.....Possum

There have been a good number of days lately where I've laid down for bed late at night and reflected on how good of a day it had been.  Part of that was the way it was spring break, part was the fantastic 70 degree weather, part was the fantastic shopping therapy I've gotten lately, part was my new haircut, part was spending day after day enjoying these things with Saia....

Anyways.  One of these days I was reflecting on how well a day had gone... except for the part where I had to go into our crawlspace and find the dead possum.

I know its nasty but its a story never-the-less. I like telling stories.

I came in one night to the kitchen and thought something smelled rotten.  It could've been the cat litter, it could've been Saia's diaper bin.... but it was different.  The next day, it was stronger.  It didn't smell familiar, but it was bad enough that I started wondering to myself if there was something dead or rotting...somewhere.  I went into the cellar to look into the suspicion...and the smell was worse.

I told Jeff about it with the intention we find it and take care of it quickly, and agreed to do a coin-flip with him to decide who would do it.  I wasn't supposed to lose, but of course...  A couple days later I put on some crappy clothes, a full head covering, long socks and shoes, and some latex gloves.  I asked Jeff to accompany me on the descent and keep watch for me in the cellar... We brought down a broom, the auto light, a shovel, and a garbage bin with a liner.

I was crossing my fingers that it wouldn't be deep in the crawlspace, and also that it would be a mouse.  Dad told me even mice can smell really bad when they die.  The crawlspace is very literally a "crawl"-space, with only about 2 feet of head room, and a dirt ground scattered with old construction garbage from a hundred years ago.  In the space, I looked around insulation pipes and garbage for my tiny mouse... instead i saw a bunch of holes where who-knows-what had dug, and... spiders less than feet away.... spiders all over the place scattering from me, while I was sprawled on my stomach with  my head a few inches from the ceiling and ground.  Seeing these reminded me of Goljan's brief lecture spiel on arachnoid pathology and brought to my mind the reason people shouldn't go into things like crawl spaces.  I'd begin to research into what exactly I saw... but I don't think I want to know.

I pulled around a corner and saw it a few feet away.... it was horrifically nasty... I told Jeff that I was disappointingly right about my suspicion, and it was indeed a freaking possum... I had suspected it because about a month before, I was in the quiet kitchen by myself and heard animals under me.  It sounded like they were fighting and went on for about 10 minutes.  They were hissing, so I had suspected rats or possums.

I took my time scooting closer to the possum, which was already missing eyes but otherwise just had some guts hanging out...... and very reluctantly threw the garbage can over it and used the snow shovel to push it in..............ughhhhh.  There was loose hair surrounding it, with a lot of it leading towards a hole... I suppose perhaps a rat hole. oh god.

I covered up a bunch of holes with big rocks and bricks, including a big one leading towards the deck that had fresh air flowing in.  We've put a fan down there to try to dissipate anymore of the smell... which I haven't smelled much since I went down there.

Funny.

Those who follow me on facebook may remember a status I made a couple years ago about the possum in my backyard that was playing possum for a few hours straight. lol.  Dad took care of that one.

Lady Gaga concert

Who knew that spring break would leave me with so little time to do things like post one of the blogs on my to-do list??  I stayed up til 2 way too many times and didn't even sleep more than 7 hrs most nights... Gosh, I have three blogs I need to get out quick so I don't forget what I wanted to say...

Just over a month ago, my big sis Jenn texted me about getting tickets for Lady Gaga.  I told her that I had friends going (Chris and others), but it was super expensive and I considered $50 my upper limit on concerts... She said she'd help, so I replied, "If you insist."

dang she looks good dark-haired! Leotard.

We looked at ticketmaster, craigslist and some random ticketing site and ended up getting floor tickets for one of the cheapest prices I found (which was not cheap).  They were even cheaper than what tickets in the upper levels were asking for.  Best place in the house?  In my opinion: totally.

No pants. Crazy eye make up.  Random sculpture accesory.

