Bigger is better?

I'm back! So after a long hiatus, and close friends asking when I'd write again on my blog, I've decided, 'hey! It's time for random stories & thoughts again!" With that in mind, here it goes..

There has been a thing I wanted to get off my chest. I almost think about it daily. Well more like once a month, but still, it bothers me. I know I'm not alone. There has to be other people who feel the same way. Who in their right mind thinks a HUGE side mirror, on a foot long arm looks good?

Just look at these things, it's like they're compensating for a lil' something. Look at this mirror ladies, it's 10" long:

Now some people will exclaim - "hey, but it's useful for seeing better when I tow!" I believe these people have never seen a school bus. As most kids know, a school bus, which is longer than anything 99% of pick truck drivers will ever tow, has an ingenious tool. This tool happens to be a small curved mirror. It does the same job without the dumbo like ears for mirrors.

Aside from how hideous these mirrors look, may main issue is the fact that it's more dangerous. Some drivers seem to be completely oblivious to the new added width to their truck. Not only do they come close to hitting cars as they drive by, but I know someone who was knocked unconscious by one of these idiotic mirrors as the truck drove by too closely to him.

Watch what will happen in the next several years. These mirror manufacturers are going to follow Gillette's philosophy of more is better (Mach 3 razor, Mach 4, Mach 5 razors...) and create a mirror that looks like this:


You have to admit, there's a resemblance!

Life is Beautiful

So today while working in the OR, I saw a list of things to live by. Although, many of these ideas are things that I've integrated into my life already - it's always nice to refresh yourself once in a while! Here is what I read in the OR - (credits to this website for the list and pictures below)

"You life can be as beautiful as you dream. You just need to believe and to do some simple things. Here is a list of things that will help you to make your life richier and happier. Perform these daily, and enjoy your life in this year;)

Health:

1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar..
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy..
5. Make time to practice meditation, yoga, and prayer.
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did last year.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours..
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk every day. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:

11. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Society:

25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. God heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank God for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

Last but not the least:

40. Please, Forward this to everyone you care about."

Fragile...

With every end, comes a new beginning. With every event, we try to understand its purpose. At times though, I can't make sense of the things happening around me. But life after all, is lived forward, and understood backwards. However, right now, I can't run forward fast enough in time so that I can understand everything that is happening around me. It's almost like the physics concept of - what goes up, must come down - extends beyond inanimate objects. You work so hard to rise up, but then you are knocked down. Why? I don't know yet.


It's not just the circumstances around me that make me realize how fragile we all are. Everyday in the hospitals, I see babies, teenagers, young men and women, and elderly from every ethnicity being stricken down. People who were full of energy one day, keeping busy with life's little quirks and repetitive motions, and then one day God hits the pause button in their lives. To be vibrant one day, and to be counting down your days the next. I remember this one patient during my surgery rotation who came in with a two day history of severe abdominal (stomach) pain. Her CT scan (picture of her bowels for non med readers) showed ischemic bowels (dead guts). We stayed up through the night in the operating room to surgically explore if there was any way we could save part of her bowels so that she can live. Nothing. Absolutely nothing could be done. Every inch of her bowels were dead. It felt futile. The OR was dead silent aside from the noisy beeping machines and the respirator. Noises that were giving false hope of life. We put her bowels back to where they belonged and proceeded to neatly suture (close) her abdomen. We then waited for her oxygen levels and blood pressure to become even more stable. It was odd to see all these little steps taken to make sure she was medically "stable", despite the fact that she will die tomorrow. We then proceeded to talk to her son who had just flown in to see her. The surgeon explained that everything possible was done, but that she will still die tomorrow. Tears came down his cheeks. Here was a vibrant, active woman, living one day, and dead the next. The surgeon and I walked to the elevators after this sobering evening. There goes another life I thought. Another existence gone. The surgeon and I quietly walked into the elevator with our heads down. On our way up, the elevator stopped one floor above us. A mom and an adorable little boy stepped in. He wanted to push the elevator buttons, and then he was excited to see two doctors. The surgeon and I looked at his enthusiasm for the simple things in life, we looked at each other and smiled finally. With one end, comes a new beginning.

