Just fucking wonderful.

Was about to hit the Hibernate key combo on the laptop when the screen goes black and it powers down. Turns out the fucking power brick was unplugged, and none of my alarms - not the 85%, not the 10%, not the 3%, none of them. Best guess: it's a conflict between the two battery monitors. So I power it back up after plugging it in...and it's then that I realise that even though the last-saved time on my file is 12:09 AM, the data in the file is from 7:00 PM, when I started working on my notes. It takes an hour to retype one page of notes. I had done pages 12-17 and was done with pediatric pathology. Now I've got to start over from Cystic Fibrosis. Fuck.

I am....
What Sign of Affection Are You?
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Morning has brooooken....

Genetics exam. Sucked. But that's okay. I'm pretty sure I did plenty well. I just don't see the reason to need to know all of the fardling genes that relate to syndromes that all mean "oh, shit, your kid's toast at birth." Eh? On a brighter note: here's a picture of a little girl with Williams Syndrome, which in some theories is the origin of the legends about pixies. They're very musically inclined, even if they're mentally retarded. And a rainbow picture of a spectral karyotype which is just fardling beautiful. Off to my preceptor's, to see if he'll feed me today.

My turn.

I thought I heard Jefe leaving this morning before I got up to take my shower. Lily was up, and confirmed my suspicions. As well as casually mentioning that he hadn't slept in something approaching 36 hours. Did you know that you can go without water longer than you can go without sleep? My turn. My turn my turn my turn. You help nobody if you have no rest. In other notes of worth: Medical Genetics final today. Bleah. Think I'll skip pharm, or at best pay no attention. Last preceptor visit today as well. Which is sad and happy. I'll be glad for the afternoons off, but I like seeing doctory things being done. I like doing doctory things. And...oh, bugger. Did I or didn't I see a drug lunch up there? Well, if there isn't, I guess I'll just go hungry.

Rawr

Some people have...too much time on their hands.

Warning: popup-heavy

A thinking question....

Tay-Sachs disease. A progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Untreatable, uncurable, but detectable by specific tests. Children are born normal. By six months of age they have begun to show signs of progressive motor and mental degeneration. They die by age 2-4. Always. Untreatably. Prevalence: 1 in 30 Ashkenazi Jews is a carrier of the disease. If two carriers get married, 1/4 of their children will have Tay-Sachs. We have the ability to tell if someone is a carrier of Tay-Sachs...and to then test the child of two Tay-Sachs carriers to see if the child is afflicted. At that point, about 95% of couples elect to terminate the pregnancy.

Is it right to abort a Tay-Sachs foetus?

I think the fact that 99% of couples who'd previously had a child with Tay-Sachs decided to abort the second child with Tay-Sachs is a telling mark. Is it fair to a child to bring them into the world - to have six months, maybe a year, before their life spirals irreversibly and irrevocably down the drain to death? No treatment. No treatments on the horizon. What about anencephaly? A small percentage of these children (who have no brain at all due to a defect in formation) survive in utero - to be born, vegetables without brains, with only the most rudimentary of functions left in the brainstem, with a gaping hole in a misshapen head, eyes that will never see. They survive no more than a few days with the best of care...and you can't give someone a brain, nor can you reverse the deformations of development.

Interesting thought, isn't it?

Tempered steel

Jefe worries about me. I suppose he has the right; he knows me as well as anyone on this becalmed planet does. He's seen me break before - he's one of the few who knows how possible and how devastating it is. So is it better or worse, when it just means I get trashed for a night and then go on? Would you rather I break like I did before? I wouldn't. Now it's...controlled. Now I know that I can wait out the paranoid fantasies, the vivid imagery that comes to mind. When I close my eyes at night, before I go to sleep, while I'm still waiting for my mind to stop racing through the events of the day, I see things behind them. I always have. Last night, it was lilliputian savages dragging a dessicated corpse through underbrush, the flesh slowly falling away until it was just a skeleton held together by tendons and scraps of muscle. Except the eyes were still there. Maybe it's to make up for the other night, when I saw kittens with their eyes gouged out, waiting for me to feed them...and the milk in their bowls was blood. More or less, they've almost ceased to disturb me. More or less, I just wait it out...and they go away. I'm sure it means something. I'm sure that the violence of the images is directly correspondant to my particular state of tension. But I don't care. I have to get through this somehow, and once I do it'll be all right. I will get through it. I'll make it.

