A Jewel

I've been mulling over a particular thought the last few days. To those who I talk to online and have been absent the last couple days, I apologize. I will frame this thought in this post and then follow-up on it in my next post.

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The title of this post is from the 5th scene of my friend JR-M's 30-minute movie. The main character, Jeremiah, goes to a church to talk to a priest. An excerpt of the scene is as follows:

Jeremiah: Think it's possible for one man to change the world, Father?

Priest: The world?! Oh, heavens, that's an awfully big piece of pie. But I think a man can find his jewel.

Jeremiah: His jewel?

Priest: You see, I think of us all as empty rings, or pendants. Each one of us is searching for that one thing that we can do to make ourselves, and our place in this world, complete. And when he sees it, it will be as brilliant as heaven itself.
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And so I ask myself, and you, what is my (your) jewel? Who, or what, are you going to devote yourself to?

JR-M also included in the insert to his DVD the following pic:
Cryptic words with no punctuation. It's difficult to say what is truly meant by these words. However, I'd like to interpret the phrase as the following:

"In shackles we have awaited yet torn asunder. We're born to light and new worlds, ye great minds of true men . . ."

If my interpretation is correct (and if I accurately know a thing or two about my friend), the above probably means something to the effect that many of us somehow feel stifled or suppressed by some unseen force. It wears us down, it literally chains us. But we all have a chance to do something, to shape this world. All that lacks is the mind, and the will.

What do you think?

---TANGENT---
I'm mildly annoyed that I got a B+ in Intro to Epidemiology. The class wasn't even hard or anything, but that final (posted briefly here) was ridiculous! I bet it single-handedly brought down my grade from an A/A- borderline.

The one grade I AM pissed about is Pathophysiology. As I've said before, I freaking loved this class. I did really well on the first 2 exams. I didn't do nearly as well on this last exam, but then again I studied for less than 24 hours and still got a B on that exam. However, that B dragged my overall grade down to an A-. BUT! When I calculated my grade average, it should've been in the "A range." I'm fighting for that A for the mere principle that I deserved that grade. Apparently, the difference between an A and A- in grad school is bigger than in undergrad (my grad school is on an 8.000-scale that I have yet to figure out).
---END TANGENT---

Winter Break!!

ZOMG, I'm done with exams and Winter Break has finally arrived for me. I don't even care what I get on those exam, haha. Now that I'm home, it's going to be a pretty chill break with me not going anywhere really. This break I hope/plan to (in no real particular order of importance):

• hang out/catch up with a few friends in town
• catch up on several blogs and link them
• sort my blog list
• sort my pics on my laptop
• sort my music on my laptop
• sort my bookmarks on my internet browser (I've way too many bookmarks)
• watch TV shows, anime, and movies I have on my USB
• watch, sort, and delete porn off my laptop (too much that's just there and that I don't watch)
• finish reading The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax
• read The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• watch all of the Planet Earth series on DVD
• draw the pic "commissioned" by my friend, SA-F (like 2 years ago, lol)
• draw the pic "commissioned" by Hish of Minding the Heart
• draw the pic(s) "commissioned" by James of Just me
• play my piano
• master DDR (or at least get to 5-feet/5-star solidly)
• finish the game story plot for the Neverwinter Nights module my friend JW-M and I are making
• write 2 chapters of my story (I'm not the only blogger out there writing a book, though this story's not meant to be a published book)
• do my "homework" for public health (I know, right?!) and other online "errands"
• come up with a workout plan and "diet" that I'd actually follow next semester (and hopefully lose 20 lbs - I only went to the gym like 4 times between Thanksgiving and now)

I think that's about it . . . If I can get through all that it'd be pretty amazing, honestly. And now, some Lolcat. :D

Must Be Productive . . .

So . . . I had my epidemiology final today. It was EPIC. Epic in the sense that it was literally impossible to finish. I guess the 2nd-years weren't joking when they told us that, haha.

Here's the breakdown of the exam. 2 hours. Open notes/resources (as long as it's not with another person or utilizes technology). 30 questions. Each question has its own page. Most questions had multiple parts to them.

I got through like, 2/3 of all the questions (so I finished like 20 questions). I skipped most of the questions I didn't answer not because I couldn't (eventually) figure them out, but rather because they take a long time to figure out how to do. When time was called, I just drew smiley faces on those pages I didn't answer. At least there's (hopefully) going to be a MASSIVE curve, because very few people (if any) actually finished that exam.

It's snowing hardcore outside and I'm procrastinating. I have one more exam to go - pathophysiology - tomorrow. I figure, I might as well post and get some of the procrastination out of my system.

