A Man's Got To Do What A Man's Got To Do; A Woman Must Do What He Can't...

Have you ever observed a bad break up...I mean, really been there in the midst of the action when the axe falleth...exciting but a tad awkward as I found out this time last year when one of my roommates from med school decided to call it quits with his girlfriend...

Apparently they weren't really getting along...at all...and the relationship seemed to have gone downhill in recent months...the spirits were indeed low...the only reason they had remained together was the 2 year contract they had signed with Sprint recently...which appeared to bind them as if they were in wedlock...and they both really needed those extra minutes...

Anywho...I'm enjoying dinner one lovely night...with a surgery book in one hand and a granola bar in another...when they both barge into my room...

From what I could gather...she had spent an entire weekend with an Ex of hers...sprouting a fit of jealousy in moi roommate who it seems...rather imprudently...had insinuated that she was being unfaithful...and now, having regained his sanity, was desperately attempting to deny having said anything of the sort...

She looked positively angry...much like a female minor prophet about to curse the sins of the people:

The Girlfriend: Oh...so that's what you think...is it..how dare you accuse me of such skullduggery...you think I go around hob nobbing with random guys every chance I get...

The Roommate: Ofcourse I don't...

The Girlfriend: You do...

The Roommate: I don't...

The Girlfriend: Yes you do...

The Roommate: I do not...

The Girlfriend: You do...

Kashiff: Ahem...

The Roommate: You shut up Kashiff...

Kashiff: Right ho...

The Girlfriend: That is what you think...

The Roommate: It is not...I don't think anything of the kind...the fact of the matter is that inspite of being with my girlfriend, and pretending all year long that you were tickled pink to be with my girlfriend, you are still soo much in love with that Neanderthal (I am guessing he was referring to the 'Ex') that you can't stay away from him...but I am not complaining, you have a perfect right to love who you like...

Kashiff: Whom...

The Roommate: What...

Kashiff: "Whom"...to love "whom" you like...

The Roommate: Kashiff, will you keep quiet, you keep shoving your ore in...ummm, aahhhh....now you have made me forget what I was going to say...

The Girlfriend: In that case, do you mind if I say something?

The Roommate: Please do...

The Girlfriend: In the first place, you make sick...

The Roommate: Indeed

The Girlfriend: Yes indeed...in the second place I hope I never see you again in this world or the next...

The Roommate: Really...

The Girlfriend: Yes really...I hate you, I wish I had never met you, I think you're a worse pig than any that live in that dashed farm across the road...

Kashiff: I didn't know we had pigs at that farm mate...

The Roommate: Oh yes...rather stout ones too...

The Girlfriend: Will the two of you shut up and leave...

Kashiff: But...but...this is my room...

Let it be known I spent the night on the living room floor...gently being tortured by the nails sticking out of our impeccably varnished wooden floor...I reckon this bloke knows what I'm talking about...

Hell truly hath no fury like a woman scorned...

Cheers

I Am Positively Melting...

Why is it that hot places have a knack of inventing hot food...

Seriously, why could Mexico's national food not be popsicles and slushies...

When on a 100 degree day have you said to yourself: "Oh heavens, it's hot...you know what would be really refreshing right now...spicy enchiladas topped with a eye watering Serrano pepper...because its not good enough that my face is burning off in this dashed desert sun, I'd like my mouth and intestines to feel the the same way..."

Well, enough with hot weather...and hot food...the last two days have made me long for snow...the heart truly aches I tell you...

Anyways, a couple of months ago I had a friend of mine visiting me during my ER clerkship over in Baltimore and we decided to go over to an Ethiopian restaurant...yes, that's right...an Ethiopian restaurant...I never knew something like that even existed...I thought the biggest problem with Ethiopia was that they had not yet invented cooking...

Ethiopian food is indeed delicious...unfortunately, there is a bit of a catch...you don't really get to pick anything from a menu..oh no Sir,.what you do is sit there and just wait for your food to be donated by the more prosperous restaurants...