Tempered steel. Hardened in the forges of my own mind, my own self-doubt, my own inachievable standards. Has it made me stronger or just more brittle, more likely to despair?

And it's time for class once again. At least we only have classes this morning. This afternoon is cramming-time for (oh, fuck. printouts for Iwona! *fetches, prints*) the Medical Genetics final. I don't want to take any more exams...I can't wait for it to be monday after next. No exams for a whole 11 days. And yes, Clarabear, I think I'll take a day off then. And Jefe? Don't worry. I'll make it. I always do. (loves)

Mom, I love you.

---- Whisper: *sniffles* Did you find the email with the livejournal link in it? RaBever87: No, I didn't.......I never saw any that I know of.....what address did you send it from? RaBever87: Can you resend it? Whisper: Warning: some of the language isn't always the best. Especially when I'm ranting. RaBever87: ok, i guess i don't have TOO sensitive ears. Whisper: Figured I'd warn you, since I tend to swear a lot more when I write than when I'm speaking. RaBever87: but i can hardly believe my gentle daughter would result to profanity! :) --- For all of you whose parents don't understand you...for all of you whose parents refuse to acknowledge that you're an adult...for all of you whose parents think that just because you have a mind, desires, and volitions that differ from theirs you're some kind of deviant who should be kept on a tight leash...

Mom is mine, but I'll share her with you if you want to come and visit.

Not to neglect my daddy, because I'm such a daddy's girl it's absolutely ridiculous, and I'll talk about my daddy in another post. But right now, I love Mom.

Jezebel

Clarabear asked me about Jezebel...and so did Jefe and a couple of others. So here's the answer...she ...is one of the only images in my poetry that I don't know who she represents. Archetypically, she's the ultimate wicked temptress, embodiment of sin and evil. She was rebuked by the prophet Elijah for her wickedness...and eventually when she died not even the dogs would touch her body. But my symbols don't always follow reason. And every time she shows up in my poetry, I'm begging her for something... Look at the other poems she's been in...

take me by the arms
and pull me down
this reality is too harsh for me
look.
look!
Into my eyes and see you
not the one who slid a catlike glance
but me! my you are
mine
and this reality can't stand that word
no
never
not
me not you not us
i can't live before you and i
won't after you go on for long
so take
me by the arms and pull me down
down to where you are
o,
and Jezebel,
love me.
        NsK 14-8-96
            those eyes

don’t lie jez
     i know you know my ways
   you crossed my path today
               jezjezibel
my love

           don’t sigh jez
our love my love can save
     you took my hand today
                 jezjezibel
my love
 
                don’t cry jez
i meant to make you stay
       you broke my heart today
                    jezjezibel
              my love

don’t fly jez   
        don’t let this slip away
   you said goodbye today
                jezjezibel
                      my love.
NsK 13-02-01
		"Reine"

So I don't know, Clarabear. Maybe she's my love affair with wishing I were bad and hedonistic and uncaring. Maybe she's something else. Maybe she's me. Can't tell.

About poetry

This is the latest. Like I said, I don't know if I -like- it.

