Cranky and Hungry (No More)

Since all of you are still subject to Cranky Ah Jota, I thought I would complain just a little more this week. Last weekend after I returned home from church I noticed water all over the refrigerator when I grabbed a soda. When I investigated further I discovered that it had blown a fuse and no "refrigeration" had been taking place for a number of hours.

EVERY SINGLE ITEM in the freezer had been de-thawed by this point. Needless to say I was not a happy camper. All the food had to destroyed except for two items. I saved my skim milk which had now become cheese. I used it to dip my wheat thins in later that night during one of my study breaks. It was delicious!! Secondly, since I needed to cook dinner that night...I salvaged the thawed ham from the freezer. Being new to cooking an entire slab of ham, I pulled up a cooking show off the internet with some delicious cooking tips. In case you're wondering what to cook tonight or looking for a nice "study break" snack...maybe you should treat yourself to a nice bowl of Hot Ham Water. It's rather simple. All you need is 1) A Pot 2) A Ham 3) Some Water. Bring the water to a boil, toss in your ham and you have a mouthwatering concoction sure to leave your tastebuds screaming for more! Just watch and learn!

Stop Wasting My Time

Well it's that wonderful time of year again...Midterms. A time where caffeine flows like wine, moustaches grow like weeds, and the refreshing daily shower is...well they're not quite daily anymore. Yeah, you guys no the drill. Ah Jota goes MIA for a number of weeks while he is replaced by "Cranky Ah Jota". Food doesn't taste as good but late night farting seems to even more hilarious than normal to this late-night imposter.

Anywho, some things just get under my skin. Especially things that are a complete waste of time. For instance. As I was studying my notes for Microbiology the other day, I came across this little ditty:

"Mycobacterium leperae is an acid-fast bacillus that cannot be grown in artificial media or tissue culture...it can only grow in the footpads of mice and armadillos."

ARMADILLOS?!?! Who cares?? When I'm studying until one in the morning about the effects of Leprosy, all I care about is making sure that I don't contract it (granted it did work out OK for Naaman). Why must you waste my time with information that is only useful while engaged in a game of Trivial Pursuit?

As you can tell I'm just cranky. Pending I don't contract Leprosy from class, one of the bums in the library, or an armadillo, I'll be back soon...

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to my minions. Personally I think I'm spending this Valentines Day in The Twilight Zone. First off, I slept through my alarm this morning. Wait. Thats nothing out of the ordinary. Let me start over...

First off, I spent the entire morning of classes learning about the vagina and disorders therein. I'm not sure if there is anything more disturbing than covering that subject matter on The Day of Cupids Birth. To make it even worse...those disorders were latter passed around in pathology lab....Gross.

After Micro Lab I ventured home and made a quick stop to buy the Hunny Bunny some roses. Nothing extravagant but I felt it was my duty. I'm normally not a "flower person" but since it has been such a long time (our wedding day) since I had sent flowers, I felt I was due. Well I got home and started trimming the roses and put them in vase. They looked beautiful. They were the same roses the Hunny Bunny had on our wedding day. But something was wrong. I could just sense it...Then I noticed it. ELEVEN ROSES!!!! What kind of flapdoodle is that? I paid for TWELVE roses and was totally gypped. If I had the time or the energy I would totally go back and complain. Oh well, I'll just hope the Hunny Bunny doesn't notice...or read this blog.

So as you can see, you and I are not in the same dimension right now. Wherever I am, I want to get back to reality. I hope it happens soon since we have reservations at a fancy Tucson restaurant tonight, named after the optimal temperature at which I store my wine. With that said, it's time to get dressed...

An Afternoon of Insolence

I walked into clinic today and much to my surprise...no patients. I failed to realize that this Thrusday was "Surgery Day". Dr. C told me to come down to the OR and suit up. I happily ablidged. I spent the afternoon with Taj, one of the residents. He's a quiet guy but is really good about keeping me in the loop and doesn't mind me hanging around. Everything was going great until after we finished the first case...

