Tales of a Brown-Haired Freak

Dear term 3,

You weren't really what I expected, though I should have expected that, I suppose. I was promised easy; I was promised fun; I was promised the beach. Instead, I got mostly easy, occasionally fun, and the beach (but only once). For the most part, I enjoyed your classes. Your stories about legal precedent and ethical issues were interesting, and your movies were an educational treat to anyone who enjoys public access television. I did not enjoy your health systems, nor did I find your epidemiology to be particularly easy, but I can't lay all the blame for these at your feet - some of it was due to my own laziness.

The way I see it is this - third term, you are wasted on students by occuring in 2nd year. By now, we're all seen much of the island. Fish Friday is no longer cool and exciting so much as a long queasy drive to get tasty fried fish and breaded stuff and ice cream. We've realized that the beach is only fun if you're going there to get away from studying; it loses its savor when you're going for lack of anything better to do. And most importantly, we've discovered exactly how much we spent in 1st year, and REALLY don't want to do that again. Thus, we're living cheaply, and it's you that has to suffer.

But don't despair, 3rd term! You will always have a special place in my heart, one I will hold precious when I recall my med school days. When I remember you, I will remember House marathons, hours spent watching Wife Swap on Lifetime, and occasionally catching Star Trek reruns on Space. I will also remember the rum factory, the AMSA fair, and various hash runs. I will probably remember seeing dolphins in the rain, but you probably shouldn't count on it, as I don't like remembering being seasick.

And so I bid you a fond farewell, third term. Be nice to your next class,

R

It's been a rollercoaster few days in the wonderful world of behavioral science. First, a shiny new (to SGU) prof with a not-entirely innocent love for goats. But she uses people she knows for examples, and seems perfectly happy to start rumors about herself ("please please PLEASE don't tell anyone I'm actually a man. This is only for Example purposes."). More importantly, she made it all the way through 2 hours of paraphilias and sexual disfunction details without crackng up more than once or twice. (Speaking of which, what in sweet zombie jeebus's name is S&M doing in the DSM as a paraphilia? And transvestism? Maybe it's a northwest thing, but I was under the impression that they were pretty mainstream.)

Anyway, today was all about the drugs, and how they were bad...mmmkay? Except that sometimes they aren't. And medical marijuans is a good thing, even if it's illegal. And heroin's just great, as long as you can afford it and it doesn't lead you into a life of jazz and liquor. I will admit to being amazed, however, at how little my classmates know about various aspects of various drugs. It's not just lack of knowledge about such things as what whippets are (hint - not a type of dog), but actually belief that marijuana is addictive and makes you psychotic. War on Drugs brainwashing or something more sinister?

So yesterday, J and I were walking home, keeping an eye on the woods for any of her things (and for thugs). Needless to say, we didn't find anything...or did we? Walking up the road to our apartment, we caught a glimpse of blue in he bushes, and there, directly across from our apartment, was her backpack and lunchbox, neatly placed where we would be sure to see them.

I kept watch for ninjas while J clambered up the hill and rescued her belongings, and then the real question surfaced...how did he know where we live? We went down to our apartment with all the stealth we could muster (admittedly, not very much considering we were accompanied by 3 barking dogs), but our house was safe. so we opened the backpack and did a quick, no hands tally of the insides. Laptop? Check. books? Check? Sweater...hey, where's the sweater? That was the best sweater ever! Oh - there it is. Check. Wallet? Present, but empty. We should leave it for fingerprinting. ID? Present, but no house key. So he knows where we live, AND he has the key? Quick, call landlord!

Anyway, the landlord got our lock changed, the police investigator came by and took some things for fingerprinting, and we went out for a celebration dinner. (The policeman assured us that we don't need to worry that the guy knew where we lived, and that there's no chance of him coming back for revenge if he's caught and spends some time in jail - all students look the same to most grenadians anyway.

The good news - I went to the cell phone place and got my number transferred to a new sim card today. S is an amazing person who gave/lent me his old phone, which is actually better than the old one. AND...when I checked my balance at the phone place, I discovered that there is $20 MORE on it than before; not only did they steal a worthless phone, they actually put more money on to it for me. Idiots.

