History of Drugs: Part I

Something that was passed around in the lab on a holiday card, proving my ultimate association to geekiness.

Patient: Doctor, I'm in pain.
1000 B.C. Doctor: Eat this root.
250 A.D. Doctor: That root is heathen. Say this prayer.
1700 A.D. Doctor: That prayer is superstition. Take this vial.
1900 A.D. Doctor: That potion is snake-oil. Smoke this powder.
1950 A.D. Doctor: That powder is addictive. Take this pill.
1990 A.D. Doctor: That pill is not efficacious. Take this bioengineered drug.
2000s A.D. Doctor: That drug is artificial. Eat this root.

Luckily, alcohol is the drug of choice this season. Happy holidays!

In Mourning for Mr. Plow

Apparently the best way to prepare for a Nor'easter in Boston is to let out every student and government worker at 2pm on the main roads and highways...right before the snow plows and salt trucks are on the road. Let's just say it was quite exciting watching cars not move on Boylston Street for three hours. The old-timer New Englanders, who've been here for years, just simply didn't go to work or send their kids to school and stayed at home. They've gotten used to the idea that it is not going to stop snowing right away.

I'm finished with exams, but since every form of frozen precipitation has fallen in the past 96 hours, it's obvious Mother Nature wants me to celebrate indoors. And like any normal American, I say to her "Screw you" and venture outdoors to take pictures while doing errands like grocery shopping (was sober) or exploring the Transcendentalist quality of snow falling (was drunk.)


On my street in South End:


At Harvard's main quad:


The Massachusetts State House:


Boston Common:


Union Park:

Analogize

I said, "Great, I'm going back to the kingdom of the blind as the one-eyed man."
Nick said, "Well, if you want I could poke out your other eye."
I said, "Uh, I need that eye to be king. The point is I don't want to go back to the kingdom of the blind."
Nick said, "Why not? You could tell them you have two eyes. Better yet, three eyes. They're blind, they can't tell!"
I said, "Wouldn't they brand me as a witch or something with the three eyes."
Nick said, "They're blind, what can they do?"
I said, "Yeah, the forming of the lynch mob with pitch forks and torches would be hard to organize."
Nick said, "They'd probably grab a lot of brooms...

Seven Ivy Leagues in Search of a Sense of Humor

At the Harvard Coop
JL: "Excuse me, do you know if any of the houses sell their own Harvard t-shirts?"
Sales Representative #1: "No, no, all of the official Harvard merchandise comes through us. None of the houses have their own shirts unless it's a special discount from the COOP. It simplifies the process."
JL: ( in sotto voce )"Yeah, getting rid of imaginative houses does simplify things."

At the Harvard Shop
JL: "Do you have any Harvard shirts with the logo that are funny?"
(Blank expression from girl at counter. Looks to guy stocking hoodies)
Guy:"Sorry, I don't think so. We're very sober here."
JL: "Nothing? Nothing like 'If it were easy, it'd be Yale'?"
Girl: "That statement's true, how is it funny?"

At Hidden Sweets, also in Cambridge, MA
JL: "Are there any funny Harvard shirts here?" JML
Sales Representative #2: "Harvard? Nah? But we got alot of funny Boston shirts, like one that's says 'Wicked Pissah'"
JL: "But none from Harvard?"
Sales Representative #2: "Don't think so."
JL: "How about a Harvard shirt that's spelled Hahvahd?
Sales Representative #2: "How's that different from its regular spelling?
JL: "No, with like h's for the r's."
Sales Representative #2: "Oh yeah, we did have shirts like those, but we ran out of them."
JL: "Any time you might get them back in stock?"
Sales Representative #2: "Probably not. We got them that way cause the printer made a mistake."
JL: (Runs out and gives Harvard campus middle finger)

I think years of blue-blooded elitism and also blue-blooded inbreeding has rendered the parts of the neural limbic system associated with laughter obsolete with some of our Cambridge brothers. I miss UChicago's witty self-deprecation. With that, you knew you were nerdy, your school is soul-crushing, and you're damn proud of that.

*Am fully aware there are eight schools in the conference, but Yale seems fully equipped to make fun of its other Ivy League fellows.

Glass Half Full, but Leaking

I got accepted to the University of Louisville for medical school, which mean Plan B and C don't need to be started. But then when I told my lab about this, the South Asian post-doc said, "Too bad you didn't go to Sweden. They train some of the best doctors."

Yeah, that Swedish application was a bitch to complete to begin with.

A Convenient Truth

I was contemplating getting up to grab a beer from the kitchen when I realized that I had a bottle of wine, a bottle of whiskey and somehow, a bottle of tequila on my desk.

They're all unopened and I was mainly going to use them as gifts/bribes, but still, it's a weird coincidence.

Five Years in ESL for this?

I've been in Boston too long.

The catalysis for this conclusion comes from some conversations I've had around town, the first when I went to a Walgreen's that was all decked out in Red Sox championship gear.

JML:'Cuse me, mam. Ya know when they gonna get any Celtics geah in heah?
Excuse me, madam. Do you know when there will be any Celtics gear in this here establishment?
Store Clerk: No, but you'd think it would be soon.
JML: Yeaah, I juhst thot it would be heah now, with Sahx season ovah.
Yes, I just thought it would be here now with Sox season over.
JML's brain: Ok, who just spoke?

