Merry Christmas!

Just thought I'd wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Got some awesome presents this year: Scrubs Season 4, a music CD, and a shirt, to name a few of my gifts. And one of my friends still hasn't given me my present yet, but from what I hear, it should be pretty awesome.

What topped the cake this year, though, was a pair of pajama pants that one of my friends made for me. That's right: made for me. A picture of these pants will follow below.

I actually got these pants a few days ago, but because of the klutz that I am, I tore them down the middle the VERY FIRST time I put them on. Kind of like this (the unhappy face shows the rip):

Needless to say, I was quite upset. My mom still can't figure out how I ripped them because it wasn't even along the seam. I think it was just because I got a little over-excited and ripped my pants in the process of pulling the drawstrings too tightly.

Anyways, thankfully I have an awesome grandmother who used to be a seamstress. To make a long story short (and to gloss over the several times I was ridiculed for being so stupid), she fixed them so that they look good as new! So here you are...my new pajama pants!

(you can't even see the rip, unless of course you're looking really closely at my crotch)

Quality Service

A few weeks ago, my mom noted that a pack of Cheezies (not the Cheetos brand) was extremely salty, so she complained to my sister. My sister in turn sent an email to the company telling them about this.

Today, she gets a package in the mail labeled "Fragile"...and lo and behold, it's a box containing 2 bags of Cheezies (the bags contained 8 smaller bags each)! The Fragile warning cracked me up, but not as much as the fact that it cost more than $10 to ship the package, when the cheezies themselves probably cost no more than $2 for them to produce. Talk about good PR!

Gingerbread house

Worked with some classmates to make a gingerbread house for a competition, and we won! To see our rendition of Narnia, from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, check out my website at www.ualberta.ca/~cgee/.

Although I don't think this design was as good as our house from last year (we made Hogwarts - pictures of this are also available on my website), we probably won because our house was considerably bigger and therefore more noticeable than last year's entry. Also, we spent a lot of time designing figurines out of dough, which impressed the judges.

The construction wasn't without its hitches: it took us literally all week to construct (who needs to study nowadays? :P ), and half of my group members never showed up to help, which created quite a problem when we were putting together the house. Because of the latter problem, our group actually ended up 'cheating' a little by using cardboard and crazy glue to support our structure, and the house's flimsy design caused it to collapse pretty much after it was judged.

That being said, all of the other groups were using similar supports for their houses, but we had originally intended to make everything using edible materials. However, without the adequate manpower, we were unable to put the house together in time, which was rather annoying, because it forced us to cut corners on the construction. And even then, we ended up staying until 2 am the last two days in order to complete the house by the deadline. That just shows that having more people in a group isn't necessarily better, especially when the other group members are unreliable!

Nonetheless, with a bit of careful planning, we finished the design, brought it over to the judging room intact (barely!) and managed to win the contest (dinner with the dean of medicine. woohoo!). Who would have thought our design would be good enough to beat the group that made the Alberta Legislature (who incidentally, consisted of the same people who designed the Dentistry-Pharmacy building, last year's winning entry)!

Close call

I signed up to do a small discussion group at a high school today, so I ended up getting a ride with a classmate. Before going, though, we stopped at another place so that this classmate could pick up a poster. No big deal, except for the fact that he enters a "Do not Enter" zone and parks in a spot that is obviously not a parking spot. But what the hey, he's only going to be gone for a second; what are the chances he'll be caught?

So, since there's a couple of us getting a ride from this person, we're waiting in the car together and chatting away. A few minutes pass, and one of us notices a parking attendant writing a ticket! We freak out and tell the guy that we're about to leave, and he says, "Too bad, I saw you guys come in from the 'Do not Enter' zone. If my thing [ticket dispenser] weren't broken, you'd be getting a ticket!"

And before he can come back and write our information, we drive off (since our classmate left his keys in his car). That in itself was a challenge, though, since only one of us knew how to drive standard, and we couldn't figure out how to start the car for the longest time. Talk about a lucky break!

"He plays guitar AND piano?!? That's hot"

Went to the James Blunt concert yesterday with a friend and had a great time. Am now hooked onto another band, Starsailor, the guest band, which one of my cousins happens to love and is a little jealous that I didn't ask her to go. So twenty years down the line when we're both practicing medicine, and I'm barely making ends meet while she's raking in the cash, we can look back, and I can say, "Remember the time when I should have studied for that Repro exam but instead saw Starsailor? That was great!" And that will be my one highlight of my life that will even remotely compare to her other accomplishments. :P

So yes, instead of studying for my midterm, I went to this concert and had a blast. Yes, James Blunt is popular, and no, it wasn't an all-girls event. I think it was amazing to see how much energy he has throughout the whole concert...and his eyes just bulge out and look everywhere. It's crazy!

Surprisingly, even though it was a "James Blunt" concert, he really has a band (which makes sense, but wasn't intuitive from the ticket advertisements), so we got to see him play on the guitar and the piano (hence the comment that my friend made about him). We even got to hear some songs for his new album, which were half-decent. The lighting effects were also rather impressive...if I can convince my friend to send me her pictures, maybe I'll post some pictures up some time.

In spite of the fact that there was a drunk lady in the row in front of me who thought she could dance, I was quite pleased with the concert. The music was good, and I got a Starsailor cd out of it. I may have done poorly on today's exam, buy I think it was well worth it!

Let's Talk About...

As part of a small group exercise today, some of us were expected to interview patients regarding sexual history. Because other groups had already done this on Monday, we all knew what to expect, and there was one interview that NONE of us wanted to do. These were all standardized patients, so they were all actors, but one of them was supposed to pretend to have a lower than average IQ. And APPARENTLY, the reason why she was there was so we could explain the intricacies of sex to her.

With enough practice, I'm sure we would all be more than capable to interview this patient and educate her, but since this was our first try at giving a sexual history, none of us really wanted to do this, because we had heard some rather embarrassing stories from Monday. As a result, none of us volunteered to give the interview, so we were randomly drawn. And guess who got picked?

Oh yes, it was me. I'm apparently very lucky when it comes to draws, but this was one draw I didn't want to win. If you know me, you'll know that I'm not very comfortable talking about this subject matter in general, let alone in front of 7 other people. I realize that I'll have to get more comfortable with this in due time, but I would have rathered starting off in a smaller group and after having watched other people go through this ordeal.

So there I am, trying to explain the birds and the bees to this girl, and stumbling hopelessly through the interview. My only saving grace was the fact that I could call timeouts to regroup, and I called a lot of those! Everyone said that I did fine, but I'm sure that my face turned a gazillion shades of red throughout that talk - but at least I won't have to go through another one of these for a little while.

You think you've seen everything until...

Repro block started today, and of course we have good ol' horrid anatomy labs. Today was unlike most lab days, though, because something interesting actually happened...

So, because my group's cadaver didn't have a uterus, we decided to roam around the classroom looking at other groups' bodies. It's not a pretty sight watching other people skin someone's genitalia, but I guess you can't learn this material without some hands-on experience.

Since one group had an instructor helping them out, I decided to stay there for a little while and listen to her lecture while they cut open their body. Then came the moment where the group had to cut open the body's penis (it was a male, obviously) Laurena Bobbitt style; and as they did this, our instructor said, "What IS that?!?"

