I Loved...

I don't know how many of you went to the movie theatre this weekend to check out the latest Batman, but if you haven't and you're in the mood for an adventure (you can ask Alex, the first words out of my mouth on the way to the car on Sunday were, "I feel like I just got off a ride!"), you simply must check it out. It was not the typical superhero movie. It was a lot darker, funnier, and deeper than anything I had seen before. I must admit, I really enjoy superhero movies of most kinds (my favorite movie so far this year, before The Dark Knight, was Ironman- it's worth mentioning that I didn't get to see Sex and the City or Indiana Jones), Batman is by far my favorite of these movies (ask my little sister how many times we've seen Batman Forever!), and if you've been reading my blog, you know I am quite the Christian Bale fan. To say that I am (heavily) biased is more than adequate. However, I do think you might enjoy even if you aren't the biggest superhero fan, if you never really "got" Batman before this, or if you have no opinion of Christian Bale (although, ladies, do go out and rent Batman Begins if you haven't already seen it because they didn't feel the need to show off his muscular physique in this one!). True, I would have probably enjoyed this movie simply because of my aforementioned biases, but what really made it such a great moviegoing experience for me was Heath Ledger's stellar performance as the Joker and the conception of that character in general, its commentary on the definition and expectations of a hero, and the examination of chaos theory and morality (I know, I'm a HUGE nerd!). I would love to have a cool discussion about this, so please comment away (and check this out for some really interesting thoughts about the moral instinct, especially the trolley car thought experiment on page 2 since that's how I connected the dots between The Dark Knight and this article...and no, I have not abandoned becoming a surgeon in favor of psychiatry yet). That is all.

Seriously?!

This has to be a joke, right? Someone please investigate this matter and tell me where and when the retraction will be printed.

My Typology

As part of orientation (it hasn't emerged just how it will fit in, although I can venture an educated guess), I was asked to take this quiz to see what type of Jung personality I have. It was pretty fun and I always enjoy seeing how I stack up on these things (you should check it out too and learn something about yourself today!). The official result is that I am a:

• slightly expressed introvert
  
• slightly expressed intuitive personality
  
• distinctively expressed feeling personality
  
• distinctively expressed judging personality

Not surprisingly, I was put in the idealist category! More specifically, I am an idealist counselor. One of the suggested careers was that of a psychiatrist- over the last few years, I have thought more and more that that would be a good career choice for me and apparently Jung agrees. I'm curious, do you think this is an accurate picture of me? I think it's pretty true, but I want to know what those on the outside of this mind of mine think, so I better see some comments, people!

Last Week!

In case you haven't been checking my countdown regularly, I just thought I would remind everyone that this is my last week in the lab- EVER! I cannot truly express my excitement at the moment, but it feels very liberating knowing that only four more days after today will be spent toiling away at a job I can't stand, working with (some) people who have no idea how to organize themselves, and just counting the hours until I can go home to my puppy, good book, and wonderful boyfriend. YAY!

Happy Fourth of July (Sans Fireworks)!

Well, I hope everyone had a nice long weekend. I have been so caught up in getting things ready for school and the move that Independence Day just snuck up on me this year. Last year, Alex and I made a concerted effort to find a place that does a proper firework show and we didn't even end up going to the closest one we found because it was supposed to rain and we figured it would be really crowded. We decided a good solution was to go to a Tigers game and had fully intended to do so this year. But, with the aforementioned sneaking by the Fourth and our desire to have a BBQ outweighing our desire to see the fireworks, we opted for our little spot on Barton Pond instead. No fighting for a spot with a grill, just enjoying the gorgeous weather and an extra day off.

Before that, we went to Ikea, a place I already knew I loved, to pick out some essentials for our new home. We were so good about refraining from buying anything now (we're going to keep our moving truck for an extra day after arriving in DC so that we can get all the stuff we selected) and I'm really pleased with the things we found. So even though we won't have a fully furnished house at first (that's a lot of fs!), we will have a sofa bed and two chairs for the living room, a dining room table with four chairs, and a new bed and mattress, which is reason enough to celebrate considering what a P.O.S. our current bed is.

