Quiet!

My classmates are notorious "shushers". Whenever the background chatter gets too loud during a lecture, an evitably louder "SHHHH!" will emanate from some corner of the room. Mostly, this is annoying and not particularly helpful.. the background chatter merely fades momentarily while people try to isolate the source of the "Shhhh." Today a group of us were working independently on a seminar in the computer lab. The room was relatively quiet except for one student loudly talking to the person seated next to him. Sure enough, moments later he was loudly shushed from across the room. As he walked over to see who had shushed him, he discovered it was one of his friends (who was grinning) and then noted at full volume "So sorry to be disrupting your MSN-ing!" Needless to say, the class found this quite amusing.

Just Fake It.

The other night I ran into someone I met a few years ago at summer camp. I was staff and this person was a camper, and over the course of the summer we probably had a few (relatively uneventful) conversations. Upon running into this person, I said hello and it became obvious that he clearly had no recollection of who I was. I prompted him with my name and my role at camp and was met with a continued blank stare. Realizing I had just created an uncomfortable situation, I tried to downplay it ("its okay.. there were a lot of people there that summer.. and it was quite a while ago...").

This isn't the first time this scenario has happened to me... as in, I remember who someone is and they clearly have no idea who I am (and make me feel quite awkward in the process). Of course, the opposite has happened as well, someone comes up to me and knows all sorts of information about me and I have no clue who on earth they are or from what part of my life I should recognize them. But in those situations, if the person is trying to prompt me, I will at least pretend to recognize them, even if it's in a sort of vague "yeah.. you kinda look familiar but I just can't place it" way. Sometimes it has later clicked in my head as to who they are but other times it remains as a blank.

Given it can make people feel lousy on occasion, I would ask.. why not pretend (at least in a vague way) that you know who the apparently random stranger standing in front of you is? While I wouldn't encourage flat out lying ("Oh! Of course I remember you!"), I'd say unless you foresee bad things happening (e.g. person is claiming to be your one night stand from last new year's and the conversation is occurring in front of your long time significant other)...

why not fake it?

Bat Mitzvah with Bling

I'd heard of people going overboard on bat mitzvah parties, but this is ridiculous. What's she going to do for her wedding? Rent out a football stadium and have U2 play?

Eggs, please

Living downtown, I have been biking to school most days, taking side streets or main streets with bikelanes whenever possible. A classmate of mine who is an avid biker was telling me that he will physically hit cars (with his fist) if they cut him off. He then told me about a friend of his who would like to keep a carton of eggs in the front basket of his bike, so that he can thrown them at cars when they cut him off or try to open their doors into his path. Thus far, I've been pretty lucky and have not had a reason to want to hit or egg cars... until tonight. While riding home on a major street, I noticed that a car up ahead had its reversing lights on, as it was backing out of a parking spot. I slowed down to go around the car, and the car began to pull into the lane, aimed directly at me. I swerved further into the middle of the road and the car continued to be straight on my path, putting itself in a collision course with me. At the last minute I managed to avoid getting hit.. through a combination of hitting my less-than-functional brakes and swerving the other direction (at least, I think that's what happened).

Pissed off (and a little shaken), I could have certainly used some eggs.

Pass the Pineapple

After a particularly arduous exam today, my classmates assembled at a nearby pub for a wine and cheese (sponsored by our professor!). Among the decorations on the food table was an uncut pineapple. One of the guys (who was already a bit tipsy) picked it up and took a giant bite out of it (through the peel and all). He then went around encouraging other people to take bites out of the pineapple. I had to laugh when another guy went to make an announcement and was greeted with chants of "eat, eat, eat" and was passed the pineapple. He obliged and took a bite. My professor, on the other hand, wasn't so willing to partake of the pineapple. Silly med students.

Flying Footwear

Around the corner from my house, a pair of shoes hangs idly from the telephone wires. I pass these shoes every few days and often pause to wonder how exactly they got stuck up there (apparently abandoned shoes seem to puzzle me a lot.. see June post "Troubled Sole"). This particular pair of dangling shoes reminds me of the movie Big Fish, though I don't expect to find a community of people running around barefoot here. After several months of passing by these shoes, I finally decided to take a picture, and as such, here it is.

True "Anatomy Humour"

These exchanges ACTUALLY took place between classmates of mine:

During dissection of the eye..
a: "how big should the incision be?"
b: "I'm not sure, I guess you'll... just have to eyeball it"

While reviewing the upper limb..
a: "I'm kinda confused about where some of these tendons go."
b: "Would you like me to... give you a hand?"

Bah-dum-dum.