Block week was the week before spring break and the concert, and throughout it I kept distracting myself thinking about how I needed to plan my Gaga outfit. lol.  Actually, I was dreading what it was going to involve getting one ready.  I had thought that I would probably spend a day searching vintage stores and synthesizing some wild hairdo.

Leotard.  kind of tights.  crazy lipstick.

 However, I ended up throwing one together with stuff in my closet the night before the concert.  After I did research, I concluded that Gaga doesn't like pants, loves leotards, loves tights, and often times will just settle for lingerie.  And when she's dressy like at an award show, the key to her outfits is using random sculpture like accessories and pointy shoulder objects.  I briefly considered incorporating a freaky looking masquerade mask I got in Venice way back when, but ended up passing on that.  I decided I'd go with no pants (only leggings) and a strapless top.  I meant to wear my ridiculous heels but ended up chickening out.  Even after this though- I didn't look gaga-ridiculous enough.  I went to Michaels to look for accesorizing objects, and picked out some pink and white fake flowers and pearly like beaded things (she wears pearls a lot too).  I sewed them on in the few hours before the show.  Didn't end up having time to add as many as I would've liked.

I think I ended up looking a bit more fairy-like than gaga-like.  If I would've had time to sew on all the flowers and finish my flower hair piece, it would've been better.  For make up, I noted that she either went crazy with eyes or crazy with lipstick.  I ended up using my brightest pink eye shadow (hence the flower color selection) and tried to dramatize it laterally from my eye commisures.  I mostly just winged that, as there still is a lot that I could learn about eye makeup techniques....

Fast-forwarding to the show, finally.  The floor was impressive.  There was hardly anyone down there compared to the stadium as a whole- maybe only 300/20,000 people.  Who doesn't want to be in a free moving area that technically gives you the ability to get as close to Gaga as you want?  Sure, we had to stand, and sometimes stand on our toes, but entire stadiums stand at concerts, and I got [relatively] great pictures of Gaga on stage.  There were some great costumes, but also a lot of people that looked fairly crappy, whether they had just got the outfit wrong or were wearing clothes that weren't made for their forms...

 I'd been to a show like Gaga's before- one that focuses a lot of theatrics and a theme: Kanye West back in 2008.  That was good too. lol.  Gaga had a nice drawn out storyline to her show, and as many set changes as she had outfits (actually, about 1 set/2 songs and 2 outfits/1 song). She had nice dialogue between each song, and spoke in a really surreal fashion.  It was hard to know how much was staged and how much wasn't- but it seems fair to assume that it was probably mixed.  Regardless, she had some fantastic messages to share and brought a tear to my eye at one point... (gosh, I cry about everything huh).  I posted one dialogue video.

firework boobies and the official monster.

The whole show seemed too good to not be largely staged.  It did seem convincing that she was really singing.  Perhaps there really are people out there who are so talented that they can do flips and sing in key at the same time.  One of my friends said they noticed she had a back up singer for parts.  I have a brief video of "Love game."  I wish I would've thought to record more songs.

I wish I would've took more pictures of the big screens.  A lot of my pics/videos are washed out from the lighting, but more importantly, there was some awesome interludes during set changes.

I think it was a great time for me and Jenn.  We got ready together, rode together, got a beer together, and danced (kind of) together. lol.  It's fun doing grown up-ish stuff together, and I can't wait til she's back in Louisville so we can hang out more :).

With my other friends at the show (who were in the nosebleeds), we had considered going to the bars afterward but ended up settling for Ramsi's since we had a minor with us.  I would've loved to go to Connections after the show- a giant gay bar 5 blocks from the stadium that was sure to be crawling with "little monsters."  The cover may have been pretty high and it was probably super crowded, but that didn't bother me...  What did bother me is that we found out at 3AM that Gaga had went to Connections.  She apparently did mini performances and bought everyone drinks.  Wow.

