Summer thoughts

Random thoughts:

1) What is it with kindergarten/elementary school/middle school graduations, complete with cap and gown and diploma?  "Graduating" from elementary school is not an accomplishment. You cannot be Class of 2012 in the 8th grade...no, try making it through senior year of high school and then properly celebrate that accomplishment in 2016. Is this a regional thing or a generational thing? I don't remember any of the sort during my primary and secondary education.

2) I am loving the long days of summer. It's light when I wake up and when I return home, which adds so much productivity and energy to my day.

3) Orange marmalade is bitter, huh? I guess I'm used to Smucker's, which is sweeter than a treacle tart. This TJ's Seville Orange Marmalade is sweet with a distinct bitter edge. I like it.

4) Thank goodness I went the medical school and not the Ph.D route. No doubt, I love research but man, the competitiveness (irony?) and the (lack of) funding. People in my lab have been post docs for 10+ years. 10 years! These are really smart people we are talking about, underpaid, overworked and still chugging away within a very flawed promotion system.

5) I am not ready to return to the wards! I like my research year...let me stay! Can I graduate and just get assigned a residency here and skip the whole application/interview process?

6) On the other hand, I am ready for a change of pace. And a break.  Bring it on, 4th year electives!!!

Good and Bad

First the bad, to get it out of the way: I am in a research slump. My project has taken a turn (or it has yet to take a turn and is sinking deeper and deeper into thick, thick mud), and I have yet to figure out what the heck I'm doing. Yes, and I am 6 months in...and I feel incompetent. Worse still, our study cards are due soon and I have a 1% lingering fear that my dream of becoming a medical oncologist is the wrong decision. So instead, I feel a compulsion to do one last clinical rotation before applying this year and "rule out" the 1% option. Sigh. So much introspection to do. I need to be honest with myself here. I find myself fantasizing about not only an array of medical specialties, but also other professions...like creating my own healthy food/drink line a la Honest Teas, or going the PhD/MD/JD/etc to bakery/restauranteur route. I think creating food is my stress outlet.

Now on the good, and I'm grasping at straws here compared to the weighty "bad" stuff I just detailed. It hit a record high today and it was lovely outside. I am on a smoothie kick and just enjoyed a carrot-apple-yogurt  smoothie tonight after having a peanut butter-banana-soy milk one for breakfast. I have a meeting with my medical school adviser tomorrow and am optimistic that we'll be able to sort some of life out, even if it's just logistical scheduling. I saw the dentist for the umpteenth time today to repair my tooth, and while today was not the day, I realize that I'm so lucky to have found this dentist. He is perfectionist as well as kind and incredibly patient and wants a great result as much as I do. Man, you just do not get this in health care these days any more.

Handwritten letters - old fashioned?

Am I the only one who likes to write and receive an old-fashioned letter? This time of year, I sit down and write out holiday cards. I treat it like a business, spreadsheet and all, so I don't miss anyone. It takes a good 5-6 hours. I'll admit, I don't always love it 100% of the time, but I feel it's important to thank and remember those who have been important to me.  A hand-written notes takes time, effort, and thought, I hope that it sends a message that I care and value those people who receive my letters. Typed letters, or god forbid, e-cards are just not the same. But maybe I'm old-fashioned.

In this vein, I'm sad that USPS is in financial straights. They need to redefine their mission somehow and adapt to this world of electronic communication. I've got no good ideas, for what does the postal service do except ensure that we receive paper communication?

"I should"...no "I could"

Have you ever begun a statement to yourself with, "I should..."   You know, the times when you say, "I should go to the gym," or "I should really write that paper tonight," or "I should clean my room." 

What if you replaced "should" with "could?"  "I could really go to the gym."  "I could write that paper." "I could clean my room." Sounds a lot more positive and empowering, doesn't it?  "Should" statements create judgment; "could" statements are neutral and imply choice.

Speaking of which, I could cook dinner tonight and bake a galette for my labmate's birthday. It's late, and I just got back from lab, but I could...

Smarts

While blog perusing, I ran across a post that linked to this blogger's post: 


"But the only thing that makes me more bearish is the way that America denigrates intelligence and studying.  It's taken for granted that in America, there is mutual exclusion between being well-liked growing up and having very academic hobbies.  The captain of the chess team is assumed to have trouble getting dates.  If you are in high school and win lots of math competitions, people assume you're below average in admiration by peers.

In China, getting good grades makes you MORE popular.  The valedictorian is usually very popular.  And respected.  It automatically gets you points.  In America, it automatically drags you down in the eyes of your peers.

