I'm not operating a gasoline station out of my apartment, I promise. Stop calling me!

So, there's an error in my city's phonebook, because it lists my apartment phone number as the phone number for a certain convenience store. You'd think that wouldn't be a problem, because people don't call gasoline stations, right? Of course they don't.

Except that they DO. [gratuitous linking to Liberal Larry because I luuuurve him] Especially when President Bush keeps sending hurricanes to the southern United States [/gratuitous], knocking out a bunch of oil refineries and screwing up transport lines, or whatever it is that happened. I don't know. I only watch about seven minutes of news daily. At least the severe Rush withdrawal has passed.

Anyway, I'm getting a bunch of misdirected phone calls, which I will try to summarize for you, including the West Virginia accent:

"I heard (rhymes with "weird") that they's gonna be a shortage of gas/prices are going up to $5 per gallon/we're all going to have to use dead cats as fuel. They any truth to that?"

Or they want to know if I still have gasoline, what my prices are, etc. Up to this point, I've been politely pointing out that they have the wrong number. However, I'm thinking of changing my tactic, for my own amusement - you know, tell them that the price of regular unleaded is going up to $47.50 per gallon next week, or that it's dropping to sixty cents on Friday (but only between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 PM!) Or answer their "shortage" questions with things like, "I'm fresh out of gasoline, but I just refilled all of the tanks with Yoo-Hoo. Was that wrong?"

Even more amusing, I could follow Kramer's example from the Seinfeld episode in which he keeps getting Moviefone's callers, and pretend to be an automated answering service for the station. "Hello, and welcome to the BlahBlahBlah Station. If you're calling about the price of regular unleaded gasoline, please press 1 now. If you're calling to check gasoline availability at this station, please press 2 now. If you're calling to dispel rumors of a shortage, please hang up and for the love of all that's good and pure, DO NOT forward those annoying "we'll show 'em!" gasoline boycott emails to ANYBODY."

Even a local news station called to check gasoline prices. One of the first wrong-numberers showed up on my caller ID as "KNIGHT, JOHN" and I was like, "Holy crap! It's one of the guys from New Kids On the Block! Alas, I was wrong. But I never really liked them anyway, really. And that is all about that.

School is going better. I got the results from my thorax exam ("I am the Thorax, I speak for the trees!" I just can't stop doing that) and I improved on my last exam by about 10 percentage points. Yay! This whole "study all of the material" thing seems to be working.

I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice

My friend Chris has put up an alternate likeness of me on his blog, which looks like one of those "If They Mated" things from Conan O'Brien between me and the guy from Digital Underground. Aaaaaaack. I'll not be having any of that. But you can see for yourself:

Harry Carey glasses, nose that's big like a pickle, and a mustache that doesn't curl up at the ends quite as much as my real mustache. Nice try Chris.

Chris, by the way, called the other day to check on me - which was nice, but I suspect someone from my church put a bug in his ear. See, last Sunday was my church's homecoming, and I spent some time talking to my ex-Sunday School teacher (aunt of Chris) about how I really like school, but I cry every day and I'm super-stressed, and I have to study all the time and I can't believe my grades thus far. But I don't mind a bug being planted, if there was one - it's really nice to know that people care. :-)

I had gross anatomy test #2 yesterday - the thorax ("I am the Thorax, I speak for the trees!" was my first thought when I got my packet of notes.) I have no clue how I did. I think the purpose of medical school is to make you constantly doubt yourself. Lots of fun, that.

Now I'm off to use words that don't mean nuttin, like "looptid". Half of this post won't make any sense if you don't remember "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground - a song that I've had in my head for most of the day. Thanks a LOT, Chris. I thought we were FRIENDS. I thought you were me with a Y chromosome. Sheesh.

One nation, under no deity in particular, floating about aimlessly, a bunch of evolved accidents. And some random stream-of-consciousness stuff.

There's a good post at CoffeeSwirls about the whole "under God" Pledge of Allegiance fight. The latest, I guess, is the California brouhaha. I'm in agreement with Doug at CoffeeSwirls - I think it's the wrong hill to die on. Saying "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is hardly a prayer - it's a patriotic thing, and I think it's ridiculous to charge that one's rights are being trampled upon.