The rest of my picasa album is here: https://picasaweb.google.com/l.b.cornwell/GagaMarch122011?authkey=Gv1sRgCJyag6Kwl9yUpgE&feat=directlink

Chicago 2011 Auto Show

I've been keeping a list of blogs I want to post, and I try to do them chronologically so this is a few weeks late...This is the last thing I'm doing before I go to bed.  I'm drained from block week but am trying to squeeze a bunch of things I've been putting off into this evening before I crash.  Even though I have to wake up at 8 to go take the Path shelf.  bleh.  So!

The auto show was simply a fun thing to do on a Saturday with a handful of friends.  We woke up early to drive to Chicago and got home super late.  I slept like 8 hours over 3 days or something.  Other than the auto show we went to a restaurant off Michigan ave, a starbucks, an urban outfitters (woooooooooooah.  Please come to Louisville.  I got another cute black dress <3), and millennium park. Christine has pics on FB.

I wanted to make a post just to compile a list of Jeff and my favorite cars from the show.  Unfortunately, our tastes haven't adjusted to like family friendly cars, so you may notice none of these choices are very reasonable for our to-be-growing family.  Oh well.  There will be time for that.

The car we'd get during residency to replace Jeff's `01 Neon:

Hyundai Veloster - ~$17K

If we each got one, Jeff would get the orange and I'd get the green:

So good looking.  Pretty small back seat... but soooo good looking.  And all of these new cars have all of the media stuff standard.  Dang right.

The car I'd get as an attending when money isn't much to worry about:

Lexus CT 200h ~$30K I think

Loveeeee the color, daybreak yellow (or pee according to Chris).  It's actually a hybrid too.  And beautiful.  I didn't think I liked Lexuses because in Louisville the only people who drive them are pretentious white conservatives, and they are always silver SUVs.  I honestly wasn't sure Lexus even made non-SUV cars.  They had a lot of nice Lexuses there actually...

Jeff's favorite car right now:

Dodge Challenger ~$25K

He probably wouldn't actually care for the stripe.  Pretty cool looking car though.

When we were in the VWs, I saw a hard top convertible that looked pretty nice (don't think I'd seen one up close before).  I mentioned to Jeff that if we ended up somewhere warm, we'd probably have to get a convertible (of course).  Chris said it was probably the:

Volkswagen Eos - ~$33K

Very pretty.  I mentioned that it would be our "fun car."  Later, when we were in Mazda, Jeff told me what the real fun car would be (I'm updating this now that Jeff commented below):

Mazda RX8 - $33K

 I don't know what makes it special.  It is pretty.  Chris says this is like every guy's favorite car.  Hmm.

The show was fun.  Not as redundant and lengthy as I expected over the 5 hours there. Every manufacturer had something unique but fitting to our tastes (2 doors, compact, nice wheels and headlights).  Plus its nice in general to try to become more familiar with the new stuff on the market.  Going again next year if we can.

Valentines Day present

Sometime in February 2010, I went to a "date auction" that some of my classmates put on as a fundraiser.  The big prize of the night was 2 club tickets to a UL Big East game in the Yum center for the 2010-2011 season.  I didn't have a specific number in mind as for how high I wanted to bid- but the bids went up and up and I somewhat unexpectedly had the highest bid at $200.  My internal reaction was "uh oh, I have to spend $200 now." lol

I knew early on I wanted it to be a surprise for Jeff, so I used the excuse that it was a school expense of some kind.  When the season schedule was released, I was looking for a game around Valentines Day that would be worth the price.  I ended up deciding between Syracuse, UConn, and Pitt.  Pitt was the latest game but Pitt was also predicted to be the Big East champion.  I was hesitant to pick a game we were predicted to lose, but Dad thought I should go for that one anyway.  I started giving Jeff hints in the month before V day.  I told him his gift was expensive.  I told him I bought it a year early.  I told him that he wouldn't get it until after V day.  lol.  I gave the tickets to him on V day.  It was a surprise, but the fulfillment of its worth was to be seen.

The game was a white out, and I wanted to get nice and dressy for the rich section.  My outfit wasn't incredibly awesome, but I got to wear a top that will probably not get a lot of use and I loved that we had matching hats...

