Musings of a Neurogeek

moving day

2010-10-07T21:48:00.002-06:00

It's been a blast. I'm moving over to Robot Unicorn Buddies, an initiative I've started with Jia.

Still the same neurogeek. Different URL.

inspired

2010-09-29T10:27:00.003-06:00

In lieu of my pediatrics exam, I oft wonder what's the point of pretending to be interested in something you don't care anything about. Well in this case it's so I can actually pass this program, but in generalizing to reality, pediatrics will have no significance on what I intend to do later on in life (because it's boring and kids are evil except my kids who will be the personification of awesome at the same time as being little shits).

With monumental changes in my life such as living under the roof of my fiancee's house and slipping an engagement ring on her ring finger, I think of the future. I think of my future child and how he or she will rebel as children often do, opting to go for the path of least resistance instead of the road less traveled. He will want to be a professional gamer and be attached to XBox Live playing COD all day, and she will want to forgo her education in favor of the mall and all the material things she cannot afford on her part-time job at Cinnezeo. Like all parents, I will hound them and nag and scold, and they will hate me and call me by names more explicit than tyrant.

They will, eventually, find something that they are passionate about, and at that point I will let them go. I have begun to realize (in all my numerous, vast years of accrued sagacity) that when you truly love something with all your heart, it's so much easier to pursue it. This is no novel concept, but it doesn't mean that we don't have to emphasize it - it is true and it is important. For me it's like studying peds or studying neuro. For the latter I will spontaneously read the textbook like it's the latest Steig Larsson novel, for the former I dread including the course pack in my backpack. The point is that I think one of the great meanings of life is finding the thing that truly keeps you going day in and day out. It's finding out what is your passion, being inspired by it and continuously being inspired by it in your interactions with it.

I most recently witnessed this phenomenon in a lecture by a speech and language pathologist that came to discuss communication barriers with the aging population. I have never been so enthralled by a guest speaker - you could tell immediately that she was absolutely blown away by the work she does on a daily basis. She would go off on tangents from class material simply due to the fact that there were so many interesting things to talk about that you just HAD to venture off topic and talk about how cool this tangential concept was. She would use words like circumlocution and presbycusis and engram all in the same sentence as if they were old friends calling her out to play. The material she lectured about fascinated her enormously and in return, fascinated us.

I have never seen such life, energy, vitality for something and it changed something in me to go and attack what I want in life because that's the best way to be so in love with what that something is. For me, it will be seeking out all things neuro and embracing it in the same manner; I want to be inspired so that I can inspire others to be inspired and to do the same.

You know, hopefully my kids will see this and will follow my example. Here's to hoping, or else I'm going to have to pick up an XBox controller or my wallet to dole out cash for the things that they love. But honestly, whatever, so long as they truly love it.

beamin

2010-09-26T23:39:00.005-06:00

ya see i hood a lot, and ya i nerd some
hood's where the heart is, nerd's where the word's from
don't represent either, because i merged them

Check 2:09 - tattoo I want. Brains and light bulbs.

decaying

2010-09-25T11:51:00.004-06:00

I am rotting.

***

In a society that cradles emos and faux-depressives as a misunderstood subculture, I toe the line between what makes them them and what makes me me. I have long struggled with the concept of identity (fuck you Erikson) and have been unable to maintain a discernible persona. I float between what I would like to be amongst different circles of peers, only to find that nothing I act out is true to what I am. I am a confused chameleon.

I long to say, "No one understands me," or something equally dark and cantankerous, but the underlying truth is that even I don't understand myself. I strive to figure out how to socially interact and even feel like I hit it some days, only to find the next day I shrink away and my pursuits hit the edge of bathos. No man is an island except sometimes this man. The bell tolls for me.

The question emergent from the study of my favorite topic, meta-consciousness, is simple: "Who am I?"

I ask myself this every day.

neurogeeks

2010-09-23T01:33:00.004-06:00

I got down to class today about five minutes late and sat down in the back at the nearest empty seat. We have a class of 83 so everyone knows who everyone is, so needless to say it was a little weird seeing a face I didn't recognize. I thought for a second I might have walked into 'Introduction to Law' by accident like I did last week, but when I pulled on my first swig of coffee and things started to fall into place, indeed we were talking neuro.

I didn't think much of it as I struggled to understand descending inputs and how they regulate spinal reflexes. I have this block in my brain somehow that leaves me unable to easily process the motor system - perhaps due to years of trying to understand input and perception has lead me to forget that we do take our internal representation and access the world with it. It slips my mind that sometimes it's not so much about thinking but that there's also action on the end of it.

Dr. Yang reaches the midpoint of her lecture and tells us to take our break. The girls are sitting on the far end of the room and Mankeen is a few rows front, so I'm left where I am playing with my iPhone. I turn to the side and my eye catches the paper of the student next to me, the stranger who has invaded our class. She is reading a review on representation of music in the brain so naturally neurogeek in me kicks in and I ask her if this is her thesis because I wrote a paper on auditory-motor integration in musicians for my Current Issues in Cognitive Neuroscience class in my last year of undergrad.

She begins to talk about how she is under the tutelage of Dr. Westbury, a noted language researcher, and my brain immediately shuts off because a) I'm not interested in that field and b) she's really pretentious. I find it amazing because here she is in a class full of PTs with the uncensored belief that she is better than all of us. "I took this course to get an easy A+; I would be extremely upset if I got under 90" comes out of her mouth, and I have officially tuned her out.

My fellow neurogeek, I am one of you, yet you see me as one of them. When I am with them, they see me as one of you. So here I lie again, on the lam, neither neurogeek nor PT, but straddling the line between both worlds.

Nothing is black and white. Or is it nothing is black or white?

lines

2010-09-23T00:58:00.004-06:00

good morning, look at the valedictorian
scared of the future while i hop in the delorean
scared to face the world - complacent career student
some people graduate but we still stupid

***

beyond the walls of intelligence life is defined

***

see the most coveted thing is a high self-esteem
and a low tolerance for them tellin me how to lean
the most important parts are the ones that are unseen
the wings don't make you fly and the crown don't make you king

***

watch they mugs drop when they see my verb is able

***

i never cyclops, it's never i alone

***

i'm suited up in street clothes
hand me my nine and i'll defeat foes

***

it takes a lot to get up there and embarrass yourself
but you shouldn't put down you should merit yourself

life = $?

2010-08-07T13:58:00.007-06:00

Premise 1: f(money accrued) < f(money needed)
Premise 2: money ≠ life

There it is. An absolute. A less than, with no chance of it being equal. Always, always less than, unequal to, never.

Peter Singer always asks what a life is worth. He also ponders what is the human responsibility - to what do we owe to the world? Jia Hu on the other hand always questions as to what we are called to do on earth.

I come to this not so novel conclusion here and say:
Altruism is dying.

That being said, it's not dead. I met a lady very recently who exhibited an uncharacteristic amount of altruism that you ne'er see in today's world. Granted, she also exhibits some tendencies towards a personality disorder or two (take it with a grain of salt) but regardless of what she is, her principle struck a cord in me. Here is someone that, despite all odds, is willing to listen to her heart guide her in the direction of what is the moral right. She will save her fellow man no matter what the cost. She finds it her purpose here, and follows it to the point that she will guilt us into believing what she believes. Absolutely fascinating.

I make a confession: This man in question might actually not be a man, though, but perhaps a female. And perhaps not so much a woman but a puppy. Does this matter? Does this detract from the cost of a life - is a puppy worth less than a human? What is my personal responsibility in all this? If I feel the need to help, must I help? To what extent? When is the boundary crossed between when somepuppy in need is my responsibility or someone else's or not anyone's responsibility at all?

Here is what I know. Life tells me to move on, to wash my hands of this. It says, "You are not being selfish but logical." My heart tells me to reach out no matter what the cost be. Jia loves to quote Schindler, so let us sing charity's favorite paean: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."

So I wonder:

1. If you saw someone in the alley clawing around for help, would you stop?
2. If you saw a puppy in the alley clawing around for help, would you stop?
3. If this person needed a lot of your help and had nobody else to turn to, would you help?
4. If a puppy needed a lot of your help and had nobody else to turn to, would you help?
5. I am a bad person.

new york, new york

2010-06-29T10:09:00.008-06:00

I have realized that everything I consider romantic can be boiled down into my conception of the couple in New York winter (okay fine, John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale in Serendipity). Picture this in your head - two strangers holding hands, strolling through Central Park all bundled up in mittens and scarves, laughing as snow cascades and swirls all about them like a white tornado. You don't even have to have gone to New York to see this in your mind's eye - the movies have painted an image on us so strong that we can see them hovering under the lamppost, pausing to have a kiss, their breath freezing in the cold air into wet steam.

You see, everything I find romantic is from the movies - I grew up a dreamer and it continues still, albeit with a slight realist twinge because if I operated by the conventions of movies I would always be depressed by how it never turns out so. But think, everything I absolutely adore!: Steaming cups of coffee being sipped on the street corner waiting for the light to turn green, apple pie a la mode in some dingy diner across the street from a frozen ice rink where couples skating for the first time giggle as they hold the siderail and try not to fall over, Salvation Army santas standing at the corner of Times and 42nd Avenue ringing that fucking bell but people are in such a giving mood that there are a few twenties in there to help the less fortunate bless them, looking up into the endless expanse of darkened sky knowing that we are such a small portion of this universe but loving life nonetheless because we do exist here miniscule or not we are corporeal we are real we are part of something amazing; our gaze turns to the city skyline moving and shifting as the parallax from the falling snow dazzles and amazes us as the lights blink on the billboard sign displaying some ad for Mamma Mia.

So you and I, enjoying romance in the crisp winter air where love goes to live and, for the moment, escapes the clutches of reality, let us wander heels crunching through this snow, sipping our half-calf, avec whip, half-sweet hazelnut lattes, all bundled up in our winter parkas and just go nowhere because you know what?

We are here.

revelation

2010-06-27T10:42:00.002-06:00

I have found
that ignorance is bliss.

dream

2010-05-30T14:14:00.003-06:00

I have this dream I keep thinking about. It's not really that original but it means a lot to me, and I hope I can make it a reality. I have this vision of going to this place where I have no idea what the language is and nobody has a clue who I am. I am armed only with my Moleskin and trusty RSVP, my goniometer, tape measure, transfer belt and stethoscope. The setting is war-torn or post-apocalyptic earthquake or something equally devastated.

I complain a lot about humanity dying and the world not caring enough. The truth is that I do not do enough and am only complaining about how I don't do enough. My answer is simple: To go out and do something. I excel at holding a patient's hand and not seeing them as a patient but as a person. It is easy to become jaded in health care and we all vow not to but this feeling of giving your heart out to every patient you see is something I never want to lose.

I went to see my patient who I worked closely with, the same one who allowed me visit to their home and showed me photos of them as a child - black and white things that are timeless and precious. L. had gone to the hospital for a severely leaky mitral valve that led to a serious pulmonary edema. L. was going to be discharged from the program, and one Sunday at cell group I went out on a whim and prayed for L.. Whether it be due to divine intervention or simply coincidental luck (confound - we'll never know), L. got better, and on Friday we went to the heart institute for a visit. That is a moment that will stay emblazoned in my neocortex for all time - the "Hello Joey" as they entered, the "You'll have to work very hard with me Joey" when talking about exercise, L. asking me about our house party and the social worker commenting "My that little L. loves you, how come we weren't invited to your house party?" and finally me giving L. a hug and saying I couldn't wait to see L. back at the program.

Mag once wondered aloud why I am so moved by every ebb in health my patients undergo, and it's as simple as saying that these relationships mean a lot to me. I said before that if it matters so much to me that one be healed, then it will mean so much more to heal a lot. I must go to a place that needs me, because I need them and together we will heal the world.

So hurry up school and finish so that I may be the answer to all those e-mails sent out from the Canadian Physiotherapy Association calling for physios to Haiti. My heart cries out to be divided million-fold to those that need aid - mitosis for the masses.

fuck

2010-05-29T14:07:00.001-06:00

Not a good week.

need/want pt. 2

2010-05-23T12:31:00.004-06:00

I have, however, learned the price of a life. I see these patients come into my clinic and assess them, spry old things with lots of stories and quips. I work with them for days, improving their strength, getting them on the recumbent bike, clapping on their backs to improve secretion removal. I listen to their life's tale, then I listen to their lungs, then I listen to their hearts dying, gurgling.

I come to work the next morning and he's in the hospital, she's in the hospital. Cachexia, congestive heart failure, stroke. Then they get discharged from the program; they are never coming back. They go from two years ago running marathons to multi-system atrophy and 2-wheeled walkers to the hospital for 4-person assist. I see them at their homes holding their puppy, showing me their room and the pictures of them when they were young.

If the death of one or two affects me so. I begin to see life as it is, to be happy and grateful and to thank God that every day we are alive is a blessing. I look at my parents and know that they too are getting old and I thank Heavens that we can still go to dim sum together.

I cannot help but wonder that if my heart cries out for one or two, then what about the parts of the world where hundreds, thousands dying means nothing to us over here. If we could stop the death of one, we save at least the grief of having one more dead. Nobody should ever have to experience sorrow and anguish.

I often contemplate the answer to this question, and often have many an answer. But I think the meaning of life is to preserve it and to do as much as you can to save life.

need/want

2010-05-23T12:02:00.007-06:00

I have never known what is means to need God.

If you think about it, you only truly appreciate something when you really need it. We don't realize what food means to us until we don't have any. We don't know true thirst until our wells run dry and there is nothing left to quench our parched throats. In that same manner, I can say without a doubt that I take God for granted.

I feel as though I don't need Him, that my life would not be so devoid of fulfillment even if I didn't know He existed. I got along just fine without religion for the majority of my life. Of course, I was a miserable little brat of a child, but my melancholy cannot be attributed to life without God as the confound of the misery of life itself muddies that dichotomy. I'm just beginning to think for myself and wonder if God is what I truly need. Will I ever encounter a moment where I will be so completely without God that I will understand what it means to need Him? I wonder when I can truly be so weak.

I suppose it is for these selfish reasons that I have been contemplating missions trips as of late. Don't get me wrong, I do want to go to Haiti and rehabilitate people who have had their legs crushed by falling cars during the earthquake; I think it would be a lovely experience and one where I would feel as if I was contributing to humanity rather than sitting in my study room playing Starcraft till the wee hours of the morning. I think, though, that if I were to go on a missions trip, it would simply be out of my own personal spiritual desperation, a final, self-initiated alpha course to educate my brain that there is the importance of God. In that respect, perhaps it isn't a missions trip that I need but simply a weekend of solitude in the mountains to reflect and peruse God's righteousness and majesty.

I just want to know if I am forming a relationship with Him out of necessity, or if I am truly getting to know Him with the purest essence of my heart.

I am sad to say that at this point I cannot tell.

the definition of cool

2010-05-16T13:28:00.006-06:00

Gosh DARN this people are cool:

Chris Pine, Star Trek; eating an apple with the Kobayashi Maru.

Daniel Craig, 007; ego + suavity + caviar.

George Clooney, Ocean's Twelve; Oprah.

Jin & Mugen, Samurai Champloo; sword is faster than the gun.

Lupe Fiasco, The Cool; skateboarding and glasses.

Morgan Freeman, Lucky Number Slevin; the Schmoo.

Tunde Adebimpe, TV on the Radio; hand waving.

Fanboy? Yup.

POW

2010-05-05T07:04:00.002-06:00

I spoke to a patient yesterday and was just blown away by some of the history we have in our facility. My PT told me how Z. had been a POW in Germany and then queried me as to how I thought Z.'s legs got messed up. I had no idea, but then was informed that the Nazis flooded the mining camp and broke Z.'s leg. It was never fixed, because Nazis have no hearts. Z. was set to be hanged on Easter Sunday, but was able to escape and made way for Canada.

