The new TV

I am writing a quick post in the midst of studying for my block three exam to show everyone the new TV!!! Oh and the Christmas tree too.
The TV is the same one Bryan bought this summer, the Samsung PN50A450. At 50 inches, it does look a tad over-sized as far as the decor of the apartment goes. However, last night Lisa and I watched Babel and it is simply incredible for watching movies.

Now that we also have a 750W Onkyo HTIB system for 5.1 surround, and I feel like our "apartment sized" home theater is well put together.

Today we turned the heat on for the first time, which was a wierd thing to do in Houston. It is supposed to be in the 70's next week, and I think that Lisa and I are in for a shock when we go home!

P.S. I've posted some pictures from a trip Lisa and I took to a farm on my Picasa site. The link is over on the right, "My Photos".

Black Mesa

I just saw this trailer for a fan made remake of Half-Life 1 using the source engine. I guess it has been in development for almost 4 years now, and the new trailer they just released looks amazing. It might be worth another play through the game (my 4th time?) Ignore the white space below; I'm too tired to figure out how to make it go away right now.
P.S. Our new TV comes Thursday, so I'll post pictures of the new home theater and our Christmas tree sometime after that

Shocking News

After class today we were told to stay a bit longer to hear an important announcement. I was expecting an update about President Traber (who did step down today) or maybe the Rice/Baylor merger plans, but instead we were told that one of our classmates had committed suicide. The student was an MS1 in my class, but I never had much contact with him and never really knew who he was. This loss is going to be hard for everyone at Baylor, but it is going to be especially difficult for his brother, who is also a student at Baylor.

This is the second suicide Baylor has had in two years. A MS1 also committed suicide last year during the first fall semester just over a year ago. It is hard to know how much the stresses of med student life contributed to these events, but what we do know is that med students are a very depressed bunch. I never got around to writing a post about it, but there were several good articles in the New York Times and on Slate.com about med student depression.

Baylor's administration has already been very responsive and I'm sure they will be continuing to work on ways to get students better supported as they start their intense medical education.

Rice-Baylor College of Medicine?

For those not up on their Texas Medical Center gossip, some relatively big stuff has been going down at Baylor lately. The Houston Chronicle had an article a few days ago reporting that President Traber will likely be asked by the board of trustees to step down this Wednesday. My understanding of the situation is limited, but I have heard that it stems from the decisions he made shortly after becoming president in 2003.

He wanted Baylor to have its own hospital, and he pushed plans to build it next to the VA hospital just next to the medical center. Baylor had long had good relationships with the hospitals in the med center; it partnered with Texas Childrens hospital, Ben Taab, the VA, and the Methodist hospital very closesly for a long time. However, the new hospital would compete directly with the Methodist hospital, and the plans put so much strain on the relationship that Baylor stopped working with Methodist completely as a result.

The new Baylor hospital has turned out to be more expensive than expected, and the worsening economic crisis has only made things worse. This has resulted with close talks with Rice University about a merger that may get approved in the coming months. A former Baylor president, Dr. Butler, is expected to take over, and it will be interesting to see how he handles the merger possibility.

Personally, I have no clue why Baylor would want to build another hospital in the med center, which already has something like 12 hospitals in one spot. I do understand the desire for autonomy, and most elite medical schools do have their own teaching hospital. However, Bayor is unique in its location in the medical center, and another hospital was simply not something it needed. I hope my tuition doesn't go up...

Sick Around The World

For my health policy class, we were assigned to watch part of a Frontline documentary called Sick Around The World. The documentary feels kind of like Sicko when Michael Moore is examining the heath care systems of other countries, except I think that T.R. Reid gives the issue a more even-handed treatment. If you want to watch some of the documentary, it is available online and is broken up into segments by country.

12 Days

This past Friday Baylor had its traditional "12 Days" celebration. This is a yearly event which honors the mere 12 days of class the second years have before they take exams and finish their pre-clinical courses (of course they have THREE straight weeks of exams... yikes!) The event is a conglomeration of short skits that these days were all done as videos and put together in a large movie. One second year was actually a film major in college, and the editing was quite good.

Interestingly, there is an article on slate.com about exactly these types of shows. Our skits contained some of the things that the article talked about, but nothing that I would say was too shocking or offensive. Most of the videos were just parodies of TV shows and songs, as well as some poking fun of the many professors we have at Baylor. I really enjoyed the video, but I agree with the author that these are probably best left for a closed medical school audience. Besides, who would want to sit through two hours of inside jokes that they don't understand? Lisa made the right choice and stayed home.

Gone Forever

My green mountain bike was stolen last week. I kept it locked up on the first floor of our parking garage. A few days ago Lisa and I parked right in front of where it should have been, and all we found was the clipped lock. I received the bike as a birthday present almost nine years ago, so maybe it was time to move on. Luckily, I have kept my nice road bike inside the apartment, and now I think it will stay that way year round. Oh the bitterness of big city crime!