PT Cruisers

PT cruisers are one of the most retarded cars on the planet. literally. they took a modern car and decided to take away such features as normally-sized and placed tail lights and non-absurd looking body design and they came out with the turd of a car that is called a PT cruiser. I hate them. Below is a list of reasons why PT cruisers are the suck.

1. People who love PT cruisers love to trick them out.

Seriously, WHAT is the point? you took your stupid-looking car and put flames on it. to make it look more sporty. and YOU. well I'm glad your car matches your personality, but I don't like either one very much.

2. People who love PT cruisers love the color purple.

I'm not sure what it is about the color purple, but people who list purple as their favorite color are rarely quite normal. This is not generally true of any other color. People who like purple think that it's a part of their soul. They will often refuse to wear any other color, or alternatively will make sure to wear at least one purple item at all times. They will have purple upholstery inside their houses. And they like to drive purple cars, especially purple PT cruisers.

3. PT Cruisers have stupidly designed tail lights that are too low and too small making them very difficult to see at night.

4. People in PT cruisers generally drive like asses.

Besides the reasons I've listed, there are many others that aren't explainable with words. I loathe this car. yuck.

notes on repeatedly falling down mountains

after I was finished with my surgery shelf exam, E and I went on a wintry vacation to Salt Lake City to ski. I have only ever skied once before in my life, but picked it up fairly easily and loooved it. E on the other hand is a snowboarder. I decided to try something new and go snowboarding along with him. Here are a few pictures of me falling down the bunny slopes at Brighton on our first day:










After that debacle, E forced me to take two days off because I hit my head fairly hard and I couldn't walk properly because I did something to my coccyx, and was as a result forced to hobble around like a little old lady (I told E he could go on and ski without me but he very kindly refused and kept me company). we spent a day napping and eating and looking for somewhere that served beer stronger than 3.4% or whatever the heck they have there:

and another day walking around and seeing all the wonders of downtown Salt Lake City.

We also took a several mile walk in a snowstorm and it was beautiful! I've only ever seen snow before on top of a mountain and it was really cool to see it blanketing a city and making everything all white and pretty. Granted, I didn't have to deal with any snow maintenance but as long as someone else is it was fantastic.



I tried snowboarding once more, this time at Snowbird.




I was very good at going only in one direction, but as soon as I tried to pivot and turn the other way I ate it. Every time. This time I'm fairly certain that I gave myself a concussion. At first I was worried that it was a slow sub-dural bleed, but when I didn't lose consciousness after a few hours I calmed down. I also ran into a small tree branch. but I kicked that branch's @ss and broke it off when it hit me in the face, so I think we both won.
Moral of the story: I'm not meant to snowboard. It feels completely unnatural to me to have both feet stuck together, and it's insanity to intentionally travel down a mountain on a smooth surface backwards. Next time I go out for winter sports, I'm going back to skiing. It may not be as hip, but it will hopefully preserve my brain from being smashed against the inside of my skull. And that's a good thing. Brain cells are awesome.

Also awesome: Salt Lake City, surprisingly. people are friendly, it's really pretty, and I could see myself potentially living there for five years during a residency. Although I've heard rumors that I would be forced to begin saying "Oh my HECK!" when angry instead of the normal cuss words. Seriously... people say that there. so weird.

Know what's really fun?

What's really fun is coming home to a river flowing down your alleyway and a big digging machine with flashing lights hard at work less than a foot away from your bedroom window. Trust me, it happened to me a few days ago. Then we tried to turn on the water and all that came out was air. I had to boyscout some water so that I wouldn't have to brush my teeth with beer (don't ask... it makes too much sense to explain it right now) and drug myself with benadryl to be able to sleep (which I generally hate doing because it makes it so hard to get up unless you have ten hours to sleep in a row!)
The next day I went to look at the damage and saw the above image out of my kitchen window.

But in all seriousness, here's what really IS fun: Christmas vacation. It is the best single thing (besides spring break) about staying in school into my mid-20's. Tor those counting, I'll finish school when I'm 26, then get to start working at jobs that pay approximately minimum wage, possibly less depending on whether your institution actually follows the 80 hour work week recommendation. I will do this for five or six years. Then I get to start paying down my debt, which is going to be somewhere in the ballpark of $150,000. maybe more--and that's TEXAS, where our tuition is nearly the cheapest in the country. All during the time of my life when big events (kids, buying a house, etc) will also be wanting my love, attention, and money. I go into this non-seqitur to point out that:
1) Despite popular belief, physicians are not overpaid. We lose years of potential income by deciding to instead take out loans and continue going to school. And after 16 years of combined education, we make less money at the beginning of our careers than many people without a bachelor's. And once we do start making decent money, we have a huge burden of debt to pay off, which is larger than the annual salary of many physicians. This is also why your family practice doctor can only spend ten minutes every time s/he sees you. They make less money seeing you than your vet does when you take your cat in.
2) no one should go into Medicine unless they absolutely must; seriously. If there is any other thing that you can do with your life that will satisfy you and make you happy, do it instead. This is hard. And it's not that I'm stupid. Before I started medical school, I was vain and naive enough to think that it was only hard for other people because they weren't as smart as me. Do not think that. I am in the middle of a group of incredibly intelligent people working their @$$es off and I'm happy if I end up being mediocre. The first class I took when I got to school was biochemistry, where I worked harder than I ever had before and scraped by with a pass. I recently got a review that said "Displays eagerness and common sense... no glaring weaknesses noted" and I was thrilled.

But anyhow, the point was that I'm excited about Christmas break. E and I are going skiing in Utah--we're staying in SLC and then taking buses out to the different mountains (by the bye, got a wicked deal on a hotel on hotwire.com. As I am not a big skier (have only gone once, but loved it) I had to go buy some clothes. I got a great deal on this beautiful jacket (notice the quilted zip-out portion inside and the embroidery. rawr!) at Doug and Lyndas in Mckinney. So I will at least look the part, even if I spend much of the trip on my behind. I can still fall in style.





lastly, I'm doing a shout-out to E, who got me these gorgeous roses which are my new favorite. I love yellow roses because they are what my Dad always got my Mom, And I like that these pay homage to that but they're more ours because there's that tinge of reddish pink on the edges. be-yoo-ti-ful. And for the record, I haven't not had flowers in my house since E and I started dating. Yet another reason why I'm one of the luckiest people on Earth.



Oh and PS I know I've been slacking on here and have been reprimanded already by my mother for not updating often enough; I've been busy with school (test on Friday) and every moment that one of us isn't at school or work is spent with E, which doesn't lend itself to spending time thinking of and then writing clever blog posts.