It's incredible that I can be privy to this kind of thing. Z.'s really an easygoing person, which is amazing after going through so much. Z. answers everything with, "Yes, thank you very much!", and only complains of shoulder pain every so often, but otherwise is just an incredible individual.

It's nice to know that even after pain and suffering there is solace in a positive attitude and an embracing of life.

physio pt. I

2010-04-28T17:28:00.004-06:00

Last Friday I was involved in a fender bender in which I was sandwiched between two cars. As a result, I've been feeling some lumbar and cervical spine stiffness, and booked in for physiotherapy today.

I have to say it's weird being on the other side. I had remembered how annoying MVAs were what with all the paperwork, so I made sure to fill out my AB-1 and AB-2 forms as best as I could. When I got there, the receptionists were confused: "You're literally the first person I've seen that's filled everything out." I told them I used to work behind the desk. It's weird and almost a little bit ironic - I never thought I'd need physio or be filling out my own informed consent form, but there I was doing what I'd told so many other people to do.

My physiotherapist, K. actually graduated last year from the U of A program, so we had a chat about all the profs and their approaches to therapy. It was kind of refreshing to speak to someone who had already finished the program and was practicing - it was kind of the light at the end of this endless scholastic tunnel, that there really is a career waiting for us. We discussed the merits of challenging Level 1s quickly and obtaining acupuncture in second year - apparently the benefits of knowing trigger points and basic techniques facilitates the education process greatly. Tips and tricks and words of wisdom from the ex-student.

Physios hate it when physios are their patients because it becomes immediately obvious when they're doing something wrong. It becomes quickly apparent that in the real world, we are forced to skip many steps - whether it's out of time constraints or just because they're more focused and know what they're looking for is beyond me (likely a bit of both). K. was extremely nervous throughout the entire process, giving the disclaimer "I should probably do it this way..." the entire time. Regardless, it was interesting to see how proficient you get at the whole process, even though some things get left out.

During the observation, K. noted bilateral muscle wasting in my lumbar spine, which took me by surprise. Atrophy happens pretty quickly after injury (case in point) but I didn't think it would be so obvious in me. Unfortunately, I can't really see my back on a regular basis so it never became apparent to me. During the scan she found right-sided C5 myotome weakness, but I'm not sure what she recorded with regards to AROM/PROM/RI. I received the straight leg raise for the special test, and the majority of the time was spent on joint play in both C-spine and L-spine as well as with palpation for trigger points. In the end, I was diagnosed with L1/2 hypomobility and L3/4/5 hypermobility, likely due to ligamentous strain, with quadratus lumborum tightness due to overcompensation. I also had unilateral levator scapula tightness trying to stabilize for upper C-spine hypomobility.

I was placed on heat and given TENS, but for some reason - my guess is nerve irritability - the TENS would cause tingling down my L4/L5 dermatomal distribution. During this period K. performed myofascial release at different trigger points to loosen up some of the suboccipital muscles preventing me from full side flexion and rotation, the actions that were most limited for me during AROM. I was prescribed with stretches for lev. scap and upper trapezius (side flexion, side flexion /w flexion), as well as stretches for my paraspinal muscles (tucking knees into chest in full hip flexion) and my quadratus lumborum (L-spine rotation essentially). We remarked that the levator scapula and the quadratus lumborum have a tendency to be extremely tight following injury, but that we never learn much about them in class, which makes treating it kind of a guessing game. At the end, I was given a hot pack to take home and throw in the microwave, but I don't really believe in superficial heating so I just warmed it up for Mag's feet which are perpetually cold.

I think it's really interesting to receive physio. Everything seems so simple in classroom, but in application to injury everything is surprisingly helpful. My neck is incredibly limber, and even that little bit of release makes a crazy difference. Even though my back hasn't changed much, I greatly look forward to the next few weeks of treatment. I think it changes your perspective on your profession when you actually experience what you do, and despite having a mangled car and some soft tissue injuries, I'm really glad for this opportunity. I don't like how I got there, but I'll take it for what it is - an exercise (pun!) in enlightenment.

rem the gem

2010-04-25T21:56:00.003-06:00

I don't follow hockey. I don't really understand the sport other than it being an excuse for having massive fun being rowdy and drinking beer at the pub. Perhaps it's my aversion to being on ice (clumsy) or my poor coordination with tool sports (ie. racket, stick, baseball bat), but it just isn't one of those things that really sticks with me.

I was browsing my FB when I noticed a friend who had a chance meeting with an ex-Oiler great. I ho-hum'd then decided I'd look this guy up because I have no idea who he is or how prolific he was. Obviously I found him worthy of talking about, because
a. I don't like hockey and
b. Why would I talk about a hockey player if I don't like hockey unless it was an interesting story? and
c. It is an interesting story.

So:

"Rem Murray's one of two guys in this photo who have always personified the Edmonton Oilers to me (the other was Smith, I left the photo out). He was never an overly-skilled guy, but he made the most of his modest talents. His love for the game is also undeniable, something that he proved beyond doubt when he was diagnosed with cervical dystonia. I'll let USA Today explain:

Murray, 33, didn't skate for a year as he explored his treatment options. Eventually, Botox injections provided the best relief. He received a $1 million disability insurance payment because doctors thought his career was over.

But last summer he began to feel good enough to wonder if he could play.

"I remember saying to him, 'Are you sure you want to do this? Because it's going to cost you money to play in the NHL,' " agent Tom Laidlaw says. "But he said, 'I just want to play again.' "

Every dollar he earns must go to the insurance company until he pays back the $1 million. In addition, Murray must still pay his taxes on earnings, which means it costs him money out of his pocket to play for the Oilers this season. At $450,000 a year, he would have to go three seasons to stop losing money.

Murray's played for four seasons since his return; one with Houston of the AHL and the Oilers (the 2006 Cup run), two with HIFK Helsinki, and one with Innsbruk EV in Austria. He's been an impact player over in Europe, and now he's signed on for a fifth season with an Italian team (the Val Pusteria Wolves). He'll be 37 this season, and I hope he squeezes every drop out of his hockey career. He's also one of the few "old boys' club" additions that I'd be fine with, once his playing career is over."

Maybe a million dollars is small money for hockey players to deal with, but I still think the story is pretty awesome. You've got someone who has been faced with a disease process that is disabling, yet he fights it off, gets a little bit of luck and pushes on doing what he loves despite the costs. Sure it's inconvenient, but who cares if you have your goal and you pursue it?

So alright, hockey looks pretty good to me today.
Here's to you, Rem the Gem.

note to self

2010-04-24T16:53:00.002-06:00

Reread:

there was a time

2010-04-24T15:29:00.004-06:00

"when we were younger we had nothing to do so we'd close our eyes and spin around in circles / happy to hit the ground / happy to just fall down"

I just sat down to type something out and thought I might just leave y'all with these Communist Daughter lyrics, just because I find them really impacting and nostalgic. I was just about to hit "publish post" when I got a call from the police constable I chatted to yesterday.

In the wake of a destructive fender bender, buying patio furniture for our new house, finishing Block 2, and all other things adult, it just hit me at how my childhood is dying. I no longer see the world in the same naive and innocent way, a playground full of potential and free of rapists and pedophiles. I might still apologize to a stuffed animal when it falls from the bed to the ground, but I've come to realize that that's the extent of my imagination nowadays. I can't pretend anymore.

I can't go to the park and sit cross-legged and run my hands through the sand for an hour believing that I'm manipulating the earth like a Naruto character. I don't know how to touch the sky at the top of my swing peak anymore, nor can I pretend that by putting on a decoder ring from a box of Lucky Charms I now have powers like the Green Lantern. What was once a subjective reality is now just a game.

So as I look through the front window out onto the street and see that adorable five year old kid riding shirtless on his bike with training wheels, I'm disappointed that when I look through the front window it's just a kid on a bicycle with training wheels.

When I was younger that'd be Paul Bunyan on a Kawasaki Ninja.

rhinorrhea

2010-04-23T06:43:00.003-06:00

dear antihistamines,

work please.

yours sincerely,

mr. snot.

how it is

2010-04-18T15:29:00.001-06:00

bang bang she shot me down
bang bang i hit the ground
bang bang that awful sound
bang bang my baby shot me down

a tribute to grandma

2010-04-12T19:39:00.002-06:00

was on facebook earlier and a bunch of people have been commenting on this guy's note and i thought i'd give it a looksee. possibly one of the best things i've read in a while, the tone is the epitome of what a eulogy should be. breaks my heart:

"a spectacular woman born months after World War I, who has endured more suffering and grief throughout her life than most people ever will, yet has been positive throughout and has lived until now, 91 years later.

the 'lucky' lady married a physician fresh out of HKU and had two kids..but little did she know, 4 years later, World War II would begin, the Japanese would invade, supplies to her village would be cut off, and she would lose her husband, youngest son, and many other family members to starvation. what good is a physician with no food and no farm?

flee she did, hunkering in limbo until her father-in-law in South America was finally able to get Britain to approve her move to Guyana, to start life anew with her surviving child.

who knew that years later Guyana would also be a place of violence, poverty, crime, and hardship?

despite warnings from my great-great-grandfather that Canada was a terrible place and Chinese get treated like shit (he worked on the railroad in BC much earlier on..), flee we did, scoping out multiple Canadian cities until we ended up in Vancouver.. hoping that the third continent would be the one to last.

over the years in Canada she would help raise my siblings, as my parents worked 7 days a week 365 days a year. not only did she do that, but she helped care for some of my cousins on my mom's side as well. totallly voluntary, and totally unrelated to her. but she did.

she was the most frugal person i've ever met. she re-used disposable styrofoam plates for years, never bought her own tissues/napkins(etc.) (that's what condiment stands are for), ate rotting/moldy food (but never got sick..), and pretty much never bought anything for herself. but she bought me toys when i was little, she took me to eat at McDonalds, she funded my grade 10 exchange to Japan when i failed at saving enough money and still selfishly insisted on going, despite our family's dire financial situation.
she has always been encouraging and supportive of me.

she looked after me when my parents weren't around. rushed me to the doctor the one and only time i had anaphylaxis. taught me how to make noodles and dumplings from scratch. she took me out to go places, took me to Whistler, to the Gulf Islands, to places my parents never took me.

she was a simple woman, made happy by food (esp all you can eat sushi), gardening, walking, socializing with friends. she was made happy by her grandkids getting married (..except me), and by her 4 great-grandchildren.

She had Parkinson's Disease for years but has always been positive about it, and never let it stop her in doing all the activities that she enjoyed. She lived independently till age 90 and never asked people for help. she didn't want to bother us.

then all of a sudden WHAM kidney failure. WHAM heart failure. WHAM stroke. WHAM pneumonia. WHAM Clostridium Difficile and toxic megacolon.
watching her suffer in the past little while has been so tough. for a woman who never complained about anything to keep repeating the words "i'm in pain, i'm in pain" makes your heart wrench.
and when she wasn't able to talk anymore, the look in her eyes told me everything. during the entire ordeal, she was able to smile once, and once only.

she knew her time was coming but it didn't come. her body kept wanting to hold on. finally, this weekend, she left us.

i miss her a lot, and i always will, but i take solace in the fact that she is no longer suffering.

if she wasn't so strong and wasn't able to make it through all the hard times, i wouldn't be here today.

here's to grandma"

hiatus

2010-04-10T21:20:00.001-06:00

and hiatus again. finals and moving in.

see you april 24!

final fantasy tactics advance

2010-04-04T19:49:00.003-06:00

New wallpaper, hoy!

You'll notice CCW from left: Shiva, Moogle Gunner class, Nu Mou Alchemist class, Marche, Ritz, Viera Assassin class, Nono, and Ramuh. Sweet!

a lesson from oncology

2010-03-29T08:03:00.006-06:00

I think we have a lot to learn from cancer.

Someday, I hope humans learn to break the gates holding them back from growth. Whether we perceive ourselves to be ready or not (we are ready), we will push ahead and realize our dreams. We will discard anyone saying we cannot, make use of our own resources, grow our own so that we may thrive. We will take the path of most resistance and push it aside and blaze our own trail.

It will be chaotic and some roads wind upon each other, the misfortunes of a charging crash of rhinos that cannot see what is more than a few feet in front of them. We have our goal in mind but not a clue what it looks like, only the raw desire to make it happen. I think that it will be well worth it in the end when we circumvent that which prevents us from falling, which wants to keep us sequestered to our suburban lifestyles, the mechanisms of life that say we cannot when our mantra should quite classically be yes we can.

So fellow cancers, let us be the tumor that offsets the diseases that plague this world. Proliferate.

après moi, le deluge

2010-03-27T00:03:00.014-06:00

I am disgusted by the world. They say you cannot judge God by the actions of His humans, but His humans are all that I see. So let me judge humans. If we have been sent here to love, to be the tangible manifestation of his Message, we have failed.

I often lose faith in humanity. My soul looks at the souls of others and attempts not to vomit. Hate, lies, deceit are rampant. A treasurer steals from an NPO. A man stabs a dog. A bride is murdered the day before her wedding. Ted Bundy.
Smiles hide treachery but actions cannot.

Morality is dead. To care is to practice futility.

/theotherdemifacet/

I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my look's leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I choose to blink
They die.

-soliloquy of the solipsist; sylvia plath

waiting for the splash

2010-03-23T17:12:00.003-06:00

Last night
after you hung up
I wrote you a poem
hoping it might
change your heart.

This morning
I tell myself:
Get serious, man.
Someone once compared
writing a poem
and hoping it will
change the world
to dropping rose petals
down a deep well

waiting for the splash.

home is where the heart is

2010-03-18T14:01:00.003-06:00

My buddy LF gets a plug from me today (not that he needs one, most of Edmonton reads his page already) for being particularly interesting. When we typically think of Edmonton, we see it as a cold, gray place where nothing happens and there's nothing more to do than visit WEM. I can think of nothing better to do here than leave the place, so imagine my surprise when I popped over to his page and found this fantastic gem. I love perspective, even if I don't agree with it, but I will appreciate that what's one man's trash is another's treasure. Here's Edmonton through his eyes:

EIA: LF's story from LF on Vimeo.

Thank You God for this Most Amazing

2010-03-16T10:57:00.004-06:00

i thank You God for this most amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e.e. cummings

Fascinating.

The world is so polarized: whydoyouhategod.com.

I was on the bus today wondering if the world was anything more than opinion.

so i wonder

2010-03-15T01:33:00.003-06:00

"what stops you from being amazing?"

pastoral sorrow

2010-03-12T00:11:00.003-07:00

I love meaning. In my opinion, which need not be matched by yours, there is nothing more to life than bringing meaning to it. Every action should have a purpose and everything should be layered with a deeper understanding.

With that preamble, I segway into a profession, nay, a lifestyle that I find impressive. I find pastors particularly admirable because their life is riddled with meaning - they take a concept and run with it and find it in everything. They believe in something beautiful, a meaning rich and laden with lessons and love. I find them so powerful because they have this unwavering faith that everything in their life rests upon, and they are never swayed by anyone attempting to dismantle what purpose they attribute to everything.

On the flip side, I likewise find pastors particularly vulnerable. They base their existence on something that is not tangible. They abide by a philosophy subject to ridicule, speculation, misunderstanding and hatred. They dress in a manner that sets them obviously apart, like the lone Flames fan at an Oilers game. They are the underdog - small in stature but giant in heart.

I speak only of this because I saw God's soldier perhaps at his lowest point today. I was drinking coffee at Tim's and I noticed this small, Filipino pastor sitting alone in the corner window with his noticeable collar and his unassuming black jacket. He sat straight up but his head was bent down as if he was having a bad day. He sported a gigantic white cast on his right hand that looked pretty fresh, and had a tray of a Wendy's Value Meal in front of him. He was rather serious about eating, but the part that broke my heart was when he tried to eat his fries. He couldn't quite co-ordinate plucking his fries with his casted hand, so he simply held it in his left hand and shook the fries into his mouth. He looked so alone and so helpless; I have always seen a pastor orate mightily at his pulpit and have never once seen one at his nadir.

