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There are songs that automatically yield a scene/image in my head when I listen to them. I think that happens with everyone more or less. So anyway, every time I hear 'My Funny Valentine', I always imagine a rainy day .. not those crappy wispy rains but proper ones. The kind of rain that replenishes .. everything. I see myself half-sitting on the side railing of the balcony (of my pretend studio apartment), listening to this song in (that very expensive thus never be mine) surround system and just watching the rain fall. The earliest memory I have of rain is the flood in .. well .. either '88 or '89 .. I remember that the water got into our house and we had to stack the tables and chairs etc. on the bed. I remember being carried around from room to room. I remember making paper boats and floating them on water during and after rain stopped and the garden was just .. knee deep in water. I liked that house. I liked the people we lived with next door. I remember mama and choto chacchu flirting with Papia aunty from next door. I loved Mishu to bits and God is cruel because He took my soul-mate away when I was just seven years old. Watching Pan's Labyrinth this afternoon, I was overwhelmed for a while. Ammu used to read to me the Russian folk tales - of Ivan and Baba-Yaga the witch. I remember wanting to be Ivan when I grew up. The books (bangla ones) would write the name as Ee-vaa-n .. Later on (much much later), I heard that name being pronounced at Eye-van and I was in denial for a while, thinking that just can't be. I used to read a lot when I was younger and after fairy tales my reading followed adventure stories. To this day I can safely say that my favourite book of all time, the book I would take to my grave would be 'Treasure Island'. Since I was told today that no, I don't have an adventure bone in my body (and with valid reason, I'm sure), I think it's all justified why I read so much of them in my childhood (sort of like living through someone else's life because you, yourself weren't capable of it). The other day I was reading a list of known folk tales (fairy tales) and realised I never really liked the Brothers Grimm collections (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella etc.). The nicer ones were by Hans Andersen and his best work is The Little Mermaid. I cried when I read it at nine. In fact I remember crying when Frankenstein's monster killed Victor Frankenstein and then kills himself. I remember crying a lot, for both of them and I hated the feeling. I wonder if I re-read Frankenstein after eleven years whether it'd effect me the same way as did back then. I could write on and on about Little Mermaid though. Having sex with vampires would not get you pregnant. I never did finish reading Dracula. I was fourteen when I realised that vampires used sex to get their prey and that whole neck biting became a secret erotic bliss (as oppose to horrific when ammu first told me about them). The reason I could never bring myself to take illegal drugs is precisely all this. My once very wise mama never told me not to take drugs but told me a secret that kept me away from substance abuse. Among other things he (unknown to him) taught me to draw a love heart pierced with an arrow and the blood drips down into a container (the image was drawn by him on a card he gave to Papia aunty .. mama was like .. eighteen then .. Jesus!) .
There's a section in the UMAT (Undergraduate Medicine & Health Sciences Admission Test .. why isn't there two extra letters in that abbreviation?) and that's Empathy. This is the one section I scored the highest since I would almost always pick the right answer in the practice papers. The trick is to pick the one that sounds disengaging yet caring. See the thing is, in this profession you can't care and yet you have to come across as caring. It gets complicated. There's no place for emotions and yet you must be empathetic. I think one of the biggest (or is it 'truest') truths I have ever been told by anyone was Dr. Dallas. 'We don't heal, we don't cure, we change the circumstance. So we're not saints. If you answer 'working in midst of Africa' as the response to why you want to become one in your Medicine Entrant interview, you can be pretty sure you won't be called in for a second one.' The fucking test was pretty fucking hard though. BUT, like all standardized tests there's a trick to obtain great scores. Of course I never practiced these tricks due to laziness but maybe one day I can sell these tricks .. have like my own thing where I travel from state to state sharing my oh-so-obvious-yet-simple-hence everyone will buy it-secrets --- a bit like those people with tips on how to become a millionaire in three days. Once you know these tricks you become bitter and you realise you're not surrounded by geniuses. I don't think you're all 'that' if you've scored a 160 in an IQ test. I think you are retarded for having mentioned such crap to me in the first place. (OR I'm just annoyed at having a really low IQ score myself .. I don't even fall inside that bell curve). I never liked standardized tests most probably because I was never really good at them. It's some stupid teenage syndrome about how these tests are of no real value and is a tool to boost up ego's of those who know how to memorise or can follow a pattern - a bit like monkeys- while the genuine people fall through the gap and never get anywhere in life. (I am in no way implying that I am one of those genuine people- but I have known people like that and only sticking up for them). My eyes hurt and my brain too. Also, Dr. Dallas liked his girls to wear nice skirts to the interview- no dress pants. Apparently that's sexist. I say that's the reality and if a bloody skirt gives that extra point (very similar to men wearing nice suits and going clean shaved) then why not take it. Anyone wanting a career in Medicine should migrate to Australia right away. I hear we have a shortage of doctors over here. Open up your GP's and make a whole bunch of money and buy your third car. But please-please-please don't think you're any more honest than a tax-evading businessman. Remember, you would never want a disease-free society because that'll heavily cut down on the number of cars you might want to own in the future. Anyone else see the irony in this? (I must one day talk about the father's brother - possibly the only person I have seen in this profession whose bank balance is lower than my own).
