Awww....

(remotely) Tamlin nibbles you g'night, knowing you are likely asleep yourself anyhow, and even though he didn't bother to say hi. I wasn't. But it made me smile. Argh. I log onto Ansible for two seconds to check mail and get roped into staying there to arrange a trade. And now it's late, and all. And I can hear Angel snoring in the bedroom. Poor sleepy darling. Tomorrow's exam: 6 points of Paediatrics, which we have most of the answers for. 16 points of OB-GYN, which is (a) curved and (b) one of the lecturers was called to active duty and didn't lecture, but the section is still on the exam - so every question there is extra credit. 4 points of Urology, the all-the-answers sheet for which is still on my desk at school. Good thing Angel's dropping me off half an hour early. Total: 26 points. To which the Magic Excel Spreadsheet says: Pass: 23.46%. High Pass: 75.36%. Honours Pass: 121.54%. Now that is reassuring. And on that note, I'm going to bed.

Petal Fall

They say that sex and love are two different things: that truly loving someone is something that transcends the physical; that you don't have to love someone - or even really like them - to involve yourself in skin-on-skin intimacy with them. And I suppose, on the one hand, they're right.I can bump and grind with any old body; it has nothing to do with love. But I think there's something about the whole thing - and when it comes down to it, you fall a little bit in love every time. Sometimes, though, that little bit in love...sometimes it sticks. And then you're left wondering if you didn't somehow stumble into something that was just a little bit bigger than you thought it was; some cosmic monster of a card trick where you're the ace hiding up the sleeve of a shoddy worn-wool jacket, clips and pulls and wires and strings lining you up for a sleight of hand in the final act. You're left waiting for the flourish, for the 'that's-what-it-was-all-about' to make sense of something so strange that you hadn't ever imagined it would come to pass. And you wonder, sometimes, what's up the other sleeve.

Whoops.

Locked my keys in the car. Along with my white coat, my doctor bag, my stethoscope and the bottle of water I was looking for all morning. Whoops. But Rachel took me to the hospital and Dr. L let me do rounds anyway - "You can borrow my stethoscope, and -I- don't have a white coat, either" - so it worked out. Now waiting for Angel to come and get me. Saw Mrs. E, who was in for pneumonia. Lovely rales in her lungs. And Mr. X, who had a mitral valve replacement and a pacemaker implant and was already wanting to get out of bed. "He's Irish," his wife says, and that explains it all. And G.K., who was our H&P patient for the day. Accomplishments: successfully percussed and felt his liver, estimating size correctly. Got his heart rate right. Remembered most of my review of systems. I need to just grab someone, give them my history-taking card, and have them watch me take a history and see what I miss. Repeatedly. I need to memorise that thing. And now over to the house (HOUSE!) to let the inspector in so he can look it over (HOUSE!)...

Mike.

The most fascinating thing happens when Mike hears people express beliefs he doesn't agree with...he claims he follows logic, but he makes amazing jumps in it. Today's lecturer (an OB-GYN) made the statement that he feels that aborting a fetus for nonmedical reasons is the same as killing a baby in a crib. He did not attempt to sway us to his view, nor did he expound on the statement, which (if I recall correctly) was part of a brief digression spawned by a question. Mike's interpretation: "That's bullshit. This is a state school, he has no right to be up there preaching to us. He needs to remember separation of church and state." Not everyone who objects to abortion objects on the basis of religion, nor was it even mentioned. I brought that point up to Em after he left - having no desire to hear him hold forth on the topic for ages and ages. "I didn't even think about that," she murmured, surprised. Apparently, neither did he. Mike refuses to believe that religion and science can coexist. "I find it hard to accept that the majority of the people in this classroom believe that life came about without a human sperm fertilizing a human egg. How can they believe that bullshit and still accept modern science?" - in other words, believing in some sense the Biblical account of the conception of Christ is incompatible with believing in science. I'm not going to argue it right now, nor did I then; he wouldn't listen. But stranger things than auto-fertilisation take place in nature... Why doesn't he see that his slavish devotion to logic is as much a religion as any other, subject to the same human fallacies? He takes it so seriously...

Caution: may cause bowel dysfunction.

We were walking through Kroger yesterday, talking about obscure things to put in the muffins (Blueberry-pecan, they turned out to be, very yummy) - and we came across a box of Craisins. Now, Craisins - for those who don't know - will give you constipation if you eat too many. I have it on good authority. And I shared this fact with Angel. "So don't eat a whole box," he says. Me, walking through the aisles of Kroger, in a normal indoor voice: No, really. I think they should have a warning label: Caution: May cause bowel dysfunction. Just as we passed some poor innocent clerk restocking the shelves. I wish I had had a camera to capture his expression. We laughed all the way through frozen foods.

Sometimes...

Sometimes I don't know why I try. Sometimes I don't know who to feel sorry for and who to want to strangle. Sometimes I wonder, in the recesses of my mind, why you do this, if you really believe it's ever going to get any better - because it doesn't sound like you do. Sometimes I wonder, if I could stop letting this love I have for you blunt my words, if I could make a difference. And I wonder why the thought of you being angry at me is enough to silence me. I wonder if this mute frustration, this tearing that drives me to tears, is worth it. Sometimes I wonder. And I wonder if things will ever change. And sometimes I know it will not, not until it has gone its course, unhealthy, destructive, devouring...and I want to scream and I want to hurt you until you understand. And sometimes I wish I'd never met you and never gotten to love you, because then I could hurt you until you did understand, because I wouldn't be torn in half like I am. Goddamnit.

I am not your friend, I'm not your only friend...

Eww. Trash can has clearly not been emptied until it's got nearly twice the amount of trash in it as it was designed to hold. Which renders emptying it a disgusting job. I've had my fill of disgusting jobs today. We did gynecological and testicular and prostate exams today. With Real Patients, mind you. They came from Indianapolis to teach us how to do these exams. And then to have us do them on them. You have no idea how scared I was. Had male first. And I managed to control my natural inclination to be the first one, which let Rachel go first. And then Ryan. And by the time he got to me, I had worked out what I was supposed to be doing. Even found his prostate with a minimum of effort. He complimented me on my patient rapport. Gyne...well... It went all right. Couldn't find her uterus, not until the seventh or eiighth try. And just now, I remembered I was supposed to touch base with the reporter again after the session (There's a woman from the J-G who's doing a spread on how medical students learn) but I didn't see her, so it totally slipped my mind. I'm exhausted. Too much concentrating, trying so hard to not make the whole thing look or feel in any way suggestive as I'm palpating testicles, penis, uterus...And her poor cervix was set waaaay back, so I got finger cramps trying to find it. But I did, I really did finally do the whole exam. Anyone want to volunteer for me to practise some more? :) Tomorrow: Physical Exam at PArkview. *consults notes* Musculoskeletal. And then to meet Angel at 5:15 or so at the house for the inspection.

AIEE!

Good news, they accepted the [offer] !!! Congratulations !! I also found out that all the appliances are covered by the HMS warranty. :) K

We got it! We got the house! Now I just have to e-mail six hundred people and come up with money and all that jazz... I'm so excited... Thank you, God!

Another story (fragment?)

made another little rambling post. And I have two thoughts of how to continue it, of which only this one is in any shape fleshed out. Expect a second soonish, unless I lose the idea. The italicised part at the beginning is hers.

A Yellow Wood

I was fine before I met them, back in November when the world actually made sense and I could control everything around me - but it's now. And now is March, when there's no black and white, just a hazy shade of grey shot through with thin red threads of guilt. There's a new dichotomy here: self-preservation versus old debts. And the only question is which one'll win out over the other. It's so easy to get caught up in harmless games and laughter and fun; so easy to let them sweep you along with their music, to dance and sing and drink; to fall into their glittering eyes and never even know that you are drowning. It's so easy to take their gifts with a thank-you and a smile and to never even look for the strings attached. I was fine, in November, in a world where I moved at my will and answered to my own whims - but that was November, before the snow and the cold numbed my heart; before they stole away my soul. I have it back now, in a secret place, dark and protected within me. I stole it back as the days grew longer, the ice melted around me, and they do not yet know. In their eyes, I have not yet seen the thin threads of manipulation and deceit that they clutch in their narrow fingers; I still move, in their eyes, at their command. That is the dark side of the precipice on which I find myself: the thoughtless gaiety of being their puppet, of closing my eyes and allowing that tiny protected space within me to wither and die once more in the dark recesses of my heart. That is the easy side, the side that redeems what they have promised me - the side that guarantees that I will live, and live a long and merry while. All I have to do is return what I have stolen back from them: a tiny thing, a worthless trinket; I would hardly miss it at all, my soul. They will see to that. Self-preservation, you see, is a surprisingly strong force within me - even now, in March, after all that I have done. Despite all that, this haze which surrounds me - the haze which has thickened over the winter, blurring away the world into its soft and muted grey shades - is threaded with unforgiving red, unavoidable lines of guilt. They have come slowly, in these days and weeks of thawing spring, fine crimson that limns each of the marionette-strings tied to me, bleeds up over their clawing fingers and mounts in sanguine halos behind their heads, threading into oblivion. I cannot now look at them without seeing their eyes glittering and mocking the naïve puppet they believe me still to be; cannot ignore the threads that spiderweb every aspect of my being with fire and blood, ultimately coming to rest in the clutching grasp of their arachnoid fingers. It is part of my soul, this vision of guilt; the remembrance of old debts however briefly forgotten, stems from that dark and secret place, that protected well within me. In my mind I hear the catalogue of broken promises and shattered dreams that I have wrought in these months - has it only been those few short months that I was in their thrall? Under their tutelage I have carved a path of betrayal unlike any I would have ever dreamt myself capable of inflicting; and I have done it gaily, dancing and drinking down their honeyed words of praise and adoration all the while, unseeing and uncaring. If I cease to nurture this tiny thing within me, this worthless trinket that I have cached away in silence and secret, then it is to that pitiless existence I will return; and I am unwiling to leave these rendered debts of fidelity unpaid. This is the other side of the precipice, bright and anticipatory: the return to myself and the life I had so carelessly discarded; the rebuilding of trust and faith in the wake of this destruction I had wrought; the chance to embrace once more the autonomy of thought and action whose revival I now cherish almost more closely than my life. If I could, one thread at a time, untangle myself from their glittering eyes and cloying hands, I could return - if not to the ancient days of black and white simplicity, at least to a life freed of these trabeculate workings of guilt and shame. If I could slip from their grasp and their notice without rendering my own life a debt forfeit unto them, I could begin to make the restitution my flowering soul craves. This is the black and white of my springtime, the razor's edge that divides what was to have been the zenith of my days; this is the crux of my existence. In the deep, protected places of my heart lies an ember, a seed, all that remains of my soul, reciting a litany of debt and betrayal in endless variations; and yet a voice within me whispers with equal power, in words sweet and not so unlike their own: It is a tiny thing, is it not? Only a trinket, easily cast aside. I will not miss it, not much. Not for long...

Bart, I love you.

Exam today was...well, it could've been worse. I knew more than I didn't know, and a surprising amount of information was dredged out of my mind by the questions. Banged my head against the wall a couple of times, things I just hadn't quite memorised or should've listened to my instinct on (why oh why didn't I go over Histiocytosis X carefully?) but there were 192 questions, so missing a few isn't going to kill me. Crossed myself before the exam, even though I'm not Catholic. For some reason, that particular gesture appeals to me. Apparently, God listened. Now to wait and see scores in a few weeks (hey, 16 exams, graded by hand, 192 short-answer questions each...) Went to tell Angel I was on the way home. Vessa pages me. "Where'd mistwalker.org go?" Sure enough, I've got connectivity home - I can get to my desktop and ping the WAN, but the server's all gone. Head home. No lights, no fans. Not good. So I get on the phone and call A+ computers, ask for Bart. I have a dead computer, I say, think it's the power supply - and it's our server, so I need it fixed quick-like. Bring it in. he tells me. I'll test the supply and if that's not it, we'll see what we can do. So I did. It was the power supply (go me!). How much do I owe you? Nothing, he says. You haven't had it a year - it's under warranty. No receipts, nothing. But Bart remembers every computer we've bought from him. And probably every computer we've bought for everyone else from him. What a man. E-mail from Kris: No word yet, they called and said it might not be until tomorrow, so hang in there. I'm hanging. So hopeful. So hyper. O please o please o please.... Angel hooked Shalom into the surround sound. This may or may not have been a good idea; I've currently got Prozzäk cranked up nice and loud, and am sorting MP3's to suit my every desire. And tonight Angel's taking me to dinner for Valentine's day finally.

T-minus 90 minutes...

Lindy and Kara are in the classroom asking each other questions in soft voices. I don't even remember half of the things they're talking about. I'm going to fail. I doubt the coffee (3 or 4 cups, now) is helping my nerves any - nor is the icky lasagna that's the only frozen dinner I have left in here. Rachel's right - Weight Watchers meals are gross. Lean Cuisine is much yummier. Everything has a name. Fucking names. Psoriasis shows Munro inclusions, Koffman signs, and something else. Mycosis fungoides (a lymphoma named 'fungus fungus', how screwed-up is that?) has Poutrier inclusions. Lichen planus has Civette bodies, I think. And then there's all of the bedamned lymphomas. It's the names that kill me. Gaucher's disease and glucocerebrosides; Niemann-Pick and sphingomyelinase; Tay-Sachs and GM2 gangliosidase. If he asks translocations, I'll die. M2 type is (8;14). M3 is (15;17). M4 is (16;18). CML shows no alkaline phosphatase and a t(9;22) - the Philadelphia chromosome. Hairy cell leukaemia (whoever knew your body could find so many ways to screw up?) has acid phosphatase, just like prostate cancer, only this is tartrate-resistant. Amyloidosis - we have a slide of amyloidosis, haven't talked about it since last semester. AA type and AL type, amyloid beta and beta-2 microglobulin. And those bedamned mnemonics for what organs are affected. I'm going to cry. Quick - what are the most likely aetiologic agents for osteomyelitis? Well, that depends on if you're old (gram-negative rods), an infant (E. coli, Pseudomonas), a drug user (Pseudomonas), a sickle cell patient (Salmonella), or your average Joe (Staph, strep, or E. coli, but maybe Pseudomonas if you're unlucky)... I'd just like to state that I hate skin. Skin, my friends, is evil in the highest degree. I'm going to go stare at more facts about skin. Please, God, just let me pass...

Current Music: "Shrek" soundtrack - Hallelujah

This has to be one of the most beautiful songs ever to make radio. It makes me cry every time I see the sequence in Shrek...and the Biblical symbolism is just heartwrenching. Mmm, a moment of peace in the midst of this nasty studyness. Quote from my textbook (note: Peyronie disease is a rather nasty fibrous tumour of the penis): "Although, not surprisingly, males are affected more frequently than females in Peyronie disease..." Tonight, I have been through approximately 240 pages of my book, looking at and trying to remember something like 150 pictures of various conditions. Will I remember them tomorrow? So. Kris came over to bring the offer papers to us today. And she says "While I'm here, I want to see this couch you guys keep talking about." So we brought her up to the apartment. And she says "Wow. That -is- a big couch." The Couch (approx. 12' wide by 6' deep, in four pieces for easy carrying. Sleeps 4 or 5 comfortably. One footrest is removed for this photo): Friday, Smith dropped off the list of 68 Kodachromes over skin diseases that we'd never seen before. Fucking pathologists. What, like they think we don't have enough to do? Exam pool for tomorrow's lab test (usually ~ 200 questions, 2-2.5 hours):

• ~150 pictures from the book
• 5 gross specimens of bone tumours
• 13 microscope slides
• 68 Kodachrome slides on skin disorders
• 44 Kodachrome slides on red blood cell disorders
• 19 Kodachrome slides on white blood cell disorders

We're supposed to know the 27 Kodachromes on bones, joints, and soft tissue tumours, but nobody (including Lowene, who keeps all the slides) knows where the damn things are. So if she pops up a question from one of those, we're all just fucked. Isn't that a comforting thought? I'm going to bed. I'll be up early enough in the morning...need to review and then be at school by 7:30 AM to go over slides again. At least Medicine was cancelled. One hour of path and then nothing from 9:30 to 1 when the exam is. I need that time.

So much money....

Kris came over today with the papers to really truly make an offer on the cute little house. Going to put the bid in tomorrow. Part of me is bouncing off the walls. Part of me is flat-out terrified. It's so much money...and I'm so scared of debt... So they have until midnight on the 25th to respond. Just like that. And if they say yes, I've got to talk to the bank and sign papers and it's so much money! If you want to know, pictures of the house in question are here. It's 1800 square feet, two bedrooms, two stories, a bath and a half. Has ceramic tile in the entryway, kitchen, and breakfast nook, forced-air heat and central air. and a fireplace. And some of the pictures aren't really relevant, or readable - don't worry about them. And now, back to notes. I'm going to fail this exam...

Kaboom!

It's snowing outside; has been doing that and freezing rain since noonish. And then...suddenly...

Kaboom! Rumble rumble rumble....

It's lightning and thunder out too. And as the night wears on, and I finally get three sets of lab notes concatenated into one seventeen-page document that'll at least tell me the ways I'm going to fail this next exam, it settles into a gentle snow with howling 20-30 mile an hour winds. I think we'll skip church tomorrow. We went out to look at the house today. Dad took one look at the stairs and went "No. You are not getting a queen-sized box spring up that." So we stalled for 20 minutes on the stairs before we decided that no, we probably could. In fact, based on the size of the inverse dent in the master bedroom, there was one there before. And if it doesn't fit, well, there's always going to the local Custom Mattress Place (TM) and convincing them to make us a split queen box spring. They do it for king-sized ones, after all. Should be able to arrange a queen, right? That resolved, the rest of the house is beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that Dad says there's no reason not to make an offer on the house. So as soon as it's safe to go out in the Evil Snow, we're going to write one up. I'm so freakin' excited. Tomorrow: hitch a ride with Jim's four-wheel drive to campus. Study Kodachromes and microscope slides. Study book pictures. Study like mad. Monday: The doctor supposed to do the morning Medicine lecture for OB-GYN has been called to active duty and shipped out Friday. So we have two extra studying hours before the exam at 1. Then, I think I'm going to go home, collapse, and finish setting up Shalom to my tastes. It's substituting for the laptop while Shain is in the shop. I can't wait for Monday after the exam.

Help!

An e-mail from my little sister:

can you maybe make me one more cd and send it? I want some ani difranco songs on this one, and anything else that will keep some high schoolers attention and also make them think. some specific songs: tis of thee hello birmingham old old song reckoning

I'm not a high-schooler any more,and when I was, I don't remember what held my attention besides Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, and Whitesnake. Somehow, I don't think that's what she's looking for. Any suggestions?

Role-playing quotes...

Transcribed post-session, since my laptop is in the shop.

• GM: Your bow has electrical arrows. Lily: Let's play 'shock the drow' Me: The drow are shocked enough.
• GM: Your horses whuffle.
• Angel: I bet if you turn out the lights, there'll be a glowing cross on my forehead. GM: Ooh, ooh! Put a pentagram on mine!
• (I got a new sword. When drawn, it acts as if 'displace self' is cast on me. Riding along, I practise swordplay) GM: And then you're not sitting on your horse, and then you are... James (A chaotic evil cleric): What the bloody heaven are you doing? Me: Practising.
• Me (to James): Are you talking to your waist? Angel: What? Me: We need to go that way. Angel: We're listening to his crotch? James: Some things are more intelligent than others.
• GM: You come to a fence. Me: Does it have a stile? GM: Sort of nouveau-chic.
• Me: Then I draw my other sword and stab the horse's body. Lily: Talk about beating a dead horse...
• Me (to Lily): Are you doing anything? I just slaughtered my horse and walked off. Lily: I'm thinking I won't be following him.
• Angel: Next round. (rolls) Oh, I drool some more.
• Me: I prevent her from wandering. GM: The spell breaks. Angel: What the hell? Me: Hi. Angel: Hi. Thanks. Me: And thus the drow exchange the first civil words of the entire campaign...
• Me: I spend the night splitting grass. Around her bed. GM (to Angel): You wake up. You've got split ends. Angel (to me): You missed.
• GM: There's nothing around the dome except grass. Me: Fuzzy grass. GM: Fuzzy grass.
• GM: It goes 'twang', 'twang', 'twonk', 'twang'... Me: Hold up - let's go back to the 'twonk'. Jefe: Yes, because I stop at every 'twonk' I see.
• Me: I hold my hand out in front of me, close my eyes, and walk toward the door. GM: You run into some nice hard porcelain. Me: With my hand. GM: Yes. Me: Hence the hand. Jefe: I want to see him run his nose into the giant egg. I'd write a song about it and sing it over and over.
• Jefe (after Angel rolls a 31 for initiative): He's going first. Like, we're still thinking about moving, and she's over there doing a jig.
• GM (to James, same combat round): What's your init? James: Six. GM: Slow-ass bitch.
• Angel: Does it move threateningly? GM: Yes. Angel: Well, I move threateningly back at it.
• GM (to me): It bites at you, and goes 'grr, grr'. (rolls) And then it misses you with its claw and grabs itself. Me: Great, so it bites me and goes all Michael Jackson. GM: And then it hits you with its other claw and goes 'growl, growl'.
• GM: It's a grr-goyle. Me: Dammit, Eric, why are all of your monsters gay?
• GM (pointing at me): Maybe the gargoyle will eat her. Me (I'm playing a male character): Him. Chorused: Him. Him. GM (pointing at Angel, playing a female character): Her. Angel: Me? GM: You're still a drow...
• GM: It is not gay. It's French.
• Me: I have normal dreams. They're just not memorable. I spend the night bored.
• Me: I pick up a crystal shard. No, actually, I pick up several. Because they might be good to put in people's eyes later.
• GM (he claims it's from a commercial...): Do you believe in Crystal Light? Because it believes in me.
• Me: You're drooling Sweet Tarts.
• GM: Does anyone have Knock? Me: No, but I have 'kick'.
• Me: Live-action tentacle porn. Next, on HBO.
• GM: They notice you. Well, one of the medusa's snakes does, and pokes her.
• GM: She [the Medusa] is putting on her shirt. Me: I take the opportunity. One must appreciate all things.
• Jefe or Angel: Okay, we all have to buff her, now.
• Someone: Did you ever see a smug octopus?
• Me: Name one thing that would be worth letting you and that snake-ass bitch out of there. I've seen skin less scaly on a dragon with psoriasis. GM: You had better hope those two never get out of that wall of force...or you are so going to be hunted down...
• James: There's three somethings in there... Me: Define 'something'. James: Gooey, watery, something.
• GM: ...astral constructs guarding the passage. Me: Asshole constructs? Angel: No, then they'd be sort of brown. GM: And log-shaped. Guess what we called the Astral Plane for the rest of the session...
• Me: The good thing about Bri is that she's portable. Lily: Plus, when you step on me I make cracking noises. I'm like a cockroach.
• GM: Plus, it's salt water; it'll dry your skin out. Lily: You're a bad, bad man.
• GM: Does anyone here have 'rope use'? Jefe: No, but I have 30 skill points I need to get rid of...
• James: At this rate, we could've probably walked to the Celestial Plane.
• Jefe: I will not be the bard responsible for bringing Sailor Moon to Faerun.
• Angel: I look down into the goo. GM: She's suspended above you. Angel: I look up into the goo.
• GM: She (the dragon)'s got big green boobs.
• GM: Her big green eyes sear into your soul...but she makes a really cool sparkly effect on the walls like a giant disco ball.
• Someone: That's it, call the drow a dwarf.
• Me: Thank God for telepathy. No tongue to get in the way.
• Jefe: How did drow evolve levitation as an innate ability? Me: Because accidentally falling down bottomless pits is bad. Someone (a la Crocodile Hunter): Oh, crikey! We lost another one! Someone else: Danger! Danger!
• Angel (in the Astral Plane): I'm looking for something that's not grey and swirly.

Midnight Star: Interlude 1

It was strange, the way the daylight had so quickly ceased to pain his eyes. Sekkyro' was not entirely certain he liked it, either; the surface was uncomfortable and unnerving enough without imposing its changes on his body. And filled with frustrating creatures, riddlers and jesters - both humanoid and not. He fingered the white mask in his pouch, still wondering what it did, still a little surprised that no-one had raised a hue and cry at his possession of it. It was proof, if nothing else, that mysticism and mortality did not go hand in hand. The boy had promise, that much was certain. Unfortunately, that promise seemed to be tied into yet more religion. He couldn't escape it, between the boy and the drow bitch. The only way he could feel more trapped would be if the bedamned elves were toting their religions out in the open. Sunlight, gods, jesters, and not a single thing that reacted properly to cold steel. It was enough to make a man wonder whether he had died without knowing it, and found himself in the outer layers of hell. Furthermore, it was exhausting. There was nothing to do to relieve his frustrations; no decent battles against worthy foes to let him lose himself in the blades. The only worthy opponent he'd seen since arriving at the drow city had been the bitch, sad to say. She was good with a blade, and serpent-fast, good enough that he'd been surprised to see her move in batle. If she'd been anyone else - even an elf; if the bard had been man enough to fight with a sword more often - if she'd been anything but a woman and a drow, he would have been glad to ask for a bit of sparring, if only to take his mind off things. But his back was a mazework of scars to remind him of what sort of creatures drow women were. Even the slightest hint of weakness was all she needed, an admission that there was something worthwhile to him about her, and she'd seize on it and never let go. He knew she, like every woman who'd ever entered his life, was just looking for a way to bend or break him to her will. Over the decades, he'd learned - and learned well: it was far easier never to give anyone a chance to try and manipulate him than to have to dislodge someone once she'd gotten the idea that he could be used. Sekkyro' had no desire to be used again, not after he'd been forced into this idiotic quest on the surface to begin with - and he had no real desire to find himself having to beat yet another drow bitch into submission. Engaging in that particular byplay (It would let you fight her, spoke up a feral part of his mind, before he shoved it angrily down) would only prolong things. Religion and women - if there existed a combination more tailor-made to cause him grief, Sekkyro' hadn't seen it yet.

Tussin CF: New! Alcohol-free formula.

I got to explain oedema to Angel on the way over to buy me some more cough syrup (I used it all). He thinks it's so funny because I get excited about explaining things. That's how I can tell you're in the right profession, he says. The way you just light up when you talk about things like ulcers and gangrene and broken bones. I got a cough syrup with an expectorant in the hopes that maybe my cough won't be quite so dry and racking thereafter. And I got a night-time cough suppressant in case I wake up at 2 AM with a hacking can't-breathe cough again like I did last night. Strange dreams when I'm sick. Very strange dreams, and in my dreaming fog I thought "I should write these down." But I didn't, and they're lost now. Emily got me a new notebook as a thank-you for making a computer for her. It's green, with a beaded cover. "Because I always see you writing in class." Iwona told me that when I publish a book, she wants a copy. Is it that obvious? Writing is my escape; it's what I do to keep myself from going mad. And there's something about knowing that at least someone is reading these entries that makes it even better. If I didn't already have a permanent account, I would consider myself justified in buying one by now, as prolific as I am. Speaking of which: I've updated Morning Glory, for certain persons who wanted to know. And I'll type in that extra bit of back story now...

If you like video games, you want to be a urologist. We have so much fun...

Pathology lecturer was Dr. Czaja, pronounced "chai-uh". Interestingly, he doesn't seem to agree with Dr. Smith's policy of making us learn everything. I can deal with this. We went over 7 pages of esophageal problems in lecture, and I dutifully highlighted the sort of things he said were "likely to be testable". For once, that didn't include six thousand names of stupid syndromes we'll see once in our career if we go into neonatal fucked-up-ness. Pardon me. I'm tired of learning these things. Once, I had hope that I could be the brilliant young doctor who comes from medical school and makes a life-saving diagnosis based on some incredibly rare syndrome that she heard about back in path. Now...now I'm hoping I'll be able to diagnose pneumonia if I hear it. If I hear it. Spent two hours learning urology and looking at interesting X-rays. "Start your collection now," he says. "Ask for copies of interesting X-rays."

• The man who was "minding his own business" when he was shot in the rear end. Somehow ("because he's a scumbag," he says. "You or I would be dead, but he's a scumbag.") it missed his colon, perforated his bladder, and wound up lodged in the erectile tissue near the tip of his penis. "No, we didn't take it out. Bullets are sterile when they go in; they're so hot."
• The 17-year-old kid who didn't take the "trespassers will be shot" sign seriously and got a round of #6 shot in his tail.
• The bow-hunting 'accident' - Jim: "I know the guy who shot him. He still says he didn't do it on purpose, but at twenty-seven feet...come on."
• The picture illustrating why one should always wear a cup when chipping mortar off of bricks.

And a lot of urology pictures demonstrating neat abnormalities. Afternoon was physical diagnosis. We saw Ms. B. who was the cutest little Asian 75-year-old lady on peritoneal dialysis. She had a bit of nodular goiter, which I might have felt - I'm not quite sure. Then we went to see a man with diabetes. His foot hygiene was awful, he had severe pitting oedema on his lower extremities, and he'd obviously soiled himself without knowing it. It was all over his legs. Somehow, all four of us kept from making faces either at the mess or the smell or the surliness of the patient. Next year, Rachel says, we get to be the ones cleaning him up. Then I was dropped off to see L.A. She's 43, a cheerful woman with lupus. And she was the best history patient - she knew all about her disease, its diagnosis, all her allergiesm her meds...everything. Now if I could only remember to do everything on a physical exam. I get so flustered; I have no real rhythm to work from on history or physical yet. I need to work on that. Badly. I forgot to get social history, listen for bowel sounds, percuss her liver (I can't find a liver to save my life), or listen for bruits. There's so much to remember and do. And I have to write it up, too. But we got out early. And I came home with all good intentions, laid down at 3:30 to take a little nap, and didn't wake up until 7:30 or so. That settles it, I'm still sick. I've gotten nothing done today - which means that tomorrow, I'll have to catch up a little more than anticipated.

No, I promise, it's just a virus...I'm on antibiotics.

Yesterday, went over to the child care place and learned the quick physical exam on a Real Child. O. was the cutest, friendliest, most gregarious 9-month-old baby I've seen in a long time. She was very good and didn't scream while we felt her little tummy and listened to her heart and lungs. Out at 1:30. Over to A+, where Bart had everything ready for us in a flash. I put Em's computer together all right, after I realised that the ATA133 drive on the end of a (bad?) UDMA cable was probably the reason that the system wasn't recognising the hard drive, called David, and acquired some normal IDE cables. Left her installing Windows. I was very patient, even explaining to her that no, the video card was not what you needed to watch videos - that it was what your monitor plugged into. Still have to go back and get her drivers installed sometime for onboard sound. Came home, turned around, and went out house-hunting again with Angel, Bri, and James. Three more houses, including one whose picture I was certain had to be tinted wrong. It looked pink. Chronologically: We stopped at the first place, which had aluminum siding that was wood-toned. It looked nice outside, except for the evidence of a recent garage-egging. Inside, however, was...disturbing. From the solar panel hooked to a car battery and hanging on the wall to the pantry full of tools to the little motion detector in the kitchen (complete with X10 camera) to the total lack of furniture except for mattresses...And there was still someone living there. All we saw was his back, though, as he laid in bed. It was most unnerving. Bri and I decided that he must have been recently divorced, and having to sell the (very lovely under the trashed frat-house look) house to move somewhere else. But overall...it was just creepy. Second house, also known as "Is that pink?" Surprisingly, it was. Flesh-toned, more than outright pink. And it was adorable. We went through the whole house, worrying that we were going to find something awful (frozen toilets, and the like) but there was nothing wrong with it. Ceramic tile in the kitchen, carpets that wouldn't need replacing, a beautiful bathroom upstairs...the fridge will need replacing, if we want to use the shelves in the door, but that's no big deal. We left, thinking "I wonder what's going to go wrong with wanting this house?" Third house, a ranch that was foreclosed on. Seventies decor, ancient furnace, and the wildlife in the garage attic aside, if we'd taken the left half of the house and put it on the right half, it would've been nice. As it was, it was just too darn sprawling. Plus, the carpeted kitchen weirded me out. So we have another possibility, a house that seems really nice - if it'll be possible to get the box springs up the stairs - and we're going back on Saturday morning to see it. Angel has the beeper this weekend, for the first time - it figures. Robby invites everyone over to his place, I think I can swing going, and then Angel needs to stay within driving distance of his computer so he can be tech support. I'm sorry, Robby! Today has been relatively bland. Cough still lingering in my upper airways, so I don't think I'll go to fencing tonight. I don't need to make it worse. But I am thinking about signing up for belly-dancing lessons. Sounded like fun, and Angel most certainly approves :). More later, most likely. Right now, my tired body needs a nap.

Is the video card what lets me watch movies?

I was going to update on yesterday's activities, but I got distracted. My sore throat has given way to a hacking cough; I think it will be in my best interests not to exacerbate it by going to fencing tonight. I want to go, but I know better. More on hunting houses tonight. If you hadn't heard, from status.livejournal.com:

At 3:57 am EST on Thursday, February 20th, Admin lisa writes : LiveJournal is currently under a Distributed Denial of Service attack, and has been since about 5:30pm PST (1:30 AM GMT) tonight. We have been working with our upstream providers (including several major backbones) to filter traffic as quickly and effectively as possible. Due to the fact that a DDOS attack involves potentially tens of thousands of hosts all working together against a single target (in this case, us), it is extremely difficult to find one group of IP addresses to block to prevent the attack from affecting our services any further. Our upstream providers are currently filtering somewhere around 1/4 of the IPs on the internet from reaching LiveJournal. Unfortunately, these filters also block legitimate traffic from some users. When the attack has subsided we will remove the filters. We will continue to monitor and block hosts as we gather more information regarding this attack. We seriously apologize for the inconvenience, and hope you understand we are doing everything in our power to get the site back functioning as normal. Additionally, if you have any information as to who or what may be responsible for this attack, please email attack_info@livejournal.com.

Funny, I knew that was what had happened as soon as LJ stopped responding.

A brief story....

Taken from Ian's brief entry, and expanded... If he had hit me, it would have been easier. That, instead of the dead quiet. I could have taken anything but the quiet - bruising could have been explained away so easily, broken bones would mend. This was the silence; bitter and empty and so very there in its absence - writhing with all the unspoken possibilities that should never have been and never would be spoken. This was the accusation that lay between us, frozen in his silence with all the unrevealed impact of a slowly spiralling fall. If he had hit me, it would have been over, done with: transgression and penance, stimulus and response; the one-two sequence of confession and punishment that leads to repentance and forgiveness, to continuing on. Anything but his silence, frozen in a bitter stasis that writhed and roiled around his unspoken accusation; anything else would have given me the impetus to continue. If he had hit me, it would have been easier. I would have been able to tear myself away then; turn my attention to tending wounds and covering bruises. I would have been able to twist my mind to excuses and explanations instead of letting it linger on that silence, on the words unspoken and bitter cold. If he had hit me, it would have been a flash - not the slow planting of shame and guilt, nurtured by his silence, growing roots in my soul and holding me there. If he had left, it would have been easier. If he had left, it would have broken the spell, let me abandon my life with him and go on to other things, other dreams. That, rather than the slow lingering silence of his presence, the continued daily milieu. He would wake, and eat, and work, and sleep, revolving around me with all the emotion of a clockwork doll - mechanical and silent and so constantly, undeniably present. I had rarely been alone before; by my desire, it had been that way. Now that presence, his heavy, accusing silence, seemed to weigh on me - sinister, anticipatory. If he had left, it would have been better. I filled the silence with the best of my ability - at first with songs and idle chatter, a what-do-you-want-for-dinner that received nothing in response but silence, the bitterness of it curdling whatever I tried to tempt him with - an exotic spice that burned into every dish and rendered it tasteless and dry. At first, I tried to pretend that his silence was merely a passing thing, an involuntary paroxysm of voval cords that would fade with time. At first - but that fabrication was rent asunder by his voice when he scolded a stray dog that had come too close to the house. Somehow, those moments when I heard him speak made his silence regarding me all the more sinister; the writ of my guilt plain in his bitter wordlessness, the mounting pressure of his unspoken accusation. I tried, time and again, to fill the silence, build a barricade of sound, but my idle chatter - the inanities that sprang to my lips in my desperation - always seemed to falter and fail, breaking into bitter sobs, pleas that shattered unacknowledged on the implacable silence around him. I must have apologised a thousand times, begged him to hit me, abuse me, to punish me and cease the drawn-out trial of my unworthiness. It had no effect, that bitter silence serving as an unyielding barrier between us, almost bearing a life of its own. Its hideous, unspoken head kept eyes of accusation on me, weighing and measuring, nurturing the seeds of shame that sent their slow runners into my mind. There is only so much a woman can take. Surely you see that; that each and every one of us has a breaking point, and his silence found mine. I cannot deny what happened, what you say happened. It must have taken place, because I know that my guilt and shame metamorphosed under the heavy, cold weight of his silence into anger and rage, even; a trapped-animal fury that began to stalk the corridors of my mind. If he had hit me, the anger would have faded, healed with my bruises and my bones. If he had left, I could have been reborn in his absence. But his silence fed my fury with my shame, and I learned to hate him as I hated the bitter silence, pain and anger alike. It must have happened as you say. There is only so much a woman can bear. I can neither affirm nor deny these accusations, spoken as his were not; I do not remember - do not know what happened, in truth. I can only say that it must have happened as you say. For my part, I do not know. I can present you only that I saw the blood on my hands, the mutilated shell of what he had been beside me, and I did not feel any grief at the sight. What does that make me? I cannot tell. And now off to peds.

Whew...

I can feel the laryngitis coming on. I've been dry-coughing for the last two days, ever since they put me on antibiotics. My voice is sore and tired, hoarse even. But I can sleep this evening, after I finish my rounds.

Pathology exam: 77%

This afternoon: physical diagnosis at the peds clinic. I'd be excited if I felt less shitty. Tonight: I'm not going to choir, that much is certain. So we're going to go look at a few more houses. And, as promised, the account of the house-hunting trip from Saturday, slightly out of order: The house in Eldrado Hills (note: it really is spelt "eldrado" on the sign; it must be someone's gross miseducation on the subject) was nice, but there was an oddness about it. Perhaps it was the ceilings six inches too low in the addition section. Perhaps it was the fact that there was still stuff all through the house - furniture, little projects, the old Pinto station wagon in the garage - that made it feel not-home. And there was that baseball hole in the top vent. A nice place, but not what we wanted. Overall: 2/5. Next up was a positively beautiful place in Old Brook Farm. Layout was perfect, lots of cabinet space, a glass-top range in an angle counter, trees in the yard, huge over-garage storage...the house was gorgeous. With only one tiny problem: it's not been winterized. 32 degrees in the house. Frozen water in the toilets. The pipes are almost certainly broken, and they're laid in the slab. Plus, the owners owe almost half again as much as the house is worth on it - they're in danger of being foreclosed on, so they won't pay for the pipes to be fixed. I could cry. What a waste of a beautiful house. 4/5, dropped to 1/5 for the pipes. A tiny foreclosure in up-your-nose area off of Wallen Road, where the new houses start at $110,000. It was cute, I'll grant that, but the lingering impression we had was of looking for another door that one could open up and find the rest of the house. Half of the floor space, I swear, was the gigantic master bath and closet. 3/5. The house my mom suggested we look at. I love you, Mom, but I'm never letting you pick out a house for me again. Walked in and the house reeked of cigarette smoke, bad enough to give me a headache. It was listed as vacant, according to Kris, but the phone was still working, there was rotting food in the fridge and dishes in the sink. No furniture save for an ancient electric organ, a cabinet TV, and a stereo system. Clothing scattered all over the floor in the bedrooms, including pay stubs with child support deductions on them. And then we went down to the basement. The furnace room (in which I had to turn the bulb to get any light) smelt of gas, and the gas line running to the water heater gave Dad nigh-apoplexy. There was a large crawlspace filled with random crap - the kind of space often featured in Discovery Channel specials where the white-trash husband kills his white-trash wife, stuffs her body in the crawl, and then sells the house and all its furniture and skips town. The house was quickly dubbed the "white-trash slaughterhouse", and the name stuck. 1/5. One up in Monarch Park, a precious little house on the inside. I didn't expect to like it from the outside, but it was indeed cute. The sellers had tacked little signs onto things to show us what we should look at - new cabinets, the shed key ("Worth the trip!" proclaimed the sign), new carpets. It really was adorable, and clean and neat and had a giant L-shaped area that covered most of the ground floor. Dad didn't like the drywall job in it - says it wasn't too professional - but that was the only quibble we could come up with. But it just didn't feel like us. 4.5/5, but not our house. And the final one was Jim's place. I could just die for that basement, but the bedrooms were like cubicles. 10x10 or something like that, with tiny closets. A cute place, even if I did almost kill myself coming in from the deck (wet feet, slick linoleum, whoops) - but most definitely not what we're looking for. Plus, Dad was apoplectic over the electrical main running along the wall and over the door without any conduit. 3/5. We got a feeling for what we liked and didn't - but what we liked wasn't available, and what we didn't was. Tonight we've got three more houses to take a peek at...and I've got to scamper off to Pediatrics lectures.

You didn't catch strep, honey, you caught your own stupidity.

It's 11:30. I've at least read all of the notes once. I don't know if I understood them at all, but I'm starting to feel run-over again. Breakdown for tomorrow's exam. Musculoskeletal and soft tissue (Bustamante, usually clinical scenarios. Tough but fair): 16 questions Skin (Kim, usually straigtforward but detail-oriented. 22 pages of notes we finished this morning): 9 questions Red Blood Cells (Smith, evil incarnate): 12 questions White Blood Cells (Burkhardt, usually tough, always at least one that smells like it came out of his ass): 15 questions Total: 52 questions, 2 of them matching, 8 K-type. I've been so sick, felt so awful...I should've studied twice this much. I'm going to die. I only have 3 points of buffer.

Is that a Care Bear?

Angel bought me a Grumpy Bear (special 20th anniversary edition) at the mall Sunday. Because I feel so icky. I took it to class yesterday, which made me feel a bit better. Yesterday: Skipped morning lecture in Pathology so that I could sleep in just a bit more. Meant to study for the Medicine exam but I felt like shit. So I went in to take the exams, did them in a fog, and then stumbled off to the library to sleep from 10:30 to 12:30.

Adjusted scores: Opthalmology 100% Gastrointestinal 83%

I can cope with that. Heated up some solid food, foregoing the soup I'd brought, ate it, and decided I was feeling good enough to go to lab. I didn't know then that lab was going to last four and a half fucking hours, not to mention its subject... Bustamante's doing female genital, and decided she needed her lab time to lecture on the topic. With pictures. I was already feeling sick, before she showed us shots of radical vulvectomies. Some of these cancer resections...they take it all, boys and girls. Imagine a fairly modest bikini bottom, and just cut out anything it covers in the front. Basically, Bustamante says, there's no normal anatomy left. Staggered out of the classroom at 5:30, got home at 6, went to sleep. Angel woke me up around 8 for dinner. And flowers. Byootiful flowers. I got a few pages of notes done, and then collapsed into bed. Still need to talk about house-hunting. The beautiful one is ruined, though, it sounds like. Dammit.

Iwona's husband and kids had positive strep throat cultures. She was on antibiotics for strep. She sits behind me. I have a sore throat with all the classic strep throat symptoms. Including little white patches. Thanks, Angel's Mom who called me in a prescription for Amoxicillin so I didn't have to go to the doctor. No more writing today; too tired. Too sick. Too far behind in my notes. I hate being sick. I can't concentrated. Medicine exam tomorrow: Opthalmology, 11 multiple-choice questions that "could be answered by a trained simian" Gastrointestinal, lots of questions, lots of lecturers. We know what 9 or so of them are. Required score to be passing: 25%. Even sick, I think I can handle that. Mental note: talk about going house-hunting Saturday. And the things we learned. If the house I loved is ruined because they didn't drain the pipes, I'm going to cry.

Snow...

8 more pages of notes on soft tissue tumours. But we aren't responsible for the supplements. (remotely) Asmodeus hugs you gently. "Happy valentines sweetie. Been a long day here, hope your's has been fun. sleep sweetly when you do." Heart turned over, briefly. I miss him so much. Angel's dad's been called up from the Air Force Reserves. Not sharing details over the wide wide Internet, but Mom says it's someplace "safe". Why am I still terrified?
You are a freeform writer. Individualistic with a
sense for the different and challenging, Walt
Whitman and his poetry lacking meter and rhyme
is just what the doctor ordered. You're quick
to write something that the rest of the world
doesn't accept as poetry, quick to separate
yourself from the average joe. An author with a
true sense of self, you have confidence in your
abilities and aren't afraid to show it. :) GO
YOU!

What's YOUR Writing Style?
brought to you by Quizilla Saved entry number one. No information therein. More later.

"Roentgenograph" is stick-up-your-nose academic speak for "X-Ray"

I can't even pronounce "roentgenographic", can hardly spell it - and that's saying a lot. In my notes, I have it down as 'X-Ray'. Only snobs call it a roentgenograph. It's because William Roentgen discovered X-rays, and called 'em X-rays because he didn't know anything about it. Or something like that. I got one page of notes done tonight. Which puts me....31 pages behind. And tomorrow I'm supposed to come up with...*checks the schedule* Nothing. Bingo. Maybe I can catch up. But I have it in my mind that Bustamante has more notes for us tomorrow, notes that I'm sure Smith'll find amusing to put on the exam. And Kim doesn't wrap up 'till Tuesday (Even money says he doesn't finish; he's only gotten through 9 pages of 22 in two days). Goddamn it. It's just not fair to end a 22-page lecture on the day before the exam that covers it. Red blood cells: 27 pages, plus an 8-page supplement. White blood cells: 25 pages, plus a 3-page supplement. Joints: 13 pages. Bones: 24 pages, plus a 2-page outline. Skin: 22 pages, plus a 3-page "classification of melanomas" handout. Total: 111 pages, plus 16 pages of supplements. This is going to suck. And I think Bustamante said something about a lecture on soft tissue tomorrow. But she's scheduled to start female genital. Please, God. No more notes for this exam.

Every night before I go to bed, I say two prayers: Dear God: Please don't let the Tumour Necrosis Factor get me. Dear Tumour Necrosis Factor: If you're bigger than God, I'm sorry. Dr. Smith

He pages, "personally, i'm afraid of any financial dealing with the base mort in its name."

Meeting with the mortgage people tomorrow. My stomach's all twisty. Between fencing and the hospital this afternoon, I've gotten nothing done. Plus, there's an offer on the table for the house I posted pictures of. Doesn't mean we can't get it, besides, Eldorado might be even cuter. The subdivision's name is Eldorado Hills. Whee. Eldorado. Didn't get out of the hospital until 4:30. Three freakin' hours there, with a total of one of them being learning time. We sat around the doctors' lounge. We talked over the book (I read the wrong chapter, but it was okay, I faked it). We went and saw two sample patients and then waited in the doctors' lounge for her to find us some sample H&P patients to write up. For forty-five minutes, I think. We used the time wisely, we did. We percussed the walls to find the studs. Good practise for listening for livers. And we talked about things. And waited. And then our sample patient (Ms. J, in for what might be gastric or might be MI, not sure yet) was a charmer and a half, but her pastor came in while we were talking to her, so we waited in the hall for 20 more minutes and talked about next year, and compared our history notes so far. We're both terrified, Rachel and I. And we forgot to get Ms. J's age, medication history, or relevant social history. Oh, well. It was a wasted afternoon. But fencing was fun, and Mom says the house in Eldorado is very cute. Now if only that promised 4-7 inches of snow will hold off...I want to go to Indy tomorrow.

open season on interpretations: "lily bright"

Where is summer,
        when snowflakes flower on the air?
                sleeping in springtime, 
dreaming on the wind.
                      Summer slumbers,
     amid visions of shadows
                              and sun.

And you, summer's child,
                shivering in the snow,
     waiting for winter to pass you by.
                            What dreams of summer
carry you on?
            It is winter,
                      and flowers bloom pale
  and cold.

          Gone is autumn,
                    summer's last embrace is still.
                               There is no answer, 
no warmth remaining there;
     autumn rests in summer slumber,
                          springtime dreams.
It is gone, lost and cold
          in the springtime snows.

              Summer's child,
                  sleep softly in the night.
Winter's cold will pass,
        and pass you by.
                       Dream of springtime,
twine pale flowers in your hair.
                            Summer's day
            and summer dreams will come.
                           NsB 13-02-03
                                       "lily bright"

And Lily's other-house-she-found-for-us-to-see looks positively fantastic. If "some TLC" means paint and carpet, then it's even neater-sounding than the last. *bounces* Friday-bank, Saturday-house-looking...

His name is Bart.

He works at A+ computers in Fort Wayne. He's been there every time we came in, ever since we first showed up 'cause Stone gave us some bad RAM. Mostly tech, not much of a salesman, which is just what I like in a computer salesperson. "Don't buy that if you're running X. It's not stable." A year, probably, we've been going there now. I trust him. But I've never known his name. Today: Emily was going to bid on a computer at eBay. And she was asking Jim what he thought, and he looked at me and said "Ask Nykki what it would cost to build a clone of it." And I took a guess, said $300, 350. "No..." Probably. We could go down to A+ and see... So we did. And first one of the sales guys came out, tried to sell us a prebuilt Celeron. Bleah. 659, subtract monitor and OS, makes $460. I know we can do better than that. And then I saw him. And he waved, and I waved, and he came over and we chatted. $360 from parts, because I can build it myself. And that's when I found out that his name was Bart. This afternoon: Went out to the house we're looking at. Gah, what a turbulent day it's been. We got there, and realised the door was ajar, so after calling the realtor to see if it was okay, we went inside. With the digital camera. Pictures of just about everything are located here. Showed them to Dad. He's worried about the circuit breaker box, it doesn't look right to him. And he and Mom and Tom are all worried about the furnace, which appears to be a 1976 original monster. It costs $2500 for a new furnace. The carpet in the living room and the green bedroom has to go, the rest will want to be replaced soon ($2-4,000 for it all). The whole thing needs painting, but any house I move into will need painting. I can't abide white walls (see the apartment?) so they'll get painted. That's why I have friends who'll come over and paint. The kitchen is a charming Harvest Gold, how classic is that? I think that'd be a remodelling project for later, that and the tract house cabinets. Needs cleaning, top to bottom. But it just...feels huge, very nice. And pretty.... Mom and Lily and Angel found a few more that look nice, too. Probably not as much work. This is why it's frustrating. I like this house, I do. But it needs work. And we should probably look more. I suppose we'll see Saturday. Please, God, make this work? On a good note, I'm only 8 pages of notes behind where I wanted to be. Thursday: Joints, bones, and start skin. Friday: Meet with the bank. Daredevil. Lazer Tag. Gah. I should study in there too, but when? I'll take the laptop down to Indy, yes. Saturday: Finish bones, more skin, and do notecards. Look at houses. Sunday: Read notes on GI tract for Monday's exam. Monday: Do notecards, work on skin. Tuesday: Finish skin and review! Wednesday: Exam - Red blood cells, White blood cells, Musculoskeletal system, Skin. Take the night off. Go to choir. Thursday: Type up lab notes, female genital. Friday: Go over lab notes and possibly slides in the afternoon. Take the evening off. Saturday: Go over the book pictures. Stop in to school and do slides. Sunday: Go over notes and book pictures again. Slide review if necessary. Monday: Lab exam. Take the night off.

AIEE! *dances madly*

My cell phone rang. Nearly fell off the couch to get it. The bank. Can we do some preliminaries over the phone? Sure, we can do anything over the phone. So I gave her Angel's salary and my student loans. And she clicked some keys. And gave me a pre-approval quote that was half again as much as the house we're looking at. I almost fainted. Next step: going down to Indy on Friday afternoon to meet her in person. *faints* And then after that, I suppose we go drive by the house and then we get a showing and an inspection and all. And I'm so freakin' excited! God is so good. Must study. *breathes* Must study.

Bidin' my time...

Went to Infectious Diseases. Decided to be a Good Girl and take the stairs to the third floor of the building. Realised I'd forgotten the sheet that told me where I was going. Thought to myself: "It's suite 304. I remember." There was no Suite 304. Back down the elevator, back out to my car, get the sheet. Suite 305. Back up the stairs, and in. She's not there yet, and neither is Mike. Settle down to wait. Mike shows up, right on time. We talk for half an hour before the doctor shows up. Infectious diseases. Mr. H. had a lump, slightly painful, about the size of his hand, on the outside of his leg. His wife: "How do you have a lump that big and not go see a doctor?" Cryptococcus neoformans infection, probably opportunistic because he was on immunosuppressive drugs for his heart transplant. He'll be on antifungals for the rest of his life, now. Brian is 28, HIV positive. His CD4 count is good, low viral load. He's getting a new job on Monday, as an assistant manager. Check his drugs, order another CD4 count, talk about making sure he takes meds with food so he doesn't get resistant virus. Tolerating the meds really well, feels great. Torrance is in to check on his liver. HIV positive. His Kaposi's sarcoma is gone, and the antivirals + antibiotics have cleared up his shingles and cellulitis. Friendly, pretty upbeat. Only taking his drugs because he knows if he doesn't he'll get really bad. Like his ex- did. He can't stand the thought of taking them forever. I walked into the room, both times. I knew before I saw the papers why they were here. Why else would a gay man be in an infectious disease clinic, and I knew they were gay...and I thought about the guys I know. There's a moment of heart-wrenching terror when I hear you talk about meeting someone new, every time. Just a moment of terror. Because I know you think, and I know you're careful... but you just never know. Mr. H. is 78, and here because of a chronic Pseudomonas UTI. She reviews his meds, asks him to get in a gown so she can examine him. Takes the CT scans with her. While Mr. H. is changing, she stops in to see Ryan, a second-grader with Apert Syndrome. He, unlike most kids whose skull bones are fused so soon that he has to have operations to let his brain grow, is not retarded. But he is a character. And cute, in a deformed Quasimodo sort of way. Just in to make sure his latest set of sutures is healing properly. And as we're examining him the fire alarm goes off. It's an earsplitting wail, that sends all of our nerves through the roof. Man in the hall says it's okay, we can stay, false alarm. Back to Mr. H. She goes over the CT scans (I found the radiology report with minimal urinary retention, yay me!) and decides that it's probably a chronic problem that's not going to be very treatable, considering he has prostate enlargement and all. But she's going to work with his urologist on it. By the time he and his wife are on their way out the door, the alarm has gone off twice more. Once it comes back "evacuate" from the man in the hall, but then stops. The third time, there's nobody to ask. We stay. Dr. N. comes back, looks at us. "You guys look wiped." Mike: "I have permanent hearing loss from that stupid alarm." Dr. N. laughs, and says "It's having a detrimental effect on my patient care." We're looking up Apert on her Handspring when it goes off for a fourth time. Forget it. We're going home. She shooes us out the door. There is a smoke smell in the hallway on the third floor, but who's worried? I take off for home, get there to find an e-mail from the mortgage lady:

I can meet you tomorrow evening or Friday evening. Unfortuately I will be out of town this weekend at a conference so I would not be able to met you this Saturday.

Tomorrow. Or Friday. Now I'm just waiting for her to call me back like she said she would today. I'm so excited. Please, God, let the house be in good shape...Please, God, let the bank realise that we're a great investment for them to make. We're taking Lily on a date tonight to see Chicago. And if I want to go, I have to go study now.

Open season on interpretations: "il neige"

Bustamante went over 10 minutes again, damn it. And this afternoon I'm to go out to Lutheran for Infectious Diseases. Hope it's fun; I zoned out something awful in the 2 hours of GI lecture today.

Snowflakes flower and grow,
         linger like kisses on lips and eyes,
                They are silent, bright shadows,
falling soft and slow.

                     Winter draws breath, waits,
lets snowflakes dance and fly.
       They are children, as we were 
                              once, long ago.

Ice holds the air in crystal,
            braves the winter breath.
                       Morning lingers, like winter,
Wrapped in silent snow.
                     NsB 11-02-03 "il neige"

A rare thing...

I forget once in a while that Angel doesn't know every symbol in every poem right off the top of his head. I use the dark-winged angel image so rarely, but she's the ancestor of the raven, of the Edgar-Allen-Poe-esque maiden, she of the blade and the midnight hair. And unless I'm mistaken, this is the first one she appeared in... Night Angel

Wings sweeping blackness and heart made of night
Eyes star-filled emptiness, seething with light
Touch like the night-clouds that lushly drift by
Hair like a filament spun from the sky
Clad in the cloak of a thousand lost dreams
Voice of an angel, and that’s what you seem
Skin palely glowing and pale as the moon
Promising heaven, you bring only doom
Smile like the lightning bolt shot from on high
Swift as the storm clouds now, Night Angel, fly
Fast to the world where the night rules your life
Steal away souls with your gaze like a knife
Bright as thy mourning and cruel as the day
Then like a winter wind take them away
Wings sweeping blackness their hearts will enshroud
Night Angel, bring each to your side in a cloud
Search them with eyes lonely burning and old
You’d know what you sought if your heart weren’t so cold
Night Angel seeking the thing you can’t see
The love of another, Night Angel, for thee.
			NsK 9-27-95

Extra points to anyone who knows who this one was written for...

It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Stayed up too late last night watching Robin Williams and old Whose Line is it Anyway episodes. Oh, well. It was muchly fun. Alarm went off at 5:45 this morning. At 7, I finally managed to get out of bed, take a shower, miss a spot in my hair that I didn't notice until I was frantically pulling it up into its usual ponytail at 7:40, so it was too late to go rinse the conditioner out again. Got to school. Jim: "I hear you talked to Kris." The realtor. Yes. "She says she found a house for you." It's a foreclosure, I find out when I talk to Kriss tonight. 1700 square feet in two stories. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths. Ubercute. Oh, I hope I can get hold of the bank. That was the highlight of the day. Bustamante ran ten minutes over into our fifteen minute break. As I'm about to sit down in the computer lab and enjoy my remaining five, Rachel comes running into the lab. "Nykki! Nykki!" Now what? The next lecturer needs help setting up his computer. So I go in, unplug the video cable from the classroom computer, wind it up around my arm, unwind it down the centre aisle and plug it into the back of his laptop. And teach him how to change his screen res to 1024x768 for the projector. Damn doctors. He's got a $2000 Dell laptop in front of him and he can't change his screen res. He started lecture right on time. He has from 9:45-11:45. He ran over by 20 minutes. Then Emily (I love you, Em, but you're so fucking weird sometimes) asked if I had time to explain Palm and PocketPC to her again. So I spent the next half hour opening spec sheets and ZDnet reviews for her. Got only enough time to say hi and type in the poem, then dragged back to lab. An hour and a half of lecture, and then Smith shows up. Can't find the Kodachromes for red blood cells. Thank God. He only held us from 2:30-4:30 going over white blood cells. My brain was so much toast. Staggered out, came home, and made enchiladas with Angel. And that's when I talked to Kriss about the house. Now if only the mortgage people would call me...I like this house. A lot. Oh! Phloxin! I have a brief interlude for you, to make up for being drunk on Friday. More character development.

Open season on interpretations: tombée

Knees bowed and humble,
      a story untold
                while lost in the glitter
of winter, now cold:
                   a sapphire charm,
   an emerald sky;
         Obsidian altar,
and penitent I.

                What sacrifice calls
on winds of cruel time?
                    The whisper of blood
   its savour sublime;
             A diamond, a ruby
       bright, precious, and cold,
          A heart like a gemstone,
A mem'ry grown old.

                Obsidian altar,
Blind emerald sky--
           soft whispering ruby
    to penitent I.
                    On knees old as ages,
Dark haloed head bowed;
      in sapphire silence
           the winter enshrouds.

My shadow befeathered,
      assailed by the chill,
           nor bending, nor breaking,
   unyielding and still.
                  The wind and the winter
within me abide,
       for sad and a sinner
             Am penitent I.

                 Bowed knees in the winter,
a shadow grown cold.
             The savour of sacrifice,
    penitence old.
         Raise black-feathered wings
to emerald sky
                    and enter oblivion,
   penitent I.
"tombée"

Argh.

Remember what I was saying about people who don't know how to use grammar, capitalisation, and other basic elements of the English language?

--Personality: i am a very calm person that can work in groups and am very friendy. --Background: i like to read and play vidio games. i dont like camping. i am in a ooc smart kids class. ooc how do i end it

To his credit, his OOC information says he's only 12. Unfortunately, I'm the daughter of a fifth-grade teacher. You learn apostrophes and capitalisation by age 12, dangitall. And for some reason, "i am very friendy" just kills me.

Thoughts for the day.

Woke up this morning to find a note from dad. "Matt and Nykki - can't access e-mail from downstairs computer." Jotted a note on the whiteboard. "Dad - change e-mail server IP address to 192.168.131.42 to get mail." Whoops. Forgot that we'd had him on IP on the old 10. network. When we move, I'm going to either have to run an IMAP server for security or lock POP3 to his IP only. Angel says I'm too anal about security. I say I'd rather have to unclench the firewall than attempt to remove someone's firmly-lodged 'fuck you' from the server's back door. Tranquillity doesn't like being raped. Choir sang "How Great Thou Art" at church. False start (stupid pitch pipe) but we sounded pretty decent. If I get motivated, maybe I'll post the MP3. I had something to say about "How Great Thou Art" and what it means to me. Maybe I'll finish it later.

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe displayed Then sings my soul, my saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

I got distracted by actually studying for once. And watching Robin Williams DVD's (I love that man's comedy) and eating baked Brie and warm honey wheat bread from the Mill. And reassembling Lily's clothing because she's wearing the shirt that ties shut. It's been a good day. I'm almost caught up on notes for the next Path exam. Just have to get through the section on joints and all the shit I'm about to get slammed with tomorrow. Finishing bones and another two hours of GI lecture. Lymphocytic leukaemia and lab in the afternoon. Rachel likes GI. I...bleah. Not fascinated. Still on the same day in the Mage campaign, so no more journal entries to write during class. Maybe I'll start one anyway. I've got three sessions to work into it anyway. And a Seeking coming up. Yay. Perhaps I'll work on Ishmael. Or something else. Perhaps I'll write poetry. I like poetry. Two weeks until the Axim's scheduled delivery date. Then I can play with my toy in class. And get the wireless networking working on it too. I can't wait. Tomorrow maybe the mortgage woman will e-mail me back, and I can find an afternoon to skip classes and go do paperwork. Angel - best not forget to do your car registration. Or to call the youth around Wednesday and see if we're really going to get a youth choir chimes group together. Sounds fun. Somebody wait a day or two and then tell me if http://www.immortaltwilight.com works. It better. I'm tired of being techy. How great Thou art!

I hate the internet...

[22:44] w_mercury: You had an orgy without me AND you didn't take pictures! [22:49] Whisper: God, news travels fast. [22:49] w_mercury: Welcome to the 21st century Aiee. I told you Robby'd kill me.

P.S.

Lily, you're beautiful :) And Jefe, you're one of the best damn truncated genetic mutants I know. Love you both.

I hate mornings.

I think...I remember through blurred mind and half-closed eyes...I think I went to bed around 6:30 AM. I know I had something like three or four pina coladas and a margarita or two, all in the Big Glasses that're a little more than half the blender, and even though Eric's a bartender he mixes pretty damn good drinks. Took some Tylenol, even though I'm usually wary about taking Tylenol with alcohol (acute centrilobular hepatic necrosis, you know) and drank plenty of water. Ryken's foolproof hangover-prevention recipe. I could've stood to sleep a wee bit longer. Like...oh, maybe until two or three. Instead, Dad comes up at just a bit before noon, knocks on the apartment door. "I know you were up all night, but I really need help." What can you do? It's Dad? He got a new DVD drive for his computer, and when he put it in, the computer died. Differential diagnosis: static shock to the motherboard or chip. Not Good (tm). So we toted him out to A+ computers, which is our favourite place to go to buy computer parts, got there ten minutes to closing time, and found our friend the salesperson. This man remembers everything we bought from him. "Why didn't you bring it to me before buying new parts?" He's wonderful. We got it up and running, went back to sleep for an hour. Now the day's vanished into evening without me noticing it.

D&D Quotes, 07 February 2003

• Lily: Do I know about women? Me: Want to know them better? Lily: I have...nothing decent to say.
• GM: Get your angst on, girl. We're about ready.
• DM: To the Outer Planes? Short of a god, there's not much way... Jeff: I need to take "open portal," that's what I need. Me: I need to take "schmooze god". GM (making shoulder rolls): Hey, baby... Me: Open your portal for me...
• GM: ...the planar garage-door opener of wickedness...
• Angel: We take our horses... GM: Which are alive....(meaningful look) Take a note.
• GM: You see something...large and brown. Angel: It's a shit-dragon.
• Bri: A mime is a terrible thing to waste.... Dash: We already wasted a few. Why not another?
• Me: Will you please refrain from saying witty things while I'm rolling dice? Angel: Yeah. No quips during combat.
• GM: It giggles at you. Me: Fuck you. Fucking shit-dragons.
• GM: It giggles (clapping his hands) Oooh! Bri: Great. It's flaming.
• Jefe: You're obviously worthy of having a song written about you. You're very large and scaly.
• Angel: Well, what do you need done? GM (as a dragon): Well, my nails, for one. Me: Oh, my god. It's a fag-dragon.
• GM: What'll you give me? Me (indicating Lily): You can have the elf. Angel: We're a -party- of elves.
• GM: He stops at you. "What've you got there?" I look up from the computer with a startled expression. GM: He's detecting magic. Me: Oh, whew.
• Me: All I want in life is to fuck one person! Jefe: I've had that feeling myself.
• Me: I'm going to take a swing at it, just on principle. GM: You hack at dragon flesh. It's dead already. Me: That's okay. I feel better.
• GM: There's one blue tile. Me (to Angel): Push on it. Angel (to me): You. Me: Okay. I push on it. GM: Nothing happens. Me: See? Nothing happened. Pansy-ass bitch.
• Jefe: Is that undead? Angel: Not yet.
• Me: She's an elf. She's not inhuman. Angel: Yes, she is.
• Me: I have two masterwork +1 Kamas... Angel: And I have a +1 semicolon.
• Bri: How do you say no to that? Jefe: No.
• Me: It's a drow! With wings, for her protection.
• Me: Eric, I'm out of drink. GM: What? I'm trying to kill you at the moment.
• Jefe (to Lily): What's your deity again? Lily (to Jefe): Drink! Me: Bacchus, apparently.
• Me: One +1 flaming rapier. Angel: Yeth. GM: I want to kill thomebody.
• GM: You see a bricked-up wall. Angel: How well-bricked?
• Me: Drow chick is getting the shit kicked out of her? GM: Yep. Me: Good. Teach her some humility.
• Jefe (muffled): I now have dice in my mouth, so if you don't want to catch my germs, don't use these dice. (spits, rollls) Woohoo!

Today...is a prolific day.

The discussion was on "female circumcision" (more properly termed female genital mutilation), which is a positively abhorrent practise that's roughly equivalent to whacking off half of a man's genitalia with a piece of broken glass. Please don't ask how it got there. (OOC) Storm> The US has finally started accepting girls threatened to be given them. As refugees, that is. (OOC) Shandahr> It's a miracle. I'd be half afraid Bush would recommend them as premarital-sex prevention. (OOC) Carson> Terrorism leads to premarital sex. (OOC) Carson> And vice versa... I laughed so hard. Then, Angel pages me. "Can you hard-boil some eggs for me for the soup?" Sure, I can hard-boil eggs. Even though I'm twenty-four years old and I've never boiled an egg in my life... Enter The Joy of Cooking. Eggs, hard-boiled. Instructions in precise detail. I get out my five eggs, I boil the water, I use the little strainer we have for eggrolls to lower them gently into the boiling water, and lower the temperature to simmer as instructed. I watch as streams of fine white material spurt out from one of the eggs. Whoops. I fish out the (apparently, cracked) egg and put another one in. They came out perfectly. I ate one just to be sure. Yum. Indy bank people e-mailed back. She accidentally deleted my voicemail on Monday. But she's glad to help, when is a good time to call and when can we meet? *bounces* Despite the part of my stomach that's twisting in positive knots at the idea of taking out a mortgage for so much money! I feel very grown-up, not to mention thrilled to little tiny bits about getting a House of our Very Own. Whee. Suddenly, I'm glad I have a paid account. I'm so spammy, you'd never think I had a life outside LiveJournal...

Quizcut: what kind of Retro gal are you?

You are the playful pin-up! Do you know how to be
serious?

What Type Of Retro Gal Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yesterday's news: Rachel and I saw First-year Rachel at Lutheran. She seems in good spirits, chipper, upbeat. She'd been there for some pulmonary function tests, scans and the like. The news: She's going to have the stem cell transplant. In consultation with the lymphoma experts in Nebraska, they decided that even though her CAT scan was borderline positive, it was borderline positive and that her tumour pattern was suggestive of a high probability of relapse. And wouldn't it just be horrible for her to find metastases in her kidneys or liver two years from now? So she's going in six weeks. But she's starting the next round of chemo, including a new experimental monoclonal B-targeting drug that might just kill off the evil bad lymphoma cells. What an incredible girl she is. Today's news: Got to the asthma lecture a bit late, because I suck at finding the short way to anything. But there was still pizza. (Speaking of...I should go shopping for some food for RP tonight, and then clean the apartment.) Then we went over the exam. He threw out two questions that sucked and gave alternate-answer credit for two more. Which...I think should bring me up 6 points or so. Hallelu. Plus, we told him that one of the lecturers sucked, and he listened. Yayness. (girlness) Meg noticed my hair. Said the new colour was beautiful. Yay. (/girlness) Got an e-mail from Dell.

We have reviewed your order. Although we had anticipated being able to ship your order sooner, we are experiencing an unexpected delay. We will not be able to ship your order until, on or before 2/21/2003. We apologize for this inconvenience and are doing everything we can to get your order out to you as quickly as possible.

*strangles* I only ordered the damn thing on January 16. Apparently, everyone and his brother wants a Dell Axim, so they're HOLDING UP MY ORDER! Off to the store. Quotes from RP later tonight.

Dammit.

Four days in a row now: the Bob and Tom Show has played their newest release - a spoof on the Beach Boys' "Kokomo," called "camel toe"...and the stupid thing has the same catchy tune as "Kokomo," which I used to listen to on the bus going to school every morning.

And it's stuck in my head all freakin' day!

Thank you, Bob and Tom. Passed an ad for the IPFW wind ensemble today. Realised I hadn't touched my clarinet in something like two years. How sad is that? I miss playing...especially since I did it for fifteen years, second grade through my senior year of college. And then just tossed it aside for med school. I think, once I'm out of residency, maybe I'll try and join a community orchestra or something. I love playing. No longer timing out of Ansible after 5 minutes. Maybe the router's fixed by the beta firmware. *crosses fingers* And now to prevent myself from humming the camel toe song in class...

