Some days I'm very reluctant to tell people that I'm a doctor. Not because they're liable to ask me about some embarrassing health problem they don't want to talk to their family doctor about (because they don't like him/her, because they can never get in to see them, because they don't feel they're doing enough etc.) but because of the assumption that I must know all that there could be to know about the human body and sometimes about things that are not at all related to the human body.

Case in point, I booked my first session with a personal trainer today. And she was lovely and so very nice. But the second she found out that I was a doctor, she got incredibly nervous in front of me and started justifying everything that she was doing. Like the fact that she had taken blood pressure measurements for hundreds of people and was therefore qualified to take mine. Or that as she's sure I'm aware of 'when you suck your belly button in towards your spine, only 3% of athletes are engaging transversus abdominis'. When really, I had no idea because exercise physiology forms zero part of my training and is a totally separate field in itself and honestly, it wouldn't matter whether I did know or not because she's a professional and I trust her to know her job better than I know her job. So yes, I do wish that in that space beside the word 'occupation' on forms, one could write: 'Doctor, but not one who oversteps their boundaries' or 'Doctor, who won't think less of you if you don't read every significant journal in your field because Lord knows, she doesn't' or 'Doctor, but too worried about how she's performing to criticize your performance' or lastly 'Doctor, but stupid about all things not directly related to the health of children and even then, knowledge is very patchy in certain areas'.

Should I still label as NaBloPoMo if I'm averaging a post every 3 days?

Labels: NaBloPoMo

I suck at blogging daily.

They closed my friendly neighborhood coffee shop and a liquor store is moving in. I had driven to that shopping complex ostensibly to go to the bank, and since there's a coffee shop there I thought I might as well pick one up; but in my heart of hearts I was on the prowl for coffee. I'm on a research block and woke up this morning determined to make a serious dent in the background section for my proposal. But what fuels all this industry? Coffee. And now I will spend the rest of the day debating at the back of my mind whether I should just go back out and buy one so I'll stop thinking about it, or go downstairs and make myself a lukewarm cup on our slightly less than satisfactory machine or whether I should just suck it up and drink water.

Labels: NaBloPoMo

Oops I missed a day and I'm feeling too lazy to write anything of substance. But I will say this, few things in life can compare with the joy of having a new agenda. The year still lies ahead waiting to be filled with delightful events and crappy things have yet to happen. The 4 hour ritual that is taking my brand new agenda and starting to schedule is one that I look forward to every year.

Labels: NaBloPoMo

Not much energy to post today so I'll just say this. A little while ago I wrote about a small incident I had with Bell Mobility which cost me about 45 minutes worth of my time and no small amount of frustration. But today I emerge victorious because there was a $100 credit on my last bill which I can attribute to nothing other than my raising the biggest stink I know how.

Labels: NaBloPoMo

Today is the first day it really FEELS like winter and it makes it that much harder to motivate myself to do things. Every now and then the stress level in my life dies right down. I appreciate it for the first 2 or 3 days, catch up on TV shows, go shopping, read an article or two I've been putting off, read a book for fun. Then I get apathetic, wake up later, spend inordinate amounts of time surfing the net and flat-ironing my hair until it's just so. Then I get depressed, start feeling like I lack purpose. Then I tell myself that enough is enough and if I don't make myself do things, call people, go out, wake up with my alarm, a whole month of my life will have gone by with nothing to show.

Well, I'm just starting to kick my self into that last phase and that said, it's now time to get my ass to the gym.

Labels: NaBloPoMo

This blog has been a tad depressing for the last few months.

One of my favorite blogs to stalk has signed up for something called NaBloPoMo in which you vow to blog every day for a month. And although I'm a few days late, the sentiment is admirable and worth jumping on the bandwagon for.

So to kick it off: scientific research is something which I support in principle but which is slow and unbelievably frustrating in practice. The urge to use research block as a means to getting a headstart on my Christmas shopping is overwhelming. More on the joys and wonders of designing your first study to come in the next month!

Labels: NaBloPoMo