Of Pretense and Persuasions

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Once The Air Hits Your Brain, You are Never Quite the Same.


The Anesthesia rotation ended with a bang this last week. I spent the last two days seeing as many neurosurgery cases as possible, and running in and out of different ORs doing as many intubations as possible [in laymen's terms, "intubating" someone means sticking a big plastic tube down a person's trachea and connecting it to a ventilator ... while the patient is anesthetized, mind you]. I'm finally getting the hang of it ... which is a good thing since I'll probably have to do a lot of intubating if I decide to do ER.

But ... truth be told, neurosurgery is hot. Damn hot. They use so many ridiculously cool toys. They usually start the cases using a laser sensor which analyzes the topography of a person's face and can then be used incombination with MRI/CT scans to make/guide exceedingly precise incisions thru a person's skull. The tools they use are both cool and horrific. I was in a case in which I got to see Maggie [who's on neurosurg right now] drill a hole in a person's head ... she looked like she was having too much fun.

I can't wait to be on neurosurg.

I start Trauma Surgery on Monday, so things from here on out are going to be... well, rough. From the looks of it, there will not be a moment of respite until December when I go home from break. On one hand, I'm utterly terrified, on the other hand, I'm exceedingly excited to ramp up the intensity and bust my a$$. I get a strangly euphoric and almost addictive feeling from working hard and being fully absorbed in what I do. My goal, for the rest of the surgery rotation, is to enter precisely this Zone where, well frankly, I become neurotic and extremely disciplined in all aspects of my life. It should be fun ... until December. And then I can stop, chill out, and behave again like a normal person.

Sunday, October 01, 2006


I'm back from NYC. The Engineers without Borders conference was cool. I learned how to build buildings properly and mix concrete. I also met some interesting people... I love rolling my brain around in things so different from what I normally think about.

I cut out early from the conference to go wander around NYC on my own. I found my way to Jackson Heights -- the Little India of NYC. I guess I'm homesick. Jackson Heights is pretty much as close to India as you can get in this country. The air is redolent with the heavy fragrance of incense, samosas, and bhaang. Ummm mmm mmm. I spent a while there looking at all of the clothing shops, food stalls, and jewelry stores. I bought a few books, kajal, and a simple saree which I plan to transform into something interesting once I get access to a sewing machine [december?].

Its funny. I always thought that I was "very Indian" and that, in essence, I was "one of the people." But walking thru Jackson Heights was a revelation. I'd often catch a reflection of myself in a mirror and what struck me was how god-awfully out-of-place I looked in my surroundings. I was dressed in my professional get-up [the sum total of my outfit was probably ~$400... yikes! ] and, with my hair cut short, I looked so FOREIGN in the Indian ghetto. Sadness.

What's weird is that I always sort of associated myself with the self-image of being a member of the poor-immigrant crowd. And, perhaps, for most of my childhood, that image was painfully true. I'm realizing now that this image has slowly transformed into fiction now. The issue I deal with now is not so much attaining priveledge or proving that I am more than poor brown trash, but figuring out what to do with the power and priveldge that I have and will have.