It has been too long since my last post. There is an inherent problem with being a medical school student and maintaining a public profile. I am certain an increasing number of potential patients will be googling their potential doctor’s names–as will potential employers. So each post must be made with the utmost professionalism. Not that I mind. At some point a few years ago I decided to abandon pseudonyms/internet handles in favor of my real name in order to force myself to be more responsible with my contributions. Afterall, the anonymity is somewhat illusory anyway, and moreover, why interact with a stranger online differently than a face-to-face encounter?
With the above in mind, knowing that the audience is general, arguments cannot be made willy-nilly and opinions on controversial subjects cannot be made without defense. With the OWS protests I have been wondering about collective moral responsibility, ethics, and economics lately. My standard for a post on the matter would require a fair amount of research, and I do not have the time. Such is the life of a medical student. Consequently the blog has been somewhat lifeless.
In other news, biochemistry does not consume less time the second time around, and gross anatomy has been the highlight of my life for the last three months. I am not sure how one measures happiness, but I have been somewhere near the top end of my scale lately. Or perhaps I just had two cups of coffee and my memory is distorted. It is hard to trust your own emotions and memories the more you read what science has to say about them. I recommend Steven Pinker, Antonio Damasio, and Michael Gazzaniga for those looking for literature on neuroscience directed at a lay audience.
I had been thinking about an e-reader since last summer and resolved to get a Kindle at some point last winter. In January whilst at an airport I spontaneously purchased one. I got the wi-fi version. Unfortunately, this particular airport wanted to charge me to use their internet. Of course I was not going to pay $7 to access the internet; so I had to hold off on playing with the Kindle until after I returned to Boston. Instead I spent my $7 on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo–captivating in the way that mysteries are, but otherwise not for me. I do not know how it compares to other current fiction, as I cannot remember the last time I read a novel.
More importantly, my decision to purchase an E-ink device reduced to 2 points: 1) physical books are physical entities that take up space and have mass; 2) non fiction books are [for now] more expensive than electronic editions. The convenience of being able to hear about a book through some form of media and read it in the next moment was a subsequent surprise, but now also an important part of my current infatuation.
Then the misfortune came. At the beginning of this month, I turn it on one morning and the screen only partially updates. I called Amazon that day and within minutes the representative had set in motion an overnight of the replacement at no cost to me. All I had to do was mail back the broken Kindle in the box they sent the new on in, using the label they emailed me. A rather painless process, except that the UPS pick up location in Boston is miserably out of the way (Silver line down Summer St. followed by a non-negligible walk). All in all, I experienced a 4 day delay at chapter 7 of A Woman Among Warlords, my 5th or 6th kindle book since January.
I treated this replacement so gingerly, now believing the device was incredibly fragile. I made it to chapter 9 the next day before I dropped my kindle as I was trying to put it into my jacket pocket (I never dropped the first). It no longer refreshed the screen. I had not yet even returned the first kindle. Over the next few days I deliberated if I wanted to keep investing in books via the kindle service. Thus far in my life, I have not much history of re-reading books. So I did not weigh the accessibility of my collection very heavily. On the other hand my kindle has been so addicting. I called Amazon again. Again they shipped me a replacement. Incredible service. Fragile device.
I would not mind a far heavier device, and I would be the first in line (not really; those people are crazy) for the Kindle: Durable Edition. Until then I will hope my experience was merely a collision of two black swans (doesn’t that previous expression bring to mind something cosmic and thus sound unduly hyperbolic?).
As a southerner that has seen snow a precious few times, generally much less than once a year, I find snow amazing, and at the moment, Boston is covered in it. The city works hard to get rid of it, but there is still an appreciable amount around at all times. Average snowfall for Boston is about 42 inches. This year we passed that early in January.
I took most of the following pictures following a 6ish inch storm (I cannot quite remember how much it was.). I waited for some fresh stuff because a) the snow by the road starts to look dirty and gross the longer it sits and b) people have not had time to clear it from things. I did not take that many pictures as I have a capacitive touch phone for a camera, and my fingers ended up freezing. In addition, I was not really motivated to wander around places too far from my normal route given the temperature.
