Last Day

Today is the last day of a glorious month.

I turned 23.
Battlestar Galactica ended gloriously.
I have re-discovered ST:DS9 due to a glorious find at a certain awesome website.
My room's a mess. A glorious mess.
I have started gloriously biking again since the weather improved.
I got a glorious new set of legs for my wobbly glass table.
I have three glorious weeks left to study for tests. :'(

That's about it. Turning 23 was not that eventful.

Civic fail

I've discovered the "delay post" feature of blogger. Hence, I can impose some order onto my Blitzkriegs.

Every once in a while, they have these commercials -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opYFn99TGjg

I'll admit, interesting premise. But 36 mpg highway? How is that a selling point? I looked up the engine sizes on the Civic - 1.3L to 2.0L, all I4 engines (inline 4). The civic is a crappy vehicle. All the other Honda models are orders of magnitude better (except for Fit and Element, god damn)

I only say this because...

BAM!
34.6MPG

That's me, driving back to Plano. Average speed - 69mph. Mileage - 34.6 (it climbed to 35.2 as I was merging onto US75).

So, having a slightly larger car, with a 2.4L V6 and a significantly faster pickup, I can still manage 33+ mpg everytime when I'm on the road. Thank you, 7 speed transmission.

Come on, Honda. Step up your game.* Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Honda.

One more thing, see that "C" next to D? I was leaving TMC the other day and I decided to take the long way around, changed from 'Comfort' to 'Sport'. At 3AM.

It was legendary.

*: Meaning, roll out the FCX already. I will buy this when it comes out.

Twitter

I finally joined Twitter.

You can check out what I was doing last time I updated. I guess it's a bit faster than Facebook status (even though it's essentially the same thing). I figure, a ton of Senators (read, old geezers) are on it, so I might as well join.

Twitter

Children are hilarious patients. They have one of three answers. "Yes", "No", and [blank stare]. Does your leg hurt? Yes.
How does your leg hurt? Yes. (...)
Does your face hurt? Yes.
How does that hurt? Yes.

The mothers usually just stand there with either the "well, fix him!" or "gosh I don't know what's going on" look. So I tried something new.

This one kid came in and the mom warned me that he was being combative and doesn't actually know where he hurts (but hurts everywhere you ask him) and he was in some apparent distress. Go figure.

So, I came down to his eye level and I asked him - "Where does it hurt?"

Silence.

After a few seconds, I told him that if he couldn't tell me, we couldn't help him.

More silence.

Finally, he tells me that it doesn't hurt at all right now. That's what I'd been waiting for. Of course you're not hurting. Your face has no sign of grimacing and you were bullying your sister when I walked into the room.

Now let me go check if your immunizations are completely up to date. I am cruel.

Fog this morning

The Pad

Before I start rambling again, the blitzkrieg of posts will begin now. I usually have an aim of 4 a month, but I'm clearly feeling a little behind (content-wise, not quantity) and once I start writing, I usually can't stop - something about crossing over the activation energy to get this ball rolling. Right.

There are few undeniable truths to life. Regardless of whether I would become a physician or not I always imagined that prescriptions would be written on a pad, and the doctor would hand you this piece of paper, which summed up years of training and some sort of a guarantee (or belief) that whatever's on that piece of paper would work for that ailment. It's symbolic! I'd call it "pre-treatment." Best not lose that piece of paper because there's some *important* stuff written on it!

Now, everyone is transitioning to EMRs. This one part in Tampa is going completely paper-less. Call me old fashioned (these last few days haven't helped) but I'd like to write my own prescriptions on a piece of paper, thank you. 'Authorizing' a pharmacy to dispense a medication isn't nearly as powerful as putting some semblance of that power in the patient's hands through a handwritten note.

It's like whenever I'd go to a doctor's office and near the end of my own rambling about my illness, he'd pull out that pad and scribble something illegible and say something like "I'm going to give you something for your strep throat."*

Now, it's "Which pharmacy would you like me to send this to?" and if the patient didn't know, he'd get a printed piece of paper with the medication clearly written on it, dosage and all.

CEFTRIAXONE 200mg

CIPROFLOXACIN 50mg

CLARITHROMYCIN 10mg**

They would all look the same If I wrote them on a piece of paper.

Actually, the real beauty of all this is that the pad is like a magical encryption tablet which only the doctor and the pharmacist (hopefully) can read. Do I really want my patients looking these drugs up on Wikipedia and asking me about all the dangerous side effects? (Most of them include DEATH, ironically, to be on the SAFE side)

Not to the extent most people take it, no. Trust me. You'll be fine. (I think..)

*: I had this a lot. Fuck streptococcus.

**: Random dosages. Real doctors, please don't get on my case.

Aye Kewk

Some chicken, some beans, and an arsenal of spices I use to assault my taste buds. Very simple stuff, actually.

That silicone thing is so awesome.

Ha..Ha...

A bunch of people were at the bus stop today and when the bus came, we all started getting on. One or two entered through the rear door and the driver says - "Please don't enter through the backdoor" and I blurted out "That's what she said" and a bunch of tired nurses just stared at me. Not one laugh. Not even one small pity chuckle.

I have yet to grow up. But you know, being a student is all about change. I'm limiting my computer usage to 2 hours a day outside lecture (so, 6 total).

Perhaps I'll finally get some work done.