dopplegangers

Some person with the same name as me has been registering on girly shopping and trashy gossip sites with my email address. Luckily, she just registered on some blog site, so I logged in and wrote her first entry for her: "change your email please." :)

Ugh, we have to wake early up on St. Patrick's day to take some stupid 4 hour practice USMLE tomorrow. My only goal is to not be called into a dean's office and told to postpone my exam). My studies have been "okay" and fairly consistent (and we have 3 months to go), but it never feels like I reach my study goals.

Well, at least my photography goals are being met. ;-) All my digital photography reminded me of how much I enjoyed simple black and white photography back in middle school and high school. I recently joined the photography online community, flick'r, and while looking through other people's work, I got interested in some of the 30 year old + rangefinder cameras. These are the kinds that went to the moon and were top before SLRs showed up in the 70's. I liked their simplicity and the different quality of the images. I don't think they're better or worse than a traditional SLR, although the image quality is similar (without as much selective blur, perhaps), and the rangefinder tends to be smaller and quieter. The shutter and aperture are set in a similar fashion as an SLR, but to focus you look through the lens and line up a yellow "ghost" image on top of the scene. When you only see one image instead of two, you have the correct focus. There's no automatic focusing with this. ;-)

The truly dangerous part is that these cameras are still around and you can find them pretty cheaply on eBay. So, I capitulated and got a Canonet QL17 GIII. I really enjoy it! I shot an experimental roll and was very happy with most of my photos. The textures and sharpness were amazing, particularly in black and white. I took photos of some neighbors, animals, and Galveston homes and I liked the results. Not to mention, the shutter is quiet enough to take to class and sneak candids... not that I would *ever* do that. ;-)

So as for the medicine front, a couple of weeks ago I did my 3rd hospital/ medicine in-patient visit and enjoyed it. It's generally good to be reminded of why we're here every once in a while. ;-) I'm actually enjoying our derm-heme-musculoskeletal class quite a bit. It really reminds us that we have to pick our parents and grandparents well. ;-)

And speaking of medicine, a recent study showed that sleep deprivation impairs moral decision making. http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20070302/sleep-deprivation-blurs-moral-judgment?src=RSS_PUBLIC. Good thing that has no implications for the medical community and their 36-hour work days.