Alien weather

Cosmic Radiation in NewScientist

I would really love to get a meteorologist's take on the recent weather changes.

As the night breaks and the day falls

Rescue me from underneath the fluorescent sky,

the restlessness and the bleeding of time.

Deliver me into the darkness

for more than a flickering moment's

greater finality

in a destination for this train of thought to alight.

Rather than the relentless chug

that drives only to eventual exhaustion.

The depletion far more final.

The duration of rest unknown -

pray not that this time will be the

straw that brakes the camel's - bringing me

back into the nightmarish wreck

-age I tunneled out of,

only to return to

my deepest fear and my darkest longing -

brief respite

as the night breaks and the day falls

and fear of leaving lucidity farther and farther behind.

It's the heart that matters most

[Warning: as you may have discerned from the title, this will be a cliched and gushy, probably preachy post.]

Looking around at the doctors and doctors-to-be around me, I see people of all walks of life. There are the foul-mouthed swearing types, there are the jokers, there are the cold and distant types, there are the overtly caring ones, there are the ones who claim they don't give a damn.

But they do. We all do. The thing that binds us isn't that we're high academic achievers, or that we're competent, or that we've an all-consuming interest in what we do.

It's that we've got heart. Underneath our exteriors, whether hard and clam-like, or soft and welcoming, we feel for others. When we see another human being suffering, some part of us is fundamentally driven to do something, unselfish enough to care about it, and to want to make a difference.

If you're in the profession for anything else - whether it's the so-called glory or prestige, or the financial stability, or even for the intellectual gratification, you're bound to be disappointed. There's little real glory to be had - every other course from Politics to Culinary Skills, has its fair share of high-fliers. As for financial stability, there are easier ways to get that. You will spend a long time awaiting intellectual gratification, if that's what you're hoping for. Frustration is more likely, with all the loose ends and incomplete science.

The only thing that I can think of that makes us want to go on in this race is that we care. We care about our patients. We care about being good doctors. We care about each other.

A large nose isn't a godsend, it's a...

Ladies and gentlemen of the mockery, I give you the original nose on a stick. Paul Townshend is a guitarist whose large nose drove him to an incredible career in guitar.

[Historic relevance: Just in case you happen to be blind or short-sighted or dyslexic (or a stranger who doesn't know me), I have a rather prominent nose that used to be the subject of ridicule in my early adolescence, when it used to rather overpower my face.]

Oh glucose, glucose!

Specially for the chemistry geeks out there, I present:

As time passes

Emptiness pervades
as movement carries forth space-
time residuum.

What is matter
but a concept of movement
that slow eyes pick up?

Where is displacement?
Impossible concept if
there is no stillness.

Yet stillness exists
only hypothetically -
really think on it.

Acronymn of the day: FAAK

No, it's not a four letter f-word.  OK, it is, but it's got nothing besides aural similarity in common with that.

Used to end late-night MSN/Skype conversations, FAAK stands for falling asleep at keyboard.  As in, OK FAAK TTYL.  Or, I'm FAAKed out.  

Room 5.312 was getting a little warm

Trapped heat can't breathe - it's stifling in here

as my palms get sweaty and

the temperature goes up

while I chat to a friend about

uncomfortable stuff.

I can't get no air as I feel

unwelcome clamminess

beading in the creases of my palms

the increasing heat

hits me with a force that impels

me to open the window,

or strain to open it,

while knocking over cups on my messy desk

in an effort to get the right leverage.

As I break out in sweat from all the wrong places,

and the window panes slips in my grasp,

and the liquid spilled spreads dangerously close -

its close proximity to my technological equipment may mean damage if I do not act fast enough to stop its furthering.

So I end it,

putting down everything else -

to give it a quick wipe down with a convenient rag.

No dramas* -

there's no use crying over spilled milk.

Suddenly the room feels drafty -

the window's let too much cold air in;

I need to tidy up the mess.

Life goes on.

*'No dramas' is Aussie slang for the American equivalent of 'No big deal'.

Dance therapy

I was doing some research for my latest assignment, and I found out about Trudi Schoop, this really interesting dance therapist. :)

I'm willing to tell you. I'm wanting to tell you. I'm waiting to tell you.

We spend most of our lives waiting for things to happen. Eventually, you come to accept it as a part of life. Some people are able to do it graciously and patiently, while others will whine their way through it - I remember when I was four, how I used to have to wait for unimportant grown-up stuff, like checking the apartment for locked doors and windows, to be done, and lilting, "Why are we waiting?"

Well, one reason might be that we are waiting for someone else to act. Much of our lives consist of the things that are beyond our control, and most of our lives are spent waiting for these things to occur - whether it's waiting for army to be over, waiting to reach a destination, waiting for someone to call, or waiting in the doctor's office. It might even be as big as waiting for love, or waiting for the new covenant to be fulfilled. Or worse (to pull a Hermione Granger), waiting for late exam results.

Another reason might be that we ourselves aren't ready. We've got other commitments, we're afraid, or we don't have the skills required to take on the challenge - for instance, as much as I longed to ski down the Snowy Mountains last week, I knew that I just wasn't ready for that then.

To put it simply, we have no choice.

Even though it often feels frustratingly akin to doing nothing, waiting is still an action, of sorts. According to my trusty Oxford Apple Dictionary (OAD), the word 'wait' came from the word 'wake', which means to emerge from a state of sleep, become aware of, or cause to stir. This puts things in quite a different light - when we wait for something, we are aware of the likelihood of something happening, and that changes the way we live. From a state of sleeping unawareness to that of waking, we have shifted our perspectives, our modes of life, in a significant way.

Sometimes, the best way we can handle this awareness is to carry on as we were - pretending like we didn't even know it was going to happen. But although on the surface it may seem to pass muster, this is never really the case. Whether we will or nay, we keep ourselves attuned to that thing we know will happen. In fact, early senses of the word 'wait' included to be watchful, or observe carefully. In a sense, waiting is a filter of what we see - if we are waiting on the good stuff, we can be optimistic (although some might say we will be disappointed). We can never be completely objective our observation, and waiting is what colours our lenses.

Besides being alert to what we are waiting for, we also prepare ourselves for it. The OAD says that some aspects of the word 'wait' include being ready for a certain purpose. Today at church we had an interesting sermon that tied in perfectly with this; the preacher presented the time between the Lord's first and second coming as a window of opportunity to repent and come to God, as a period of grace - the Lord is waiting for us to be ready, we aren't just waiting for him.

Waiting may seem pointless, futile, or like you're just plain doing nothing, but it's a deceptively active verb - you need to be on the alert, you need to make yourself ready. You may have no choice but to wait, but what you do have a choice in: how you respond when that thing that you've been waiting for happens, will depend on how you've waited.