That's right. After making me think that I'd gotten myself a Wii, the bastards that are Amazon never shipped it AND never informed me. Then I called them and they had the audacity to tell me that they were out of stock. No shit you're out of stock now. But if you were on Sunday, then why did you process my order? And why, now that you know you can't fill my order did you not email me telling me so?! I know it's not customer service's fault, but do they really have to piss me off with their stupid scripted answers? I don't usually get mad or yell at people, but I just couldn't not yell at the stupid manager's answers. He couldn't even give me any idea of when their next shipment would come nor could he explain why I had not been informed of the real status of my order (it kept saying delivery estimate November 21st on my status page). It would be one thing if I never was able to order the Wii in the first place, but it's a whole different matter when I was able to do so only to have it not delivered. Basically, what Amazon is saying is, "Hey, want a Wii? Then give us $250 and maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll get it next week, maybe you'll get it next year." And this after the fiasco that was their vague email about a "morning PST" release that caused me and God knows how many other people to stay up all night waiting. And to wait this long to not get my Wii after being promised one? Yeah, that's sure to make even the calmest person mad. Especially at all those scalpers out there (*cough cough* sister-in-law) who made it impossible for me to simply walk into a store and buy one. And yeah, screw you too, Amazon. I'm so never buying anything from you again.
Archive for the 'sand people' Category
I’m sure you’ve seen in the news all those stories about the crazy lines and camping out for the PlayStation 3 and to a lesser extent, the Nintendo Wii. Now I can understand if all these people just had to have their video game systems right at launch. I was even one of them (sort of) since I camped out all night at my laptop to get my Wii on Sunday, but what I can’t stand is that in reality, the majority of the people who went to such lengths did so to make a quick buck at the expense of the people they assed out because they took up all the space in the lines. I read somewhere (I forget and I’m too lazy to look it up again) that of all the people who camped out for the PS3 that only 30% of them were actually getting it for themselves or family or whatever. That means that a whopping 70% of them were getting them just to turn around and sell them for ridiculous prices (upwards of $3,000)! Which I think is not fair to the poor moms and dads and other people who, for some reason or other, could not (or would not—people were robbed, shot, trampled, and had cars broken into at some PS3 launches) go to such crazy lengths for a gaming system. Of course, they don’t have to turn around and buy these systems from scalpers for $3,000, but maybe they just have no choice because they really, really want them. But I know—that’s capitalism for you and I can’t do anything about it.
Well, except for that I can. I can choose to only buy one Wii for me and not be greedy. Which I did. But then my greedy sister-in-law (who by the way, makes $100K a year) chose to buy not one, but two Wiis so that she could sell one and use the profit to pay for the Wii that she kept. Okay, fine, she can be a greedy bastard. Did I also mention that she plans to buy an SUV now that we bought a Prius? Someone’s just plain trying to be a one-upper here. But back to my point. I’m okay with her being a greedy bastard. What I’m not okay with is the fact that she wants my husband to help her sell it on the popular auction site because she doesn’t have an account. Now why did you buy a Wii to scalp if you had no way of scalping it, idiot? And why drag us into your greediness? And why do you have to be greedy in the first place when you make that much money? What about the poor kid who didn’t get a Wii at launch and now has to shell out more than he should to get one or not get one until way later just because you’re greedy? Which reminds me, we happened to go to Costco on Sunday when the Wii was launched (for other reasons, of course) and I saw a kid’s heart break because he couldn’t get a Wii. He went running into the Costco and everything, but didn’t get one because they were already all gone. This after I saw people stroll out with dollar signs in their eyes carrying more than one Wii. And because of these people, this kid couldn’t get a Wii. One can argue that maybe if he wanted one that badly, then he should have camped out too. But isn’t that just a tad crazy? He’s only a kid after all. And not to mention that people wouldn’t have to camp out in the first place if people weren’t so greedy and buying them up to sell to the people they assed out. So yeah, I’m glad that the scalping market is so saturated now that these scalpers don’t stand to make that much money from their Wiis. But at the same time, those Wiis are not in the hands of the people who really wanted them. Which just isn’t fair. So my sister-in-law has just put herself at the top of my shitlist (wait, wasn’t she already there?) by being a greedy bastard about this whole thing. I bet that she’s going to end up returning her second Wii when she realizes she can’t make a profit anymore. And I hope that when she does, that it gets picked up by somebody who isn’t a greedy bastard.