I have never wanted to sit and talk with a person more in my life, but I sat frozen in my spot watching him. I rolled up my rim and it said "please play again" and I left. I did not bring meaning to my day.

You see the irony is that I bet that pastor wasn't alone, because God was sitting across from him sharing his fries and pondering how incredibly awesome it is that He invented an affordable Value Menu at Wendy's.

neocitran

2010-03-08T10:08:00.004-07:00

The thing I've found about Neo-Citran is that it gives you these really intense dreams. After overdosing on pseudoephedrine last night, I proceeded to dream that two of my friends, Patrick and Qelsey, had released Charles Manson from his incarceration. Their collective plan was to destroy the University of Alberta hospital (pretty narrow minded plan if you ask me) using bombs and bullets, so I set out to stop them. Somehow I found out that there was only one supplier of C4 in the city and I met with him and bought all of it (wasn't much, like $20 worth - currency doesn't mean much in dreams apparently). I stashed the C4 in my old Yellowbird house so that they'd never find it.

The only thing left to do was make sure that Qelsey and Pat didn't get their hands on artillery. I followed Pat to the Pulse Generator, confronted him, and stole his pistol with some quick pick-pocketing. I had the idea to wait until Pat left then stash the pistol in another locker so that when he realized I'd stolen it, he'd come back and look in the wrong locker for it.

After working out, I came back to find my locker wide open and my bag rummaged through - Pat had cut open my combination lock. I high-fived myself for my ingenuity and retrieved the pistol from the other locker, then left the gym. I hopped in the elevator, but somehow it malfunctioned and started taking us to the lower floors of the hospital. I must have been in a special elevator because we started going down to like the 49th floor, where two janitors got off, and despite me pressing the main button like a hundred times, I managed to go down to the 70th floor (didn't even know they dug that deep) where the elevator banked into this platform where I suppose elevators go to sleep at night. I got out and there was a bunch of these floating Go-Kart things that could be driven into a tunnel and I asked them what it was and the people riding them responded, "It's Google Earth!"

At this point the elevator was out of commission and I was stuck on the 70th floor underground. I was there for about 10 minutes when all of a sudden the building rumbles and these red lights come on and then this emergency door suddenly opens and tells us all to evacuate. We run out this door and it's like a billion winding stairs that reminded me of Escher's Relativity print. It takes forever but we make our way up and the U of A building is in shambles; apparently they were able to find charges and destroy the building's outer structure. Unfortunately a win for Charles Manson.

dx/impressions

2010-03-07T11:35:00.005-07:00

Two weeks ago in seminar, we were presented with a case about a patient who had fallen from his ladder while doing some roofing. We were given all the information about him: His objective history, observation, examination results, etc. We were told to, as a group, come up with a single diagnosis and be prepared to present it to the class.

While each group came up with their own suspicion as to what it was, we decided on a secondary supraspinatus strain/tear (semantics) with an underlying supraspinatus tendinopathy. We went back to class and convened for what we thought was large group discussion.

Little did we know, our prof had organized a debate - each two teams would select a representative to speak on behalf of their group and present their case as to why they thought their dx was correct. Our chosen member was Stephen, who bravely went in the hot seat and debated his case according to the findings outlined in the case. He then had to brave the heated questioning of the judges, which included, "If the supraspinatus is your tissue injured, why then is external rotation and internal rotation limited if it only does abduction?" He courageously answered, "Because as the supraspinatus lifts the arm, it also acts to stabilize the humeral head from riding up into the acromion. When the stabilizer fails to act, the entire rotator cuff will behave abnormally and cause an impingement syndrome for which he was already susceptible for with his poor posture and underlying supraspinatus tendinopathy." The entire class whistled - what an answer!

After the entire class had gone through their respective rounds, our instructor Judy gathered us together to give us that one last pep talk. She wanted us to do this exercise because diagnosis is incredibly important - this is what we are doing. She made the distinction that what we did before this program was make impressions - based on our knowledge of physiology, microbiology, anatomy, etc., all we knew how to do was form an idea of what was wrong based on what we were presented with. To make a diagnosis is to make a decision. Here we stand by what we believe is the pathology, and we must be ready to debate our case with client, colleague, lawyer. Diagnosis is the starting point for treatment.

It was at that moment that I felt that what we were doing in this program was no longer trivial manual muscle testing out of a workbook, but that this was real. We will have real patients with real issues, and we will have to take our impressions and form real diagnoses for treatment. People's lives are in our hands.

corporate

2010-03-02T00:08:00.003-07:00

Over Reading Week, I got the chance to hang out with Mag's older brother-from-another-mother Paul. Paul works for this company doing some financial/engineering crossover, and somehow we started talking about the corporate environment. I think at that time we had just left a delicious $2 hot dog dinner from Costco and were en route to his sparkling Audi and the conversation was struck up.

We started comparing the different environments hospitals have and the corporate environment his company presents. His company is this beautiful facility, lots of glass and beautiful designer work with a basketball court and a heated smoking area. They have a billiards room and a workout center. We have decrepit rooms with broken and finicky beds, lots of bleach and yellow gowns where smoking is allowed in small zones like three blocks from the hospital. We have an underground pulse generator that combines mole living, cardiovascular fitness and claustrophobia.

I suggested that perhaps a perk of hospital life is the good benefits. Then I remembered how much we pay versus how much a corporate health policy likely is. Hospital employees don't get company stock nor do we get bonuses that we can use to buy new furniture - we just get abused and half our paycheque taken away for taxes, union fees and the aforementioned benefits. We get our jobs threatened by our CEO and are addressed by our boss through his blog posts or via impersonal intranet newsletters. When Paul's boss wants to talk to everyone, he stands at the top level of their building and everyone circles around their built-in auditorium, "The Thunderdome" as Paul lovingly describes.

My observation is that AHS doesn't really seem to want to keep its employees. I don't understand why a hospital cannot foster an environment that makes its employees feel welcome and safe, like a home away from home.

iatrogenic schizophrenic

2010-02-27T11:37:00.002-07:00

I ain't crazy. You just make me out to be.

pulp fiction

2010-02-26T18:52:00.001-07:00

I can't believe I didn't notice this before:

"I'm a mushroom-cloud laying motherfucker, motherfucker! Every time my fingers touch brain, I'm Superfly TNT, I'm the Guns of the Navarone!"

thought

2010-02-26T00:49:00.003-07:00

Is there a neural correlate for laziness?

We know endocannabinoids may contribute to amotivational syndrome as well as negative effects in schizophrenia - we have a possible psychopharmacological mechanism. We can image activation patterns in individuals with psychiatric disorders for increased evidence. Perhaps there may be some neuropsychological evidence linking trauma to laziness. We might also want to examine dopaminergic reward systems? Neuroendocrine factors leading to hypothyroidism?

I'd do a lit review but I'm really beat. I'm also really curious.

sister evolution

2010-02-21T21:59:00.002-07:00

GOSH what an awesome desktop!!

religious choices

2010-02-14T20:50:00.004-07:00

As I was leaving the house this morning, I grabbed my mum's car keys and proceeded to head out the door. I got to the garage and my mum's Camry was nowhere to be found, so I went inside and asked where she was at. My sisters said that she leaves really early in the morning to pray at temple. I thought it was kind of ironic because here she is going by herself to temple when her son wants to borrow her car to go to church.

Pastor Chanh's talk today was on meditation, which I found kind of coincidental. Obviously it means something different to Christians as it does to Buddhists, so I settled in to hear what he was going to orate about. Chanh has this evangelical fire and brimstone way, so you know you are at least going to be entertained, if not partially offended in some way, on what he's going to lecture about.

He introduced the topic by making sure to separate the physical aspects of meditation with the religious aspects: Meditation = f(godliness) as opposed to f(health). He was then rather quick to lump holistic health and eastern religions including Buddhism together, touting them as paths to clearing your mind and reaching enlightenment. This said with a hint of a scoff. He said, "Anyone can meditate on a mechanical level", which I agree with, but he was rather happy to put Christian meditation on a pedestal and not explore the benefits of spiritual cleansing from the Buddhist point of view. Admittedly, this is a church and perhaps that's a talk for another time and place.

So the Christian approach to meditation is to meditate on God's word. He identified three things the Godly avoid according to Psalm 1:1-3:
1. Counsel of the wicked
(thinking, perceiving and valuing those things that are worldly;
Christians hold to their own ideas)
2. [Standing] in the path of sinners
(taking the actions, behaviors, lifestyle of the world;
Christians are not shaped by the world)
3. [Sitting] in the seat of scoffers
(identifying with groups that mock the world of God)

The message I see here is the classic message of deontology - hold to your principles and never let anyone change them. Segregate yourselves from the world because we are "better than that".

So all background aside, what are we talking about here? If Pastor Chanh says that the main purpose of meditation is to "reflect on God's word for the purpose of application", what are we to do? Are we to separate ourselves from anyone who does not stand by God? Are we to alienate those that do not believe in JC? What is the message he (deliberately ambiguous he) is sending to us on what we should do? If there is such a crisis that we must save our fellow man from the clutches of the Devil, how can we do so when we are meditating on how best to separate ourselves from our fellow man?

This is one of my biggest concerns with the Christian way of life. I was so deeply moved by this religion when I first came to it because it was beautiful in its principles - on paper it sets rules and criterion to hold by with answers to every question you might have. A leads to B, and if B then C. Elegant. But the more I deal with Christians the more I see hypocrisy. I see those who live by the way of God, but the ones who stand out are the ones that don't. Then they go and repent, and Jesus absolves them of blame. In ACTION, how are Christians any different from anyone else in the world? How are they so different from Buddhists? How can they stand in front of the church preaching that they are going to Heaven, when my mom kneels in the swirling incense of the temple and she is going to Hell. I see no difference in the lives that they lead that makes me believe their actions are any different. I sat down with God in the pew today and asked him to clarify this for me in the next coming weeks, because it's relevant and important, and central to why I don't call myself a Christian or a Buddhist. I'm opening this up to you because what I talk about with my peers is also what I talk about with God. He's a homey too - gotta tell him about what's going on in my life.

Principles are principles on paper.
Actions are the purpose of these principles.
If actions do not equate to the Word,
I see no purpose in principle.

So I thought it funny when I was walking to my car after sermon, and there hanging from my rear view mirror was a little Buddhist keychain. In front, Jesus. Look in the mirror and it's Buddha.

new

2010-02-08T16:50:00.004-07:00

I notice it's almost been a week since my last post and I can't help but feel guilty. I don't really have anything to write about - one of the toughest things to do is go about your day actively thinking about what you're going to post about later on. I remember trying to do that when I first started posting, but then what gets in the way is what always gets in the way: Life.

So Mag and I were hanging out yesterday and as we were sitting in bed eating McDonald's (world's sexiest date, I know), I was suddenly overcome with this story idea. I typically get these random flashes at the most inopportune times, usually when I don't have a pen or pencil to write these things down. I end up waking up the next day and not remembering what the heck I wanted to write about, just that it was fantastic, and I'm mad at myself because there goes a great story idea.

Luckily this time I had my cell phone with me so I paused to type it up, pretending to set my alarm clock or something so Mag wouldn't think I was ignoring her. (As if, Mag was too focused on her delicious, delicious fries to really care.) So here it goes:

The backdrop is a pretty spartan looking room around 9 AM when the sun starts peeking through the blinds, awakening a boy and a girl who have spent the night together after a drunken tryst. They sit up and both know it's bad, bad news - neither can remember each other's names and both are afflicted with splitting headaches. This is definitely going to be a morning of shame filled with extreme awkwardness because the boy just politely offered to buy her breakfast (least he can do) and she just as awkwardly accepted.

They don their crispy, smoke-infested clothes from the night before and do their best to refreshen themselves, making small talk along the way. The boy can't find a sock and the girl's mascara is really smudged but he can't work up the courage to tell her. They set out into the street (the light is much too bright), and make their way to the local diner where they will engorge on a greasy breakfast special made by Fat Cook Frank.

If this was a typical morning after, he would pay, she would thank him, they would exchange numbers in the event of a future booty call, and they would never speak again. They would probably also flash a cursory smile with a small hey as they pass each other in the hall - he on his way to his Advanced Topics in Agroecology class, she on her way to her Experimental Surgery seminar.

This is, however, not a typical morning after as you may have deduced. It is actually the story of how a boy and a girl come together in a very typical and unpleasant way, but leave with a magical relationship sprouting true love. It is the story of Tim and Tara.

You hooked? =)

daddy

2010-02-02T22:15:00.008-07:00

There are a lot of things that scare me in life. For example, tomorrow I have my MSK midterm and lumbar spine scares me because I should be studying it but I'm not right now because I'm tired and posting instead - very productive nes pas? The dark still scares me sometimes, especially after I've watched a scary movie or played Bioshock so that I whistle while I go downstairs with the lights off just to let the monsters know that I'm there and I'm ready to decimate them if they make a move.

I think one of the things that scares me the most is growing up. There is a lot of change involved with regards to taking on responsibility and changing your outlook and personality that just doesn't jive until you do it and realize you actually might be in a better off place. I look back on the things I used to do and enjoy doing and I think some days that yes I do miss that kind of lifestyle where things were so carefree, but then at the same time I'm glad I got the push in the right direction to move on because in retrospect it was fun but not that meaningful.

Dr. Magee lectured last week on forearm, hand, and fingers all in one go, and he had this little anecdotal story about his daughter. A little backdrop to this - Dr. Magee is our resident Gregory House. He's a master at MSK assessment, he's intimidating as intimidating gets, and he locks you out of class if you show up late. He tells us about how when his kids were young, his daughter decided to slice the tip of her finger off. She stuck her finger in the spokes of their exercise bike just as Dr. Magee's son started it up and zip there it went. They rushed her to the hospital and she did manage to get most of it sewed back on, so the story does have a happy ending.

The funny part is that Dr. Magee knows healing and he knows not to be ridiculous, but still he made this gigantic foam thing to go around his daughter's hand, some hilarious contraption like one of those foam #1 fingers they wear at football games. He said, "I know it doesn't make any sense, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let anything touch my little girl's hand." The whole class naturally awwd, especially since this was Dr. Magee, ruler and dictator of physiotherapyland. The beast has a soft side we have found.

I guess the reason I'm thinking about fatherhood is because Mag is really looking for a place to move into, and babies seem like the next step in the relationship chain, esp. with Chris and Connie getting their bun in the oven. I think though that out of all the things that prospectively should scare me the most about growing up, being a dad isn't one of them. I mean it would obviously be really inconvenient if Mag suddenly told me she was pregnant with the child of God and I had to raise him, but I honestly can't wait to have little Chloë or Jayden or Liam or Kingston running around chasing poor Shelby's tail. Having a kid never really seems to make much sense unless you consider it evolutionarily, but I think when you're a dad the role finds you rather than you having to go figure out what to do. I'm sure I'll regret saying that when I have to figure out how to change a diaper and I'm wondering how on earth such a tiny thing can produce so much poop. I obviously don't speak about daddydom with experience, but that's what I'm assuming will happen, just as Dr. Magee naturally assumed protector of his child's hand.

So maybe I haven't really thought this through. I guess it doesn't really matter - I just hope I'll make a good Daddy.

secret

2010-01-27T14:00:00.002-07:00

no matter where i turn or where i run
pens are like knives to my imagination

the language of validation

2010-01-25T23:18:00.003-07:00

A while ago, I went to Seattle. When I was in Seattle, I met a guy who I had pho with and who introduced me to bubble tea with a Christian spin. Somewhere along the line Mag asked him if he had any book recommendations, and he told us to read The Five Love Languages.

