I truly wish I had the sense to read a book like Katrina Firlik’s Another Day in the Frontal Lobe during my formative years. Instead, I was reading “fantasy” fiction like Sweet Valley High that is junkier and more superficial (glossing just the surface) than television ever is. In general, to learn, I need to read rather than learn about something through visuals and auditory input like television, like the medical drama ER.

If I had read this book in my youth with an open and receptive mind, I may have appreciated the different specialties and subspecialties of medicine and how, after medical school, there’s a specialty that caters to everyone’s personality. Don’t like people? Pathologists don’t deal so much with people. Don’t like blood? Psychiatry or radiology. Want normal hours? Several specialities have sane hours and the doctors are not on call. Want to be like a researcher? Pathologists work in a lab. Want a repetitive job yet have a “Dr.” title? General medicine.

I also wish I knew that not all nurses are triage nurses and that ones who get into administration (and some other specialties) can demote the importance of bedside manner. Who could have forecasted that nurses these days can have more responsibility and become nurse practitioners?

A female cousin of mine went through neurosurgery training, also in the States, so I felt like I was reading my cousin’s memoir. In fact, I could convince myself that the author, from her author picture, looks like my cousin!

I enjoyed most the earlier chapters of the novel where Firlik exposed more of the how to be to be a neurosurgeon while the later chapters were philosophical about “why” and issues and so forth.

A co-worker noticed my recent space of “medical” novels: midwives in The Birth House, short stories in Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, and finally Another Day in the Frontal Lobe. She remarked, “Gee, you should be a nurse!” It was meant, of course, with the idea of a triage nurse. Gee, Co-Worker, you don’t actually know me!

I’ll leave you with two quotes that impressed me.

* Firlik writes about the big decision to become a neurosurgeon. Her description easily fits for the decision to get a Ph.D. I love how she makes a developmental biology analogy. :D

“The decision to become a neurosurgeon places you on a track that runs, unabated, through a seven-year tunnel … At the end of the tunnel, the formerly undifferentiated M.D. emerges as an exquisitely super-specialized neurosurgeon, squinting at the rest of the world - a rare animal dominating a small niche within the ecosystem of medicine. At that point, you feel unqualified to do anything else, even if you had any lingering thoughts about a career change.”

* In the following quote, Firlik champions her specialty. As if we needed any convincing.
“I love watching the Parade of Nations during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. As the athletes stream into the stadium, I read off the name of each country and remark on how many athletes follow along behind each sign. I have a special affection for the smaller nations with smaller representation, like Malta and East Timor. I root for these athletes. In the world of medicine, neurosurgery is one of the smaller countries with fewer athletes trailing behind its sign. Internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, and gynecology, to name just a few - those are much larger. There’s no need to feel sorry for us, though. We’re well trained. As a nation, we don’t struggle that much. Neurosurgery is similar to one of the Scandanavian countries - small but elite and with an impressive gross domestic product relative to its size. In fact, at large academic medical centers, our economy often helps support the more populous but less economically sound Sudans of medicine. You might consider rooting for one of them.

Still around. I posted last only two weeks ago but I feel like I have been away forever.

Lil’ Sis has been here nearly two weeks and we’ll be off to Smallville together in less than a week.

The Boy and I blew up at each other several times because he’s not used to being sidelined and I was quite callous about it. I’m trying harder these days, I guess, and we aren’t soooo angry at each other.

In work news, I met my replacement today. She’s going on vacation tonight and, as I said, I’m gone for a bit next week. Throw in a stat holiday and it turns out that that I’ve got four days before my holiday and then ten days after I get back before I move into my new position. An increase in income, benefits, the whole she-bang. :D

I find that med student Jennifer Hawke posts quotations that feel relevant to me. She has also been through the wringer with academic choices. In case her post some day goes offline, I’ve reproduced the quotes she recently offered.

The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.
~ Barbara Hall

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.
~ Arthur Rubinstein

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.
~ Reggie Leach

To wit, if she and I were to define success as a tidy four-year undergraduate immediately followed by graduate/professional school of your choice and dreams and then earning six-figures by the time we’re 30, then we are woefully failures in life. That is the definition of a different generation. That is the definition that will wreck more lives than it bolsters. The correct definition amidst the above three quotations.