"On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are"

Live, Laugh, Love

Like my girlfriend, life is quite short. But, I also love it (and her too). This past week had a recurring theme. A theme that I thought most people would have already thought of - knowing your priorities in life. Strangely, not everyone realizes similar goals at the same time in life.

This week, the oncologist (doctor specializing with cancers) I was working with summarized her life to me. About going to university and being boy crazy, realizing she wanted to become a doctor (and all the crazy competition it took), her transition though medical school, and lastly - a point that stuck out to me. An older doctor told her - 'look, as much as you love your career, don't do what I did, don't wait too long before having kids'. I'll explain further down why this stuck out to me, after the next story.

Later on that week, I bumped into a couple of the nurses that I had worked with previously. Now I love talking to nurses, so we sat down to catch up over a quick lunch. Of course this lead to the typical questions a med student is asked - what do you want to be, are you going to work here again, are you dating/married? During our conversation, the nurses told me about doctors' lifestyles, time (or lack of), and divorces. This is when I proceeded to explain my views and priorities of life. When I finished, they strangely looked at me wide-eyed, as if I was speaking things unheard of by someone my age.

Life is short. Make the most of it. Make an impact on the world. Make an impact on the people that matter the most to you. When I talked to the oncologist, I was surprised that she didn't realize her priorities in life until someone pointed it out. When I talked to the nurses, I was surprised that they were shocked that I knew my priorities in life. When I look at the big picture, if I'm super optimistic, I have already experienced 1/4'th of my life and it flew by! This means, for the remaining portion of my life, I better know what to focus my time and energy on. The only way you can do that, is if you know what your main priorities in life are. To me they are 1) your health 2) your family. Job and money are secondary to these. By being healthy, you can feel good, you can live longer, you can as a result dedicate a lot more of your time and energy to your family!

When I imagine myself as an old man, I know that I'll look at my children, grand-kids, and lovely/bossy wife. I'll look at them proudly and I'll happily realize that this is all that matters to me. They are everything. I'll know then, that all the sacrifices, dedication, and effort put in since I was a little boy was worth it all. I won't think about my career as much, I won't think about the money I have or could have had, all those things fade. Patients will appreciate me, thank me, and forget me. Money will come and go. Your family is truly all that you'll have left. So when I tell my doctor, nurses, and friends that I want to choose a specialty that won't be hectic, that won't be too busy, that this career comes second, that I don't care about being rich, that ultimately your health and family is all that matters - I am taken aback when they have this sudden look of realization that, hey, you're right. No wonder a lot of these over worked doctors end up divorcing - how can you be happily married if you are never home? How can you raise your kids properly if you rarely see them? You can't live without knowing where you are going, and you won't know where you are going without having a sense of direction - your goals in life. Thankfully I know mine :)

I miss my pillow, my blanky, and my girl

Sleepy. That's how I would describe my week. I'm also excited. It's an odd mix. This week, I'm on call three times with only 2 residents helping me to run three hospital floors + ER. It's mad. I'm tired. I want my Christmas break fast. I want to be with my girlfriend and just say nothing, do nothing, and just feel happy. It's the main thing I look forward to with each passing day.

This CTU (clinical teaching unit/internal medicine) rotation has been very tiring. Although it's fun to think a lot, and finally feel like a doctor compared to other rotations - it certainly doesn't feel as homely/natural to me as pediatrics did. At least on that rotation I can be myself (childishly free). The amusing thing about the obstetrics rotation is that I'd end up reading the Births section of the newspaper. I wanted to see how many new babies were delivered by me. Now I find myself reading the obituary section to see if I recognize any of the names I saw in the hospital, hopefully not delivered vertically by me! That's the weird thing about medicine - you can see the whole life cycle in a day.