I've been noticing that lately I can relatively imitate the Boston accent with ease - replacing R's with Ah's, making D's sound like T's, elongating I's to sound like EE's, sounding like Ted Kennedy. At first I did this to get around Boston easier and secretly taunt Bostonians with their loss of the letter R as every New Yorker and Jon Stewart does.

Me at Dunkin Donuts:
One Year Ago -
JML: Could I get medium coffee, with cream and sugar?
Dunkin Donuts Person: Wat?
Now -
JML: Can I get a regulaah coffee, lahge?
Can I get a coffee with cream and two sugars, large?
Dunkin Donuts Person: Suah thing, suh.
Sure thing, sir.

Now, I don't now if I'm talking like this to local Bostonians just to communicate better with them or out of habit, which is the worse case scenario.

JML: (Getting into a taxi) Thanks, suh. Can I get ta da cohnah of Union Pahk and Tremont?
Can I get to the corner of Union Park and Tremont?
Taxi Driver: Vehy good, suh. Not that fah.
JML: Yeah, I coulda walked, but it's wicked cald.
Yes, I could have walked, but it's wicked cold.
JML's brain: Why the hell are you speaking like Elmer Fudd?

I've noticed I don't talk like this among people outside of Boston, so I think if I extricate myself from the New England area, my ability to speak will return to normal. Hopefully. But if you here me say the word "idear," kick me.

Non Symposia

There are times I forget that I'm not at UChicago anymore and that people don't want to get, or normally just can't get analytical. Case in point, a conversation I had with my neighbors, Prithi and Sarah. Prithi is planning on moving out of Boston soon and Sarah needs a roommate.

"Yeah, I just need to find one of those cats who inherited lots of money from an old lady to be my new roommate and pay half the rent," Sarah.
"But if the cat got everything in the old woman's will, wouldn't they have gotten the house too?" Me.
"Joel, don't destroy Sarah's dream. She wasn't thinking that far into it," Prithi.

Yeah, so I was accused of raining on her parade. Well, UofC people do that, often it seems.

Ennui and Ninjas

Nothing today particularly happened. I went to work, I burned worms, I went to Pharmacology lecture and I picked up dry cleaning. No eccentric dreams or romantic overtures dashed by reality. Really boring... even with trying to watch ninjas.

Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

Thus proof I am alive. And hunting those ninjas. Damn those stealth bastards!

Things Change

Back in the day, there was still a Curse of the Bambino, and the Red Sox were in my mentality the Lovable Losers.

Now, with all the drunken fans keeping me up last night (and I'm about three miles from Fenway) with their drunken boastful talk of a dynasty, I wonder:

When did the Red Sox become the Yankees?
When did the Indians become as cursed as the old Red Sox?
And when did the Yankees become the new Mets?

Unfortunately for the Mets, they're still the Mets too.
At least I have some constancy still in the baseball world knowing there is a Greek man's ghost and his pet goat's ghost hovering over Wrigley Field, laughing.

Best Birthday Present...

is the fact my living room finally has four walls again.




Otherwise, still standing ladies and gentlemen. Which is great for a mid-20 year old who knew he shouldn't have had that last shot of whiskey.

Also got this -

Happy Birthday Joel!


From all of us on The Facebook Team, have a great day!

Hole in the Wall Gang

Yes, I am back in Boston, had a wickedly unstressful med school interview, and came back from the Philippines without getting dengue fever, malaria, or an arranged marriage. I would like to talk about the still-class centered and familial structured society of the Philippines or the immense social upheaval that will happen if the newfound wealth there doesn't start get trickling to the poor majority. Or my current thesis project, which centers on characterizing a dual-knockout worm line.

But instead, let's discuss what I came home to in Boston. There had been construction on the back facade of my apartment building before I left. This is the email my roommate sent me two days before my flight back:

On 10/4/07, Matthew Lee wrote:
>
> Joel,
>
> You're not going to f$%#@ing believe this, but the wall of our
> living room just fell out. They've been removing brick all week
> and I guess they took out more than they should, so the wood
> and plaster just peeled off the building. I'm looking at
> night sky and scaffolding from desk as I'm writing to you.
> In fact, I can see the night lights on one of those skyscrapers
> downtown right now. I'll try to have some answers for you
> for what that means about living here in the mean time.
>
> Matt

This is my reply:

On 10/6/07, wrote:
>
>
> Matt, I come back to America to find out theres a fucking
> hole in the living room. What else is new?

This is what the back of my living room looks like:







The construction workers estimate it will take them 3-4 weeks to repair the whole thing. Even though I can still use the bathroom and kitchen, and my bedroom isn't actually connected to the living room, it is a pain not being able to use it to relax, sit on the couch, watch basic cable, or play my roommate's PS3...Wow, was that really all I did with the living room? Anyway, it has forced me to have to watch the MLB playoffs at bars. And the main drawback to that is I can't save money buying my own beer.

