Happy birthday Dan, now go out there and save $6.

Today is my birthday, and I decided to treat myself by buying a protective case for my Kindle.  I researched cases and found a good one based on reviews.  I was able to locate it on ebay for $18.  Thinking I got a good deal, I bought it, but then I made the mistake of looking on amazon.com.  I found it there for $12.  I was steamed I payed too much for this cover, but then I got to thinking about it.  Will my life really come down to having an extra six dollars?  Probably not.  Why do we become obsessed with finding the lowest price?  I think it has to do with being able to feel like you got the best of the seller.  What a way to start off 32.

Post MCAT

Since the end of my summer semester, I have spent the vast majority of my time preparing for the MCAT.  I took it a week ago, and I should have my results in about three weeks.  In hindsight, I found it to be a fairly difficult test to prepare for because it was very much driven by passages.  I am currently working on my medical school application, and I am very much looking forward to applying and getting into school.  In the meantime, I'll be looking for a job so I can earn some money while I wait.

Julian

What is it with people and their desire to have a pet?  I believe we have a desire inside of us to take care of something and to have something depend on us.  For some, they have this desire fulfilled by their families.  Kids need to be taken care of and a spouse depends on their spouse for many things.  For those single people, we often fulfill this need by getting a pet.  While many opt for something along the lines of a dog or a cat, I decided to go with something that was a little bit more on my level.  I bought a fish.  

The Betta fish I bought now lives in a bowl on a bookshelf in my bedroom.  I named him Julian.  Sometimes I think he is a happy, well adjusted fish.  Sometimes I think he is depressed, moping around one of the fake plants I put in his bowl.  Does he like the color of aquarium gravel I picked out?  I hope I am doing a good job as a pet parent.

Actually, without  getting overly deep,, I can see the appeal to having a pet.  I enjoy feeding Julian when I wake  up and shortly before I go to bed.  We will see how my journey into the pet world turns out.

Pi and Primus

I went to the Primus concert last night at the Pageant in St. Louis.  It was truly a rock concert, as you could not hear yourself think.  Before the concert, I met up with some friends at a pizza restaurant called Pi.  Now, the restaurant  is of course named after the mathematical constant Pi (often represented by the Greek symbol π and given the simplified value of 3.14).  This value is a play on the fact that pizza's are round and pi is often used in calculations involving circles (pi is actually a ratio between a circles circumference to its diameter).  On the glasses at the restaurant, they had pi printed out to several decimal places.  This got me thinking..."Dan, why haven't you taken the time to memorize pi out to several decimal places".  This, for whatever reason, is a popular thing to do in the science community as the number goes out to infinity and it is a sign to other nerds that you have spent more Saturday nights alone than they have (which I suppose is a sign of nerd pride ?????)  For whatever reason, I chose the moment while the music was at its loudest to look up pi on wikipedia and memorize it as much as I could before the combination of the music and the numbers gave me a headache.  I actually had an another purpose in doing this as I was wanting to work on my ability to focus with a lot of distractions around me (a skill that will serve me well in the ER).  I was able to memorize it out to this length.

3.14159265358979323846264338

This is great first date conversation, right?

New job and straight As

Well, its official.  I am now a medical scribe at SSM St. Mary's Health Center in St. Louis.  I'm very excited about the chance to help people and learn a lot about the medical profession.  Basically, I will follow a doctor around and help a doctor with documentation and transcription, all the while having the chance to learn about medicine from observation.

I was also able to get straight As this semester.  I hope I have put my place in a position academically that makes me attractive to med schools.

Grace and the Green Party

I was out last night celebrating the 30th birthday of a friend.  We started the night at a Qdoba.  For those of you around the St. Louis area last night, you know we received an unusually large snow storm for this time of year.  At the Qdoba, there was a woman frantically trying to call someone to have them pick them up.  She was in need of getting to a bus stop about 5 miles away, and she had several bags with her.  She kept on asking people if they were going a certain direction, but everyone in my group was heading the other direction.  Despite this, I felt sorry for this woman and I offered to give her a ride to her bus stop.  Her name was Grace.  I helped her and her bags out to the car.  Mind you, I've never picked up a hitchhiker or offered anyone a ride like this.  I think it was the weather and the frantic situation this woman was in that caused me to do it.  After helping her with her bags, we started towards the bus stop.  She asked me about my life and my background and I told her about wanting to go to med school and my past as a teacher, IT director, and part time professor.  I must have said something that made her think I was wise for my age because she asked me what she should do about getting her daughter to go to school instead of doing what she was doing with her life.  Having already mentioning I went to McKendree, she said she almost went to a speaker series once at McKendree and I told her that I had heard of that speaker series while I was listening to NPR one day.  She took it to mean the NPR reference must mean that I was of a certain political bend and started telling me all about how she was a member of the Green Party.  Now, we all come to our political conclusions for one reason or another, but to the best of my recollection, this was the first time I had a chance to talk to someone in the Green Party. She seemed to harbor many of the political beliefs that were popularized by the 1960s counter culture movement.  We did manage to get her to her bus stop about one minute before the bus arrived, and I felt like I had helped a person in need.