I hate self-help books. There's nothing more cliché and pointless than sitting around reading about how you can improve your life when you should be out there improving your life yourself. There is no how-to guide to making life happy for yourself, you have to get out there and whittle it out on your own. Be it so, I found myself in a dip in my relationship with Mag, so I read it. It was interesting, albeit cliché, but you all know I love perspective and it provided a fresh way to look at love and life.

My primary love language is words of affirmation. That makes sense, right? I like words, so naturally words mean a lot to me. I need someone to say "thank you" when I do something, or "thanks I really appreciated that" for me to feel like it was a meaningful thing to do.

You see where this is going right?

I realized earlier today walking down the stairs from Rutherford library that I need to be validated. I struggle with anonymity - I want to do good deeds and not need to be recognized for it but I don't think it makes any difference in the world if it isn't recognized. I need someone to tell affirm what I'm doing in order for me to feel good about myself. I always tell myself I don't care what other people think, but the reality is I guess subconsciously I really do. My ego denies what my id knows.

I realized this when someone spoke words of affirmation about me today and I really enjoyed it. Then I realized they spoke words of affirmation about me today and that I enjoyed it and now I don't really enjoy it.

Am I so superficial?

experiment

2010-01-22T00:13:00.003-07:00

So I just downloaded the Bats for Lashes album I never got around to downloading last year and I also got a Lookbook song I've been fiending on Youtube and all this indie is giving me that weird feeling where I feel like I need to create something amazing to exist in the same world as Natasha Khan and Grant Cutler. It's strange, my best works tend to be tied to the moments in my life where something shakes me on a sensory level. I might see something happen on the street, or I might smell a scent that blooms into a story in my head in a v. Proust-like way, or in this case I receive an auditory jolt so stimulating that it's like my imagination has taken Ritalin and cannot stop wandering. It happened when I first listened to Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, My Brightest Diamond, and it's happening now.

I remember wandering the University Bookstore one afternoon last year when I hadn't much else to do and I somehow stumbled upon the Belle Lettres section. I remember this one author popped an LSD or two and had written an autobiography of a moment as he lapsed into hysterics. It reminds me of this study conducted by the government with patients on acid and their progressive drawings:

My mind is racing like panel six. What's sad though is that days from now, after this high from this beautiful music has worn off, I will do as panel nine decrees:

"I have nothing to say about this last drawing, it is bad and uninteresting, I want to go home now."

another day

2010-01-21T21:55:00.004-07:00

lonely little love dog
that no one knows the name of
i know why you cry out
desperate and devout

lonely little love dog
that no one knows the ways of
where the land is low is
where the bones'll show through

Getting real good at feeling sorry for myself.

corner

2010-01-17T14:53:00.004-07:00

I had this dream last night where all I did was stand in front of the bathroom mirror at the gym and try to correct my posture. I would do as Dr. Magee taught us: "Suck, squeeze and squeeze", as in suck your stomach in with your abs, squeeze your ass with your glutes, then pull up your pelvic floor. This should correct your pelvis so that you achieve your slightly anterior pelvic tilt (no more than two fingers between your ASIS and PSIS), and if you tuck your chin in properly you should reach a proper alignment.

I knew this, and yet no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do it properly. My ear, acromion and iliac crest wouldn't align, and then when I got that I looked to the front and I had this horrible deviation in my midline. I'd fix that so my nose, sternum and umbilicus would line up, but then I'd turn to look at my back and I had this raging scoliosis. I'd bend forward to see if it was just dynamic but then when I stood back up to look in the mirror I suddenly had a torticollis. I'd stretch out my sternocleidomastoid but then I found out one of my legs was longer than the other.

It was endless. Here I was, cornered in the inner cloisters of the locker room debilitated by my postural inadequacies. I woke up finally and stretched out, happy to be within the warm confines of my bed. I didn't look in the mirror when I showered this morning.

I interpret it like this. There are many things wrong with my life right now that are static, like my posture. They just happen - I know they are there and I do try to correct them from time to time but they are just habits, things that I have done and will haunt me for the rest of my life. I will progressively try to alter them but it's all that I can do.

When they truly bother me, I make an active, focused effort to try to right them. I fix one thing, only to have something else tumble on me since my focus has led me to neglect other aspects of my life. My shift in concentration leads me to forget about another thing, and pretty soon all these things add up. I start to become frustrated, to lose my balance, and life tumbles down on me. Unfortunately this is real life, not a dream, so this isn't something I can wake up from. I need to change things slowly, gradually. So whilst I do this, have patience.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Trite but true, even for me.

bahahaha

2010-01-14T21:09:00.001-07:00

(407):

my girls lil sis wanted to play hide & seek. she told her 2 go hide. we went to the room and had sex. she was hiding under the bed.

hey

2010-01-14T05:53:00.004-07:00

What's up God?

Listen, I know you and I haven't spoke since like last week, but you know when they talk about how blasphemous it is to turn away from you in times of stress? Well I'm pretty much at breaking point.

Sure, I know it's pretty selfish of me (and quite rude I might add) to doubt you and ask for you to show me a sign, but fuck it it's like you doled out miracles a dime a dozen back in the day. Man, I have been praying for you to show me something tangible for so fucking long. This isn't a threat, it ain't even a curse, but it damn well shows you I'm stumbling. I don't have it in me to be strong for you. Fuck, I don't even have it in me to give a shit anymore. Deontology? Too easy to cave in the favor of apathy. Such a loser thing to say, such an emo way to go, but the truth is I lack the drive and necessity to do anything else.

Let's face it. Things change, I know you know that. As much as I would like to deny it, my relationship with you has changed a lot last year. For the good? For the bad? I'm not sure. What I know is I was seeking to fill a void of emptiness within me and it's still there now, wide fucking open, gaping sucking wound. All I know is that there's nothing there, I've never been so damn miserable in my life, and I'm seriously starting to question everything I previously thought to be so valuable in my life.

Am I just thinking in utility? Am I being selfish and demanding everything go my way? Perhaps. I just don't think any human should live in such depression 9 days out of 10 - it just doesn't sit right with me in my gut. Am I ungrateful?

Yes.

Look, I apologize. You gave me life, you gave me soul, you gave me everything. I know the argument, I understand the debate. This is like a slap in the face right? Let's face it though, you're going to have children that hate you and children that love you. I guess I'm in the rebellious, angst-y litter. I'm ready to move the fuck out and stay gone.

In conclusion, show me a miracle:

Wide fucking open.

time

2010-01-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

huh
what is this time you speak of?

zombies|brains

2010-01-04T06:13:00.002-07:00

Hehehe (click to enlarge):

in revue

2010-01-01T13:25:00.003-07:00

With the end of the year come and gone, one needs only to Google "blog 2009" to get a year in review from every cyberboy/cybergirl's perspective. This got me thinking as I hopped in the shower (the place I do the majority of my heavy thought).

This year, for the first time, I organized and played intramural basketball. I play a lot of 1-on-1 and more rarely, 2-on-2, but the 5-man game has always been something that's eluded me. I don't really watch too much NBA, mostly because the channels we have consist of a snowy CTV and the TV Guide, so seeing 5 players in action and the plays they run is something I only dream about. Kash and I tried out for our junior high basketball team but we were both accustomed to playing the 1-on-1 game that Kash was cut immediately and I was one of 2 players to be cut in the last day of tryouts. We were working on outlet passes and I didn't understand that there was urgency in a pass to a player upcourt. The coach got frustrated and then tried to teach me a simple pick and roll, but my decision making rolling off the screen was terrible since there is obviously no picking in man-to-man ball.

I was just thinking, as Emily Haine's Reading in Bed played through my head, that I was rather meek this year. I spent a lot of time researching Rip Hamilton's game and watching Chris Paul's assist videos on YouTube, and was working on developing my passing and running games. Focusing on this unfortunately made me forget the most important thing in basketball - you need to score. If all you're doing is eliminating yourself from shooting contention, that's one less player on the floor that's participating on the scoresheets. Don't get me wrong, passing and running is great, but if all you're doing is running to get an open shot then passing it back to a player who isn't open for a shot, there's really no point (pun!).

So in review, out of like the 6 games we played this season, I score exactly 2 points. It was a nice two points at least, from a falling fade on the left side I banked in a gorgeous floater. The rest of my game consisted of bringing the ball up the court - I was deigned one of three guards who had safe enough dribbling skills to bring it up without turning it over - and making assists. I hardly ever touched the ball after taking it up off the inbounds; rather, I looked like a chicken with its head cut off running around on the court getting open for a shot that would ultimately never come.

After games we would play some pick up ball just to kill time - we were all there so why not? We'd play some 2-on-2 and I'd make my fair share of shots and then the other players would ask me, "Why don't you shoot like that in game?" I remember attending a church pick up game - English congregations vs. Cantos - and this one guard Jeremiah that had played on the Team Alberta squad sternly told me, "When you're open like that, take the shot! What was that pass for?"

I guess I had done so much studying of the parts of the games that I thought I was weak at that I forgot that point guards also shoot the basketball when they're open. I have lots to work on this year.

beaker mug

2009-12-31T11:20:00.001-07:00

Yup:

autobiografake

2009-12-29T22:53:00.007-07:00

I have this driving ambition to write a novel. I've tried many a time and have failed miserably because my two areas I excel in are 1. short story and 2. bad poetry. The longer pieces I try to write tend to be several short stories and often a poem thrown in for good measure; a Franken-story if you will. I started a novel about a revolutionary whose neighbor was a blind piano prodigy and disapproved of his plans to overthrow the dictatorship. I have the beginnings of a screenplay about a man who steals shoes to earn a living. What I don't have is something tangible to go with, something that keeps rolling and doesn't end once the short story ends.

I was driving in the Sienna back home today listening to what I thought was CBC but was actually CKUA and it struck me that since I thought what was fact was actually fictional, why couldn't we blur the lines between fiction and fact? Y'all know I love pathology, and it got me rolling on the idea of spontaneous confabulation, the inability for individuals tending to have anterior limbic damage to be unable to detect error in their ongoing reality. They retrieve false memories and come up with ridiculous stories to fake their way through justifying their nonsensical thoughts, often with very erroneous and hilarious conclusions.

So that really stuck to me because I thought a good way to write a long story would be to make it autobiographical because life is long and it's full of details and character development and earth-shaking events and it would be an easy way to get the length part of it sorted out. The problem is that my life is largely quite boring. So I figured I could embellish a little bit and mix it up with fiction in the manner I always do. I mean in the manner I always write fiction, not in that I mix fiction into my life. At least I try not to.

So okay, I know it's been done before. There are plenty of fake autobiographies, it's all very Million Little Pieces. But the idea here is that I don't put it off as something that isn't what it is. It will be plain that it is part autobiography and part fakery (first sentence: This is a story that's true, but not true.?), and the fun part is that the reader gets to tease apart what's reality and what's not all for themselves. It will be fun because it will rest entirely on my prowess in verisimilitude, and only I will know what's real and what's hoax. It's like a mystery with an unknown ending, the funnest kind - think mystique like what's in the suitcase in Ronin or what did Bill Murray say at the end of Lost in Translation? Some parts will be serious, but really not, some parts whimsical...but really not...or is it?

It's an idea I could run with. Potentially. We'll see.

truth

2009-12-26T23:11:00.010-07:00

"I guess if you can die without ever understanding how it happened then you can also live without a complete understanding of how."
(Miriam Toews - a complicated kindness)

Why so serious?
Because I am not content with not knowing how to live.

BCE pt. 1

2009-12-26T12:32:00.001-07:00

A series in best conversations ever:

all things brain pt. 2

2009-12-25T23:11:00.002-07:00

New addition to the family:

pencils

2009-12-15T16:32:00.003-07:00

Whilst I abscond away to the splendors of Mexico, I leave pencils behind.

Dolor
Theodore Roethke

I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.

love & tennyson

2009-12-12T15:11:00.007-07:00

'Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death.

***

Love:
I leap with no looking.
I question not what it is.
I question not why I do.
I love.

We are in this together,
till we walk into the valley of Death.

So:
I do.

dreams

2009-12-11T06:31:00.002-07:00

I am in danger when I begin dreaming physio. Last night went as follows:

I was driving in traffic when in front of me this tow truck gets T-boned turning left at an intersection and it catches on fire. I hear the driver yelling, "Move away move away it's going to explode!" and yet I still drive on through. The tow truck explodes and I have lacerations and burns to my hands that are just starting to sting really bad - I actually felt sharp pain in my dream so I was convinced this was real! Paramedics cleaned my wounds up and then some sort of physician said he was going to cast me up.

I turned to him and said, "Please leave room for my fingers to move so that I can keep the range in my hand."

It's like I'm at work when I'm sleeping. This is brutal.

day last

2009-12-10T23:03:00.004-07:00

Sorry I've been so busy. I've been posting on the PT discussion board rather than on here. I'll have something up real soon.

day one

2009-12-07T22:53:00.004-07:00

palpate ventriculoperitoneal shunt. inhibit student reflexes. score BERG in <8 min. ambulate patients alone. observe student doctors cower in fear from their supervising physicians in rounds. paraphasia. patient describes leg as a 'peg' due to impaired sensation and proprioception. donepezil. BAKING COOKIES TOMORROW WITH OT. presence of neuropsychologist and recreation therapist. resident failing miserably at social skills with patient and staff. how different OT and PT goals are. GOING SWIMMING WITH PATIENT TOMORROW. neuroplasticity - temperature sensations to the hand would also be felt in his lips (think: homunculus). how PTs are known to be hardasses. Takayasu's Arteritis. how Dutch people love to talk, even with aphasia.

HOW AWESOME PLACEMENT IS.

dragons&hamstrings

2009-12-06T20:07:00.005-07:00

It's a balloon dragon. From Kirsten's 3rd birthday party. They hired a magician and he asked me what type of balloon I wanted and I said, "Dragon." He actually made me one and it's breathing fire.

For all those undergoing MSK in med, I salute you. See, learning can be fun!

---

BF:
O: long head (ischial tuberosity/ST ligament), short head (lateral lip linea aspera/lateral intermuscular septum/latera supracondylar ridge)
I: lateral condyle, fibular head, fibular collateral ligament
I: long (tibial L5S1S2), short (common peroneal L5S1S2)
A: extend hip, flex knee, lateral rotation

SM:
O: ischial tuberosity
I: superomedial posterior tibia
I: tibial L5S1S2
A: extend hip, flex knee, medial rotation

ST:
O: ischial tuberosity
I: anteromedial tibia
I: tibial L5S1S2
A: extend hip, flex knee, medial rotation

the return

2009-12-05T03:55:00.003-07:00

At long last.

After a good three weeks hiatus, I'm ready to let the creative juices flow and ebb. I think I've sufficiently pounded my brain into a tender submission with origins, insertions, innervations and actions (enjoy it my fine doctor friends who are beginning MSK!). I feel strangely dead inside a little bit - the winter weather having limited my physical activity level and my time, energy and emotions all but previously consumed by school. Here I enter the closest taste to freedom (well actually I'm just about to start clinical) and it tastes pretty sweet.

When you're aiming for the future in the present, all you can really think of is the past. Right now it's almost 4:00 AM, I can't sleep, and all I can think about is the beautiful sleeps I've had in the past. I draw this analogy parallel to the fact that when I'm sitting here trying to amuse myself with pointless shenanigans, all I can think about is my past and all the times I used to have fun...doing pointless shenanigans.

I remember in Grade 4 I took a handful of snow and went up to this high brick wall at Greenfield Elementary. I sidled along it and really nonchalantly wrote the letters "F-U-C-K" with the snow, then ran away. At the end of recess Madame Godin gathered up all the children and asked who did this, and I kind of just hid and got away with it.