Ironically, I’m reading the memoir of a female neurosurgeon. Two books ago, I was reading another doctor’s novel. A co-worker commented on the theme and suggested that I consider being a nurse.

(Hah! I bet she hasn’t put it all together to know how old I am nor does she know what I’ve been through that I wouldn’t restart with a nursing career.)

I thought I would be horribly depressed reading two medical novels but I must be resigned afterall. I’m just waiting for it to come through the grapevine that The One and his girlfriend got the residency of their dreams, both in Lotusland, and got engaged to make their 2008 most auspicious.

When I first heard of this novel, I wanted to read it. I have this thing about reading the works of Motherlander-Americans, as if one of them one day can answer all of my identity questions. But with the shambles that was my life grieving for losing The One as a boyfriend, I refrained. It’s for the same reason that I don’t watch that gripping drama, Grey’s Anatomy: With the “unresolved issues” about breaking up with being dumped by The One, I couldn’t bear to face unnecessarily images of future doctors coupling with other future doctors, all of them leading fabulously glamourous lives.

Then the book won a prestigious national prize and I kept it on my radar…

So far, I have read several chapters and here are some of my thoughts.

Ming, the female protagonist, figures prominently in the first two short stories and I couldn’t sympathize with her. While being deluded about maintaining a platonic relationship with her study buddy, she is also rather cruel to him; I can see her Motherlander upbringing in her “reasoning” and actions, but a Western onlooker will only see cruelty… and delightfully exotic reticence. The author, Mr. Lam, exposed how calculating one has to be to get into medical school; Ming and Fitzgerald, the male protagonist, philosophized about the purity of their career intentions but ultimately the procedural method was the successful method to get a crack at their dream careers.

The third chapter was more emotional and not just because I’m internalizing the stories.

When they are apart, Fitzgerald’s desperation reminds me of the times when Big Ex was in the wrong and repentent and suffocating. To be fair, we each took turns having times when we were completely lacking in dignity. When Ming became cold and business-like about the relationship, it reminded me of how I was with The Boytoy.

Most of all, the third chapter illustrated how a couple drifts apart when one of them is in medical school in a different city, even when the other one will be at the same school just a year later. The author, probably being semi-autobiographical, confirms that in the wild world of medical school, school becomes your life, your study group is your everything: study partners, lab partners, default friends, roomates, dining companions, wake-up call, everything.

(The One told me about an official “recommendation” at his school to not date within your class - why did he tell me this? - and so he resisted until the vixen, a girl in his study group, relentlessly wooed him.)

Had I read the first three chapters just two years ago, I would be feeling all manners of emotional pain. I have personally lived through the first three chapters and remember only the bad parts.

The fourth chapter was boring. :P It’s far more interesting - and abbreviated - to watch resuscitation after an MI on ER than it is to read it!

Just to let you know, one of the characters I’ve encountered so far as the same name as The One. :P

And it’s all okay. I am finally over it all. (’Til he tells me he’s marrying the vixen!)

Happy and Hopeful

I had a training session yesterday wherein lots of activities outside of training together were mentioned. One training buddy mentioned a special screening that would interest the majority of us training together. Another buddy said we could go for a night-time winter activity soon, a fun summer activity, and a trip and race in the fall! My training buddies are extremely decent people and I wish I could be less prickly around them. It’s due to my “work stress”, I’ll say.

Exhilerated and Stimulated

In the evening, The Boy and I joined Back-Up Boy (BUB) and his new friends at a quinessentially Motherlander type of restaurant. I love those restaurants. I love the vibe and the food. The Boy and I arrived an hour later than the stated gathering time but probably only 15 minutes after most of the people showed up. The group consisted of Party Hardy Girl (PHG), BUB, Heather, and five of PHG’s friends (3 male, 2 female).

BUB was sitting at the end of the long table with two girls he met at separate singles events: Heather and one of PHG’s good friends. You’d think that it’s awkward but when some of these people treat singles events seemingly just to increase your social network, there’s no hard feelings when the dates don’t work out and they try to defy the myth that men and women can’t be friends (after dating).

