While gearing up to prepare my federal taxes I thought I'd surf the web for friendly advice on how to reduce the tax burden for an unsurprisingly cash strapped graduate student. I was surprised to discover that prior to the Tax Reform Act of 1986 graduate research assistantships were tax free. How nice that would be. Instead within the month I'll ( Read more... )

I hate my neighbors. This morning I woke up to the sound of the shower running downstairs. Almost a full hour later I step into my shower and there isn't a drop of hot water. The best I could eke out of the faucets was a luke warm stream and all the while the downstairs neighbors shower kept running. Sure, I'm probably over reacting right now but ( Read more... )

My livejournal has been life support for quite some time now. Close to expiring, clinging on in defiance of the laws of nature, hermetically preserved in a dank and forgotten rest stop along the information superhighway. However given the sanctity of life it would be unconscionable to pull the plug. After all, what's next infanticide? In light of ( Read more... )

I bumped into a classmate and asked him how things were going.

"Can't talk now, I'm headed off to my OB/Gyn oral".

Now that just sounds dirty...

Exactly one week ago Laura and I heard a teenager gunned down on the street a block from our apartment. There were six quick shots, one after another, but there was nothing altogether distinctive about the sound. It could have been fireworks except there was something about the spacing of the shots that put me on edge. Sure enough, fifteen minutes ( Read more... )

Over the summer a high school student was in our lab purportedly doing research. In actuality she talked on her cell phone, diddled with her myspace account and generally made herself a nuisance. Her entire summer was wasted more or less despite the efforts of myself and the post-doc in the lab (whose name is Leonardo by the way, you can't make ( Read more... )

1. Grab the nearest book ( Read more... )

Much has happened since my last entry here. Let's see, for starters I finished my second year of medical school - Woot! - and suffered through the boards. An 8 hour computerized exam isn't my idea of a cup of tea but paled in comparison to the anxiety and guilt of the previous month and a half that I spent trying to study for the exam but always ( Read more... )

Yesterday while studying in my office at home I heard a knock-down drag-out fight by the neighbors downstairs. There were crashes and furniture being thrown, lots of screaming and angry yelling and many violent threats. The woman kept running back and forth in the apartment, yelling "You have to get out now! Get out now!" which would inevitably be ( Read more... )

My entire body has finally stopped aching after this weekend's move into a new apartment. After lugging my 20th box of books up two stories to the new apartment I started to curse Gutenberg and his foul invention. I also realized that Laura and I have far too many things. Mostly though I was reminded once again why I hate moving so much. We moved ( Read more... )