The bad news is that my roommate was mugged today. 5ish, walking home from the bus stop, was assaulted by an older man who took her backpack. I'm not going into any details, but she's in worse shape than I am/was, and rightly so. I spoke to out landlord, who is going to talk to the police tomorrow and arrange for us to rent a car for the next while, at a price that we can afford (hopefully).

The irritating part is that I KNOW our street isn't any more dangerous than it was before, and I know that the chance of this happening to both of us over 3 days is next to nothing (no one else around here has been so much as shouted at), but it's hard to be rational when there's NOTHING either of us can do to be any safer. We don't walk alone at night, we call if we're going to be out later or at an odd time, and we deliberately chose a safer neighbourhood to live in. The only thing left is to start carrying weapons, or to never go ANYWHERE alone. The first is a really bad idea (it's too easy to take a knife away from someone, especially since neither of us knows anything about using them), and the second is just entirely unfeasable for more reasons than one. So what are we supposed to do?

Fighting off would-be muggers is hard work. My entire body hurts and is covered with bruises, scratches, and plain old ouchy bits. And I have a headache - apparently I hit it harder than I thought on the ground. Have to go visit the cell phone office tomorrow to see about getting my card cancelled, though I expect it's too late to get any money off of it. Sigh.

You never think it'll happen to you. And then it does, and you're so pissed off that you still can't believe it has happened to you. There's no justice in the world.

Today, in broad daylight, on a fairly well-trodden path, I was mugged. Sort of. I prefer the word "jumped," because it feels more accurate, but whatever - it's just semantics. Anyway, I was walking along, happily listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (hey, it was the first book I found) on my ipod, when I heard running footsteps behind me. I spun around just in time to get knocked to the ground by 2 guys (kids really - neither could have been even as old as I am) and partially roughed up. Long story short, amidst a lot of profanity and more than a little anger (they were wearing bandanas on their faces, for christ's sake - and honestly, it didn't even occur to me to be afraid), I managed to kick one guy in the junk and jab the other in the eye with my finger, then jumped up when they grabbed my bag and ran off a bit.

There was a lot more profanity involved on my part as they dumped the contents of my bag on the ground (I was ranting somewhat hysterically at this point - I vaguely recall saying something uncomplimentary about their parentage), realized it contained only ingredients for delicious pad thai (I don't carry my wallet here - only money if I need it and my ID), and ran away like the stupid fucking kids they were. Honestly, what were they thinking? It was 5:30 in the fucking afternoon. You could see the peanut butter sticking out of my bag. And they didn't even take my ipod! They took my $5 phone! That I need! Idiots.

Anyway, I picked up my stuff and jogged to campus, filed my report, headed to the police station (with 2 friends), filed another report, and headed back to A's dorm to make delicious pad thai (it was delicious). I also drank a shot or 2 of frighteningly strong rum, but it was strictly medicinal - I was so pissed off that my hands were shaking. Probably some reaction in there too, but mostly anger. Really - they tried to mug me? They didn't even have weapons! They didn't even ask for my ipod - they just knocked me down! It's not like I wouldn't have given it to them - I'm not completely stupid. Somewhere in my ranting, I think I offered it to them, but the fuckers couldn't even get that part right.

And now I've got scratches and cuts on my arms from the gravel on the road and a headache from whacking it on the group when I fell, and I'll never be able to take that route to school alone again, and all because these fucking kids thought they were clever. The entire business probably took less than 2 minutes all told, but it was enough to ruin my day. The fuckers.

Do you, or anyone you know exhibit any or all of the following signs?

-Talks about committing suicide
-Has a suicide plan
-Withdraws from friends, social activities, hobbies, or work
-Gives away prized possessions
-Loses interest in physical appearance and hygiene
-Depression
-Increased use of alcohol or drugs
-Drastic changes of behavior

If someone you know has 3 or more of these signs, seek help. They may be at risk for being in medical school.