It turns out that this body had some interesting implants: two tubes, in fact, stuck inside his penis! This man had seemed quite well-endowed, and now it was quite clear why this was the case. As our professors debated whether or not these implants were used just for 'rigidity' or were hooked up to allow for increased 'pumping activity', the rest of our class milled around this 'incredible' discovery. I mean, we've all heard of breast implants, but who openly talks about penis implants?!?

For anyone that's interested, it appears that the implants were used to enhance the individual's 'rigidity' and had no way to be attached to a pump. But before you look into purchasing your own set of implants, keep in mind that one of my profs said to our class afterwards, "I highly recommend that you DON'T do that to your bodies."

What type are you?

Had a most interesting (and slightly disturbing) lecture today on the colon and defecation in general. Apparently, there's a rating scale for the quality of your feces. I just thought I'd include a copy of this rating system, because I found it rather amusing:




















Who comes up with this stuff?!? And how the heck do you get funding to do research on the daily average of flatulence in the general populace?

So apparently I should be obese

I don't know why our teachers see the need to subject us to assignments that make me feel like I'm back in elementary school. I understand that they're trying to make the course more interesting, but I would rather spend my time more constructively instead of doing things like a diet/activity or a diabetes assignment. The former involves us tracking our activity level and diet over three days, while the latter has us pretend that we're diabetic for a week. I don't think either really provides any benefit to us (how does pretending to be diabetic for a week make you more empathetic towards patients? It seems a little patronizing to me if you do this and think you understand a diabetic patient based on that superficial experience), but that's just me.

Anyways, while doing the diet assignment, I decided to go out to a buffet with some friends and ended up gorging approximately 4000 kilocalories that day and supposedly doubled my activity level. On even a 'typical' day for me, I exceeded my calculated activity level by 800 kcal. In theory, my consumption should approximately equal my expenditure, considering that I have not gained weight in the last couple of years. But according to these calculations, I should be gaining weight at astronomical proportions. So why am I not obese? Because this assignment is stupid, that's why!

Symphony Under the Sky!

Saw Symphony Under the Sky on Friday for my first time ever. If you've never heard of this event, you're not the only one, as it appeared that my friends and I were virtually the only group our age attending this event. Everyone else was a lot older or a lot younger (ie. children dragged to see the symphony by their parents). Even then, it was quite well attended, and I thought it was quite well done.

It's been a long time since I've been to a symphony event, and it reminded me of the last time I played in an orchestra. I don't miss playing the viola, but I have to admit that I had fun with some of the pieces that I played in those groups.

The pianist was excellent and the orchestra was fabulous, but the highlight of the show? When my cousin Katherine took a picture of the soloist (but forgot to save the image!) and screamed out after he finished performing. Who thought that I would ever see that side of her? =P

expect the unexpected (warning, some explicit language)

Sometimes, you hear things out of the blue, and you just wonder, why the heck would you say that? I was playing Warcraft (of course) with my friend, Henry, and as soon as we start a game, someone from the other team pauses it (which is usually a rare occurrence unless the opposing team is about to lose, and they're being a poor sport). And do you know what he says? "Sorry, spilt coffee on my penis."

First of all, I could care less why they pause the game...just tell me how long! If you give me a reason, don't tell me something like that. That's in fact the LAST thing I want to know about someone else. And what the heck do you say to that without sounding like a sicko? "Um, sorry to hear that. I hope it gets better"?

Anyways, Henry and I didn't know how to respond, so we just waited patiently until our opponent dealt with his little problem. I guess if he was telling the truth, you have to feel sorry for the guy, but then again it must not have been that big of a deal if he could still play afterwards. Of all the things you want to find out on the internet, though, that's at the bottom of my list.

this is why I hate organizing things

As the seminars that I'm running come to an end and I spent the last couple of days trying to get pizza ordered, I've come to the conclusion that I should not be put in charge of organizing events. Not only do I hate making the phone calls to arrange these things, but I always end up messing something up. Here is the chronicle of my little 'adventure' this time around:

Thursday

me: Hm, the site says I should give at least three days notice for large deliveries. I'll call today for good measure.

pizza-boy: Sorry, I'm too lazy to write down your order. Call back tomorrow (he didn't really say this, but it was implied)

Friday

me: Alright, let's get this order done before I forget. I have to also remember to ask for a receipt, and let's see if they'll throw in pop for free. They have to give me something for ordering 20 medium pizzas!

pizza-boy (same guy as Thursday, I think): see Thursday's response....but instead of 'tomorrow' I am told to call on Monday.

Monday (today)

me: Give me 20 pizzas for tomorrow.

pizza-girl (yes, it's a girl this time): Alright, we'll have it delivered on time

me: Can you throw in free pop?

pizza-girl: No, but I can give you napkins and plates

me: score! that saves me some money, at least.

pizza-girl: so your total comes to xxx.xx

me: wtf? That's so expensive! Does that include the 10% discount?

pizza-girl: yes

me: Hm, I see. Must be right. (I hang up) Damnit! I just realized I didn't specify medium pizzas. (I phone back the pizza place - the same girl answers) Um, what size of pizza did I order?

pizza-girl: Large, dumbass (she didn't say this, but this must be going through her head)

me: Whoops, can I change that to medium?

pizza-girl: Sure, just let me pull up your file and I'll make the change. I'll also add in an order of spit-in-your-pizza as a bonus topping. The total is now xxx.xx

me: phew, that looks better. (I hang up) Damnit! I need a receipt, and it needs to include the tip too! (I phone back) Um, it's me again, can I get a receipt, please?

pizza-girl: (I'm convinced that she has call-display and has already pulled up my file) Man, you're an idiot. I guess I'll send you something, or else you might cancel that order and I can't go partying later on tonight. Is there anything else?

me: Nope, sorry about that.

pizza-girl: No problem, loser. Next time you want to pick up girls, though, don't call a pizza delivery service.

So, I may have embellished the story a little, but I'm sure you'll agree that I must have been on crack when I tried making that order. At least the kids will get pizza tomorrow! =P

volunteering at a casino

I ended up volunteering at the Palace Casino at West Edmonton Mall yesterday evening, and I have to say that was one of the better experiences that I've had in a while. I was given the role as cashier, so basically all I did was sit behind a plexiglass window and hand out money to whomever wanted to cash in their chips. It sounds easy enough, but I was kept quite busy all evening, so I felt like I was actually given an important role (although I'm sure a trained monkey would have done just as well as me).

It was quite neat seeing the technology that they use in the Casino...wireless PDAs networked to one another, security cameras, and all of that other good stuff. It was also crazy seeing so much cash they had floating around. I had at least $30,000 in bills, and the cashier room must have had a couple hundred thousand too!

While one person made $6600 (the asians really cleaned house yesterday), I suspect most people weren't so lucky, as I had quite a few cashing in $50 or less. At least they were all good sports about it...not too many bad drunks, excluding the one lady who was so drunk, she was asked to leave the Casino, but she wouldn't leave because she wanted to finish her drink. =P

The most interesting part of the evening, though, wasn't really the Casino activities, but some of the volunteers themselves. Because I was volunteering for a senior's group, most of the volunteers were seniors. Their conversations are so different from the ones I normally have with my friends; and though they weren't about topics I would normally be interested in, at least they didn't bore me to death. It was also funny hearing how the headquarters kept running out of food. Although the coordinators didn't realize this, I found out later that some of the old ladies were stashing food in their purses. I guess even as we get older, free food still has its draw.