I kid...clearly...the chum and I had a positively gripping meal...spirits were high as we exited...the tummy very much satisfied...hence, if ever in Baltimore, do stop by the X'Cafe and order the vegetarian combo...

Cheers

Early Morn & Breakfast...

I am a bit of a racing fan, what...well, Formula 1 fan to be precise...sounds odd, I realise...very true...especially since I'm quite the advocate of, and slave to public transportation...cars I feel are a waste of perfectly good road...not to mention precious fuel...

Regardless, I digress...being a racing...ahem, Formula 1 fan...I have the habit of disturbing the tranquility of the household...much to my mother's chagrin....every other weekend in order to catch the race at an unGodly early morning hour...well, here we are and it's the British Grandprix this time round...

So as I sat on the sofa rubbing my eyes in the wee hours of the morning...I found my thoughts turning more and more towards the subject of breakfast...

As it turns out...and as embarassing an admission as this may be...I am quite possibly the worst cook in the entire world...in the words of the immortal Blackadder...there are ameoba on Saturn which can boil a better egg than me...however, the growls eminating from my abdomen demanded that steps be taken...so I decided on venturing into the kitchen and embark on a quest to make pancakes...

And here they are...ladies and gents...the greatest peice of art since Vincent Van Gogh's "Potato Eater"...

I shall leave you with "Kashiff's" personal adaptation of an age old anecdote...enjoy...

Cheers

---

I went to school, ya know. I went to grammar school and once we were taking a test and I was copying this other kid's paper, and I guess the teacher heard my xerox machine. She said, "Kashiff, am I stupid or were you cheating?," and I said, "Ah, yes and no." She sends me to the principal's office and I get there and sit down and he looks at me and says, "Kashiff, Kashiff, Kashiff" I said, "I'm the one in the middle, you drunken slob."

He said, "Kashiff, how would you like to repeat the fifth grade?" I said, "I don't know if I could do it exactly, but I could try." He said, "I could expel you!" I said, "You'll have to catch and eat me first, ya wierdo." He said, "Kashiff, you'll have to see the school psychologist."

And I said, "But why do I have to see the school psychologist?" So he shows me the petition. So I went to the psychologist and he says, "Kashiff, what does this ink blot look like to you?" I said, "Well, it's kind of embarrassing." He said, "Kashiff, everyone sees something silly. Don't be embarrassed. Tell me, what does this inkblot look like to you?"

I said, "Well, uh, to me, um, it looks like, uh, standard pattern number 3 in the Rorshach series to test obsessive compulsiveness." And he got kind of depressed, so I said, "OK, it's a butterfly." And he cheered up.

"And what does this ink blot look like?" I said it looks like a horrible, ugly blob of pure evil, that sucks the souls of men into a vortex of sin and degredation." He said, "No, uh the inkblots over there, that's a photo of my wife you're looking at." "Oh, was I far off?"

He said, "No, that's the sad part." And he gave me a chocolate easter bunny and I ate the bunny, then I thought, hey, this isn't easter. "Is this a test?" And he said, "Yes." "And what does it mean?" He said, "Had you eaten the ears first you would have been normal. Had you eaten the feet first you would have had an inferiority complex. Had you eaten the tail first you would have had latent schizophrenic tendencies and had you eaten the arms first you would have had a latent narcissitic complex." "Well...go on, what does it mean when you bite out the eyes and scream 'stop staring at me?'"

He said, "It means you have a tendency towards self destruction." I said, "Well, what do you recommend?" He said, "Go for it."

Cheerio

Summer's here...oh JOY!!!

The day has been rather hectic...errands and what not...so it is with a due sense of exhaustion and dread that I make my second entry...

If you’re a college student...something I am not, and haven't been for a long time, thank goodness...home for the summer in the humble abode of your parents basement...you’re indeed in an awkward place: too old for high school girls what, and far too young to rent a Hyundai and say tally-hoo, pip pip and head off on a road trip...

