Come Together

Things have been slack at school for the past week, but I've been pretty tired nevertheless. Things should get busier again tomorrow, but I am not sure... it looks like my next two weeks won't be what I'd hoped, since my preceptors are out of town for most of it. :(

Anyways, yesterday, Rococo, Magic Pants, and I got together for a late breakfast at Nellie's, with Rococo constantly watching her pager, as she was on call. Our pagers have become central to our lives. Today was almost a repetition of yesterday, as we once again went for breakfast at Nellie's, this time with a bigger crowd of classmates and their spouses. We're kinda starved for contact these days...

I took my motorbike out for a ride this evening. It's been around five months since I last rode... a very long time. It was chilly out; lucky I'm still wearing my winter clothes these days, with my scarf at the ready.

Down and Out

The repro/obs/gyne exam yesterday was not an easy one. GI starts on Tuesday, and will hopefully catch my attention better. Textbook reading has begun, although once again, I find that the text is an inappropriate length for the amount of time we have. 815 pages in one month? Hmmm... at least so far it looks better organized than either of my obs/gyne textbooks.

It turns out that this is the Remembrance Day long weekend over here in AB, so we have Monday off. Rococo, Magic Pants, Bejeweled! and I are starting things off right, by heading to Nellie's to work on a skool project over breakfast, dealing with the influence of socioeconomic status on choice of medical specialty.

In other news, Stephen Lewis came to talk at our medschool last night; Car Hermit organized the whole thing. Lewis is a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, and is currently the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. Pretty interesting guy, obviously. Apparently, he's a big fan of Bill Clinton; he had just met with him on Wednesday, after the US Democrats' big gains in their midterm elections. Apparently, the Clinton Foundation has been crucial in the negotiation of lower prices for antiretrovirals. Lewis sees this week's power shift in the US as potentially resulting in a big changes in their policies in regards to sub-Saharan Africa. We'll see.

On the Canadian side of things, our current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has also been floundering on international health issues, but I'm guessing that he'll be dumped by Parliament sometime in spring. Hopefully, Michael Ignatieff will do a better job. He did, after all, work at Harvard for a few years, so he should be a smart guy!

In contrast to last night, tonight's agenda is Borat.