Anyways, despite not condoning much of the activities I heard of - co-ed video game-playing till dawn? bumping and grinding at a club? boozing and smoking? - and not knowing the half of the people they gossiped about, I held my own in being witty, I think.

When you’re single, you so badly want a permanent partner. But when you’re in a couple with party hardy friends, it looks awfully fun to be able to have transient alliances and complete autonomy. I must remember to cherish above all what I have with The Boy.

Angry and Jealous

I know, I’m so unreasonable. Unbeknownst to him, I got angry at BUB because I noticed that he had improved at the game by leaps and bounds. I got angry because The Boy claims to be a natural in whatever he tackles but I believe it more of BUB who has not boasted of that to me. I got paranoid that when BUB’s at home, he’s studying and practicing how to be that elusively cool Motherlander who has the elements to make a real Motherlander feel comfortable but knows better and incorporates the best of both worlds. I thought I laid claim to “elusively cool Motherlander” first….

I’m jealous because he can date three girls and go on trips with others and they can all sit at the same table and have fun. I’m angry that he might not tell me who he’s dating unless I pry. I’m angry because when we were playing, he kept looking away, explaining that he was concerned that new-to-the-group Heather was lonely. I’m angry because he falls all over himself to be helpful and resourceful and hence he’s becomes the “goto guy” constantly taking phone calls: he’s interested in the things that interest Motherlanders, male and female alike, like mobile phones, cars, going out, and trying new things. I’m angry because I feel like he’s changing and pandering and it’s not cool and it’s disappointing and sickening.

Frustrated and Sad

BUB has a life-embracing attitude that I pride myself in having. (He has not surpassed me in that!) Work Crush has the body that I desire in a guy. But BUB is proving himself as trying too hard to please and I’ve learned from being with The One that I’ll be constant worried with a guy I believe to be a hot commodity that someone else will charm him away.

Still, I wish The Boy would play up the qualities he has similar to these guys. I must be mentioning it the wrong way because he balks and insults the examples I raise.

Since I have a smaller, and more diverse, group of friends to draw upon, I went to a sporting/activity night arranged by one of Back-Up Boy’s (BUB) friends, Party Hardy Girl (PHG), and left The Boy at home. To be fair, The Boy wanted to watch the game and I… didn’t.

Let me refresh you about BUB’s new friends. (I refuse to acknowledge them as “old friends”, long-term, or as close friends of his… even though he’s been on trips and dates with them.)

Almost a year ago, BUB went to a singles event with his Motherlander-wannabe friend, King. There, they met PHG and her friend. King went out with PHG but they quickly become only friends. BUB wooed the friend who turned out to be highly allergic to commitment. These girls tended to bring the new boys into their group and introduce them to more people, exponentially expanding everyone’s social network. After a no-go with PHG, King pursued a girl in the group named Gwen, whom I only mentioned for the first time last post, who is on-and-off with her boyfriend and wouldn’t commit to King. Finally, BUB pursued another girl in the group named Libby and she didn’t give any indication she slow down her partying ways.

For the record, neither King nor BUB are party-hardy. King sleeps early while BUB is more flexible but prefers to live a good lifestyle that does not include boozing, cigarettes, or club-hopping. Goodness knows, guys and girls will do crazy things to find love.

Guys who love sports stats (like The Boy) would notice that between the two boys, they are 4 for 4 for meeting commitment-phobic girls in that group and they are nice and sensitive boys ready for their last romantic relationship and I dearly do not want to see trampled them taken for granted. I can only guess that they hope that 2 of the 4 will settle down (sometime) and within this kind of crazed Motherlander groups, it doesn’t really matter which girl you get.

(Bitter much? I know I am.)

So, due to a variety of factors (The Boy never having been a swaggering Motherlander-wannabe partying type, me having a huge chip on my shoulder, being coupled for nearly 2 years, and generally not being so stupid with our money), The Boy and I are not invited out even though we’re each “friends of friends” of entrenched members. We were invited on the trip and didn’t go for different reasons: I never have enough money while The Boy didn’t feel it was 100% appropriate for us to join a bunch of singletons for singles-friendly winter getaway debauchery.

