Demolition Rickshaw!

Last Thursday I went and saw the Aquabats and The Epoxies, and it was a great show. Despite being about 115 degrees inside the club the show was amazing. I can't recall any other show where I've had chocolate milkshake, orange Gatorade, and water all thrown at me by the lead singer. I haven't really listened to the Aquabats since their 3rd album, so I was a little behind on the new stuff.

Quick movie reviews:

Batman Begins: Went and saw this last Monday, and really enjoyed it. Darker than the other Batman films, this is one that I was really anxious to see. After the last two Batman flicks I was all but done with the Batman line, but this movie really went back to the roots of the character and embraced the fear-inspiring aspect of the dark knight better. I'd reccommend this to dorks and non-dorks alike.

Bewitched: A cute comedy, despite the fact that I had to watch it from the 2nd row of the theater (my neck still hurts). Will Ferrell was great, but Nicole Kidman was even better. A good date movie.

Casablanca: Okay, after watching AFI's "100 Greatest Movie Lines" I realized that I needed to get off my ass and see some classic movies. So I got ahold of Casablanca and watched it, and I must say that I did enjoy it, and plan on watching it again. Everybody should watch this at least once.

And some album run-downs:

The Aquabats - Charge!!: The first Aquabats album I've bought in 5 years, this album really impressed me. Not just your typical goofy screw-off punk, there are some serious melodies and great choruses. The Aquabats apparently have developed some good pop techniques over the last 5 years.

The Faint - Danse Macabre: Not as good as Wet From Birth, but still damned good. More of The Faint's unique indie/electronica mixed with a driving rock feel to it. I think I'll come to like this album a lot.

Millencolin - Kingwood: This is the album that I've been addicted to for the last two weeks. I loved the two previous albums, and I think this album might even be better. Filled to the brim with punk energy and great choruses, this album is one of the year's best.

Antony and the Johnsons - I am a Bird Now: I haven't listened to this enough to make a final judgement on it yet, but from what I've heard I'm amazed. Some of the most haunting, unique songs I've ever heard in my life. Listen to a song or two and see what I mean.

Work and school are going fine. Destroyed another Chemistry test, but screwed up a little bit on a Biology test (whoops). Other than that, everything's going well. I applied to FSU as a transfer student because I might pick up a Biochemistry degree while I'm at FSU.

So Vertiginous...

I really love the city of Tallahassee at night. Driving the city's streets at 4am makes me feel more alive. The city sleeps, but I'm awake. It's a cool feeling, the feeling that you're the only one awake in a large area. Similarly, I miss the night shift at the hospital. Walking the empty halls of the hospital make me feel alive. I love feeling like I'm one of the city's sentinels - while the city sleeps, we protect and help those in need.

I love what I do. To me, that's extremely important. I could quit my low paying job at the hospital and get back into engineering, but my heart isn't there. I was exhausted working my engineering job - my heart wasn't there and I was bored. I felt like my talents should've been used for something else, like I was wasting away my life just sitting around making somebody else more profitable. That's why I'm drawn to medicine. My driving force and motivation is to help other people, but quite a few of my coworkers just aren't there for the same reason - which blows my mind. I know that no matter how much you like a job, there are days when you just don't feel it. There have been days where I might have come in not feeling great, and was not particularly happy to be at work. But then usually something happens - you get a patient you can really empathize with, who reminds you why you do what you do. Say, a little girl with a broken arm who's terrified and in pain - and when you splint her up and reassure her that everything's okay and you can see the look in her face of relief, that makes the job worth doing. I really wish my coworkers had the same drive, the same reason for being there. What really pisses me off is when I see coworkers who just don't give a shit, day in and day out. Or when I see coworkers that do things that could put other people in danger or just in discomfort. Or when I see patients who refuse to take care of themselves and put their lives at risk.

I won't lie, I get angry at work every once in a while. If you ask any of my coworkers though they'll tell you that I'm one of the kindest, most lighthearted people there. Why the disparity? They can't see the anger that boils under the surface. When coworkers do things to tick me off, it musters up a sense of almost "righteous" anger - an anger that they're not there for the right reasons. I then reapply that anger towards doing a better job. When they won't work harder, I will. If they don't want to help me help people get better well to hell with them. I AM a team player, don't get me wrong. I just really can't stand people who are in a prime position to help their common man blatantly REFUSING to help. But no matter what those around me do, I can only be responsible for how one person acts: myself. And I will continue to do my best every single day and help my patients.

I recently watched all 14 episodes of the cancelled Joss Whedon sci-fi show "Firefly" and I have to say that I now understand the hype. The show really was an amazing show - a futuristic sci-fi show set in space with an old west feel to it. Great characterization, music, and writing all made the series wonderful to watch, and I was genuinely sad when I finished watching the last show, realizing that unless something happens in the future, I won't get to spend any more time with those characters. I was happy to see that a movie that supposedly wraps up all of Firefly's loose ends, a movie called "Serenity", is set to come out later this year. I really hope the movie does well and that somebody decides to pick up an option for Firefly so I can get more episodes. Good shows shouldn't die such early deaths. I urge everybody to watch the episodes and go to the movie Serenity. It's great stuff.

Two albums I've been listening to excessively lately have been "Funeral" by The Arcade Fire and "Satanic Panic in the Attic" by Of Montreal. Both have incredible uses of harmony, dissonance, and melody that everybody should listen to. I reccommend "Haiti" by The Arcade Fire and "Lysergic Bliss" by Of Montreal as songs to try.