Taj and I walked over to the recovery room and we were joined by my other "favorite" resident, Vladimir. As Taj charted he tried to spark some conversation with ol' Vladdy and it went a little like this:

Taj : Hey Vlad you remember Ah Jota right?
Vlad : Nope.
Ah Jota : Ummm, we've met before.
Vlad : You must not have done anything extrordinary for me to remember you by.
Ah Jota : EAT MY FARTS!!!!**

Who says that? I spent an entire afternoon with that punk and he has no recollection whatsoever of me. On top of that he tries to belittle me with his arrogance. If anyone is going to belittle anybody, it's going to be me! To add to the fire...this is what he said when we got back to the OR:

Vlad : Hey Ah Jota, why don't you run over there and get me that clip. And while you're at it...tuck your shirt in so you don't look like one of the nurse's.

Can you believe that! I couldn't begin to comprehend the egotism that just oozed from this guy. It was awful. It put a damper on my entire afternoon. I was worried that I too could succomb to being a punk like Vlad. But then I realized...I have glorious hair. No cheap immitations here. And this glorious hair keeps me far away from any conceitedness that could creep into my life. If you don't believe me...just ask the Hunny Bunny.

I guess next time I"m just have to be a little more "memorable" for our little Vladdy Boy. Maybe next time I'll put on a little song and dance for him, shine his shoes, or maybe even smile at him. And if all of that doesn't work, I may just have to pin him down and make him eat one of my farts. I'm glad I have all of you readers (and my hair) to help keep me humble. Becuase the last thing I ever want four years from now is for some handsome medical student to threaten me with his flatulence.


**Alright, I didn't say it...but I was thinking it!

Down With The Sickness?

Last week I came down with some strange mystery illness. It was so bad I had to make a trip to the local clinic and get a rapid strep test. The test was negative so I was denied antiobiotics (insert bitterness here). The doctor kicked me to the curb and I was unfortunately left to my own devices...so I overdosed on Wal-borne and Wal-profen (the knockoff versions of Airborne and Ibuprofen) and eventually got over it sometime last week.

Well, I thought I was in the clear until the Hunny Bunny came down with the same thing. She's been home all day playing with the dogs (let me express my jealousy here) and coughing up all kinds of fun stuff (just like I did last week!). It hasn't been pleasant, but she's a trooper. Anywho, it got me thinking about something and magically I stumbled upon my favorite comic strip from my undergrad years. I think it fits fantastically as we sort out who's coughing up what in this household...

Poppycock

Recently I've been thinking a lot about my future. Not by choice, as many of you know I hardly think at all. But this time it's being forced upon me. We have to "choose" our schedules for our 3rd year of medical school by the end of this week. People keep telling us it really doesn't matter, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty...it really does.

Currently my leaning toward a specialty is Urology. I think if your an up-to-date reader of this blog you understand why. Since Urology is a "subspecialty" of surgery I have been advised NOT to rotate through surgery first next year. See, the key during your rotations is to basically show up and brown-nose for a number of weeks at a time. The more you brown-nose, the better grade you will recieve and so on and so forth. Apparently medicine is just one large butt-kissing totem pole. And at this time, I'm at the very bottom. Therefore, to get to the top of the totem pole, you want to perfect these so called "butt-kissing" skills before you show up in the rotation you might want to go into.

BUT, thereinlies the problem. Nobody is 100% sure of what they want to go into right now, at best it's just a "guestimation". I have some other areas I still want to check out, like the emergency room and anesthesiology to name a couple. Both of which ARE NOT on our schedule to rotate in next year.

So I meandered into the office today to try to get some light shed on this subject. Apparently in order to rotate through the ER, you have to be a fourth year. This poses a problem since by this time you are already scheduling away rotations at other hosipitals and setting up interviews for the "specialty" you want to go into. To add to the fire, when I asked about anesthesiology (also a surgery subspecialty) they allegedly DO NOT allow people to do two of these rotations in one year. So again, I would have to wait until fourth year to try this out as well.

If you ask me, this is a bunch of shennanigans. I mean C'mon. Everyone tells us to pick a field that we enjoy and love doing everyday because we'll have to do it the rest of our lives, then they go and tie our hands behind our backs and keep us away from all the cool rotations until it's too late to matter. I can just see the adminstration slapping high-fives anytime some punk 2nd year like me comes in and asks the same questions. They probably even bust out their little flasks of Brandy and toast each other knowing that they just created another disgruntled medical student who is stuck doing family practice.

Well I'm on to their tomfoolery. And rest assured that I'll beat the system. Ah Jota always finds a means to scam his way into something and out of family clinic. I just have get all the whining and complaining out of me first.....ahhhhh that's better.