Mood: Baffled
Music: DJ Felli Fel - Get Buck in Here

I was sitting at a stoplight yesterday, minding my own business. I noticed the guy in the car behind me getting out of his car. And walking TOWARDS MY CAR. At this point I’m thinking “Holy shit, is there something wrong with my car? Is he trying to sell me something? What’s going on?” A young guy in a black t-shirt and sunglasses knocks on my window…I roll it down an inch, and he says “Hey, let me know if you want to go out sometime. You looked cute through the window!” and hands me a business card.

What the f*ck?

I told my bf about it, we had a good laugh, and we both agreed that this could only have happened in Austin without someone getting hurt. If some dude knocked on my car window at an intersection in Houston, I’d have my mace pointed towards his face faster than he could say spanky.

Just a quick update, since I forgot to mention it. So since the Great Mangosteen Catastrophe of 2008, the bf went out and actually found a bag of 4 good mangosteens at an Asian supermarket. We were kind of full from dinner at the time of purchase, so I picked out the smallest one from the bag and cracked it open. And yes, it was just as delicious as described. The flesh was soft and juicy, and the flavor definitely had a hint of vanilla in it. However, since I picked out the smallest one, we didn’t get much of it to eat, but we figured that we’d save the rest of them to savor later. Things get a little busy, and 5 days later, we’re finding a lot of little fruit flies in his apartment. While we’re swatting them away, we comment on how we can’t seem to find the source of the flies. I remember that we’ve still got mangosteens to finish, so I go to the counter to pick up the bag, and they’re all MOLDY. DAMMIT. Those were 3 good mangosteens wasted!! So in short, yes, I did finally try a small piece from a good mangosteen. And yes, it was delicious. But it turned into a failure again because we lost our chance at each getting a full mangosteen to eat. So I’d say my goal of having the full mangosteen experience was only partially fulfilled. I haven’t been able to find any mangosteens in the markets since then. You win this time, oh legendary forbidden fruit. I’ll get you next year.

Mood: Content
Music: Sigur Ros - Untitled 8

Before I left for Austin, my bf told me he had a going away gift for me, but I’d have to work for it. He presented to me a box that contained a pencil, a map of Europe, a guidebook, a tape measure, a calculator, some play money, a small stack of index cards stapled together labeled “Passport”….and nothing else. He told me he’d be sending me on a little “trip”, where I’d have 14 days to “visit” 10 places in Europe based on clues that he gives me. For each mile that I travel (based on the map’s scale), I’d have to pay money, 10 cents/mile if I go by train, and 50 cents/mile if I decide to fly. If I go by train, I can only visit one spot/day, but if I fly, I can visit two. Or I can “hitchhike” for free, but he can’t guarantee that I’ll arrive at my destination. Oh, and he also threw in that by the end of the trip, I needed to have a certain amount of money left before I receive my gift…otherwise I’d have to perform certain tasks to make up for the lack of funds. Upon telling me this, I looked him in the face and said “You rigged this game to make sure I wouldn’t have enough, didn’t you?” He just shrugged back. Jerk.
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Mood: Amused
Music: Frou Frou - Let Go

Linda and I went to Clementine coffee bar today to do some studying/work. I love coffeeshops because there’s so much people watching that can be done. Rough timeline of my visit went something like this:

• 8:35 pm: Linda and I arrive. The barista is a friendly guy with brown curly hair. He takes our orders, we make small talk, and he tells us that there will be some live music shortly. He sheepishly admits that he doesn’t exactly know who’s performing, but he hopes it’ll be good.
• 8:50 pm: While I’m studying, my sister sends me a goofy text message. I call her back, and a lovely conversation ensues.
• 9:00 pm: A live show has started. The performer is a scraggly looking dude with a yellow t-shirt and denim cutoff shorts. He’s LOUD. And his guitar playing is off-key. AND he’s got a harmonica where he blows in it with so much force it sounds like there’s a windstorm coming through the mike.
• 9:05 pm: I can’t hear my sister on the phone. I go outside to chat.
• 9:20 pm: I conclude my phone call. I come back in to study.
• 9:21 pm: Linda asks me a question. Rather, she shouts a question to me. I find out that she wasn’t asking a question, but she was shouting “IT’S LOUD IN HERE.” I shout back “YEAH.”
• 9:35 pm: The dude is now wailing “GEEEEORGE BUSH IS THE ANTICHRIIIIIST, GEEEEORGE BUSH IS THE ANTICHRIIIIIST.” How cute.
• 9:45 pm: Dude concludes his show. Mentally I’m thinking wailing like that onstage at a bar is okay. Wailing like that in a chair in a coffeeshop is not.
• 10:00 pm: Another dude takes the spotlight. Younger, wearing a plaid button-up shirt, with jeans and comfortable looking brown shoes.
• 10:01 pm: I brace myself for another wailfest.
• 10:02 pm: This dude’s performance is quite pleasant. He sings at a reasonable volume, his acoustic guitar playing is good, and his lyrics are about good neutral topics, like lost love, going to the grocery store, whatever. I should write a book about the rules of coffeeshop performances.
• 10:40 pm: A couple seats themselves at the coffee bar next to our table. The girl is in a cute flowy black dress. The guy is in a grey t-shirt and jeans, with an attractively scruffy look to him.
• 10:43 pm: Whoa. I look up towards the coffee bar and my eyes are greeted with attractively scruffy dude’s asscrack. Did not need to see that. “Attractively scruffy dude” has been demoted to “scruffy ass man”.
• 10:45 pm: The younger guy’s performance wraps up. His audience (I’m assuming most of them were his friends) departs the coffeeshop. Linda and I are the only ones left.
• 10:50 pm: Linda and I pack up to turn in for the night. The baristas smile and say goodnight to us with more sincerity than any barista I’d find at a Starbucks in Houston (I love how friendly people in Austin are).

I love coffeeshops. It’s amazing what kinds of small details you notice just from sitting for a few hours with a cup of coffee.

Mood: Relaxed
Music: Dave Brubeck - Take Five

Last week was my final week in the psych unit, and now I’ve moved on to another rotation here in Austin. It’s been an amazing six weeks working with mentally ill patients and seeing all sorts of things that I wouldn’t find anywhere else. My current rotation is actually located in Dripping Springs, TX, a small town near Austin with a population of 1,677 people. I can’t say I’m entirely sure that the retail pharmacy life is for me, but if I had to do it, I’d definitely pick a spot like the rotation site I’ve got now. It’s got a good steady flow of work, the people I work with are awesome, and I actually get face-to-face time with my patients. The bad part is that I have to drive about an hour through traffic in the morning to get to work every day. The good part is that it’s a pretty freakin’ amazing drive. I end up driving through hills, cliffs, and lots of greenery on the way…the problem is that I’ll probably get used to it and end up bitching about the drive anyway. I’ll try to get a pic of the drive sometime if I can manage to do it without getting myself killed.

At any rate, like any retail pharmacy, there’s always a few weirdos that wander in now and then. Today we were all minding our own business in the pharmacy, when a guy walks in and declares that he’s got steaks that he needs to sell. When our tech asked how much it was, he said it was around $316 for a BOX of steaks, and he offered us a discount. We politely declined the offer, because 1) none of us wanted to buy an entire BOX full of frozen steak, and 2) who the hell tries to sell steaks in bulk to a freakin’ pharmacy?? The guy looked a little disappointed, but he thanked us, and showed himself out the door. Minutes later, he barges back in, with the boxes of steak in his hands. He starts opening them out on the checkout counter to showcase all the frozen steaks, naming off what he had…filets, flat iron steaks, bacon-wrapped steaks, yada yada. He kept on insisting that we could all pitch in to buy ourselves weeks to months worth of steaks. He also offered to discount the price even more down to $200 for the set. Seriously, if someone is offering you THAT much meat AND lowering the prices by a third, it can’t be good. After a huge game of verbal ping-pong (”No, we don’t want it,” “You SURE of that?” “YES, we’re sure” “It’s a bargain,” “Why don’t you try this other place?”), we declined AGAIN, and this time, looking dejected, he sadly packed up his steaks and walked out the door again. At this point, once the dude was out the door, we all started chattering about the guy, when our conversation was interrupted by ANOTHER dude marching in, and shouting “HEY, I’M THE OTHER GUY’S BOSS, Y’ALL DON’ WANT ALL THAT STEAK FOR $200 BUCKS??” The tech politely says “Sorry man, we’ll pass.” He gives the tech a nasty look, and says “Alright, whatever, you blew it man, you BLEW IT,” and stormed out the door.

