the glory and the horror

Parental discretion advised, but only for the very last part of the video. It’s a clip from Jay Leno on the things people will do to have free photos taken.

This new name is taken from Kathleen, when she once used the same phrase to describe the field of medicine.

It seems to me that she was right on. There is much that seems barbaric in medicine, and there is much that is nigh miraculous to many laypeople.

Life itself is that way. Hence the new name.

It is sobering and humbling to think that as a married man, my wife and I are our own family.

At times, it feels as though we’re just extensions of our separate families, that just happened to be joined together, a sort of splicing together of two disparate parts. Other times, due to the geographical distances separating us from our families, we are acutely aware of our togetherness as a couple, as our own family unit. We have our own ways of running our household, our own traditions that we have created together.

It will only become more clear that we are our own family as we embark on this next stage in our life. We will be moving in just a few short months, and probably buying our first home, be it a house or a condo. This next stage will probably be a good chunk of time, possibly as long as five to seven years, if not longer. I think that it will be a major time in our life, with many firsts, hopefully.

As a side note, this coming week will be our first full week back at home in 9 weeks (since Thanksgiving, essentially) due to all of our traveling. We’ve been to California (northern and southern), Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Houston, Durham/Chapel Hill, Denver (and other parts of Colorado), and Wyoming. We have spent no more than 6 days in any one place. We’ve rented 3 different cars, including a convertible PT Cruiser during a snowstorm, and ridden the Amtrak Northeast Corridor. We’ve stayed in hotels, with old friends, with new friends, and with family. We’ve walked part of the Freedom Trail, been up in the Sears Tower, gagged on all the cigarette smoke in NC airports, discovered how expensive cabs can be in various cities, enjoyed 70+ degrees weather in Houston in January, and have pledged to never fly into Dulles again if we can fly into Reagan.

We’re actually quite glad to be done with our travels. We’re tired of rushing home, doing laundry, getting stuff drycleaned, only to turn around and go again in 3 days. It’s not particularly restful.

We are totally done with all of our residency interviews! NRMP, here we come!

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and ahold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I saw drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

I love reading to analyze, to find the author’s reason(s) for writing the piece, to see if I agree, disagree, or other. I don’t read much poetry, usually, but I’m reading more for a class that I’m taking this semester. This piece struck me tor the point that the poet is trying to make – that we shouldn’t try too hard to find the point. Sometimes, we should read and let the words soak into us, and us into the words, so that we become enveloped in them, and they wrap around us and our senses.

The first few lines are particularly vivid. The mouse is inside, coming out, taking some wrong turns along the way, but gently feeling, one step at a time. The room is dark, and it isn’t entirely clear, but there’s a light switch somewhere, where all would be illuminated.

There is such a thing as trying too hard, as the last few lines suggest. What good is it to flog something with a hose? It’s not exactly the tool of choice if you’re trying to get something out of someone.

Poems are supposed to be affective. Sometimes, I don’t give it the chance to be what it is designed to be.

My latest CD purchase, with the Amazon gift certificate I received from my parents from Christmas. It’s very fun. Not as energetic as some of his previous work, but still great.

It has become clear over and over that I am going to reach a decision point in my training very soon. Do I pursue a more clinical track for my career, or a more academic track? This comes into play as I have to decide what to do with my one year of residency that I’m trying to land. Will I ever come back to clinical medicine, assuming I go and get that PhD after my intern year? If so, how will I maintain my clinical skills? How will I stay up to date on current therapies and the like?

The other option is actually easier, and conceivably more likely, since most PhD programs don’t officially have a clinical track. Rice does, and I could probably “create” one at a couple other places, but it would be difficult. So this question is really only a question assuming that we end up in Houston.

Oh, we would like to be in Houston. We’ve been praying for it quite specifically for a while now.

I really do enjoy the clinical practice of medicine, of sitting with patients, explaining to them what is going on, what we’re going to do about it, and how they can be a part of making things work. It’s just not enough for me.

Am I just perpetually dissatisfied with where God has me in the present?

Welcome to 2006. (a little late) That means I’ve been married for a year. That means I’ll be graduating from medical school in a few short months. That means we’re going to be moving somewhere for residency in June. We’ve had a pretty smooth time traveling, all things considered. There was all that snow in Philly and Boston in mid-December, but CA, NC, and DC have been quite kind to us, so far.

Unfortunately, this week, we had to divide and conquer. Kathleen has been up on the eastern seaboard, while I was in Houston and DC this week. We’ve got a couple more interviews to go, and then we’ll be done! The rank list is starting to take shape, slowly.

All this traveling is pretty tiring, and it makes it kinda hard to keep up with things like laundry, eating up the fresh produce, and keeping the apartment halfway cleaned up. But I did watch UT pull it out against USC the night before my interview in DC.