Famous Last Words Week 14: Winding Down

I finally feel that my semester is on the downward slope now! Today, I just finished the whole interview process for the Rhodes Scholarship, and although I wasn't chosen, I'm glad I'm past that hurtle. Now, there are just a few things that stand in my way when it comes to finishing this semester. I will admit that I'm going to have to figure out how to get much of my senior thesis written in a few weeks. Given that I will have the Thanksgiving break to work on it, I believe I'll be able to make it work. It'll just depend on much much coffee and will I have!

Having said that, I'm just now remembering that I have another medical school interview coming up right after the semester ends. I'll have to fly all the way up to Rochester, which I'm willing to bet will be as cold as the bottom of Dante's Inferno. Nevertheless, I look forward to the opportunity to get a perspective on another medical school. After coming down to Houston for the Rhodes interview, I feel pretty accustomed to stressful interview situations. By now, I should feel pretty confident!

A much tamer version of the winter weather I could be seeing in Rochester, New York in December. Found at rochester.edu.

Beyond that, I'm eager to finish the semester with a full sense of vigor and vitality. I feel a desire to read and write more frequently. I want to dedicate more of my time to getting to know new people. Overall, I want to take these last few months of college to polish myself off as a person, you might say. After all, if I do end up going to medical school, free time is going to be a little difficult to come by. I hope I will still be able to quench my thirst for many of my interests as I continue my education. For now, though, I am willing to wait and see.

Reading Diary Week 14: Dante's Inferno

To end my series of Reading Diaries, I've chosen the Dante's Inferno Unit for this week.

Dante and Virgil: Having read this in Italian, I find it so weird to see how the translation doesn't reflect the format of the original work. By format, I mean a representation of terza rima. I've always loved how Virgil introduces himself, "Not a man: but a man I once was." In this part, I can just see Dante going up to Virgil on his knees to show his respect.

Limbo: The idea of souls waiting on a shore to arrive at the place of their judgement is moving. It's almost as if they are disembarking from their mortal life. Wow, I never took notice of how Virgil describes the punishment for the shades in Limbo: "...we are only tormented, in that without hope we live in desire."

Paolo and Francesca: I love the constant warnings that emerge in Inferno, and another here comes from Minos. This part of Inferno seems to be the beginning of what I would call the prevalence of cameos. I still find it so interesting how literature is the cause of sin for Paolo and Francesca.

Fortune and Phlegyas: Vigril seems to give an impassive, neutral quality to Fortune, and that seems to be a response to so many people who blame fate for what happens to them. I do disagree with the punishment for the sullen; I am aware that it disregards mental illness, that is depression. Phlegyas seems to reflect the anger of the people he sails over.

The Furies and the Heretics: It goes to show that even the powerful Virgil needs help and confirmation from the heavens to continue his journey into Hell with Dante. You know, I wonder if there's meaning behind including the heretics within Dis.      

Storytelling Week 13: Give 'im Some Credit

Coffee in hand and braced against an unforgiving North wind, I make my way toward Buchanan Hall to drop off paper work for my research credit. You would think that after three years at OU I would be on top of these things. If there's anything I've learned as a student, it's that procrastination is a degenerative disease. As I walk in the building, I glance down at my form to ensure I have all the essential pieces. Name. Major. Bibliography. Signatures. I swear, it's that last one that always gets me. At times, finding a professor to coax out a signature nearly requires a search party. Fortunately, I'm not missing anything this time.

I shoot up the stairs to face the bureaucracy, dragging my confidence along with me. While exchanging pleasantries with the two young women who represent the beating heart of Enrollment Services, I lay my form on the desk and mention I need to add the credit to my schedule. I'm not too worried. They tend to be lax on the red tape when it comes to this type of coursework.

"Looks pretty good, but it seems that your professor's section doesn't exist."

"Pardon?"