I think this is the single biggest factor that could lead to America's decline.  Everyone wants to be loved and respected by their peers.  Making that at odds with pursuing intellectual activities is very damaging to maintaining the status as the land of innovation." 

Like the re-poster, these thoughts also make me pause and think, especially since I came across with an overt reflection of this attitude while chatting with a lab mate just earlier this week.  Our conversation somehow turned to the Scripps National Spelling Bee.  He had watched a broadcast of the final round, where "an Indian girl" had just spelled the final word and won the Bee.  My colleague described the ensuing scene: as a national network TV interviewer approached the girl with a microphone, she was backing away, almost afraid of the microphone. Clearly, my colleague pointed out, this 11 or 12 year-old girl "had spent hours after school doing nothing but studying for the spelling bee for years" and her behavior was "almost creepy." I countered that most pre-teens are awkward to begin with and that few would be eloquent and charming during a national TV interview, particularly after just winning a national spelling bee!  My colleague implied that had she not engaged in this academic endeavor, she would have be more socially graceful.

This kind of thinking drives me crazy! What if this kid had spend "hours after school" in soccer practice, or gymnastics, or dance - and yet interviewed "awkwardly" on TV? Would we have blamed it on the soccer practice? No!

To be clear, I have been surrounded and am surrounded by lots of highly educated, intellectual people (i.e. medical students!).  Like this spelling bee winner, we probably spent many hours poring over books. I don't feel disrespected by others for taking academics seriously, but certainly, I sense that culturally, our society equates being brain smart of being "uncool."

It's really sad that America does not appreciate intellectuallism and even individuals in very intellectual fields (hello post-post-doc who is a brilliant scientist!) harbor the attitude that pursuing an academic hobby like spelling precludes you from having any social aptitude whatsoever.

The power of gratitute

My resident fellow send us the following article. I am grateful for so many things, including her. What are you grateful for?

THE POWER OF GRATITUDE

[THIRD Edition]

Boston Globe - Boston, Mass.

Author:	ELISSA ELY
Date:	Mar 28, 2003

ELISSA ELY is a psychiatrist.

MANY YEARS AGO, IN THE STAFF ROOM OF A HOSPITAL WHERE ALL CASES WERE CONFIDENTIAL YET ALL CONVERSATIONS WERE EASILY OVERHEARD, I LISTENED IN ON HALF A CONVERSATION. A psychiatric resident was on the phone. I knew little about him except that like all of us in training, he labored for the proper neutral expression considered an indication of therapeutic expertise. We all tried to look neutral back then; the staff room was full of level brows, no movements that might register on a Richter scale, and, in my five years there, not one fist pumped in the air.
The resident was known for taking on tough cases, angry and injurious patients whom others were pleased to pass on. His patients were regularly on the tops of bridges or else suing him. He was busier with their difficulties than the rest of us, and a certain admiration followed him for his durable accomplishments.
Durability took its toll. When he wasn't looking neutral, the doctor looked harried and slightly untidy; socks slid down, and his shirts came untucked from the weight of other lives on his shoulders. Though he never raised his voice, no one would have blamed him. We would have welcomed a little steam from his ears. It would have done him good.

On this morning, he was standing in the staff room with the phone receiver on his shoulder, holding one chart under his arm and leafing through another on the table. He had apparently just dialed the operator.

"Maintenance Department," he said, and while he waited he initialed a lab report. His voice had no time for chitchat. There was a bite of lunch on his tie.

"Hello, Maintenance? Is this the supervisor? This is Dr. X. I'm in Office 106. It's about the man who cleaned there last night."

My radar rose, and my admiration for his durable accomplishments began to sink. This phone call could have only one purpose. No matter how busy someone is, there is always time for dissatisfaction. He was calling to complain. He was going to report some imperfection left by the man who had cleaned Office 106 last night. I didn't want to hear it - though, of course, I continued to listen.

"I don't know the guy's name," he said. "But it looked like hell in there before, and it looks fabulous now. I wanted to pass on to you that he did a great job. Could you thank him for me?"
I would have tucked that lovely man's shirt in for him that second if I could have done it without breaking professional code. Giving thanks used to be standard - all human models came equipped with the capacity. Now it seems not to be a regular feature anymore; giving thanks has become heated front seats in luxury sedans.

Let us be clear.

Appreciation still exists, but it is mostly on a grander, more formal, full-screen scale - sky-high monuments and heroic testimonial dinners meant to knock us off our feet. Complaint is also easy to find these days (the very act of complaining is often confused with accomplishment). What is missing are the less spectacular thanks.