Some of my evaluations

These kids don't even get any extra points for sucking up!!

"taught it well, gave good tips, very willing to help in whatever way needed"

"Chris did a pretty sweet job, clear, concise, good feedback and strategies"

"Covered lots of material, but did good job explaining everything. Great job."

"Went through a lot of concepts (clearly!) but did not freak us out (actually relaxed me a little)

"Chris went over and above what was expected. He seemed very sincere in his desire to help us be as successful as possible"

...and the list goes on.

Of course, there's the occasional negative (but not too negative) comment:

"very nice, approachable, and willing to give up free time to help students but was inexperienced. Only got hired a week before course and was not as well-versed with the information as the website promised"

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed last weekend, and I hope I'll do even better this upcoming weekend.

This day is getting better and better

Not only has the weather cooled considerably (I can't stand it when it's too hot!), but the good news seems to be just pouring in.

The first of the good news came earlier in the day when I found out that I'm getting paid a LOT more than I thought I was getting paid for the MCAT tutoring. I always assumed that the price that I was quoted was for both weekends of teaching, but it turns out that the price quote was for EACH week...meaning that I'm getting twice the money that I originally thought!

To make things even better, my car's in the city now and will be ready for pick-up by next week. And in addition to that, when I phoned to activate my insurance, it turns out that they quoted me for the wrong vehicle model, so it's $500 cheaper than the original price I was told. That means that the money that I just made over the last two weekends will cover my insurance costs AND more. =)

If I'm lucky, maybe I'll even get the books that I ordered on Chapters online! Just because it's such a good day, I'll type up some of the comments I had for my tutoring and post them up later.

one weekend of tutoring done...one more to go!

Phew, after a gruelling last couple of days of tutoring, I can now have a few days of relaxation before the cycle starts anew. A least the next time, I'll be more prepared for what to expect, and things will run a lot smoother. Some comments about the course:

• I still know my stuff! After a few years away from the MCAT material, I was able to fake my way through most of the material. Except Organic Chem...I think it was clearly obvious that some of the students knew organic chemistry more than me. At least the topics I taught poorly were things I wasn't supposed to teach (the materials I had were out-of-date, and I didn't realize that until afterwards), lol.
• I sure must talk fast! I covered all of the same material that the lecture I attended last week covered, AND I also finished some extra lectures that I made in case I had time to spare (and I made a LOT of extra lectures). No one complained about my pace, though, and in fact, all my reviews (except for one) were quite good.
• I cannot imagine how much I must have written over the span of these last three days. The room that I was in used chalkboards, and I ended up raiding all of the chalk boards in the building in order to scrounge up enough chalk to use (I used up a LOT of chalk!!).
• This course is obviously not for everyone. Yesterday, one guy got up in the middle of lecture, walked out, and I never saw him again! Oh well, it's a waste of his money, not mine.
• Hm, and for some reason, I find myself attracted to blonde girls as of late...that's quite a deviation from ASH (asian, smart, hot). I attribute that to the recent heat wave (btw, this last comment is related to the course, because there were quite a few attractive blondes in that class =P).

Anyways, I'm in warcraft withdrawal, so I need to get my fix soon!

Thoughts from Toronto

Decided to jot down some of my thoughts while I was in Toronto, so I'm just typing out what I wrote out:

July 14, 2006

• in Toronto - got a ride from a Crazy Taxi Driver (CTD): any lane he could change into, he did, and he even made up some of his own lanes. Not a good sign when he first drove in a 'Do not Enter' zone of the parkade, barged through the gate behind the car in front of him to avoid paying for parking, and then proceeded to travel 30 km/h over the speed limit. On the bright side, CTD offered to drive me on Sunday, so I took him up on the offer; it saves me time trying to find my own taxi, and he seemed fairly competent anyways in spite of these shortcomings.
• long walk to York campus from my place (they told me it would be close!); ended up walking for almost an hour and a half to get to the University. Carried most of my valuables with me because the neighborhood looked a little questionable and I didn't want to leave it in the Inn. Heavy backpack + 1.5 hr walk + muggy weather = one sweaty kid (yech).
• dinner - spent watching Days of Our Lives at the restaurant, since that was what the employees there seemed to want to do instead of working
• gruelling day already! (only halfway through the training tonight); can't imagine how I'm going to last tomorrow
• need more paper too (who thought I would need to take THIS many notes? I'm already through a whole pad of paper!)
• (back at Inn) sweet, wireless internet. Too bad they charge you after 30 min (sigh, no wc3) and it's slow as hell

July 15, 2006

• was smarter and took the bus partway to the training course
• almost fell asleep at the course - thank goodness it was physics only and not the VR section! at least I can fake physics =P
• discovered a tasty, but oh so unhealthy fast food joint: Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits. The food's spicy, but not too spicy! too bad we don't have this place in Edmonton
• so far, I've rather enjoyed my time here; the instructor is quite approachable and countless times already, he's driven me around and saved me from the pain and agony of Toronto's transit (the subway's great, but the buses are no better - and may be worse - than those in good ol' Edmonton)
• met up with Jason in downtown - Toronto life seems to agree with Jason; he's tanned brown and seems quite relaxed
• finally got to meet some of Jason's prettier friends - I can see why he hoards them like a miserly old man
• ended up having an enjoyable meal at the Westin - appetizer, steak dinner, and dessert only for $25! Highlight of the meal: the dessert. Summer pudding, which was a fruit medley wrapped in some solidified pudding - very delicious! It's too bad I didn't have a camera to show off the beautiful presentation. Like Jason said, it's like a party in your mouth (sigh, but I'll never think of that saying again in the same light after hearing one of his friends make a sick reference using a similar quote, lol)

July 16, 2006

• checked out (thank god) of the inn - a nice enough place, but like I said before, the neighborhood looked quite questionable. I only found solace in the fact that there was a police station nearby
• My impressions of York University: beautiful campus! You can tell it's a newer campus - quite modern, very scenic. I was at Vari Hall, which has an amazing foyer, and just outside, there's a fountain and pool that reminds me of the entrance to Edmonton's City Hall. Once again, I regret not bringing a camera! U of A could learn a few lessons on how to build nice buildings (although the York University washrooms are less than desirable =P)
• last day here - great weather all weekend; a little humid, but otherwise, just great! I should have brought more shorts >.<.
• going to tell Crazy Taxi Driver (CTD) to pick me up and drive me to the airport. I hope he remembers to pick me up!
• (much later) hahah, so my fear turned to reality - good ol' CTD didn't show up. I've tried calling his cell all day and no answer. Thank goodness my brother lives in Toronto - I was able to get him to call a taxi for me: not only did it show up in 10 minutes, but the guy charged a lot less than CTD. Good thing I'm not paying for this, or else I'd be more upset that I got gypped.
• finished my training; I think everything went smoothly. It's just a matter of being ready for this weekend (when I start teaching)
• Back in Edmonton. Hm, still have to finish my lab work tonight...it's going to be a long day >.<

my weekends just got a little busier

Two days ago, I got a call out of the blue, asking me if I was interested in an MCAT tutoring position. Although I had applied for this position over a month ago, I never really thought I had a chance, mainly because I had applied extremely late for it (most people get hired for these jobs in May).