Idiots are fun. No wonder every village wants one.
—Dr. Gregory House, “House, MD: Forever”
Yep. I must be hanging out with my husband too much because he’s rubbing off on me in all the wrong ways. Unconsciously even to me, I’m trying to make myself known as the village idiot in the lab. I just can’t seem to get anything right when it comes to these collaborators that I’m working with on a clinical study (the one that I had to get to lab early for on Monday). And these missteps are really making me feel like an idiot. And if I feel like an idiot, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that the other people involved are thinking the same. And I don’t take well to being thought of as dumb because I am anything but. I’ve just been a little off balance lately and everybody has off days, right? Why do mine just happen to fall on all the days when somebody is actually watching?
So first, there was the whole find-a-room-that-we-can-use-to-do-our-studies
thing. One of the collaborators had said he was going to take care of it.
And he didn’t. Then when I asked him about it months later, he pawned the task off on me and gave me the name of some nurse to contact. So much for promises. If I had known he wasn’t going to follow through, I would have done something myself sooner, before the other collaborators started questioning me about it, making me feel, oh I don’t know, incompetent?
Then I contacted the nurse who responded by telling me that she would get back to me. And get back to me she never did. Then it was the summer of the in-laws and sprained ankle, so I didn’t follow up with the whole situation as well as I should have. So our collaborator’s grad student took up the task and contacted someone else about the room and got it squared away immediately. Thanks a lot. So I had the wrong person. No wonder I got nowhere. So that was my first foray into idiothood.
Then, there was this Monday, when we had our first patients. I very much didn’t want to look like an idiot again, so I made sure to scope out the building where our study was going to take place the day before (even though it was Sunday and I had no reason whatsoever to drive all the way out there) to make sure there would be parking since I would be transporting equipment over and would really be screwed if I got there to find no parking. So Monday morning, I wake up early, get to the lab half an hour early, pack up our equipment and drive over to the building by the appointed time of 8:30. Got nervous about the parking because everyone else parked there had a different permit from mine, but decided that I had no time to waste and that I would rather live with a parking ticket than looking like an idiot again. So I got out of the car and walked into the building only to realize that I was in the wrong building. How did I know? Well, the room I was supposed to go to was 3xxx and the building I went to only had numbers in the 3xx. By now it was 8:40, but I had no choice but to drive back to the lab and find the other grad student’s phone number to call her to ask which building I was supposed to be in. She, of course, thought I was an idiot for not knowing. So that’s strike two. I didn’t get there until 8:50, and of course, there was no parking at all around that building for staff/employees, leaving me no choice but to park in a patient-parking-only designated space and hope that I didn’t get a ticket.
Thankfully I was able to find the room with little trouble, but our first subject had been there since 8:10 and I felt really bad about being late. At least I didn’t do anything idiotic while working with the subjects. And I didn’t get a ticket either. So I thought the idiocy was over.
That is, until today, when something possessed me to email the other grad student to ask for the subjects’ codes and information. Keep in mind that I was not having a good day today—too much in-law drama. I really should have just put it off. But I was trying really hard to not procrastinate, to be productive, to take the initiative. Well, of course, she responds to tell me that we’re not supposed to send patient information over the internet, not very nicely either. I knew that!!! That’s why I asked for the codes. And I responded to try to tell her that. But she just turned it around into a huge idiotfest by telling me that I could have asked her mentor for the information since he’s just down the hall. Well, I’m sorry, but I thought he was like my mentor and has his grad students keep all of his data!