Well back to working on the lil lady's Christmas present. wee. Oh yeah, Merry Christmas to everyone!

Study life - quick!

Cramming for exams is not as bad as it seems. You can take in weeks worth of knowledge and within days, you know it all! Life on the other hand doesn't work like that. I'll get to what that means later on. First, let me preface this post with a habit of mine- I love to hear stories about how couples meet and how guys propose. Lately though, I've bumped into a couple of nurses, as well as older friends who have opened up about how their marriages failed. I've found myself to be more and more curious about what led to these divorces. Mainly - what changes between pre-marriage and post-marriage. From what I've heard so far, none of the people I've talked to said that they had any inklings or clues that their partner wasn't a good choice. It seems like all of them said that things changed after marriage. This is pretty scary! Does this mean that most people are fake initially and that someone's true personality comes out after marriage? Does it mean that people aren't good at reading others? I know that it takes time to get to know someone well - unlike studying, you can't cram knowing someone. You can't take decades of choices and life experiences that someone went through and assume you've figured it all out. Of course there are exceptions - I know of one set of parents who got engaged after two months and are still happily together. However, I'm generally left confused about why there are so many couples who end up in divorce. One of the Doctors that I worked with said the main reason people divorce is because they are greedy. They don't take the time to give to each other and make things work. But I think there's more to it than that. It makes me wonder - do people read in between the lines? Do they watch how their partner behaves when they're down, when they're happy, when they're angry, and when you're at your lowest point? Do they observe what their family's like? Do they watch if they put similar effort into the relationship? Do they keep mental note (I call them mental post it notes) of what their partner's like over time? If everyone does these things, and still go through divorces, then it's not an encouraging thought at all. But on the other hand, I doubt everyone reads between the lines or observes people's habits as much as I do - I remember how one of my friends didn't like that I keep mental post it notes regarding some of the things he did, whereas I thought it was absolutely normal, whatever normal means. In the long run though, I think this habit's useful to have, but as time passes by, I'm going to keep listening to life's stories. Afterall, if watching my bro get in trouble when we were kids helped me avoid making the same mistakes, then I certainly hope that my love for hearing other people's stories will help me to keep going in the right direction!

I've figured out women!

I've finally finished my OB-Gyn rotation, and I'm going to miss it a lot. The moms are wonderful patients, delivering babies is an indescribably happy and cozy experience, the doctors are happy, and the nurses were very friendly! During the days when I worked at the OB-Gyn offices, I had some time between patients to sit down and flip through some of the magazines women like to read. So based on the number of magazines I've flipped through - I've accumulated a general picture of how a woman looks, how they think, and what they want. So first of all - all women look like models, women are constantly worried about their feminine hygine and need pads wherever they go - especially for horseback riding! Women are constantly worried about their weight, and about how to satisfy/keep their man.
Magazines for pregnant women also get pretty interesting - the last magazine I saw had this pregnant lady (a model of course), sitting on a beach in a nice weaved gown with water reaching her feet (and prob soaking her bumbum). The magazine of course had more exercise tips, but at least it wasn't as bad as the general women magazines from above. However, I do find that pregnant women in general either worry about - "oh no, I'm gaining too much weight", or "oh no, I'm not gaining enough weight" - I haven't met a satisfied one yet. I think my jaw will drop when I hear a woman say "I'm happy with my weight gain so far". But to get back on this topic, I honestly don't get how women can flip through these magazines and feel good at all. For one thing, half of the magazine is advertising - full of semi anorexic models and a lot of photoshopping, and the remaining pages are full of topics regarding how you're too fat, how you can try harder to satisfy the person you're with, fashions that you probably can't afford (and look funny in most cases), and a reminder of how your monthly cycles make you a smelly leaky person.
All of this reminds me of what we learned in psych in first year undergrad - it takes only 2 minutes of flipping through a magazine for a girl to lose her self esteem. Which makes it confusing for me - why even read these magazines? I guess I don't understand women :P

Oh baby!

