So after completing my first year of medical school, what have I really learned? I feel that this past year has been less about learning about the human body and how it works and more about the process of dehumanizing the medical student population, creating a special bond that can exist only between people who know what it’s like to go through this torture, day in and day out. It really creates this elitist mentality of “I somehow did this. I must be something special.” What makes me feel even worse is that I don’t remember much about what I learned, not even from the three finals I had in three days last week.
Anyway, enough with the complaining and more with the writing! I think this last year really showed me that the brain really does wire itself for different tasks. I’ve tried to sit down and write something a couple of times, but I just could never get into my usual flow. Barraging the mind with scientific academia really can inhibit other processes, such as creative ones and basic bodily functions (no, I did not wet my bed). Time to detox.
I never breast-fed you so my breasts would stay large. That’s why I’m the hottest mother out there.
Really? It’s gay? Does the act of wearing a pink polo somehow make it seem that I’m suddenly attracted to men? Since when has the color pink become synonymous with wanting a man’s lips all over my dick, or watching the latest installment of gay porn from Raging Stallion Studios?
This made me angry. Angrier than the time I wore a shirt with a huge rainbow on it, because apparently, the rainbow is the universal sign of leprechauns hiding pots of gold (what I thought) and homosexuality. People should really grow up.
American viewers of the Academy Awards are, correct me if I’m wrong, denied the exquisite pleasure of seeing the pisspoor programming that overseas broadcasters cobble together to drop in when the US broadcast goes to an ad break. The live Oscars broadcast is handled here in the UK by my former employer Sky, an outpost of billionnaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. In days gone by they would have a presenter down the road from the event itself, with a succession of pundits and B-list Hollywood types. In these straitened times, however, as I discovered when I fast-forwarded through the recording last night, Sky’s interstitial programming extends no further than a lonely studio at their headquarters on the grubby fringes of Heathrow airport. The presenter, Claudia Winkleman, was joined by a couple of specky comedians, but the real treat was her third partner in exile, faded soap star Stephanie Beacham.
Older readers may remember Stephanie from her role in 80s Dynasty spin-off The Colbys, although also she popped up intermittently in low-budget horror and sub-soft porn numbers, and now graces Britain’s longest-running soap, the gritty and absurd Coronation Street.
Throughout the evening, as we saw actors young and old realise and reflect upon achieving their dreams, Beacham’s face was a picture every time we cut back to the studio. The pain was evident: seeing Kate Winslet pant through her acceptance speech, talking about how she’d been rehearsing the moment since she was an eight-year old girl practising with a shampoo bottle, must have been pure torture for Beacham. There were Kate, and Sophia, and Meryl, and Halle, and Anjelica and Anne - and here was poor Stephanie, sat in a warehouse under the LHR flightpath, wedged up against the two funnymen on an IKEA sofa, as if they were two tramps who’d flashed her on the tube.
The insecurity and self-regard of the acting classes fascinates me, and seeing Beacham squirm her way through the night was like seeing a strange amalgam of Krusty the Clown and Norma Desmond made flesh. Better than the show itself.
(Please reblog this. Thanks!)
I volunteer for the New York City Free Clinic and can attest to the tremendous amount of good it does for the patients who walk through its doors. With the current economic recession, grant money and other funds are in danger of being cut and we need all the help that we can get. Our goal is to raise $20,000 by the end of March. To read more about the NYC Free Clinic and our fundraising drive, you can go to our website. Any amount helps, no matter how small. Thank you and please help spread the word!
Med students will often say that even though they shouldn’t, they still cram for tests. The difference is that we cram for a week instead of eight hours before the exam.
My name is Alex. Just Alex. There’s no last name, no middle name. I don’t even consider Alex a first name. It’s just a name, a proper noun that supposedly captures my essence in one word. If you think about it, names are a hassle to deal with. Cher realized this; she was born Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre. In 1979, Cherilyn dropped the French, Armenian, and half her first name to be known simply as “Cher.” Prince took it one step further and had the love symbol. I wish I could be “the symbol formerly known as Alex.”
I was born with the legal name Chackochen James II. Constant variations of my name came up during my upbringing: Chack, Chacky, Chacky Chi (my mother’s play on Chucky Cheese), and Junior. I was even called “number two” by my mother once.
When I was eleven, I chose my confirmation name to be Xavier. My name was now Chackochen Xavier James II. I knew nothing of St. Xavier; my choice was due to Professor Xavier of the X-men, famed telepath of the alpha order and friend to humankind. I had a special bond with Charles Xavier. I was also a mutant.
I discovered my power in the car one rainy afternoon. There was a light drizzle, so my father didn’t turn on the windshield wipers, letting the raindrops slide down the glass. It wasn’t long before I noticed that wherever my eyes moved, droplets of water also moved. From right to left back to right, from up to down, I moved water. Some scientists may call this phenomenon gravity; I call it telekinesis.
The variations of my name were not limited to my home. Classmates and teachers constantly mocked me, intentionally or otherwise.
“Is it alright if I call you Chuck?” my seventh grade teacher asked me. She had a particularly hard time getting through the monstrosity of my name.
“Why?”
“I’m no good with these Hindu names.” I told her to call me Larry and she did for the rest of the year. She didn’t realize it was a joke until my mother came in to pick up my report card and told her to “get cultured or don’t teach my son.”
The worst butchering of my name came from Donnie Osgood, also in seventh grade. He was a new student, so I was automatically higher up than him in the middle school hierarchy, but when he came up with a name that rivaled the mess of Ms. Keller calling me Larry, I was flung to the bottom of the social ladder.
“What’s your real name Larry?” he asked.
“Chackochen Xavier James II.”
“Choke-a-chicken?”
“Chackochen.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Choke-a-chicken. Is that an Indian name?”
“Yeah, but it’s pronounced Chackochen.”
“Is your dad’s name Sitting Bull? Is your mom called Pocahontas?”
“What? That’s a Disney movie.”
“Where do you live?”
“A couple blocks away.”
“On the Indian reservation? I hear they’re going to build a casino over there.”
“I don’t think I’m that type of Indian,” I said.
I was called Choke-a-chicken for the rest of the school year. During the summer break, I decided to change my name to Alexander, Alex for short. Alexander means defender of mankind, something that would resonate with me once Professor X found me with Cerebro. The shortened form, Alex, gained popularity in the 1980’s due to Michael J. Fox’s character in “Family Ties,” Alex P. Keaton. It was a win-win situation.
A few people still called me Choke-a-chicken but for the most part, my name change went smoothly. This was made easier because Danny Shasha shit in his pants during a math test and we all called him “Shitting Shasha” for the rest of the year.