In a small move towards being a medical professional, I now have a stethoscope. One of the doctors at work gave me one and while it's no top of the line model, it's still neat to have one. I used it to take a manual blood pressure yesterday. So along with getting a bunch of trauma scissors from one doctor so that I would do all his splints and getting a pharmacopedia from another doctor the ER docs at work really have been helping foster my learning of the medical process.

I don't think I'm going to be hanging out with a large group of my coworkers for a while to come. It just seems like every time we go out, some sort of drama errupts. I'm frankly tired of it, so I'm just not going to deal with it. Small groups are fine, but I'm going to avoid large groups and in particular, certain people.

School is going great so far. I've missed 5 points out of a possible 550 in my chemistry 2 class, and Biology's going just as well. Tests are on the schedule for both classes this week, so we'll see how I feel after both of those but as of writing this, I feel very well prepared and ready for each. I still have Med school dreams (especially of Duke) but I wonder how the whole thing's gonna go down. I feel confident that I'm going to get in somewhere reputible and become a great doctor, I'm just anxious over all the time between now and then.

Engineering paper is the greatest writing material ever produced. If you've ever taken notes on engineering paper, you can't go back to normal notebook paper, especially if you write a lot of mathematical expressions or graphs. I'll be the only kid in med school with the green-and-yellow paper.

I went and saw Batman Begins today, and I think it was pretty damned good. I'm looking forward to Fantastic Four later this year. Most of the recent comic-book movies have been good, but you never know (Hulk, Daredevil).

Oh, and for the first time in a while, I have a real date on Friday with one of the nurses at work. I honestly haven't been this excited about a date in a while, so I can't wait. It's been way too long, but it seems like it's been worth waiting for. My date should be a lot of fun (she's a riot!)

Kill the Scene Kids

A couple weeks back I went to see Iron and Wine play at the Beta Bar. The show was great, but it reinforced to me that the indie music crowd is NOT my crowd. These are people who wear vintage/thrift store clothing, all have either piercings or tatoos, think personal hygiene is optional, and would gladly debate the evils of capitalism over a $5 cup of coffee. I'm not a scene-kid, that's for sure. While I don't fit the punk crowd either, at least I feel slightly more at home there. They might look the same as the indie kids, but they don't have that "I'm better than you" attitude. The punk community is a lot more closely united. See, punk has an underlying ideal. The only ideal that the indie kids can claim (if any) is "screw the mainstream." They're not fighting authority or social norms for any reason other than that they see such things as uncool, things that only mindless idiots would do. They look down on authority not because of any perceived injustice, but because it's just not a hip thing. I may love the music, but I really can't stand the indie crowd. If I hear one more faked, bullshit conversation from two people trying to have a social-awareness "penis measuring" contest, I'm gonna headbutt somebody. That's punk.

E is for Entitlements

So with the first month of my pre-med schooling coming to an end one thing I've learned so far is that the calibre of FSU students as a whole is far, far less than that at Georgia Tech. Now that's not a cheap shot at FSU students, there really are some good, smart kids at FSU - but the mean is considerably lower than at GT. Which makes sense as FSU's not a technical school. The thing that does baffle me though is the amount of complaining that FSU undergrads do. Lots and lots of freaking complaining. It's almost as if some of these students feel as if they're entitled to grades just because they show up - even if they take a test and fail the hell out of it [regardless of whether or not they studied] it's all the instructor's fault and they can just talk to the professor and get a sympathy-based grade change. One person in front of me before the Bio test actually said "Well if I fail it I'm gonna go talk to the professor and see if I can get a letter grade higher. It worked with my Math teacher." Simply mindboggling. That kind of thing infuriates the hell out of somebody like me who's doing all the work. These are the same kids that when given a long homework assignment, instead of just putting in the extra hours and turning it in on the day it is due, they show up with an incomplete assignment and demand an extension. That's not how stuff works in the real world, kids. If your boss says "Have it done by Tuesday" you can't show up on Tuesday morning and just arbitrarily demand an extension. Well, you can - but your ass will very quickly be fired. I hope that these kids get weeded out so I don't have them in my advanced Bio/Chem classes.

Viva La Bam is the most underrated reality show on TV. It's like Jackass, but so much better. The insanity that they pull off is incredible and the massive scavenger hunt/dare shows they have are some of the most amusing things ever. I personally have always loved scavenger hunts - and I can't tell you how badly I want to put one on one day. Though more than that I'd like somebody else to make a kickass one and for me to compete in it.

Earlier this week in a particular nasty AIM away message you might've seen my desire to become a full-fledged misogynist. While that's not even remotely true [I love women and I'm far too nice to be that much of a dick] I do admit that women in general frustrate the living shit out of me. But not enough to condemn the entire gender. Case and point: Elise, you rock my world. Thanks for the wonderful gift! [Come visit! Now! I miss you!] Overall I think that just not having any dateable women around at work [they're either unavailable or very uninterested] or school [I'm 5-6 years older than all my classmates] or just amongst my friends is wearing on me. The whole passive rejection thing is getting old - you can only be "just a friend" for so many people before it gets old. Here's to hoping med school will be prosperous.

Oh, and props to Georgia Tech baseball for winning both the regular season and ACC tournament championships, beating FSU 5 times in the process. Go Jackets!