Two weeks have flown by on the labor & delivery (L&D) floor. I can't really remember the number of vaginal deliveries & c-sections that I assisted in or done first hand. This ward is not about numbers to me, but about an experience that's hard to put into words. This is especially true for vaginal births. Why? Well unlike c sections, which feels like any other surgery, vaginal births feels like a rollercoaster of emotions! If I had to summarize what I observed about most vaginal deliveries, I would have to break it down into six phases:

• Phase I: most moms seem happy, excited, and with a hint of nervousness (more of this last ingredient for first time mommies). During this phase moms have to wait for hours for the cervix to dilate (the passage in the uterus/womb that the baby has to get through). The pain hasn't fully kicked in, so most of the moms seem pretty happy and chatty with me. The partner/husband often looks calm at this stage.
• Phase II: Pain starts to set in as the baby comes down more and the cervix dilates more. I can tell this stage as soon as I walk in the room because the moms are no longer smiling as much. The partner/husband (if it's not a single parent), are now more serious looking and semi confused about what to do as they watch mama endure some pain. Some partners try to be supportive by holding mama's hand or rub their hair. Others sit back and either look helpless or guilty for making the lady pregnant.
  
• Phase III: This phase exists for most moms. This is when most moms receive epidurals to relieve the amount of pain they're going through. Without reading the charts or asking the nurses, I know all about phase III when I see the moms smiling and/or looking more at peace again. As soon as I enter the room, I tell them "Hey! you're back to smiling, you must have an epidural now!" (and then I'll tell them all about my phases observations), to which they'll laugh and tell me "yup! the epidural's in".
  
• Phase IV: This is the phase when the contractions are more frequent and stronger. There's something very humbling about this phase for me. Pregnancy as a whole is a tiring and long event for moms. As if 40 weeks wasn't enough work, there comes the whole process of pushing the baby out. It's humbling to see this last push of effort from the moms - the exhausted facial expression of the mom, yet pure determination to break down that last brick wall - it just leaves you with nothing but pure admiration for moms everywhere.
  
• Phase V: This is where a crazy turn happens in the rollercoaster of baby delivery. As soon as you catch the baby and place him/her on mama's tummy, the humbling feeling of trying to break down a brick wall from phase IV suddenly changes to an almost post-struggle celebratory mood. It's not exactly a party-excited type of feeling, it's more of a 'finally we are free' sense of peace.
• Phase VI: This phase occurs the day after delivery. When I visit the mom and new baby (+/- partner/husband), the room has a warm sense of peace to it. Most of the rooms have that sense of accomplishment, 40 weeks of work, and now here's the new baby! The moms look tired, sleepless, but when they hold their baby wrapped up in their blue/pink blanky, they have this look of peace as if nothing else in the world matters except the bond between them. When the Dr. and I come in to check the baby, it feels great to hold this new wrapped bundle of joy. It's cozy to hold this warm sleeping baby, to watch him/her move their lips as they instinctively look for food, and to feel their little legs move inside their blanky as I hold them in my arms. A warm little bundle of life! I can only imagine how much nicer it must be to hold your own baby one day. This phase definitly makes obs/gyn a rewarding career!

À la prochaine fois!

H is for Happy

It has been one week so far since clerkship began (third year medicine). Everytime I enter the hospital, I feel excited, happy, enthusiastic, and motivated to learn. Although we haven't begun our actual rotations yet, I'm pretty confident that the same attitude will carry on throughout the year. Sure I'll be tired, sleepy, hungry, but that's all part of the fun! I believe what makes a hospital a happy environment for me, is that I get to serve people and I get to think. Both of those are big reasons why I entered medicine. Sure there are a lot of careers where you get to to serve and think, but there's no other career where you get to know someone on such a personal level during critical times of their lives, and to depths that even family members don't have the privilege of knowing.
If there's one thing that I've noticed about myself over the years, it's that I like to serve people. I guess there's a certain level of joy and pride in seeing the result of my actions, and that motivates me to learn more and do better. By the same token though, this means that when things go wrong, which I'm sure they will as a third year student, it'll be a bigger blow to me. But that'll only motivate me to work harder. One of the surgeons who was teaching me how to suture yesterday told me if everything you do goes as you were taught or as you read, then you've simply gained knowledge. However, it's only with mistakes, or when thing's don't go as planned, that you finally gain experience. I thought it was some nice words to live by. We'll see how next week goes! :D

I have a new pet!

