When I first announced my intentions of going to medical school, probably the second most common response (after “how long does that take?”) was “are you kidding? You’re way too squeamish!”
Well, it turns out that I’m pretty stubborn, and I decided that squeamishness shouldn’t stop me from doing whatever I wanted to do.
I’m cutting this post so that those who are really squeamish don’t have to hear about it. There’s not too much graphic description, but definitely mentions of things that might make you go “ew.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Confession: girly magazines are one of my guilty pleasures. I love looking at clothes and shoes I can’t afford. The embarrassing confessions, silly relationship advice, never-ending sex tips, and shocking true-life stories never fail to amuse. I don’t take anything in them seriously, and certainly don’t expect much of a feminist sensibility. (Though I have to say that Glamour’s health reporting has recently risen well above average mainstream media levels.)
The current issue of Cosmopolitan, though, has some relationship advice that crosses from merely silly to actually kind of offensive. And I know it’s an easy target, but I couldn’t resist sharing.
The article is about how to help your man handle it if you’re more successful than he is. One featured woman makes significantly more money than her boyfriend does, but it’s working out all right for them:
The crucial factor: He carries the relationship in other, nonmonetary ways. “I may own my own place and have a steady 9 to 5, but there’s no question that Nate is the dominant one. He is athletic and passionate, and he goes out of his way to protect me, like rushing to my place at any hour of the night if I’m scared or calling to make sure I got home okay after driving alone. He also has more romantic experience and teaches me.”Explains [”clinical psychologist Alon Gratch, PhD, author of If Love Could Think“], “Every masculine trait the woman possesses outside the relationship must be balanced out with a masculine trait for him inside the relationship.”
So it’s OK if you make more money, as long as he’s in charge at home. Just make sure you’re a whiny baby who needs to be protected and taught (ew), and his penis won’t fall off when he looks at your bank balance. And don’t forget to keep the “masculine trait” tally even. (What’s a masculine trait, anyway? Do burping and leaving the toilet seat up count?)
I’m a member of the CPR teaching team at my school. We’re Red Cross certified as instructors, and we teach CPR to various groups throughout the year: incoming first-years, rising third-years about to go into the hospitals for clerkships, and laypeople attending Mini Med School.
During orientation this month I taught groups of first years. I had a good time and got to meet quite a few of my new schoolmates. And it’s a fun class to teach because there are a lot of opportunities for jokes, and I like making people laugh.
I noticed something amusing during this running of the course. Partway through the class, I hand out several baby-sized manikins to practice infant rescue breaths and CPR. After they’ve practiced I lecture a little more before we go on to the next skill, so the “babies” are floating around among the students. It’s funny to watch what they do with them.
About a third of the students cuddle them, holding them as they’d hold actual human babies. This doesn’t appear intentional - they’re not playing with the dolls, just automatically holding them. These individuals are approximately half male and half female.
Another third or so play with the manikins in ways that would likely cause shaken baby syndrome in real infants - holding them by the ankle, tossing them back and forth, that sort of thing. The majority of these students are male, but females are well-represented as well.
Most of the remaining students ignore the dolls once they’ve finished practicing on them.
But there are always one or two students who take the manikins apart (the faces come off and there are removable sponge “lungs”) to find out how they work. These students - both males and females - are almost invariably former engineering majors.
It’s been at least a few months since my last baby tiger post. So now is the perfect time to post the baby tiger cam form the Toronto Zoo. It’s only live during the day, but they have a recorded feed at night I guess. (It is exceptionally cute so perhaps it’s specially picked!)
So far my favorite is when the two babies play-fight. But when the mama tiger herds them away from the window that is pretty adorable too.
The second year of med school started yesterday. So far, so good. The second-year lecture hall is much nicer than the first-year one; there are more aisles so people actually fill in the middle, and the HVAC system works better so I’m wearing short sleeves and not freezing. (I was a bit chilly yesterday in a tank top, but not so much that I had to leave, unlike certain times last year.)
Grades are back - while last year was pass/fail, this year we have honors/high pass/pass/fail. Scheduling is by various-length blocks: first we have pharmacology, pathology, and ENT for three weeks, then a week of tests, then the next block is something like two months long. Most of the time we get the Friday of exam week off so there are long weekends to recuperate, which will be nice.
This year is supposed to have a much heavier workload than first year (we don’t usually have afternoons off, for one thing, and we have to learn a lot more data) but it should be a little more interesting because the information is more directly relevant.
Somehow I’ve ended up helping to run several student groups. I’m semi-officially one of the people in charge of the CPR teaching team and the Gay-Straight Alliance. And I’ll continue to be involved with the Perinatal Project (which provides prenatal information to at-risk pregnant women), the Young Scientist Program (which teaches science to school kids), and probably the Reproductive Health program (aimed at middle schoolers). Although that sounds like a ridiculous number of teaching volunteer programs, it’s actually only half or less of the teaching teams that are available here, so I’m restraining myself if you think about it. I do plan to keep teaching test prep as well, but probably only on a substitute basis in the interests of keeping my schedule reasonable.
I might post more if I continue bringing my computer to class. I’ve been wanting to do several posts wrapping up the first-year experience; we’ll see how that goes.
Yesterday I stopped at the grocery store on my way home from work, and decided to pick up a bottle of wine to have with dinner. I painstakingly selected a nice-looking Riesling and got in line with that and my dinner ingredients. The cashier scanned my wine and asked if she could see my ID. “Sure,” I said, and got out my wallet. Only to find that my driver’s-license pocket was empty.
Last week Tim and I had gone to a wine-tasting event at the zoo, and I made him carry my ID so I wouldn’t have to take a purse. He forgot to give it back, and as it turns out I’ve been driving around without my license all week.
Anyway, I couldn’t produce my ID, so the clerk wouldn’t sell me my wine. I told her I understood that she couldn’t bend the rules, so I paid for the rest of my groceries and went on my way. But it was embarrassing! She probably thought I was one of those underagers who “forget” their ID on purpose and try to buy alcohol anyway. Which I’m not! I’m turning 25 in two weeks! But I guess it’s good that I am not wrinkly yet.