For pics from the Philippines, look at http://uchicago.facebook.com/p.php?i=2902956&k=4V1445UZ4XTA6DDDRE2Y

Honesty

Med School Interviewer: "So, what would you say are your weaknesses?"
Me:(Pauses. Thinks.) "Girls."
Med School Interviewer: (Laughs)"A lot of candidates wouldn't admit to having weaknesses."
Me:"Well, I know I'm human."

Magical Mystery Tour

I will be out of commission for a while, as I will be making several transcontinental flights this week. As much as I'd like to be able to tell my Bangladeshi post-docs idea of having Bush and Ahmadinejad just duke it out in an arena Battle Royal style to avoid a war, or how my next-door neighbor's stomach is revolting against her Indian heritage by making her sensitive to curry and tea, I'm afraid it will have to wait another day.

If you're wondering, I'm going to have a medical school interview at Louisville on Wednesday, followed by a straight trip to the Philippines, where graft and nepotism exist,but it plays in favor for my family.

This is what my schedule will be like for the next week:

Tuesday 9/25/07 4:45PM Leave Boston Logan Airport
6:30PM CST Arrive Chicago O'Hare
7:30PM Leave Chicago
10:00PM EST Arrive Louisville Airport
Wednesday 9/26/07 10:00AM Drive aunt to work
12:00 Noon Sign in at the University of Louisville School of
Medicine Office of Admissions
4:00PM Day of bliss ends
7:45PM Leave Louisville Airport
8:29PM Arrive Chicago O'Hare, again
9:20PM Leave Chicago
Thursday 9/27/07 12:30AM Arrive Boston Logan
12 Noon Leave Boston Logan, getting repetitive
2:02PM Arrive Detroit Airport
3:00PM Leave Detroit
Friday 9/28/07 10:45PM Arrive in Manila, Philippines
Saturday 9/29/07 5:00AM Leave Manila for heart of darkness in the Philippines
7:00AM Arrive in rural, feudal provinces
Thus, if you been adding this up, I'm in the air for over 30 hours this week (42 if you include the 12 hours I lose crossing the International Date Line). Which is probably the reason why I'm kissing sea level right now. At any rate, if you haven't heard any news of me leading a rebellion of syndicalists and getting myself named Grand Moff of the Philippines, I'll tell you guys how my travels went.

The Crazed Filipino Show

Last week, I started working in a laboratory in the Pharmacology department looking at transgenic worms carrying the encoded LRRK2 gene which is tied to ubiquitin degradation in Parkinson's disease. If anyone can point out how this is related to Pharmacology, please tell me.

So I went on a double date tonight: a high school classmate and her date, me and her sister. Hearing she had just gotten into college around Boston, I thought the sister was a freshman, though she turned out to be a junior transfer. Except does it still count as a double date if it was just me, my high school classmate and her sister when the date canceled? Especially since I paid for only the sister? And should I feel relieved and yet unadventurous the sister wasn't five years younger than me?

On for more sitcom situations: stay tuned as Joel has to go to two parties at the same. And the guest he encounters is hilarity!

Damn, I need a theme song.

Born in the Wrong Decade

Line from Pharmacology lecture today:

"Researchers found the receptors for THC, the active substance in marijuana, through active testing."

Another throwback from the 60's is this article from the Onion I keep on reading and wishing I was there when Slaughterhouse Five was first published.


15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will

You Can Take the Boy Out of the Ivory Tower...

I finished three secondary apps to medical school today (UIC, Tufts, and Drexel), when I looked over the essays I wrote and saw I referenced Socrates, Ray Bradbury, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Do the med admission committees appreciate essays with footnotes?

Ironically, my secondary application to UChicago had only one quotation. Not from Durkheim or Nietzche, but Star Trek:TOS. If there is no one who gets that reference on the committee, I'm in the wrong field.

Better Homes and Gardens than Mine

So since I bought/was given for free half of old Shoreland East's furniture, I thought of showing what my room looked like now instead of clogging mailboxes with 360 KB worth of jpegs.

Here's my bed, with its low Japanese frame I bought for $20, oriented horizontally to the room as Vanessa suggested, which actually gives me the greatest amount of walking space and room for Poulos' old desk and my shelves and closet.




Now, time to stop procrastinating and do my secondaries since school doesn't begin till next week...or find some other activity to waste my time.

Guess I Should Stop Pissing Off Those Norse Gods

My reward for finishing the MCATs and not feel utterly broken:

9 medical secondary applications to fill out
$485 to pay out with said apps
3 neuro articles to read before I work in a Parkinson's disease lab
and 40 days to pack until a trip to the Philippines.

No wonder I want to be distracted by power tools, fire and alcohol.

Complete with a Ceiling Crawling Crack Baby

I've been up since 4 AM studying MCAT Chemistry and finished two Med School Secondary Applications. That was such a rush...(puts out cigarette on arm)...I'M ALIVE!!!!
And now I need a fifth of bourbon, a monkey wrench and a blowtorch.

Wonder Boy

Note: This is an old essay I wrote in high school that I recently found.