My new pet's name is peeves! So now that I finished cramming two years of medicine into my head in the span of 4 weeks for a licensing exam, I must do a little rant. There were two main issues that actually frustrated me during this exam period. The first being Adobe Professional (7.0). Now as some people know, I study purely off my laptop. All of my notes & books are in adobe format. Adobe makes me angry. Why? Well because no matter how good my computer is, no matter what year I buy a computer, it seems the newer and faster processors, and more RAM can't handle the new ways that the Adobe software engineers come up with to make their product slow and sluggish. In all honesty, when I go to buy a new laptop, I don't just look at the specs, but I do one main test: open an adobe file on the computer and see how long it takes. I can only imagine these software engineers sitting around, coming up with new 'creative' ways of making Adobe more user friendly and full of new options, and probably getting some weird sexual gratification out of it. Look! just make the product work in a reasonable speed and not eat up 90% of my RAM.
My second pet peeve would be related to medicine. When you have to cram everything known in medicine into your head, you appreciate it when the name of the disease gives away what the disease is all about. For example "X-linked agammaglobulinemia." tells me it affects men, and it means your immune system doesn't work. Great! the name gives it away for me. But when you get stuff like "Paget's disease" - what memory does that trigger in my head? It triggers the frustration memory. Why? Well because Mr. Paget has several diseases named after him - Paget's disease of the bones, Paget's disease of the nipple, and Paget's cyst. Honestly, why! Clearly they weren't thinking of med students when these names were made up. Make the name of diseases memorable! Med students these days have a lot more to learn than they did 100 years ago, so any help would be appreciated. Honestly, if I discover some disease down the road, I'm not going to stamp my last name on it. Instead I'll make it obvious, i.e. itchy bum syndrome. Treatment? stop sitting there waiting for Adobe to load your file.

Hug addiction # 2!

First of all, my apologies for the long delay in writing something. I've been busy studying for a licensing exam. Studying during the summer time is as painful and difficult as delivering babies. Yes yes, I have experienced it. Anyways, so during my procrastination cycles (roughly every 10 minutes of study), I stumbled upon this site www.justgiving.com/hugoflove. This was the only site I could find when I was trying to figure out the record for the longest hug. In any case, these two lovely couples hugged for 24 hours! Since I love hugs, I immediately knew that I must outdo this world record. Is it doable? why not! I have two of the three ingredients I need so far: 1) I love hugs 2) I can stay up for over 24 hours if I had to (hey that's part of being in medicine anyways!) What is the third ingredient you ask? Well, I'll need an enthusiastic hugger too. I figure once I find my dream girl then perhaps we can set out to beat that record, and fundraise some money for a good cause too! How do I know the girl I'll be with will be a good and enthusiastic hugger? well, I wouldn't date a bad hugger! If I go out with a girl on a date and she's not a good hugger, then she's got a loooong way to go before I have to reconsider my thoughts. Well I'll keep the world posted about my big plans! I'm very excited to do this one day!

Well back to hugging my books.

This really blows

There are inventions that are so amazing and practical, i.e. like Velcro, and some inventions that I simply don't comprehend. One of those inventions would be the leaf blower. It's unbelievably noisy, annoying, it creates a lot of pollution, and is just asinine. A leaf blower seems as intuitive as sweeping a pile of floor dust not even from one corner of your house to underneath your carpet, but to another corner of your house! I watch people in the neighborhood who spend hours standing there blowing random leaves from their front lawn onto the sidewalk, or their neighbour's lawn. I can only assume that later on, the other neighbour will return the gift with their noisy leaf blower. If not, mother nature will do its job with this device known as 'wind' to redistribute leaves back all over the lawn. Honestly, who invented this machine? How about getting some exercise and raking the leaves - i.e actually removing the problem! How about using a lawnmower to chop up the leaves on your lawn so that as it decomposes, it fertilizes your lawn? Or someone out there, make a machine capable of efficiently vacuuming up the leaves, wouldn't that make more sense?
What a strange world.