Anyways, I was a little nervous as the sporting/activity evening drew near. My friends (Kiki, a friend via BUB; The Boy’s BFF#2; and The Boy’s BFF#4) were not coming yet BUB felt comfortable leaving me with PHG and the gaggle (six of ‘em) of her friends I had not met before. He, you see, had to take care of this other girl, Heather, he met at yet another singles event, didn’t really click with, but invites out for sporting/activity dates.

To sum up my sensations over four hours of the evening:
* The Other Gwen is cuter, thinner, a better player than I, and an authentic Motherlander. That someone as discerning as King likes her makes her seem inordinately gorgeous to me. (I have issues, I know.)
* Heather struck me as quite handsome and seemed increasingly handsome as the night went on and she readily talked about her vibrant career.
* PHG regaled us with partying stories. She likes to pick on BUB and I wondered if Heather was equally unimpressed by BUB’s participation in such mindless entertainment.
* Of course I missed The Boy’s phone call and of course we both know he felt left out and as if I was having too much fun to talk to him.
* I chat with another King and had “a moment” witnessed by all when one of the attendents took an interest in my Smallville origins
* At the end of the evening, BUB drove me home and that’s always the nicest part when he’s all mine!

You may reasonably suspect that I’m jealous because I don’t want anyone to have BUB if I don’t have him. It’s not true.

Over the years, as it happens with all friends, you really get to know someone: if you’re like me, you consider a new guy you meet as a boyfriend first and he will dispel your illusion anywhere from immediately or heartbreakingly after you’ve imprudently started a relationship. Over the years, I have learned to trust BUB so much and I really cherish the things we can do together that does not overlap with other friends or my own boyfriend. However, BUB is too eager, too much of a novelty-seeker, not quite arrogant enough, and all sorts of other small reasons that I eventually would not like.

I feel (helplessly) protective about who BUB dates because I know he’s looking for a commitment and I kind of want the girl to be more like me and less party-hardy. I know I’m crazy to think so much of his future. If he marries the likes of PHG - or, worse, inappropriate-looking Libby - she and her friends will engulf him and I worry that there will be no place left for the “Americans” he used to call friends, that he is by origin. I want to be able to double-date with him and his girl when he finds one. If our kids are the same age, I want them to be able to be friends.

Back-Up Boy (BUB) and I have this weird arrangement where we share our social calendars with each other. It’s something not so weird between a guy and girl who are dating, but do I really need to know that BUB went to the gym for an hour yesterday?

Further, BUB’s calendar is driving mine to shame with his new party-hardy friends. I consider them as new friends still, as it has not yet been a year while I have been friends with him for over two years and Girlfight Girl (GFG) and he have dated and they have been friends for over ten years. Anyways, BUB provides all the details for his outings including where, when, and who with. Yes, all the people in attendance for a dinner party are listed.

I felt hurt when I read BUB’s calendar and saw the attendance list to a dinner in honour of BUB’s most recent wooing-victim. People. People BUB’s meeting, partying with, FB-friending. I’m not thinking about it in the context of my own recent and very quiet dinner party at all. While I seethed that BUB went to “the hottest club in town” while The Boy and I merely walked by it during the day, I took consolation in knowing that The Boy’s BFF#4 refrained from clubbing with that group and joined us fuddy-duddies at The Boy’s BFF#2’s place on Saturday night. I further consoled myself that BFF#2 passed up the party to hang out with us.

I told The Boy about the social outing and my inferences. This is ammunition The Boy can later use about how I stalk. I told The Boy that our life, his friends, and mine are boring.

I told him about my frustration with my BFF#2 bemoaning that BFF#1 and I don’t live in Metropolis but - thanks to FB - we see her doing her favourite things anyhow with a second tier of friends. (The Boy likes to remind me that she’s not a real/good friend.)

I relayed to The Boy how one of the party-hardy girls was talking smack on an FB group about a showdown/game between The Boy’s BFF#4 and someone named Gwen and about betting on Gwen. The Boy was skeptical that the Gwen mentioned was me when BFF#4 and I never got into a rivalry over that sport. (Gwen is a popular name in my generation in my culture.)

