If a tree falls on a mime...

I'm currently brainstorming a new short story, inspired by two of my favorite people - my dad and my son. For some reason, I haven't had the urge to write much in the past year and a half or so. But all of a sudden, a couple of nights ago, ideas came rushing into my head suddenly. And now they must come out. If I like it enough, I may put it up on here. So stay tuned.

The real reason for today's post is actually pretty exciting: Japanese Mimes. I think I'm going to have to say that phrase again just so it sinks in: Japanese Mimes. Japanese. Mimes. Wow. Good luck not laughing.

(Oh and the language may be a little NSFW. As always, I don't condone the use of coarse language. So if you get your mouth washed out with soap by your mother because you were repeating something you heard on this site - it's your own dumb fault. Don't come crying to me about it.)

A little break

So I was taking a little break from studying to fill out reviews on classes and teachers from this semester, and I would like to share a few excerpts with you. Unfortunately, some of these did not actually make it in my final submissions.

Please never invite Dr. [redacted] to lecture again. This was the worst lecture I have heard ever. I have heard people lecture in undergrad, med school, and every Sunday for 26 years, and never have I been so torn between destroying the PA system to prevent everyone else from suffering or ripping my ears off and stuffing them in my external auditory meatus to prevent my own further suffering. When half the class leaves during the break to never return and the other half wakes up after break and realizes that they missed their opportunity to leave and let out a collective wail of despair, you know something is amiss.

Then there was this little gem:

If Dr. [redacted]'s name is on the schedule for next semester, I will gladly take the loss of points rather than submit myself to the auditory torture that was her last lecture.

Or how about:

The tests for this class did not accurately reflect the presented material. It was as if they stapled the lecture notes to the wall and then hired Stevie Wonder to throw darts at them. Wherever the darts struck was what was tested, regardless of relevance.

And lest you think that it's all bad out here:

When Dr. [redacted] told me in front of everyone that I was going to great in this class, I was elated. When he added the part about me doing great as I repeated the class again next year, I was a little less excited. A small part of me died that day.

Oh wait, that wasn't as happy as I intended. Let's try one last one:

Dr. [redacted] really improved his lecturing. If he continues to lecture the way he did for his final lecture of the semester, I will be fighting to sit in the front row just so a little of his awesomeness might diffuse into me. He was funny, poignant, and concise. I may just consider naming my next child after him, regardless of gender.

It's kinda like a kick in the pants, but more fun

Rather than study for my Pharm exam on Monday, I decided to call up the old blog and waste some time. It's interesting to note that my blogging significantly decreased once I started med school. I thought I would use writing as an escape, but instead I slowly abandoned it. The posts grew fewer and farther between until eventually they just stopped. That is, until tonight. Oh yeah, I'm back baby!

Since my last post, a lot of big changes have occurred. The biggest and most important item is the imminent arrival of my son. Matthew Ernest Ihms is due in six days! I am so incredibly excited to have a son of my very own. Now I won't have to dress up Turk in little baby clothes so I can go to Peter Piper Pizza and play in the ball pit. This is gonna be awesome.

Also, I gave a guy a prostate exam. That was exciting. Just when I thought med school was boring, WHAM! out of nowhere we have to do things like that. I thought it was just, "Take some medicine" or "You'll be fine, you just need to stop jumping on your trampoline while on a pogo stick". You know, simple doctor stuff. I didn't think I would be invading the unholy nether regions of a geriatric human lab rat. And don't even get me started on the 2 days of sports physicals. "Hi, turn your head and cough. Next. Hi, turn your head and cough. Next." That was a break from the status quo.

Coincidentally, the reason for the "turn your head" part? It's a lot more mundane than you would think. It's simply so the patient doesn't cough on the doc's head while he's jingling your bells. (I hope you appreciate the Christmas reference I just worked in there)

While this has been therapeutic, I really need to get back to studying. Maybe more posts will come, maybe not. Before I go, let me tell you a little about caffeine, which is one of the drugs I am currently studying. It can cure headaches! It is vasoconstrictor, so when you have a headache, it can help relieve the pressure building up in your head. This explains why people, like me, get a headache when they haven't had caffeine for a day, it's because your body is so used to having vasoconstriction, that the apparent vasodilation causes your head to pound due to the increased blood flow and pressure it bring. The obvious moral to this little snippet? Constantly drink caffeine. It will make you feel better.

Holy bat-saber

My wife said I needed to post. So this is what happens when you force creativity: nothing. I have a big neuro exam at 6:30am tomorrow that I need to study for, so not much is gonna happen today. Without further ado, I leave you with this...

Becoming holy

Every time I read the title to this post, I see "Becoming Holly". It sounds like I'm undergoing a major life change through surgery. But I'm having trouble thinking of a better title.

I've started reading "The Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas for the first time. While I'm only midway through the second chapter, I'm already amazed that I haven't read this before. It is amazing. So far his main premise has been that the function of marriage is not to make us happy (although that can be an awesome bonus), but rather marriage is designed to bring us closer to God; it is designed to make us holy.

As I progress through the book and learn more, I'll update on here. For now, as I examine my own marriage and consider how God is using it to make me holy, I can definitely see changes being made. If nothing else, marriage has forced me to confront the sin in my life. Having someone who lives with me and is constantly around me, forces my sin to surface and leaves me with no choice but to confront it and deal with it. Thankfully I have a wonderful wife who is very supportive of me during this holification (I made that word up) process.

And even though confronting sin is not always so much fun, I'm pretty sure that being made holy is much better than becoming holly.

Get excited

The plan is to return to blogging daily. I haven't quite hashed out all the details yet, but by next week, I'm hoping to start it up again. Until then, here's an awesome video.

First post of twenty-ten

Happy new year. I hope you can speak English better than these guys.