So… Pneumonia? November 13, 2008

Alrighty. This just further cements in my mind the very reason I want to be a doctor, to not misdiagnose. Thursday night after work I come home and find myself in a desperate need of sleep. So, I crawled into bed at about 8pm and woke up the next morning so not ready for school. I ended up skipping half the day because I felt like a zombie. Later that night, I decided to go to a walk-in clinic because my usual family doctor place was obviously closed. Bad move. This doctor, whom I will dub ‘Ignorant,’ proceeded to diagnose me. Without taking a culture sample from my tongue in order to test for the presence of Strep, Dr. Ignorant decides to simply tell me I have Strep Throat. At the time being, this seemed like either 1. An incredibly stupid diagnosis or 2. An amazing accurate diagnosis in about 2.47 minutes. I think it is safe to say it was number 1. After being on the antibiotics for a few days, I get worse. Much, much worse. Turns out I had Bronchitis (which is so not Strep). A visit to the hospital also revealed Pneumonia! X-RAYS are fun. But awkward. They have you stand in the middle of the room in one of those back-opening gowns and hug the X-RAY screen while they all watch from behind in a little x-ray safe room. Needless to say, i’m a bit better now. Pneumonia is a funny feeling though. You’re just short of breath all the time. A walk to the kitchen has me huffing and puffing.

Anyways, crisis averted.

The triumphant return of… well, me. October 18, 2008

Hm. Let’s see, where shall I start? It’s been such a long time since i’ve written a post or seen any of you for that matter. I’ve been somewhat removed from the world recently. Yes that’s right, studying. But no worries, I have been aware of this absence and am trying to amend the problem.

 

1. Thanksgiving!
This year on Thanksgiving, I decided to try my hand at pies. My church was having their annual ‘baked potato + something’ fellowship deal with pumpkin pies. Sadly, I came up short and was runner up to a pie which honestly looked pre-bought and therefore blew away my own regular uneven pie.

 

2. Midterminal Illness.
SO. I had 2 midterms this week. My Cell Biology one was on Thursday and was terrible. You know how if you have an essay question on an exam, they are very nice about it and balance it out with some multiple choice or match-up? This exam was 50 minutes long but consisted of an essay and enough short answer questions to make up another 2 essays. My second midterm however was incredible. Vertebrate Biology. It was this afternoon and I quite honestly believe that it will be my best exam mark since highschool. My reason being that they’re animal families and classes, which are quite reminiscent of well…. Pokemon. And let’s face it, nobody ever had to TRY memorizing Pokemon, you just did it.

 

3. FRIENDS.
I’ve been watching a lot of reruns lately, approximately 2-3 episodes a day. I’ve found that having FRIENDS running in the background while i’m studying seems to work. It provides you with that little thing you have to look at when you’re trying to memorize things. I watched the pilot the other day and never truly realized how epic it was. It was at that moment that I thought to myself: ‘What if FRIENDS was not picked up for subsequent seasons by a television station?’ It would be horrific. Then I proceeded to ask myself other ‘parallel universe’ kinds of questions about the show as I watched reruns (Yes, yes, I know there is a ‘What if’ episodes of FRIENDS but humor me). What if Ross ended up hooking up with Phoebe after that Pool table romancing? What if Carol wasn’t a lesbian? Joey getting fat? We will never know.

 

4. Blindness
I’ve been seeing a lot of ads for Blindness in the past couple weeks (see above: TV watching whilst studying). I know i’ve said it before but the concept of mass blindness REALLY, REALLY scares me. Perhaps it’s the fact that i’m already fairly blind *frown* Anyhow, I want to watch this movie.

 

Well, it’s 12:06 am and I am tired from a long day of well… day. I hope to see you all very soon, and will try to keep updating/posting more often. Cheers!

15.07.97 March 25, 2008

July 15th, 1997.

Hello Mommy today we went for a walk with dad to Chapters We saw a new Hercules book. We went to seven-eleven dad baught two ice-creams for us then we were walking home dad saw a cart. He told us to go on but Stephanie went in I tried to but I coulden’t so dad picked me up. But I triped the cart during when I was going up so when Stephanie fell on the floor and she broke her ice-cream so we just went home. but I never ment to do that.

      I was cleaning up around my desk, clearing off the clutter when I surveyed my shelf for a vacant spot for a book and instead came across an old green ‘Recipe’ book. Instantly I recognized this as a textured notebook I had claimed 10 years earlier for my summer adventures. As you can tell, I had quite an affinity for the ‘run-on sentence’. I noticed that I also really liked to use the word ‘too’ but you’ll have to bear with me as you read along in my other ‘journal entries’.

