HSM vs. camp rock

For reasons that are not entirely clear, we spent last Saturday night watching Camp Rock and High School Musical 2. If you are like me and live under a rock (Jonas who?), you may not have heard of these cinematic masterpieces, the latest from Disney's marketing geniuses. It seems the formula for wild success with teenaged (and, apparently, unnamed 20-something) girls is any combination of cute boys, upbeat candy pop, and choreographed group dance. Plot is irrelevant, as are acting skills. So which of these soon-to-be-classic films comes out on top? Let us compare according to the aforementioned criteria.

1) Cute boys

I have to go with Camp Rock and the Jonas brothers on this one. While Zac Efron (HSM) isn't bad, he reeks of fake-bake and too much makeup. The middle Jonas brother really takes the cake in "smoldering hotness": several million teenage girls can't all have bad taste (+1). Unfortunately, the oldest Jonas brother has hideous poodle-puff hair in this movie (-1), as well as some pretty idiotic lines. He just can't catch a break. The youngest one is adorable though, and the middle brother gets some quality close-up shots as he serenades us -- I mean, his on-screen love interest -- on the guitar (+1).


CR 1, HSM 0

2) Upbeat candy pop

Both movies are pretty comparable in this category. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the same artists worked on both movies. No huge risks, no experimental funk riffs, no mind-bending or innovative chord progessions. A lot of your basic VI-IV-I-V, with solid inspirational "be yourself" Disney messages sprinkled throughout the lyrics. That said, Disney does nothing if not excel at catchy pop that you can't help liking immediately. CR +1, HSM +1.

CR 2, HSM 1

3) Choreographed group dance routines

High School Musical definitely wins here. I have no idea how the producers of Camp Rock dropped the ball so completely on the dance routines and/or casting kids who can dance. There is one particularly painful scene in which the middle Jonas brother is supposed to be "teaching" the group of aspiring rockers how to dance. He kind of flails about with seizure-like activity. Seriously, how did the director see this after filming and actually go, "Hey yeah, that's great, let's put this scene in the movie!" It's clear that the HSM kids are all extremely natural and talented dancers, and they benefit from great choreography as well (+1).

FINAL SCORE: CR 2, HSM 2 TIE!! I think what this means is that there is no winner when it comes to watching either of these movies.

But wait!! There is a fourth bonus category: unintentional comedic value. Now I know I said that plot and acting ability are irrelevant in these movies, and that mostly holds true. However, Camp Rock pushes the envelope when it comes to unacceptably bad acting, flat dialogue, and cheesy predictable plot. This, on top of the poodle-puff hair and seizure-dancing, makes for nonstop hilarity!! Good times and laughs all around!! CR +1 for the win!!

P.S. Okay, this is somewhat lame.
P.P.S. Shut up, I'm an MS4 with time on my hands.

typecast

Following are a few of the people who have intrigued me recently. There is some unintentional typecasting, which upon further consideration is definitely not a recent development.

Russell Brand. So inexplicably captivating. The sarcasm, the accent, the legend...

The boys (men?) of Ratatat. Inspirational. Contemplative.

Nick Simmons. Yes, I am a cradle-robber.

why i am dumb

(a.k.a. A Day in Jo's Life)*

I was starving on my entire 40-min drive home from work. Planned how and what I would make, how yummy it would be, the whole nine yards. A breaded chicken breast and some pasta. Maybe even some grated Parmesan if I'm feeling fancy. Yes. Yummy indeed.

I walk in the front door and immediately set a pot of water to boil. A-ha, I think. I can save time by starting the pot first, then changing out of my work clothes while waiting for the water to boil. Yes. Good idea, Jo. So efficient! The plan is set in action.

Suddenly I smell something weird. Something is burning. Now naked, I run over to the stove to see that an errant dish towel has caught fire. Huge, leaping flames! I begin to freak out. Then my smoke alarm goes off, and I really freak out. The flames are too tall just to pour water on the stove! There's no time to get the fire extinguisher (which, by the way, is conveniently stored above my reach). What do I do??? I grab the flaming towel with tongs, smoke billowing off of it, and run it over to the bathroom to submerge the whole thing in the shower. The flames thankfully extinguish, and my heart is pounding as I cough away the clouds of smoke in my lungs.