On an unrelated note, I'm happy, life is good. yay.

I'm too muscular to smile

Going to the gym is a bizarre experience. On the one hand, I love that feeling of accomplishment (aka achy muscles) at the end of a workout. It's also nice to feel like you're doing something good for your body (and for looking even better too). However, the people at any gym always seem to have a serious look. Most men tend to walk around their arms spread out like they're carrying invisible purses underneath their armpits. They also have this serious constipated look the majority of the time, especially if they're working out alone. The women don't look too happy either, and seem to love the stair/climb master machines and anything cardio related. They don't tend to smile too much either, but it's probably a good idea because the muscle heads like to gawk at them as they walk by. I'm sure a smile would be misinterpreted by muscle men as a signal to 'hey come over and flirt with me'.
Yesterday at the gym, this cougar lady who keeps smiling at me since I started working out in 2003 spotted me again! It's kinda creepy, but it's not a big deal, I suppose I can take it as a compliment about the way I look.

Update: today at the gym I saw a man perfectly exemplifying what I wrote! Except he was walking around with invisible duffel bags underneath his armpits, not purses. He was walking on the treadmill with the most serious face known to man - almost a zoolander like look of determination, and he would wave his arm stiffly in an ape-like fashion. Honestly, who walks around like that?!

European Odyssey - Journal Day 1 - Paris

After a couple of hours of travel on some English highways,we made it to Dover (where the famous white cliffs of England are). I'd like to visit England one day and go to the castle at the top - it looked quite beautiful! The ferry ride took another two hours before we reached France. The ride was fun, but the constant rocking of the ferry can make you feel like a drunk man. I began to think about the physiology of the inner ear that we learned in neurology. I then reminded myself that the next two weeks, I shouldn't think about school at all - I have a lifetime of that! During the ferry ride, I chatted with the other tourists that I would be spending two weeks with - there were a lot of Australians! During the ferry ride, I got to people watch, which is always fun. Old couples are fun to observe - they don't seem to chat much, they sit there, eat and people watch too. Either they've run out of things to say, or it's some sort of comfort to know you don't have to say anything to fill the silence.
Calais, France was beautiful, especially the bus ride on our way to Paris! During the bus ride, I discovered why the lemonade drink my brother and I bought tasted so strong and detergent like, it turns out it's concentrated so that you dilute it in 9x the amount of water!! No wonder our throats burned!
When we arrived in Paris, one of the first things I noticed was the amount of graffiti and garbage thrown everywhere! If this is a city of romance, then I better start throwing trash in my room! During the bus ride, we drove past many of the famous buildings in Paris, such as the Eifel tower, Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame, National Music Hall, Arc de Triomphe, etc.. Those buildings were beautiful and clean, such a huge contrast from the rest of the city! Our night ended with a get together at a local pub beside our hotels. Day 2 here we go!