I just want to crawl into a hole and not come out. Or scream at the top of my lungs that I’m not an idiot, goshdarnit! But what would any of that do? The sad fact is that the environment that I’ve been in for the last two+ years has made me dull. Quite dull. I’ve turned *shudder* mediocre. I’ve turned into a sand person. And I can’t stand that I let that happen. But it’s so hard for me to break myself free from what I’ve become even though I despise it with every fiber of my being. I can see why sand people like to keep their heads in the sand. It’s just too much work otherwise. Well, sand person I will be no more! As of today, uh wait, Monday since it’s the weekend, I will pull myself out of this rut that I’m stuck in. I will not be lazy. I will start studying for my quals. I will schedule those experiments I’ve been putting off. I will analyze the data that I’ve left to pile up for months now. I will not be an idiot anymore. I will be me.
But please kick me if I start falling into old habits.
I’ve put it off way longer than I should have. And it’s not my fault. Well, not 100% my fault. When I first started grad school still high from that adrenaline that pumps non-stop during those hectic first two years of med school, I wanted to take my quals as soon as possible so that I could finish my PhD as soon as possible. Then in stepped my major professor, who told me that I’d be committing suicide by doing so and that I should take the quals at the last possible minute to ensure that I would have enough time to study for it. Adding to his argument was the fact that one of the classes I wanted to take was only offered in alternate years and not that particular year. So I really had no choice but to wait until this fall to take my quals.
So I putted along with my grad school classes (none of which could even come close to matching the difficulty of a single med school class, by the way) and dutifully met with my advisor at the end of the year. I had listed out the courses I still needed to take before being done with the required coursework, including the I-put-off-my-quals-to-wait-for-this-class one. When he saw this course listed, he told me that it had not been offered for awhile and that he didn’t think that it was ever going to be offered again and to confirm with the professor. I emailed the professor and found out that what my advisor had said was true. Which meant that I tacked on a whole entire extra year to my grad school coursework for absolutely nothing! And that I had to find another class out of the extremely pathetic available classes in my graduate group to take in its place. Exercise physiology—whoo-hoo…
I was angry about this issue for awhile. If I hadn’t listed that course in my little-list-of-courses-to-take-before-quals section when I met my advisor, then I wouldn’t have even found out that the class wouldn’t be offered until the quarter I was waiting for came along and I got a rude awakening! And what are advisors for if they can’t even prevent me from making such a fatal-yet-easily-avoidable-had-someone-only-told-me mistake? And why have my graduate group’s class listings not been updated since 1962?! I slowly got over my anger as I accepted that there was nothing I could do about it at that point and because I thought that I would be able to speed along my research because of my very light courseload. Well, I got nowhere with my research and am still nowhere one year later thanks to my good for nothing lazy major professor.
And I never got around to taking my quals when I said I would either. First, I told myself spring quarter (i.e., three months ago). Then I said September. But I didn’t schedule that either and I can’t imagine how I would have studied had I scheduled it with those pesky freeloading kids around. So today, I finally managed to pull myself out of that rut, and drumroll please, emailed all the members of my qualifying exam committee to see if they’re available in December (which is the latest I can take the exam before someone notices that I haven’t taken it yet). Just the act of contacting them makes me want to faint. I purposely contacted them today so that I’ll have all weekend to recover from emailing them and to prepare myself for their responses.
But I’m angry again. At myself because I failed to schedule and take the exam sooner. For being lazy and all sand-people-like. And at my major professor and my graduate group because they did not guide me and push me in the right direction. I was all gunner-like when I started grad school and now I just want to be done and almost even regret doing it. And all because I’ve felt that all I’ve done these last two years is flounder without any guidance whatsoever. Abandoned is the word for it, I believe.
But all I can do now is look forward. There’s no point in regretting what I did or didn’t do or the fact that I’ve become such a lazy bum. So I will pause my whining for now. Look for it to continue when I receive those email responses on Monday.
*For those of you who are not familiar, the qualifying exam (also known as the PhD oral) is the big scary test a grad student takes after completing all required coursework that determines whether said grad student will advance to candidacy (be allowed to finish their PhD) or be sent home with a “thanks for trying” sticker. I imagine it to be an interrogation, super nerdy scientific style—five faculty members grilling one poor grad student about random esoteric things just because they can and because they like seeing grad students squirm.