However, the damn smoke alarm is still going off for my entire building. Dear God, it's loud. I run around to open all the doors and windows and turn on all the ceiling fans. Crap, I'm still naked. I pray to God that my apartment won't send a building manager over right now to check out the smoke alarm.

I spend 2 more minutes waiting frantically (and finding clothes). The smoke alarm finally goes off. Crisis averted!! At this point I am pretty satisfied with the turn of events, for all that I'm standing with a T-shirt on backwards in the middle of my living room.

I go back into the bathroom to inspect the charred remains of the dish towel. It is then that I notice that I have singed all the hairs around my face, as well as both eyebrows. I would include a picture, but I may just cry. Thus continues my second annual pattern of doing something drastic to my hair that will require an entire year to grow out of.

*still not a Thailand post

not a thailand post yet

Okay, I keep procrastinating on the Thailand update. No surprise if you know me, really. It will come eventually. On a random note, I actually woke up at a decent hour today and flipped through the TV channels at 8AM on a Sunday. I quickly learned that the only things to watch early Sunday mornings are evangelical Christian shows and infomercials. Soooo... I left a Christian show on in the background as I went about making coffee and eggs. And oatmeal and blueberries. The contents of my breakfast are irrelevant. Moving on.

Apparently, the former lead guitarist of Korn, Brian "Head" Welch, has become a fervent proponent of Christianity. There he was, in all his black-eyelined, twisted-beard, tattooed-and-dreadlocked glory, sitting and giving an interview to the staid, prim, and proper hosts of this Sunday morning evangelical Christian show.



Actually, he looks kind of Jesus-ish on the cover of his book, so maybe it's appropriate after all. I'll still listen to Korn (now sans-Head), but seriously, how bizarre.

the lingo

Every field has it: the insider culture, jokes, language. Since being introduced to the financially-ubiquitous use of "aggressive," I've been singlehandedly trying to start a wave in the medical culture. I'm confident it'll catch on soon. For example, "Mr. X, you have a form of cancer that's particularly aggressive." Except that we already use "aggressive" in that sense. Shit.

In the meantime, here are a few gems that I think might translate well. Go forth and globalize your office or firm! Or wherever else it is you spend your day - your mom's basement, that's cool too.

Badness (n). A general term for "this does not look good." Often used by interns and med students when asked to specifically interpret radiographic studies. Used in combination with generalized sweeping motion of the hand in generalized area of CT or X-ray.

Churn and burn. A phrase used to describe the act of discharging a patient as soon as humanly (healthily?) possible after admitting him, in order to pare down the service. Heard almost constantly on call nights.

Gunner (n). An overly competitive and ambitious (some might say, "aggressive") med student. Likely to backstab fellow students. Always used in derogatory fashion. BIG potential for this one to spread into other fields.

Pimp (v). To ask spontaneous, often random and trivial, questions in order to test the knowledge of your underlings or simply to create anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. Performed under the guise of the Socratic method.

Rock (n). The patient that has been sitting on your internal medicine service for several weeks and doesn't seem to be getting any better, no matter what you do. A problem that will not be leaving in any foreseeable future. This term does not exist in surgery, where patients are discharged home as soon as they are able to fart. You think I'm kidding.

Strong work. A phrase of congratulations exchanged between medicine team members for, you guessed it, a job well done. Often means getting a patient back to his baseline barely-healthy-enough-to-avoid-hospitalization state to discharge him. See: churn and burn.

real quotes, part 2

Jo (to patient with suspected small bowel obstruction)

So when was the last time you passed gas?

Patient, writhing and moaning inconsolably

I'm not. I dunno. A week maybe. Ohhhhhh my stomach!!

Jo

A WEEK?? (Mind reels frantically. This is a surgical emergency!) Are you sure??

Patient

Yeessss!! Ohhhhhh!!

*proceeds to rip one loudly*

**********************

Fast forward: Jo presents patient to third year resident. R3 and Jo re-enter room.