We're lessened by the loss of these little thanks, though we're mostly so busy that I wonder if anyone misses them. We're lessened because somehow a piece of eternity is put into place every time one is given - that is, thanks last forever. The janitor in Office 106, I'll put good money on it, will carry that moment with him into the next life. All of us who eavesdropped on the conversation will, too.
I once heard a senior psychiatrist say he had spent the entire hour of a session analyzing, as if in a chess match, whether or not to pass a tissue to a weeping patient. In the end, he didn't. He said it would have been too revealing. But this was the opposite. In a moment of unsolicited and slightly effortful gratitude, someone, by chance also a psychiatrist, exposed his disheveled and dear heart - and I, for one, would have trusted him with my soul after that. I have remembered his shirt long after I have forgotten his name. But it is never too late for gratitude.

What's wrong with food in America?

I went grocery shopping this weekend, at the local large-chain grocery store here. For context, it's in the middle of the city, in a predominantly minority neighborhood, which I say to indicate that this market is no Whole Foods.

With all the talk about diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, the list goes on, the first place to look is America's supermarkets.  When did chicken cost 59 cents a pound, and green peppers $2.99/lb?  Why are their 8 ways to buy beef  alone (ground, sirloin, and a other cuts I can't begin to name) but only 4 varieties of leafy green vegetables, all more expensive than meat, cookies, Doritos, and frozen chicken nuggets?  There is something wrong with this picture. I'm not slamming meat, but when processed, packaged foods and meat cost half as much as fresh produce, what's the logical choice, people? 

In the vast majority of countries around the world, if you're poor, you eat vegetables. Meat is a luxury. Goodness knows packaged foods and fast food don't even exist there. Maybe if that were the case in the U.S., and fresh fruits/veggies were actually affordable, we wouldn't have all this obesity business.


And my other beef (no pun intended) with most foods on the market? Sugar. Seriously, we must have the absolute sweetest tooth imaginable on the planet. Yogurt? 30+ grams of sugar.  Instant oatmeal? So sweet my teeth could fall out.  Quick breads? I've seen recipes calling for 2 CUPS per small loaf (see my previous recipe, in which I cut the sugar in half). And if you want to get "reduced sugar," giddy up for some artificial sweetener, to yes - make the food even more sweet.  Why not slash the sugar in most foods in half and offer real reduced sugar options?  The sugar industry must be a lobbying beast.

I know none of this is enlightening or original news, but fer crying out loud, let's make it easier (and more affordable!) for American consumers to make good choices.

Why do some birds hop and others walk?

I've wondered about this for years!  You know, when you see a sparrow hopping and then right next to it, a blackbird is walking.  My friend, a much of a bird nerd as I, provides the answer:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Walking_vs_Hopping.html

 

Walking vs. Hopping A bird moving along a telephone wire does not walk like a tightrope artist; instead, the bird will "sidestep," "switch-sidle," or "hop." Sidestepping (the way that people typically move along a ledge) involves alternately lifting each foot and moving it to the side while continuing to keep the same foot ahead. Switch-sidling means moving to the right or to the left by crossing one foot over the other in an exaggerated "pigeon-toed" step. Hopping, of course, requires moving both feet simultaneously.

When unconstrained by such a narrow perch, many birds walk or run using the alternating strides typical of most bipeds. Others, particularly small, arboreally inclined species, commonly hop. It is uncertain why hopping is more common in smaller birds. The evidence seems to point to economy of effort: short-legged birds move farther in a single hop than they do taking several steps, whereas it is more economical for larger birds, with longer strides, to move one leg at a time.

Although birds of the same taxonomic groups frequently share a common pattern of locomotion on the ground, the patterns often have exceptions. Most passerines hop, but others, such as larks, pipits, starlings, and meadowlarks, typically stride. Within the family Corvidae, jays hop whereas crows stride. Diverse species, including robins, ravens, and blackbirds, both hop and stride. Whether a physically unconstrained bird hops or strides is not just a question of anatomy; speed also affects choice of locomotion -- a hopper in a hurry tends to break into a run.

Leg length is not only related to locomotory mode but also associated, among other things, with foraging style. For example, among ground gleaners and waders, species with shorter legs forage in shallower debris or water. Some ground foragers (especially buntings, towhees, juncos, and sparrows) are more likely to use a method of foraging called "double-scratching," a maneuver involving little more than hopping in place. But here, too, there is no simple division between birds that hop, stride, and double-scratch. Some striders double-scratch and some hoppers do not.

Recording the locomotory patterns in local bird species in different circumstances could be helpful in determining, for example, the conditions under which birds that typically hop when on perches (such as jays, flickers, and House Sparrows) continue to hop when on the ground and under which conditions they do not.