just over that green hill...

Amazing to believe that medical school is officially 75% over. Sure, there is residency and fellowships and all that stuff about life-long learning, but I'm going to keep on believing that that will all be fun once I'm in the profession.

Looking back, it has been an amazing blur of a year. Though trite, the axiom of "time flies when you are having fun" has never seemed so appropriate. Sure there have been days of overwhelming work or being spread so thin that you are just emotionally spent, but those times have been clearly outnumbered by the days and nights that our friends have been able to enjoy the change in scenery, atmosphere, and pace of life. Whereas our lives in Kirksville were primarily centered around the ultimate importance of studying the science of medicine, this year has seemed to be more of a time to learn about how to live a life in medicine. Although we continue to have didactic sessions with our clinical faculty, we also have a more fraternal dialogue about how each different specialty affects family and social life. In that respect, we were given a lot more time to spend as we pleased, whether it be study, sleep, or play.

So the year has flown by at an alarming pace and so much has seemed to change just as abruptly - marriages, divorces, births, deaths, relationships, and breakups. To me, I imagine that this has been going on for the last three years, but the pace of medical school has kept me too preoccupied to appreciate the true impact that these events have on a person's life. Now, with the tiniest additional time on my hands, it seems that these emotional stressors have more opportunity to cause significantly more impact than in previous years. So, in addition to living our lives as pseudo-doctors, we have been learning to field and diffuse the seemingly multidirectional onslaught of our various social and familial relationships. It is fortunate that support network between our colleagues here has been so strong and no matter the problem, there is always an attentive and sympathetic ear to listen.

So, as I am crossing the threshold into the fourth and final year of medical school, I hope that I have been able to learn from all the experiences that have seemed to blur together into a cloudy memory of this past year. It seems as though most of the next year has been well planned out. Most of my rotations have been finalized, but I'm still working on a few after the new year. Here is the work in progress:

May 27 - June 23, 2007: Neurology @ North Valley Neurology; Scottsdale, AZ
June 24 - July 21, 2007: Emergency Medicine @ OSF St. Francis Medical Center; Peoria, IL
July 22 - August 18, 2007: Critical Care @ Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center; Phoenix, AZ
August 31, 2007: COMLEX II
September 2 - 15, 2007: Nephrology @ Carl T. Hayden VA Medical Center; Phoenix, AZ
September 23 - October 20, 2007: Inpatient Pediatrics @ Phoenix Childrens' Hospital; Phoenix, AZ
October 21 - November 17, 2007: Pediatric EM @ Phoenix Children's Hospital; Phoenix, AZ
November 18 - December 1, 2007: Pulmonology or Anaesthesiology (TBA)
December 2 - December 29, 2007: Cardiology (TBA)
January 6 - February 2, 2008: Emergency Medicine @ Maricopa Medical Center; Phoenix, AZ
February 3 - March 1, 2008: Pediatric ICU @ Phoenix Childrens' Hospital; Phoenix, AZ
March 2 - 15, 2008: Radiology (TBA)
March 16 - April 11, 2008: Family Practice (TBA)
May 17, 2008: Graduation in Kirksville!

my life to music

so the past couple weeks have just been absolutely crazy. its been ups and downs and I can only imagine that this is the stuff that soap operas are made of. regardless, I think the worst is over and I look back and think that
I had a lot of time to think. one of the many random things that floated through my head as I tried to sort things out is that our brain is such an amazing creation. even when it is working absolutely perfectly, it can still contort and color our lives in such drastic ways. it can turn a completely sane person into a babbling mess and a turn fantasy into logic. like I said, its been a wild week, but I think having time to think about a lot of things has really lifted the haze that I have been in.

the funny thing about all the chaos of the last week is that at times I would think about times when things seemed much simpler - not really any specfic time of my life, but just certain memories that have been permanently imprinted in my brain as happy or some variation thereof. the interesting thing about it is that each had some sort of musical component to it. here are a couple of examples that immediately come to mind.

"Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" by Vaughn Williams: This is such an awesome piece of classical music. I mostly associate it with Arizona, but also with the great times I had in high school. Yes, I was an orchestra nerd which I think is just under "band geek" on the high school social heirarchy. Anyway, I distinctly remember this piece because we played it the year we went to The Midwest Clinic. Somehow, we made a connection with the orchestra from Dobson High School in Mesa, AZ. I don't remember the exact details, but we somehow wound up taking a Spring Break trip to Arizona to do some sight-seeing, but also to do an exchange with the Dobson HS Orchestra. It was the perfect piece. Two orchestras separated by half a continent playing together on one stage.