European Odyssey - Journal Day 1 - London

So the European Odyssey trip begins with a nice one hour delay along the Detroit highways - thankfully we left 3 hours in advance of the flight time. I'm excited about this trip, but not too nervous about this delay. If you believe things will work out in life, then they usually do. I'm sure we won't miss the flight. After we check in, my brother and I waved goodbye to our parents with big excited smiles. They stand their smiling back, looking proud and excited about their grown up boys traveling by themselves. The 8 hour flight was pretty comfortable and the food was pretty good (I'm not sure why people complain about the food!). I even got some decent amount of sleep once I grew accustomed to the sweaty smell of the guy next to me. However, I didn't really grow accustomed to the random chair bumping from the guy behind me - he was either giving birth or fighting invisible ninjas behind my seat.
While waiting in Amsterdam for our connecting flight to London, England, I couldn't but help notice the huge crowds of various ethnicities. It's truly amazing to see so many people from all over the world congregating into one area! When we arrived to the Heathrow airport, my brother and I were bombarded with questions at the passport desk about our purpose of travel, where we received the money to travel, etc. I'm not sure how a pile of questions like that would help with security, because anyone could make things up if they had to. Oh well, good thing we shaved, otherwise imagine the extra questions we would receive.
Once we arrived in London, we made our way using the tube (aka subway) to our hostel. We were kinda tired and sleepy from the travel, so we didn't go out that night. We even ate at the hostel, which wasn't exactly very tasty (nor healthy) - my brother ate this sandwich which included: a hamburger, fried egg, bacon, a mountain of mayo, and a healthy side order of vegetables (aka fries).

We had to wake up at 6am the next morning to get ready to make our way to Paris. I had some pretty good sleep. I was excited, and pumped for this trip! However, my enthusiasm and excitement didn't give me enough energy to drag my 25 kg luggage case very easily. That morning I happened to notice that my new luggage case that I bought two days ago moved a bit slowly, and it felt a bit heavy to pull. Initially, I figured oh it must be the weight of the bag! Until I looked down at the fragments of rubber scraped off on the pavement, and the wheel was as hot as oven (no seriously!). It turns out the axle of one of the wheels became lose, and I was dragging 25kg on non-rotating rubber. It was a good exercise though - it really woke you up at 630 in the morning. Oh well, I'll try to fix it later. Now onto our way to Calais, France!

Who was that again?

Purpose. When it comes to your life, do you have a vision or a goal of your life's purpose? I believe that most people want to feel appreciated and that their existence has relevance to others. Sometimes it doesn't come down to being appreciated, but a matter of not being forgotten. Would your life have mattered if you didn't leave a dent in the world or an impact on others? This yearning to be remembered probably drove many (in)famous men and women in ancient history to become leaders, visionaries, dictators etc. and shape the world around them - for better or worse. Sometimes I wonder if a subconscious fear of being forgotten shapes the decision of some leaders out there. Being remembered is of great importance to many people after all. For example back in ancient Egypt, Pharaohs would leave countless historical symbols and monuments representing their power, accomplishments, victories etc.. In addition to mummification, their etchings into pillars, monuments, statues was a way to last forever. Of course, when another Pharaoh took over, they sometimes would have their predecessor's inscriptions and face etched out of monuments/walls and replaced with theirs. In a snap they are forgotten. Erased from history.

A lot of my actions are derived from that yearning for a sense of purpose in life. I want to have an impact. I want to be remembered. I sometimes imagine myself as an old man, very late in life, and I'm looking back at everything I've done in life. Will I smile at what I've accomplished? Will I regret things? Will I be forgotten? Will these questions even matter by that point in time or will my views change about what's important in life? Part of me believes that at this younger age, ambition, goals and big dreams matter more. However, with time, when you have a spouse, kids, and other things to take care of, that will be your focus and your life. Perhaps then, your kids become your accomplishment, and as you watch them grow and model after you, it is then that perhaps part of you lives on.

Alcohol..and exercise?

I love to observe people (in a non-creepy way). This morning on the bus, this girl was wearing a sweatshirt that caught my attention. It wasn't a particularly special sweatshirt at all - but the writing on it was very confusing to me. It said "Corona Extra" and then it had a picture of a crown below that, and then it said "Athletics". Confused? Well in any case, I was confused. Here's an alcoholic beverage advertisement..and then below it, it's somehow associating itself with athletics? I'm not sure if there's any logic to it, but if you're going to drink something for any sort of athletic competition, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be alcohol. Moh well. Well back to studying - 1 more week and no more class :D

Some blogging hiatus

So I'll be busy for the next 2-3 weeks cramming for exams. It's not a very fun time, mainly because the mindset is focused on passing exams as safely as possible, not on the sake of learning, and especially at the expense of sleep, health, eating properly, and life in general. I suppose I wouldn't be cramming though if I focused purely on school, and not my other duties.