This article is old, but brings back fond memories of my moment in the spotlight at my high school graduation as one of two valedictorians. At the time, I was only a little peeved that I had to share this honor with him because at least he was a nerd too and not some cool kid. I had been competing with him since junior high for the top grades, so it only made sense that we would end up sharing the honor, even though I believed that he “cheated” a little bit to get there. Let me explain. There was a certain calculus teacher at my high school, who was well known for being hard to understand and for giving difficult exams. My fellow valedictorian took calculus at the local community college to avoid this teacher for fear of blemishing his perfect GPA. I didn’t. And I got the A. But I was annoyed that he still got to share the honor with me even though he had used underhanded methods to ensure that he would maintain his GPA. But at least there were only two of us and we both had perfect 4.0 GPAs while taking the hardest classes my high school had to offer (except for that calculus class I mentioned on my co-valedictorian’s part). So there were two speeches and I would like to think that mine was better, of course.
The following year, there were eight valedictorians at my high school. Perfect GPAs too, I believe. But they were the cool people, not the nerds. Turns out crazy Asian parents figured that if their kids didn’t take the hardest classes, they would be more likely to get straight As and be valedictorian. But how is that fair to the rest of the people who chose to challenge themselves and still got the As? Or worse yet—the people who challenged themselves and didn’t get the As? Not only that, but it’s just not possible to have eight speeches given by eight valedictorians at graduation, so what’s the point of such an honor anymore besides to look good on college applications? This trend has not changed, at least not at my former high school. The number of valedictorians per graduating class has increased over the years to I believe 16 for this year’s graduating class. I don’t know about you, but I just wouldn’t feel special anymore if I were one of 16 valedictorians, especially if I’m sharing this honor with people I know full well cheated the system to be there while I got there the honest way. And quite frankly, I don’t know how these people live with themselves, knowing that they used sneaky underhanded methods to get to where they are. And I guess that’s what really bothers me, especially on the heels of pesky passive-aggressive cousin-in-law’s horrendous performance in my lab: the people who just skate by and cheat the system who still end up getting what they want and indeed end up in the same place that I, who worked hard the honest way, ended up. How can these sand people be considered just as good as me when they’re not? And why should I work so hard if I can be like them and skate by and still get what I want?
My husband believes that these people will get what they deserve in the end or that the fact that they just skated by will eat away at them inside or that they will eventually be found out. But I don’t see the world as being so just and I don’t see these people as the remorseful type. So all I can do is gripe and be glad that at least I was a real valedictorian and that I shared that honor with someone who also deserved it. Maybe when I infiltrate those med school admissions committees I can start trying to do things my way (at least until they kick me out for having too high standards). So all of you who plan to sneak your way into med school, you better do so before you run into me as your interviewer or as a member of the committee reviewing your file.
Why I don’t understand why everyone and their mom is a premed. Physician salaries decreased by 7% between 1995 and 2003, with primary care physicians being the hardest hit with a whopping 10% decrease in salary. In the meantime, the salaries of lawyers and other professionals rose by 7%. It’s true that doctors make a lot of money anyway and that we shouldn’t complain, but the average graduating med student has upwards of $100,000 in debt, which makes it hard for us to stomach the fact that we worked so hard and will continue working so hard for less money than our predecessors and our professional peers in such a high cost world. I have met my fair share of classmates who refused to go anywhere near primary care because of its “poor” pay. I used to turn my nose up at these classmates because money was never a concern of mine in choosing my career. I just wanted to do what would make me happy. Now if that turns out to be primary care (which thankfully, it isn’t), then so be it. But of course, I’m spoiled by the fact that I won’t be $100,000 in debt when I graduate.
