Do you know Juno?

It's time once again for me to fluff the cushions on which I sit, here in the front section of the Juno bandwagon. (It's not that I'm special, it's that I got on early.)

With the regularity of tornado-siren tests, I've been nattering from time to time about my friend's movie -- about how awesome it is, about how nice it is that someone talented and deserving gets some of that sweet Hollywood money, and about how holy crap it's really being made. And while it was fun, in a vaguely "I told you so" hipsterish way, to talk about this little screenplay written by a member of my Minneapolis drinkin' buddy assemblage, I'm afraid that has to end.

Because this action has gone mainstream, people. Feast your eyeballs on some links as fresh as anything Jimmy Dean has to offer:

The official Fox Searchlight JUNO page

Roger Ebert (yes, THAT Roger Ebert) from Telluride, saying wonderful things (which incidentally jibe very well with my thoughts, and how nice it is to say that).

Juno's Rotten Tomatoes page (100% with 5 reviews, 91 days before the opening).

...and that's that. There's nothing more for me to say, particularly because Fox has a whole publicity machine that reaches, I kid you not, easily twice as many people as read this blog. She belongs to the ages now.

So I'll pretty much just talk about myself all the time, now. You poor suckers.

Thanks to Trash, plus Latest Goofy Blog Meme

Trash was kind enough to point out that grad school grades don't matter. And she's even more right than she knows, since for all intents and purposes, med school is a lot like culinary school. When I'm done, I study for (and take, and pass) a certification exam, and then I'm on a level field with everyone else. Nobody cares what my grades were -- nobody even cares about my GPA, which puts me in even better shape than Trash herself -- they just care how well I can cook.

And apropos of nothing except me being too tired even to waste time properly, here's the latest fun thing I found on the list of blogs I check: courtesy of Shamus from 20-sided (who got it from someone who likely got it from someone, and so on...)

Enter "[your name] needs" into Google, and see what it is you supposedly need. So simple, it's elegant. I see it out there (now that I look) as a list of 10 short bullets, but I'm going to stay in character and make it five things that natter on for longer.

For those of you who were wondering, here's what it is I* seem to be very much in need of:

1. I need aid in regaining my title, lands, and children, stolen from me by my treacherous brother.

2. I need to be seen less on MySpace and more in person, preferably in a bar.

3. I need to jump across the electrical field, and climb up the ladder.

4. As much as we don't want anyone in Iraq or Afghanistan, I need to do my duty.

5. I need to grow up.




* As always, I'm hiding my secret identity, if only because my real name will be linked to my school, my hospital, my practice, etc.

the Patron Saint of my Grade Sheet

I am no champion of mediocrity. As a passionate fan of both the Faust mythos and the Kit Marlowe conspiracy theory, I think there's absolute value in the striving, the tireless windmill-tilting, the reach exceeding the grasp. I try, in as many little ways as possible, to make a habit of excellence.

And yet, if I take pride in anything as I go about this nutty adventure among the academic elite, it's this: That unlike some of my habitually-achieving peers, I have had experience falling short of the loftier kind of grade-related goals. If you have for some weird reason followed this story since I went out east and nervously took up the reins of a university education for the second time, you know I have followed Mark Twain's philosophy, and effectively separated my academic achievement from my learning. More than that, I've detached it from my self-esteem.

It turns out that's really helpful.

The program I'm in requires a minimum score. I need to hit this certain number for each class, in order to pass it. On a more micro level, each component test within each class also has to meet this threshold; getting a 96 on one thing doesn't make it okay to get a 64 on another one, for instance. And I've hit exactly that number twice now; once on the final grade for a course that's finished, and once on a test for a class I'm in now.

I am conflicted about this.

I'm not berating myself, and I refuse to. Shame is a particularly bad motivator for me. For the most part, I'm fine with what I've got here; it means I studied just the perfect amount. And since I dislike studying, that's good. But I really like understanding, is the thing.

And I know that if I really caught on to some of this stuff, I'd be able to show how well and how completely I get it. That's my problem; I take a while to taste every little nugget of info with my whole brain. The end result is good -- the stuff I know, I really know. But until then, this guy will have to be my spirit guide in the world of schoolwork:



And I'll just have to repeat the magic words: "...it's good enough for me."

Less rock, more erythematous, poorly-demarcated lesions

Right now, I'm studying and I'm listening to music. I'm nominating Ryan Adams as my personal soundtrack of the moment...

Everybody's cool, playing rock n' roll
Everybody's cool, playing rock n' roll

I don't feel cool, feel cool at all
I don't feel cool, feel cool at all

It was really fun when I was working the ER Tech job, thinking about how cool the future would be. All I needed to do was to learn... kind of everything... and then I'd be even more at home there, doing even more helpful and cool stuff.

And that's still true. It's only that, wow, doing the schoolwork is so very unlike the experience of doing the work work. I have no doubt it's worth it, or that I can make it through. It's just not fun in the same way. Basically, I'm bad at delayed gratification.