"Section 7 for Honors Research doesn't exist under the MBIO course designation," she tells me. "You'll have to speak with the department to add the section. Then, we'll be able to enroll you."

*Sigh*

"Sounds good. I'll go take care of that now."

If you look closely, you'll see the fine print that says, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Found at waymarking.com

Walking briskly toward George Lynn Cross Hall, the home of the Department of Microbiology, I reflect on my tendency to lose such bureaucratic lotteries. It's just my luck to be forced to jump through another hoop! By the time I reach the building, my hand has begun to freeze to the surface of my metallic thermos. It only takes a handful of seconds to reach the department's office and explain the situation to the secretary.

"To be honest, adding a section is much easier than it sounds," she says. "However, I'll need confirmation that you turned in a completed add-drop slip for the college from you before it do. You realize it's way past due, right?"

I silently nod as she hands me the slip. What I see written on it causes my eyes to roll.

Spaces for two more signatures.

I spend the next two hours around campus herding the necessary parties to collect that precious ink. By the time I arrive at Ellison Hall to drop off the slip, my ears are crystalizing thanks to the bitter cold. I walk in, slide the slip to the woman at the desk, and prepare myself to receive another mission.

"Before I take this, you'll need to fill out an appeal form for the dean to sign."

Never again. I promise that I will never put myself through this again.

Within a few rushed minutes, I turn in the appeal and dash back toward George Lynn Cross Hall. I speak with the secretary who pulls up a program to create the section for my research credit. I waste no time returning to Buchanan Hall to end this once and for all.

"Okay! You're enrolled now!"