Then, I saw the FB pictures from the dinner party are up and tagged (hence I am able to view them). There is one particularly happy group picture with BUB where everyone’s happy and hugging each other Motherlander-style and my heart sinks. There is a picture of BUB about to take his first taste of some special shooter and my heart sinks. There’s a picture of the guest of honour and her adorably adorned cake and my heart sinks. There’s a picture of a cute girl named Gwen and my heart sinks. (She reminds me of the youngest Zuppa sister, Carrie.)

I took the time supposed to be used to get ready for work to look at all the FB pictures of the party-hardy girl(s) tagged.

My rage/cultural identity crisis/disease of the soul flares only every few months. I told The Boy that I wanted to be mistaken as a Motherlander (of the classy variety): by my actions, body, voice, penmanship if, alas, never in my wardrobe. Being consider “American” really bites and this terror of it flares up every now and then.

While BUB was out being accepted by the Motherlanders - a feat he seems to easily do with cash flow, a hot car, and an easy-going novelty-seeking attitude - I was learning more about my culture by installing their fonts on my computer. While we are both learning more and “improving”, the differences are enormous.

When your hair is limp and way past due for a haircut, your lips are dry as sandpaper, your complexion wonky, and your sweater is riding up, what happens?

Why, you get your first chance to talk to Work Crush more than him simply saying, “Can you do this for me? Thanks.”

In a common area, I ran into him and was prepared to ask him what the deal was with the decoration going on in the room he shares with several other guys. He told me that there was an office in the opposite building that was often decorated so they wanted to provide some colour in return.

This lead to me asking him at which stage he was in his training. He told me that he was in his last year of university and I nearly choked. Please, let him tell me that he had a quarter-life career change… Nope. I couldn’t resist and asked him how old he is: he’s nine years younger than I am… or 70% of my age…..

I glanced at his wedding band as we talked and wondered to myself, “Sheesh, did you get married at 18?! Who does that these days?!”

In our conversation, it came up that he lives with his parents and I couldn’t resist asking if he was married. Because if someone is married and living at home, hey, I want to know how often that happens in this alterna-world that is Lotusland.

He said he wasn’t married and explained that his girlfriend gave him the unadorned ring and the only finger it fits on is that ring finger.

(If someone told me that in a bar, I’d be the most gullible person alive to believe it. But I believe it when it’s told to me at the workplace!)

In the midst, we talked about random things like living in Lotusland and coming from away, living in university residence, and our internships.

It turns out that he’s on an 8-month internship at the company so with careful treading, I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. =)

(On a somewhat related note, I want to befriend a really sweet girl at work. I also pointedly asked her one day if she was engaged because she wears a small diamond ring on her ring finger. Funny how I meet two people putting forth false impressions of their relationship status…)

It was kind of touching that The Boy asked me to move in with him despite the context: he doesn’t like heading home from his place and being alone and apart from us.

I’m not ready to move out of “the city” to the ‘burbs.

I’m so “Western” to believe that he needs to have a segment of independent living instead of going from his parents’ house straight to his wife’s house/co-habitation. I’m also a bit sadistic to want to see what trouble he gets into going from man-child to domestic self-sufficiency.

How sad it is to take up his offer and move into the “in-laws’” basement? It’s an ever-increasing reality in the crazy real estate climate of Lotusland but sooooo embarrassing!

Ideally, you don’t move in together to save money or for the sake of convenience. You live together and share a life because you love each other!

Are these rational reasons? Or am I exhibiting cold feet about the relationship and/or fear of being closely scrutinized?

The Mother broke her silence to email me this morning. She wrote briefly and grammatically-correctly, entreating me to send e-mail congratulations to my cousin (elder by two months) on his marriage recently celebrated by in The Motherland.

Sure… ugh…

Later in the day, I checked my mail and received an email from another cousin (elder by two years). Why would he write his fellow cousins out of the blue except to tell us he and his girlfriend just eloped! They have been together for a few years and have been friends for over ten years. In fact, I knew them back during my stint in Metropolis, back when his girlfriend wife was dating this other guy I had a mini-crush on!

So, here I go, sending my sincere congratulations and gift card(s) with money I don’t have!

I told The Boy that it’s tremendously easy for us to legally get married if we wanted to make our year 2008. He’s thinking more the auspicious year when the Olympics come to town…