I was working on the ovaries, and writing a final essay exam, last night, when my screen started flickering on and off. My computer shut down shortly thereafter. I turned it back on, and found that Google Documents, one of my favorite things that has ever been invented, had saved all but perhaps a word of my work. I lost nothing.
A friend called, and came over to chill out for a while. We got to talking, and I expressed my concern that my monitor and/or computer was dying during exam week. He looked at it, and being an IT guy, was able to tell me that it was probably just the monitor (what I was hoping). Further, he had a monitor available that he could give me! So we agreed that I would go to his place the next morning to pick it up. I secretly plotted to be back to my apartment by 8:15am, work furiously until I had a couple of meetings in the middle of the day, and then go back and furiously work again until this take home essay thing was done.
I was on my way through one of the busiest areas in Minneapolis when my truck started to sputter. I dropped down into 2nd, which helped momentarily, but it wasn't having it. It died completely, and I cut across two lanes of traffic to try to get out of the street at rush hour. I made it almost all the way into a parking lot, and enlisted a large poorly bearded man to help push, and a small girl to pull the parking brake inside. We had to push it uphill, and were almost killed by rush hour drivers, but we got it off the street. I had this conversation with this other guy outside:
Him: Do you need help?
Me: That would be great. I've never broken down in this city before. Do you know of someone I could call to get towed? Maybe where I could get some auto work done?
Him: No, do you?
Me: ... No, I don't.
Him: Jeez, well, you're really in bad shape here. Good luck man.
Me: Thanks.
So I tried to use my phone, and it didn't work. At this point, it seemed the only sensible thing to do was to laugh. So I laughed like a maniac while I shivered in my truck for five minutes. It was around ten degrees outside.
I went inside this unlabeled screen door on an unlabeled building. A horrific smell assaulted me, and a man covered in blood and a hair net walked up. What can I do for you? I had inadvertently parked in a Chicken Chow Mein processing plant parking lot. There were people pushing around wheelbarrows full of what appeared to be chicken material, and this machine was energetically plooping out a dark gray mush in front of me.
Me: My truck broke down outside. How long before you guys will have to tow me?
Don't worry about that, he said, with a kind smile. If we have to, we'll just push it out of the way.
Me: You're the best.
He smiled, and walked back into Chow Mein Hell. I suppressed an urge to ask him if soylent green was actually people.
I went back outside, popped the hood, and didn't see anything wrong. I would later discover that my serpentine belt had broken. I have never experienced or seen this issue before, and the sound, action, and visual representation were unknown to me. So I closed the hood, tried to start it, and no luck. I tried my phone again, and was able to reach my father, who a)always answers his phone and b) is constantly in front of a computer. He gladly googled a solution, and gave me a number.
These guys would tow for a flat rate, evaluate it, and work on it. It is going to cost a crapload of money, I thought. I am broke as a dig dog, in the words of Jesse Ventura in Predator. I investigated his integrity as gently as possible, knowing that I would soon be handing over a valuable object to him, and detected no malice or deceit.
I filled a paper bag with my climbing shoes, harness, chalk bag, and the textbook that I had brought with me. Everything else was abandoned. I said my goodbyes to the truck, and its contents, certain I would never see them again.
When the truck came, about a half hour later (still rush hour), this guy gets me to get into the truck with my paper bag nestled in my lap, and proceeds to pull up to my truck, perpendicularly(!), across a busy city street in rush hour.
Within thirty seconds, traffic is backed up for a mile in both directions. People are trying to swerve around, honking, and screaming without avail. He has completely blocked the entire four lanes of traffic. His face shows no expression.
He got it loaded after an incredibly long time, which was probably less than a minute (time enough for me to take a picture with my now functional phone), and we drove off to my apartment. His name was Jared, and he was friendly. We got along great.
Back home, I thought it might cool my nerves, so to speak, to memorize the cervical plexus.
So that happened, and then I decided that it was time to get a move on with my paper. I practically ran to campus, and furiously worked on my essay exam, for an hour. I have had to write few papers in the last several years - it just is not something that is required of most people that go into medicine, and is not usually required of medical students.
So I kept feeling like I was in high school, when I had to write two essays a week for English (one in class, one out of class), History papers, etc. I remembered many of the essays I wrote for the English, Art History, History, Art, and other departments at Carleton. It was incredibly satisfying. It's easier for me to sit down and write than it is for me to memorize stuff like the cervical plexus. But whatever, medical school is a good way to challenge me to develop those skills.
I ran to my meeting, which lasted an hour, ran back, worked on my paper for an hour, forgot to eat lunch, ran to another meeting (this one about a clinical service project involving people who are deaf and hard of hearing that I'm getting involved in - so psyched), and then ran back, and remembered to eat some grapes. I worked from 2:08 pm until 5:55 pm, violently striking keys, holding my bladder through sympathetic action, and raging and laughing inside like a maniac at the joy of this impossibly challenging catharsis. I turned in the paper electronically at 5:56pm. It was time-stamped at 5:57 pm. It was due at 6:00 pm.
I walked home, turned on some music, and started working out.
I did three sets each of:
30 pushups
12 pull ups
2 x front levers
40 crunches
40 squats
20 calf raises
20 reverse wrist curls with a 10lb weight
and a few dead hangs from finger tips to work the forearm flexors.
I put some water on, on the stove, so that I could get my whole wheat pasta fix, and went to take a shower. I got in the shower, and my vision started to black out, and I fell, comically, out of the shower, and onto the bathroom floor. I decided to stay there for a while.
Everything went quiet. My water was probably boiling, I thought, or would be soon. I recalled that, luckily, I had put it on the burner near the edge of the stove, and had made sure that no inflammable objects were near. I thought, for a time, about the cervical plexus. Would I be able to remember it during the exam? I wondered, as I stared at the broken ceiling fan, wet and naked, my legs, still in the tub, being splattered by shower water, as the pot merrily boiled in the next room.
I crawled over, turned off the shower, dried myself by rolling on the bathmats, and crawled over to my closet, where I put on the softest clothing I could reach from the floor. It ended up being a sweaty, foul smelling capilene shirt from the laundry basket, and a pair of blue sweatpants that I had purchased when I was in high school. I made it back to the stove, lay there for a while on the kitchen floor, and decided to risk standing. It worked great. I put in some whole wheat pasta, and considered the cervical plexus. The kitchen floor was soon, again, my grateful bosom.
Eventually, the lightheaded-ness wore off, and I was able to make it to the toilet by walking, where I puked grape-like material for ten minutes; when I made it back, my pasta was done, and it was time to eat.
I added what remained of my pepperjack cheese stash, and some red pepper, to put the fear in me. After dinner, my friend dropped by with the monitor, awesome guy that he is. I ran outside, took the hand-off, brought it back here, and plugged it in. I received a call that the towing, inspection, and repair would cost $300. I think I can manage that, although it may require some stoicism. The monitor worked, my computer stopped having problems, and I started working on embryology. I have learned a great deal since.