Music to my ears.

~~~~

Author's Note: From the Italian Tales Unit, I chose The Sexton's Nose to recount for my Storytelling post this week. I focused on the second part of the story in which a sexton is forced to jump through a series of hoops to obtain the hair of a dog to cure a dog bite. For example, the sexton needs to give the smith coals in exchange for a mattock, which he will give to the woodman and so on. My retelling is based off of personal experience with getting courses and credits added at the last minute. I thought it would be funny to insert OU into my blog, and this felt like a good fit.

Bibliography
Thomas Frederick Crane
Italian Popular Tales
1885

Essay Week 13: The Sunday Funny Pages

Once I stumbled across this cartoon, I immediately decided to do my essay post over it. I chose this one in particular because it brings me back to Sunday mornings while I was still in grade school. Since my father writes for the Tulsa World, Sunday's paper always made an appearance on the counter top. Reading through all the "funny pages," as my dad called them, became a ritual of mine. The comic strip Pickles, from which the cartoon below originated, always had a spot on the second page.

Cartoon by Brian Crane. 

There are so many aspects of this cartoon that remind me of growing up. Thanks to my father's constant corrections, I learned from a young age to place my apostrophes appropriately. Some of the dialogue in the last panel could easily be heard in my household. On that note, this cartoon reminds me of the dynamic that exists among many families. I can attest to the fact that a good amount of light-hearted teasing can really make a family jibe well. For example, it's well-known that my sister does a great job at keeping me humble.

From here, I will shift my focus onto the content of the cartoon itself. In my opinion, a large part of the humor comes from the strong sense of dramatic irony in the last panel. Just as the man does not catch the fact his wife is indeed criticizing him, the wife does not seem to notice that she's breaking the very resolution she just declared. Beyond that, there is a bit of a paradox here that draws attention to the fact that these characters reside in a comic strip. Since "your" and "you're" are pronounced the same, there is no way the wife would have noticed the error unless she were able to see the word written. I'm willing to bet that the cartoonist intended this to be the case. After all, one should have room to experiment when writing a comic strip.

Reading Diary Week 13: Italian Tales

Given that I have already read both Dante's Divine Comedy and Boccaccio's Decameron, I decided to expand my tastes a bit by choosing the Italian Tales Unit. 

Zelinda and the Monster: I'm surprised at how mature Zelinda is in terms of her willingness to sacrifice herself and take ownership for something that could easily be considered her father's doing. To be honest, I didn't expect the monster to change into a handsome young man because of his use of trickery to get Zelinda to acquiesce to marriage.

How the Devil Married Three Sisters: Wow, this seems to capture of the idea of "curiosity killed the cat." It seems the third daughter was gifted with a clever mind as well as curiosity. I find it interesting that this story ends with an act of humiliation for the devil.

Water and Salt: This story seems to revolve around the idea of putting one person in another's shoes. However, in this case, the daughter creates the physical act of her analogy to give meaning to her language. I will say that I'm not sure I understand why the magician had to be killed.

The Man, the Serpent, and the Fox: "The serpent replied that hunger did not observe promises." What a true and clever statement! I cannot help myself from laughing at the end of this story. I can imagine the look on the serpent's face! To be honest, I'm surprised that the serpent fell for such a trick. In my opinion, he became over confident based on what the greyhound and the horse said.

The Language of Animals: I'm noticing that characters in these stories do not take kindly to being insulted. After all, look at what the father orders his servants to do after he becomes humiliated. Plus, there's another example of deception when the servants kill a dog in place of the son. At least the new Pope was willing to forgive his father.

The Sexton's Nose: At the beginning of this story, I'm already feeling the sense of build-up. Perhaps this is similar to "The Woman Who Swallowed a Fly." Also, it seems that the sexton forces the offending party to make a choice. After all, they cannot replace a roast pea that has been eaten, for example. Wow, there is certainly an emphasis on sequence in this story.

A Feast Day: What an absurd story! It seems to comment on the art of storytelling since it references the "blockheads who are listening." I wonder if this falling into mouths business is a metaphor for being gullible.  

The Cock That Wished to Become Pope: Well, it seems that hopes dissipated pretty quickly for Mr. Cock and Mrs. Hen. Perhaps they should have learned from the weasel and the cat by deciding to relinquish their desire to become Pope and Popess. At the same time, it seems the Mr. Cock is a bit foolish to believe that he can be Pope.

Famous Last Words Week 12: A Mini Thanksgiving

This past weekend, I felt small. Standing in the middle of Owen Field before a sold out game can have that effect on a person. Still, I wasn't there without reason. As luck would have it, I was chosen as the Outstanding Senior for the College of Arts and Sciences a few weeks ago. To say that I was surprised would be an understanding; I remember letting the words "oh shit" slip out of surprise when the Director of Leadership Development and Volunteerism told me the news over the phone. I'm thankful that she was understanding.

While it was a unique experience to be recognized on a field, the weekend was a reminder of how many people have helped me become who I am. My parents got to watch from the sidelines, and they relayed the event to relatives. My mentor, a retired US Army Major general, had the opportunity to watch me receive my award on Friday. It's a shame my sister could not have been there; she does a great job at keeping me humble.

Mom and Dad. I still cannot believe that my mother, an OSU alumna, was willing to wear that sticker. (Personal photo, taken November 2014). 

Over the weekend, an observation became increasingly apparent. I realized that those who felt the most pride for me were the people that had helped me most in my life. In my opinion, the correlation is strong. I suppose the relationship exists because we relinquish and invest a little bit of our ego in another every time we chose to lend a hand. It makes sense to me. Why else would we feel such pride for accomplishments that are not ours. Then again, maybe part of it is genetic. In that case, the pride we feel for others comes from the knowledge that we have a little bit of ourselves--that is, within DNA--in those we feel pride for. I would hope it's more than just a reflection of our biology.

All and all, it was a good weekend, a weekend that acted as a reminder of the people for whom I am thankful.

Storytelling Week 12: Shot Through the Heart

Medical Field Report, July 24th 1862- Dr. Richard Anderson
~~~~~~
Three bullets straight to the chest. Yet, he was still breathing. Those balls of lead must have sidled up right next to the heart without tearing it to pieces. When I put my ear to his chest, I could hear his heart pressing against the unforgiving metal with every shaky beat.

