It turns out I'm unstoppable at Bookworm Adventures.
The last twenty percent or so of this most recent absence is, I'm relieved to report, not my fault. It's Stefka's. She sent me an email that included the following: Nothing much to report otherwise. I guess I'm the only person in the department who hasn't passed at least one of the required field exams at this point. The beauty of my relationship
( Read more... )
"Ray-Ray? Alive?"
"Ray-Ray *is* alive."
entirely without my consent. And then I realized, what with your ESL-ing and all, that that modified Simpsons quote is, if not funny, at least contextually appropriate. Much like the use of "male" and "female" as answer choices after a question about gender.
YOU SEE HOW IT ALL FITS TOGETHER.
Your idea of using the surveys to construct weaving patterns reminds me of this thing I read this one time? I think it involved music? And now I will sit here and my brain will ache -- ACHE! -- because I can remember nothing more than that idea, the idea of making something (art!) using cues from your environment that really don't lend themselves so much to that.
UNLESS YOU KNOW HOW TO LOOK AT THEM.
I am remarkably tired of a sudden, which is a shame, because after I'm done here I'm unplugging the internet -- I know! -- and taking the computer and my notebook to sit on the floor and type-type-type my way into learning pharmacology. In MSWord.
BILL GATES WAS ON THE DAILY SHOW LAST NIGHT AND HE IS A DWEEB. BUT I WOULD TOTALLY DO HIM. BEING RICHER THAN GOD HELPS.
There have been a number of times in my life when I have wished mightily that I could laugh, and of course I could not, because there was a patient sitting in front of me, and even though he/she was being ridiculous, I was wearing a white coat and That Is Not Done, At Least Until You Get A Show On Fox Devoted To Your Poor Patient Manners. Like the woman with chest pain who admitted to "smoking up" when it came on. Or the other woman with an asthma flare-up who also, coincidentally, was smokin' the reefer four times a day. Or that guy with a pleural effusion, and I didn't know he was crazy until my resident and I had turned to leave, and he said "Excuse me, ma'am?" and then there was a rant about his twin brother, his job, and high school ten years ago that ended with "I should not have to be a rap star to get a girlfriend!"
HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW HE WAS SCHIZOPHRENIC? THE DOCTOR HAD THE CHART. ALSO HE WAS HIDING BEHIND IT SO THE PATIENT COULDN'T SEE HIM SNICKER.
Still and all that mis-emphasis in "anus" is just precious. The sort of precious that Flannery O'Connor would write about, probably. Or Tennessee Williams. Or the other one. William Faulkner. Have I ever read anything by these latter two? I'm not sure.
LEARNED REFERENCES ARE WORTH LESS WHEN YOU'RE JUST REGURGITATING OPINIONS YOU PICKED UP BY OSMOSIS.
Please tell me that other caller pronounced "gender" with a hard "g." Like when patients ask what "spootum" is.
THIS IS WHY WE DON'T LET THEM SEE THEIR OWN CHARTS.
I'm pretty sure in 700 BC (um, give or take...), Iraq was part of an empire that was giving the Greeks a run for their money. It has, however, been something of a disappointment since then. Especially the part where we broke it.
HA HA HA HA HA.
Sewing machines are evil.
LINES I ESPECIALLY LIKED FROM THIS POST:
"no amount of stat-tracking in a carefully shifting rainbow of markers could disguise how little fun it was" [sounds like my med school notes, really]
"Include a headline from the day's paper in my greeting?" [yes! do that!]
"I'm a bonnet, a white blouse, and three dun-colored sequins away from fronting a Mennonite show choir." [aren't we all, dear? aren't we all.]
I THINK I SHALL GO EAT AN APPLE NOW.
Reply
The caller never actually pronounced "gender"; she only spelled it. The sad part is that I've told the story in my head often enough that I can no longer remember whether she did or didn't then ask me what "ethnicity" means. I want her to have done so, just to reflect on my personal historiographical despair at trying to answer, but most likely I merely imagined what I would have said if she had.
IN ESL WE DO NOT BOTHER WITH SUCH TENSES AND/OR MOODS.
In tracking down missing (renegade?) daycare centers for my company, I've had cause to use the reverse address lookup at whitepages.com many times in the last few days. While we're on the subject of "The Simpsons."
DUDE HAS A POINT. WE CAN'T ALL BE RAP STARS.
I realized not long ago that I have a perfect rejoinder to the frequent (from my mom; occasional from other people) statement that [I] should write a book. It turns out there are already two near-perfect books about quasi-failed historians living in the South. One is All the King's Men, and the other is A Confederacy of Dunces. I am in proud company. Precisely unlike the one woman in "Everything That Rises Must Converge," or any character ever in something by Faulkner.
FAULKNER IS NOT MY HOMEBOY.
The only Tennessee Williams I've read is no Tennessee Williams, which is why I couldn't write an essay on one of his works for that scholarship from The University of the South. And alas that I had no live journal then, for that was one hell of a school visit. Lots more interesting than many things I have posted about.
TREES MAKE APPLES OUT OF LIGHT. APPLES ARE TREE-LIGHT YOU CAN EAT.
Let's not even talk about Hypothetical Do-er Me and Bill Gates, please.
STOP.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment