Stuff from October, 2011
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on October, 2011.
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on October, 2011.
Stephen Fry remembers Steve Jobs:
The use of that last phrase, “style over substance” has always been, as Oscar Wilde observed, a marvellous and instant indicator of a fool. For those who perceive a separation between the two have either not lived, thought, read or experienced the world with any degree of insight, imagination or connective intelligence.
Ellie Goulding’s ‘Home’ is a song with a tide. It washes out to low tide, and you are left with stripped down melody: guitars, vocals. It rises to high tide, and you get powerful crashes of synthesizers and hip-hop inspired backbeats. Her voice has no sharp edges, just round corners.
Yesterday, I reviewed 1000 flashcards in 3.8 hours. The day before, around 900 in 4.1 hours. I’m to the point where, as I’m going about my day (especially when I awake), random words and phrases pop into my head. I’m not kidding, here are some examples: Sturge-Weber angiomatosis. LD50 for fluoride is 5mg/kg. Necrotizing sialometaplasia. Canalicular adenoma.
14 hours are left until day one of my two-day hell-test sponsored by the Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations. And when I say “sponsored” I actually mean “questions written to mess with me” because I still had to pay $360 for the privilege of taking this thing. My wife has made every food (all the foods) in the kitchen for a delicious dinner tonight:
Doctor and Patient - The Hidden Curriculum of Medical School:
“Don’t worry about missing that class,” our teacher said when we sheepishly relayed the reason for our breathless arrival. “You can’t learn ethics or compassion. You either have it or you don’t.”
Mykala: “Did you know that giraffes have the largest heart of any land animal?”
Alex: “No, I did not know that… I suppose they have to get all that blood up into their heads.”
Mykala: “I think it’s because they are so high up and can see everything, they are more compassionate.”
“Tell me about your patient.”
“I, uh, well. She’s here to get #30 out. Uhh. She has hypertension and is taking medication for it.”
“Like?”
“Hydrochlorothiazide.”
“Which is?”
“Err… a loop diuretic.”
“Nope.”
“A potassium sparing diuretic.”
Inside David Foster Wallace’s Private Self-Help Library:
We’re suspended for a moment on this spinning blue pearl, here together and alive right now, conscious, though no one knows why. It is a question of caring. When one of us considers the experiences of another, all the failings and the achievements in someone else’s life, we are seeing from this common place, knowing that it’s all taking place in doubt and the absolute solitude and terror of being human, and knowing that it’s all temporary.
My hands trembled as I opened the letter today. PASS. With an 84, exactly the score Mykala had guessed I would get. (Boards are scored 49-99, 75+ is pass, and I haven’t talked to anyone who got over a 90). All the studying, drilling, worrying are behind us (I’ve given Mykala 42 of my 84 points).