Le sigh...

I love my car, but this is silly. I'm engaged and live with my fiancee now, so Teslagrl's car is an option most of the time. And I commute by train. I literally have started my car twice in the last week, to move it off the "street cleaning today" side of the street... and that's just because it was street-cleaning week.

One sure way to know I don't really need it is that since it went all freaky and broken and refuses to obey simple instructions, I've been able to adjust quite happily to not using it.

So... wanna buy a car? (This used to be a Craigslist link, but the car sold and the listing expired.)

I have some pretty significant ennui about ditching the VW. It's been fussy and expensive, but it was my first "grown up" car. It was my first non-junker car since the divorce, mid-1990s, and the new car we'd bought way back then was a damn Geo Metro, for cryin' out loud. My Passat has twice as many cylinders. It's honestly true to say that

Geo Metro : VW Passat :: VW Passat : Jaguar XJ12

This is the car that gave me independence, symbolically. It gave me power (of the "horse-" variety) I had never had before. It gave me a whole list of things I didn't know I really liked in a car, and won't do without in the future, if I can help it. It took me out east, to school, and helped me start this new chapter of my life. It was the car I always drove, for as long as my future wife has known me. After a string of crappy 'college cars,' this was the one that made me feel legitimate showing up to a business function (or a first date), and it was the most fun to drive. It's just that gradually, it turned into a college car, albeit a nice one.

So that's how I'm billing it on Craigslist.

And whatever I get next, about two years from now, that sucker will have a really $!#@ good warranty.

At least it's organized chaos

Here's what I have going on in the Fall term:

General Medicine & Infectious Disease
-- a huge, year-long course that covers... kind of everything. Right now it's Neurology... plus infectious disease. Ask me about the many different classes of antibiotics! (On second thought, don't. Not yet.)

Pharmacology
-- merely a two-quarter-long course. One more arena in which I can demonstrate a lack of excellence in memorizing enormous quantities of data. (Although, having taken Microbiology, Biochemistry, Cell Bio, and what turns out to have been a very decent Physiology course already, this isn't that bad. Not yet.)

Interviewing and Documentation
-- where we learn to do stuff like write up a clinic note (like the ones I typed as a transcriptionist) and do an interview (like the hundreds I witnessed in the ER). I like this class.

Psychosocial Aspects of Care
-- where we, essentially, learn not to be a-holes whilst speaking with patients and administering care. Fun class.

Research and Statistics
-- where we remember that being in a Masters program entails a special kind of pain. I need to decide whether to a) jump onboard a faculty member's research, b) convince a faculty member to sponsor (read: be the first author of) research I come up with myself, or c) just do a series of smaller papers on anything I want. I am actually struggling with this, because I have areas I'd like to do publishable research in, and my school has really good resources. Plus I wrote a lot of papers in undergrad.

Clinical Laboratory
-- which does not take place in a lab, but a classroom. This one is all about all the tests we might order, and how they work. So far it's been "fun stuff you kind find out from a cup of urine."

Complementary and Alternative Medicine
-- where we, essentially, learn not to be so obnoxiously patriarchal and stick-up-the-bum about the alleged superiority of Western scientific medicine. A nice touchstone and reality check.

Intro to EKG
-- given the size of this list, and the fact that Winter term starts in November(!) with a whole new slate of punishments, I figure I can be really truly good at one course per term. I've decided this one will be my good course for Fall. EKGs rock.

Am I insane? Not yet, but ask me again in a few weeks.

How do I keep it all together? How do I keep from going completely sideways?

Oh, I have my ways.

Med School Microcosm

Sigh...

95%


And meanwhile...

Yes, I'm being blog-lazy by reprinting stuff, but it's all about efficiency these days.

Now there can be no doubt

The sorting hat says that I belong in Gryffindor!

Said Gryffindor, "We'll teach all those with brave deeds to their name."

Students of Gryffindor are typically brave, daring, and chivalrous.
Famous members include Harry, Ron, Hermione, Albus Dumbledore (head of Hogwarts), and Minerva McGonagall (head of Gryffindor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

Harry Potter and the L-1 Dermatome

No spoilers here. I will not discuss the book yet.

I read it in a little under 36 hours, taking frequent brief breaks to eat, sleep, pee, and do homework. (Weird, how the work is done so much more efficiently when it's done as a break from something fun I get to return to. I might re-read the whole damn series now.)

I just want to point out that for the last eight weeks, I've been learning about stuff that has amusingly Potteresque nomenclature. Take a pen or pencil in your dominant hand, and flourish it with a sweeping motion, ending in a point directly out and away from your body, and yell out an Anatomy term. Then you'll see what I mean. Here are some to get you started:

Infundibulum!
Intercostalis!
Semispinalis!
Vastus Medialus!