"She Will Be Loved" by Maroon 5: Nowhere near as complex a story as others. It was the song that was programmed into my alarm clock in Kirksville. Kinda funny that it can generate such a great feeling considering it was what goaded me to class nearly every day for an entire year. I don't know. I guess in a way, Kirksville was a simpler time. The schedule was set and we pretty much knew exactly what was coming our way everyday. Nowadays, studying is like taking shots in the dark. What I read at night may not even be in the right organ system as the pathology I'll see the next day.

"Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi: Shotgunning beers outside Henle Village during the thirtieth minute of the Chris Kreeger's Power Hour. How could anyone forget?

"Homecoming King" by Guster: Driving back to Champaign from Washington, D.C. via Baltimore via Pittsburgh. Best part was the fact that we were in Champaign for two days and the entire road trip lasted about four. Travelling companion on this crazy sojourn? None other than Matt Bassett.

"Rainbow Connection" by The Muppets: More orchestra nerd memories. But this song specifically stirs up memories of my good friends Tina Myers and Dave Hunsberger. Sadly, I have not kept in touch with either as often as I had thought, but there is still time to change that.

"Kiss Me I'm Shitfaced" by Dropkick Murphys: Part of the Ben Munroe/Andy Jou Power Hour masterpiece which occured not too long ago here in Tempe, Arizona.

"All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey: You know, it isn't a particularly good song, but when you are in South Africa and you can't quite remember the name of the guy driving your convee, you best just bop your head along and enjoy it.

"Question" by Old 97's: Some more Kirksville memories. This one is a bit more vague than others. It isn't so much of a specific time, but more of the times I spent with Dusten Wessel, John Epema, and Jeremiah Mason. The four of us practically lived in the breakout rooms at school for the entire first year in Kirksville. Between studying, ping pong, and the finale XBox session in the Breakout 4 we had a great time. I think this song has specific connotations because it is also the song that Dusten played for his wife Nicole the night they got engaged. As a side note, Dusten thought about his song first.

"Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey: Kirksville. Dukum. Lots of singing at the top of my lungs. Colored by the strong presence of Jake Shannon but also Ben Munroe, Nate Scherer, and Jeremiah Blankenship.

"Three In One:" With the Chief retired, I don't know what will happen to halftime. Not only does this remind me of Illinois, but also of all my good friends that I worked with at Illini EMS. I think being rooted in an organization so intimately involved with the University really made undergraduate special for me. It also gave me the foundation for a lot of what I am doing now.

"Johnny Can't Decide" by Jonathan Larson: If I remember correctly, this was just starting to make an emergence during my senior year at University of Illinois. The entire Tick, Tick... BOOM! soundtrack was in my car for a long time that year as I was getting a lot of my rejection letters from the first round of medical school applications. I guess that's kind of depressing in a way, but now that I'm in Arizona, I guess it also serves as a reminder that things did eventually work out. For some reason or another, it also reminds me a good friend of mine, Dave Wehby.

so now you can see the crazy way my brain works. neat, huh?

so shady, so beautiful...

I know it has been a long time since I put anything up on this site, but I needed to document this before the details of the compete saga left my mind. So, our house has been on a fairly rigorous hunt for a nice TV for our living room. It included looking online and several craigslist hunts and culminated in an offer too good to refuse. So let me walk you through today.

I responded to this ridiculously shady ad on craigslist for a 42" plasma TV - as Ben pointed out, no brand names, no descriptive features. It was pretty much as vague as you could get. The price was $800 and to me, that screamed for further investigation. After an e-mail, I got a response this morning with quite a few more details. I called up the guy and he was fairly forthcoming about everything. It turns out he's "moving out of town" and needs to sell is trying to sell "his" things. Here comes shady detail #2 - he says he's got it in one of his storage garages and we could swing by to take a look at it. Who sells stuff out of a storage garage, or multiple garages? So anyway, I thought he said he would bring it to this one garage and we could take a look at it there. Fortunately, its pretty close to our house and in a pretty decent area of town.

Ben and I drive down there and pull up to a Public Storage facility. There is a huge, electric gate between us and a woman who is frantically trying to organize a alleyway full of stuff. We call the guy and he's there, too. He opens the gate and drives out in his Mitsubishi Montero. Shady detail #3 - we exchange our plesantries and he says to us, "so, the TV's at my other place - do you want to hop in or follow me?" I'm thinking that there isn't a chance in hell that you are getting me in your car. You could at least entice me with candy or something if you're going to be that obvious. So, we tell him that we will follow in the car and he says that he will drive slowly to prevent us from getting lost. With that, he takes off down the road at a speed limit shattering 50mph. Please note that this was not the freeway and the posted limit was 40.

