yep...it's friday but that makes no difference to people like me.

don't you love that spam when t hemess age body isstag gered soyou rcomp uter doe snot recog nizethe patt ernaandas sumesit isleg itima temail. Or the ones that are absolutely random words tied together like one of those magnetic poetry sets: stars forward exotic press meadow splendor anaerobic johnson corner snowbank wildly alternative chair feels blind store clown differ reaction module happy gruesome vector integration.

well what do you know, it is now Friday and a year and a half ago I would have been looking forward to the weekend. Maybe rollerblading, or shopping or just walking around the city with the wife hand in hand, laughing and talking and spending time together and such. Perhaps a trip to Taco Bell for a gastrointestinal cleansing in the late afternoon. Perhaps a trip to westchester to relax and bask in the warmth that is "The inlaws". But...no, for this weekend will be filled with an inordinate amount of study. 2nd orgo exam on Monday and a massive lab report due monday morning and a calculus exam the following monday and physics webassignments to complete, and oh yes my MCAT prep course.....I don't think there are enough hours in the day for me to accomplish everything that I need to accomplish. I am going to turn around and it will be sunday night 9pm and family guy will be on tv and i'll be freaking out about it all. Stress is good right? This is what Med school is going to be like right? So I should just get used to it. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to work....but despite the meagerness of my pay it does help to pay the bills. I am slightly worried that I may have overextended myself this semester in a an attempt to finish faster (for many reasons too numerous to discuss here), but my GPA should not suffer too much. Poor planning on my part. Wish I started school a little earlier than perhaps there wouldn't be so much pressure on me.....

Well anyway I'm done with my little ditty here.

YET ANOTHER QUOTE OF THE DAY
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?

ONE MORE
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Corrections

So the quote of the day had a large error in it.
It should've read: "If I had a nickel for every cigarette your mom smoked, I'd be dead"

The 43 letter Bulgarian curse word actually rhymes with the word "pensive" and NOT "alacrity". You wouldn't believe how many calls I got about that one! whew!

"et al." was not a part of the conversation with big bird in reference to Mr. Hooper. I just remember him being there, I was wrong and I am sorry. I get my puppets mixed up sometimes.

The comedian to which I was referring to was Bob Carlin (also a banjoist) and not George Carlin...sorry about that.

I will try and keep my information straight when next we meet. Have a grand weekend all.

Cheers!


QUOTE OF THE DAY
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said "Where am I Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan

Going to go with some court room quotes stuff for the next few posts...just dang funny and just handed to me by an attorney in our office..
ok so here's another one:

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work

ok last one for now:

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

excerpts taken from the book "Disorder in the Courts of America"

Fcukheds and azwipes...A tribute to the English language (Part 23 of 46)

I really appreciate usage of certain words. I am unsure of what the fascination is behind such usage, but we as Americans spend a great deal of our time using them. If I had a nickel for every time I've used or heard one of these words, I can tell you I would not be in my office right now. Where did these words come from. Are they the product of the school yard. Who was the first person to call someone an "a**wipe" and when did the word "a**hole" first make an appearance in conversation. Which came first "doo doo head" or "s**thead"? And what of the all encompassing granddad of them all, that wonderful four lettered friend of ours. You know the one to which I refer. Used by someone on the phone today in fact in conjunction with the word "head", as a synonym for "idiot". Can you imagine if Dostoevsky had called the novel "The F**khead"? The word just rolls right out of your mouth, in fact I would venture to guess that anyone who is reading this right now is either saying this word in their head right now or it just slipped out audibly. Another nickel for me. The amount of words that come out of someone when they are very angry can be quite a spectacular barrage of four, five, and seventeen letter curse words. There is even a 43 letter Bulgarian curse word that rhymes with "alacrity." We've come a long way since Carlin's pivotal seven which are now "the seven words you probably won't hear on Sesame Street, but you will everywhere else on television". The question you have to ask yourself is Do you think the guy who gives voice to "Elmo" ever curses?...and if he does, does he curse in "Elmo" voice? Can you imagine if the conversation about Mr. Hooper (between Big bird, Bob, David, Olivia, Maria, et al.) went something like this "He f**king died you big yellow dumb-a**...he's dead...do you f**king get it...he's not coming back!!!" OK, so I went a little too far there sorry folks. That moment scarred me emotionally as a child (I was nine, but that is another story altogether.."but that is another story" (can you believe that I want to be a pediatric surgeon?)