I remember in Junior High when me, Kash and Aaron would head over to the swingsets at Westbrook Elementary and we'd do swing-jumping, seeing who could do the best tricks. Everyone eventually got the 540 down but I was the only one to finally hit a 720 and not bail; it made me pretty proud. Kash and I would also go to the front of Westbrook where they had this stone Westbrook sign up in front and we'd try to test our vertical by jumping up onto it. I was able to get up on it pretty consistently, but one day I undershot it and dented my leg. I still have the indentation today.

In Grade 3 we used to run over to St. Stanislaus where they would have these giant trees and we'd climb them and pretend we were in watchtowers. That was off school limits and we'd get in trouble for going there and yet we did all the time - it's like in that book Shaking the Money Tree where the main protagonist hides at lunch behind this tree that's off school limits and whittles with her pocketknife. We were so badass.

Things were so simple then. I used to go over to Uncle Ron's next door every Sunday morning at 6 AM to watch cartoons. He had this trampoline I used to love jumping on and this massive black dog Penny I loved hanging out with. He had these Marvel comics strewn all over the house, which is really the only reason I actually like comics, because every time I pick on up I reminisce. I played this 2D scrolling adventure game called Alcatraz (yes, it approximates the escape) at his house and to this day it's the best game I know (entirely for nostalgia).

I went back and visited Uncle Ron a few months ago just to say hello. It's weird, my old neighborhood has changed so much - all the people are different now. The tree in the front yard I used to climb all the time, the one that loomed so large when I was a kid seems like just another tree. I learned my neighbors, the one I thought were really cool and smart and did martial arts were actually in a lot of gang trouble and their mom packed them up and moved them away because they got in too much heat. Ron told me they broke into his house once but he never said anything. His daughter's living with him now, and his cat's still hanging around being a fat lazy slob like it always was. He's still a joker and still looks like Garfield.

I think things need to change so much because it's only then that we appreciate what it was.

goodnight, but not goodbye

2009-11-14T11:49:00.001-07:00

Find me again December 5th.

DCIM

2009-11-09T16:54:00.001-07:00

Hellooooooo Fall Break.

material girl

2009-11-08T14:34:00.004-07:00

I can't believe I found this recording. Near the end of summer Mag Ellis and I ended up checking out Sarah Slean in concert at the Myer Horowitz Theater. She performed an amazing rendition of Madonna's Material Girl, to which she mentioned, "wasn't the most elevated point in our collective consciousness." I was watching the Winnipeg version of this which had a giant preamble before the song, describing that era as one of the most striking periods of time where were filled with greed and how Madonna was able to capture that generation in song form. Regardless of whether or not you hate to love or love to hate Madonna, boy, what a performance it was:

Somewhere in that sea of voices lies mine.

boosting

2009-11-08T14:10:00.004-07:00

On Friday, I was sitting in the main PT office waiting for my appointment with our Associate Chair Berni and perusing a copy of the PT Times (I just made up that name, I'm not really certain what the journal is actually called). Everyone knows that there are some athletes that cheat - we hear the IOC talk to us all the time about stripping medals from athletes who do blood doping or take steroids or whatever. What I didn't know is that paralympic athletes also have a version of cheating.

This method is called boosting, and involves the peripheral nervous system being activated. For example, wheelchair athletes who have little to no innervation from the waist down will sit on pins or tacks in the area just below the part they can't feel. This causes sympathetic activation and increases autonomic activity (BP, HR, etc.) by a process known as autonomic dysreflexia. By doing this, it has been shown that athletes can increase performance by up to +10%.

A handful of researchers are only now starting to examine this and hopefully it'll be eliminated. It's just interesting how people can trick their nervous system into doing different things. Boosting is actually a really dangerous practice and really stressed the cardiovascular system, so it's strange to see people doing this voluntarily just to achieve a faster time.

rocket launcher/target posture

2009-11-07T00:47:00.004-07:00

Launcher? Posture?

Eh, a good enough rhyme.

I had this dream last night that really shook me up. I went to bed and passed out like a Grade 7 teenage girl drinking Absinthe on an empty stomach. In my dream my subconscious decided it'd be an interesting experience to try and feel what that WCB shooter felt like. I spent my dream acquiring an illegal rocket launcher and then blowing up a high profile government building. Luckily nobody was hurt in my dream but the building, which resembled the smoldering wreckage of the Twin Towers post-9/11.

I spent the rest of the my dream running from the 5-0, dodging bullets and taking shelter in abandoned warehouses with the whump whump whump of choppers flying overhead and lights invading cracks in the windowpanes. I spent the entirety of my dream pondering the ethical and moral lines I had broken and trying to come to terms with what I had done.

I woke up and thanked God it was but a dream. I pretty much was invaded by absolute guilt and the sense that the only way I could bring some semblance of justice to the situation was offing myself.

***

Last week I made a post about my recurring back pain. I was in 528 lab taking a break from manual muscle testing while my partner in crime Mankeen went to the bathroom, so I took the opportunity to flag down our TA Andrea and ask her what she thought was up with my back. I told her how the night before I had hung my legs over my bed and let gravity pull my spine and my muscles out, and how today I felt so much better from doing that. She had me perform trunk flexion and extension, then got me to explain a little bit of the history and the compensatory behaviours I performed to assist my trunk movements and minimize pain.

While she made the disclaimer that she'd have to do more testing and go through a full assessment, she said she suspected spinal disc issues. The disc protrudes when I do trunk flexion, and also when I sit with flat back while I study. My trunk hyperextension self-treatment I perform pushes the disc back into alignment, which is why I feel better. I asked her what the best interventions for this would be, and she responded with exactly what I didn't want to hear, that I needed to fix my posture.

I have to say that this day has been the most difficult day, because fixing poor posture is like one of the single hardest things to do. I have these absolutely horrible weak back muscles now because they've seemingly never done a day's work in their life, and now they have to support my trunk and allow for my bedraggled lumbar spine to undergo more lordosis. I was studying and trying to keep a straight back but the weariness of my postural muscles was ruining my concentration.

I have this intense fear of being disabled by the time I'm like 25 due to a slipped disc, which is why I figure I should start today and prevent injury.

rocket launcher // target posture

PED Pt. 2

2009-11-05T23:13:00.003-07:00

Remember a few months ago how I was all excited about the EV3/Chestnut Peripheral Endovascular Device? Well this morning I went to see my boss and the nurse manager she shares her office with remembered I had a vested interest in the stent. She happened to have one in her bag and showed me the comparison of the stent to a regular stent and how much more coverage it had, which I presume is what the $12000 price tag is for. If you don't remember, they're using it for wide necked fusiforms, giant aneurysms, partially occluded ones and aneurysms that tend to collapse. Anyways, the big kicker is that she mentioned that she'd try to get me into the next PED installation that's happening next month. Apparently they're flying down a bigwig from New York to perform the procedure because it's so avant garde. The access through the arm is occluded so they need to wheel the pt. down to surgery, access the internal carotid and keep it open, trolley them over to radiology to install the PED and then whip them back up to get closed up. AND I WILL POSSIBLY GET THE CHANCE TO WATCH THIS. OMG MY LIFE WIN.

***

When I get down I often listen to Dido's Lament from the Purcell opera Dido & Aeneas. The story is that Dido and Aeneas are in love, but the wicked spirits convince Aeneas to leave Dido. Even though he eventually returns, Dido forces him to leave for ever once considering that he could run away from her. She dies of grief; death from a broken heart.

I was perusing YouTube today and came across some interesting renditions of the always famous aria. First, the classic, which is performed with incredible vibrato - just phenomenal technique:

Thy hand, Belinda, darkness shades me,
On thy bosom let me rest,
More I would, but Death invades me;
Death is now a welcome guest.

When I am laid, am laid in earth, May my wrongs create
No trouble, no trouble in thy breast;
Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate.
Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

And Hayley Westerna, the angelic voice of Celtic Woman fame and glory:

And finally Alison Moyet, a soulful/jazzy rendition:

ortho

2009-11-05T01:03:00.005-07:00

Performed my first pseudo ortho/sports injury case today - haha actually more like an impromptu therapeutic session. I doubt I'll end up in ortho, but it's interesting to diversify from the neuro I am so used to loving. It's fun because friends now go, "Can you help me with _____?" and I respond, "Not really, but I'll take a look at it." It's exciting to have the added responsibility of going through a differential diagnosis like Gregory House does. It's also nice to do the practical application of classroom to the real world.

My friend experienced an anterior shoulder subluxation in May, which means his arm bone popped out of the shoulder socket and then back in. P. went to see a doctor, who said he most likely had a shoulder dislocation, which helped in my diagnosis (history!). I assessed his range of motion (ROM) in shoulder flexion, shoulder abduction, and shoulder extension, noting that he liked to cheat with his shoulder extension and abduct his arm slightly (limited shoulder extension). I also tested his horizontal external rotation and external shoulder rotation in the scapular plane and found ROM to be extremely limited for both.

I got empty end feels for external rotation and shoulder extension. Anterior subluxes are one of the most common types of shoulder injuries and typically impinge on the two ligaments that cross the joint anteriorly. Ligaments heal slowly so stretching the capsule gently and letting it heal naturally were both on my mind. Additionally, P. had difficulties resisting movements when I was doing some improvised manual muscle tests, I'd grade him probably a 4. Based on what I found, I figured the best course of treatment would be to strengthen the muscles performing external rotation and extension about the shoulder - infraspinatus and teres minor (not supraspinatus since his abduction was absolutely normal).

I proposed simple Therex:

"1. Apply heat to warm the infraspinatus and teres minor (back of scapula).
2. Perform shoulder shrugs just to loosen the muscles.
3. Find a door frame. Keeping your arms at your sides, bend the elbow to 90 degrees - you should look like you're trying to shake someone's hand but your arm is bent. Using the door frame to stop your hand, turn your body so that your arm rotates out, like the resistance I was applying to you today. Don't stress it too hard.
4. Lie down on your back on a bed or couch with your elbow hanging off the edge of the bed/couch. You want to start in a position like you're sitting in an armchair but on your back. Let gravity drop your arm backward, think of the motion you need to pull back your arm to spike a volleyball and that's the direction you want your arm to fall in. When that's too easy, put an object in your hand and repeat the exercise, increasing the weight of the object to your preference.
5. Lie on your front with your whole arm hanging off the edge of the couch/bed. Hold a light object in your hand and keeping your arm absolutely straight, extend your arm backwards - the action you want to do is like if you were starting to scratch the center of your back without bending at the elbow - arm extension and adduction. You like to cheat and abduct your arm away from your body when you perform shoulder extension so try to really bring your arm into midline when you do it.

I think those will address your primary concerns, remember to not stress it too hard and give it time to heal. Anterior subluxes commonly lead to dislocations."

I think P. is going to see an actual physiotherapist, and I'll check up with him to see if our answers correlate. This is really exciting that I'm already starting to be able to apply what I'm learning, even if I'm grossly untrained and underqualified to be doing this. I'm actually having fun in my program for once.

bahhh

2009-11-03T19:16:00.001-07:00

Hi. This is post number 200, commemorating an important blogging milestone...I think. So to celebrate, check back in a day or two, because I've got a gait analysis exam tomorrow and I'm too busy to post today. Cheerio!

days of yore

2009-11-01T14:09:00.009-07:00

Last week I had the opportunity to visit friends I haven't seen in a while. Justin x Monica got married a few months back and it's impressive to see them flourish - they've got a wonderful place in MacEwan and a beautiful life ahead of them.

I knew Justin since early junior high, when I transferred into his class after making the A.C. program (how little it matters now...). Having a common trait of playing way too many games, we hit it off pretty quickly. He introduced me to Fragapalooza and I showed him how to do Misty 1960s on X Games Pro Boarder. We are officially credited with bringing Counterstrike to our school back when people only played de_dust because it was like one of three levels, and we probably made VB's only clan (Clan Tichi).

Those were honestly the days. We reminisced about BMW Films and Clive Owen's first huge hit in Star, and how every role since then is minuscule in comparison to how great he was back in the day. I remember Madonna actually had bruises from the stunt man's driving, which is impressive - all the bumping around you see is completely real. You see BMW Films basically changed the internet by introducing high quality videos to the public featuring some world renown actors and directors - Marilyn Manson, Adriana Lima, Mickey Rourke, Forest Whittaker, Ang Lee, Guy Ritchi, John Woo...just to name a few. It revolutionized the age and brought viral to the world. It was all we could do but shiver in anticipation as we awaited the next episode.

We played online You Don't Know Jack, probably the world's best trivia game, because we couldn't install the original disc due to incompatibility with Windows 7. We thought back to hours spent in computer class clicking when playing the online StarCraft ripoff Nexus, which doesn't exist anymore but consisted of killing Zergling and Hydralisks, upgrading your cash flow and buying weapons so you could dominate. Our friend Jeff was among the top 10 in the world in that game, and it consumed our lives then.

How much has changed since those days. We're all focused on midterms, finances, babies. Try to remember something you did back in the day and go do it - the nostalgia is exhilarating.

unghhh

2009-10-31T11:25:00.003-06:00

My cerebellum hates me, as does my liver. I'm really enjoying TXTS FRM LST NIGHT, particularly: "(321): Just witnessed a walk of shame by a guy in a half gorilla suit. It’s going to be a good day" and "(508): I denied three guys and puked everywhere because I love you.".

On the subject of random things, when I don't pay attention in PTHER 541 I start doodling. The outcome? Birthday bot:

ughhhh

2009-10-30T06:48:00.005-06:00

This self-professed neurogeek is in hypertensive crisis due to ingestion of too much Pearl Jade x McDonald's.

You thought FML was funny? Try TXTS FRM LST NIGHT, a smörgåsbord of textual hilarity combining cell phones, drunkenness. and witty banter into entertainment for you and me!

(913): the hot woman interviewing me is reading jokes off the back of laffy taffy…. I’m getting laid and possibly a job

or

(551): Then he told me I had the most beautiful looking vulva

or

(914): explain to me why “crisis hotline lolz” is in my contacts?

And it goes on and on. You're welcome.

return of the back pain

2009-10-28T22:22:00.004-06:00

While I am no gimp like Jia (OOH BURN), I suffer from recurring lower back pain that seems to be localized to the lower portions of my erector spinae. The pain typically flares up when I use those muscles, usually when I sleep weird or do excessive lumbar flexion when breaking. It also happens when I don't lift according to proper technique in transfer labs at the U of A hospital like when I was moving my fellow classmate from the chair to the floor. Or when I sit for hours at a time with flat back posture studying 528 notes which ironically instruct me on how to not aggravate back injuries.

Interesting segway, newborn children have no lordosis in their L-spine or C-spine. Instead, their entire vertebral column is one giant C-shaped kyphosis, and it's not until they begin to put weight on the column from sitting or weight-bearing that they begin to develop the natural spinal curvature. As I always remark, a visit to peds is warranted.

Anyway, back to disability. I was walking back to the train platform after visiting the police station to get my security clearance when I noticed a man using a wheelchair as a walker. He looked confused and forlorn, seemed to have a limp and walked quite slowly using the not-very-stable wheelchair. I went up to him and asked him if he needed any help with anything and in very garbled speech he responded that he needed to find an elevator so he could get to ground level.

We were at Churchill station and I had no realization that access to elevators was so incredibly difficult for those with disabilities. He sat himself down in his wheelchair when I offered to push him, and it became evident why he had a wheelchair - he only ambulated around either with his arms (which looked tired and hung at his sides) or with one foot, dragging himself around. I pushed him down a long hallway, then we went to the wheelchair access to the elevator, which was another long hallway but uphill and not at an angle suitable for tired arms. That hallway led into another hallway about half that distance in length with a door that led to the elevator - at least the door had a wheelchair button that worked, I've been to the back door at Den/Pharm and their button never works. That distance felt like the walk between Corbett Hall and the University Hospital.