All of the other scary things going on in public schools are more worthy of concern, in my opinion. Hopefully I'll have kids someday, but not yet - but when I do, it's disturbing to think that the public school system will have them for about 7 1/2 hours, 5 days a week, filling their heads with God-less, socialist nonsense, while I'll just have to pray that taking them to church faithfully, teaching them about the Lord, and trying to live a Godly life in front of them as best I can will counteract all the trash they'll be fed in public schools.

Re: medical school - I think things are getting better. It was just such a huge adjustment for me, given the day-to-day routine that I had been used to. I liken myself to a bacterium that's been thrown into a new culture - it has a acclimation period ("lag phase", Dr. B.!) during which it doesn't do much, just gets used to the environment, and then it starts producing exponentially. In a positive direction, of course. I think I'm headed that way, but it's been a rough month. I don't know if I would have made it without certain classmates - one in particular - we were talking after class and she compared us to a "band of brothers", all being in this experience together. I've done a lot of crying in the past month, for sure, but there's also been a great deal of laughter. I have no doubt that I am doing what God wants me to do, and I also have no problem admitting that I'll need His help every step of the way. I feel that He's placed certain people in my day-to-day life, and in my class, to help me, I really do. [/warm and fuzzy]

That is all.

Things are looking up - and a Family Guy clip

So, an acceptable biochem quiz score has boosted my confidence. Also, I discovered that actually reading through all of the material at least one time makes a big difference in how well I do when evaluated (quizzes, etc.) My undergraduate/graduate "study" [I realize this is wrong but I think it's funny] strategery [/realization] of reading through most of my notes the day before the test isn't going to work at this level. And I knew that, so I started - eh, 4 or 5 days before the test(s) and I didn't make it through all of the material. So it's not a big shocker that I didn't do as well as I could have. At least I figured out what I need to do while it's still early in the semester.

Also, study groups are awesome.

And also, I was running in the park today and saw a guy with a Flock of Seagulls haircut. I mean, for real. It amused me to no end.

Edited to add something else that amuses me to no end - Chris getting sucked into the Take on Me video in the middle of a grocery store. Family Guy is so hilarious. Here you go, have a clip. It's about 8MB - right-click and "save as", please. :-)

Taaaaaaake onnnnnnn meeeeeeeee ...

Hoooooooooooooraaaaaaaaaay! I finally got my server straightened out so that I can post again. I have been experiencing blog withdrawal - or, maybe it's just that I can't believe my grades on my first two exams, I am so freaking tired, more information just keeps piling on, the exams keep coming, I may or may not have had a breakdown in which I cried and cried and dramatically fell asleep on my face on the couch in the library at school, I wonder almost every hour how I managed to fool the admissions committee TWICE into thinking that I'm capable of the workload, and in my mind, the number of patients that I'm going to kill due to my idiocy increases exponentially. That is, if I manage to pass this year.

BUT, I got my stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, and I know how to use them. That's cool.

Oh, and here's what's going on with my internal organs - my stomach has wrapped my small intestine around its neck like a scarf, and is jumping rope with my large intestine. And my pancreas has just gone ahead and exploded. It's not unusual for me to have Pepto Bismol for breakfast. On the bright side, I've lost some weight. And that is all. I must go read something - if I read biochem, I'll feel like I'm cheating on anatomy. And yet, we have an exam in cell & molecular on Friday, and a biochem quiz on Wednesday on which I need a good grade. What to do, what to do. Maybe I can work in my daily cry now, and then read afterwards.

Test post

I hope you didn't come here expecting to find a new post. I mean, I have my first gross anatomy exam and lab practical tomorrow, for goodness sakes. I'm trying to learn stuff to SAVE LIVES later.

Oh.

Well, since I'm here, I have to tell y'all about this awesome mullet that I just saw on my way into the library. Gelled into spikes in the front, curly ponytail in the back. Oh, it was glorious. Best. Mullet. Ever. The only thing that would have made it better - if he had been wearing a T-shirt like the one that I saw some greasy guy wearing a few weeks ago - which said, "Afternoon Delight". And the best part was that his gut was hanging out of the bottom of it. Heh.

And now I have to study. Because all information about the hand? I forget it the INSTANT it goes into my head. I don't know why. Almost everything else seems to stick, but not the hand, never the hand!! Wish me luck. I hope I don't fail miserably.

P.S. - My stupid pancreas still hurts. Bah. *shakes fist at pancreas*