Oh bother ...

So, I'm sure everyone at some point in their life has been compared to, or felt like, a cartoon character. For me, that character happens to be Eeyore. Personally, I find Eeyore to be a bit chipper and upbeat for my tastes, but I've been given the comparison by friends and family too many times to refute it at this point. And so, as Eeyore would say, "Thaaaanks for noticin' me."




Some Eeyore fast facts: Eeyore's Birthday is celebrated every year in Austin, Texas.
Here is the official site and the Wiki entry




After all, what are birthdays? Here today and gone tomorrow -- Eeyore

Before I sign off, I should probably answer the burning questions going through your skulls right now:

1. Yes, that post DID just happen
2. Yes, the above post was made by a fully grown man
3. Yes, I am crazy. Like a fox.
4. No, I don't think I need to up my Prozac dose.
   

take a deep breath ...

Well, I'm officially on break. We get a nice 2 week break before the next quarter, which starts Dec 1st. And then we have a break just a few weeks later for Christmas, so the end of the year is actually not too bad. Not exactly sure what I'll be doing over break but even doing nothing is nice sometimes.

Musical point to ponder:

Sad Sack Song Titles

There are a lot of contenders, and certain songs here and there stand out. Every band or artist has a sad song or 3. You could argue that pretty much all of the blues and the lion's share of country music deals with hardship and heartaches. However, there are some artists who seem to thrive on anguish, to wallow in wretchedness like a pig in mud and embrace it almost willingly. Look at Chris Isaak for instance -- he's made a career on wistful woe. And there are sad songs, and then there are sad songs with equally gloomy and bitter titles. I'm talking about ones that you can just tell are going to be "fetch a length of rope and a wobbly 3-legged chair" from the get-go. If I had to pick the King of Pathetic Woe-Is-Me miserable tunes, it would have to be the melancholy Morrissey, AKA "The Pope of Mope", both in his solo career and with the Smiths. Here are a couple of gems showcasing his sorrow and suffering:

• How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel
• Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together
• Now I Am a Was
• The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
• We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful
• I Am Hated for Loving
• (I'm) the End of the Family Line
• Sorrow Will Come in the End
• I Don't Mind If You Forget Me
• What Difference Does It Make
• Girlfriend In A Coma
• I'll Never Be Anybody's Hero Now
• Unlovable
• Oh Well, I'll Never Learn
• Satan Rejected My Soul
  
• The Boy With a Thorn In His Side
• The World Is Full of Crashing Bores (actually I'm with him on this one)
  

and my personal favorite:

• Get Off The Stage (sheesh, apparently he thinks even his fans despise him)
  

Honorable Mention goes to Ryan Adams for cheery classics like:

• Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart
• I Taught Myself How To Grow Old
  
• Clearly Destroyed
• I Hope It Rains At My Funeral (For Once, I'd Like To Be The Only One Dry)

and some truly tormented album titles like:

• Love is Hell
• The Suicide Handbook
• Faithless Street
• Cold Roses
• Those WEREN'T the Days

If anyone else has some truly bleak additions, leave them in the comments please.

And since I hate ending the post on such a dreary note, here is something guaranteed to make you smile:

The (Van) Damme Dance!


<-- I have no idea what is going on in this picture, but I'm thinking maybe some popping and some locking

the hits just keep on coming ...

Well, I did survive the end of my finals, though I did not escape unscathed. After a string of A's on the midweek finals, I took another beating at the end of the week on my Women's Health final. This was me leaving school that day:



Yes, it is a pathetic sight to see a grown man crying. I know I need to cut myself a little bit of slack and remind myself how lucky I am to even be in the program -- there are many, many, many who apply every year (and sometimes year after year) and don't get in. Still, it's a blow to the pride when you fail an exam, regardless of the consequences. I'm one to be especially tough on myself, so I have a hard time rolling with the punches sometimes, but I'll get over it. I think you do learn a lot from your mistakes (and let's just say I learned a lot on this last test).