      I think that entry just about summarizes my attitude towards everything. How deep is it? I will tell you just how deep. Through years of tense misusage, run-on sentences, poor grammar, I became the moral compass you all know and love(I hope) today. This series of my earlier journal entries cements in my mind the epic journeys of my sister and my dad, and our evening walks to the Akroyd Chapters when Chapters was just beginning to pop up everywhere and it still had that new store smell, before the Starbucks was built. I was very shy and as such, I remember the very first time I had set foot in that Chapters. It is fairly large now, so bear with me as I found it to be monstrous when I was but 8 years old. I remember always running to the kids section in the far corner ready to grab a book and start as I knew the timer had already begun. Time would always fly by, and my dad would come by and tell me that hours had passed and that it was time to go home. I’ve forgotten how much fun that was. I was never a very literate child I guess, English was probably considered my weakest subject in school, I read mystery novels and anything with a picture of a robot for nothing more than simple pleasure. On almost every one of these outings I would be lying in anxious wait for my Dad to suggest going by the 7-11 that used to be on the island by the intersection (which now also has a Starbucks). I had too much pride to ask to go to 7-11, so when he suggested it, we celebrated. When he didn’t, I mustered up my breath and walked home leaving the idea behind. Never before had I experienced the night air like this.

Guess who’s back. Back again. March 6, 2008

So! Just to keep things interesting for you kindly folks, here is something I have learned recently. Now, everyone knows that Knowledge is Power correct? And in the scientific world, the definition/equation for Power is that of Power = Work over Time. A saying also equally accepted is ‘Time is Money’. This leaves us with 3 equations.

Knowledge = Power, Power = (Work/Time), and Time = Money.

By substituting ‘Knowledge = Power’ and ‘Time = Money’ into the definition of Power, we can get:

Knowledge = (Work/Money)

After some careful rearranging by cross multiplication, we can come to the conclusion that:

Money = Work divided by Knowledge.

In theory then, as Knowledge increases, Money decreases.

Hope that brings a few chuckles (Mike). As for news of recent happenings, I have been keeping busy. School is strenuous and a difficult business as always but I have made my peace with it. I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with UBC and wandering campus on my downtime or just reading in the library (WOW seriously, you guys need to visit this library. Especially Irene). The name of said library is the Irvine K Barber Learning Center. On the outside, it appears to be a normal library, but inside… it is a 5 star hotel. Everything is a sandy beige with nice carpets, and couches galore. Speaking of which, I bumped into Stefania for the first time this term on Tuesday in and about said couches.

 Recently, i’ve been thinking a lot about the future. I question the path i’ve seemingly staked out so surely. You all know that i’m probably not one to do things out of the ordinary, which sometimes makes me want to just pick up and go do something I never in a million years would have the intestinal fortitude to accomplish. Pack all the things I cherish into a bag and set off for adventure wherever adventure is to be had (sadly, you lot do not all fit into my suitcase). It seems as though I almost have a duty to finish school though, that I am somehow intrinsically tied to academia and a solid financially secure future. I do not find school as easy as it used to be and not doing as well weighs itself on my shoulders even moreso as the term nears to an end. It is somewhat a combination of disappointment in myself, struggle, a fear of consequences that plague my mind. Have I been brainwashed to believe that this is a choice I have made?

Sadly, I must proceed to the homework and myriad of textbooks that await me. Next week is a busy one.

(I realize that the above post makes me sound rather unhappy, but fear not! It is not so, just simply ideas and worries floating around in my head as I toil away on homework).

Twitching under the colossal weight of my textbooks! October 10, 2007

Yup, I finally make another appearance on this blog! This probabaly won’t be coherent in anyway due to it being just a stream of instantaneous thoughts, but here goes! Classes are just oh so demanding that it makes it difficult to do much else. On another note, being trapped in class, trapped doing homework, or trapped elsewhere in the vicinity of academia, makes me wants to slap on a suit and just stroll down the street during my down time! Or I actually might go with a more efficient route and just wear suits to school, that’ll most definitely solve things. Biology is FASCINATING! My midterm is tomorow night, and so i’ve been spending the last couple of days in my Biology textbook. It really is like a storybook.

PS. I’ll try to post more often.

The Bird and the Machine September 8, 2007

          So. As all your professors preach to you in the wee early mornings of lecture, we are all capable adults now, and I take that with a grain of salt. I am finding the transition quite refreshing yet unbearable. The change that I am witnessing and undergoing all in the same moment is too much for me to write down in my agenda planner. It has been a long time coming, yet it has still for some odd reason taken me totally and utterly by surprise.

          “Essentially, the author Loren Eiseley wished to express the message that everything in the world is seen as a machine in some shape or form, and even as we undergo technological revolutions and advances, and our outlook on everything within the world quickly complicates, we shall never reach the beauty that is life as it is given to us.”

           Earlier this evening, I found myself staring up at the stars on a park bench slowly drifting away from the conversation on the revitalizing breeze of the night. Never before had I such a feeling that I had aged a decade between the rapid movement that is the blink of an eye. Something vaccum sealed and contained within the canister of my heart seems to be leaking. This feeling is foreign to my body, as an illiterate immigrant is to this country. Thoughts rampage and pillage my mind with no regard for its well-being, and it mentally, spiritually, physically, and any other-lly exhausts me.

           The desperate longing of a continuous sleep of 8 hours or more? Worries of inadequacies in the non-existent world of academia? I feel ever so distant from all that revolves around me, hoping just to fit in. It is now that I ask myself “what if I am not cut out for this?” but soon realize that it was MY decision and mine alone to tackle this seemingly impossible task and it is too late to turn back. Lucky for me, i’m not alone in this world, and so I get by with a little help from my friends.