I dreamed a dream in time gone by...

what's your battle cry? | mewing.net | merchandise! I like fluffy. Dreamed, apparently, that Angel told me I should cut my hair. I thought it was real, but when I checked with him this morning he said it wasn't. Also remembered at the last minute that we have a makeup lecture from Dr. C. about asthma. Lunch and a half-hour lecture over at their place. Which means that I have to dress nice. Why is it that when the newspaper comes to class (Emily: Oh, we're doing ENT exams today? Scott: No, Em, it's your gyne. Emily: Scott! The paper's here!) we can wear our usual jeans-and-t-shirts grubbies, but if we leave the confines of the third floor Classroom-Medical Building and go out in the Big Wide World, we have to Dress Nice? I want to be a doctor in jeans and T-shirts. Or at least comfortable suits. But I hauled out some clothes of my own, rather than Angel's slacks today - clothes from my brief stint as a Tri-Star representative, in which I sold overpriced overglorified vacuum cleaners to people who couldn't afford them and had just called in to get 8 litres of free pop. A job I think I'm glad I never made any money at and so never actually had to tell anyone I did. I'm shit for a salesperson. Three hours plus lunch. Three hours plus lunch. Then I can come home and clean up the apartment so we can trash it again tonight.

Today, in subtitles...

Thursday is a clean day. I take a shower in the morning so I can look semi-professional (Rachel says she's going to take me shopping before we go to Indy, buy some decent "feminine" clothing instead of me wearing Angel's slacks all the time) for preceptors. Then I go to fencing, so I take a shower in the evening when I'm all sweaty. Two showers in one day, and I wash my hair in both. So I'm extra-shiny-clean. 1) The router. Well, the problem seemed to be not that I forgot to put the nameservers in, but that I added a new one the other day. Apparently, ns4.everydns.net doesn't want to share anything with anyone, and did a lot of bullying all the other nameservers around until they all bowed to its will. And then it zipped its lip. And InterNIC said "Fine. Fuck you too." And all of a sudden when I deleted that nameserver, everything worked. I'm so glad InterNIC is forgiving of people like me and their flaky nameservers. 2) Class. He's interesting, today's lecturer. He is. Livers are pretty damn cool, if you ask me. But I was so bloody tired, I kept kind of passing out into those sleepy fantasies again. Definitely need to go to bed on time tonight. At least tomorrow is a Normal Friday: only three hours of class. Unfortunately, two of them are GI medicine. Quotes gleaned from class today and the preceding days:

• "They used to give them [newborn babies with jaundice] phenobarbital, because that induces the breakdown enzymes. Then you have a sleepy yellow baby."
• "Ask them how much they drink. Everyone lies. I lie. Then ask them how -big- the drinks are. Nobody puts an ounce of booze in a drink except a bartender charging $2.50 a shot."
• "These [lesions of multiple myeloma] look like little rats have gone in and eaten your skull out. Or moths...if moths do that..."
• "Mushroom hunting" (he pauses) "What a strange term. Mushroom-seeking behaviour, in Indiana, is a cult."
• "It's the Mutual of Omaha wild-kingdom tranquilizer."
• "Now...if you have a full complement of chromosomes, you like things like nurturing and Anne Geddes pictures. If you're some kind of truncated genetic mutant - a male, in other words - you like to get drunk and pop people in the eye." (this from our [male] opthalmology lecturer, about abuse and stories that don't match clinical presentations)

3) Preceptors. EENT (Ear Eye Nose Throat) physical diagnosis. Dr. J., our normal preceptor (a preceptor is a doctor who teaches students in the office or the hospital), has a herniated disk. Bad things. So Dr. L, our other preceptor (much nicer than Dr. J, in our opinion. Also more informative) took us up to see Mrs. L, who has aortic stenosis from rheumatic fever in 1939 when she was 12. The heart goes lub-dub. Hers (she's going to get it replaced next week, finally, because she's been passing out from the low pressure) goes lu-whooosh!-dub. Just like it did on the tapes that Dr. Heger had when he taught Cardiac Physical Diagnosis. That was cool. Almost as entertaining as going to see Mr. B, who has a prosthetic valve (argh, I can't remember the name now *goes to look it up*) - A Starr-Edwards valve, showing here (figure a). They put it in back about 20 years ago, because he had mitral valve prolapse. The really neat thing about it (besides the fact that I remembered the complications and indications for a ball valve replacement) is that you can hear the little ball in its little cage going up and down. Lub-click-click-dub. Sounds like a tiny basketball game inside Mr. B's chest. Obviously, it's hard to find patients with ear eye nose or throat problems in the hospital. Not to mention that we'd already done 3 hours of ear nose and throat, and hours of opthalmology in class. So we turned off the lights and all blinded each other with the opthalmoscopes another time (practise makes perfect) and peered into ears and talked about what we should really be looking for, as opposed to the Hundred Pages of Graphic Pictures of all the disgusting things that could go wrong with your eyes. The simple answer: If you see something that doesn't look normal, and you're worried about it, write a referral to an opthalmologist. Because opthalmologists are paid to know everything about eyes. (There's a guy in FW who specialises in eyelids. Now that's scary.) And we went home at 3 again. Dr. L. ran out of things to talk about - but next time we're going to have to start writing up histories and presenting patients. Why am I so scared of this? I'm terrified that I'm going to make a mistake and someone will die because of it. What if I'm not a good doctor? 4) Fencing. Jake and Eric, the anarchists, were there. This time in sneakers, as requested. They seem like such sweet guys. Like they don't really know what they're promoting...they just know they don't like society like it is. Jake dyed his hair blue. It came out, some of it, in the mask. Apparently the small elephants stole some of the foils, because we were six short. And I still can't find a pair of ashtrays (breast protectors!) that'll fit me. They all come out about four inches too high. Not to mention we're short those too, so today we had the usual stock of ashtrays, plus some cups from a sticky-ball-catching game, plus some mini pie tins (they were on sale!)... More footwork drills, more distance drills. More practise. We reviewed lunge, advance and retreat. Then learned another attack (name escapes me) that involves bonking the other person's sword first, to get it out of the way. Had right of way explained. Repeatedly. What a complicated sport. Then we learned the basic parry move. I seem to remember from France the numbered positions that they mentioned, and being drilled on the eight different attacks, parries, and stances. But maybe I'm wrong. Then we played around with attack-parry-riposte for a while, which was when I discovered that even if my left hand is doing nothing but holding an imaginary lantern above my head and diving when I lunge, the bugger gets tired. So I'm all over sore again, especially since Tim thought it would be fun to teach us crossover footwork as a closer. My legs hurt. On the other hand, I'm clean. And tomorrow's Friday. And I had the most marvellous conversation with Storm-who-really-knows-how-to-fence about my class: Storm> Heh. You should see me fencing sabre. The target area is supposed to be down to your waist. Because I'm left handed, though, I have to either wear a left-handed jacket or a back-zip, and the only non-right lame my club has is an XXXL or something crazy like that. It's hysterical, because I have target area to my knees. It's a good thing I don't fence sabre seriously, because I get thigh-cuts scored against me. And that's it. I'm off to bed

Argh.

I think...there should be a law. You should be required to demonstrate a basic command of whatever tongue you intend to use on the Internet before you are allowed to use it. Specifically, if English is your native tongue, then you ought to be required to demonstrate at least a fifth-grade mastery of it before you can enter any sort of communicative environment. Nothing disgusts me quite like watching a sixteen-seventeen-eighteen year old person completely forego the use of capitalisation, punctuation, or other basic grammatical necessities in any one of the following situations: 1) Posting feedback to the administration of a website [A side note: in case you haven't heard, Livejournal staff intends to implement limits on the number of times users can post per day. Hopefully that'll help with the load the servers have been experiencing - but you can imagine the flame war going on. Much bitching from free users about "corporate bullshit" and "unfair treatment", which I won't go into at the moment. Bitching as well from paid users about "I paid for unlimited posting" - which is not actually in the agreement of what a paid account has in any case.] 2) Engaging in roleplay. 3) Attempting to be Taken Seriously at any time. That said, I've just lost two very long battles in a row on Ansible, and I'm going to bed. So tired....

I should've gone home.

Fell asleep during Radiology. Stupid mammograms. I sort of forgot when I was making the DNS file (with EveryDNS.net) to begin with that I kind of need to mention the nameservers in the DNS file. At least I think that's why suddenly mistwalker.org has ceased to exist to the Internet. Very disconcerting:

$ ping www.mistwalker.org ping: unknown host www.mistwalker.org

When I know it was there yesterday. So I went to the icann site to pull up their whois.

NOT FOUND

Which is when I started to worry, because I'm on Mistwalker's connection, and it is so found. Which is when I sort of realised that I'd sort of forgotten to put the nameservers on the DNS. When you look up a website on the Internet, your computer goes to a DNS server, which goes to another DNS server, which eventually winds up at a resolver, which has a copy of the information located on a root server (The root servers (managed by ICANN) keep track of the computers that keep track of the Top Level Domains (things like .com, .org, .net, .fr, etc, etc.)). Follow me so far? Let's try an illustration. You say to your computer: "I think I'm going to go visit http://www.mistwalker.org today." Your computer dutifully sends off a packet to find out what IP address (sort of like a unique street address or telephone number) corresponds to www.mistwalker.org. The packet trots along, peeking in at the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to find out if the ISP happens to have that particular bit of information stashed away from recent use. Let's say the ISP shakes its head. "Nope. Ask the root servers." The root servers are hermit-y little beasts, so the dutiful packet stops off at the resolvers first. Resolvers just hang out and copy the information found on the root servers to make it available. Resolver, reading its script from the root server, says: "Ah, so. You seek www.mistwalker.org, do you? Follow the golden lotus path to the third hill, and ask the .ORG registry. You will find your answers there." On the third hill along the golden lotus path, the .ORG registry ponders. "Ah, so. It is written in my scroll for mistwalker.org that you will find your answers at the house of ns1.everydns.net, which is just to the right after you cross the bridge. If he is not home, try ns2.everydns.net or ns3.everydns.net." Everydns.net pulls out a file card. "www.mistwalker.org? Second star to the right and straight on 'till morning." And off your computer goes. I forgot to mention to everydns.net that I really did want them to hold on to that filecard. Whoops. But ICANN's whois is starting to resolve again now, so maybe I fixed it.