And here's an entertaining YouTube vid: Tetris with lyrics.


Enjoy. Now I'm off to study the nervous system, skin, muscle, gastrointestinal tract, and liver for tomorrow.

Just Gotta Press On

What's it like to have the ground freeze beneath your feet, the mud tracks becoming solid, within the span of a day? A little disconcerting I must say. I think I must utilize the final evolution in my winter-gear. Time to bust out the eskimo-like coat. I hoped it wouldn't have had to come to this this year, but alas.

I apologize for not blogging in the last several days. I've been quite busy studying for my finals this week. Two down and two more to go! On Wednesday I'll be DONE.

You know, it's kind of sad when in order to study for an exam, you need to think about all the ways people die. For one class it's cancer - breast and colorectal especially. For today's toxicology final I had to review things like alcohol poisoning, drug overdosing, heavy metal exposure (lead, mercury, etc), and such. And on Wednesday is pathophysiology - so basically what happens when something goes wrong with the body. So. Much. Death. No wonder doctors have some of the highest rates of suicide.

Here's my public service announcement. Do NOT take alcohol with Tylenol (acetaminophen). Both damage the liver in large quantities, but the combination creates something called reactive oxygen species that literally use electrons to punch holes into the surrounding liver cells, resulting in liver failure. Death soon follows liver failure. See?! Death!!

What's sadder is when you see something that makes you initially get excited before you realize what's going on and then get sad. For example, KS-F told me her cousin has colon cancer. At age 22. Right away I suspected FAP genotype (basically, you start getting colon polyps at age 10-12 and these have a 100% chance of becoming cancer by the time one's 17 if left untreated). I was excited to know what's the likely cause of colon cancer in such a young person, and I suggested genetic counseling for her family (though she seems to be fine, so she didn't inherit it). Then I realized how ridiculously sad it was to have colon cancer at 22.

Later I talked this over with AG-F and she agreed. The genetic counseling students would get all excited over an interesting/unique case in conference, but then they meet the people. And when you meet the people these diseases affect, you can't help but feel sad (and a little ashamed that you were so excited by the disease in the first place). Such is the world of health care professionals. The day I stop seeing people as people and start seeing people as just walking symptoms/diseases is the day I've lose my humanity.

Last Day of Classes!

I thought this day would never come. The semester dragged on and on until Thanksgiving, then suddenly it's all over now.

I went to work (research) today. I won't go into the details here, but my experiment epic failed on me and I lost 3 hours of my life. I want them back. I did nothing wrong! Stupid buffer. This exemplifies why I hate research sometimes.

I got my anti-pharmacy grade back from the exam I took last night. 24/28, the mean was 22.9/28. Not bad considering I studied for less than 2 days. This'll probably end up as a B+ or A-, or maybe an A if I'm really lucky. So as long as I don't get lower than an A- on the final, I should get an A of some sort in this class. Oddly, I don't find myself caring much.

It rained today, which sucked. It melted most of the snow. As much as I hate the cold, I hate cold icy rain even more. I would take the snow over icy rain any day.

A clothing store in town was going out of business. So I went with SR-F and we each bought a T-shirt for $4.22. That's a pretty damn good deal. It took me FOREVER to find a medium-size shirt; most were L, XL, or XXL. I mean, honestly, an XXL can almost fit two of me.

JW-M sent me an email today with the subject line as "oh yes, they do exist." Refer to the pic below:
This was in Xi'an. Those are the "famous" biang biang noodles. Notice how ridiculous the first two characters are (the two large characters on the left and middle)! I mean, "biang" isn't even a legal pronounciation in Mandarin! Anyway, the old Asian man icon thing is pretty badass, as well as that super-char composed of very common component-chars.

I Missed You!!

Picture from here.

Hey, I'm back! You may have noticed a few minor-ish changes to the blog format and the pic in the header. I bet you missed me as much as I missed you (or maybe you didn't notice my absence). A few things to update.

Yesterday was my friend JW-M's birthday. He's in Beijing studying abroad right now. I wished him a happy birthday online and on Facebook. I also told him that I loved him as a friend, something I've never said to a friend before (I think). And it's true, I value his friendship very dearly. He also told me that I was the one "true friend" he made in college, so that was really touching. I almost teared up a little.

I took my toxicology (anti-pharmacy) exam today. It was kind of rough but shouldn't be too bad, considering I just started studying for it yesterday.

I finished my term paper!! It is epic 12 pages with 13 references. The policy proposal I came up with is quite novel, if I do say so myself, as it doesn't involve government legislation to proceed with regulation. My topic is the need for regulation on PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis).