O Jezebel
          my mirrored child
      Your shadowed eyes
                     remember:
The summer's gone
        When days were wild
     This autumn chill
                        will break them

Bend down and rest
          your weary head
                  These days are cold,
      this autumn,
                     And dreams are dull,
Their meaning fled
           And comfort bring
                             no longer

You stand and wait
               For winter's chill
        Don't fear the storm
                             that threatens
    I'll meet you there
on frozen hill
                 And glory there
          together

    My Jezebel,
             of gold and green
       Don't fear the cold
                      and shadow
the dark will pass
          to summer's gleam
   And we will love
              forever

"Jez", 25-10-02

For your delectation:

The realistic Internet Simulator : http://www.b3ta.com/realistic-internet-simulator/ The Scandinavian Singing Horse choir - click their mouths to make them sing. http://svt.se/hogafflahage/hogafflaHage_site/Kor/hestekor.swf Some animated optical illusions, really quite interesting. http://www-bcs.mit.edu/gaz/gaz-teaching/index.html Kittens! Really scary animated kittens! http://www.rathergood.com Okay, be warned that it's not all animated kittens, and some of it is scary. And that'll do for now, because I'm done pulling part 1 of my DVD rip of LotR off of the CD so that it plays properly and doesn't give me funny lags when the pretty scenes with lots of action are goin on. Mmmmm....lord of the rings. I can't wait until the special ed. DVD set comes out so I can have my very own. Mind you, I may be J.R.R. Tolkein's panting lap-dog, and I might have the hots for Legolas so bad (my god, in real life he has dark hair and a mohawk, and it's so sad!) but I'm not going to buy the movie twice. Yet. Although, between Frodo, Aragorn, and Legolas, I might just have to eventually. The more, the better. *drools* Now, as I drag myself out of my fangirl frenzy, I'm doing my best to not feel guilty about taking the night off and not studying. I've been so stressed of late that I know my concentration has been suffering. And that's not good for me learning anything. So the day off, watching LotR and the yumminess that lies therein.

It is...precious to me...

Post-exam notes...

Okay. Part 1: 20 Kodachrome slides. Best analogy: brutal gang-rape. Dear gods. I skimmed over the pictures in the book, got a good idea of what they were. I should have gone over the immunology packet more thoroughly last night. I knew most of the AIDS questions, but when it came to asking what the particular antibody was that was associated with Sjogren's syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis...Aww, hell. And fucking Dr. Kim fucking well told us there would be no questions on metals until the fucking final. And then put a 6-point matching question on metal deficiencies and syndromes. We should try to get that thrown out. Nuclear changes with radiation damage. Vitamin-A associated eye changes (whoops, should've gone over that even though there weren't any pictures about it). What disease state or disease state precursor can be treated by administration of the factor whose deficiency can cause this disease state? Or something like that. I couldn't even understand the question, and by the time I did I had to turn in my paper so I couldn't think about it. Part 2: glass slides and a few more Kodachromes. 16 stations. He didn't fix the lupus slide on a wire-loop, but it was okay, because all of the questions on that station were about lupus, so it was clear that that's what the slide was. Used four other kidney slides, including a very nice crescentric glomerulonephritis with a lot of questions about Wegener's and Goodpasture's. Both things I know well. And the 11 criteria for lupus diagnoses, 1 point each, which the entire class can say backwards and forwards. Forgot fucking membranous glomerulonephritis in SLE-associated kidney changes. I knew there was one that started with an M. Ah, well. But after ten stations of agony, I remembered that there are anti-peroxidase antibodies in Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Go me. Honest to god, y'all. If you ever wondered what medical students talk about, you should've been in the room when Dr. Smith was half a frellin' hour late for the exam. "Scott, are you feeling some unusual anxiety?" "No, Ryan, I think you're just projecting your anxiety on me." "Where's Dr. Smith?" "I don't know, but you're definitely inciting some countertransference here with your attitude." "Well fine, you can just -take- your reaction formation and sit by yourself. I'm going to go get the moves on with Ivana here..." And so on. It became a contest to see how many times we could use terms from our last psych exam in context. We'll take any excuse to prove that we know something. Particularly when facing an exam. Mental note: give my outlines from MedGen to Ivana so she can feel better about the final Friday. One more down.

Good news!

Exam scores from psychiatry are in. 92%. I'm honours-passing in Psych and MedGen!

Mind, this isn't as exciting as if I were frelling passing Pathology, or doing more than hanging on in Pharm, but it'll get there. It freakin' well will have to.

