A request, a book I didn’t finish, socks + flip-flops, and more

Today’s a holiday here in the U.S., so I’m gonna just throw out a few random things in today’s post!

1. A preemptive political request

Here in the U.S., we have a presidential election coming up soon. Americans are pretty divided politically, so emotions are running high on all sides.

Speaking of all sides, I know that the commentariat here is comprised of people with diverse political viewpoints. We are here not because we all belong to one political party, but because we share common ground around things like frugal living, caring for the earth, and appreciating the blessings in our lives.

I understand that everyone holds their political views for reasons that feel important to them. I mean, most of us think our particular political views are the correct ones and that those views/policies will most benefit the country.

I also understand that these things do warrant discussion. But I want to make clear that this blog is not the place for those discussions.

There are a million and one other places on the internet (and in real life) where you can discuss the election, the candidates, and politics in general, so let’s save that for those places.

I’d like this blog to be an oasis of sorts.

It’s sort of like how there are myriad places on the internet where you can be sarcastic and abrasive. I want my blog to be a place of respite from that.

I try very hard to avoid comment moderation and deletion, but please know that if you post something that will disrupt the oasis here, I’m going to remove it.

And that’s both because I want this to feel like a safe oasis for everyone, and also because I do not have the time or energy it would take to monitor a bunch of political discussions here. I need to focus on nursing school. 🙂 )

I don’t want you to walk on eggshells in your comments after reading this; there has been relatively little political discussion here up to this point, and I appreciate that!

So, don’t read this and think, “Omg, what did I post that made Kristen frustrated?” I’m really writing this to prevent things from spiraling in these next few months and to make expectations clear.

If you operate with kindness and consideration, the things you post will probably be just fine. 🙂

2. A medical memoir I cannot recommend

Since I wrote that post with tiny reviews of all the medical memoirs I’ve read, a small publisher reached out to me to ask if I’d be willing to review one if they sent me a copy.

I said yes, and over summer break, I started reading it.

I am sorry to say that I thought it was….not good.

For one thing, the writing style is dry, with no personality. It was sort of like reading a doctor’s note in a medical record, and the characters feel flat and robotic.

Secondly, it really, really needed more editing. For example, there are lots of situations where the same word or phrase is used in consecutive sentences (and not in the artistic way of using repetition.) 

Also, you know that rule, “Show, don’t tell.”? Oh my goodness, there are so many instances where the author needed to follow that recommendation.

In short, a solid editor would have made a lot of changes before publishing the book.

Thirdly, it’s quite sexist. I lost count of the number of times the author introduced a female character with descriptors such as “very attractive”, “shapely”, or “cute and slim”.

And the worst case, which made me stop reading, was the chapter where he described a patient as wearing a “white blouse, which was stretched by large breasts.”

Then…the doctor asked her if she’d had a boob job!

And the conversation that follows with her and the two doctors is so ridiculous, I just cannot with it.

She says yes, that she did get a boob job, doctor #1 asks her what her husband thinks, the patient says her husband is happy, and then the patient asks doctor #2’s opinion on her boob job.*

I quote:

“I’d say your surgeon did a good job.” he said, and smiled.

What??? The guy who wrote this book is a psychiatrist, but this reads like some fantasy about what he hopes and wishes an OB/GYN rotation would be: a chance to rate people’s boob jobs.

I was so irritated at this point, I quit reading. Life is too short to read books that make me annoyed.

This book is going into my recycling bin, and it will not be on my medical memoir list.

*It is worth noting that every single bit of this boob job story (and yes, that’s the term he used, vs. “breast augmentation”) is male-centric. We learn what the male doctors think and what her husband thinks, and doctor #2 muses that perhaps she got the boob job because she thought it would help her succeed in her job as a pharmaceutical representative.)

Go read When Breath Becomes Air instead. It’s one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read, and it’s written by a respectful male doctor. Or for a laugh, read Adam Kay’s hilarious This is Going to Hurt.

3. I’m so stylish

My work shoes were in my car so I walked out of my house in my compression socks and flip-flops.

Follow me for more style tips.

4. Fake news: 4850%

There’s an error in Canvas for our class, so we have astonishingly high grades for a moment.

That’s a lotta margin even for me. 😉

But imagine how low-stress the rest of the semester would be if you started out that high!

5. What happens if you fail the math test

A reader was inquiring about what happens at my school if you fail the math test (which means getting more than two problems wrong).

Two days after that, you get one more chance to take it (with all new questions), and if you don’t get a 90% that time, you have to sit out the semester.

That failure counts as one of your two strikes, so then if you fail any class at all for the rest of the program, you get removed from the nursing program entirely.

Sooo, if you fail the math exam, then everything after that is extremely high-stakes.

And that is why this exam causes all of us so much stress.

Thank goodness I only have to do this one more time, at the beginning of fourth semester.

Alrighty, that’s all I’ve got for today. 🙂 Enjoy your holiday if you are in the U.S., and I’ll see you tomorrow for Five Frugal Things.