In a nutshell: PGD is where they take 1-2 cells from the early embryo and do a genetic test on the DNA to see if that embryo has any genetic diseases. The embryo isn't destroyed in the process and can be implanted into the womb.

Now, some issues I had to address in my paper:

1. Cost and access. PGD isn't cheap at about $5000 and most health insurances won't cover it. That's clearly a health disparity along economic lines, and the poor who may need this technology can't access it.

2. PGD for controversial medical use. There is the case of Molly Nash. She was born with Fanconi's anemia, a fatal childhood genetic disease. Her parents used PGD to conceive a second child who was born free of the disease and was an HLA match with her sister. Because he was selected as an embryo to be an HLA match, doctors could then transfer his bone marrow into Molly to save her life. Were the parents ethically/morally right in "commissioning" a second child to save a first?

3. PGD for sex selection. Should PGD be used to select the gender of one's child? The only accepted indication in the medical field is when there's an X-linked disease in the family that would be bad for a male offspring. But the private sector can do whatever it wants in this respect.

4. PGD for non-disease genetic traits. Let's put it this way. Should deaf parents use PGD to make sure that their children are also deaf? Should straight parents use PGD to ensure their children are straight, or gay parents use PGD to ensure their children are gay (assuming the children is conceived via surrogacy and there is a single gay gene - which there is NOT)?

5. PGD and public health. If we could use PGD to eliminate genetic diseases from the population, should we? Can we? There are dire ramifications when we mess with the diversity of the human genome. For example, when a person only has one copy of the sickle-cell anemia gene mutation that person is resistant to malaria, but two copies of that gene mutation causes full-blown sickle-cell anemia. We don't know enough about the human genome to mess with it. And even if we do, I don't think we should.

So those are the interesting issues I had to consider and ponder and come up with some kind of regulatory policy on. If your head's spinning, don't worry. Mine was too on Saturday as I was on page 4 of 12.

Anyway, I realize (for the 100th time or something) that I post really long posts. I apologize, but that's unlikely to change, and that's probably why I don't have 20,000+ page-views. I mean, I'm not THAT boring am I?

Picture from here.

I really liked that picture. A lot of bloggers have been down lately. If you're one of them, and you see this, or you know a blogger who is in need of some cheer, send them this or an e-hug or something.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

A belated Thanksgiving thought. I went to bed a couple nights ago with a random smile, as I thought of how my grandpa will be 80 in about 3 months and how he's still so ridiculously healthy (no medication of any kind). I'm thankful that he's in amazing health, that he wakes up with a smile almost every day, that he's still enjoying what life has to offer.

In a different vein, I'm thankful for all the e-friends I've made through this blog. I'm thankful for the (seemingly) handful of readers that come my way. While it hasn't felt like I've changed much or grown since I started this blog, I know that to be false. The bigger question is, what's the next step?

I want to make a massive overture to a particular subject that I'm thankful for. Those with access to it probably don't think much on it, but rather, just expect it. My next post, the one on this, may be a while from now. I'm considering taking a mini-hiatus for a week or so (somehow I don't think I'll be misssed) to finish my term paper and study for my 4-5 exams. In the mean time, I hope these random thoughts below amuse you.

1. So, for the last few days, I kept thinking I had an appointment with my adviser at 2pm tomorrow (Monday, Dec. 1). But I knew that I'd have to miss my pathophysiology lecture about 30 minutes early, and that's my favorite class. I agreed, and she was meeting with all her advisees at once I think, somewhere on the 6th floor. I realize now that it was all a dream. There is no appointment meeting. Now I wonder how much of my other scheduling events are the result of a dream. Hmmm.

2. I had a dream last night where I was traveling to Beijing, China. My dad was with me for some reason. We drove to the airport, where we got on a plane but we had to transfer to another plane for some reason in Chicago or something. My dad got in a fight with the pilot and was then handcuffed to his seat. So we're on this plane to San Francisco (my dad handcuffed to his seat), where we stop before arriving in Beijing. For some reason I was really anxious and/or apprehensive about flying, which I rarely am. There were storms expected ahead and I wasn't sure if the pilot was going to attempt to fly through them or go around. Anyway, I woke up mid-dream and I tried forcing myself back to sleep to finish the dream. I hate waking up mid-dream. Anyone else do that?

3. Some Lolcats pics. From this site, of course.

I love this site, haha. It's the most addicting distraction I've come across in a while. My friend and I just kept sending each other links for about an hour.

4. Last, but not least, I'd like to introduce (who haven't come across it yet) the blog Equal Eight. It's rather hilarious, so go over and say hi! :D