Random thoughts and questions

Stupidity. He's infected with stupidity.

I got one of those Nissin thermoses with my xmas gift money, and damn, but it does indeed rule.

I've heard having it put in can be the worst pain you've ever felt. And I say that knowing what you've been going through lately.

Clicking on various things around the internet tonight I ended up on livejournal on the page of a girl that I just barely knew back in the days when livejournal was cool. The page was set up as a memorial since in August of 2005 she had some stomach issues and about a month later she died.

Now I'm sad :(

I have the song Forever in my head. I had no idea it was a Beach Boys song until just now. I thought it was an original song that John Stamos composed for Full House (that's the version in my head).

eyes burning.... nose itching.... patron wearing an ungodly amount of cologne... and he apparently has a LONG project to do, he's been here a couple hours.... whyyyyyyy

Well that was an experience. >.>

I'm about ready to burst, because a game I have been waiting for is (hopefully) coming out soon due to my incessant prodding and I will be wrecking all of your opinions about me shortly. How much weeaboo can I put in one thread before everyone starts to hate me, I wonder? There will probably be more than that much.

<Munchkin> Stupid friggen Seal opening made me lose a level! What is this "All bloggers lose a level" crap. I'm going to complain on the internet, which apparently makes me draw a face-up treasure card!

Psst: Don't tell Speak With Bread, but it's a "Lose a level" card. And Ivan is immune to disasters right now, so I can't even use it on him! So it'll just have to be used on her.

</Munchkin>

...that "complain on the internet" part of your class wasn't literal, sweetie.

Munchkin Apocalypse. What can you do. :)

Going in for surgery at stupid o'clock in the morning. The "description of procedure" section was four lines long; they'll be lasering, poking, and either inserting or removing a fair amount of stuff in three or four hours. Diagnostic and operative laparoscopy, cyst removal, appendectomy, and putting in a Mirena. And I've agreed to send the removed endometrial tissue to San Francisco for some study or other.

I wanted to thank you all for being infinitely patient with my muddling through this on the forum. Figuring all this crap out on my own was tough, but the input of a bunch of mostly-strangers has done a hell of a lot of good. <3

Special hugs to Alligator, MulMizu, SwitchKnitter, and Elyscape. And AaronSofaer, who I'm sure will be posting updates of my narcotic-fueled mutterings. But really, you're all awesome. :)

Hope it goes well for you and that you come out the other side feeling much better. Dan and I will be keeping our fingers crossed for you.

So I have to decide whether or not to take a pre-honours course for uni, which I probably should since there's a reasonable chance I will want to do honours The problem is that part of it involves giving oral presentations on the research done during the course, and that's something I can't realistically see myself being able to get through. Like, if given the choice between that and setting my hand on fire I would genuinely have trouble picking which I would prefer.

Now what I need to do, obviously, is develop the minimal level of confidence needed to be a functional human being. Hamstringing my future studies on the grounds of insecurity would be stupid. I know this. But that doesn't get me to the point where giving a presentation wouldn't be a form of emotional self-immolation.

It may turn out that the course isn't a proper requirement, however, in which case I'd be able to carry on avoiding issues I clearly need to address. Yay!

Oral presentations like 5 minutes in front of 20 people, or like 30 minutes in front of three professors, or what? (if you know.) If public speaking is that big of an issue, yeah you should probably work on it, but starting off by dissertation-defense-style talks might not be a great introduction.

Why do you want to do honours? To be an instructor some day? if so, time to work on that public speaking. It took me a long time to get comfortable talking to even small groups, I feel your pain. I'll never look forward to it, but it no longer makes me feel nauseated, thank goodness.

Hey, AaronSofaer! How's our favorite carb-whisperer doing?

We (her mother and I) are sitting in the lobby of the clinic waiting for either news or her to walk out the door. I'm chatting with a guy who's the CEO of several companies and who's here waiting for his kid to be released; it's interesting. Apparently he likes me.

They just this moment called in her mom but gave me a headshake when I went to get up to follow.

Details have been proffered by the doctors. Various things have been done, quite the uh exhaustive litany, but she won't be out for two hours. Time to get lunch, because it's 1:40.

Well, from her preview, they're basically going in and doing a full tune-up laparoscopically. Sort of the abdominal equivalent of "While the hood's up, we're going to change the filters, swap out the spark plugs, and install this here turbocharger".

Don't pay for the undercoat sealant, but do get an extended warranty.

It might be cool to leave the jokes about Speak's surgery (and the comparisons of her body to a car's engine) until later, guys.

Apologies. Wasn't trying to be a jerk about it, and I know I join everyone in keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes well.