March 4, 2001


One October morning, I frequented the annual St. James Art Fair, which showcased local crafts and products. While I tried to conduct warmth to my benumbed fingers from a Styrofoam cup of coffee, I gazed at some Quechuan tapestries from Ecuador. The proprietor of the Ecuador stand must have mistaken me for a Hispanic, since he greeted me in Spanish and inquired if I came from South America. I replied no. After he named several other Latin American countries he thought I came from, I curtly retorted, " I'm Asian!" He uttered meekly "¡Ay! You're Asian; then you must be smart."
I contemplated first whether or not I actually did appear Latino. However, the fact that the vendor associated the word "smart" with my race flooded into my mind many thoughts and meditations. The stereotypical Asian has a high IQ, a superior mentality in mathematics and science, and an industrious, competitive and perfectionist work ethic. In short, everyone expects the Asians to be geniuses.
Of course, this view has misconceptions, and it seems racist to correlate Asians with intelligence. But, I too have enhanced this cliché by appearing as the cliché; in public I assume the prototype of the Asian whiz kid. I wear a conservative and unpretentious suit of turtlenecks and polo shirts. I talk in a smug and pretentious voice, as if I do know it all. I even opted to wear glasses instead of contacts because I thought glasses would amplify my highbrow persona. Thus, I have become what everyone thinks I am, a prodigy.
For all the regular people with average intelligence, I would like to apologize for making you look inferior. But, since my mother gave birth to me, my father has always craved a reason to boast about his son. My cousin had an astounding singing voice that my uncle would gloat about for hours. My envious father found no vocal or athletic talent in me; he almost accepted me as average when my kindergarten counselor had me take an Advance Program test and I scored in the top four percentiles. Now, my father brags about his genius son, with his high SAT score at age fifteen, his all A report card, and his thirty academic awards. I feel sometimes that I have not lived up to my father's image of me, but I must continue this illusion that I am some sort of genius. So, I enrolled in a nationally distinguished high school and have tried for the last three years to impress my doting father with academic accolades.
My parents did not put all of this anxiety on me alone. Society placed a great deal of pressure on this generation of teens. I know many of my peers feel overwhelmed by their expectations. Today's world requires everyone to be educated. Politicians habitually clash over the best way to improve education. College admissions have become highly competitive; the statistics from the College Board shows Ivy League schools like Harvard University only accepts 12% of the students who applied there, and approximately 30,000 high school seniors applied.
The title of genius has become more hallowed than before. In the 1980's, genius meant geek, nerd, Steve Urkel. Now, genius means Bill Gates and money. Naturally, I enjoyed when people called me an Einstein. So I carried on this façade by studying for tests four days ahead of time, by typing compositions over until they reached perfection, and by researching until I found the answer to a question. This reputation as a genius, I realized later, gained me nothing internally. I alienated people and made myself antisocial. I had no stable friendship and even those who tolerated me thought of me as a nuisance. When PSAT scores arrived, I became so irate that someone else's score was higher than mine that I forgot my score probably qualified me for the National Merit Scholarships. I berated myself for receiving a B+ in Advanced Placement Computer Science until it dawned that some people, like my friend Cynthia, cannot even turn on a computer without slapping it.
So, recognizing how much of pompous jerk I became, I lightened up. Out of character, I became the manager of the girls' basketball team my freshman year, but that is a different story. Today, I try to balance my intellectual side with my personal side. Sometimes, not wanting to sound condescending, I would say something irrelevant and quirky. I would rather people think of me as an amiable eccentric than an arrogant show-off.
In the classic movie The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow desperately wanted a brain, even though, he had no guarantee the Wizard would give him an exceptional brain. The Wizard might give him a retarded brain and the poor Scarecrow would have gone on thinking he was smarter than a flying monkey. Still, the Scarecrow did realize he lacked something most people, like me, take for granted. I empathize with the Scarecrow, afraid that I will not fit other peoples’ judgement of aptitude. But, I have learned the only person my intelligence can truly satisfy is myself, so I have begun to live without pressures or contention, and I think I have finally begun to enjoy life for the first time. Humanity can recognize me as a genius or a predestined Nobel Laureate if it wishes to, but I would like it to know me first personally rather than intellectually.

Don't Remember Having Personality DNA in the Lab...

Muggle's Lament

Actually I haven't had much time to do my secondaries since I've spent the past 11 hours sleeping and then prior to that 14 hours reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." The sad thing is I was alerted that the book was on-sale at Walgreens by Victor after I had spent two hours waiting in line at Borders at midnight.

If you want a review of the book, look on Amazon. All I have to say is it is a fitting ending to a seven-volume series that for a lot of fans they've been following for twelve years. But WHY J.K. ROWLING, WHY, DO YOU HAVE TO RELEASE THE BOOK EVERY DAMN TIME I'M STUDYING FOR THE MCAT?

Secondary Colors

I received my first secondaries last week for med school, which puts into perspective that in the next six months, I will retake the MCATs, work in a Parkinson's disease lab, gather data to write a paper for a thesis committee to tear apart, write more secondaries and hopefully get interviews, TA for Histology and go to the Philippines for a week.

But like my grandpa said, "If this family could survive WWII, this family can do anything."
God bless his Japanese-hating bones.

The Lone Gunman

I am the last of Shoreland East.

