Moon River

Moon River

I decided I was fed up with my old cell phone (or, mobile phone as they say in Oz) and figured I would get a new one. Having classmates from Taiwan, where everything cheap and electronic is made, is a bonus. They can get things for pennies compared to what we pay in Oz or in the US. So I asked Michael to bring me a new phone from Taiwan when he came back from the holidays. Just one problem:

It’s in Cantonese.

Or maybe Mandarin - my reading of the Chinese alphabet is a bit rusty. It has all the right numbers on the buttons, but the instruction manual is all in Chinese. With no English translation. Whenever I want figure out how to do anything, I have to ask my neighbor. Luckily, the phone itself knows more languages than I do (which would be 2: American and Drunkenese. The latter is a very difficult dialect to master. It took me *years* at Ohio State before I got it right. But I digress.) I was able to switch it to something I understood, but if your phone rings and the Caller ID says something like ИКФГ you’ll know it’s me...
It’s been an interesting week at FMC. I have a list of three things I really have no desire (is it possible to have negative desire?) to learn. First is a pelvic exam; second is psychiatry (I know I’m going to tell someone, ‘Pull yer socks up, Mate!’) and third is rectal exams. Well, I can knock number three off the list. In the process of learning the GI system, we learn how to check the prostate. We actually started last week on plastic tubes to see how to describe what we felt and how deep we could probe. Then we moved on to plastic models (some of which were a *little* too lifelike!) to get used to the idea, the feel and positioning of the patient. (No, they weren’t ‘Life Like Barbies’; that’s for later in the year). Everyone had a sore finger by the end of the session. Anyway, this week was live. There is a group of guys who were tired of doctors not knowing how to check the prostate correctly, so they got together and offered to medical schools to act as human guinea pigs; Flinders took them up on it (a similar thing happens at some schools in the US - females volunteer to teach doctors the ins-and-outs of doing a pelvic exam). Which put me squarely behind one gentleman at 9am this morning, me wearing a pair of rubber gloves and him wearing a smile. OK, I can't be too sure about the smile; I was looking at the other end. But he wasn't wearing much. (At this point, insert the scene from the movie ‘Fletch’ where Chevy Chase starts singing ‘Moon River.’) Happy to say we both survived, and his prostate felt normal. Jokes aside (yes, I do get serious on occasion), I’m going to encourage all the guys in the audience over 40 to have a prostate exam the next time you see the doctor. It only takes a few minutes, doesn’t hurt, and it could *literally* save your life by catching a disease when it’s still treatable. And a few more years of good health, more time with the grandkids is probably worth the 3 minutes of awkwardness you might feel. Here ends the lecture. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my favorite recreational activity is on hold: I walked away from the boat I was sailing on. I had a different focus then they did (I wanted to race competitively; they wanted to screw around and drink) and I realized that my stress level was higher after a day on the water – and this was supposed to be *relaxing*! So I handed in my crew shirt and said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’. I’m going to take a few weeks to get back into the swing of school and then make a few calls about going racing with some other folks. I want to *enjoy* my time away from school! Which brings us to the end of Week 2 of Year 2! No big plans for the weekend; a trip to the Market, time at the beach, maybe the kiosk for lunch. And asking my neighbor how to program my mobile phone. As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!Bryan