No apologies, it's a simple procedure. Worrying about it is like worrying about a meteor falling on your head. Buck up.

Give Ms. Bread a non-touching hug from me when you see her Aaron (non-touching because she'll probably be sore.)

I admit it did kind of strike me as funny that they're basically saying, "well, we're going in there anyway, let's get the appendix while we're in there." If I was going to make a joke it would be about wearing a cone on your head afterwards, though, not a car thing. Hopefully you heal fast, the most annoying part of surgery is the wound care afterwards IMO.

Who said anything about worry? She's in surgery, and it struck me as kind of tone-deaf to make jokes about her medical issues before she's even wheeled out of the operating room. Obviously, go ahead and be bull-headed about it if you'd like (I expect nothing less!) but consider that it can be seen as disrespectful or in poor taste.

Again, it's just surgery. I'm not trying to call you out specifically on this, but it's a common thing that really irks me; people being afraid of medical procedures perpetuates an attitude of "Well, I'm in incredible pain but I'm scared of going to the doctor so I'll let things fester and get worse". By treating doctors, hospitals, surgery, etc as no different than simple plumbing or carpentry, then you remove that pointless fear and come to accept that when you need repairs or maintenance, you should go to a professional and that there's nothing to be afraid of.

I don't see it as any different than taking a car in to the shop - nobody gets scared of that. And the human body allows for a much larger degree of error than an automobile does.

I don't know how you read SuperJay's post, but the way I interpreted it, it has nothing to do with fear of surgery. I don't want to speak for him, but what bothers me is when you're equating surgery with car maintence you're also equating the body with a car. Speak had been in a lot of pain for weeks/months and somehow you making a joke about it while she's in surgery (which will result in more pain) doesn't seem funny to me.

Nute's being a dick, but I don't think his original comment about swapping out the spark plugs, etc. was offensive. It's not like he was doing any double entendres or crude remarks or anything, or joking about bad things happening.

I think it's cool that @SuperJay's being sensitive about it, though. Giving a damn is always a good thing.

My wife's brother died during a routine appendix removal. Surgery is serious.

And if the appendix had not been removed, he'd have died all the same. Therefore being scared of surgery makes no sense.

A year ago my dad had a pretty horrific case of necrotizing fasciitis (Google at your own risk) that had him on a wound vac for a good month or so. The wound care was a nightmare due to the size and location of the injury, but I was really taken aback at how well it healed. The wound was more than a foot wide and it just closed up completely.

Nute is being Nute (aggressively wrong), and Jibble is the reigning queen of bad analogies. It's like the scorpion stinging the rabbit as he jumps over the lazy dog.

Except I'm right here. Thanks for playing.

Seriously, worrying about it is as useful as worrying about the weather. Stop being such sad-sack pessimists.

Nute - I wasn't offended or scared or hurt or whatever other nonsense in response to your post. I don't even know Speak or Aaron that well, and while I'm pretty sure that BF posts aren't going to impact them very much right now (they've got higher priorities at the moment), I said what I did because it seemed pretty tacky and poor taste to joke about the woman's medical issues while she's in the hospital.

My comment had nothing to do with fear of surgery and everything to do with what I consider basic human sensitivity and common decency. Speak has been through a lot lately. Aaron has too. No matter how routine the procedure, this is unlikely to be fun or amusing for either of them. All I did was ask that you maybe think about that for a second, and consider how your jokes might feel to them.

Don't turn this into another helium moment, please. That's fine to do with molecular compounds or animals and utilitarianism or whatever, but you're talking about a real person this time. At the very least, consider backing off until she's home recovering.

I'm sure you believe that in every argument you're wrong in, which has basically been all of them. Maybe you should reflect on that.

And thanks for playing? What, the "How long can Nute go on this time until he finally realizes he's a moron" game? No thanks.

Man, with all the butthurt going around, looks like some folks may need some surgery. For their butts.

Worrying about anything past the point where you make contingency plans is completely useless. That doesn't stop humans, and by humans I mean humans who still have their empathy glands, from worrying. More to the point, the original objection wasn't to being cavalier about the surgery, because holy fuck, I'd be first in line on the chopping block if that were not okay (working on the ambulances sort of engenders a black humor, eh?). The original objection was that it was in poor taste to start making jokes comparing her body to a car before she's even out of the goddamn operating theater.

Also, the surgery itself has a significant chance of causing aggravated appendicitis in people who still have it, which is why they're removing it.

The nurse just stuck her head out and said she was doing great, had managed to take a brief walk.

I would like to hear more about the uterine turbocharger.