So I’m a week into my “summer vacation.” What have I been up to?
Well most importantly, I invented a new sandwich yesterday. A friend gave me some avocadoes in exchange for watching his tomato plants while he’s away on a real vacation. After a quesadilla, a burrito and a tasty scrambled egg/avocado combo I was out of ideas and had a couple left. So I decided I’d use the avocado as a base for a sandwich, much like peanut butter. I vetoed avocado and jelly sandwiches and instead tried avocado and honey. I decided this would be a bit too bland so added a fair amount of cinnamon to the mix and my new sandwich was born. It’s fantastic. Unfortunately now all my avocadoes are gone so I’ll have to wait for him to go on vacation again.
In non-avocado news, classes are over. I had my last test a little over a week ago. It was a little anticlimactic in that it wasn’t a final or anything; just the latest in a series of tests. But the last couple months have been relatively relaxed, so it wasn’t really a pressure drop. We’ve been doing our neurology/psychiatry unit, which I’m relatively informed about. So where many of my classmates had a bunch of microbio or embryo or immuno experience in previous units, I actually have had classes on these topics before. My prior experience didn’t really translate into higher test scores, just less stress for me since I could usually reason my way through problems I didn’t have immediate knowledge about. When we return to class in August we’ll have one final blessed unit of neuron before heading back into uncharted territory.
For the summer I’m doing schizophrenia research. Well, hopefully. I was accepted into a program to do said research, and they’ve paid me for 8 weeks of work on it, but the work has yet to materialize. My PI (Principal Investigator ie boss) is taking a month off in Scotland, so I’m a bit lost as to what I should be doing. The 2nd in command just took a job at another hospital, so I’m even more confused. Because of these two events they haven’t been interviewing patients for over a month, so my hopes of just jumping into an existing project aren’t going to work out. So while I wait for approval to work with actual patients (hopefully that paperwork goes through this week) I’ve been more or less filling the time at work. I’ve organized my office a bit. I’ve made a lot of copies to get packets ready for patients. I’ve attended optional seminars for the psychiatry department (it was comforting to be able to hear a lecture aimed at practicing psychiatrists and to be lost only a small portion of the time.) The closest thing to real work that I’ve been doing is getting trained by our resident psychologists in their psychometric studies so I can do them with patients if/when my approval goes through. I guess I can count myself fortunate that the time I spend waiting for something worthwhile to do makes my vacation seem longer.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Everything is Overrated
I recently viewed Ocean’s 13 at The Movie Tavern. The best thing about the experience was the theater itself. It’s not my favorite kind of theater (the dollar variety) but at least it’s a 5 dollar ticket with a student ID. They only show a handful of movies, but they tend to be the highest grossing first run movies that I want to see anyway. The gimmick of the theater is that it is also a restaurant. Some of the seats are up against a bar, while others have a small table placed in between chairs. It’s a fun concept, even if the food is expectedly overpriced. But who would pay 3 dollars for candy when you can pay 5 for Apple Crisp? Fools that’s who. We had just been to a luau, so didn’t have any food this time.
On to the movie itself. It was fine. That’s really the best review I can give it. I don’t understand why America is so enthralled with these movies. Sure the ladyfolk can ogle messieurs Pitt, Clooney and Damon simultaneously, but really, what’s the point? You don’t make a movie just so your stars can exist up on screen. No doubt that these 3 are cool cats and fun to watch. I’m also a fan of Cheadle, Izzard, Pacino and x number of others in the movie. But the movie itself just isn’t that good. The first one wasn’t that good. The second was pretty horrible. America, these movies aren’t good, stop throwing all your money at them! I’m not saying I hated the movie. I did laugh several times. I thought some of the banter was witty. Some of the concepts were interesting. But nothing was stand-out by any means. The theft elements were ridiculous, so it was a poor heist movie. There was no action to speak of, nor any drama. And though it was amusing, it hardly succeeded as a comedy. It was just there. Blah.
On to the movie itself. It was fine. That’s really the best review I can give it. I don’t understand why America is so enthralled with these movies. Sure the ladyfolk can ogle messieurs Pitt, Clooney and Damon simultaneously, but really, what’s the point? You don’t make a movie just so your stars can exist up on screen. No doubt that these 3 are cool cats and fun to watch. I’m also a fan of Cheadle, Izzard, Pacino and x number of others in the movie. But the movie itself just isn’t that good. The first one wasn’t that good. The second was pretty horrible. America, these movies aren’t good, stop throwing all your money at them! I’m not saying I hated the movie. I did laugh several times. I thought some of the banter was witty. Some of the concepts were interesting. But nothing was stand-out by any means. The theft elements were ridiculous, so it was a poor heist movie. There was no action to speak of, nor any drama. And though it was amusing, it hardly succeeded as a comedy. It was just there. Blah.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Creepy
They did a pretty good job of making Scarecrow creepy last year. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they've done some good work with the Joker.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Back from the dead
Sadly for the internet community, blogging is extremely low on my to-do list. I have a great many school things to attend to, followed by a relatively high number of church things. I’ve been working on improving my social life, so that takes an increasing amount of time. Leaving me with negative hours in my day. How do I fit blogging (a very low dividend activity) into that schedule? The answer is simple. Avoid studying by blogging.