NPR and the question of funding

I'm currently listening to the Dianne Rehm show and they are talking about the recent resigning of the NPR CEO in the aftermath of comments which were captured on video by an NPR executive that seemed to belittle conservatives and the tea party movement.  The root issue being discussed, however, is whether NPR should receive government funding.  So what is the rule of the government?  I find it interesting that an argument for government funding is some rural stations could not exist without it.  Isn't what they are saying is that some stations are bleeding money?  Would you open a business that you knew couldn't be self sustaining?  Does this mean that NPR is a right that all should have access to?

Molar Bear

This week, I had the good fortune to observe at the dentist office of Dr. Drake.  Though I want to go to medical school, I believe it is important to observe as much as I can regarding the different types of medical professions.  I enjoyed the experience quite a bit.  It was my lucky day in a sense that the doctor had a lot of different types of procedures to perform.  I saw everything from a veneer, a tooth pulling, x-rays, crowns, fillings, impressions, implants, and a bridge.  Perhaps one of the things with which I was impressed was the overall rhythm of the office.  Due to the nature of working in one area (the mouth), you have to work in very close quarters with about two other people.  Despite this, the doctor and his assistants appeared to be like dancers, gracefully going where they had to go without a lot of wasted motion or movement.  This flow of motion also has the added benefit of making the day go buy quickly.  Also, despite the serious nature of the procedures being performed, all seemed to be able to have fun and laugh throughout the day.  I found this to put the patients at ease.  Seeing that Dr. Drake is also my dentist, one of the highest compliments I can pay to him and his staff is that I actually look forward to going to my dentist appointments; how many people can say that?  The title of this post is in reference to a mascot I thought of for the office.  They should have a part teddy bear and part molar tooth mascot and name him molar bear.  Instead of being stuffed with normal stuffed animal stuffing, perhaps he could be stuffed with floss.  If molar bear had a pet, what kind of pet would he have....a canine of course!

Insomnia

There was a line in a Green Day song that went something like "I'm having trouble trying to sleep.  I'm counting sheep but running out.  As time ticks by, and still I try...no rest for crosstops in my mind..."  I don't know what a crosstop is, but I know I can't sleep.  I have battled with insomnia off and on for a few years now.  It always ebbs and flows, but I recognize that even as a child, I didn't sleep well.  Lately, my sleep has been really bad.  I have started falling into a pattern of struggling to go to sleep, then waking up at 4 or 5 unable to sleep again for an hour.  Then I want to crash hard for a few hours.  Lets see how it goes.

As a picture

As a picture
Living its life in suspense
And without motion
My heart just stood there
Waiting for the next beat to arrive

Happy 2nd Birthday dantheblog.com

It was two years ago today that I started dantheblog.com.  I want to think my tens of readers for sticking through my writing.  It has been an interesting year, filled with laughter, adventure, love and lost.  I post this as I sit on my front porch watching the rain...What God has in store for me in 2011, time will tell.

The female mind

I'm staying with my parents for a few days around Christmas, and every day they keep my two little nieces until their mom gets off work.  My zen master like father thought he would take this opportunity to teach me about the female mind.  He began by saying..."you know Dan, you can learn a lot about women by watching Kinsey." (my three year old niece)  Somewhat skeptical, I asked Kinsey "What do you want?"  Indeed, she went on a long diatribe of things that didn't make sense, and during this diatribe, she did seem to change her mind several times, almost indicating that she didn't know what she wanted.  Intrigued with what my father had to teach me, I observed her behavior over the next 20 minutes and listened to the commentary my father provided.  His hypothesis is the female gender does not change from age three forward and if you pay close attention, you will observe this phenomena in their tactics.  Kinsey wanted to play Candyland (she had already SMOKED me at a game of memory.)  Dad said "if you play Candyland with her, watch her because she will cheat."  I made a deal with her that I would play Candyland, but if I caught her cheating, I would quit.  We even shook on it!!!  I got out Candyland and we started to play.  Initially, she did take some "creative license" in where to move her game piece.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt.  It was when I drew one of those cards that lets you move way down the board (I think I drew the peanut house), that the expression on Kinsey's face changed.  I looked away to say something to my dad and looked back at Kinsey to find her going through the cards trying to find one of the cards that would allow her to move way down the board.  I said she was cheating and I was going to quit playing.  Kinsey immediately laid down on the carpet face down and started pouting that I had quit playing with her.  Dad said "this is the phase women go through when they have been caught.  They start playing the "crying card" trying to get you to feel sorry for their actions."  "When that doesn't work, the next stage is to create a diversion that makes you feel like you are needed in their life."  For Kinsey, this amounted to me to turn on a lava lamp so she could watch it move.  For an older woman, this could have included a call to have me come over and her move a sofa.  After Kinsey successfully sucked me into this trap, she was cheerful because she knew she had won "the game".  At this point, the cycle is prone to repeat itself, expecting the man to forget all past transgressions, while the woman is allowed to remember everything you ever promised to them.   Its a painful moment of clarity when you realize, as a man, I have fallen for many of the same traps in relationships I have fallen for with my niece.  My father should charge a workshop fee for teaching single, clueless men like me the phyche of the female mind.  Much to learn from this man I have still to do.

