My Permanent Valentine!

I have a confession. I really like Valentine's Day. Don't get me wrong; I hate spending tons of money on gifts and trinkets for a holiday that is the epitome of shameless commercialization, particularly since we just celebrated Julie's birthday in November, Christmas in December, and my birthday in January. That said, I'm a sucker for the concept of a day spent letting the people you care about know how much they mean to you. I love buying roses, fixing dinner, and doing all the chores around the house that have been piling up because I'm too lazy to get them done (besides, if you do those chores on a special day you get brownie points; do them as they come up and no one notices)! It's even better once you're married. I now have a permanent Valentine that takes care of me, makes me feel special (even when I probably don't deserve it), and loves me to pieces. I love her to distraction, and, in honor of my beautiful Julie on this, our third Valentine's Day together, here are ten reasons I'm glad she's my permanent Valentine:

10. She's beautiful!

9. She doesn't mind my facial hair. This may not seem like that big of a deal. However, take a look at me in the following picture and bear in mind that we're BYU Mormons (where being clean shaven is almost a religion in and of itself) and this picture was taken when I proposed to her at BYU (she said "Yes" when I looked like this)!

8. She makes me laugh. Mostly with her, sometimes at her, but I'm usually laughing at least two or three times a day!

7. She has lofty goals. Yesterday she told me that she "didn't want a husband who is more educated than I am." Her ultimate goal is to earn a PhD and teach at a college or university. I'm all for it, mostly because all our invitations would say "Dr. and Dr. Scarborough"!

6. She's competitive. When I say competitive, I mean "in-your-face-I'm-going-to-win-if-it-means-I-have-to-break-both-your-legs" competitive. This makes for very entertaining game nights!

5. She's gorgeous!

4. She's brilliant and constantly learning. Earlier today she excitedly showed me an article in our current issue of "Natural History" that announced the discovery of the first beetle that has a venomous stinger. She also listens to me as I pontificate on everything from the current political campaigns to why I desperately need a new video game system, asking pointed questions that display her superior grasp of the subject at hand (like, "Will you die if you don't have an XBox 360?"). Who could ask for anything more?

3. She keeps me in line. Whenever I start doing something that smacks of meaningless rebellion or when I'm being cranky, Julie gives me her best teacher look and a quick "Patrick Lloyd", and I'm back on track.

2. Two words. "XBox 360". Yes, despite the poor showing in the recent polls (only 25% voted to buy the XBox), my wife has invoked her superdelegate status to push the tally in my favor! I love you, dear!

1. She is, by far, the most amazing woman I have ever met. She works twelve hours a day trying to teach 6th graders that don't want to be taught, then comes home and puts up with a husband who complains loudly to anyone who will listen (and several people who won't) about how hard medical school is. If that doesn't qualify her for sainthood, I don't know what will!

So there you have it. I am madly in love with you, Julie. Happy Valentine's Day!

The Midas Touch!

For the past few days, my brother, a newly minted attorney, has been visting Julie and me here in the Bronx. We've been having a great time hanging out, talking, and playing video games into the wee hours of the morning. I always enjoy my brother's visits, particularly now since we rarely see each other; he and his family live in Las Vegas while Julie and I are on the East Coast. However, this most recent trip will go down in our family history as one of the most appreciated and productive meetings of siblings. Let me explain.

Four years ago I had just begun my studies at BYU. My brother was in his last term and served as my experienced guide through that first stressful semester. One of the pieces of advice he gave me was to open an account on Sharebuilder, a program that allows individuals to buy and sell stock from the comforts of their own home. As an incentive for signing up I received $25 from Sharebuilder (my brother also received $25 for recruiting me). I opened the account and purchased $100 worth of stock in Activision, a video game company. I owned a couple of their games and liked them; that was the extent of my research and careful analysis of the corporation. Anyway, after my initial purchase, I completely forgot that I had those stocks. For four years I was blissfully unaware that I was a stockholder and had money tied to the fortunes of Wall Street.

Fast forward to Thursday, January 31. I noticed that my brother was checking his Sharebuilder account. It suddenly dawned on me that I might still have one too. I sat down, powered up my laptop and quickly logged in. Much to my surprise and my brother's astonishment I discovered that my intital $100 investment had grown to $322, a 222% rate of return (55.5% per year). Needless to say, Activision had done well. Upon further investigation we noticed that the stock had split several times and the price had consistently increased from around $8 per share to more than $25 per share. All I can say is "Sweet!" I am, apparently, a modern-day Midas, producing virtual gold from all I touch (or at least my forgetfulness allowed the stock to ride out the normal ups and downs of the market)! The only question left is what should I do with the money? I've been wanting to waste $350 on an XBox 360 for quite some time and this would seem to be the answer to my prayers. It is, after all, money that neither Julie or I even knew we had. However, ever since I've been married I've felt the need to adopt more responsible spending habits. I therefore pose the question to you, my faithful readers: How should I spend my new found wealth? Post your vote to the right, but hurry: I don't know how long I can keep myself from running over to Best Buy!