But now that I’ve established a time in which to write, what should I write about? I’ve got weeks and weeks of semi-interesting stuff. I’ve eaten both chili and pepper ice cream. I’ve visited Cedar Point, home of the highest concentration of rollercoasters in the world. I purchased a surround sound system for my apartment. I’ve thrown an American Gladiators Barbeque for 150 people. First things first: Spiderman.
I did see Spiderman at the midnight showing at the IMAX. We played Scum in line for a couple hours to assure we’d have a good seat in the theater, which is fairly ridiculous at IMAX. But it was fun nonetheless. I even put together a Spiderman quiz to test my fellow line-waiters knowledge of my favorite superhero. The highest score was a 60, which made me feel like a good expert of Spidermania.
The movie itself was awesome. I admit that I’m biased and any movie involving Spiderman will be awesome, regardless of the actual quality of the film. So objectively, it wasn’t as awesome as the first two movies. The first two were more coherent and focused than this one. In this “final” movie Sam Raimi experimented more, with mixed results. I liked the extra humor, as well as the variety of characters and extra horror elements. He took many of the elements from the first two films and magnified them. Consequently, the film is very . . . full. I don’t think it holds its own as well as the first two; however, I think it was a very good conclusion. The movie not only pulled together its own plot points, but pulled together the variety of themes from the trilogy. So while it certainly could’ve been a better movie, I think it was a great cap for the trilogy.
I was pretty happy with the various characters. Gwen was good, as was Sandman. I had my doubts about his inclusion (he’s just not as epic or sinister as I’d like) but he turned out very well. They made up a fair amount about the character, but they got the spirit of him right. I was also pretty pleased with Venom. I would’ve preferred comic-book Venom, who’s a 7 foot tall behemoth complete with tongue and slobber, but I’m not convinced they could’ve made him look right. The spider doppelganger they made him was good and more story appropriate. Green Goblin’s amnesia conflict was actually very in tune with the comics and a great (if unoriginal) device to use for Harry this time around.
So I fully support the movie. It’s the last movie I saw in the theaters, and probably the only one I’ll see until Transformers in July. Optimus Prime, you’d better be good.
But now that I’ve established a time in which to write, what should I write about? I’ve got weeks and weeks of semi-interesting stuff. I’ve eaten both chili and pepper ice cream. I’ve visited Cedar Point, home of the highest concentration of rollercoasters in the world. I purchased a surround sound system for my apartment. I’ve thrown an American Gladiators Barbeque for 150 people. First things first: Spiderman.
I did see Spiderman at the midnight showing at the IMAX. We played Scum in line for a couple hours to assure we’d have a good seat in the theater, which is fairly ridiculous at IMAX. But it was fun nonetheless. I even put together a Spiderman quiz to test my fellow line-waiters knowledge of my favorite superhero. The highest score was a 60, which made me feel like a good expert of Spidermania.
The movie itself was awesome. I admit that I’m biased and any movie involving Spiderman will be awesome, regardless of the actual quality of the film. So objectively, it wasn’t as awesome as the first two movies. The first two were more coherent and focused than this one. In this “final” movie Sam Raimi experimented more, with mixed results. I liked the extra humor, as well as the variety of characters and extra horror elements. He took many of the elements from the first two films and magnified them. Consequently, the film is very . . . full. I don’t think it holds its own as well as the first two; however, I think it was a very good conclusion. The movie not only pulled together its own plot points, but pulled together the variety of themes from the trilogy. So while it certainly could’ve been a better movie, I think it was a great cap for the trilogy.
I was pretty happy with the various characters. Gwen was good, as was Sandman. I had my doubts about his inclusion (he’s just not as epic or sinister as I’d like) but he turned out very well. They made up a fair amount about the character, but they got the spirit of him right. I was also pretty pleased with Venom. I would’ve preferred comic-book Venom, who’s a 7 foot tall behemoth complete with tongue and slobber, but I’m not convinced they could’ve made him look right. The spider doppelganger they made him was good and more story appropriate. Green Goblin’s amnesia conflict was actually very in tune with the comics and a great (if unoriginal) device to use for Harry this time around.