More good news:

Blusys says that I shouldn't have trouble getting into the Fort Wayne Family Practise residency. Good. *crosses fingers* I don't want to go to Indy. I want my life to work like it always has, where things just fall into place. In any case, I'm going home. I'm hungry.

Pre-examination blues...

Eeee..... Half an hour to the lab exam. My mind is suddenly blank. Gah. What if I can't tell the lupus slide from the diabetic renal glomerulosclerosis slide? What if he gives us a wide-field on lupus or crescentric glomerulonephritis? I wouldn't know them from a hole in the wall....

I hate the fucking kidney.

I do, I do, I do. Kidneys are evil. Wicked and evil and horrible. We have diabetic glomerulosclerosis, which is where all the little glomeruli have this diffuse thickeining, only some of them have little nodules - which is how you know it's diabetes, because only diabetics get nodular glomerulosclerosis (say that three times fast!) which, just to be confusing is also Kimmelsteil-Wilson's diseases. And then we have chronic pyelonephritis (nephr- means it's in the kidney), and that one has "thyroidisation of the tubules" which means that they look like little bits of thyroid, or googly eyes in my opinion, with bright pink stuff in the kidney tubules. Can't miss that. Thank heavens. And then there's the one with the spleen and two kidneys that has arteriolar disease, which has little vessels (if I can find a bedamned vessel) that show a little bit of thickening relative to normal (which I don't get to see), and I hope to high heavens that he puts that one down on one of the proliferating vessels that look like little onion rings and tapes it there. And then there's the one with amyloidosis of the kidney, which means that there's deposits of pink stuff all over the place. It's supposed to be in the glomeruli (which makes it look like diabetic glomerulosclerosis, so it's good that we have an atypical slide). And then acute glomerulonephritis, which is identifiable because the stain is really light...plus, in theory, the glomeruli are hypercellular. And lupus, which looks like diabetic glomerulosclerosis until you see a wire-loop *please god let him put it on a wire loop because I can't find the fucking things* And crescentric glomerulonephritis, which I can usually find a crescentric thickening if I know I should find one...but the way I panic when confronted with a kidney, who knows? And chronic glomerulonephritis...little knots of fibrous tissue in lieu of glomeruli. That one's almost as easy as chronic pyelonephritis. I rest my case. Kidneys are evil and wicked. And so help me...if he gives us the unstained cryptococcus slide I'm going to die. Exams. I hate exams.

Sunday, Monday, happy days...

Fell into bed last night, too late entirely, with a pounding evil wicked headache. They were watching Trigun out in the living room, and David was over. Not a good combination. There are occasional rare times when I am beset by wishing that we didn't have so many people around. Last night was one of them. Trigun's full of explosions and people with sharp voices, and David has a habit of talking a little louder than he needs to...and I asked them to turn it down twice, until I was sure they could hardly hear the dialogue, and Matt turned off most of the lights, so I finally didn't feel like I was going to have my head explode or cry... It's not their fault; I don't want to spoil their fun. I don't....I'd rather suffer than be a party-pooper. God knows nobody around here seems to be having much fun recently.

Nobody fucking well talks to anyone. What, do we all have to be psychic any more?

Okay. *deepbreaths* Okay, okay, okay. I'm just overly sensitive to everyone's particular agonies at the moment. On the good side...I get to hear them. I'd rather be stuck in the middle and know what's going on than not. Even if it makes me want to throttle them. Even though I've done the same thing. You can't avoid hurting someone by not telling them when something is wrong. If it's wrong, it'll only fester and grow...and the pain of deception, of lying by omission, is far greater when you do find out what's gone wrong...

I think it would be interesting if we could all hear each others' thoughts. Interesting...but not necessarily beneficial.