So it was quite a surprise when I got phoned about this opening. It turns out that one of the MCAT instructors for this course cancelled out last minute, and they needed someone to fill in the position, which starts next week! I was given a day to prepare for an interview, and less than a day later (ie. this morning), I officially got hired.

I have to say that this is probably one of the easiest jobs that I have ever landed. I suspect that because the course starts next week, they were quite desperate for a replacement, and I was probably the only person who they had left in their application pool. But hey, I say when the pay's that good (up to $50/hr, if I tutor 1-on-1), I'll take whatever gets thrown my way! =)

The only drawback is that I have to go to a crash training course ASAP this weekend, and get ready for a grueling course schedule next week, where I'll be teaching for 22 hours over a span of 3 days. At least the flight and accomodations for the training course - which is held in Toronto - will be paid for. If they give me some time to wander around, this means a free short vacation!

adding to my (not so vast) repertoire of skills

Volunteered for Habitat for Humanity yesterday - first real time working outside in construction! So, if you ever need help building a home and specifically need a drywaller - only for ceilings, though, not walls - you know who to call. A word of warning, though: I lack upper body strength and am quite clumsy, so chances are I'll wreck more than I build.

Actually, according to the Habitat for Humanity worker who was managing our site, they spend a lot of the time tearing down what volunteers do and re-building it so that the work reaches a certain standard of quality. Seems kind of wasteful, but I guess when most of the labour is provided by volunteers, they can't complain.

Although construction sounds pretty strenuous, yesterday was fairly lax. My day was as follows: spent most of the morning learning how to drywall (ie. no physical labour involved) until coffee. After which, my group spent the first little while figuring out how to cut a board properly to fit the complicated pattern of our ceiling AND how to bring the board up the stairs. Before we could even screw in this first piece of drywall, it was lunch time. And by the end of the day, we had only drywalled one and a half rooms - and quite small rooms at that. So much easier than a day in the lab! But I suppose things would have been more productive if we hadn't been training for most of the morning. =P

fire up that laptop

I never thought that using your laptop would be a good way to start a fire, but what else is it good for when it looks like this?

There was an article in the Globe today about how laptops are being made so thin that when the batteries overheat, they can melt the machines and cause a fire. I thought I'd copy and paste a couple of passages from the article, in case you didn't want to read it, or if the link goes down:

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"Cindy Brown wrapped an Apple laptop and put it under the Christmas tree last year, thinking about the future of her 11-year-old son in an increasingly digitalized world.
Instead, her gift turned into a flaming nightmare.

...

A string of laptop fires, sparked by faulty or overheated batteries, is raising concern with industry experts and computer manufacturers. As many as 43 laptop fires have been reported in the United States since 2001...No one died, but some laptop users were severely injured,

...

laptop companies have recalled more than 150,000 batteries since Jan. 1, 2005. Hewlett-Packard recalled 15,700 of them in April alone. Dell retrieved 22,000 batteries in December and Apple recalled about 120,000 batteries in 2005.

...

As laptops become faster and acquire more features such as DVD players, their batteries have to work harder...are also getting slimmer, with less room for ventilation. This increases the risk of a meltdown and a fire,

...

the most recent reported laptop fire [occurring in Osaka, Japan] had people at a boardroom meeting shielding their faces as a notebook exploded on a table.

...

An official with Hewlett-Packard Canada said the company does not want to comment on the issue. Apple did not return calls.

...

'Had we not been home or been outside, or not close enough to hear that noise, it certainly would have burned our house down.'"

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

I noticed that my laptop brand wasn't listed in the article, but I'm sure that this is a problem common with all or most models. I bet this is just a new way laptop companies are trying to encourage consumers to purchase new machines more frequently. That's why I say we band together and form a movement - a flashback to the past for the new wave of the future! :

ah, good ol' Canada

So I opened up my web browser, which defaults to the CBC.ca webpage, and the first thing that I see is the headline, "Police seeking revellers who urinated on Ottawa memorial: Ottawa police are looking for three Canada Day revellers photographed urinating on the National War Memorial."

As disgusting and wrong it is for people to be committing such acts, I'm not sure if this qualifies as 'cover story' news. The title is more funny than anything else. =P

fundraising apathy

Maybe it's the hot weather talking, but I feel that more and more often, the fundraisers I get involved with seem to be drawing fewer people interested in helping out. Case and point: yesterday's sucker run that I was involved with for Shinerama (a cystic fibrosis fundraising organization). We had all of the sites set up, all of the candy and other items ready to sell...but not enough volunteers.

What was a $1300 fundraiser could have easily raised over $2000 if there had been enough manpower. But try as we could, our group couldn't scrounge enough people to help out. Lots of people cancelled last minute, and others that we approached didn't even express interest. Even our own members were apathetic to the cause, which makes me question some of their intentions for joining the group...

It's not to say that the people who can't help out don't have good reasons, nor do the people that sign up seem less enthusiastic than in the past, but it just seems that it's getting harder and harder to recruit people due to disinterest in these causes. Perhaps there's an oversaturation of these organizations, and this has caused an pervading feeling that little progress has been made in medical research. But whatever the reason, I find the apathy to be greatest amongst our generation, which seems to be the most apathetic to everything and anything.

I can understand people wanting to have fun instead of helping out these causes, but it seems a little selfish to me if you can't spare a few hours to help out others who need the assistance when you'd rather be out partying all of the time.

Anyways, enough of my ranting. It's entirely possible that the hot weather's getting to me, and I'm just complaining because I'm grumpy. Maybe the next couple of fundraisers I'll be a part of will be more successful. Hahah, from this entry, I bet none of you could tell that I'm a Conservative supporter. I bet you all thought I was some socialist psycho. =P

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Since I haven't updated my blog in a while, here's some things that have happened in my life recently:

• I've reached a new high (or low, depending on how you look at it) in Warcraft 3. In 4 vs 4 teams, my team is now ranked 26th (out of at least 1000) on the server!
• I'm pursuing my last summer in a research lab and am enjoying every minute of it. I learned the coolest procedure where I can extract cortical neurons from mouse embryos. Now if only I had results...
• I'm starting to become more music-savvy. A year ago, I had absolutely no preference about music bands or songs in general. I would just watch the music videos with the hot girls. =P Now, I actually listen to certain groups for their music. For those of you that care (ie. none of you except me), I'm a big fan of Green Day, Jack Johnson, City and Color, the All-American Rejects, James Blunt, Simple Plan, and Phil Collins. I also like the Fray and their song "How to Save a Life" which was played in both Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs, which are incidentally two of my favourite tv shows. Of course, if you tried talking to me about specific songs by any of these groups (other than Green Day), I'd probably have no idea what you were talking about.
• I saw Superman Returns on the first day, and it rocked! I'm a little biased, because I'm a huge comic book fan, but it's a must-see movie.
• Since I've become a social outcast, most of my life consists of sleeping, biking, and playing computer games. I just purchased Tomb Raider: Legend, so we will see if I become addicted not only to my computer, but to my PS2.

Feel free to make fun of my lack of a social life! =)

This describes MY blog

Was reading today's Pearls Before Swine and thought it was a perfect description of my blog. =P Enjoy:

Life's been otherwise pretty dull. Lab work currently dictates my schedule. Today was not one of my better days either, as I struggled just trying to pour a gel (6 summers of lab experience, and I can't even do this properly! =P ).

