something I want to be doing often.

Anyway, other non-class stuff. My tutoring-like job has been going well so far (I say tutoring-like because it's not really tutoring, since we're forbidden to give answers to anything). I led a review session for their genetics exam this last Monday. I hope they all did well. Pops Orchestra has been meh as usual (at least it's better than last year ::shudders::). The music is alright, but the cellos sometimes get shafted in that we play like one note with differing rhythms the whole piece. Sometimes I feel like quitting, but since I sit 4th chair, that'd look really really bad. But, String Orchestra is amazing. It's such a close-knit group by comparison, and is really just a chamber strings group. We have an excellent selection of music, which is also pleasantly challenging for all members. It was a good idea for JW-F to come up with and create this group, with some help from SR-F and a tiny bit from me. There's a very intimate feeling when you're playing in an ensemble, like you let your music speak for you as you harmonize with everyone else.

I could do a whole post on music, and perhaps that's what I'll blog about next. Now, I think I'll relax by masturbating or something (see Cody, I'm making time for it, sort of) and then sleep. Ugh, it's almost 3am. How did that happen?

Unbelievable!

Ugh, I didn't get paid. I went to the office today with another undergrad who works with me to pick up my payment stub (I've direct deposit) and his paycheck, but it seems that they forgot to pay us. We were shocked and rather outraged. All they had to do was pay us once every other week, is that so hard to do or keep track of?! They, meaning the university I'm working in, have serious finance/administration issues it seems. If this were an organization or company, someone would be fired by now. Gah!!

It took over a month to get my paperwork through, and another month or so before my direct deposit took effect. That's more than a month of not getting paid at all! And when my paperwork did go through, they wanted me to fill out my timesheets online, but didn't give me an ID and password to do it. So the head of the office fills in the hours for me, which feels dubious. I've also worked, by now, A LOT more than I'm actually getting paid for, since I'm working there through an undergraduate program. So is the other undergrad. Wait until this one post-doc hears about this tomorrow morning, he'll go berserk for us, haha.

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So it seems like I've almost NO "gaydar" whatsoever. This one chef on the show Top Chef, Dale Levitski, is gay, and I didn't realize this entire time (by the way, Top Chef is an awesome show - one of the few that I watch). I hope he makes it to the end, I like him and he's not an ass like some others on that show. Anyway, not that it matters really, I just find it amusing how my gaydar seems so non-existent. It seems to work for lesbians/bisexual women somewhat better though, but that's probably because I know several whereas I don't have any gay friends (none that I know of anyway).

The only time my gaydar works is if the guy's really "flamboyant" (i.e. wears very particular clothes, moves in a very particular way, talks with a lisp or whatever, etc), but those gay guys tend to bother me. I don't have anything against them, it's just one of those things that bothers me. I also have a sort-of policy of actively trying not to "judge a book by its cover" and I guess that constitutively represses what gaydar I might have.
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