So we think, how far could this place be, right? I mean, he's "moving" out of town so he probably keeps his stuff close together. Shady detail #4 - the thought that it would be close by slowly fades away as we are driving further and further away. This was especially true as we were cruising East down Highway 60. After about fifteen minutes of driving, we finally arrive at the second storage facility, (shady detail #5) a house? Hmm. Well, we think to ourselves, "at least we can see what kind of living environment he has." Surely if he is strung out on meth or speed all the time, his house will be a wreck and we can duck out graciously. Shady detail #6 - as we are walking up the driveway, Ben asks, "nice place, is this your house?" The response being, "no, this is one of my friends' place." Nice. Especially awesome since the door is locked and after knocking a couple of times, the guy that opens it is this rather generously hefty looking Mexican guy. Hm.

So he walks in and pulls out a really nice looking TV. We run it through the gamut and make sure that it works and the picture is good and everything else. So, time to make sure this is really legit - or at least to test exactly how thorough this guy's fencing outfit is. We ask for a paper copy of the warranty and receipt of purchase. Shady detail #7, he says, "its totally covered under a warranty. I don't know exactly where the warranty is." Nice. So what you are really saying is that you didn't buy it. Hm. He swears up and down that a warranty exists and has us call Best Buy. There is a whole seperate story about Best Buy, but it essentially pares down to us driving back to the Public Storage and talking several times with Best Buy customer service. In the end, there did not seem to be a warranty at all.

So we get back to the Public Storage where another person was supposed to be taking a look at the TV. We break the news that Best Buy didn't think the TV was under warranty. Again he swears up and down that there is a warranty and we basically say that since another guy was taking a look at it this afternoon, he could deal with it. If the guy didn't buy it, he could look for the warranty and I would call him back tomorrow. After this, we said our goodbyes and parted ways.

A couple hours pass and we get back from the gym. I give the guy a call and he says that the other interested party didn't wind up buying it. I asked if he had located a warranty yet and he said "no." So, I said to him, "well, maybe if you can find it tonight, we can talk tomorrow about buying the TV." Shady detail #8 - "Oh, we had a change of plans," he said, "we're taking off tomorrow morning." Riiiiight. So I say, "well, I don't think I'm comfortable buying it without a warranty." So he says that he will run over to Best Buy and have them prepare all that paperwork. Sure enough, I get a fax and an e-mail from Best Buy not ten minutes later. I call the Best Buy and they confirm that they talked with him and that he explained what was going on.

Great, so I call him back and say everything looks great. We could probably pick it up tonight if he liked. I bring up the logistics of paying him and say, "will two checks be ok?" Shady detail #9 - "No, man. Cash only. I don't do any business with paper." Sure. That's totally reasonable. Let me go to the bank and pull $800 out of the ATM. Shady details #10, 11, and 12 basically revolve around his complete rigidity on paying with cash. We offer a money order or cashier's check. We offer half check, half cash. We offer half money order, half cash. We even offer bank transfers. No, no, and no. This is crazy. So I say that I don't think we can work this out. He immediately says, "Wait!" He puts me on hold and then comes back with shady detail #13 - "How about a credit card?" At this point, I don't think - I say, "Hell, no. I am not giving you my credit card number." Eventually, Ben comes up with a thought about paying through PayPal. Great, we offer half through PayPal and half cash. After a little wariness, he agrees. Amazing - pretty reasonable.

So, we eventually settle all the details but there is a small snag. The PayPal account belongs to his "friend" who happens to be a "police officer." "He sells police surplus on eBay," he says. I'm thinking, "awesome. Why do I need to know that?" Anyway, he says that he will call his "friend" to confirm that we had made a transfer and would call us once he got the ok from his "friend." Shady detail #14 - the guy's name apperas on the PayPal transfer record and the seller and his "friend" share a last name. WTF? Sweet. This really has the workings of a family fencing operation. Anyway, it takes him about an hour and several goading phone calls before he agrees to have us pick up the TV. The rest is pretty much history. We have a super-sweet, super-huge TV that will bring much joy to our house. Rest assured that I left out all the sordid details that were important for covering our butts like warranty transfer and ensuring that the unit worked. Swing by to see the new toy.