Well, actually Tera Ellefson is here in Boston too, but of the original Kids, I am the last one since Poulus and Vanessa have returned to Chicago.

I tried to fill the void with work. That did not help.
I tried to fill the void with study. That did not help.
I tried to fill the void with drinking, clubbing, and making out with hot girls. That partially helped, but the fact the conversations I had always turned to MCATs, med school application, and Red Sox reminded me of what I was missing. Also, it didn't help that I am durnk.

Anyway, I remain in Boston for at least another academic year, so if anyone is visiting, call my cell (773-xxx-xxxx) or email me. Seriously, I'll be missing the conversation.

How I Feel About Summer Action Movies (or why is it that Keanu Reeves survived in "Chain Reaction" but the Asian Scientist got Shot)

Pretty much sums it up for me...

Crap... better start breeding.

Things I've been doing to procrastinate studying:

1. Change layout of blog.
2. Damning Science.
3. Look up old Onion articles.
4. Damning Science and Weathor, Evil God of Weather Chaos against Scav, again.

Study: Uneducated Outbreeding Intelligentsia 2-To-1

CHICAGO-In a report with dire implications for the intellectual future of America, a University of Chicago study revealed Monday that the nation's uneducated are breeding twice as fast and twice as often as its educated.

Adventures in Medical Bureaucracy

I'm afraid of becoming just another tool in a vast, convoluted and highly inefficient machine called health care. A great big tool.

I had to go to BU's Student Health Services to get an ear infection treated last week. First thing they had me do was get an MMR - because apparently different offices of BU don't share important student documentation, like their immunization records. So I wasted 20 minutes standing in line with international students for a vaccine which I later found out I was already up-to-date on.

Then they had me wait in the clinic for another 5 minutes for the doctor to prescribe that my ear be washed with a saline-water solution (apparently, it wasn't an infection, my ear canal was just clogged with wax). So I waited another 20 minutes in a clinic, which afterwards the nurse practitioner doused my ear canals with cold saline solution that while cleaned my ears put a lot of cold pressure on my ear drums and lead to me being dizzy, disoriented, and somehow on a bus going to Chestnut Hill.

The moral of this story: don't use Q-tips in the ear canals.

Inanimate Objects that Probably Hate Me If They Gained Life...

includes Vanessa's car, which in the past week, has undergone inadvertently thanks to me...
1) had a mattresses strapped to its top
2)accidentally had its doors tied up because of the strapped mattress, causing the driver and passenger to attempt to get in through the window (the driver succeeded).
3) was driving down Storrow Drive at about 10 mph below the speed limit, which then was 35 mph below the speed of everyone else driving on Storrow Drive
4) got stuck during through Back Bay looking for metered parking during the Boston Pride 2007 festivals
5) got stuck and almost blindsided in Chinatown
6) I kept on closing the door on a seat belt.

Revenge of the Nerd’s Romantic Life

As advised by my legal counsel (the former Shoreland Scav captain) I will try to make some of the names involved as ambiguous as possible since this blog is open to the public (and I don’t really feel like using LiveJournal).

At any rate I was back in Chicago for Alumni Weekend. I left an UnCommon Core Lecture given by my old Biological Diversity professor, Dr. LaB to have lunch with Victor at Salonica, a lecture which culminated in Dr. LaB taking off his pants and standing in a water tank demonstrating the amazing world of biological fluid mechanics. This has nothing to do with the rest of the story but it needed mentioning.

At Salonica, Girl #1 called me just as I’m sitting down into the booth. She wanted to meet up, as friends, and actually this is the least messy romantic flameout involved in this story. We made plans to have dinner that night. I gave Victor a vague response as to who Girl #1 is. He justifiably gave me a skeptical look.

Some time as we were finishing up lunch, Paul, an old friend, CS major, Mac Labbie, and Max P Scavvie comes into the diner and saw both of us. He’s waiting for Harold, another ’06 alum who’s now working in SF for Facebook. Unfortunately, Harold was walking to Salonica with Girl #2, who I haven’t had a decent conversation with since May 2005. I made a horrified look, Victor realized who she is too, Paul informed me Salonica has a men’s bathroom in the back. Inside said men’s bathroom, I texted Victor, “Is it safe?” His reply: “Yes.” Coming back to the booth, I asked if it was bitter and rancorous of me to host the Shoreland Scav HQ in my dorm triple that year across from her room. Victor said it is if my only reason was because she hated Scav Hunt. I said the main reason was b/c Shoreland needed an HQ and it was an added benefit. He said then its okay if it wasn’t the major incentive.

Harold then joins us and then all four of us started talking about the good old days, and what's been going on in Chicago. After a spirited conversation on the etymology of the word “bugger”, I found out that Harold lived in a certain dorm, incidentally, one floor right above the girl who gave me the only reason to visit that dorm. I shared my experience about that disastrous night with Girl #3, including the involvement of a certain “Creepy Guy” who we all know… and know. Needless to say, some very personal information was shared. I apologized retroactively to Harold for any noise I may have made being there. All four of us discussed the uselessness of Creepy Guy.

So yes, I was forced to remember the wackiness of my romantic life at the University of Chicago, which possibly could make for a very bad after-school movie or a very good teen sex comedy. It really seemed all too coincidental. Any idea what God or the makers of The 40-Year Old Virgin are trying to tell me?