R3

I hear you're having some abdominal pain.

Patient

*rips another one*

R3 shoots Jo an amused look. Jo almost falls over laughing on the spot and nearly suffocates while choking back laughter.

R3

So, uh, you said you don't think you're passing any gas? When do you think the last time was?

Patient, with "duh" expression

Just now.

real quotes

Two 100% real conversations with patients on trauma surgery:

Jo (to drunk injured driver brought in after motor vehicle collision)

Is there anyone we can call right now to let them know you're here?

Patient

Yeah, uh, I got a woman.

Jo

Sure, what's her name and a number where I can reach her?

Patient

[gives first name and number]

Jo

And her last name?

Patient

Uhh... I dunno. It don't matter anyway, we getting married soon and it's gonna be MY last name.

****************

Jo (to drunk combative patient, who will be a convicted felon upon release from hospital, with gunshot wound to upper thigh)

Sir, I'm going to need you to lay still so I can examine this wound.

Patient

No!! Stop touching me!! That hurts, b****!! [thrashes around wildly]

Jo (yelling)

Be still! I need to stop this bleeding. I'm going to lift up your gown and look at your thigh now, okay? [looking around desperately for his accompanying police to restrain him]

Patient concedes, lifts his entire gown, and exposes his genitalia and anus with legs splayed

How's that? You like THAT, b****?

Jo

Sir, please just lay still. There is no need for you to do that.

Patient

Shieeeet, I ain't just putting on a free show here!

pedi GI

Q&A with an MS3 (me!) on pediatric GI service.

What does a typical day smell like?
Well, pretty much like poop. Kidding. A lot of patients are actually here for liver transplant, malabsorption, or pancreatic disease.

So... GI docs don't work with poop?
Don't get me wrong, I've done my share of "cleaning out" kids with fecal impaction. Medically, this involves infusing Golytely* (osmotically active PEG, combined with electrolytes) down a nasogastric tube and waiting until the kid is dripping clear out the other end. Practically, this translates to several days' worth - literally a shitload - of stale, built-up, previously rock-hard fecal matter. We actually put adult diapers on my little 2-year-old when he finally (and explosively) began stooling after 2 days of continuous Golytely.
*Har har. So punny, those drug companies!

Ew, diapers filled with poop.
Yes. And then they send in the third year medical student to pry open the dirty diapers to document texture, color, presence of blood/mucus, odors, etc. Believe it or not, some GI diseases are described in textbooks as producing "foul-smelling stools." Who is writing these textbooks???

What about buttholes?
Yes, we do that too. Sometimes this just means looking for anal fissures. Other times I have to insert a finger. All in a good morning's work before lunch!

Is it true that GI doctors use food descriptions for poop textures?
Yes. Two notable examples are "banana" and "Wolf Brand Chili."

I've heard you enjoy humorous poop stories. Is poop still funny?
Definitely.

fun with acronyms

Actual buzzwords used in pedi clinic/hospital.

"precious" = something's a little off in a newborn, e.g. suspect chromosomal disorder
FLK = funny-looking kid
BFH = big f*ing head (hydrocephalus)
GLM = good-looking mom

More to come later.

dream of californication

Still living the SoCal fantasy. And wondering why the hell I didn't grow up there. And then admitting that even if I did, I probably would have been one of the dorky Asian math-whiz kids instead of the rebel hipster type.

Thank you Anthony and the RHCP for being the bright spot in my otherwise dreary USMLE-studying days. Your autobiography, Scar Tissue, has proven to be a vastly informative resource for studying the toxicology of cocaine and heroin.

the office

I recently saw my first episode of The Office. Despite hearty recommendations from many a friend, I just never watched it for some reason. Okay, several reasons: never being home, not really watching TV in general, arbitrarily limiting myself to following only one show and (not-so-)arbitrarily designating Grey's... but come to think of it, The Office fits neatly into the 30-min slot before Grey's. I'm going to give it a chance, and will probably end up raising my arbitrary limit to two.