We reached the ground floor and I bid him adieu, then rode the elevator down, all the way pondering the inadequacies of our city's wheelchair accessibility.

sigh

2009-10-27T18:00:00.006-06:00

The world falls apart, slowly but surely. I know it's really lame, emo and cliché to blog about how depressed you are, but it's a little hard not to be down. I cursed PT today and really reflected hard about why the heck I was in this program. It took every ounce of will I had in my tired, tired body to come to school for 8 AM this morning. Why should I be up till 2 AM working on a 20% project that's due in the next day when it is supposed to be an "in-class assignment"? I stormed out of anatomy lab today because I knew nothing, picked up a soy caramel macchiato and felt a little bit better.

On another note, the CBC Literary Awards deadline is coming up, and I still have nothing left to submit. Last year I put through a short story about an obese girl with a ventromedial hypothalamic lesion but didn't make the short list. I was hoping to enter something this year but nothing I write is within the 2000-2500 word range...more like the 100-200 word range. I mean first prize is $6000, and that money could be going towards my wedding...

I wish I had more time.
This really sucks.

At least the good thing about being down is that you resort to the habits that pick you up. I did a project last year on music and motor control (sensorimotor integration) but one thing I read about a lot in the literature was sensoriaffective integration, that is that music is able to easily influence your emotional centers. Whether or not there is an auditory cortex connection with the amygdala and other limbic structures matters not (there are...) - it's the phenotype that I really care about on a day-to-day basis, because the moment you get sad you look for a pick me up.

When I feel stupid I listen to Regina Spektor and Sarah Slean. When I feel cool I listen to Cool Calm Pete, Lupe Fiasco, and The Cool Kids. When I feel hipster I listen to Emily Haines, Metric, Kate Havenevik, Priscilla Ahn. When I feel old school I always listen to Nas' Illmatic. When I study I listen to Imogen Heap. Today, I listened to Radiohead and Metallica because I was angry and needed motivation to not be down.

So in the words of James Hetfield:

These days drift on
Inside a fog
It's thick and suffocating

His sinking life
Outside it's hell
Inside, intoxicating

He's run aground
Like his life
Water much too shallow

Slipping fast
Down with his ship
Fading in the shadows

-Metallica(The Unforgiven III)

impostor

2009-10-25T13:19:00.004-06:00

When I was leaving Cora's today, I almost ran a stop sign and smashed into a truck. I careened to a violent halt and the driver gave me the glare of death, staring straight into my eyes while he pointed to the sign emphatically.

While this is undeniably just a good driver frustrated with the inadequacies of poor drivers who don't obey traffic signals, I chose to interpret it as a sign from God, mostly because it's Sunday and I was on my way to church and it just seems fitting. Besides, if I don't look at it that way, this blog post is cut kind of short, and I suppose would end right about here.

So anyways, God today took the form of some ruffian construction worker driving in his pickup and today pointed at me to take a look at what's around me and STOP. The message was clear: Here I am minding my own business not paying attention to what's going on around me and how I'm impacting the world, and I should take a breather, look up, and see how I am changing the world dynamically.

I haven't given myself a chance to think about myself lately. Well, that's a lie, I always exercise my metaconsciousness and evaluate what I'm doing on a moment-to-moment basis, but then therein lies my fault. I'm evaluating moment-to-moment and not seeing the big picture. I am so nose-to-the-grindstone that I'm not seeing that I'm making wheat products with the mill I am grinding.

So this segways into a question to myself: Am I an impostor? One of the greatest fallacies of grad students is the Impostor Syndrome, where we are unable to recognize if what we are doing is tangible, constructive or helpful in any way. I ask myself this question all the time - is anything I am doing meaningful?

I feel like an impostor at school, filing in every day among the ranks of these anatomical geniuses who probably sing the muscles, joints, bones and ligaments of the body in three-part harmony every morning while they have their breakfast. I stand in lab holding my goniometer as if it is some foreign instrument I have never seen before while the others use it with ease like it's a third arm. I feel so stupid, as if everything I have learned in undergrad and everything I have learned just last class has gone into my auditory canal, crawled into my brain and just curled up and died. I was awesome in undergrad and now?

I feel like an impostor at church, filing in every day among the ranks of these Biblical geniuses who probably sing the genealogy of Genesis and the gospel of Paul in three-part harmony every morning while they have their breakfast. I feel like I stand in church, arms supinated singing "how great is our God" when he's not even my God yet - what is this relationship with only a one-way acceptance? I go to cell group and speak and I sit at home and read and I lie down and pray but for what reason? Is this selfish, do I feel like I need a God and that's why I'm speaking to Him? What the hell (pun?) am I doing at church? Why is God so important if I recognize how much has been done for me but don't accept Jesus as my savior??? (!!!)

Mostly, I feel like an impostor with my friends. My mind is saying that I would be happy cooped up in my room with a coffee reading but my soul tells me I need to be with people. I stand in 528 lab sometimes when everyone has partnered up and I go to the front of class and yell, "Does anyone not have a partner?" and that's who I go with, like the last person to be chosen when everyone's picking teams. I stand in the sanctuary surrounded by all these brothers and sisters who have come to worship and I don't know any of their names or have forgotten them. I leave immediately after the service.

Honestly? I'm kind of lonely. I don't mean like support groups lonely - I could hang out with anyone and have a great time if I wanted to. I mean I feel lonely knowing that my personal satisfaction with my life will never be appeased and that I am the only one who can change that.

***

Can't get over this tune:

satisfaction

2009-10-23T16:43:00.017-06:00

I really like happiness. Ecstasy I'm not so sure of, pretty much because too much of anything (even happiness; Happiness Disease) can't be that good for you. But I really enjoy seeing people being happy, and one the ways they do this is by fulfilling their cravings.

I'm sure we all have our little habits - cocaine users enjoy speedballs just as much as I enjoy reading about new breakthroughs in neuro research. This morning I was in line at Trends when this gentleman goes up to the counter rubbing his hands like he's cold or something. The cashier smiles - he's a regular coffee fiend and she knows what's coming. In bated breath, he shivers while he says "Vente French please", as if his coffee order is a secret and he's trying to keep it underground like hipsters do. I stand in line and watch this man quivering with anticipation as he awaits his morning brew bartering it for some spare change he probably found in his couch the night before when he realized 7 am morning = caffeine. He takes a ginger sip and the smile is akin to a cocaine user on a speedball.

I'm sure this is more ecstasy than it is happiness, but for some odd reason I really like it when people indulge themselves. They're just fun to watch, and when they're smiling so hugely you can't help but enjoy yourself while you watch them enjoy themselves. Think Jia on Hickory Sticks and sausage simultaneously, Jess Ting on ice cream, Mag's mom on coconut juice and you probably have a pretty clear depiction of why it's so fun to watch them have a good time.

So speaking on the topic of indulgence, I traversed over to the Cross Cancer Institute (CCI) today to await Mag, who was to finish her shift in about an hour. I knew they had a cafe in the building, but what I didn't expect was that they had an absolutely FANTASTIC bookstore. I hate bookstores only because I love books so much and feel the need to spend absolutely ludicrous amounts of money because I love bookstores so much. I had expected only to poke my head in but I spent 30 minutes in there and had a stack of about seven books. I decided to limit myself since I typically never get around to reading all the books I buy if I buy them in bulk, so I put four away and then there were three.

In total, I spent $7.50 for three books. A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews (I had accidentally mistaken her for Marina Endicott, who wrote Good To a Fault and thought they were one and the same author...but I hear the book's good anyways so who knows), Behindlings by the ever complicated Nicola Barker, and Cobra Event by Richard Preston. The latter is a piece of crap epidemic/pathology novel I read when I was in like Grade 8 but I LOVE collecting books I read as a kid just for nostalgia. Anyways, two of the books were a dollar each. NICOLA BARKER FOR A DOLLAR. That's even more ridiculous than Jia's 25 cent chicken nuggets, in my honest, professional opinion (because I am a professional on judging the value of chicken nuggets vs. text).

As if I wasn't indulging enough, I sat down in the cafe and had a nice cup of steaming coffee with some lemon meringue pie. Pie. Coffee. Books. Armchair splendor.

And so, I am happy. Perhaps I am even ecstatic.

I love books in the same way druggies and meteoriticists like moonrocks.

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."
Borges.

the bee's knees

2009-10-21T06:29:00.002-06:00

This may come as old news to you, but I just learned yesterday that the patella bone (knee cap) fully develops as a sesamoid bone at age 2. If you palpate the knees of children <2 years you will not find much of a patella, which kind of compels you to try and touch little children at the hospital. A visit to peds is warranted.

le sigh

2009-10-21T00:12:00.004-06:00

I am at the juncture in my life where the paths leading to happiness are all difficult ones to traverse. It seems the culmination of my effort and labors have not come to fruition as of late, and my inability to produce results is making me feel rather discouraged.

I know this feeling comes around for me quite often, almost every month actually, but I suppose it does make me appreciate the good things. I've been pounded with academic, spiritual and financial riddles that don't seem to have easy answers to them. I thought I had the formulas for these things all worked out in my head where x = easy street but it is clearly not so.

Oh well. A little more elbow grease is required here and there, and I suppose some extra thought is needed contrary to my last post. Things just seem never ending these days and the lifestyle I should be leading is not one of happiness but one of hardship and discord. I suppose everything works out in the end so less stress is warranted.

On the good side of things, I did manage to find a $20 bill in the computer lab hiding under a chair. There are good things in life.

ARRETE

2009-10-19T09:51:00.001-06:00

SERIOUSLY, STOP THINKING.

proof

2009-10-17T13:11:00.005-06:00

I find that the best writers are those that nobody knows about - the closet writers who you only come across in the briefest of instants and you rarely, if ever, see their work again. You constantly crave these gems that they put forth because they are so filled with emotion and have a certain smoothness about their writing (think of what Bailey's would taste like if you could read it) that you are never fully satiated.

Mag hardly writes anything, but her works always appeals to me in this manner. She wrote me a card a while ago on our anniversary, just before I was supposed to leave for Halifax. It's simple in its artistic flair, but the thing that's impressive is that she knows exactly how to aim her verbal arrows so that they strike at the core of my emotions, memories, that instant I thought was ephemeral and gone. I've always been amazed by her ability to wade through the superficial and find the exact core of anything and everything, and her writing encompasses this rare talent - her points are succinct, direct, and striking.

Dear Honey,

I can't believe its been 6 years already! And I also can't believe that you're leaving so soon. Who's going to pull my hair? Who's going to give me hugs even when I don't want them? Who's going to watch me play volleyball or play with my puppies? I'm going to miss you so much! Anyway, today is about celebrating the last couple of weeks we have together. I will try to make you as happy as I can, and I will try not to complain so much or be annoying. I know we can get through our 2 1/2 years apart because we've lived through 6 awesome years together. I won't be there in Halifax to nag you but just remember this: Be yourself because you're the coolest person that I know. As my mom would say, eat breakfast every day and meat for dinner.

I'm so lucky to be sharing
another year with you,
my yesterday, my today,
my tomorrow.

I love you with all my heart

Mag.

Glenfiddich

2009-10-16T14:19:00.011-06:00

Edit: Just realized I forgot to include a visual depiction of how I thought this scene would look. Scroll to the bottom and watch the dance scene loosely based off of 500 Days of Summer.

Daniel walks into Ernie's and sidles up to the bar. He looks around and the place is relatively empty, a product of a Thursday afternoon in downtown Cleveland. The sun was stifling so the one fan rapidly circling overhead is nice, a windy reprieve that makes Cleveland seem like Chicago.

Danielle isn't here yet, so Daniel glances at his watch. He's early - not my much, but early. He catches Ernie's eye through the window pane looking into the office behind the bar, and Ernie nods a nod that says I'll be out in five. Nobody in this city is in a hurry, not Ernie nor Daniel nor Danielle.

He sits on the bar stool and throws a cursory glance around for anything interesting. The jukebox in the corner is blaring The Smiths, but only because a recent movie has made them the most popular download on iTunes. Two guys in fitted collared shirts are playing pool loudly with their third friend watching from those high chairs that only inhabit pool halls. "Sink it Ed!" their seated friend shouts. Ed lines up his shot and with a fluid arm movement sends the cue call careening into the corner pocket. Ed mutters in shame, digs the white sphere from the leather mesh that caught it, and hands the ball over to the opposition.

Two tables down two women gossip about the new mail room boy John, who apparently was caught by Derrick in accounting making out with Sophie from marketing! No way! Uh huh, I KNOW, and he's married and she's married! OH MY GOWSH. Do the families know? Ad nauseum, avec nausées.

Daniel dips his hand into the wicker basket with the peanuts and grabs a handful. He pops some into his mouth and crunches - it doesn't taste right but when do peanuts ever taste right at a bar, where people don't wash their hands after going logging? It tastes dry, really dry, but he musters up the saliva necessary and swallows. Something rakes the side of his esophagus as it goes down, so he puts the rest of it back into the wicker basket, and just at that time Ernie walks out from his cave in the back, dons his apron, looks at Daniel curiously and sputters, "Why are you eating the potpourri?"

Daniel has no answer. He glances down at the basket and realizes it is indeed potpourri.

"What'll it be, comrade?"
"Whiskey and water."

Ernie reaches to the shelf for the Glenfiddich, then pulls out a Collins glass. Daniel glances at his watch while Ernie concocts - the female is twelve minutes late. He sighs, figures she got stuck in the non-existent traffic, maybe witnessed a car accident and is currently giving violent cardiopulmonary resuscitation to a toddler, is trying to convince a man jumping off a building not to do it - or all three. She probably has momentous errands to run; the busy businesswoman of today.

The scotch appears - clear and copper. Daniel leans forward and the light catches the liquid amber. He holds the glass, which is too big and not fit for drinking whisky, but will do anyways. A swirl. A sniff. A sip. Mouthfeel. Finish. Take it slow, nothing but patience and calmness when dealing with something as complicated as a single malt scotch whisky.

He glances at his watch and she's twenty minutes late. Another one please. He looks again and she's half an hour late. One more of the same. An hour goes by and the glasses pile up. Finish. Sniff. Mouthfeel. Swirl. Sip. Gulp, whatever it's a free country. Less water, more scotch please.

"Been stood up?" Ernie asks, smiling while he cleans a glass, pours another for Dan.
"Nope," says Daniel, "I'm in no hurry. There's nothing but time."

He takes off his watch, throws it in the potpourri.

Skip to 0.25s for the Bank Scene

meditations

2009-10-15T17:28:00.004-06:00

My week-long hiatus is over, and in celebration of end-of-exams my PT class is punctuating our day with brewskies at Hudson's Campus very shortly. In the meantime I figure I'll mention something that struck me last week and I wanted to mention but never got around to it.

Early last week I walked into my mum's room en route to her bathroom where I had left my toothbrush and mouthwash the previous night. My mum was sitting on the floor cross-legged with her eyes closed looking very peaceful, so naturally I asked her, "What are you doing?" My mum opened my eyes and took a second to focus, then she responded that she was meditating.

Now this is a pretty uncommon occurrence. My mum is a fervent Buddhist, my dad probably a lapsed one if he even is concerned by religion at all. Both are pretty liberal people and as such they vote Liberal. Anyways, I think I had just come back from church so I was in the mood to discuss inter-religious practices, so I sat down on her bed and asked her what she does when she meditates.

From what I understand, meditating is much the same as praying, except instead of having a relationship with a higher power, it's demonstrating our frontal lobe functions in evaluating our lives from a metaconscious perspective. She calms herself by monitoring and slowing her breathing and then pretty much just has a cathartic episode, reflecting and evaluating and identifying. She examines emotions, goes over troubles, dreams about future situations - anything you can think of that glosses over your mind and wanders into your conscious domain can be analyzed and dissected. You create and fathom, understand and formulate action.