Study: 38 Percent Of People Not Actually Entitled To Their Opinion

CHICAGO—In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago's...

JoelNotes

As suggested by this NYT article
if I had to list all of the novels that I thought were too long -

The Scarlet Letter - whole thing in one headline: PURITAN SLEEPS WITH REVEREND, BORES 11TH GRADERS FOR YEARS TO COME
A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens was paid by the installment (chapter)...and it shows.
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Enjoyed most of the book, but could have done without the last two decades.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - did Hermione really have to campaign for house elves' rights? How would that help fight Voldemort?
The DaVinci Code - Monty Python's search for the Holy Grail is better.
Ayn Rand - anything she's written. Why did I have so many copies of the Fountainhead as a 1st year?
The March - As long as the Civil War.
Finnegan's Wake - I still haven't finished reading it...

Can't sleep, clown'll eat me.

Just for exposition's sake, I was staying over at my cousin's house over the weekend and slept in their basement, which was also their kids' playroom. Both their kids being boys and under the age of five, the playroom was naturally littered with toys.

Ok, so the real story begins when I was getting ready to sleep when I heard this horrible, mechanical noise out in the darkness. Being groggy and having drank a fifth of bourbon earlier, I thought it was my imagination, so I went back to closing my eyes.

Like twenty minutes later, I heard the same mechanical, scratchy noise again, and could distinguish that it sounded like laughter. Another 10-15 minutes later, the same horrendous laughter again. I finally got up, trying to look for what this shit was, turned out the basement lights, and looked around. What grabbed my attention the most was this clown doll of my nephew's was lying on its side on the floor, but when
you pressed the button on its back, it made the same piercing laughter I had heard. Having seen horror movies about toys killing people, I threw the toy into a toy chest and slept in the family room under the pretense it was cold in the basement.

Now, I hadn't heard the clown toy before that night, so it couldn't have been a sound I would remember which leads me to wonder -
was it a) just my imagination and my psychosis playing tricks on me?
b) a mechanical failure of the toy?
c) the beginning of that creepy Stephen King novel?

So, yeah, to sum up this entry, Spring finals are done and possessed toys are haunting me.

Political Side: Don't agree with giving total amnesty in new immigration bill, but at least it takes care of better enforcement policies.
Personal Side: Congratulate my friend V for giving me further incentive to visit Chicago again.

Party Like Its 2008

Anyone else tired of the 2008 Election already? I dug up this old article of mine from three years back about the problems of the primary system today. What did most states do? Try to move up their primaries to earlier dates. My only mistake - what crack was I smoking when I picked Dick Gephardt?
"Primary system fails America"
http://maroon.uchicago.edu/viewpoints/articles/2004/01/20/primary_system_fails.php

If only U.S. presidential elections were chosen by the candidate who got the most items on a Scav Hunt list...one can dream.

Duck Soup Part II

Yes, I've been away from reporting my self-deprecating experiences in life. Not that it hasn't been as random or "Joelesque" as usual, but hey, I've been busy. I have finals. I have people to see and remark about the absurdity of life. For someone else's misadventures visit this site. He also has webcomics.

First, I still would like to send out my sympathies to the Virginia Tech campus for their courage and sacrifice these past two weeks. At first, I was concerned about reprisals against the Asian-American community, and in particular the Korean-American community, because of who the gunman was - which was a concern of many of my friends at BU. But, which reassured me about humanity, most people didn't want to pay attention to the images of the gunman and instead focused on grieving the victims, helping the survivors, and how to improve the outlets of mental health resources for the college students to be able to use.

On a different tangent, I have been mistaken for a different ethnicity in three different places this weekend (Fenway, Starbucks, Bed, Bath & Beyond). And it was by people of that ethnicity - like there was a Chinese-American woman asking me about bridal registry for her daughter? at Bed, Bath & Beyond. How many languages can you say - "I am Filipino, I'm sorry I can't speak your language." ?

It doesn't work to Babelfish the sentence. I have to be able to speak it phonetically. And how surprising is it for me to be mistaken for Indian?

All Look Same?

One more thing - Stupid Dice-K Mania in Boston
Do I look like the guy in this picture, or should the drunken Irish Bostonians take a lesson in racial sensitivity?
My favorite response so far
-"What do they think of Dice-K back in your home country?"
"Well, since the Japanese drove my family into hiding during WWII, we don't think highly of them."

Glad its not all in my family

Yeah, I'm back, but busy. I will have a blog page to regale you with stories about my many travels these last few weeks, but here's an entry with a family secret I would have rather never wanted to have known...
My dad dated a senator's daughter from Kentucky.
That senator lost to this current douchebag, who latest episode, while I disagrees with in idea, brings up the question - really do you want shitty acts like Black Eyed Peas and David Gray on your lawn?

Joel is Currently Unavailable...

as he will be traveling 6000 miles in the next two weeks, building houses in New Orleans for Katrina relief, improving his tolerance for Evangelicals, and bonding with his male cousins in Miami. He will be a living Johnny Cash song ("I've Been Everywhere", not "Ring of Fire.")

