Thus Beginneth the National Tour

Ever noticed that all airports seem to be decorated with an airplane theme? It's as though they're worried you'll take a mighty blow to the head and wake up with amnesia, wondering where you are then realize there are airplanes ad nauseum on the carpet, walls, ceiling, artwork, and thus be cured of your memory loss. That's why it's always refreshing to see anything other than planes when traipsing along toward baggage claim . Like this classy thing here:

I'll be doing a lot of flying over the next three months for ophthalmology interviews. I'm trying to think of it as a fantastic national tour. Boston! Denver! San Francisco! Salt Lake! Tucson! Atlanta! Soon I'll be intimately familiar with all of their 2-star bargain hotels!

I just got back from Baltimore, MD, where I did my first ophthalmology interview at Johns Hopkins. It's one of the best programs in the country, nestled in one of the freakiest cities in the country. According to one source, you are statistically more likely to be shot in Baltimore than in the green zone of Baghdad. Yowch. Anyway, in the course of making my way from airport to city light-rail to subway to hospital, I got lost in that glorious wasteland. I eventually found myself on a street corner with this study in contrast:

On one side, there was this inscribed bench with gilded letters and golden dreams.

On the other side, there was this stretch of tenement row-houses.

Ultimately, I decided to ignore the shiny bench propaganda and hustle away from there, wondering if I'd be mugged as a reward for having used my camera in public.

Overnight, I stayed in a dorm room provided on campus, listening to the sirens continuously wailing outside, watching the little spiders skitter across the walls and bedspread, and counting the minutes until my flight home. The kicker is that the ophtho program there is very very very good, which makes up for a multitude of sirens and spiders.

As one last memorial to the trip, here's pictoral evidence of 1 second in Baltimore during which I was neither mugged, robbed, mobbed, or terrorized. The sun was shining, the squirrels were chomping, and the railway connection mercifully came to take me away.

Sherpa's Revenge

State Street is a groovy pedestrian-friendly boulevard down by the Wisconsin state capitol building. I'd been hearing great things about a Himalayan restaurant there, so this weekend I decided to venture to it. It seemed like a simple enough plan. I decided to save myself a two-mile walk by taking the bus. It's a well known fact that I have an enduring love of city buses and the people who ride them. Especially the people who ride them. Some passengers are merely passengers, riding the bus to get where they're going. Some passengers are bona fide Bus People, riding the bus as a mobile vector for their craziness -- they're my favorites. I once rode through downtown Tucson seated next to a middle-aged woman with three wigs securly tied onto her head with a Mickey Mouse necktie, her eyebrows accented with pink lipstick, and a sock on one hand that she used like a puppet to announce all of the upcoming bus stops. It was divine.

For my State Street trip, I waited at the designated bus stop for an hour. A homeless dude sat by me and sang the s...l...o...w...e...s...t version of Swing Low Sweet Chariot I've ever heard, pausing between verses to take drags on a suspiciously-scented cigarette. He wandered away. A college kid (who I came to internally refer to as Bobby the Flatulent) sat by me for a while, freely releasing his gastrointestinal pyrotechnics until the bus bench was uninhabitable, then he mercifully caught another bus. Alone at the bench, I got a little punchy, desperate for ways to entertain myself as I waited for my own bus.

My bus never came.

Busless, I walked to the capitol, passing this garishly blood-red brick castle of Medieval torture on the way. (I later read the sign and learned that it's a University of Wisconsin building. Cancel the torture. Bring on the boring administrative offices instead.)

The capitol is enormous. Madison city law actually stipulates that nothing can be built to stand taller than it does.

From the capitol, I went searching for the fabled Himalayan restaurant, toodling along looking at all the quaint store windows full of antiques and cashmere scarves and artisan cheeses and hand-carved sculptures and... creepy mutilated Halloween Barbies...? I don't know if you can see it in this little picture, but the Ken on the left has been skeletonized and the Barbie further to the right is redone as a Zombie holding a meat cleaver.

I also wandered through this nifty Zen seating area in a quiet little cove between two buildings. It was a tranquil place, except for me sprinting frantically from the camera to the stone in a desperate attempt to hit tree pose before the self-timer ran out while a random dude stared at me and cracked up. He probably thought I was a Bus Person.

Ultimately, I reached Himal Chuli and had the best Himalayan food of my life -- Roti, dal, samosa with fresh yogurt, and two peanut dumplings in a hot sweet sauce, all eaten slowly while eavesdropping on the hippies at the next table who were reading aloud to each other from a book about the five great mysteries. Life is good.

Vocabulary at its Finest

Medical term of the day: Pseudocyesis Definition: The appearance of clinical signs and symptoms of pregnancy, although the person is not truly pregnant. I came across this word a few weeks ago during my Psych rotation. I think both that it is phenomenal, and that it should be worked casually into everyday conversations. Allow a brief illustration, for educational purposes: Pregnancy should not be mistaken for a beach ball.