I thought about this because there are many similarities with prayer. We calm ourselves to talk to Father God, evaluate our lives and what we are thankful for and blessed with, identify what needs help and try to figure out who we are going to pray for and who we are going to help. It's more structured of course, and involves an omnipotent higher power, but the idea is still the same in my opinion.

I think the reason I thought it was important was that even though religions may be different, practices may still be similar. Corollary: Religions may be very similar. Obviously this corollary is a large assumption, because different religions have completely different principles and ideologies and even though we all pray doesn't mean they are the same - I do acknowledge that as a central limitation of this observation. I'm just saying that I think that I've been so focused on learning Christian theology that I've neglected that right in my own home I probably have one of the best teachers of the Buddhist way of life and I haven't even bothered to ask. One of my minor goals I put out at cell group was to learn more about other religions in order to find an answer to that burning question that so often bothers me: If each religion claims that their word is the word of God, whose word is truly the word of God?

engagement

2009-10-09T16:13:00.014-06:00

So this might be an interesting experience, especially since it only comes around once (at least for my life). I'm sitting here in my room right now which has been moderately cleaned out, mostly because I don't want to ruin the air of surprise by having a perfectly clean room. There's nothing more that ruins a surprise by leaving those subtle clues like having everyone's shoes near the door or cars parked outside the house for a surprise party.

Wait, so what am surprise am I referring to exactly?

In a few hours, I will be proposing to my beautiful and wonderful and charming and stunning and intelligent and gorgeous Magdalene. She'll become my fiancé and will relinquish title of girlfriend, a term which I've always hated.

It's funny because Mag's mom almost dropped the bomb on this surprise today. You see yesterday I went to her house around 6 PM because I wanted to ask for her parents' permission to marry Mag, and I knew Mag was teaching from 6-7 PM and I wanted to catch them at that time. Mag's mum is notorious for screwing these kinds of surprises up, so I figured one day before would be enough to let them know about it and mull it over before the event.

Of course, when I get there, Mag's mum is teaching and her dad is nowhere to be found. I sit around and look at Youtube breaking videos for like an hour, and then Mag comes up and we get ready to leave for my house to study. I see Mags' dad pulling into the driveway at that moment and realize that this time is probably the only chance I'll get to ask them for permission, so I take Mag out to the car, say, "Oh crap I forgot my gloves in your room I'll be right back" and then run in. I steal Mags' mum away from her student and grab her dad and sister and announce I'd like to propose to Mag today. Her mum says, "You better take care of her" and her dad gives me the thumbs up.

You figured one night wouldn't ruin anything, but the next morning Mag's mum comes up to her and goes, "So you are engaged?" WTF. Even though she said, "TOMORROW?" to me yesterday when I explained when I wanted to do it, she manages to pretty much enact my worst nightmare. Christina managed to defuse the situation by getting her mum to shush up then explaining that I was showing Chris a ring to get her opinion and that her mum saw and jumped to conclusions. I had to call Mag later and cover my ass, saying white lies like, "Oh if I were to propose to you I'd take you somewhere else like do it in Mexico or something" or "So you want me to propose to you tonight? I suppose I could scrounge up a twist-tie instead of a ring..." So basically ball has been dropped, thanks my soon-to-be mother-in-law whom I will be murdering shortly (gosh that's going to make for a great wedding hey?). I hope this hasn't ruined anything, and I hope Mag doesn't see my proposal coming, but my lady is a very astute girl and will be probably making a beeline for a hug today so she can try to feel through my coat to see if there's a box in there. Read:

OMGG JOEEYYY! MY MOM KINDA DROPPED THE BALL ON YOUR SURPRISE TONIGHT. :/ hope you can think of a way to make mag less suspicious and still surprised. If i can help let me know
What the?!
she thought you asked her last night. So this morning she was like, so your engaged now?
Omg are you serious. Omg
Ahhh yeah. :/
Wait what exactly did she say? Omg this is like my worst nightmare
My mom said "so you got in engaged last night?" and mag was like what? And I was like. Mom what are you talking about? And my mom just staarted laughing and mag was like what?? And my mom was like oh no i was just wondering cuz and then more laughter.
Omfg fml. I waited till the last possible moment to tell her so she couldn't screw it up lol ah your mom is too funny. I'm so mad and amused at the same time

So this is it, my heart's pounding through its pericardium and skeletal enclosure. I've practiced my lines a hundred times it seems now, but I'm sure once the moment comes I'll probably just blank and have to ad lib some freestyle rap, "Yo Mag I love you MUCH / you and I should stop going DUTCH / take this ring and be my WIFE / i'll be yours for the rest of my LIFE". Sheesh mageesh this few hours between class and dinner was supposed to be for studying, but every time I look at Dupuytren's or flexor digitorum profundus or scapulohumeral rhythm I start experiencing sympathetic nervous system activation. I'm going to try to go relax.

Exciting times!

-4:42 PM OCT 09/09

***

Right now I want to kill myself. For some unknown, ungodly reason my mother has just taken the car today. I left explicit instructions that she leave the car as I had dinner reservations at 6 PM and that I would be taking my future wife out, but I guess she doesn't seem to comprehend the magnitude of such an event.

I really hate mothers today.

This is quickly becoming one of the worst nights ever. I swear if the food turns out to be rat confit served in a beet puree with oyster sauce and we get in a car crash along the way back and then once we get into the hospital it gets destroyed by a wayward meteor that'll just be icing on the cake. Fuck you Murphy's Law.

How embarrassing, this is supposed to be a date and Mag is picking me up. Will my credit card be declined too and she'll have to pay? Omigosh FML.

-5:41 PM OCT 09/09

***

WE'RE ENGAGED!!!

-7:05 PM OCT 09/09 (Actually posted at 9:13 PM but I'm estimating when I actually did it. I have video footage with the actual time that I'll pull up on a later day.)

***

So it went like this. The moment Mag drove to my house, my dad came home with the van, so we took the van out. Mag always does this thing where she tries to guess where I'm taking her (typically she's right) but this time she struck out. Her first initial guesses were Red Ox Inn and Characters (omgo$h no) and then when I started heading on the Whitemud she thought we were going to Chop. Instead, I took her all the way to the River Cree Casino and we went to Sage, this nice little place inside that has a good reputation for their steaks. Mag had a Caesar to start with a delicious pickled bean, and then we ordered Guyere French Onion Soup and Steak /w Frites (Mag got her fries switched to mashed potatoes). One of the best steaks I've ever had.

We finish up and pile into the car and I almost get us into car accidents like 4 times on the way back because I'm so full that I'm driving drunk (the kind of drunk where all the blood rushes to your stomach because you're digesting a giant steak). We get home and Mag immediately homes in on my computer to check her e-mail for an important document her instructor was sending her.

By this time, my heart's pounding pretty hard. I made this video using Taylor Swift's Love Story as the background music that I wanted to show her, but for some frustrating reason Mag wouldn't relinquish use of the computer. She was watching a Paul Dateh music video, and then she decided she'd read about Grad Expo, and I kept trying to force her to close the window but she was so damn stubborn!

Eventually I got it to go, then I started the video. She squealed but was confused that I made a video for date night, but laughed anyways. I synced the part where it goes, "I got tired of waiting...wondering if you were ever coming around..." with the video where Mag caught the bouquet, and then just as she catches it, the song goes, "and he knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring and said".

At that moment, I stopped the video and gathered Mag up and tried to say three lines that I had memorized and practiced for two days straight, but I choked and only remembered the first one. It went, "I know you know I've been really excited about date night, and there's a reason why. It's been six long years of happiness, and I want to make that a lifetime more of the same. I promise to love you forever and always and I vow to take care of you for the rest of my life. Magdalene, will you marry me?"

Mag said, "OF COURSE I'll marry you!" and then we proceeded to call our families. It's a day in now and Mag and I are still having trouble saying "fiancée" instead of "boyfriend/girlfriend".

Thanks so much for everyone's well wishes. =)

-10:11 PM OCT 10/10/09

er

2009-10-05T21:59:00.007-06:00

Hiatus-ing.

I will be a tad AWOL during the next week (but not more than usual, I'm pretty bad at posting lately) just because I've got an anatomy midterm on Tuesday, a Biomechanics final on Wednesday and an anatomy lab exam on Thursday. Good lucks to everyone who haves teh exams.

***

One of my favorite scenes of all time.

britney spears

2009-10-03T17:58:00.009-06:00

This has nothing to do with Britney, except that she just happened to make a song titled Lucky. Random, I know, but that's how I've been feeling today. I've been pretty dejected this last few days, mostly because I've attempting to attain my goal that I hammered out at cell group last week. For those who weren't present, it goes something like this:

We were sitting around in a circle at cell group discussing the topic that Jia brought up, which was What should Christians do? It goes a little deeper than that, but basically it asks what Christians are called to do and what is their scope of practice, for lack of a better term. We somehow got into asking each other what we thought God was calling us to do, and Jia got excited and recorded them all down. I figure we're going to do a one-year post-op, followed by a five-year post-op and so on and so forth just to see where we're at with following the dreams God wants for us, so I'll share with you what I've been getting up to:

My goal according to how Jia worded it: Joey Mo: To feel and display genuine love to my friends, the people around me, and totally strangers. I know I don't display the perfect love to my friends, in fact I honestly don't really make an effort to care about them sometimes. I don't really realize this because I guess I'm a little self-absorbed in what I'm doing at the time, whether it be studying or if I have something else that I feel is more important for me to do. I ignore people's birthday parties, show up late to occasions I say I'm going to or don't even bother to show up at all. I ditch friends in social events, or when I get there I don't even say hello to them at all, but hone in on the food table, grab a bite to eat, then leave. I'm often cruel to my family, and am not there for them when they need me. I also walk by the same homeless Asian guy in front of Tim Horton's every day and when he asks me for change I think Change is good and That's a good thing to ask for, Obama would like that, but then I tell him "I don't give change" then go inside and get my extra-large double double like the gluttonous, self-centered, un-sharing beast I know I am.

I've been thinking a lot about how I'm acting towards friends, family, and people in general, and have been attempting to cognitively re-structure my thought process in order to actively recognize what I'm doing and change it. I'm trying to love, but it isn't easy, because I am often compelled to go elsewhere and do other things. It's difficult to love everyone without neglecting yourself.

It seems like I'm being very hard on myself, and I am. So why do I feel so lucky?

I think it's because God has given me wonderful support systems with which to share this learning experience. I was most touched by this one moment after church last Sunday, where Simon started talking to me. He asked me, "Joey, do you have a Bible?" and when I said, "No," he didn't hesitate to offer the one in his hand - his own personal Book of God where he's written all his marginalia and poured his hours and love into - saying, "Here, have mine." This is his gold, the word of God in purest form, and he was willing, so willing to relinquish it in a heartbeat in order to reach someone who didn't deserve it. I said thank you, but one of my personal goals is to find a Bible I really enjoy myself, to just peruse the Bible Store and go through it slowly to find the book for me. But it was this principle, this love for your neighbor that is so far-reaching and touching, even in the most seemingly mundane of events ("dude, it's just a book...") that really hit home.

I feel so lucky that God has introduced Jason and Steve into my life so that I can intersect groups of friends whom I have nothing in common with. These are people well versed in God's walk, and so will be invaluable resources in learning about God and what it means to be a Christian - which I feel I still know nothing about but am learning more about if that makes any sense. Through some strange statistical anomaly that I can attribute only to divine intervention, God's put like the only two people on this continent who actually like talking about neuro on a day-to-day basis into my life so that I can discuss religion, fulfill my goals of meeting and holding down groups of people with which I can share God's love, and also talk about Searle and the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. I've talked about consciousness with Jason at length, and just yesterday discussed with Steve about Crick's (of DNA's famous Watson & Crick) deathbed work on the claustrum and Gestalt-like integration in the sensorium. We discuss Ramachandran and Descartes, Beauregard and Sacks.

Of course, my friend Jia who is often my anchor in the tumultuous waves of my every day reflection, is also very good for stability. I have fought long and hard with figuring out in which direction my moral compass faces, and have often had a heated argument with my beautiful professional debater Magdalene over black and white and the gray that is supposedly between them that I have yet to see. I talk law with Law, pour over the Bible, dissect the Pharisees, the ways of the lawful man, how evil lawyers actually are despite following the law, and evil people in general.

Friends help me clarify where I stand; help me thin(k) and reflect. You give so much of God's love that I can't help but want to give God's love back to you. So with your help, let us try to make some small miracles happen with my fingertips and the relationships around me - friends you are my witnesses and God you are my hands.

***

here we go again

2009-10-01T21:20:00.006-06:00

Monsieur McGee is grumpy indeed,
he's combined of three grumpies, three grumpies - three!
It might be quite best if you let him but be
for he is quite grumpy, very grumpy you see.

Monsieur McGee could be most grumpy free
but lately it's grumpiness down to a tee
He is pretty grumpy most tend to agree,
too bad mister grumpy McGee is but me!

***

bad poetry;
oh noetry!

eureka

2009-09-30T06:38:00.004-06:00

I have come to the conclusion that my relative lack of motivation and my large feelings of restlessness stem from the fact that I am not receiving adequate physical activity to satisfy my body's needs. I interpret my body's physiological rebellion as a sign that I need to start running again every day. I've been letting my ankle heal this past week - it's probably at 95% right now - and trying to convince myself that playing intramural volleyball is the same thing as doing 20 minutes of straight running, but I find that's not the case. Volleyball is too much explosive movement and not enough stamina, so it's clear to see that I'm not getting nearly as much cardiovascular workout as I need to keep me going. I feel the way Henry felt when he lost his legs and couldn't run anymore...just way less depressing and on a much lesser magnitude.

I tried something new today that I discussed with Ellis a long time ago. If you don't know, one of my favourite players is Richard Hamilton off the Detroit Pistons:

Rip models his game after the great Reggie Miller, a controversial yet fantastic shooter. If you check out the video above, Rip's game is running all the time when he doesn't have the ball, curling off of screens, flaring around them, then cutting deep or backdoor for the ball and back outside if he can't create a shot opportunity. That being said, one of the great requirements to being able to play the running guard is that you have to be able to run for long periods of time without tiring.

I created a running pattern which is loosely based off of wind sprints as Ellis describes. I basically run for ~5 minutes till all my joints are loosened up and my muscles are warm, then I start. I run the length of two lampposts at regular speed, then once I hit the end of the second length I sprint as fast as I can toward the next lamppost. I then cut my pace back for another two lampposts, then repeat the sprinting. I do this ~10 times throughout my run. I'm looking to increase the length of the burst runs, but I mean I'll take it one step at a time (literally). In this manner I model my runs after Richard Hamilton's game in that I am always moving, but only bursting to get open at certain opportune moments. It's grueling when you know a sprint is coming up, but I have to say that overall this dull ache I have in my legs right now feels damn good.

garrr

2009-09-29T23:47:00.000-06:00

in such a bad mood.

PED

2009-09-27T14:27:00.006-06:00

The vascular intervention world has been buzzing with exciting news as of late. EV3 recently purchased Chestnut Medical Technologies and is now beginning to offer their products to the cerebral angiography community.

One of the most exciting new products that's out there is the Pipeline Embolization Device (PED) which was developed by Chestnut. The PED is a v. flexible, microcatheter-delivered, self-expanding endovascular "stent-like" construct used for the occlusion of cerebral aneurysms. It is created from microfilaments of platinum and cobalt chromium which are braided to form a mesh cylinder. The device is delivered so that it expands to oppose the walls of the parent vessel from which the aneurysm arises, and acts to completely occlude the aneurysm from receiving circulation while simultaneously encouraging reconstruction and normalization of cerebral vasculature in the affected area.