How NOT to impress your friends

I went and saw X-men 3 yesterday with some of my friends, since one of them was visiting from Vancouver and we don't see her very often. Nothing spectacular there...except for the fact that I ran into ANOTHER group of my friends, who I had told earlier that I couldn't make it out that day because I couldn't get a ride over to that end of the city.

First of all, in my defence, I hadn't intended on going out yesterday night. The second group of friends that I ran into wanted to meet up straight after work, and from there, there was no way I could have gotten a ride back home. I only went out with my other friends because they went out later, and I was able to get the car to drive myself. Plus, we had originally planned to do something today, so it wasn't as if I had meant to double-book. *cough* although, if I had a choice, I would have probably still gone out with the same group that I did, since I don't see them nearly as much as the others and I've known them for longer too.

Anyways, as embarrassing as it was, I guess it was funny at the same time. I can still see myself walking up the stairs of the theatre, looking up to see a whole bunch of people waving down and then realizing that they were calling to and waving at ME. I'm sure the expression on my face must have been priceless. I mean, X-men was showing every half hour; what were the chances that this would happen?!?

The bureacracy is driving me insane!

I've been trying to get swipe access to an animal facility.

I emphasize 'trying' because so far, I've been unsuccessful in doing so, even though it's been a couple of days. In theory, it was an easy enough task: get a form signed and handed in, get my card programed, and voìla! Access to the facility.

In practice, it hasn't been so easy. Handing in the form was straight-forward, but because I had other stuff programmed onto my card, I couldn't get it re-programmed without wiping out the other information. Thus began my long journey into the maze that we know as the University Bureacracy.

I first started with the office in my department. I had been told that they had a file with some sort of ID that we could transfer onto the animal faciity system, but when we tried getting that ID, the secretary had no idea what we were talking about. I then went on a wild goose chase, phoning up people 'in-the-know" only to get forwarded to other people. I was even given the wrong number for one individual, and I'm sure I made a new enemy in that process, since I accidentally called that person twice, to his obvious frustration.

Finally, I got directed BACK to the office in my department, where the same secretary NOW knew what ID number I was talking about (go figure!) and gave it to me in a matter of 5 minutes. I'm still, however, waiting for my card to be activated, because it turns out that the original office where I handed in my access form hadn't sent it to the appropriate destination (which apparently is only two steps away from that office). It kind of makes you wonder how fast everything would have been if they centralized some of this stuff so it wouldn't be so inefficient. I know it wouldn't have taken longer than 2 days for something as simple as this!

Ah well. I was somewhat cheered up when I was eating a popsicle and saw the following warning on the package: "Notice: This product, when extremely cold, may stick to warm lips or tongue. Allow to warm slightly before eating". For some reason, the fact that something like that should be so obvious to most of us cracked me up. I guess there's some people who stick their tongues onto poles in the winter, but most of those people wouldn't read a warning like that anyways.

Contact lenses more inconvenient than glasses?

I finally broke down and joined the contact lens bandwagon (kind of like how everyone's joining the Oilers bandwagon). Most people tend to get contacts, though, because they don't like the glasses look. Me? I rather like my glasses, but I decided I needed contacts for sports. I had enough with dealing with my glasses slipping down my nose while I was running around, rendering me more useless than normal.

The only problem is that I'm finding my contacts to be a lot more inconvenient than my glasses ever were. Not only does it take me forever to put them on (my first time trying took me over half an hour, and even now, I'm rather slow!), but they aren't perfectly fitted yet, so I temporarily lose my vision every so often. And the list goes on: my eyes get sore/red really quickly; I can't sleep in them (BIG problem); I have to always carry around my glasses; they're a pain in the ass to clean, yada yada. I mean, who would have thought there was so much responsibility involved with those teeny pieces of plastic (or whatever they're made of)?!?

Anyways, hopefully, things will get better once I find the 'perfect fit' - although, that may never happen, because my astigmatism is so bad - but I think I will always prefer my glasses over contacts.

As a side note, classes are finally done for me (they've been done for about a week now). Outside of work, the rest of my time shall be filled with sleep, rollerblading, biking, and reading. I'm going to enjoy these next three months as much as I can before it's back to the grind.

Putting my Skillz to Good Use

Alright, so maybe I only have one real 'skill', and some of you think it's really not something I should talk about. But for once, my ability to get free stuff has been used for the greater good.

Every year, there's a science trade show held at the university, where companies advertise their products to the labs. There's lots of free items handed out, anywhere from the ubiqutous free pen, to the ever-so-rare travel mug or other doo-dads. I've been going to this trade show ever since I started working in a laboratory since undergrad, and I have quite the collection.

This summer, however, I will be helping to run a series of student lunch seminars at the medical sciences building, so I thought it would be nice if there were prizes for draws. So instead of going to this trade show for the free stuff, I SACRIFICED my time to approach each of the 100 display booths, asking for donations from the companies. Two and a half hours later (plus the time it took me to print off letters to give to each of these booths), I managed to get 40 business cards from people interested in helping out, and even some prizes from other groups. I still have to follow up on these prizes, but I'm quite pleased with what I accomplished today (excluding the fact that I haven't really studied for my exam yet =P ).

Of course, I also scored some nice free gifts for myself (although not as much if I hadn't been looking for those prizes). The highlights of the trade show: some very nifty looking lab glasses and a Telus t-shirt. The coolest prize, however, goes to Invitrogen, for their fluorescence calendar, which allows you to see fluorescent cells in 3-D! Yup, life is good.

Why Today's Such a Great Day

Since today was such a nice day for me, I thought I'd share a small list of why I thought today was so great:

• No more anatomy for 4 months (I don't think I will ever get used to that smell!)
• Only one more day of lecture for the school year
• (related to above) Only one more day having to put up with Smelly Feet girl in lecture. Not really a problem for me, but for my friends. For those of you who don't know about Smelly Feet girl, she chooses to not wear socks or shoes in class and pretty much waves her feet in the air beside my friends' heads during lecture. Just because you're a girl, doesn't mean that your feet smell nice!
• The nice weather.
• Getting to spend about 6 hours with some of my med friends, rollerblading to downtown and back to campus and enjoying the nice weather in general by throwing around a frisbee, etc. The most fun that I've had in a long time (the only drawback being that I think I may have burned my neck by being out in the sun for too long =P )!
• Because it's the weekend (always a good reason for why a day's so good)
• And last, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, because Fridays are Warcraft nights. Until our exams are done, my friends and I have decided to only play Warcraft 3 on Fridays. Only 16 more wins until I get to change my icon! =)

Woohoo, only two more exams to go (plus two oral exams) and I'm free for the summer!

there's bad smells, and then there's REALLY bad smells

The group that I work with for anatomy has a really smelly cadaver. As you can imagine, cadavers are not known for having pleasant odours, but ours is worse than most. Every time we would open her up, the stench would just overpower. Yesterday, we finally found out why this was the case.

Over the term, we noticed that our cadaver kept breaking out with fungal growth. And not in the areas that we were working with, but in the regions that were sealed off and presumably well-preserved. Each time this occurred, we had to report it to the instructors in order to get the body treated to prevent further growth. I'm sure the instructors thought my group was a bunch of slobs that either were infested with mould and/or that we spit on our cadaver, because the message "Group 3 has mould. Please treat" has appeared quite frequently on the board.