Do you think that Mother Teresa ever cursed?...I mean she lived an awfully long time to not curse just once....seriously...we are all teenagers at least once in our lives!

Does anyone else remember the time when "cursing" meant to inflict physical or karmic harm on a person, place or thing through ritual magic? uh...me neither.

Just amazing what kind of creativity can go into language. The evolution of words is astounding. I am always amazed to find new words in the dictionary that have only been used with regularity for the last 5 years or so, "D'oh", for instance, is now actually printed as a word with a definition in many dictionaries around the world. and what a world we live in...

Alas....off to school to infect my mind with mathematics....

Cheers.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
"If I had a nickel for every cigarette you smoked, I'd be dead."

At this point I just want to be invited to the dance...

I often wonder if I really am up for this challenge. Last night I was a bit overwhelmed with everything that is on my plate at the moment and it occurred to me that this is what medical school is going to be like. My weeks have started to bleed together in an array of lectures, study, preparation, exams, labs, food, and occasionally some sleep (tainted by dreams of lectures, study, preparation, exams, labs, the most recent of which included my organic chem professor and many of my fellow classmates at my home and my professor asking me where the bottle of scotch is?). Add to my schedule, the commencement of an MCAT prepcourse beginning this weekend, the first class of which is a practice exam. Naturally, I dreamt about this as well, with my first semester calculus teacher administering the exam and I being an hour late (at least I was not naked.) The pressure is starting to really build up and I am getting very irritable, to wit I took last night off from my studies and played some Simpsons Road Rage while my wife and a fellow MSW student discussed the finer points of their field placements.
Earlier this week I took an opportunity, during our weekly orgo chem workshops, to place an answer to one of the problems up on the board for presentation to the class and found that as I picked up the chalk to write it all down, I was shaking. I was so damn nervous, even after confirming that I had done the problem correctly with one of the TA's, prior to my putting it on the board. I've performed in front many more people than were in this small lecture room, but never had the feeling that more than 50% of them wanted me to fail in some way. The competition is outrageous and I know that med school is not going to be any different. Many of the horror stories that I have heard, include all night watches of cadavers so that rival groups would not be able to tamper with them. I understand feeling competitive in terms of being asked to the dance, but once you're there shouldn't you just dance and not worry about anything or anyone else for the time being, but that is not the nature of the beast, because the competition just gets worse and worse. I have no illusions about what I am getting into and I certainly don't think of this as some over-written, slick produced television show that eventually caters to the viewing public's desires by taking away everything that makes the show interesting and turning it into a show about relationships. (funny story: so at the hospital where I am a volunteer, an ambulance came in with a woman who had been shot, two trauma doctors ran out to meet the ambulance, while a room was being prepared and people were buzzing about in anticipation of something a bit more exciting than the usual patients (i.e. I fell, I have a headache, my stomach hurts, etc) and as this was all happening a desk clerk commented...."Wow, this is just like that show ER".) Every time I think that I don't want to do this, I go and spend four hours in a hospital emergency room and I know that this is what I want to do....I want the white coat and blank sleepless stare that comes with it, the surly nurses, the vomiting, the excrement, the faint smell of urine from some of the stretchers. I want to be one of those med student/resident/attendees that passes a volunteer and doesn't give them the time of day, and can't even look them in the face because they are beneath me. (that's the part that I don't understand, didn't they all have to go through the volunteer thing that I am going through to get where they are, do they even understand that I am there not only to help myself, but help others too (umm...isn't that why people want to be doctors....to help others, to heal others, etc.) and make thier jobs (and the nurses jobs) just a little bit easier by giving the patients something to focus on so that they don't get pissed off by the fact that they have been sitting there in a bed for 12 hours and haven't been seen by anyone. But, I and other volunteers don't mean anything. It just seems a little odd and I know that all of them are under an immense amount of pressure, especially the med students and such...and who can forget about all the competition amoungst all the other med students, residents etc, but is it that hard to make eye contact with a lowly volunteer, I mean what is this, a caste system in India....(yes...yes it is)...."Well..enough of my yackin'....let's boogie!"