So, later that evening, after seeing my score online through tear-stained eyes and doing some quick math, I found out I was still going to pass the course. Needless to say, that lifted my spirits in a hurry, and my demeanor quickly changed to:





Ah how the tides can turn. And after doing some more quick math, it looks like my GPA will actually be higher this quarter than last, so I'm at least doing something right. What an emotional rollercoaster ride so far -- though now I have a nice 2 week break to rest, relax, and refocus before heading back for what I have been told will be the toughest quarter yet. Rachel, does this all sound familiar to you?

the Final(s) Countdown

James, I hope you enjoy the Europe reference -- had to throw that in there since it's your all-time favorite song... get a webcam and this could be you:



Yes, I am indeed in the throes of a crazy finals week -- I did get 2 of them done last week (Clinical Medicine & Epidemiology) but this week I have 5 more -- one each day. How am I faring, you might wonder? Let's just say sleep is nil, stress is high, and I'll be ready to collapse when this week is over. I am feeling more and more like a hermit these days -- it's hard to find a balance when you feel there is *always* something you could and should be studying. I don't mind the studying; I love what I'm learning. I guess I'm just saying I struggle with finding that balance between school and the rest of life. Put it this way -- when you start thinking things like "Hmm if I cut down my showers to every other day, that would give me an extra 30 minutes of study time a week" then you know things are a little off-kilter, although I don't think PA programs are designed to give you much free time. I think the decision goes something like this: figure out how much coursework and material would most likely kill them, and then back if off just a little.

And to top if off, I folded like a pizza box on my 1st exam on Monday. The Dean of Student Services warned us during orientation that everyone should be prepared to fail at least 1 or more exams along the way, and to not let it get you down. And the school actually does take the stress levels generated by the program seriously -- we fill out Beck depression inventories every quarter, and there is free anonymous counseling available to all students. That being said, failing an exam still slaps the taste right out of your mouth. Rather than drone on any more, let me illustrate my performance via images:





Now, I should probably say that I still ended up with a B in that course overall -- one good thing about our finals is that they are weighted the same as a regular test. The other good thing -- nowhere to go but up from here! And with that, I think I'll get back to the books ... my next post will probably be after my last final on Friday, providing I haven't assumed room temperature. And if I do somehow make it through, I plan on sleeping straight through my break -- someone make sure I wake up before the next quarter starts, ok?

A mathematical paradox

Today was my last day of lectures for the quarter. My how time flies! And today's was a doozy: a 3 hour barn-burner Physiology wrap-up on the Respiratory system that turned my grey matter into a puddle of primordial goo. I know it had something to do with ventilation, perfusion, PAO2, PaO2, the A-a gradient, PACO2, PICO2, PaCO2, and laws by fellows such as Boyle, Hentry, Dalton, LaPlace, Fick, and Poisseuille but after that it gets kind of hazy ... though I do have all weekend to figure it out. So far, I've taken 2 finals so far -- Clinical Medicine and Epidemeology. They mercifully split our finals up so they wouldn't all be on finals week. That being said, I have a final every day of the week (Mon-Fri) next week and my meta-analysis paper the following Monday so it's going to be a long haul regardless.

Thought I'd shift gears a bit and talk about Math today (is this the nerdiest blog you've ever read or what?) This is something I picked up from Dee -- she is taking a graduate level statistics course, and so the bulk of the material in her class is beyond the grasp of my pre-Calc intellect. After all, I'm just a simple caveman. However, there is one thing I do know! And that is the strange case of Simpson's Paradox, which I will now present to you in a hopefully coherent and understandable manner.

Imagine 2 colored urns, one black and one white. Now imagine there being a mixture of red and green balls in each urn. Finally, imagine a game where you must select either the black or white urn, and then draw a ball at random from that urn. If you happen to pick a red ball, you win $1,000,000! Sounds simple enough so far, right?