First stop: Confabulation Station!

On friday, we went on a field trip to the Mount Gay Mental Hospital. Despite some issues with transportation (like that's anything new here), it was fascinating and a lot of fun. We got to chat with 2 patients, one of whom had been living there for 12 years but seemed relatively normal and harmless, if distracted (she was good about staying on her meds). The other patient we talked with was the battiest of batshit crazies I've ever met, including some of the callers in to the crisis centre. Nice guy, well dressed, polite. And very interesting to talk to, once you got past the detailed discriptions of his time as a "ninjitsu-master universal soldier from the united states, only survivor of the bomb that ended the Vietam war, currently woking to end the gun trade between grenada and a mysterious other evil empire." Oh, and that it wasn't his real body we were talking with, but a super body they'd placed his brain in so that he could fight the lycans. I suspected that he watched a lot of television.

Today was the first Hash run of term. Lots of fun, moderately challenging, and we met a friendly donkey on the trip. Other than the deadly razorburn I've been suffering from (note to self - shaving legs dry with a brand new razor = bad idea. And, ouch.), it was good times with interesting people in the forest. With mud. What more can you really ask for?

Tomorrow however, I really need to study. The midterm is coming up on friday and it's looking like the honeymoon is almost over. Luckily, I've got a pretty strong background in the behavioral science and the stats is pretty basic. Not so luckily, they won't help me if I don't get my butt in gear.

I'm having trouble taking third term seriously. Which is bad, because it's a real class, and worth 6 credits, but it's hard to do it otherwise. After all, how serious can a class be that has field trips? After a week of classes, we've learned all about the importance of empathy (just so you know, it's important), and how to diagnose our friends and neighbours with personality disorders (Schizotypal, I call you!). We've also heard any number of stories about the prof's kids (daughter is an adrenaline junkie, son likes to luge) and had plenty of time to get irritated with our newest (read: import from GSP) front-row-question-guy. And to giggle the day his outfit matched the prof's.

More interesting has been jurisprudence, where a real, live trial lawyer came and spent the week giving us tips on how to get sued as few times as possible (don't lie to your patients) and how to win if you do get sued (document the things you did, the things you didn't do, and the things you thought about doing). I liked him because he made his points by telling us about classic and funny court cases to illustrate ideas. I didn't like him because he ended by telling us that if we aren't careful, we'll all turn into Nazis. Or something. Anyway, now it's over.

Today we started stats and moved on to behavioral science, part 2. Behavioral would be more interesting if it wasn't just a recap of the second half of neuro. Stats turned out to be a pleasant surprise when the prof used cost per hit when hiring an assassin to demonstrate the difference between nominal and ordinal sets of data.

In short, the term is everything I was told it would be. So far, I'm assuming that's a good thing.

Welcome to 3rd term, also know as the easy term, also known as the break before 4th term, and also known as the "it-used-to-be-five-one-credit-courses-but-in-the-name-of-efficiency-we-changed-it-to-one-six-credit-course-but-it's-exactly-the-same course. To celebrate the first day of term, we sat through the ceremonial Reading of the Syllabus, learned about not cheating and how to properly miss an exam (bring a note!), were reminded to be nice to our cousins from across the sea, the Global Scholars (they're different, not scary), and then got to watch 2 hours of a moderately-terrible movie, titled The Doctor

It was a required movie, which means we were supposed to learn something from it. Personally, I learned to bring coffee during required movies. Or maybe a book. It wasn't so much that it was a boring movie as that it's long, nothing really happens, and it's about 2 decades old so that instead of feeling admiration for this amazing doctor with his fantastic life (beginning of movie), or sympathy for his awful experience when his friend the-cancer-patient dies (middle of movie), we were giggling about his cell phone (brick), his wife's terrible hair-cut (not a colour found in nature, either), and the fact that the movie was more about cliched stereotypes of successful doctors/nurses/cancer patients than any actual reflection on reality.

However, if this is representative of the term overall, sign me up! It's still better than the "Introduction to Homeostasis" that we got on the first day of physio last term.