There's A Reason It's Called Gross Anatomy

For those of you that I have yet to complain to regarding my upcoming tests, I thought I would share a brief glimpse into the life of a first year med student who is still struggling through his anatomy class. I would like to remind my readers that I am very grateful for this experience; I have the opportunity to examine a human body in excruciating detail. As a matter of fact, I will most likely never do this again, since physicians generally avoid opening chests and skulls just so they can poke around in them and see what everything looks like. However, sometimes there are days that have me wondering if I'm just a little bit crazy. Today was one of those days.

Our schedule for the day had us in the anatomy lab at 10:00 a.m. We picked up where we had left off on Friday and began to trace the pathways of the muscles and nerves in the eye. We had removed the brain on Thursday, discovering an abcess of some kind in the right frontal lobe. I digress, however. Today we had to locate the inferior oblique muscle of the eye. To do this we made an incision immediately inferior to the eye (just underneath the lower eyelid) and began cleaning away the covering layers of fascia and fat. It was while doing this that I realized how disgusting dissections can be. Here I was, pulling stringy, oily gobs of fat out of an eye socket, tossing them into a metal bowl, with my face only inches away from a cadaver that is chock full of formalin and formaldehyde. Just thinking about it now makes me a bit uneasy (although the worst day for grossness wasn't today; that would go to the lab where we removed the lungs and discovered a mush of lung tissue and cadaver juice in the thoracic cavity that we had scoop out using our gloved hands)! To top it off, after spending two-and-a-half hours in the labs, the smell follows us throughout the day. It's in our clothes, hair, and skin. I can honestly say that, while I do enjoy my intimate knowledge of the human body, I will be happy to have this experience behind me. I find that it's similar to my feelings regarding Army Basic Training; it's a good experience that I'm glad I will have under my belt, but I don't want to have to do it again. I do sometimes worry, though. Who wants a doctor that doesn't really like anatomy?

Funny? That Depends!

Well, after posing my question for two weeks to the faithful readers of our blog, the results are finally in. Almost half (44.44%) find me (and my jokes, presumably) to be funny. Slightly more than half (55.56%) find me funny at least some of the time. I am very pleased that not one vote was cast in the "No" category. I can only conclude that Julie was wrong and I was right ;) What's so great about the whole thing is that I can now point to this and say something to the effect of, "Well, my dear, you've been wrong before. Remember the time when you said I wasn't funny?" Of course, family politics may preclude a comment like that from ever escaping my lips, but it's nice to know that the option is there. However, I've recently realized that now the pressure is on to be funny when I post to the blog (at least occasionally). Dang it! What have I gotten myself into?

P.S. - I'd like to give a shoutout to my sister for her acceptance to BYU-Idaho! Go Cougars!

The Un-Comedian

As I was attempting to concoct a suitable topic for my newly established weekly blog, my amazing wife made a comment that gave me pause. To recreate the exact situation that I found myself in, I will quote the exchange which occured only a few minutes ago:

Julie: Have you done your blog yet?
Me: No. I need a good subject. I need a late-night rambling.
Julie: I'm not sure I like late-night ramblings.
Me: Why? Did you hate my last blog?
Julie: No.
Me: Then what's the matter?
Julie: You're not funny. It's not that great of a blog.

I am now faced with a rather disturbing accusation; I am an unfunny nerd (in retrospect, this may explain my lack of readership). Even my wife, who loves me to distraction and protects my fragile ego from earth shattering blows, finds me unfunny enough to mention it to my face. I, however, am not ready to accept this as gospel truth. I sometimes make people laugh and have been known to write a witty story from time to time. I am, therefore, going to put it to a vote. Am I funny, or am I writing jokes and stories that I am the only one laughing at? It is for you to decide. Give me your vote (on the side of the blog) and let me know!

It is Christmas already!