Okay, in the 1st round, the black urn contains 5 Red balls and 6 Green balls. The white urn contains 3 Red balls, and 4 Green balls. Which urn do you pick to draw from, the black or the white?

Let's look at the probabilities of picking a red ball:
black urn - probability of red ball = 5/11 = .455
white urn - probability of red ball = 3/7 = .429

So, as you can see, you would likely pick the black urn, as the percentage of getting a red ball is higher.

Now let's consider 2 more urns. In this case, the black urn contains 6 Red balls and 3 Green balls. The white urn contains 9 Red balls and 5 Green balls. Again, which urn do you pick to draw from?

Here are the probabilities this time of picking a red ball:
black urn - probability of red ball = 6/9 = .667
white urn - probability of red ball = 9/14 = .643

Once again, it should be apparent that the black urn would be the one to pick, as it has the better odds of yielding a red ball.

Now, we will consider a third choice. Imagine if we combined the balls from the 2 black urns used in the previous examples. We also combine the balls from the 2 white urns. Now which urn would you pick to draw from? Since in each example, the black urn had the higher probabability of a red ball pick, you would no doubt pick the black urn once again.

(Right about now is when I lean in and whisper -- this is where the story gets w-e-i-r-d!)

Well, lets go ahead and check the math on this, just to make sure we chose right. Looking at the combined urns, in the black urn there are now 11 Red balls and 9 Green balls. In the white urn, there are now 12 Red balls and 9 Green ones.
black urn - probability of red ball = 11/20 = .55
white urn - probability of red ball = 12/21 = .571

What you talkin' bout Willis? I'm sure those of you who have made it this far are left scratching your heads a little. This one fooled me too. However, there is a rational and reasonable explanation for this, which can be found at this link: The Secret of Simpson's Paradox

Considering the quantum leap in racial equality made 2 nights ago in the U.S. presidential election, I will leave you with a fittling mosaic. (for full effect, look at each block close up and then back away from the screen -- not that you probably needed me to mention that, but that's why my friends call me Capt. Obvious)

Loves me some sarcasm

As far as school goes, I am in the eye of the storm of the quarter. I do have my clinical medicine final in 7 hours -- the last unit was mostly on musculoskeletal disorders -- neck and low back pain, knee problems, carpal tunnel, plantar fasciitis, and a huge unit on hypertension, which is the #1 cause of office visits in chronic conditions. Not the most difficult unit for me as a lot of it ties in to the etiologies I treated as an Occupational Therapist, but there are still some tricky things, like remembering the difference between spondylosis, spondylolysis, and spondylolithesis. One thing that I really like about this course is that they are teaching us the various meds for each disorder -- it's like sticking your big toe into the water in preparation for diving into Pharmacology class next quarter. Hypertension, in particular, can get pretty tricky with the med adjustments -- when to use or not use ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, ARB's, calcium channel blockers, central alpha agonists, alpha blockers, and the various diuretics. There is nothing like pushing yourself beyond what you thought you were capable of, and it boggles my mind when I look at my folders and contemplate just how much I've learned in such a short time.

That being said, and getting back to the title of this post -- I also happen to be a huge fan of sarcasm (it was first embedded in my psyche by Razortongue herself , nurtured and fostered by my fellow Hoy Boys and fellow appreciator Phil, and then polished to a fine point over years of exchanges with my equal in satirical cynicism, James) and so I now present you with some fine bits of biting sarcasm dealing with college. There is one random picture and the rest all come from the fascinating mind of the Simpsons creator Matt Groening. As most of you probably know, he wrote a series of cartoons and books under the umbrella of "Life in Hell" and these particular exerpts are from the hilarious and yet all-too-true book "School is Hell", which can be purchased here (my legal team thought it would be prudent to include the link).

Hope you have as twisted of a sense of humor as myself and can appreciate these:
(if you're having trouble reading some of the text, click on each picture to see a larger version)