As to today. I woke up at some ungodly early hour in the morning because - get this - Keith calls Matt last night, to see if he'd gotten Keith's message from the morning. Now...Matt's phone has been beeping non-stop, all day, with the message signal, but he hadn't bothered to actually get it. The message is this: Keith has bronchitis. Can Matt preach Sunday morning at the early service? Mind you, this is now like 7 or 8 PM on Saturday. Silly bugger should've gotten his phone, neh? So he says yes, and settles down to write his sermon. And that's why me and my still-lingering headache and my Benadryl hangover had to get up at 7:30 in the morning to go to church. I wasn't about to not support Matt. Not half. And he did good. He needs to work on fluidity and all, but for writing it the night before, after a few wine coolers, it was a good sermon. Everyone told him he did well...but I'm always afraid that they're just trying to encourage him. I mean...it was good, but not great. He has a lot to learn yet. Like I could do better. :P Then I passed out in his office, slept through sunday school and second service, since he had to usher for second service. And we got food at Wendy's and I spent the whole afternoon at school, looking at Kodachromes and microscope slides. Got to go over book pictures tonight, and maybe read some stuff in the chapters. Not too terrified - you can miss a lot when there are 200 questions on the exam, and still be okay. But that doesn't excuse me from studying...and I've exceeded my hour by half again. Maybe more later. Maybe not. Hard to say. I wrote another poem, Clarabear. Kind of a strange one, and I don't know if I like it. I'll try to remember to post it for you.

50 things that guys need to know (not my original list)

Okay...my source of this was Someone's Open Diary. Apparently she got it from somewhere else, all the way back to an old issue of Men's Health. Editorial comments, in italics, are my own. Additions (both to the list and the commentary) are welcome. 50 Things Guys Need to Know

1. Saying "I love you" immediately before, during, or following sex doesn't count.
2. Real men drive stick shift.
Well, or they want to learn but I won't give up my car
3. I will leave if you lie.
Unless there's a compelling reason - like you were planning something incredibly special and I had the bad grace to appear at the wrong time.
4. You are cute in raglan-sleeved T-shirts (two-toned baseball undershirts).
I thought I knew what raglan was...but now I'm confused.
5. I'm convinced I'm pregnant and obsess about it for a minimum of 24 to 48 hours before my period, even when I have no rational reason to think so.
6. I love it when you hug me from behind and whisper in my ear.
7. "Fine" is never an appropriate response when I ask you how I look.
8. Most of the time when I fantasize, it's about you.
Most of the time.
9. I'm terrified of becoming my mother, even though I admire her.
10. I get turned on simply seeing that I have an e-mail from you.
11. I expect you to call me.
12. Only rock stars are allowed to wear leather pants.
That depends on the rock star, the pants, and the guy wearing them. Some guys I know look just delicious in them. You know who you are.
13. I'm scared of losing my independence.
14. I'm more forgiving of you than I really should be.
15. Oral sex is your get-out-of-the-doghouse-free card. Manolo Blahnik shoes also do the trick.
(1) Who? (2) Forget the shoes.
16. You did something bad. I seem cool with it. I'm not. (See directly above.)
17. If I'm not having sex with you, I'm...
• ...having a fat day.
• ...not feeling "connected" to you.
• ...blackmailing you to get something I want.
Cancel the third one. Because, frankly, I'm not going to suffer through not getting laid just to make you suffer.
18. Shoes determine whether you're fashionable or not.
19. I own a Debbie Gibson CD, and I'm not afraid to use it.
Correction: New Kids on the Block. With that picture of Joey in the hat with no top.
20. When I compare my flabby tummy to a kangaroo pouch, say nothing.
21. A man I love plans the occasional fancy-schmancy dress-up date and impromptu weekend getaways, and he buys my favorite candy in advance when we're just going to the movies.
22. You look hot in hooded clothing items.
23. You should never tell me what to do.
Unless I ask you to. And even then, try to do it as gently as possible.
24. If I slept over, you owe me breakfast
25. My breasts love much licking and sucking.
Much.
26. If you ask me out directly, I will say yes.
27. I'm very impressed when you ask for my advice.
28. I'm unimpressed with a man who doesn't take the lead.
29. When in doubt, go with the shirt that matches your eye color.
30. I want to be Madonna.
Material-Girl era.
31. Women get urinary-tract infections easily, so watch (and wash) your fingers.
32. I'm in heaven when you hold my hand.
33. You're sexy when you're shaving, fixing things, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, driving, eating a peach, holding a baby.
Especially holding a baby. Especially if it's in no way related to you.
34. I need to hear how you feel about me. Often. Tell me now.
And now.
35. Surprises, especially gifts for moi = more loving.
36. I want to be the best thing that ever happened to you--and for you to recognize this.
Because you are to me.
37. If I'm not feeling loved, I will start looking....
38. Discussion of ex-gf's and ex-bf's should be avoided at all times.
Correction: unless the discussion is extremely relevant to the topic at hand, or I ask a bout it first.
39. I like it when you tell me what you're thinking, even if you don't know yourself.
"I love you" is always a good way to buy time to decide what you're thinking.
40. Celebrating our anniversary, even if it's only been a few months, earns major bonus points.
41. I love it when you're sweaty.
42. It's best to consult your gal pals for gift ideas.
Please.
43. A lady should always be greeted with kisses.
44. I like porn.
Particularly lesbian porn.
45. I love holding your bum in the palms of my hands.
46. Even nice girls like hushed dirty talk in public.
And less-nice girls like more of it.
47. It's cheating as soon as you're doing something with her that you wouldn't want me to see, hear, read...
If you feel the need to delete the log, there's something wrong. I understand the difference between IC and OOC.
48. For the record: I'd rather you break up with me than cheat.
49. I remember everything about our relationship.
50. You should know all this and more without my telling you.