The rest of the day was spent with the pharmacy staff telling each other “You BLEW IT, man”, or “Go back to selling steaks” whenever someone said or did something stupid. Steak salesman = FAIL.

Mood: Lazy
Music: The Fratellis - Whistle for the Choir

Last week I helped move my sister back to school in Kingsville, TX (read: middle of nowhere, TX), and I got to eat at Joe Cotten’s Barbecue, which is located in Robstown, TX (read: also middle of nowhere, TX). I’ve heard of the place from my sister’s stories, but seeing it is really a different experience. If I had to describe it in two words, I’d say “delightfully country”. The waitstaff consists mostly of little old men, all wearing black pants, a red vest, and a bow tie. There’s no written menu. Our waiter was one of the younger servers there, a friendly guy with a thick southern accent. He verbally explained that we get to pick 3 different meats, and the order comes complete with sides of bread, beans, a slice of tomato, onion, and all sorts of other stuff. I ordered mine with brisket, sausage, and some pork shoulder. The food came out right after our orders were made, piping hot on sheets of wax paper (no plates here!)…one look at the food and I was in love. I picked up my knife to cut into my brisket. My sister stopped me. She said “You don’t need that.” I gave her a skeptical look. She tells me “Trust me…you don’t need that…just use your fork and break some off.” I poked my fork at my brisket, and it fell away instantaneously. Brisket doesn’t get much more tender than that. It had a perfect amount of smokiness, and the meat was incredibly juicy. I tried some of my sister’s ribs and they were equally tender and awesome. The pork shoulder and the sausage were delicious too, but the brisket was so freakin’ good that I think the next time I come I’ll order 2 servings of brisket and 1 serving of ribs instead of the trio I had ordered. Even my side of beans had a small slice of pork in it that was so flavorful and tender that I wished they filled the entire bowl with that stuff. And here’s the kicker: I just found out that if you’re still hungry (even after all that food), they’ll actually allow you one more cut of meat on the house. Easily some of the best barbecue that I’ve ever had. Visiting Joe Cotten’s reaffirmed that if I leave Texas after graduation, one of the things I’ll miss most is the barbecue. The heat and armadillo roadkill can stay.

…then I might have been able to schmooze myself out of a traffic ticket.

Unfortunately, the whole “flirt to get what you want” thing isn’t my style, and subsequently I got my very first speeding ticket last week. But I guess going to the age of 24 without a single ticket makes for a good run. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the damn thing. Aside from paying money. Booo.

On another note, I watched the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on Friday night. Can you say WOW??? That was easily the most amazing opening ceremony I’ve ever seen. It’s like it was Beijing’s way of saying “Hi world. We’re China. We’re not that backwards communist place anymore. Ok, we’re still communist, but not really. Sort of. And we’re going to put on an olympics opening ceremony that is going to blow everyone else’s out of the water.” If I were more of a sap, I probably would’ve cried. And as cheezy as it sounds, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of pride as I watched the ceremony go through China’s past, present and future, and think “Holy crap, this is my ancestry spelled out right here.” Even though my grandparents fled from China during the revolution, all political differences aside, we can’t deny that our blood carries 5,000 years of some of the world’s most remarkable history. Let the games begin.

Mood: Tired
Music: Peggy Lee - Fever

Yesterday, I saw a patient who was fondly known as “the puncher” to doctors and nurses. He’s a man in his 60s in a wheelchair, and he’s notorious for punching people…the nurses had to warn me and the other pharmacy student to stay within an arm’s length away from him if we have to speak with him. At any rate, we visited this guy with the doctor, and we noticed that he’s on a medication where it’s pretty important to draw blood levels to make sure the patient is using an appropriate dose. Turns out he’s been on this medication for 2.5 years, and he’s NEVER had a blood level drawn. We go to greet him, and the conversation goes something like this:

Doctor: Good morning Mr. X, how are you doing?
Mr. X: Good.
Doctor: So we’ve noticed that you’ve never had a blood level drawn for your medication…can you let us do that tomorrow morning?
Mr. X: No.
Doctor: Please?
Mr. X: No.