Clearance rack

I had what could be considered a "fat moment" tonight when I sat down in my chair and proceeded to break one of the casters on my chair.  One could argue I'm simply getting ready for the winter by adding some insulation, but I really haven't fluctuated much...I promise!  I decided to go down to Office Depot to look at some new chairs.  Chairs are expensive...very expensive.  I asked if they carried any replacement casters which they did.  I picked up a box of five for $30.  I was feeling pretty good about myself for not having to buy a new chair so I decided to treat myself to a new netbook sleave.  Did you know those things can run upwards of $30?  I decided I didn't want one that bad, so I started to walk out.  Long and behold I walked by a clearance rack and I saw a laptop sleave for $5.  I, of course, grabbed it up.  Long and behold, right next to that sleave on the clearance rack was a replacement caster for $1.99.  This is why I always check the clearance rack.  Sure, you could end up buying something you don't need, but you also have a chance of finding just the right item.

As an aside, the casters I bought didn't work and I might need to get a new chair anyway :)

Be a light unto the world

It has been about a month since I last posted something to my blog.  There are many reasons for this, most of them school related and trying to stay focused on my studies.  While driving in the car today on my way to the library to study for my chem final, something really drew my ire.  Recently Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of John Edwards, passed away after a long battle with breast cancer.  There will be a public memorial service for her today, and it is expected there will be a protest staged by Westboro Baptist Church.  To quote from their website (used with permission according to the copyright statement on the website):

WBC will picket a respectful distance from the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards who split hell wide open on December 7, 2010.  Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.  All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?  Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.  (Isa. 14:9-11.)  This witch spent her life in defiance and disobedience to God, and blasphemed Him with her dying breath.  She received multiple warnings and opportunties to repent.  After God smacked her by killing her son, she thought she'd show Him, pumping herself full of hormones to have more kids.  God gave her two more children, and she despised them like she did the first two, raising them to believe God is a liar.  She called her dead 16-year-old brat "righteous" and said the Old Testament promises for God's people are lies. Her blasphemous words:  "I had to think about a God who would not same my son...not only did he not protect him, the hand of God blew him from the road."  If she had been a righteous woman, she would have said like Job, "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord".  Then, when God smote her with breast cancer for her rebellion, she said, "I'm not praying for God to save me from cancer.  I'm not.  I do not have an intervening God.  I don't think I can pray to him -- or her -- to cure me of cancer."  Her pride and arrogance is breath-taking!  The last thing she would think to do is humble herself before the mighty hand of God.  So, when Elizabeth woke in Hell on December 7th -- where she will reside for eternity -- her son, Wade, met her and began an eternity of cursing her for lying to him.  Our message is for the living: do not live like Elizabeth Edwards or you will die like her and spend eternity in Hell where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.  And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.  (Isa. 66:24.)"


Is this what it is meant to be a light unto the world Westboro?  This is nothing but ugly...very very ugly.  Nothing about this quote's efforts shows the love of Christ unto the world. I want to be a doctor, and if I am fortunate enough to become one, nothing about a person's life or situation will be predicated on their life, lifestyle, beliefs, etc.  I want to use what has been given to me as a light unto the world.  Without a doubt, one of the most beautiful things about the world is the church.  Its art, its tradition, its charity.  Even an unbeliever can see good in some of the things the church does when it does it out of love.  I, as a believer, can see no good in what Westboro does because I believe they to be absent of love.  In fact, I believe them to be fueled by hate (without dignifying their website address, Google Westboro baptist church to find evidence of this from their official URL).  I do not want to be one to judge another; I write this today because this church's actions make me sad.  I know people who do not believe, and I want to be a light unto them.  If this becomes the image of what it means to be a Christian to the world, what chance does love have to be a light?

Two midterms

This is a pretty important week academically for me.  I have midterms on back to back days.  I'm doing my best to balance everything, so we'll see how it goes!