As my thinking has evolved, I’ve come to see that my classmates’ money concerns are indeed valid (though I still don’t think that salary should be the number one deciding factor when it comes to choosing a specialty). We spend four years of our lives toiling away to get our MD, accumulating a mountain of debt while we’re at it. Then we spend 3-7 years in hell residency being paid a paltry sum for being worked to death. Finally, after all of that, we’re finally able to start making real money. By that time, how old are we? How far behind are we compared to our lawyer and other professional friends? We want to buy houses too. Have kids. Maybe buy a new car since that one we’ve been driving since the beginning of college is starting to fall apart. These things all cost money. Money that we don’t have, even though we appear to “make a lot of money.” On top of that, I think that primary care physicians work very hard and deal with more than their fair share of difficult patients. I can’t imagine dealing with patients like my mother-in-law and her “I had surgery on my ankle, now I think I’m going to die from a heart attack and I can’t breathe,” “there’s blood in my stool, scope me NOW even though there are plenty of other patients who need a colonoscopy more urgently than I do” and “doctors give me substandard care because I’m poor and I don’t speak English” antics. I know that difficult patients exist in every specialty, but I think (and I may very well be wrong) that there are far more in primary care because of the primary care physician’s role as a gatekeeper. If anything, primary care physicians should be paid more because of their indispensable role. But in real life, primary care physicians are not paid as much as specialists because of the lack of procedures in primary care. I get it—procedures are expensive. But should specialties that aren’t so procedure-based not be compensated as well as those that are? I have to admit that this reality has made me think twice about neurology because of its relative lack of procedures. It’s a good thing that my love for the brain and the art of diagnosis wins out (at least for now) or else I’d be considering something else. How many med students think that same thing and choose money? Some say that this is not and will not be the case, but I’ve already seen some classmates choose their specialties based on that very thinking. Will there be more in the coming years? Who knows. I’ve met physicians who are well into their careers and still have a whole lot of med school debt left even though they probably came out with half the debt of the modern med school graduate. They’ve hinted at regretting their career choice. There are (costly) seminars on “careers to consider when you don’t want to be a doctor anymore.” These kind of things almost make me think twice about what I’ve chosen to do, but only for a split second because I know that there’s really nothing else that I’d rather be doing. I know that I would still do this even if the salary were half what it is now. But you young premeds out there should think really, really, really hard about whether it’s really worth it. Depending on your goals and motivations, it just might not be.
No wonder my sarcasm is lost on so many people. Understanding sarcasm requires “complex thinking.” Enough said.
New research shows that adults are now more immature than ever. Now that explains a lot, doesn’t it? However, the scientist studying this phenomenon dubbed psychological neoteny doesn’t think it’s a bad thing. He actually calls it “characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people.” Say what? Sorry, but I don’t think so. My in-laws are definitely not highly educated, effective, or socially valuable people. They don’t contribute to society, they leech from it. He also goes on to say that professional people (such as scientists) are often immature outside of their areas of expertise in that they are unpredictable, don’t have their priorities straight, and overreact a lot. Again, I don’t understand where this statement comes from. In every profession, there are always the few who are immature and like to throw tantrums, but to generalize this to all professional people? I sure as hell don’t act the way he describes when I’m outside of my area of expertise. The words immaturity and cognitive flexibility are used interchangeably in this article and I suspect that what he means is that those with more cognitive flexibility (and not necessarily those who are immature) tend to do well in life. Now that makes sense since having an open mind and being able to adapt to all sorts of situations (thought-wise and otherwise) are essential for success. Now I don’t think that having cognitive flexibility = immaturity and vice versa. A person can be immature as hell and still not be receptive to new ideas (need I mention mother-in-law here?) or successful. I’d like to think that I’m cognitively flexible, but that I’m not so immature. And I’m pretty sure that most other professionals out there are successful because they are more cognitively flexible than immature. At least I sure hope so. In the meantime, all this study does is give all those annoyingly immature people (and by immature, I mean those pesky college kids who think they’re so entitled, those grown women who throw tantrums if things are not done their way, mother-in-law) another reason not to bother with bettering themselves. In other words, it’s telling sand people that it’s okay (actually that it just might be good) to be sand people.
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