At this point, the other pharmacy student, who is a SUPER nice girl who wouldn’t hurt a fly, pipes up and cheerily says:

Other student: We just want to make sure you’re safe!
Mr. X: FUCK YOU.

Whether we get that blood level or not, I think it’s clear that Mr. X needs a higher dose of his medication.

Mood: Chillin’
Music: Iron and Wine - Boy With A Coin

The little guy who replied “Kentucky Fried Chicken” was discharged recently. This time he was a LOT more coherent, but not by much. When the other student counseled him, he was coherent enough to answer “Yes ma’am” and the such, but at one point, she talked about one of his meds, and he replies “I like hamburgers sometimes.” When we were done, he followed us to the door, gave a big smile, and said “Thanks for stopping by!” and waved at us through the window. I kinda miss him…he was definitely one of the friendlier patients I’ve seen so far, even if he wasn’t all that coherent.

At any rate, I got to help out in a methadone clinic for an hour, and that was a pretty awesome experience in itself. I only saw about 4 patients come by, but the rest of the time was spent listening to stories about drug addicts from the pharmacists. It’s kind of sad to know that all the patients were good people at some point in their lives…the simple truth is that addiction is THAT powerful to the point that it takes over and drives them to do bad things. What’s even sadder is that ALL the patients that I saw had hepatitis C listed in their profiles, because they got it from sharing needles. The main lesson I got out of the methadone clinic was that while addiction is bad, it’s better to have a patient addicted to methadone if they HAD to be hooked on something (even though the ultimate goal of methadone therapy is to end the addiction). The methadone patients don’t take it to get high, they do it to feel normal…their brains are so shot from constant drug use that they can’t function normally without a drug fix of some sort. Some people feel like the patients are just trading one addiction for another by putting them on methadone, but there’s several reasons why having a person stuck on methadone is better than having them continue with illicit drug use:

• First of all, methadone is “clean”….street drugs are usually diluted with all sorts of junk, so the addicts are literally poisoning themselves if the dealers decided to toss in some rat poison in the drugs or something. In that sense, we know the methadone patients are safe.
• Methadone doesn’t give NEARLY as much of a withdrawal effect as other illicit drugs, so when they’re “coming down”, they’re not driven to do erratic things to get their next fix.
• With methadone, the patients are monitored when they take the medication - they’re watched when they take their methadone, so we know they’re not injecting it, snorting it, etc.
• Methadone for drug addiction therapy only comes in liquid form. So basically no needles = no risk of transmitting hepatitis or HIV! Yay!
• With methadone, the doses the patients get are controlled, so we know exactly what they’re getting and how much they should get.
• The patients get a random urine test periodically to make sure the patients aren’t taking other illicit drugs on top of the methadone, so we know they’re not just using the methadone as another drug on top of other habits.
• The patients get counseling and drug addiction therapy when they’re on methadone.

In the end, because methadone is a “clean” drug and is given in a controlled manner, the patients stay off the streets, out of jail, and go on with their lives. The patients are protected because they’re using a relatively safe drug, and by keeping them on therapy in a methadone clinic, you can be assured that they’re not going to steal your TVs or the wheels off your cars to get money for a fix. Their addictions are already taken care of in a way that’s completely regulated and controlled…no addiction at all is obviously the goal, but if that can’t be reached, methadone addicts >> heroin/crack addicts. It’s not so much that you’re trading one addiction for another more that you’re trading an unstable lifestyle for a safer future.

Yesterday I counseled a patient, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: “Sir, do you remember taking simvastatin?”
Patient: “I drove a car down to Galveston and I said I need a camera! A Nikon or something!”
Me: *trying to keep a straight face* “Ok, sir, do you remember taking quetiapine or Seroquel?”
Patient: “Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

The same patient saw me in the halls of the psych unit today, gave me a super happy hello, and proceeded to tag along with me, all while babbling about nothing at all. Sweet guy, even if he doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.