(ball) . . . (baby)

Bulky winter clothes that make a person look a little ...uh..."healthy"... likewise are not a baby. Any coat capable of withstanding a Minnesota winter is bound to be hugemongous, miraculously managing to be size Small on the inside but size Sumo on the outside. Shameful bonus points if it's also roughly the same color as an Easter Peep, as shown here.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this man is not pregnant. On the contrary, he offers objective proof that Santa Claus exists and works as a crossing guard in the off-season.

Eggheads and Cheeseheads

Any clue what this is?

Half-chewed gum? Floppery hunk of bread dough?

Mystery nubbin of unknown origin?

...drumroll... It's the Mighty Cheese Curd of Southern Wisconsin! Unless you count the whole Little Miss Muffet sat on her Tuffet nursery rhyme thing, I had never heard of a cheese curd until I moved to the Midwest. Now that I'm in Madison, though, I'm learning all about this mystical incarnation of cheese.

It comes in multiple colors!

It can be made into cheese fudge! I repeat: Cheese fudge!

It squeaks when you chomp on it! Rest assured that I tested this fact in multiple randomized controlled trials, documented by photographic evidence.

In case it's not patently obvious from this compelling picture, they seriously do squeak as you chew them! It's like the sound made when you run your fingertip across the surface of a phonograph record really fast. (Yes, I just said phonograph. Because I'm like 85 years old.)

In short, now that I know about them, I'm a convert to curds. Thank you Wisconsin. However, to my epic disappointment, I have not learned a thing here about tuffets. Those remain a great unknown.

Sally the Camel

My lovely and talented friend/old roomie, Alison, pointed out that my first mega-post didn't mention the finer points of a trip I took to Arizona in March. I was out there for a rotation at Mayo Scottsdale (site of the hospital unit with the dementia-challenging black car in the hallway. It's actually a nice set-up for physical therapy/rehab. Disorienting nonetheless.) Anyway, while I was in the Phoenix area, my girlyfriends from college (Dorm Girls!) had a weekend reunion!

It consisted of a sleepover, then hiking Camelback Mountain the next morning, then going out for lunch together. (Oh, Arizona food! How I have missed you!)

Having never climbed it before, I had no idea that Camelback is rather major. Admittedly, it doesn't require climbing gear, and there was a 5 year old at the top when we finally reached the summit, but it's still way more than a casual walk up a hill....especially since about half of the girls were either pregnant or had given birth pretty recently.

Only three of us ultimately celebrated our vacant uteruses (uteri? uter... sheesh, have I really learned nothing in medical school? Shame on me. ...Hurry...say something smart to redeem myself... um... The etiology of pontine duret hemorrhages is often basilar artery traction secondary to transtentorial uncal herniation. There, that should make up for plural uterus, and maybe even for the fact that I can't point out Wisconsin on a map.)

Resuming the train of thought now: Only three of us ultimately celebrated our vacant uterusssssssss by reaching the top. The amazing view from up there was worth every step.

Thanks for the get-together and the great memories!

Hypothetically speaking

Imagine for a second that you're delightfully old and more than a little bit demented at baseline. Now also imagine that your geezerly self is very ill, hospitalized, and therefore kind of out of it. All set? Okay.

So, if you stepped out of your hospital room door and saw this in the hall, would you be at least a smidge confused?

Just asking.

Land of the Living!

The past year has been such a mix of experiences that it defies adjectives. Ultimately though, at the end of the long, hard, unexpected road, it has been a year of renewal. As such, this is the beginning rather than the end. I'm hoping this blog will help me keep in touch with friends and family a little better, and that it can help me keep track of what it's like to discover the world again. First, here's a whirlwind summary of what I've been up to for the past year or so. (It's even in pseudo-chronological order. Gold stars.)

Early Fall 2008:

Camping near the Mississippi River, just as the leaves started to turn.

Late Fall 2008: I decided to specialize in ophthalmology. (This beat Emergency Medicine by a landslide. It also narrowly edged out being a dog-walker, astronaut, ballerina, or major league baseball player.) My first exposure to ophtho was on a trip to the Dominican Republic, and a major part of my love for the specialty is because of its capacity for having an impact on people in developing countries. By winter 2008, I had started working with Unite for Sight and I was beginning to collect used eyeglasses (maybe hoarde is a better word than collect...I ended up with over 1200 pairs) to clean, analyze, and donate to clinics in Ghana, Africa.

The funny thing about used glasses is that some of them just radiate the character of their former owners. I called this pair the "Stella." Check out all the sassy charm of 1958!