I'll keep you guys posted.

Luck of the Joelish

So St. Patrick's Day 2007 for me involved my nostrils being so filled with mucus that I couldn't breath, the city covered in snow, ice, and what the Weather Channel described as "undetermined precipitation," and studying for a midterm.

The week before was when I did most of my St. Paddy's day celebration at the Harpoon Brewery St. Pat's Festival. Not going to delve into the sordid details; but it ended up I being the relatively sober one in the party (screw you, Asian flush and my ALDH mutation!!), yet still being coerced into doing an Irish jig for a radio station t-shirt. And then being asked to have an Irish dance-off with someone else. And trying to remember if people were videotaping this and searching YouTube for any videos of a Filipino doing Riverdance for the past week.

I should have taken the dance-off challenge; they're so rare.
Somehow I do feel cheapened by this experience, but it is a nice t-shirt (WBOS 92.3). I didn't get a damn thing for this video 5 years ago.

So why am I afraid of a video now? Can't blame being a high-schooler like in this one.

Catholics have more fun...

I've decided to give up Youtube for Lent, if only because it's a distraction (an amusing one.)
Also, the Archbishop of Philadelphia posted videos about how we could doing more with our lives than watching Youtube, which while ironic - because then I wouldn't be watching his videos- convinced me I need to ween myself off Youtube.

Hey, if there is an afterlife, it's gotta be a lot of fun for Catholics...



New Topics for discussion: why the concept of arrythmias hates me
Ann Coulter vs. John Edwards - will this finally shut them up?

All that glitters isn't necessarily gold...

Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock And Roll

Face it - a world where airplay has been conquered by Justin Timberlake deserves a rockapocalypse.

Stating the obvious

I've found out in the past week two of my ex-girlfriends are now engaged.

Yep, I'm so far unmarriageable.

Duck Soup

Non Sequitur of the week (and it's just Sunday):
So I was discussing with V about a mutual friend, who for the sake of his girlfriend, was trying not to associate him with the word sketchiness, even though he's had contests to see who is the sketchiest.
Me: If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, sounds like a duck, it's a sketchy friend.
And then suddenly, an MBTA Cop came out from behind us and interjected,"So is it a duck?"
My stunned reply, "Yes... it's a duck."
Lesson - I need a softer outside voice.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! (Year of the Pig for non-Asians).

I blame E! Stop the Histrionic Personalities.

1) Continuing secretarian violence and civil war in Iraq.
2) Democratic Congress challenging the Executive Branch on Constitutional war powers.
3) Palestinian coalition government still not officially recognizing Israel.
4) Escalation of offensive warfare from the Taleban in Afghanistan.
5) Nations meeting together to discuss how to stop global warming from worsening.
6) Iran being defiant on nuclear aims and its growing hegemony in the Persian Gulf.
7) Growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States.
8) Darfur peace talks stalled.
9) Aging baby boomers placing strain on the current health care system.
10) The 2008 Presidential primaries.

There. 10 relevant issues that deserve more press coverage than Anna Nicole Smith. The woman is dead, she didn't change America, and the course of this country will not divert knowing the father of her damn baby. GET OVER IT! I usually don't agree with Bill O'Reilly, but he's correct in pointing out the only value of her story is a warning about the irresponsibility of seeking attention. Don't start me on Britney Spears. Just go to obscurity in peace, woman.

Alexander Hamilton's Ghost is Shaking His Head at Me

Is there anyone out there, either of noble stock or born in the 18th Century, who wants to officiate a duel?

I forgot how this rake has impugned my dignity, but I know it shall not go unpunished.
His mistake that Boston Common is near the Charles shall also not go unpunished.

For anyone not interested in dueling, here's a comic strip demonstrating the cheap way of presenting in the science world.

Portrait of the Artist on Speed

riverrun. rivering run. river running running. trains running. rosebud was his sled. truck tires screech when stop. stop lights blinking. sirens wailing. must leave south boston. boston crazy. parents crazy. think i would randomly pick up lighted packages left on sidewalks. i know what aqua teen is. indonesian hobbits. p ≠ np? only the central time zone cares about this years super bowl. need whiskey - sour, mahattan, straight, neat, no rocks, no chaser. story of my life. boy meets girl. boy tutors girl. boy loses girl. cold. no snow. nhs4ever. minimum wage. bite and bark, but biting wrong people. caddy smells like trees. caddy's drawers are muddy. benjy i is gonna climb the fence. aughhhh! you see, william faulkner, its writing like that which is why youre burning in hell. like d lost generation books better. boats floating gatsby. running bulls in pamplona. chicago thinks i have money. alumni association hires friends from old house to track me down like a dog. cant even get own online account. weird. science. feel itchy - scratch-scratch-scratch - legs numb. nerst equation always there. med school cares about the nerst equation. got to her heart through the nerst equation. need sleep. badly. first sleep, then md diploma, then girlfriend, then kids, then revolution, then safecracking. explosions first sleep. wimper first, then bang. really wet and hot wimper.