The episode I saw wasn't particularly life-changing or sidesplitting. I mean, it was funny, but not addictively so (at least not yet). This seems like one of those absurdist humor shows that grows on you until you can't believe you ever thought it was anything less than spectacularly hilarious. Kind of like Family Guy. Or Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Actually, no, that's always going to be a terrible show.

I will admit the following: about 5 minutes into the episode, I thought, Thank God my chosen career setting won't be a boring corporate prison. And then I immediately thought, I'm an idiot, this is about as realistic as the hospitals in ER or Grey's. And then a third thought, Crap, what do I know, I have zero work experience in either of those places.

Until then, I'll be watching TV on Thursday evenings.

moved

"Hide and Seek," imogen heap
"Into the Fire," Thirteen Senses
"Apologize," OneRepublic
"Love Will Come Through," Travis
"Long Way Down," Radford
"Boston," Augustana

do you speak body?

"I have power in my pelvis."
"I am dangerously insane."
"My boom-boom is unavailable."

Learn to speak body

I don't know if it's my post-renal/musculoskeletal delirium, but this is too funny not to share. I actually laughed out loud.

MS2 hypochondria

-mildly/subclinically bipolar (diff dx: study-induced moodiness)
-iron-deficiency anemia (diff dx: study-onset fatigue)
-pre-hypertension (diff dx: noncalibrated sphygmanomometer and/or P's lack of clinical skill)
-ADHD (diff dx: study-related boredom)
-blurry vision (diff dx: study-onset delirium)
-back pain (diff dx: study-related sitting for too many hours)
-night chills (diff dx: heat currently nonfxnal at apt)
-tremors (diff dx: caffeine overload)
-pectus excavatum (diff dx: being drunk when I convinced myself)

euro, metro, or homo?

I used to have a mini-crush on Cristiano Ronaldo...



...until I saw these pictures.

No comment. B wins this discussion, for rightly making fun of me when I was crushing on Ronaldo in the first place.

from grey's season premiere

Dr. Callie Torres (a.k.a. the one who looks like a drag queen):

It's the doctor thing. 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, 4 yrs of med school... by the time we graduate we're in our late twenties and all we know how to do is sit in a classroom and study science. Time stops. We're socially retarded. Meredith? She's 17 years old. I'm 17 years old. This is high school with scalpels.

Truer words have never been spoken. This really is high school. With the addition of:
1) being of legal drinking age
--> i.e. alcohol is a very necessary social crutch
2) living on our own
--> i.e. no authority figures to protect us from ourselves
3) much much more gossip
--> i.e. no time to meet anyone outside of med school, tensions build, and the intraclass drama web is prob larger than anyone lets on

Of all the things Grey's does unrealistically (hey I still love it), they really hit this nail on the head.

super quick update

Life somehow got exponentially busier when classes began. I should have known. My eating/sleeping/workout schedule revolves around studying.

Sun Aug. 27: 7-10pm show at Pearl. Damn, I really hope this music freelancing thing doesn't cause me to fail out of med school. I was also supposed to write/arrange more music for future performances but that's obviously not going to happen for this one.

And yet... not gonna lie, I'm loving the non-med-school-ness of it.

Mon Aug. 28: 9am-12pm immunology exam
Tues Aug. 29: 9am-12pm pharmacology exam
later that week: (underwear) party at my place? umm - depends on exhaustion level. And somehow find time in between to work out, eat, sleep, and play soccer as well.

Today I also found out 2 friends and I made it to final callbacks for a hair model call we randomly entered last week at the Aveda Salon. Perks include free haircut/color/style of their choosing and $200 to be in their hair model fashion show... or whatever it is these fancy salon people do at their fancy hair conventions at fancy hotels. At first we thought it was literally a HAIR model call but then they took face/body Polaroids, wrote down our height and clothing sizes, etc. and asked if we had previous modeling experience.

Whatever, free haircut. I just hope I don't end up with pink hair.

freelancing

Introducing... the Mistura Quartet. Violinist and cellist are music grad students at SMU, violist is a Juilliard/Yale graduate, and yours truly on violin/guitar.