There was also this unforgettable pair of matching military-issued BCG's (BCG = Birth Control Glasses; named because of their uncanny power to keep the wearer single. Very, very single.) Beyond limiting the world's population growth, the truly awesome part is that if you look really closely at the pair in front in this picture, the owner (understandably unwilling to part with such an eyewear masterpiece just because they were broken) has fixed a crack in the nose bridge with a piece of steel and two screws so that he could keep on wearing them.

Winter 2008:

I spent Christmas with my sister and brother-in-law, Bonnie and Eric, and their adorable kiddos.

We drove down to Round Valley together for New Year's. Bonnie and Eric went home early after deciding they'd had all the Eagar fun they could handle. Consequently, I was left in Round Valley without a car in the dead of winter, and a plane to catch from the Phoenix airport. So Mom and Dad willingly drove me to Phoenix. (Okay, I may have coerced them. I may have initially let them think we were just going on a wee 5 minute jaunt to the gas station. I may have bribed them with promises of Taco Bell burritos. However, these issues are merely details, right? There are two morals to the story: First, never get involved in a land war in Asia. Second, an $0.89 burrito goes a long way in the Jacobs economy.)

We stopped at the bottom of Salt River Canyon to take this picture, which might be one of my all time favorites of them.

In Phoenix, I stayed with my sister, Beth. Here she is at the grand opening of the Phoenix light rail train system. She's holding her neighbors' beautiful miracle baby who was born at about 23 weeks gestation to a couple who didn't know they were pregnant. Beth has a pretty bad cat allergy, but loves them anyway. I barely fought to urge to smuggle one of her adorable kittens home with me. I wondered if she would notice. Let's play Count Beth's Cats, shall we? (Hint: Three or four of them aren't even in the shot.)

In Phoenix, I also learned an important lesson about Spanish verb conjugation from a 40-foot pink and lime billboard proclaiming "Pimpeando." Indeed, pimpeo mucho.

Spring 2009:

My medical school class threw a Homecoming Week for itself, complete with Sports Day, Up North Day, and an 80's Prom night.

April-May 2009:

I went to Ghana, Africa, with Unite for Sight. I kept a daily journal while I was there, but that would be way too much to put into a blog entry.

Highlights: 8000+ patients screened, 650+ cataract operations,

14 loads of laundry washed by hand in a bucket,

I also hiked the rainforest near Ghana's southern coast,

They have a series of rope bridges suspended above the rainforest canopy, about 100 feet above the ground.

Speaking of things that seem like a bad idea, I sat on a live crocodile. There's a place called Paga Pond where, for the price of a live chicken, two guides will lead visitors out along the water's edge to meet the crocodiles. The guides then feed the chickens to the beastie, which calms it into a stupor. At that point, one guide lets you sit on the croc, while the other guide chases away the other hungry monsters (you can see that happening in the background of this shot).

In a further act of questionable adventuring, I ate unrecognizable goat giblets purchased at a yard stand run by William the Goat Guy. You can buy goat from him by the price ("I'd like $4 of goat, please.") or by the part ("I'll have the trachea and spleen, today.") or by the daily special ("Mmmm. Random, vaguely organ-like meaty bits.") In *probably* unrelated news, I was hospitalized for bloody dysentery a week after this picture.

At then end of most outreach clinic days, I usually had an hour or so to play with a gaggles of hilarious little kids while our group waited for the bus to navigate the dirt roads and backland trails to come pick us up.

Our group of volunteers spent two very short, but very restorative hours, at a little restaurant on a quiet stretch of beach where I danced in the ocean just for the joy of it.

I even met a mysterious, dark, and handsome man in Africa. Behold:

It was a running joke among the volunteers that I had a crush on the wooden carved dude at the front door of our homestay. On my last day in Ghana, I finally made my move so that carved dude would know my true feelings. Sadly, just after this picture was taken, his cracked wooden head fell completely off. I will live with the guilt for the rest of my life.

Summer 2009:

I went to the Netherlands with my fantastic classmate Kristi to present a pathology education research project. It was my first time in Europe (beyond the hallowed confines of Schipol airport), and it was great. I loved the statues, architecture, and all the random people. Admittedly, we were some of the random people.

We saw Michael Franti live in Rotterdam at an outdoor stage on the waterfront.

We went to a park with miniature replicas of all of Holland's tourist attractions.

I breakdanced in an alley in Amsterdam.

We wound up scandalously close to the Red Light District and met Michael Jackson. ...ish.

Oh...and we attended the conference, which was very nice.

So that brings you up to the present.

Life currently finds me in Wisconsin for a month of ophtho training. My applications for residency have been submitted, so the fall and winter will be spent interviewing all across the country to find out where the next 4 years of my life will be spent.

Sorry the entry was so long. If you've hung in there reading this all the way to here, the gold stars are hereby reassigned to you. Hopefully it won't take another year before this blog gets updated again. Tune in for more action soon... ish.