Post-exam deep breath time...

Okay. One down...*consults the Oracle of exams* Only thirteen more exams. Gods, I sound like a freakin' neurotic, but for those of you who want to know what medical school is like....here's the schedule, separated by weeks.

• Monday 28 October: Pathology lab practical #2; Thursday 31 October: Medical genetics final
• Tuesday 5 November: Pathology interim exam #3; Friday 8 November: Pharmacology Exam 4 (over a month's worth of lectures)
• Monday 11 November: Pathology lab practical #3
• Friday 22 November: Pharmacology Exam 5
• Monday 25 November: Pathology interim exam #4; Thursday and Friday, 28-29 November: Thanksgiving "Recess"
• Monday 2 December: Pathology lab practical #4; Friday 6 December: Pharmacology Exam 6
• Monday 9 December: Biostats Final; Tuesday 10 December: Medicine Final; Thursday 12 December: Pharmacology Final
• Thursday 19 December: Pathology Final

Is it bad when I look forward to a time when I only have one exam in a week? ...Okay, I'm obsessing again. Going to enjoy my lunch break before I spend the afternoon studying. Lab exam monday. Well, at least spending Sunday afternoon in the lab is a good reason to skip church Council meeting. Gah.

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry....

Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true .... Early in the morning - an early morning - because there's no class tomorrow. Everyone else had to go to bed before me for once! Snuck a peek at the point spread for the path exam. 16 kids in the class - 8 of us got 80% or below. The average was only 82% - where the last average was 89% or something like that. I feel better. Now I just have to not let myself get ground down by everything that's going on. Going to Michigan for a few days. Matt found a B&B in Michigan (it's supposed to snow on Thursday there) and since they couldn't give us the room we wanted, they cut us a deal on the giant suite room. How happy. I like the idea of going and just hanging around, having a good time, not worrying about books or MOO administration, or the server, or anything. It'll be nice. Lazy Nykki. Lazy lazy lazy. Woot. And now...it's time to go sleep again, even though I passed out for like 5 hours this afternoon. Came home at 1230, and didn't wake up until 1730 or so. Felt like shit all morning, after all. I think I'm allergic to school. G'night all.