Today is December 22 and I am sitting here waiting for Patrick to finish spinning new born urine (he has volunteered to help in a clinical research) at the hospital. I have come to the realization that Christmas is only 3 days away and I have not done any shopping, nor have I done any baking, nor have I crocheted or made a single thing. I kept thinking I will do it next weekend. Well I put it off and now if I send anything out for Christmas it will arrive well after the Christmas season. Getting Christmas presents done is often a struggle for me. I am notorious for giving unfinished Christmas gifts. My beautiful sisters may recall many gifts of material and patterns where I ran out of time to finish and sometimes even start my well laid out plans for their gifts. I have stopped trying to make gifts as often, all though I am usually able to get atleast a blanket done, or maybe a stocking or two, or sometimes a doilly or two done for christmas. But this year "nada"!! I haven't even managed to make or even buy my loving husband anything yet. I am feeling mighty terrible about this. I do have today and a little bit of time on Monday, when we fly into California. I wish I was already done and just worrying about wrapping and listening to christmas music, relaxing in a clean apartment on this cold Saturday...but that is just a wish... maybe next year! Off to fight the last minute crowds I go!!

Realizations

Once again, I find myself posting to our blog after a long dry spell. It seems that these dry spells are more common of late. We have good reasons; Julie works long hours teaching and I study. There is always room for improvement, however, and I am determined to make some progress in the blogging world. From now on, we will post at least once a week! "How?", you ask. "Your lives are only going to get busier. Julie is now Relief Society President and you, Pat, are starting the really difficult part of the first year of medical school. How are you going to find the time to write something about your life once a week?" My answer to this is really quite simple; late night ramblings (much like this one). They won't make much sense, but they don't have to. As a matter of fact, late night rants and raves are often the most entertaining blogs on the web. So, my one or two dedicated readers, from now on you will be able to read a new blog from Julie and me at least once a week. I only ask that you keep in mind that most of them will be written after I have spent several hours with my head buried in a medical text!

Now, to get to the title of this blog. I realized today that I am a nerd. This may not be news to the world at large, but it is to me. I've always felt that I was studious and rather bright. However, I also felt that I was in touch with what my generation considers fun and cool. I then had two experiences today that have radically changed my assessment. The first came when I read an email from my Clinical and Developmental Anatomy professor to the class at large. He was explaining to us his policy for reviewing the exam one-on-one with him when we return from the break. One of his comments was the following:

"I appreciate that many of you who PASSED may feel you need to see me individually regarding any number of things: your score, how to do better, your score, what happened on the practical, why you thought the esophageal hiatus was the internal anal sphincter, etc. I also know you will understand that my first priority when we come back must be to meet with those students who failed."

I don't know about you, but I found this HILARIOUS! I laughed for at least five minutes. I mean, the whole part about confusing the internal anal sphincter with the esophageal hiatus had me rolling. Who would confuse those two? They're at opposite ends of the body! I was about to call someone (Phil, actually) when I stopped and realized that he probably wouldn't laugh, at least intially. I even imagined how the converation would proceed:

Phil: Hello?
Me: Dude, what's up?
Phil: Do you know what time it is?
Me: Of course. It's like 8:00.
Phil: I'm three hours behind you, dumba**! It's five in the morning here!
Pat: Oops. Sorry. Hey, I have something funny I wanted to tell 'ya.
(I then relate the above story and quote)
Pat: Isn't that hilarious?
Phil: &#$%@@! (Hangs up)

Maybe I'm exaggerating Phil's reaction (he would probably only swear once), and I'm glad I didn't call at 8:00 when I read the email. However, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have thought the email was as funny as I did. The silence after I told the joke would have been funny, though. Unfortunately, I am now one of those people that laugh at obscure jokes about random scientific facts. To quote a blog I frequent, "Oy Vey!"

The second incident occured later in the morning. I took the Bx21 bus to the Morris Park Branch of the New York City Public Library. I wanted to get a book to peruse during the break, something that had nothing to do with medical school and would allow me to relax for a few days. I left the library, book in hand, excited to get back to the apartment and start reading. What was my choice, you ask? "Napoleon: A Biography" by Frank McLynn (it is really good so far, and I'm only 50 pages into it). That's right! For relaxation I chose a 668 page biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. Once again, Oy Vey!

So there it is. I no longer live in the delusion that I am cool. I'm not. I'm a nerd and a geek. I enjoy discussing the finer points of evolution with anyone who will listen and, in the next breath, will launch into a speech about why Abraham Lincoln was, hands down, the best President the United States has ever had. I can't help it. It's who I am. It's who I will always be. Now if you'll excuse me; there's a story about Napoleon that is begging to be read!