One of the papers I read delivered a fantastic history detailing the history of aneurysm treatment. In 1992, Boston Scientific/Target created the Guglielmi detachable coil system which opened up the world to treatment of aneurysms with metal coils. 10 years later, Boston Scientific introduced the Neuroform stent, specifically used as an adjunct to coil embolization. That being said, the best evidence practice for the last couple of years has been to coil and stent.

The problem with this method is that it fails dramatically for aneurysms that are not narrow-necked, berry-shaped and small. Not everyone is blessed enough to have only a tiny aneurysm, and there's many a time in clinic where I've been witness to gigantic aneurysms - you really wonder how these people live. When you look at the statistics, 38.3% find complete occlusion at the 12 month follow-up. Another study found a 19% rate of complete occlusion at 18 months. While the rates are much better for small aneurysms (66%), there are still a rather large percentage of those not receiving a clean bill of health. These include those with small aneurysms, and most dramatically, those with large, giant, wide-necked and non-saccular (fusiform) aneurysms.

So let's examine why. When examining the coiling, we note that with maximal packing, the majority of the volume within coiled aneurysms does NOT get filled with embolic material (70-80%). This allows for blood flow to continue into the aneurysm. It is also dangerous to breach the sac of the aneurysm in the first place, so avoidance of aneurysm entry would be optimal. When considering adjunctive stent placement, many stents provide inadequate metal area coverage when deployed. The Neuroform stent itself provides only 6.5-9.5% metal coverage, and so cannot act as a stand-alone therapy.

In comes Chestnut/EV3 with the PED. The PED provides 30-35% metal coverage at maximal expansion, which is obviously much higher coverage. It is deployed just proximal to the neck of the aneurysm in the parent vessel, and thus does not require entry to the aneurysm sac, effectively circumventing accidental perforation. The deployment provides sufficient coverage to physiologically exclude the lesion from circulation, yet is porous enough to preserve the patency of branch vessels covered by the construct. The really cool thing about it is that not only does it effectively occlude aneurysm blood flow (>90% reach full occlusion by the 6-month followup), it facilitates the growth of normal vasculature in the region - "the stent implantation may change the configuration of the parent vessel, changing the anatomy of the parent vessel-aneurysm complex and the aneurysm inflow zone...implantation of the stent within the affected vessel ideally acts as a stimulus and provides a scaffolding to support neointimal overgrowth across the aneurysm neck defect, thereby facilitating the biological remodeling of the deficient segment of the parent artery".

One of the most incredible things is that the PED can act as a stand-alone therapy (15/17 aneurysms in rabbits achieved complete occlusion with only one PED deployed). This may represent a paradigm shift from coiling to stand-alone stenting in the future. From an economical perspective, it will be much cheaper to perform this, both on the basis of materials required (one-three stents vs. ten coils +/- adjunctive stents) and on radiologist time spent in procedure.

With all new products, there are obviously limitations. Placement of the PED precludes future coiling because it blocks neck access, therefore the suggestion has been to jail a microcatheter in the event that re-entry is required. There is also no clear evidence to show how PED affect bifurcation aneurysms, and if occlusion of one side will increase flow to the next one. Lastly, there is dual antiplatelet therapy required during the procedure (aspirin and clopidogrel), which is obviously contraindicated for the context of acute subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Nonetheless, the PED invites a new way to look at cerebral vasculature intervention, and shows that even today companies are still paving the way towards new technologies to aid those afflicted by disease. I think the most exciting thing is that this is no band-aid solution - the PED acts not only to cut off blood flow to the aneurysm, but it also encourages the growth of appropriate vasculature through its scaffolding. HOW FREAKING COOL.

You can read the original papers by clicking on the titles of the papers below:

***

Lylyk, P., Miranda, C., Ceratto, R., Ferrario, A., Scrivano, E., Luna, H. R., et al. (2009) Curative Endovascular Reconstruction of Cerebral Aneurysms with the Pipeline Embolization Device: The Buenos Aires Experience. Neurosurgery, 64(4), 632-643.

Fiorella, D., Woo, H. H., Albuquerque, F. C., & Nelson, P. K. (2008). Definitive Reconstruction of Circumferential, Fusiform Intracranial Aneurysms with the Pipeline Embolization Device. Neurosurgery, 62(5), 1115-1121.

fear not

2009-09-27T13:26:00.003-06:00

I'm not absent. I know it's been a few days since the last post, but I've been reading articles so that I can unveil to you this fascinating new technique that they're using to treat giant fusiform cerebral aneurysms. I just learned about it the other day when I ran into one of my old co-workers at the hospital - these are EXCITING times my friends, especially in the way of vascular intervention!

I was going to do a post on the HIV vaccine but I think it's been covered. Besides, it's all media hype right now, I'm going to wait for the paper to be published THEN I'll do a post on the HIV vaccine.

Stay tuned.

thought for food

2009-09-23T23:35:00.002-06:00

Takoyaki. Dakabi bat. Cocktail shrimp. Clam chowder. Ice cold ginger ale. Tripe. Viet subs. Lumberjack sandwiches. Hot bumbleberry pie á la mode. Bacon. Fresh watermelon. Mag's fruit smoothies. Dried mangoes. Thinly sliced cucumber slices. Cream of potato and bacon. Grande soy caramel macchiato. Dad's scrambled eggs. Chef's Gone Mad pizza. Salmon sashimi. Bagel bites with cream cheese and lox. Cherry-filled perogies. Chef Boyardee Beefaroni. Chef Boyardee Ravioli. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream at Earl's. Green apple chewy candy from Calgary. Saltwater taffy from Banff. Turkish delight. Breyers mint chocolate chip ice cream. Superkid ice cream. Cookie dough Blizzard. Curly-wurly. Honey garlic wings at O'Byrnes. Mediterranean wings at Suzie Cues. Regular flavored Pringles. Corn dogs. Miso soup. Chicken fingers with oodles of plum sauce. Brewster's nachoes with oodles of sour cream. Meatball marinara sub. Be bim bap. BBQ pork buns from Kopio's. Heartland Scramble. Rosencrantz crepes. Costco's sheperd's pie. Mac & cheese at Hard Rock Café. Espresso mouse at Moxie's. Chicken fettuccine alfredo. Grilled cheese sandwich.

...thought for food | food for thought...

not happy

2009-09-23T07:41:00.001-06:00

Went for a run this morning. 2/3rds of the way through, near the Mac's by my house, I roll my ankle, hard. I end up sitting down to stretch it out, then hobbling back to the house. The soft tissue distal to my lateral malleolus hurts. I hate this.

freak

2009-09-22T18:29:00.006-06:00

Mm. Been falling out of my groove as of late like a dislocated head of humerus out the glenohumeral joint. Right.

I always get like this, where I have my ups and downs. I'm pretty sure others can really attest to this type of peak/trough-type lifestle; my life is an endless sine wave. At the start of physio I really started out high and got higher in the first one or two weeks, then it all starts to fall apart (wow you know it's bad when I'm referencing a Veronicas song).

My running has faltered. I am sleeping in late and almost not making it to school. I'm getting tons of cankersores and breaking out everywhere. My blogging is becoming more sporadic. I haven't prayed unless other people are around and I pray with them. My personal hygiene and my room cleanliness are nowhere near where they should be.

I could complain all I want to but the fact is what the heck am I going to do about it? Shuck y'all I don't know. What I do know is fear not:

I got this.

Adam

2009-09-20T09:49:00.006-06:00

today
i looked out the window:
the expanse of the

empty

field filling my field of view.
there, among the corn rows
waving hello in the wind to nobody in particular,
adam took his life last winter.

i woke up that christmas day in my christmas pajamas
slipped on my christmas slippers, put on my
christmas grin. i went to the window to look at the snow,
traced a snowflake from its origin high up in the sky
to its insertion
on adam's immobile head.

he sat there facing my window, looking me in the eye
as if saying "this is your fault juliet".
his hands were open, honest.
his wrists were open.
the field was open, tainted with crimson all around
artistic malificence.

stunned and wanting to scream,
i stood there wide open.

oh adam, First man,
i am not your Eve.
i am Juliet,
i belong to Romeo.

yesterday, when you came to the barn
said, "sweetest juliet", knelt to one knee
opened the box
and told me to run away with you
the apple rose in my throat, choking.
adam
do you not understand?
i am a betrothed woman
given to the baron of our land
i thought about family - daddy,
jackson, millie - where would they go?

"what's more important
family or love?"

i turned away and ran as fast as i could
but the real answer was
"they are the same."

and so adam
you sit there in the snow
contemplative meditation
i run down the stairs in my christmas pajamas
my christmas slippers
into the field, feet cold and wet
crunching as i reach you
hold you
cry scream yell
unfair no no no no no

later, when i put a knife in myself
i feel nothing.
i could never cut myself as deep as you've cut me.

get it together

2009-09-20T01:17:00.002-06:00

Was at Colour Blind the other day perusing their wares when suddenly this track came on. I don't think I've ever been a big fan of these guys, but when I heard it I was so impressed by the old school style. It reminded me of Slick Rick in his prime so I was jiving along as I was checking out threads. Every so often the song would break and then you'd hear the store employees yelling out lines, it was so fantastic!!

I asked the guy what the track was and he said it was BEASTIE to my surprise. So of course I hit up iTunes & Youtube when I get home, and here you go:

problems

2009-09-19T16:30:00.003-06:00

I've been having issues lately with keeping up with things. I feel like my initial gung-ho nature surrounding the first few weeks of school has been washed away, and I'm finding it difficult to keep up the same work ethic. Obviously my blogging has been dying a little bit, which is also partly due to my inability to reflect on life lately. I find myself a little bit empty with nothing relevant or interesting to say. It's dejecting.

Today was the first day back after a two-day running hiatus. Two days doesn't really make a difference all the things considered, but I think just being away for a little bit made me realize how important this hobby of mine is to my well-being. I feel better psychologically if not physiologically (Mag believes it's mostly the former) - my energy and focus are just fantastic today. I cleaned my room today after watching it get messier for the last few days, wallowing in amotivation. I finished my assignment in record time, I cleaned my water bottle, and got caught up on all the news that had been passing me by the last few days. I prayed today.

I think I'm hitting a rut, and it's difficult to keep going. I'm going to try to push through, holding onto all the things that make me happy. Hobbies, friends, God - you are my anchor. Hold me steady.

***

carter racing

2009-09-17T23:13:00.008-06:00

In our seminar today, we reviewed this scenario known as the Carter Racing scenario. It's apparently pretty well known for being a good model to analyze decision-making, but none of us were quite ready for what it entailed.

The gist of it is this: Each seminar group must play a mock scenario where they are all members of the Carter Racing team. It is an hour before the race and the team members are all discussing how the gasket on the engine tends to blow and they don't know why. One member acts as the representative for Goodyear, this huge sponsorship company that is giving lots of financial incentive for Carter Racing to go through with the race. On the other hand, the mechanics state that there is a relationship with colder weather and the gaskets blowing and have weak evidence that suggests this trend. The driver also gets a say, and then the general managers must decide whether or not to continue. If they drive and win, there is a ridiculous amount of sponsorships and cash involved. If they drive and blow the gasket, they lose everything. There is also the possibility to withdraw from the race, end up 50 grand in the hole, but at least you won't be totally ruined.

There are three stages to the Carter Racing scenario, and at each stage you decide whether or not you want to go through with the race. The first stage was aforementioned, and includes the weak evidence that the gasket tends to blow more often below 20 degrees weather. The second stage elaborates in that the mechanic has 20 years of experience and has noticed that weather significantly affects the gasket breakdown. The final stage gives another graph that shows that above 20 degrees there are plenty of races without breakdowns, although no evidence is given for the temperature the race is currently experiencing (5 degrees - cold). They also mention that a new sealing technique has been used and the last two races have ended up fine.

Essentially, each stage gives you a little bit more information but not enough to make an obvious decision. The scenario is meant to pressure you by making you note that there is a lot on the line. It becomes extremely easy to avoid facing the evidence. Very few people (only one group out of 12) will be comfortable with backing up in the face of adversity in a pressured situation - gain seems to be more accessible than going in the hole and recouping. One group even said, "It's lame to not race".

I played the role of the mechanic, which ended up being appropriate because I didn't want to continue the race. The evidence suggested a trend that continuing the race would be irresponsible. However scant it was, I felt it was too risky to continue, regardless of how much incentive lay at the other end if we won. It's like gambling, right? There a lot of cash if you win, but you have to know when you're in over your head to call it quits - you can walk away better off and come back another day on more stable footing. I'm a conservative guy, so my thoughts were to just walk away. Ultimately, I was overruled by the General Manager who made the final decision to race despite my hesitations.

There is an answer to what happens. When we learned what it was, the entire room went silent, because the Carter Racing scenario was modeled on a very famous incident. The purpose of the scenario was to demonstrate the process that goes into decision-making with limited information, and the actions that people take as a result. While the consequences of the Carter Racing scenario versus the actual one differ entirely, both are dramatic analogies to how physiotherapists must practice with best evidence for the sake of the client.

***

Interesting analysis of Carter Racing Case.

cadaver palaver

2009-09-15T06:27:00.003-06:00

I think that cutting up a dead body is really wreaking havoc on my subconscious, even if I think that it's pretty darn sweet to see anatomy in the flesh (literally). We just switch the words around from corpse to cadaver when we mean to look at it from a health sciences perspective, but do words really change all the meaning? Regardless of whether its a dead body being autopsied or a dead body donated to study, it's still a human body, and we are still cutting it open and peeking at its contents. I feel a certain sense of fascination and wonder every time I open our cadaver up, but then this scent of glycol mixed with formaldehyde fills my nostrils and I have to suppress the urge to vomit into the chest cavity and float the heart to the surface for I feel I have no heart. I should pray before I dissect.

You tell me if it's bothering me. Last night I had this dream:

Mag, Christina and I were walking down this street in some urban metropolis. There was this gigantic building that Mag and Christina insisted had all sorts of cool stuff inside, so they hopped behind the wall dividing the street with the building while I continued walking along the street. I could hear them giggling and cajoling, and then all of a sudden Mag comes running out. The wind had picked up severely and was billowing underneath the underside of her sweater, lifting both the sweater and the backpack she was carrying up in much the same way an umbrella gets caught in the storm. She was holding on for dear life but the wind was picking her up and carrying her away, so at the last second she let go and dropped to the earth and her backpack and sweater went flying.

We began chasing it down. We recovered the purple sweater which fell some few blocks away, but the backpack was making off like a kite severed from its grounding string. We were forced to cut through this alley that led to someone's backyard, but the backyard was these rolling mounds of dirt kind of like moguls or those bumpy stretches you see in motorcross. I told Mag to stop but she had already raced ahead across the expanse, and you could see the mounds start to move and roll and Mag was trying to avoid them but then she moved out of my line of sight and I was forced to run in after her. The mounds figured Mag was too fast to catch and they started zoning in on me, and Christina and I ran towards the near exit to avoid it, leaving Mag behind. Just as we were jumping over the fence and out of the backyard, one of the mounds rises up and shows its true form - they're DIRT ZOMBIES out to eat our brains!!!

Christina and I desperately try to rendezvous with Mag on the other side of the fence, but she's nowhere to be found. We circle back and head down this tunnel we saw earlier which leads to darkness. I lose Christina in the process (its okay she likes exploring...?) but I do manage to find Mag after wandering the labyrinth which goes on for like 20 minutes in my dream. Mag has been converted to a dirt zombie and is mindlessly dissecting a row of human cadavers. I think she smells my brain because she turns towards me when I enter the room, growls in the same way she growls when she wants me to make her something to eat, and starts walking towards me. I know I'm effed because in my dream I will either kill Mag's doppelgänger or she will rip me apart and gnaw on my cranium. I do the only trick I know how to do and wake up.