I wiped the sweat from my brow as I looked at the miracle lying before me. As the senior field surgeon, I had learned that war could twist expectations in every way possible. In medicine, it was triple amputees who were spared from infection. In America, it was a fight that pitted North against South, brother against brother. When I chose to practice medicine, I never imagined that I would bear witness to every facet of the human condition.

Somehow I had stopped the bleeding, so I rushed across the field hospital to fetch the other surgeons and my apprentice. Yesterday's battle had provided today's hell on earth. Severed limbs rotted in metal buckets. Screams begging for mercy rang out from each tent. The foul air, saturated with filth and illness, left the metallic taste of blood on the tongue.

I ducked my head into the blood-stained supply tent--the central hub of this organized chaos.

"You all are gonna want to see this."

The surgery tent where the miracle happened. Wikipedia Commons.

With my colleagues and apprentice in tow, I briskly walked the tent that housed my patient. I felt like I was about to exhibit a medical masterpiece--an opus that defied medical knowledge of the time.

During the time I had exited to round up my colleagues, blood has started to seep from underneath the soiled rags I had used to staunch the bleeding. We couldn't afford to spare any time to gaze in awe. Those bullets needed to be removed.

After the had sedated the patient with the little whiskey we had remaining, we removed the rags to take a look at the entrance wounds.

"Why can't we just leave the bullets in him? We do it all the time."

The other surgeons seemed to nod in agreement with Thomas.

"Those rounds are embedded right next to the heart. What's stopping them from tearing a hole in the coronary artery? If we close him up as I is now, a strong cough could be the difference between life and death for him. We're operating," I responded.

The bleed was slowly worsening, so we all tried to tease out all three bullets at once. The wasted body on the table let out a groan as I inserted my finger into the wound to get a feel for the bullet's location.

"Dammit, this fucker has clipped the pericardium."

More importantly, the bullet had nearly wrapped the aorta around itself like a blanket. I struggled to grasp it with my forceps without pushing the splintered bone into the exposed heart. Warm, slick blood gave my steady a hand a run for its money. My colleagues didn't seem to be having much more luck than I was. I prepared myself for a race against the clock.

CLINK!

The sound of metal on metal pierced through the stench in the tent. I looked up to find a crimson, metallic orb lying on the tin plate we used as our waste tray.

"Who...who just removed that?"

I quickly gazed over the operating table. The blood-soaked forceps clasped in my apprentice's hand answered my question.

"Lucas? That was you?"

I could barely believe it. My apprentice had performed the impossible. I gaped at him as if he had pulled Excalibur from its stone.

"Can you do it again?"

Without saying a word, my apprentice walked over to where I stood to coax the bullet out from its sanctuary near the heart. Five minutes later, the patient's chest gave birth to the second bullet. Fifteen minutes later, we had the whole set. Hours later, the patient is doing fine, albeit with a intense hangover.

As I finish this entry, I cannot stop myself from reflecting upon my role as a surgeon. I place so much pride in my skill to extract life from places where death should only reign. However, perhaps I should keep my ego in check. For now, it seems that the student has become the teacher.

Author's Note: Prompted by my interest in medicine, I decided to retell The Drawing of the Sword story from the King Arthur unit in the setting of a field hospital during the Civil War. It should be noted that there are a few medical terms in here, but they have been used in a way that does not take understanding away from the story. Just in case, the aorta is the main artery that takes oxygenated blood from the heart and sends it off to the rest of the body.

Bibliography:
King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table 
Andrew Lang
1902

Reading Diary Week 12: King Arthur

To reminisce over when I read The Once and Future King in high school, I chose the King Arthur Unit for this week.

The Drawing of the Sword: I like the dramatic irony that emerges when Arthur pulls out a sword that he never expected to be a trial to remove. I wonder if Arthur's naiveté is a part of his kingliness. To be honest, I cannot blame the barons' feeling angry that a child was chosen to be king by the sword.

