Return to the Blogosphere

It turns out that the largest Muslim country in the world isn't even in the Middle East, go figure. That's the just one of the unexpected things about Indonesia that seem to keep cropping up while researching the country. Also, fried rice is considered a national dish, and I could definitely eat it all the time.
Once again, there will be another adventure into standardized test land, but considering it's going to be about nothing but critical thinking it should at least be vaguely interesting to see what passes for critical thinking these days.

This might be inappropriate but...

While thinking about the various stereotypes of nurses it made me think: how many songs do I know that make references to nurses in a not so politically correct sort of way? Well, the answer was: a few. The ones that immediately sprang to mind are Night Nurse by Gregory Isaacs, The Nurse Who Loved Me by Failure (although I first heard it in a cover by A Perfect Circle), and, of course, the nurse song from Animaniacs.  So, if you're interested, check them out at the links provided: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpS3eFqhxSQ (Animaniacs - Hello Nurse), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6oYyG0KcvQ (Gregory Isaacs - Night Nurse), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWRDZwV8jGE&feature=related (The Nurse Who Loved Me - A Perfect Circle). I think you'll recognize the common theme here.

Clinically speaking...

My first experience was not nearly as rough as I assumed it would be, although it did reaffirm my feeling that getting Alzheimer's could be one of the most frightening possibilities of getting older. A physical decline is something I think I could deal with much more easily than the prospect of slowly losing your memories and even the ability to speak. My patient, fortunately, was very friendly and I could tell she wanted to answer all the questions I had for her, but every time I asked her a question and she responded that she couldn't remember it was hard for me to ask the next one because I didn't want to make her feel bad about it, but when she did remember she was happy to tell me everything she could, and if I helped her remember some fond memories that she hadn't thought about in a while then I feel like I did a good job.
In other news: studying for the midterm is serious business.

Maths and English

Once again, arithmetic is the bane of my life. That really pretty much sums up the whole of my mathematics adventures in life from long division to algebra to calculus. If only I'd paid better attention in somewhere around 4th grade I'm sure my life would be at least slightly easier now, but oh well.
In other news: I've been trying to think of interesting reminiscence questions, by which I mean interesting to ME, that won't cause some kind of nervous breakdown in my first clinical patient. At this point I've pretty much eliminated anything war related, and decided I'll try to stick to the economic, social and cultural aspects of life that have changed. Mostly because certain folks (i.e. politricksters, talking heads, and every other pundit) want to compare what we are going through now to the Great Depression, and, although I'll grant there are some similarities, I'm pretty much of the opinion that they are full of hot air and need to go down like the Hindenburg. For anyone really interested in the current economic situation outside of the malarkey being spouted on Fox News and CNN 24/7, and you have an hour to burn, I recommend this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj8rMwdQf6k