This should have been the first sign that there was something was wrong with our body's preservation, but we never thought much about it until some of my group members decided to uncover our cadaver's head (they're normally wrapped in cheesecloth), since it was the second-last day of labs for the year. They noticed that the nose felt a little mushy, so decided to have a look to see what the head looked like before the lab closed for the year.

As soon as they uncovered the head, it became quite clear where the source of the smell came from. Remember the mold that we found on other parts of her body? Well, there was tons of it covering her head (especially the back), AND the inside of her mouth. Adding to the appearance of dead head, that was probably one of the grossest things I've seen in a while. Thankfully, it was completely treatable, and now our cadaver smells more normal-ish. I'm thinking, though, that she probably wasn't properly preserved, which is why she's been getting so much mould, so I shudder to think what condition she'll be in when we return from summer holidays (yum yum!).

oh, the embarrassment!

Had a WONDERFUL morning/early afternoon, where I was almost refused onto the bus because my bus transfer had apparently expired. Which was ridiculous, because I had started taking the LRT a little less than 45 minutes before. When I tried arguing my case, though, the bus driver threatened to call headquarters and have someone deal with me (do I look that much like a deliquent?!?). In the end, the driver let me on but wouldn't give me a new transfer, which was fine, because that was the last bus I had to take to my destination anyways.

That being said, though, it was quite an embarrassing experience, and I was fairly upset/angry afterwards. It was only after I got off the bus did I realize that the time stamp at the LRT station must not have been changed for daylight saving time. Damn you, technology!

(Of course, I'm sure that if I had a set of boobs and cried to the driver, he would have let me on, no questions asked. I'm not saying that I'd want to be female, but there are times when it sucks to be a guy.)

books books books

Although my obsession with Warcraft hasn't exactly died down, I've found a new - perhaps healthier - addiction: books! This isn't exactly something new, but I've noticed as of late, that more and more of my budget is devoted into purchasing books from Chapters online.

The biggest problem that I have is that I enjoy such a wide range of genres: anything from Margaret Atwood to historical fiction to Fantasy to comic books. While this means that there's always new books coming out to keep me preoccupied, it has taken its toll on my wallet. My biggest purchase so far was getting the Calvin and Hobbes anthology, but it's only a matter of time before I exceed that amount. >.<

In the meantime, I'm waiting for my latest order: two fantasy novels by Christopher Paolini, and the newest Peanuts anthology (for those of you that think that Peanuts is boring, you obviously haven't read the older comics - if I'm energetic, I may post a few online so that you can appreciate Snoopy et al in its glory). And because I've now spent way too much for this month, I'll spend the next little while - at least until my purchases come in - listening to some NEW cds that I won from a raffle: High School Crush (aka best hits when my dad was young) and Shakira, while I study for my exam. Woot! Oh yeah, I sure know how to live a good life.

learning from a TRUE master

I love my free food. Free pizza, free cookies, free drinks, I love it all. I consider myself pretty good at acquiring the food and then sneaking off so that I don't have to listen to the talk providing the food; but today, I witnessed the work of a true master.

After my classes ended today, I passed by a classroom, where a talk was being held. Outside the room, there were trays of leftover cookies. The only problem was that these trays were being hounded by two ladies, who obviously were making sure that individuals like me didn't come along to take food and then avoid going to the talk.

So, while some of my friends and I were pondering how to get the food without getting reprimanded by these ladies, in comes the EX-DEAN of Medicine. He walks past the tray of food and looks into the room to see what the talk is about. THEN, in one smooth gesture, he moves to the food, grabs a cookie, waves to the ladies, smiles and says, "Thank you," and walks away! It was one of the most amazing things I've seen in a long time.

Needless to say, after this occurred, the ladies wrapped up the trays and hid them from the rest of us, but I learned two valuable lessons from today: (1) that I have much to learn before I develop the same finesse as the Ex-dean of Medicine in acquiring free food, and (2) that you are never too old (in spite what my parents say) to take free food from others.

the ironies of being nice

With the crappy weather happening in Edmonton, it's inevitable that people are going to get stuck on the roads (22 cm of soft snow + most cars = disaster). So, this morning, on the way to picking up my cousin to go to school, we passed one of these cars - a nice Lexus, I should add. Of course, since the car was blocking the whole street, we had three options: (1) help out, (2) wait until the car got unstuck, meanwhile honking at them to hurry it up, or (3) turn around and drive via another road. Being that two of those options were too rude so early in the morning, my dad and I decided to be the good samaritans and help out.

BIG mistake.

Not only did it take about 10 attempts to get the car to safety - who would have thought that the Lexus would have NO power to get out of the snow?!? - but in the process, my dad had to move his van back to clear room for the other car, getting HIS vehicle stuck in the process. Thankfully, because of my *cough* physical prowess, we were able to finally get both vehicles un-stuck, but what a way to start the morning! I blame the extra physical exertion for why I ended up sleeping for most of the lectures in the afternoon. ;)

On another note, I just checked my mastercard bill, and I got a 23 cent credit for some sort of correction made to my bill. I guess I should be overjoyed with this newfound cash, but I'm not feeling the love.

shadowing on the wards

Shadowed for Internal Medicine this evening, which turned out to be a lot more interesting than my other classmates let on. The last patient that I saw kept losing consciousness every five minutes, which was really freaky. I didn't get to follow through the whole case, so I hope her outcome is good.

The highlight of my evening: as I pushed my way out of an elevator on my way out, a person motioned his friend to move out of my way, saying, "he's a doctor!" The tone of respect in his voice was quite laughable, considering that just five minutes prior, a nurse had come up to me and when I couldn't understand any of the stuff that she was telling me, I ended up saying, "Sorry, I'm just a first year med student."

I guess I wasn't a complete embarrassment

So my presentation at my old high school has gone and passed by; and all in all, I was pleased with how it went. I was worried that because of who I am, everything that would come out of my mouth would sound like "I'm a dork, I'm a dork, I'm a dork"...and that I would make a fool out of myself. And I did sound like that; but what I forgot was that at my high school, that's the sort of stuff that those kids and their parents eat up, and I think it turned out quite well.

I ended up talking a lot more than I thought I would - mostly mundane things such as life in university, how I found high school useful, the IB program (I almost forgot about that program!), yada yada - and I found that it really wasn't that bad talking in front of that many people. Whether or not they found my talk useful is another story; but at least from my perspective, it was a good sign that I didn't crumble under the pressure and crawl into a ball to cry like a baby. Plus, I got a free pen and mug out of it; AND the school dedicated a book to their library on my behalf (Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson). Free stuff is always a good thing in my books. =)

I still don't believe that this presentation was necessary for these students. They should be enjoying their lives right now and worry about getting into the medical program later on, but at the same time, I can see where they're coming from. So, I hope my talk inspired them (or discouraged them - whichever makes them better people) into taking a genuine interest in the program so that they go into it for their own reasons rather than for the sake of their parents or for money, and hopefully something stuck. If not, at least I have the benefit of experiencing that warm and fuzzy feeling that you get when you help others.

On another note, I was quite pleased to get a thank you card from one of the individuals that I interviewed over Reading Week. We unfortunately do not give bonus marks for people thanking us, but it's always nice to know that some of the individuals will spend the extra effort to try everything they can to get into the program.