Alex had to work a little on both Saturday and Sunday (boo!), but we went to this park on Sunday evening. We did some swimming (Alex, Buttercup, me), reading (me), and fishing (Alex) and since our spot was far enough away from other people, Buttercup had her first real taste of off-leash freedom- she was a fan! Doesn't she look like she's on the hunt in this picture? I love it!I also think it's so adorable how much of an interest she has taken in fish- she's the perfect dog for Alex. Here she is admiring Alex's crappie.

Drowning in Paperwork

Yes, healthcare insurance coverage is becoming less-inclusive, more complicated, and more expensive as insurance companies and providers look for ways to keep costs down. Yes, this has led to medicine becoming more and more of a business in recent years and to fewer people utilizing preventative care or any medical care, for that matter, because they don't want to or can't afford to pay for it. I knew all of this before and yet still I want to go into medicine. I like to think that I will do my part to improve the broken system when I get there and also hope that a change in administration will occur and begin to address some of these problems before then.

In the meantime, as a patient, I can totally understand why no one wants to go to the doctor unless something is really wrong (and many of them resist even then!). I have just spent the majority of my day (which began at 8:30) thus far on the phone to various doctor's offices with little to show for myself. Yes, I have quite a few things to arrange, but why, oh why, do they have to make it so complicated?! I need to have my medical records, for example, transferred to my current doctor so that they can fill out the forms I need for Georgetown saying that my immunizations are all up to date. For one tetanus shot I had in the summer of 2006 at the University of Michigan, I was made to wait on hold for 15 minutes (while the pre-recorded messages informs me of all the awards the UofM system won last year for patient care, what a crock!), only to be transferred to the medical records department and told that I or my current doctor have to submit a written request to them AND that it will take five to ten business days to process! Not only that, but when I called my doctor's office to see if they could submit the request, I was told that I need to pick up a request form at their office. For one shot, people!

I need to go to a dermatologist to have them look at some moles on my back since I'm super fair-skinned and at high risk for skin cancer. My doctor "referred" me (0r so I thought) to one and gave me the number to call to make an appointment (remember when your primary doctor's office used to do that for you?). So, I called them up today and initially they said they couldn't see me until August 12th, until I mentioned that I will be moving and need to get in before August. Suddenly, an appointment on the 24th materialized from the ether. Now, I have to call my doctor's office (which will be my third call today) to have them make the referral so that I can actually be seen. Why am I even bothering?, I have asked myself countless times today. I am a young, healthy individual and I have plenty of other things going on in my life with the upcoming move without having to deal with this bureaucracy, "protocol," and paper-pushing! Grr...I think that's going to be one of the hardest things for me to adjust to as a doctor. Maybe this little misadventure today is one experience I must have to help prepare me for such a frustrating future.

UEFA 2008

So, if you're like me (and most other Americans), you're not really much of a soccer fan, are you? Well, I played in high school and I love playing it still whenever I get a chance, but MLS doesn't exactly do it for me. I can't say that I am much of a soccer spectator. Enter Alex. He also can't bear to watch our "professionals" either, but one of his first priorities after arriving in Michigan two summers ago was to locate the nearest pub that was showing the World Cup. I didn't know this until I met him, but Europe has their own, similar style tournament every two years when there isn't a World Cup, called, you guessed it, the UEFA Championship. So, as I tend to do when international competition is involved (when the Olympics roll around, for example, I am suddenly an expert in the pommel horse, find myself vehemently and passionately cheering on some swimmer from Long Island I'd never heard of before and will not think of for another four years, etc.), I found myself voluntarily watching Russia defeat the Netherlands in the quarterfinal and stealing glimpses on EPSN360 of the second semifinal game at work so that I would know who Germany would be up against in the final.

All of that preamble explains why we would were at the Irish pub on Sunday afternoon, shouting at a giant TV screen as Germany choked, the Italian refs awarded ridiculous free kicks, and Spain's whiny Torres refused to get up after theatrically embellishing an alleged "foul." Even though it wasn't a very good game in terms of soccer, we met a really nice couple (he's from northern Germany, she's from Baltimore) and I forgot how much fun it can be getting behind something bigger than yourself. It was like a flashback to the summer of 2006: there I was again in Conor O'Neills, hanging out with Alex, drinking a beer while it's still light outside, meeting foreign people and bonding with these strangers as we swap stories and soccer philosophies. Maybe Ann Arbor has something to offer after all, at least during the summers of even-numbered years.