When we got there, it was surreal.  First of all, we got to take the escalator to the lower levels (very odd).  The route to the section was really different from the upper level.  We were right on the end of the middle section, facing the benches and at the same angle as the tv cameras.  Thoughts that came to mind as we found our seats:
"Oh my god it looks like it does on tv but more up close!"
"Oh wow we can actually see the student section!"
"Oh wow the players almost look like real people!"
"Oh my gosh this is like watching a game in a gym or something!"

The cut out heads were everywhere and were awesome.  The atmosphere was fantastic, although we were definitely surrounded by more conservative fans than usual. The guy in front of us told Jeff that he wore hearing aids and Jeff's clapping was killing him.  So that's why they don't like noise down there..., I thought.  The game flew by because there was so much to be stimulated by.  I tried to get on the camera every chance I got, but there weren't many cameras pointing to our side and we didn't have Saia on us to be our cute little kid.  I got pointed to once while dancing enthusiastically, but they didn't project it :(. I was mostly disappointed because I had promised to my classmates that I usually sit by that they would see me dancing on that darn screen. 

The seats were cushion-ier, there was wood armrests on the end of the row, and there were cupholders!  Woah.  The club under the seats was seriously a club, complete with fancy decor and furniture, and much more alcohol options than the regular concessions.  Jeff said he felt spoiled by the experience, and already thinks we should make it a yearly occasion.

The game as anyone who watched should know went fantastic.  It was low scoring, but L'Ville kept the home winning streak alive against the 6th ranked and current Big East champion Pitt.  We got the pic a couple up right before the technical shots at the end.  Love it.  It's gonna be my new fb profile pic soon as I get back on there.

The rest of the pics are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/l.b.cornwell/PittGame11#

Huntington Beach, CA - Academic Surgical Congress

Yet another tale of my travels.  The late morning of January 31, I got on a flight that went to Huntington Beach, with a layover in Houston.  Early on the afternoon of February 1, I caught another flight back to Louisville, with a layover in Houston.  I was in Cali for 22 hours, and on planes and layovers for 14.5 hours, during my block week, for a 5 minute quick shot at a breast cancer conference!  Ho Ho Ho. lol  $700 later... not really, I get reimbursed (thank the lord).

It was my second trip to present the research I did with Dr Chagpar over last summer (the whole 8 weeks of it).  It's retrospective clinical research that mostly involved reading old reports, compiling a database of variables of interest, and running stats that I don't completely understand.  I learned a lot, it was legitimately interesting, and I had a good time with the people I worked with.  Dr Chagpar is an amazing mentor, and I owe her tons for her extreme generosity in helping her students.  She set the goal higher than me or my classmate Cliff ever would have, and I submitted 4 abstracts, 3 of which were accepted.  We plan on doing another that's due on March 1.

My first trip was a simple poster presentation at ASCO breast in D.C. back in October.  This was the trip we learned that going to doctors conventions costs a fortune.  Regardless, we had a good time.  I got to go to the memorials and white house for the first time (even if it was dark), we went to a trendy sushi place on GW's campus, and we went into a Peeps shop (haha).

 So huntington beach was my second conference, and I got upgraded to a mini presentation.  I apparently talked way too fast though (darn it), and finished in like 3 min.  So so much for going to cali for a 3 minute presentation.  I didn't get any questions, I guess because people assumed I had nerves, unfortunately.  I took this picture briefly after we arrived at the convention center.  I found the conference room Chagpar was in, and looked out the window next to it to see the pacific just at sunset.  This was also when I sadly realized I had brought my nice camera but had left the SD card at home.

 These doctor conventions hotels are ridiculous.  Very fancy.  This is just a hallway for goodness sake.  It was a Hyatt.

 We learned from D.C. in that we did not want to stay at the convention hotel.  We got reservations for another Hyatt 10 minutes away, that was like a younger hipper version of the fancy hyatt.  Like the boots?  I love those boots.