I'm finally getting back into performing(!) after a year-long hiatus from all music due to this thing called med school. There's a live music bar/club downtown called Pearl, and the owners just really love live music in general. Each night of the week has a different theme/genre (rock, jazz, salsa, Irish, blues, "international," classical, etc.) We'll be playing there regularly all year on Sunday classical nights, with our own original acoustic rock, Broadway, jazz, etc. arrangements thrown in for fun. I met the owners last week and they seem awesome; the bar itself is all black leather and sleek chrome. There's also a VIP room and an upstairs gallery for local artists.

The official grand opening is this Saturday night. We take the stage Sunday night, Aug. 13 at 8pm. I'm so excited I'd probably do it just for fun... but I certainly won't complain about being paid (and we keep a cut of the bar tabs too! and tips!) Maybe this might even give me a life outside of med school... hello artsy types in downtown Dallas.

things that feel great

Things that feel great after but not necessarily during:
-brushing my teeth
-working out
-cleaning
-taking exams

Things that feel great during but not necessarily after:
-eating too much
-drinking too much
-college
-umm let's keep this PG

speed dating, part deux

As promised. Albeit slightly delayed.

The premise: 4 minutes per date; keep track of your yes/no responses for each date as to whether or not you want to see them again. Afterwards in the safety of your own home, fill in your yes/no responses online and find out with whom you matched. This is a 25-35 year old event. Shhh don't tell.

Timeline of events:

A's friend ("K") was the organizer, so we get in for free. I am here for kicks and moral support. $5 mojitos and two separate name-tag stickers later, (one for your name, one for your assigned speed dating number) we're like cattle being herded off.

Date #1: I forget to write down his number at the end of the 4 minutes. Oops. That one was lost forever in the online match system.

Date #3: I've gotten this speed dating thing down to an exact science. Hi, what do you do? Where are you from? What do you enjoy doing for fun? Randomly insert smiles, nods, and "Oh, that's great."

Date #?: Shy fidgety guy with a nervous tic (keeps blinking/winking in one eye) sits down and says nothing. I use my friendliest smile and try to keep conversation flowing. He finally says he's here because women are guaranteed to talk to him for 4 minutes. I am profoundly sad. This is also the most awkward 4 minutes of my life.

Date #[halfway through]: I realize that these guys are actually writing down my name and notes to help them remember me. Thus far I have only been circling yes or no beside each number. And by circling "yes or no," I really mean circling no. Hey, I said I was here for moral support.

Date #?: Burly Sopranos-hit-man looking guy glances at me and immediately and obviously circles yes before I even introduce myself. Goes off about his extensive law career and divorce law. Flashes his enormous ring and watch. I didn't know people like this existed outside of movies.

Date #?: Emergency Medicine resident from NY. Loves classical music and is genuinely interested in my former violin career. We discuss favorite music, NY hangouts, and the ballet we both happened to see last wkd. Also, he looks uh, older. This feels like dating my dad (okay not MY dad, but a father/mentor figure). Too weird.

Date #[towards the end]: Cute interesting guy ("N"). He's K's friend who graciously filled in at the last minute to even out the guy/girl ratio. He's not here to hook up, but then neither am I. He's a chemical(?) engineer by day and photographer (www.printsagainstpoverty.com) by night. He has humanitarian worldviews and ridiculously blue eyes. I circle yes out of curiosity to see if we match later.

Date #12: The end. Overall, these were (mostly) really nice guys, all professional, well-mannered, but maybe a bit shy or too busy with work to really go out and meet people. They would probably make some nice woman a nice boyfriend. Just not for me.

N asks us if we want to head out for tapas, drinks, and dancing with him, K, and K's boyfriend. We go and have drinks (it IS Alice's birthday after all). N is really cool but is sort of off-limits given the circumstances (i.e. he wasn't really there to meet people, right?).

I fill in my 11 responses online 4 days later. Sadly, Date #1 really is lost in the system forever. I match with N. Surprisingly, I'm shown who said yes to me even though I said no (which defeats the purpose of the safety of online match, doesn't it?) 11 said yes.