Sign of the Apocalypse #3: Peyton Manning puts curse on Pats clutch, region of New England has winter of discontent

Why are my guy friends coming to me about their broken, dysfunctional relationship problems? I'm currently finding my love life is only existant when I'm in Chicago, and I can't afford flying back all the time, what with the Redline prices going up thanks to rising gas prices.


Point is I guess I'm just been more lucky with my personal life so far than some of my friends. All I can suggest to you all my buddies is to pray to St. All-the-people-I-know-as-single-and desperate-as-me-are -my-other-friends for intervention.

On a seperate note, congrats to Da Bears, and those 2 weeks between the NFC championship and the Super Bowl means Bears fans have a lot more time to do crazy, half-ass stuff, like giving birth.

Being Prepared

HERE LIES JOEL
LOVING SON, HUSBAND, FATHER

HE WAS JAKE BARNEY AND KEVIN TIRELLA'S
ONLY ROOMMATE TO BE FOUND
SLEEPING ON THE COUCH WEARING
BOXERS AND A FOOTBALL HELMET

This would be carved on my tombstone if my old roommates had their way. I suppose there are worse epitaphs, but sure as hell better ones.

Irony of Ironies

And now for something completely different from waxing about philosophies on a train ride.

The Augusta Chronicle and every other media source is discussing how James Brown's last testament and will was drawn up before his last marriage in 2001 and thus excludes his wife and 5-year son. Yeah, I'm concerned about the legacy and familial problems this will create... but get this - James Brown (Godfather of Soul, singer of "Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud," had Al Sharpton as a tour manager) had Strom Thurmond Jr. as his probate lawyer. Yes, the son of that Strom Thurmond. The one NNDB officially lists as a "Racist senator/closet miscegenator." The one who ran for president in 1948 on a platform of segregation and in 1957 filibustered the Civil Rights Act. The one who Trent Lott lost his job to complimenting him.

The really creepy thing is that Jr. was about 30 years old - when his 100-year old father died.

As I see it, either jail time really mellowed out Soul Brother Number #1, or Strom Jr. is really good at probate law.

Musings on a transcontinental trip on an Amtrak train

I will never again take a transcontinental trip on an Amtrak train. Damn you Lake Shore Limited! Luxurious Viewliner accomodations my ass!!!
There is something eternal about traveling through the Midwest on a winter night. Yeah, the images of a Norman Rockwell painting appear hokey and charmingly ancient and the image of early 20th century small town America is a whitewashed ideal that no one alive remembers firsthand. But the rural midwest I saw from my frosty train window are aware and savvy of how urban America has changed, and yet they adapt slow enough to retain their immediate charm. The single iron lamppost lightling the show gently falling on the tracks at the edge of the station. The small town main streets, selling cell phones and soy-based products from new stores, but still retaining their Victorian-style buildings as they intersect with the tracks. The lone silos and decaying barns out in a icy, fallow field. The Georgian-style farmhouses perserving their families' character and independence. The orchard trees decorated with laces of ice, like a forest of glass trees. Out here, you lose a sense of urgency, and with it, disposability. These structures carry with the the tradition of both grandeur and purpose; they were meant to withstand time and fashion. And long after I passed these small towns and independent farms, I wished that they would continue to persevere long after a string of presidents, appliances, and non-essential celebrities. Although I don't agree with all the thoughts and actions of rural America, I find one of their virtues - endurance - something we are always in short supply.

Perhaps Indiana and Ohio are only meant to be seen in the dark.

After witnessing what northern upstate New York - i.e Buffalo - looks like - broken machinery, disrepaired and abandoned factories and mills, burning tires, polluted rivers, I now realize why two of my closest friends are obsessed with post-apocalyptic dystopian futures. Thunderdome anyone?

I had breakfast in the dining car sharing a table with an electromagnetic physicist from Syracuse and his precocious 5-year old daughter (is there any other?) He seemed interested in how my progression into med school was going, and as someone who was an outside observer, appeared extremely critical of the entire process. His experience was with former students at Syracuse University, including one girl who took the most advanced physics and chemistry classes, but was passed over last year. His conclusion was that medical schools were not looking for the most challenged or the most intelligent candidates, but the most accomplished and best work-ethic (the ones with the best GPAs). If not for the MCATs, I would totally have agreed with him, and even then he made some convincing arguments. I went back over a speech my adviser gave from the outgoing AAMC President in 2005 about how the sorry state of medical admissions treated its American candidates, and realized, I wish that physicist guy would be on my admission board... and maybe my friends.

That's my trip on Amtrak. Never listening to you on transportation advice again, Kevin!

Previously on Joel's blog...

Joel had just finished his finals at Boston University and was looking forward to a relaxing end to 2006, when...


the Amish ecoterrorists escape with the mutant virus on their helicopter, but an intrepid Asian jumps from the rooftop to make their getaway more complicated...



Andy and Kevin's car chase across San Francisco ends in a fiery blaze, not knowing who survived...


the Scav Hunt team finally reaches Mordor with their ring of duct tape, closely followed by an army of orcs



Joel races to stop the colorblind technician from making the fatal mistake with cutting the blue wire...while in his room, temptation awaits....


and in a final disaster waiting to happen, someone brings a bottle of Johnny Walker to Joel's family.

To be continued 2007