Sure, 'le vacance' may seem fun for the first few days, but your mindset will follow a pretty well-established trajectory:

Days 1-3: Joy to see family and friends. Ecstatic over escaping dorm squalor...
Day 4: Bored...
Day 5: F**kin bored...
Day 6-103: Maniacally bored. AND HOW MANY GODDAMN LITTLE SISTERS DO I HAVE NOW? CHRIST, MOM, WE’RE NOT CATHOLIC!!!
Day 104: Acceptance...

Which brings us to another flashback moment from my trusted diary...enjoy...

Cheers

---

May 27, 2005 | 7:32AM: Things seem to have ground to an absolute halt over the holidays here at the hospice...oops...hospital...

The 90 hour work weeks which had me pulling at my hair for the past few months seem a tad bit enjoable at the moment...inexplicably relaxing too perhaps...hence the rate at which I am chugging out entries into my beloved journal, which I am erst while obsessed with...

'Twas someone wise (not wiser than me ofcourse...that being an impossibility), who once said...."don't think about the future, lest you jinx it"...so I shall not...

But I will muse over the past...

January 2005

Ahhhh, the post USMLE era...

I recall that I slept a lot...watched a lot of television...slept while watching the tele...ate...ate some more...tried to stress out about how I might have done in that stupid exam...but since my mom was doing a dashed good job at it, I figured why steal her thunder...later in the month found out that I had inexplicably aced my USMLE's...so I decided to sleep some more...

So, that was January for me...onto February some other time perhaps...

Cheerio

In The Beginning...

You have to admit...I don't give up easily, do I...this indeed shall be my umpteenth attempt at making a blog....or vlog...which I believe is what kids are calling it these days...if I were you, I'd start taking bets on how long it will last...put me down for 3 months and a fiver...

Anyways, I am a bit of a sissy and a nerd...as most of my friends will confess...hence like all other geeks, I have kept a written journal all my life...God help me if my parents ever found it...regardless, I figured for my first post I'd use one of my rather old entries from when I was a med student...seems soo dashed long ago...

So, here it is...I know, I know...very unorginal and mundane...but atleast it's a start...Cheers

---

October 28, 2005 | 10:36PM: As of next week I shall have completed a whole month as a sub-INTERN (emphasis on the word intern and NOT sub) in the, shall we say, intimidating world of Telemetry at Harbor Hospital in what is clearly the WORST city, with the WORST downtown, in all of these United States...not that I have been around this country a whole lot...but my goodness, it cannot get any worse than what we have here in Baltimore...

Telemetry...what in the freakin world is that...aaahhhh, the exciting world of cardiac monitoring...

Can't say I have learned a whole lot...except for dealing with bloody CHEST PAIN...and considering the fact that heart disease remains the numero uno killer in the US...I reckon I've learned quite a bit...loooooooooong pause...while I exit the room and try to deal with the biggest and most tragic deluge since the time of Noah and his pals...apparently someone left the tap in the bathroom sink running...there was water gushing out of every crevice in the house...and believe me there be many crevices in our MANSION...

Which brings me to my current residence...this is where I live folks...

I reckon I best not share pictures of my room with anyone...they certainly aren't for the faint of hear...my Mommy nearly fainted when she saw them...anyways, back to the residence...it's in one of those many ghettos scattered around this horrendous city...with boared windows and shady characters roaming the streets...

Beleive it or not I may infact be moving out of here in the next few days...the landlady has apparently signed a lease with some girl who seems to have fallen in love with my room...

On prodding for more details, it turns out that this girl...and Asian...much like half of Maryland's population...currently lives with her mother...

Either she doesn't know what she's getting herself into moving into this neck of the woods...or she must really hate mommy...I'm guessing its the latter...

Anywho...I have run out of things to say...hopefully in the coming weeks I might have another epiphany and I shall write again...

Cheerio