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas

Sometimes I love Lowene. She's our second-year secretary, and she grades all our tests for us in lightning time. 0615: Crawled out of bed to read the notes just one more time, even though it's bad to cram like that. 0715: Kissed Matt goodbye, read two more packets of notes. 0730: Walked out the door. 0735: Finished scraping the ice off my car with my ridiculously ineffective ice-scraper, which scrapes in cross-hatched patterns instead of doing something useful like getting the fucking ice off my windshield. Finally resorted to using my sleeve to rub out the ice places between the cross-hatchings. Went to school. 0800: Got my exam, and started going through it. Did quite a bit more crossing-out-of-obviously-wrong answers and quite a bit less random-guessing than I had anticipated. Felt a surge of hope. 0910: Finished the exam, twice. Turned it in to Lowene. 0920: Got the results back from Lowene. 75%, which is passing by a hair. It won't bring my average up out of the gutter, not in the long run, but it also keeps me from crawling any further into it. I'm not feeling manic, by any means, but I am feeling better. And the thought of having a whole week, nearly, to recover and straighten out my head...feels damn good. Tonight: play Dungeon Keeper 2, or Gauntlet Legends, or Neverwinter nights. Roleplay. Relax. Breathe.

Oh, hell yes.

Foggy morning,
           and mists like air
     Winter's breath
                       a chill
             still unfrozen.

Mists spill slowly,
      over walls and doors,
   invading still
             with the neverwarmth
of winter

               Frozen morning,
in the chill and slow
         Winter's dreams
                     have invaded
and frozen.
               NsB 14-10-02
                          "Winter's breath"

Because I'm feeling sorry for myself.... (Exam rant, part II)

Notes breakdown: Transfusion medicine: 9 pages Adverse reactions associated with transfusion medicine: 8 pages Diabetes Mellitus (part 1): 7 pages Diabetes Mellitus (part 2): 5 pages Environmental pathology: 20 pages Urinalysis: 15 pages Diseases of immunity: 35 pages Amyloidosis: 7 pages Nutrition (and thank God he ran out of time): 19 pages Unless I get my math wrong, that's 125 pages of notes for this exam. The exam is 1 hour long. I'm going to die.

Two lost souls....

[Joe and Lola] Two lost souls on the highway of life We ain't even got a sister or brother Ain't it just great, ain't it just grand? We've got each other! Two lost ships on a stormy sea One with no sails and one with no rudder Ain't it just great, ain't it just grand? We've got each udder! Two lost sheep, in the wilds of the hills Far from the other Jacks and Jills, we wandered away and went astray But we ain't fussin' Cuz we've got "us'n" We're two lost souls on the highway of life And there's no one with whom we would ruther Say, "Ain't it just great, ain't it just grand?" We've got each other! Wherever we go, whatever we do As long as you've got me, and I've got you We've got each other We ain't fussin'- cuz we got "us'n." .......We've got each other...... Joe and Lola, at the lowest point of Damn Yankees, find themselves in the locker room. Joe's soul is surrendered to Applegate by default - and Lola, poor Lola, once the ugliest woman in Providence, RI, has found herself falling victim to Joe's constancy and purity. Too bad, since she's property of Applegate. Two lost souls. I feel like a lost soul right about now. Missed 9 on the Pharmacology exam - for a raw score of 73%, an adjusted score of 76%. Well, I'm passing. I'm still the lowest fucking person in the class, but at least I'm passing. At the bare minimum. I hate this. I hate school. I hate having to fight and fight and fight to get a score that's barely passing. I hate not knowing what to do, whether I'm even going to make it. I hate wondering if the entire godsdamned year is going to go like this. Throwing around the idea, now and again, of going to the doctor and getting meds for ADD. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's not me. I don't know. I don't fucking know. Tomorrow: Study Pathology. Sunday: Study Pathology. Monday: Bear Dr. Darryl R. Smith, clinical professor of Pathology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Fort Wayne Centre's illegitimate child. Share it with Dr. Blandine Bustamante, M.D., Assistant professor of pathology, etc, etc, and Dr. Seung Soo Kim, M.D., who is a soft-spoken Korean gentleman who sounds like his fucking mouth is full of fucking marbles. Test breakdown: Nutrition (Dr. Kim)- 9 questions Urinalysis (Dr. Bustamante) - 6 questions Immunology (Dr. Smith) - 18 questions, over 30 pages of incomprehensible shit. Tumour necrosis factors, catecholamines, and the like Amyloidosis (Dr. Smith) - 3 questions - and I understood this packet. Environmental medicine (Dr. Bustamante) - 9 questions Transfusion reactions (Dr. Bustamante) - 10 questions, five of which are a five-part matching Diabetes Mellitus (Dr. Smith) - 6 questions Total: 61 questions. I can miss....oh, 10, and get an 80, or thereabouts. I think, if I had an 80, I would be passing. I would like that. I would really fucking well like that. I hate medical school.