Well back to studying in front of the rainy weather..which I must say is pretty to see from afar, especially when you see that gray curtain of water pouring from a cloud in only one location. What's prettier is when the sun comes back, and pierces the clouds with its rays, absolutely magnificent! well back to nerding.

À Bientôt

I'm a man. I'm tougher. yarrr.

As I sit here reading my psychiatry notes, I'm reminded about my whole appreciation of women. So back in the "good ol' days" of Plato, (roughly 400 BC), Plato and his followers conceived (excuse the pun) that the uterus was an "animal endowed with spontaneous sensation and motion, lodged in a woman, and ardently desiring to bear children. If it remained sterile long after puberty, it became indignant, dissatisfied, and ill-tempered and caused a general disturbance of the body until it became pregnant, when it became normal again."
After reading that paragraph, I was reminded of what a pain in the uterus society has been on women for thousands of years.

I'm not really big on the feminism business, mainly because it just comes off as anti-men, but it still doesn't take a genius to realize that being a woman is not easy at all. First of all there's the stereotype of emotional instability (how much of it is true or not, who knows, but it's not like guys are perfect either). Then there's the whole monthly 'duties', which I can only imagine to be painful and annoying, there's the worry about pregnancies, there's worry about safety and sexual assaults (I think if I have a daughter one day, I'm going to be paranoid about this issue..bah to bad people!!!), the pressure of body image, the time it takes to do your hair (I had long hair at one point..wow what a pain in the ass to maintain!), and the whole delivering babies business. I can't imagine the emotions, physical changes, energy needed to carry a living being inside you, and then popping it out! It's crazzzy! Honestly, you women are the stronger sex for going through a bunch of the things I mentioned.

I suppose the downside of being a guy though is that society looks at you differently if you try to express your emotions. It's still taboo'sh. Heck a couple of people thought I swung the other way because I'm very huggy and don't care about saying what's on my mind, even if it's on the 'emotion' side. The other disadvantage guys have is regarding the whole child bearing process. I've watched several baby deliveries, and watching the husbands reinforced the whole philosophy of - men feel useless and stupid during deliveries. We just stand there not knowing what to do as the tougher sex delivers. We can't really feel that bond that the mom/child has after going through 9 months of gestation, hours of labour (assuming it's not like the fifth baby..which by then is probably going to fly out of her vagina) and to finally hold the child against her chest. That peaceful, happy, reunited feeling of holding her baby after the ups and downs of pregnancy and delivery is a feeling that no man can ever have.

So let this post be a cheers to the women out there - God made man first, and then God said "Hey, I can do better than that!" and so He made woman. For the atheists...you can still believe that women are still the tougher sex. If you don't believe it, go get a sex change.

Beyond explanation

Attraction is a very strange process. When it comes to being attracted to others, there's the generic initial attraction to beauty, but to get the full attraction you need a lot more than that. It's also not a matter of just compatibility. You can take your checklist of wants and needs that you look for in a person, but sometimes, once in a blue moon, someone pushes the right buttons and you start to ignore some of those checklist items. How does it happen? I have no idea to be honest. However, when it happens it's a strangely blissful time.

The other strange thing about attraction is how you can't really force it. Have you ever noticed that when someone really likes you, but they never pushed your attraction buttons properly, then they just end up annoying you more as they try harder? It's the same way if you really like someone and you feel like they don't notice you...then you try extra hard to impress them by being nice...then you end up losing your nether region (if you're a male) in the process. Thankfully I learned that lesson back early in life. The lesson I learned goes beyond finding someone, it applies to a lot of things in life - be confident, never chase or try to please someone (unless you're enjoying that process), and know your worth. Once you have those rules as your pillars, life is a lot more enjoyable!