The Sword Excalibur: I love how the relationship between Merlin and Arthur is developed into one of a father and son. For example, Merlin ends up teaching Arthur a lesson over the importance of his new gift.

The Passing of Merlin: Merlin's desire for Niume is one of the most humanizing aspects of his character. If not for that, I would say that a strong rapport could not be developed between he and Arthur.

The Quest of the Holy Graal: This introduction regarding the Holy Graal seems to be a cautionary tale of chasing what cannot be obtained. In this case, the Holy Graal is what cannot be obtained by human beings, but it also acts as a metaphor for the danger of one's dreams.

The Coming of the Holy Graal: In this story, it seems that Arthur has taken on the role of Merlin because he is the one who advises against the pursuit of the Holy Graal. I suppose his has gained enough wisdom to realize that the Holy Graal can be the wedge the drives the Knights of the Round Table apart. I think one of the most important lines in this story is the last one: "...and every Knight took the way he best liked." In my opinion, this seems like the perfect representation of how the core of Arthur's Round Table is dispersed in pursuit of something that cannot be obtained.  

Sir Lancelot's Vision: It seems that King Arthur saw this coming. I find it interesting that the Holy Graal only came in the presence of Lancelot once he was defenseless for the most part. My favorite line in this story is "I marvel greatly at this sleeping Knight...that he had no power to wake when the Holy Vessel was brought hither."

Sir Lancelot and the Five Hundred Knights: I think it's easy for many people to identify with Lancelot. He seems to be the personification of resistant guilt. I get the feeling from him that he doesn't see a way to redeem himself for what he had done. However, the story hints that Galahad will be his salvation in some way or another.

The Adventure of Sir Bors: There's a trend that I am starting to notice in these stories, and it seems to be one in which divine intervention exists without a direct reference to God. To be honest, it reminds me of the description of the "Force" in Star Wars. But in this case, no reference is made to the cause behind what allows one to approach the Holy Graal.

Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad: I am almost shocked to see a reference to God in this story. As far as I know, it's the first reference of the sort that I have seen. I feel bad for Lancelot since he has to return to Camelot where he discovers so many of his friends to be dead. However, it seems that spending time with his son has renewed him in a way.  

Famous Last Words Week 11: Read, Study, Rinse and Repeat

With last week’s arrival of the surprising news regarding the Rhodes Scholarship, I have been putting my nose to the grindstone. The final interview is known for being notoriously difficult. The judges, most of who are Rhodes Scholars themselves, try to make your head spin. They will ask questions that come out of left field just to test how well you react to not knowing a topic. Therefore, most of my free time now consists of preparing for the mental hurtle.

Anytime I drive in Norman, I play NPR through an app on my phone. When I have the time, I try to wrap my head around the complex law that is the Affordable Care Act. The same thing applies to the study of linguistics and philology because I proposed to pursue a Masters in those subjects at Oxford. Overall, it’s a humbling experience. It has been a great reminder of how little I actually know. It has strengthened my desire to be a life-long learner. I feel a renewed appetite to bite into the subjects and topics that have always interested me. At the same time, I must say that I’m a little disappointed in myself that it took the possibility of a scholarship to encourage me to do something I should have been doing all along.

A screenshot of a comic I've read that does a through job of explaining the ACA. Found at boingboing.net.

When it comes to the interview, I have been lucky enough to receive some perspective. My scholarship coordinator, Melanie Wright, sent me ‘debriefings’ of people who had interviewed in the past. One in particular helped me to calm down. She mentioned that she had said “I don’t know” at least four times in her interview, and when everything was said and done, she still got the scholarship. The way I see it, the purpose of the interview is to confirm who I am based on what I submitted in my application. I do not want to go in there feeling I have to prove myself further or impress people. I think my best chance comes from focusing on communicating who I am.