Being hit with the gubernaculum charm would likely be no damn fun, if it did what I suspect. "Toxic Megacolon" sounds like a large, noxious creature that might live in the Forbidden Forest. You could store your spare tubercles in a vesicouterine pouch, assuming they had them in stock at Flourish & Blotts. Rectus Capitus might be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. It just goes on and on.

And I've figured out why. Rowling uses such decent fake-Latin in the books that it captures the sometimes just plain goofy-assed nature of actual Latin names. One example: There's a bit of the tibia, the shin-bone, where certain thigh muscles attach. Three muscles attach there, you see, so you get this triangular, webbed effect. I think it looks kind of like a duck's foot. If it didn't have a name already, I'd call it "the duck foot."

The actual, official, proper scholarly name for this little structure? Pes Anserinus. Sounds impressive, right?

Until you realize it's Latin for "Goose's Foot." Oh yeah, so much more professional than the thing I said, with the duck. Definitely.

And that's why I don't feel the least bit disrespectful, waving my pen in the air and repeating funny-sounding terms to the guy sitting next to me in lectures.

Plus, by now I can do a pretty decent levatores costarum spell.

Overheard in the Anatomy Lab

"Thanks, [Feb], for showing me your penis!"

It's pelvis and perineum week. My friends have a female cadaver, so they needed to check out what in the medical world we call 'the dude parts.' And my guy has some fine anatomy going on. We've spent enough time in this class now, about ten weeks or so, that we've really started taking ownership of our learning experience. That's reflected in the way we talk about cadavers as though they were books, or any other learning tool.

Naturally, I told the girls they were welcome to come by and check out my penis anytime they want.

Finally, something important to talk about

Here's a diverting little hypothetical, courtesy of one of the messageboards I frequent:

Assume you have been offered your dream job (that is, the dream version of your job, or else the job you really want to do). The catch is, you need to choose from only two possible job sites. One is in Gotham City, and the other is in Metropolis. Which would you choose, and why?

Obviously, there are some stark differences. How much you like sunlight, for instance, will probably be a factor. As would whether you prefer to carry cash on your person, outdoors, ever. Your feelings about the occasional superhero/ supervillain fight spilling over into your building and destroying a fair bit of it should probably come into play as well. There a pros and cons either way.

As for me, I found it was kind of an easy choice because I'd have to be working in one of the two ED's. No way am I going to deal with the Joker's deadly laughing gas, or some fiendish nano-virus engineered by the Riddler. I'm going Metropolis, hands down. Let the superintelligent gorilla commandos and trans-dimensional shockwaves fall where they may.

Plus, I bet the cafeteria food is nicer at Metropolis Memorial. That's just a guess, but it's an educated one.

So, how about you?

EDIT: Guess we got our answer on that one, eh?

Have I Mentioned...

a) My own personal theory about what happens at the end of the Harry Potter saga?

or

b) How much I love Keith Olbermann?

No? Really? Hmm.

Well, it's a good thing I can do both at once, because I need to be efficient these days... and also, it just so happens he has the exact same theory.

Spoilers, sort of, but only if Olbermann and I are right. Which we both think we are.

My Cadaver is More Fun Than I Am

...lately.

Sorry about the radio silence. I'm planning to dedicate some time soon for a post about my new room-temperature friend; I think you'll like him. He's got a good heart, and we try not to let it dry out. He's not quite all there anymore, if you get my drift, but it's okay because we're keeping track of all the bits we take out.

I also wanted to put in some words on the subject of medical blogs, and all the controversy in that little world lately. By the time I get around to it, maybe there will be a whole new quasi-scandal to get excited about.

For those keeping score, I have now done my first written test and my first lab practical in Clinical Anatomy. Both, I believe, went well enough. There's a way of looking at my program that boils down to a Pass/Fail paradigm. I kind of like looking at it in that way.

It's getting late, and I have some stuff to go over before tomorrow, so check back on the weekend. Approximately.

A little present from your uncle Feb

People, listen up. You need to go see this movie. Seriously. (Minneapolis people: it's at the Uptown this very week.)

We were going to see Knocked Up (and we will, sooner or later). But it's my birthday, and dinner happened to be finished at an inconvenient point between showtimes for the big Hollywood comedy... so I used my Birthday Power™ to go see Once.

I shit you not: I haven't seen a better movie in years. Everything I hate about big dumb musicals stays a world away from this story, and yet somehow everything that's awesome about them finds its way in. It's very strange, and -- here's an adjective I haven't used about a movie in a while -- surprising. Go. Then come back and tell me how right I was.

...it was the opposite of Ninja-like, actually.

Today we cut our cadaver's heart out of his thoracic cavity. It was bitchin'.

My hands. Human heart. Whoa.

There's a lot to talk about, kids, and maybe this weekend I'll have some time. It'll require some thought to properly frame the thoughts and emotions that I've been experiencing in the first few days of anatomy lab.

One thing's for sure, though: today's events definitely tugged on someboody's heartstrings, har har har.