Don

This was originally on my Diary-X, but it's so godsdamned true.... Everybody makes mistakes. Some people make bigger mistakes than others, though. Take my mother, for example. For some time, my mother would meet men on the Internet and date them. They were mostly nice, if kind of bizarre. And then there was Don. Don was a truck-driving, chain-smoking, white-trash loser. He had a few good qualities, I think. He taught driver's education, so he did at least contribute something to society. In a manner of speaking. But ultimately, when this man moved into our house a scant few months after he and my mother met, my sister and I were repulsed. She wouldn't let him smoke in the house, at least, but the stench was everywhere. He brought in his computer setup, complete with gaming chair - speakers strapped to the sides, mousepad on one side, joystick on the other, not a single legal piece of software on the monster it was hooked up to. And he put it in our dining room. And he put his computer pieces all over the dining room. And he sat in there when he wasn't truck driving, and played computer games. And he never brushed his teeth, and he rarely showered, and he ate our food, and he used our water and our heat and all that, and he never volunteered a dime to help out. This man was repugnant. Vermin. He had a million "great ideas" that he would never finish, and a whole lot of creativity that occasionally showed up in spurts, like when he wrote a song for Mom, but for the most part he was content to freeload. For months. He would come in after driving his truck, at 11:00 at night, or later, and holler out "Ruthie, I'm hungry." And my mother, who was valedictorian in her high school class, has a college education and at least one (if not two) master's degrees; who had to be up at 6:00 the next morning to get ready to go teach a classroom full of 28-30 hyperactive fifth-grade children; who is an intelligent woman apparently suffering from some kind of short-term brain dysfunction insofar as this man was concerned, would get out of bed, come downstairs, and fix this man some bacon and eggs, or hamburgers, or whatever he wanted. My sister no longer wanted her friends staying overnight for fear their parents would learn what sort of hideous example my mother was being and ban them from seeing her. I was away at school, in part, and had much less to do with him, but both of us threatened that we were going to move to our father's house permanently. That seemed to wake her up, and she finally came around. It took months to get the stench of cigarette smoke out of the house. She was still apologising to us a year later. Last we heard of Don, he was back living in small-town Indiana with his mother, and he had some kind of plan to do a travelling Punch and Judy show. This is not love, boys and girls. This is some sort of medically treatable brain dysfunction. I remain convinced that if my sister and I had sought professional assistance, we could have shaken her out of her stupor much sooner. As it was, I think we all learned a valuable lesson involving the futility of talking to a woman who thinks she's in love. Including the woman in question. We all make mistakes. Some of them, fortunately, do not require the firm application of a two-by-four to the skull to resolve.

Melancholie

Tombstones stand
         across the misted air --
    reminding me of days
                  I walked in ways
I have forgotten

           Shadows fall
in patterns bold and fair--
                and yes they speak of yesterdays--
      and ways
             I have forgotten

Rain comes cold
         to wash the world away--
    I wait and watch - I know,
                    I am too slow--
I have forgotten

                         Dreams awake
And bring back yesterday
        But no, they hide the ways
    I dreamed I knew--
             And had forgotten

   Tombstones weep
              inclined across the air
And now it is too late
                   To find the way--
     I have forgotten.