Healthy Living
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Greetings,
As a society, we are obsessed with health. It has many manifestations across all levels of society. Three examples that I've experience in the last two days are thus;
"I don't want to be sick anymore; I don't like my finger nails having ridges."
"Last year, my mates just ate junk food leading into exams and they got some sort of food poisoning."
"I feel really well within myself, I'm so lucky."
Two of these statements were made by medical students, the other by a diabetic 75 year old lady with neuropathy that's led to having her leg amputated. My point is not to bitch about how clueless most people are about their own health. It's more to illustrate the perceptions of health and how they differ in groups....
Okay; so not really feeling a decent spiel about that. Yet.
Batman is currently watching Ugly Betty. I'm not a big fan, but apparently lots of people are. There are also lots of people in Med; like 400 in my year group. Anyway, where I'm heading with this is nicknames. Obviously it's impossible to instantly learn 400 names from the word go, and since I knew all of two people in the course prior, a few of the more notable figures have developed nicknames.
The nicknames aren't all my own doing (I'm not that original), but they're good identifiers when talking to others about intraclass gossip.
Back to the point; there's a girl in my class nicknamed Ugly Betty. She's lovely, and I'm more than familiar with her name... now. When I didn't she was the girl who dressed interestingly, alarmingly and, well, like Ugly Betty.
I'm gonna fly through a bunch of other nicknames:
Blotchy
Choo-choo-b'chutch
Orange Hair
Nerdo
Ano Girl
Irish
The Girl with the world's smallest bladder
Journo Guy
The guy with the Cerebellar gate
Really Old Guy
Motorcycle Chick
Army Guy
The Winemaker
Partyboy
The Path nerd
I wish I was British
Poor cleavage management
The handbag
The Redneck
I'm sure there are others in different groups; I've probably got one in there somewhere.
Tomorrow morning we'll all be the same; it's exam day.
As a society, we are obsessed with health. It has many manifestations across all levels of society. Three examples that I've experience in the last two days are thus;
"I don't want to be sick anymore; I don't like my finger nails having ridges."
"Last year, my mates just ate junk food leading into exams and they got some sort of food poisoning."
"I feel really well within myself, I'm so lucky."
Two of these statements were made by medical students, the other by a diabetic 75 year old lady with neuropathy that's led to having her leg amputated. My point is not to bitch about how clueless most people are about their own health. It's more to illustrate the perceptions of health and how they differ in groups....
Okay; so not really feeling a decent spiel about that. Yet.
Batman is currently watching Ugly Betty. I'm not a big fan, but apparently lots of people are. There are also lots of people in Med; like 400 in my year group. Anyway, where I'm heading with this is nicknames. Obviously it's impossible to instantly learn 400 names from the word go, and since I knew all of two people in the course prior, a few of the more notable figures have developed nicknames.
The nicknames aren't all my own doing (I'm not that original), but they're good identifiers when talking to others about intraclass gossip.
Back to the point; there's a girl in my class nicknamed Ugly Betty. She's lovely, and I'm more than familiar with her name... now. When I didn't she was the girl who dressed interestingly, alarmingly and, well, like Ugly Betty.
I'm gonna fly through a bunch of other nicknames:
Blotchy
Choo-choo-b'chutch
Orange Hair
Nerdo
Ano Girl
Irish
The Girl with the world's smallest bladder
Journo Guy
The guy with the Cerebellar gate
Really Old Guy
Motorcycle Chick
Army Guy
The Winemaker
Partyboy
The Path nerd
I wish I was British
Poor cleavage management
The handbag
The Redneck
I'm sure there are others in different groups; I've probably got one in there somewhere.
Tomorrow morning we'll all be the same; it's exam day.