 The only chance we got to check out the city was for dinner after we met with Chagpar for like 5 hours in her hotel room.  It was 1AM in Louisville already and we ate at 10PM Cali time.  Apparently everything closes there early, even in the social areas.  I've always wondered if they go to bed earlier in Cali since prime time there is like 5 PM.  We were in the mood for pizza, and one of the only places open was a hole in the wall pizza place called Perry's, on the pier.  Pizza was fine, and we tried a beer off the tap that isn't served at home.  Called Fire something?  darn I already forgot.  It was good.  There was also a local broadcast of the clippers on the tv.  Don't see that very often!  The place looked like somewhere punk kids and hispanics liked to hang out.  my kinda place.

 The only other thing we got to do other than that was check out the beach.  These fire pits lined the whole thing outside of the fancy Hyatt.  How awesome does that sound?  Fire on the beach at night.  Awh.

 This was the first time I ever touched the Pacific.  It was cold.  :)

 Here is me, Chagpar, and Cliff after our presentations.  We look like serious nerds.  Love her though.  And Cliff is OK. lol

Well, my last trip was to Chattanooga the day after Valentines day.  I planned on driving in and out on the same day, but my presentation was near noon and I needed to meet Chagpar first so I drove in the night before and stayed in a super ghetto hotel not far from the convention center.  It smelled like one of the ghetto apartment complexes I used to deliver newspapers to.  The guy behind the counter might have been a vampire.  My room may have had double sided mirrors.  The room looked very appropriate for teenagers who needed to throw a drinking party/orgy.  I took a shower anyway (that apparently had a water heater with multiple outlets).  It was good enough, it had free internet.  And yes, I made it through the night (Dad).

Chagpar gave me incredible advice for my presentation, which this time around was even longer at 10 minutes plus 10 minutes of question time.  We rehearsed very specifically how I would present, she told me ever possible question I could receive and what the answer was, and we focused very intently on my language speed.  The presentation went very well.  There I was, standing on a podium in front of an large audience of hoity toity older male doctors dressed in their suits.  Two facilitators sat nearby, and my presentation was projected onto two large screens on either side of me.  I went through the presentation, looking out at Chagpar for cues, and talked painfully slow, like she had asked verbatim.  I smiled, had intonation, and looked great in my black striped NY and co suit.  I sat in the question-receiving chair next to the facilitators and waited my questions.  I got three from my reviewer who saw my manuscript beforehand, one from one of the facilitators, and one from an old doc in the audience.  NAILED IT.  Chagpar said she was super proud and important surgeons that I will get to know will remember me from that presentation.

Then she said that some of the questions brought up very good ideas for another abstract topic.  We'll be doing that one for the American college of surgeons in San Francisco next October.  Abstract due march 1.

Update (10:03PM): I just peaked at my email and I got an email forwarded from Chagpar:

"I am pleased to inform you that your work has been accepted for publication in The American Surgeon."

 "WOO HOO!!," I'll quote her on saying!  My first publication guys!  And Yale will be in the institution line, just under my name.  Whats Up? Two more manuscripts we haven't submitted yet.

life to the decemberists

I wanted to hear myself sing. And then I just happened to have a bunch of conversations mid-video. i like the way it turned out to be a nice little clip of my life to the happy theme of the decemberists "the soldiering life."

I'm pretty sure I'm OK with most of the people who read my blog seeing this...

Really? Warning: Gross picture

This is a spontaneous post and may be a little much.  Sorry if I bother anyone...

We have to deal with nasty stuff in med school, and suck it up like its OK.  Pelvic exams, prostate exams, frozen stinky cadavers with liquefying organs, soft wet fresh tissue cadavers, unbled coroner autopsy bodies, dead fetuses in jars, over a hundred pakistani skeletons from the 1950s, 12-year old sex, child abuse, morbid obesity, ascaris parasites, you name it.

Well this not might be quite so bad as a bunch of those things but sometimes teachers seem to go morbid just for fun or something.

There's a giant cell tumor of the distal radius.  Oh yeah, and a hand.  It's just something in a case I'm reading online right now that made me go, "really?"