I should have seen this coming

I promised to help give a presentation to my old high school about med admissions tomorrow. Supposedly, it was going to be just a harmless talk to the Parents' Association for the couple of keen parents interested in learning more about the program. Since I don't have to give the actual presentation, I'm just there for moral support, and to answer the occasional question about classes, since they asked for an alumnus to be present. Sounds harmless enough, right?

Well, now it turns out that the presentation has opened up to more than the Parents' Association, and I'll be in front of over a hundred people. Now I'm bound to get asked questions, and I haven't planned anything to say!

In retrospect, I guess I should have seen this coming...considering that 95% of the kids that come out of this school want to enter some career in the health sciences, I should have known that this would happen. But these kids still have so many years ahead of them before they can even APPLY to med school, why worry about it now when they're still in high school?!? It's not like this talk will give them any advantage over other students, even though I know that they think it will.

And knowing my old school, the students and parents will expect me to say something insightful, something witty, maybe something intelligent. They'll want me to impart some of my wisdom unto them. And of course, since I have NOTHING to say, they'll be quite disappointed. Add that to my goofy appearance, and we have a recipe for my complete and utter humiliation. I am royally SCREWED.

Man, I try to be nice for once, and look at what happens. I'm not even getting any free food! >.<

blog disclaimer

Because I don't want to suffer any repercussions for what I'm writing on my blog, I've decided to write a disclaimer:

MY DISCLAIMER

This site, although based on true-life events, may or may not be an accurate representation of what actually happens in my life. Morever, any comments written on this site do not necessarily reflect this blogger's true beliefs or feelings. I use this site to vent my frustrations, and possibly to incite a reaction from my reader(s *cough*). Therefore, any individuals who find themselves written about in a negative light SHOULD NOT take my comments personally. If you have a problem with an entry, please bring it up with me before you sue me or before you seek reparations in some other way!

Phew, that should hopefully cover my ass for any future problems I may encounter. Now, I can prepare for my anatomy lab. It's not really something I'm looking forward to (I mean, does anyone actually want to look at dead preserved bodies?), but if I'm lucky, I may be able to use a saw!

the dangers of being near me in class

Ever since high school, I've had a tendency to fall asleep in class. No matter how hard I try to stay awake, the moment I let my mind wander, I'm out in a flash.

Normally, this isn't a big deal. If I miss a lecture, I just learn it on my own. And it's not like I snore or anything, so I'm not bothering anyone around me. The problem, however, is that every time I fall asleep, there's the risk that I'll experience a knee-jerk reaction...you know: the jerking reaction that you experience if you wake abruptly from your sleep.

I know it sounds relatively harmless...but that's because most of you haven't seen MY knee-jerk reactions, the mother of all knee-jerk reactions. My hands flail up, my legs kick out, and my body shoots forward. Quite spectacular (or so I've been told), except for the fact that anyone near me is at risk of injury. Luckily, nothing major has happened as of yet, although I did cause one girl to hyperventilate for a couple of minutes from sheer terror.

That may change soon. Although these incidents are extremely rare, I can feel another one of them slowly creeping up. Just today, I experienced a minor 'mishap' and ended up kneeing one of my friends in the side (thank goodness her binder was there to protect her >.<). It's only a matter of time, before it's a full-blown reaction, and I claim my first casualty.

So those of you who are in my class and see me sleeping: beware!

The oh so exciting life of Snappythegrouch

My anonymous stalker asked me today if I had stopped updating my blog. The short answer is no; but the reason why I haven't been writing is that nothing interesting has been happening in my life.

Now that my exams are over and I'm on Reading Week, I've been living a very, uh, minimalist lifestyle. Essentially, I eat, watch tv, eat some more, and sleep. As you can tell, this allows for little excitement, hence my lack of updates.

I know that this sounds like a total waste of my Reading Week, but with how busy I always end up being during the school year and even the summer time, I enjoy staying at home and doing pretty much nothing. Other than spending some time designing a new website (check it out if you're really bored: www.uahsj.ualberta.ca) and reading a few books - if you're a science nerd like me, I recommend The Immortals by James Gunn - I haven't been too productive, but that's the way I wanted to spend my Reading Week. ;)

Anyways, the one time I tried being active was today during my volunteer shift at the hospital, and that turned out to be a complete flop. Although there were tons of kids at the clinic, none of them wanted to play with me. The kids must have had an Anti-Social radar on and avoided me like wildfire by crying their way out. I have never heard so much crying at once. >.<

So the gist of the message is that yes, I am still alive and kicking, but my life is just more boring than usual.

Oh, for those of you that may care, I finally finished Warcraft 3. Yay me!

There's one born every minute

The dilemma:

You have 150 flowers to sell by Valentine's Day, at $3 a piece for a fundraiser (Cystic Fibrosis). Not only are these flowers NOT roses (they're carnations), but they're not even decorated that nicely - in spite of assurances from the provider that they would be 'professionally done' - and are obviously not worth the price that they're being sold for. Selling them cheaper isn't really an option, as any less would result in no profit. What to do?

Solution #1:

Set up four girls (attractiveness not determined, as I did not meet them) at a residence to sell ~30 flowers. How they sell the flowers is up to them, as long as they sell them at the stated price.

Outcome: flowers are gone in no time! We should have given these girls more flowers.

Solution #2:

Have a guy and a girl (girl is attractive enough to get guys' attention, and has an outgoing personality) sell flowers at another site, using the girl to attract the guys and girls, with the guy attracting the occasional girl to the stand.

Outcome: they sell about 20 flowers in an hour. Pretty good!

Solution #3:

Give two guys the same stand as above. Guys approach the occasional girl, but really, have no influence in drawing other guys.

Outcome: a grand total of 0 flowers in an hour.


You can probably guess which group I was part of. >.< Thank goodness we had a lot of guy/girl combinations, because we managed to sell out in one day, when we had initially planned to sell everything over a two-day span.

But yeah, it's amazing how much influence a girl can have in swaying a guy's decision. I saw a friend of mine convince a guy to switch from an firm no to a yes in a span of 30 seconds. This is why I like to have more girls at a fundraiser than guys, because you're almost always guaranteed to get more money. I have a feeling this ties into Ladder Theory somehow, but I won't elaborate any more than that. If you don't know what Ladder Theory is, look it up! :P

(for those of you not familiar with the reference in my title, it derives from a famous quote by P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute". Yes, I'll admit it: us guys are a bunch of suckers.)

and next to go is...

Yesterday while I was channel surfing, I was surprised to see Arrested Development showing for two hours. It turns out that Fox had decided to release the last couple of episodes, forever finishing the series. Once again, another great sitcom has come to an end.

I think it's a shame that Arrested Development never gained the ratings that it deserved. In spite of its extremely weird plot lines, it was well-written and quite funny. The series finale was true to form and did a good job tying up a lot of loose ends. That being said, how could Fox ever expect the show to achieve popularity if it kept on giving it crappy time slots and irregular scheduling? Take yesterday's showing, for instance. Considering that the other episodes have been showing on Mondays this season, how the heck did Fox decide to release these last few episodes on a Friday?!? It just boggles the mind!

The path to Arrested Development's demise resembles the current path of another one of my favourite sitcoms: Scrubs. Like Arrested Development, Scrubs suffered from horrible scheduling times last season from NBC, and only just started showing this season's episodes last month. Undoubtedly, Scrubs will face the same fate as Arrested Development at the end of this season, which is too bad, because I think the plot's becoming as funny as it was during the first season.

