Losing things

The VA isn’t the busiest of places, so I often have time to sit and reflect. Recently, it has been how life progresses through what you think you have forgotten/can’t find. For me, this is how it has gone

-Middle school: where is my homework?

-High school: where are my keys?

-College: where did I put my pants (joking)? Where did I put my camera/room key/dining card/ID? Or, more importantly, where did I put my basketball mouth guard/jersey/shoes?

-Med school: where did I put my First Aid for Step 1? Where did I put my resident that I am supposed to follow around?

-Intern year: where the heck are my pager and stethoscope?

Seriously, 5 times a day at least I have that “where is my pager?” moment. It isn’t that I want my pager. That thing drives me nuts. It is more that if I don’t have that thing, there could be backlash. Not from doctors but from ancillary staff. Even if I am done for the day, I still want to know where it is. It was funny. When an intern first gets his/her pager, it is a little exhilarating. Even that first buzz or beep or vibration (mine is always on vibrate) was a little fun. Then, however, realizing that everyone in the hospital has you on a leash, you want to run. Away. Fast.

Speaking of deep things, let’s talk about philosophy, the subject as a whole. In college, I was required to take 2 courses – intro and an elective. I took logic. I liked logic. Because, well, it was logical. I only needed 3 more courses to get my minor in it. Being who I am, I seriously thought about it. I thusly signed up for “The philosophy of politics.” My goodness people, that was over my head. I only got an A because the professor liked me. I am a relatively smart person, but philosophy just wasn’t for me. And you want to know why? The language. Now, all you lovers of thought, this is all opinion, so you can’t get mad. Or you can, but realize my opinion doesn’t make you less of a person. The language of philosophy is such that it prevents people from understanding. It is a very verbose topic in general. They use too many words that are too big (which they themselves have created and defined simply to confuse people :D) making it difficult to simply discuss with everyone. It is an elite group that prefers to keep itself that way. No, I don’t have a specific ‘they’ in mind here. I just remember sitting in that politics class wondering what in the heck people were talking about half the time. If you need to create a complex word with an even more complex definition that needs 10 other definitions to define it, maybe the creation of that word wasn’t necessary?

Matt (and I begrudgingly sometimes) will listen to the ‘In Our Times’ podcast from the BBC. Some topic I enjoy – the moon, the Hippocratic Oath. Other topics bore me to death. One in particular was on some sort of philosophy. They were discussing how your understanding of a sentence depends on whether you have personal context for the current subject or if that subject should really be the predicate.  Or some ridiculous nonsense such as that. See what I mean? Do we really need to debate something like that? Like I said, it is above my head. That is, most likely, the only reason I put it down. Go ahead and keep loving it you crazy people. Just don’t try to talk to me about it.