So I fully support the movie. It’s the last movie I saw in the theaters, and probably the only one I’ll see until Transformers in July. Optimus Prime, you’d better be good.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Going for the record
I’m trying to recover from my weekend. I think I’m almost there, but I’m considering not having another one this week. Here’s what went down:
We started the weekend on Wednesday last week. We hit up our typical Brazenhead expedition to feast on ½ price burgers. Then we had our first social gathering of the week: Lost night. It was a great episode and a good time was had by all.
Thursday we crashed the Relief Society book club. It was really a very light crashing. For one, I had actually read the book earlier in the week so they’d have no formal right to protest. And for two, we had our own table where we discussed Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, so we weren’t actually a part of their group anyway. We followed this up by having people over to watch The Office/NBA playoffs. We then had a group of about a dozen stand in line and watch Spiderman 3 at midnight.
Friday we had a ward activity where we hung out with the Stake Presidency at Deseret. Deseret is a privately owned neighborhood that some rich Ohio Mormon built, complete with a ritzy house for each of his kids, a pool house, indoor basketball court etc. Odd stuff, but fun. We were supposed to go to an Empinada party, but ended up gathering at Stacy’s for basketball.
Saturday we were invited to eat breakfast with a guy in our apartment complex. I got about an hour of stuff done then we had to go to a barbeque where a friend was showing off her nieces and nephews. That night I threw a Cinco de Mayo party where we all made smoothies, listened to mariachi music and eventually watched more NBA playoffs. It went until about 2, which was a little hurtful the next morning, but it was a pretty successful to-do.
Sunday I was in charge of running a potato bar immediately following stake conference. Baking 80 potatoes, transporting them to and fro and tricking the ward into singing in the choir while I set things up required some skill, but I was up to it. The lunch was my main event of the day, but I also ended up attending a birthday party, a memorial for the cadavers we dissected, a CES broadcast at the Bishops and a viewing of the SNL special. I didn’t really see my home until after midnight, and needless to say, got nothing constructive done.
Monday’s only planned event was a Ultimate Frisbee competition in the evening, but we ended up having a bunch of requests to use our enormous television. So we watched the Jazz game until about 1 in the morning, at which point my weekend finally ended.
Six days, with at least two parties per day. In some cases I had to stretch the definition of party, but still, it was an action packed weekend. I hope to not have one so full in the near future.
We started the weekend on Wednesday last week. We hit up our typical Brazenhead expedition to feast on ½ price burgers. Then we had our first social gathering of the week: Lost night. It was a great episode and a good time was had by all.
Thursday we crashed the Relief Society book club. It was really a very light crashing. For one, I had actually read the book earlier in the week so they’d have no formal right to protest. And for two, we had our own table where we discussed Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat, so we weren’t actually a part of their group anyway. We followed this up by having people over to watch The Office/NBA playoffs. We then had a group of about a dozen stand in line and watch Spiderman 3 at midnight.
Friday we had a ward activity where we hung out with the Stake Presidency at Deseret. Deseret is a privately owned neighborhood that some rich Ohio Mormon built, complete with a ritzy house for each of his kids, a pool house, indoor basketball court etc. Odd stuff, but fun. We were supposed to go to an Empinada party, but ended up gathering at Stacy’s for basketball.
Saturday we were invited to eat breakfast with a guy in our apartment complex. I got about an hour of stuff done then we had to go to a barbeque where a friend was showing off her nieces and nephews. That night I threw a Cinco de Mayo party where we all made smoothies, listened to mariachi music and eventually watched more NBA playoffs. It went until about 2, which was a little hurtful the next morning, but it was a pretty successful to-do.
Sunday I was in charge of running a potato bar immediately following stake conference. Baking 80 potatoes, transporting them to and fro and tricking the ward into singing in the choir while I set things up required some skill, but I was up to it. The lunch was my main event of the day, but I also ended up attending a birthday party, a memorial for the cadavers we dissected, a CES broadcast at the Bishops and a viewing of the SNL special. I didn’t really see my home until after midnight, and needless to say, got nothing constructive done.
Monday’s only planned event was a Ultimate Frisbee competition in the evening, but we ended up having a bunch of requests to use our enormous television. So we watched the Jazz game until about 1 in the morning, at which point my weekend finally ended.
Six days, with at least two parties per day. In some cases I had to stretch the definition of party, but still, it was an action packed weekend. I hope to not have one so full in the near future.
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