With the end of Scrubs approaching, what will be left in the world of comedy/sitcoms? With the broadcasting companies focusing mainly on reality TV (yawn), I have my doubts that a new Friends or Everybody Loves Raymond will appear any time soon. Although I have my good ol' cartoons to rely on (*cough* Justice League and The Batman), I fear I shall have to forsake my TV soon and find a new pasttime. =(

The importance of having insurance

Considering how crappy my last few posts have been, I was going to take a small break before posting again until I was more rested and less sick, but after I shadowed today at a breast cancer clinic, I felt it was my duty to provide you (my visitor/s) with some advice about future planning. And as you can probably guess from the title, the advice is: make sure you have good insurance; namely medical insurance to cover the stuff not covered by the government.

I know, I know, a lot of you are probably going to think that insurance is too expensive and not worth the investment, but after seeing a lady's eyes pop out after being told that she would have to foot the cost of $2300 for EACH injection of a drug, which she has to get done six times, I think it would be wise if we all at least consider purchasing insurance like Blue Cross so that we can get that sort of coverage (I use the term 'we' loosely, because I of course have insurance to cover at least some of those costs). Alternatively, we could consider throwing tomatoes at Ralph Klein until he agrees to expand health coverage, but I suspect that endeavor would fail miserably. =P

I know that I sound like some cheesy salesman, but go on out and get that insurance! Oh yeah, and don't smoke, because if you do, I'll hunt you down and make you quit. I don't want to be going to the lung cancer clinic next week, only to find you there because you didn't follow my advice!

My kingdom for a pancreas

So, before I go on with today's story, I should apologize for my last entry. From the people that I spoke to, I gather that I was a lot more negative than I had intended to be. Although my trip to Banff wasn't great, it wasn't a completely horrible experience either. Considering how little I spent to go there, I guess I got what I paid for.

Anywho, back to my story. Today will probably be the highlight of my week, as I got to listen to a talk by Dr. James Shapiro, one of the founders of the Edmonton Protocol. For those of you who have no idea what the Edmonton Protocol is, it's the islet cell transplantation technique developed at the University of Alberta for treating certain patients suffering from Type 1 diabetes.

Since I know that many of you don't share the same interest in research as me, it may be hard to fathom how popular the talk was. To put it into perspective, we scientists - I consider myself a scientist even though I'm in medicine - judge the quality of a speaker very much like how the public judges the popularity of a celebrity. In addition to the significance of the person's research, you have to consider his/her appearance, accent, etc. Dr. Shapiro had all of that...great research, charismatic appearance, and a British accent (unlike me, who, for being Asian, starts off with negative points, since we've been getting a lot of bad press lately with fudging cloning data and poor management of the Avian flu crisis). Keeping all of that in mind, it was no wonder that this talk sold out so quickly.

The seminar was everything I imagined and more. Not only was food great (the way a cheap buffet should be), but I also learned about the technical aspects of the Edmonton Protocol, including a lot of its shortcomings and areas of fine-tuning. Even accidentally sitting near an ex-supervisor couldn't ruin my excitement. Ah, what was a night to remember (sighed the science nerd).

...why I don't go to clubs (aka my 'wonderful' trip to Banff)

So, for those of you that didn't notice, I've been away the last couple of days. There was a 'relaxation conference' held for medical students over the weekend at Banff that I got conned into attending, because the students from last year assured me that it would be loads of fun. Because I'm battling a cold/cough, and I'm too lazy to write in paragraph format, here's a list of my upsides and downsides of the trip:

The positives

1. winning a booster juice bottle (I always seem to win random/useless gifts. I must own 5 or 6 water bottles by now!)
2. buying two mini jerseys from McDonald's. These jerseys were so great that I think I will end up buying the complete set, which means I will have to go to McDonald's twice a week for about a month (blech).
3. the nice weather
4. finishing my 'Superbugs' book that I started during the summer. Yes, as I've said many times, I am a nerd.
5. getting an excuse to never go to a club again (see #4 below)

The negatives

1. having to put up with drunk roommates. What is the point of calling out my name in the middle of the night to see if I got back safely, if I'm obviously sleeping?!?
2. getting flattened by a drunk(?) friend twice while in bed...my poor privates! :(
3. going to the club, since I don't like to drink or dance
4. getting puked on at the club. It's ironic that the two people that wanted to be at the club the least (my cousin and I) were the two people that managed to get in the line of fire. I actually was witness to two bouts of projectile vomiting. >.<
5. being sick and having a headache for the entire trip
6. attending REALLY boring seminars. The only decent sleep that I had over the weekend.
7. crappy buffet. How is that even possible?!? Until this trip, I would have never thought that unlimited food could be so unappealing.
8. the list goes on

You'll notice that most of the positives that I listed really have nothing to do with the seminars or my time in Banff. I'm sure that most people at the trip had fun, but I guess my idea of fun doesn't entail killing my brain cells and prancing around a dance floor to loud music. Oh well, maybe next year I won't be so cheap, and I'll go skiing. Um, if any of my classmates are reading my blog, I, uh, LOVED the Banff trip. It was so dreamy. Our med class rocks! (alright, that should distract them from all of the other negative comments in this entry; everyone else, you have my permission to gag)

I shall finish this entry here, since my brain's not really in any condition to think, and I've butchered this entry plenty already. Plus, I should do some research for my small group discussion, since I've never seen anyone look as disgusted as my facilitator did today, when we couldn't answer a single question.

(p.s. to my anonymous poet: I am starting to lose sleep trying to figure out who you are. A hint would be nice, or else I shall have to resort to something drastic, like declaring my undying love for you, irregardless of whether you're a guy or girl)

You had me at "I like cancer"

Three magical words that have won me over to Medical Oncology. Forget the fact that the job doesn't pay as well as other medical specialties. Forget the fact that out of the three patients that I saw today, two were terminally ill, and the other one will most likely become terminally ill in the next year (the success rate tends to be a lot higher at most cancer clinics, but I happened to be in a lung cancer clinic, for which few effective therapies are available. the moral of the story is don't smoke!). And forget the fact that the field is solely drug-based (I generally hate pharmacology). As soon as I asked the Medical Oncology resident why she ended up choosing this specialty and she uttered those three words, I knew I had found my raison d'être.

I still have several years left before I even enter a specialty, but after my shadowing experience today, I hope that I can get into this area. The work schedule is good, there's a lot of patient interaction, and the cases seem different enough that I don't think I'd ever get bored. There's also the opportunity to do research, which, being the nerd that I am, I would thoroughly enjoy doing alongside my clinical work. Not to mention that there seems to be a lot of room for growth in this area, as there is a huge push to find new treatments for cancer.

Now, wanting to be a medical oncologist because a resident told me that she likes cancer may seem like an odd reason to want to enter the specialty. But you have to realize that I myself am obsessed about cancer, and I myself have told people on many occasions that I like cancer. So, it was quite refreshing to hear those words coming out of someone else's mouth. Instead of having to go through the blank and disgusted looks on people's faces as I talked about my interests, here was someone who shared my passion about the topic!

I guess it goes to show that even freaks can find their own niche. =)


On another note, I don't mind if you sign my guestbook anonymously, but I would appreciate it if you gave me some hint who you are. If you're the person who wrote the Warcraft poem in my guestbook, please tell me who you are, because you are my new hero!