i have no answers for you.

i chose this. then why does it eat at me so?

it's always sunny in philadelphia.

seriously.

i'm really not a fan.

i was unaware that i could ever possibly miss the perpetually craptacular weather found in pittsburgh until i moved here.

i find myself more at ease, i suppose, when it's cloudy, raining, or snowing.

my mother also prefers craptacular weather. perhaps it's a heritable trait.

and for the record, it rained quite a bit in new orleans.

::sigh::

alright, philly. you win. but just this once.

so i haven't done much in terms of studying for the past two weeks. yes, you heard me. the uber nerd herself has given into sloth. while this is mildly concerning seeing as how there is a rather large exam coming up on friday, i'm not overly tweeked out.....yet.

we finished up micro at the end of september without much fuss, and now it's onto cardiopulmonary pathophysiology. if someone told me back in undergrad that when i got to med school i would have to learn everything that goes wrong with the heart in the span of three weeks i would've laughed. very hard. lots of laughing. hahahahaha.

hahahaa.

haha...ha.

ha.

....oh, you're being serious.



micro, anyone? micro?

as a grande finale to this self-imposed sabbatical, i went to the symphony last night down at the kimmel center. the filarmonica della scala came all the way from milan, italy to play us some tunes.

and oh, what lovely tunes they were.

the best piece of the evening came during the second half. nino rota, who scored the godfather, also wrote the music for the film la strada. the second piece of the ballet suite is entitled 'I Tre Suonatori e Il 'Matto' Sul Filo'. a tasty treat for the eighth cranial nerve. to add another dimension of neat, the concert hall itself was in the shape of a violin. three tiers. wow.

:o)

dear God, please don't let me become an asshole.

i'm afraid.

i'm afraid of when i graduate medical school and perhaps purchase a car that i will magically become an asshole. there seems to be a rather disproportionate number of Doctors Who Drive Fancy Cars and Are Miserable Ill-Willed Individuals.

let's hope i am spared such a fate.


::hops on bike::

the beginning of inadequacy.

today i took my first complete history on a real live patient who actually had problems.

...lots of problems.

congestive heart failure. renal failure. high blood pressure. osteoarthritis. fibromyalgia. hepatitis. seven different surgeries. ten medications. life in america. church. grandkids. everything, including the kitchen sink.

to give you an idea, the following is a short excerpt taken from the interview not long after i'd listened to the details of all her surgeries with no mention of any transplants....

me: 'yes, well i'm originally from pittsburgh...'

patient: 'oh, really? that's where my kidney's from!'

me: '.....................okay! let's talk about that!'


this was definitely unlike anything we'd rehearsed last year: "chest pain", "back pain", "headache".

and trying to present my chaotic plethora of notes to the preceptor was pretty much....a disaster.

hi, i feel dumb.

:::sigh:::

shoot the moon.

everyone remembers their first true romance, followed--in most cases--by their first heinous break-up.

you really, really liked them. they really, really liked you.

for about a month.

i was a freshman in college. he was a sophomore.

he liked dave matthews and john mayer and norah jones. i liked dave matthews and john mayer and norah jones.

he was italian catholic. i was italian catholic.

he coached our intramural flag football team. i was the runningback.

he bought me roses and a poster of dave and told me i was beautiful.

we took walks around the city at night and talked about Important Things.

he was spontaneous. and funny. and sweet.

and he was cute.

really. really. cute.

i was smitten.

this. this was it. we were perfect. people wanted to be us. life couldn't possibly get any better.

and suddenly, it was over.

he called me naive before ceasing to speak to me and began dating...a sophomore.

enter the chocolate, the hugs, the kleenex, and the 'he didn't deserve you's.

over time, we learn that the break-up recovery period is directly proportional to twice the length of the relationship and some mysterious algorithmic factor designed to take into account things such as roses, number of songs ruined, etc.

yep. it took me about two months to move on.

from this, it would be logical to assume that i'm still bitter about what happened.

wrong.

there have been several more relationships since, yet each time i hear norah's 'shoot the moon' or john mayer's 'city love' i cannot help but smile and think of my first perfect tragedy.

yeah, it hurt.

but for that month.....

yeah, life was good.

let's write in the blog instead of going to bed.

a few words on studying to music--

i-really-just-want-background-noise = solo piano or wduq pittsburgh

i-hate-studying-useless-information-that-will-never-appear-on-the-boards = supply and demand by amos lee

i-understood-nothing-of-what-i-just-read-and-oh-shit-the-exam-is-tomorrow = braveheart soundtrack

this-is-so-boring-i'd-rather-be-having-a-dance-party-in-my-pajamas = hey ya by outkast, anything with a fiddle, or released prior to 1990

let's-see-how-much-i-can-memorize-in-the-car-on-the-way-to-the-test = going the distance by cake

yeah-i'm-screwed-so-might-as-well-enjoy-myself-a-bit = preservation hall jazz band

satisfying-the-need-to-burst-into-song = bohemian rhapsody by queen

wouldn't-it-be-neat-if-i-could-fly-instead-of-learning-about-chemokines: the prologue to hook

spacing-out-and-wondering-what-life-will-be-like-when-i-actually-get-to-have-one = the opening theme to the boondock saints

let's-write-in-the-blog-instead-of-going-to-bed: you're nobody till somebody loves you by dean martin off the swingers soundtrack


among others. :)