Hurricane Katrina

So the grand experiment of Rachel leaving New York has been thrown a major blow - a Class 5 Hurricane sized blow named Katrina. As of Friday night, we knew the hurricane was coming, but no one was really concerned about it. The T2s and 3s partied, my imaginary boyfriend hit on Kathriel, Celeste and I studied like it was no one's business for our tests on Monday. All was copacetic. We wake up in the morning and within 15 seconds of me signing online Emily ims me asking where I'm going to study. Then we start hearing about the weather reports. Still, everyone is all concerned about studying and the tests and no one is leaving until we hear that our exam is officially cancelled. Yes, those are med students for you. Okay, so we finally get the email saying that school is closed, everything is cancelled, everyone should leave (including the entire crop of freshman undergrads who were conveniently moving in this weekend, but that isn't my story to tell). So my friends and I start trying to figure out what to do, and we decide to go to Celeste's parent's house in Alexandria, which is in central Louisiana. All right, we have four hours to pack and get ourselves ready to go. The highlight was definitely talking to Josh, who doesn't even realize that a hurricane was coming. (its okay, the boy hasn't had a working computer for a few days) That in itself would have been okay, but when I told him that yes, there was a hurricane, his reaction was, "but its really nice outside." Yes, there's a future neurosurgeon for you.

Okay, gotta go, but will post more later.

For Ish...

Today Harvard football guy spent a lot of time on the Harvard football website. He then spent the rest of the class looking for tickets from New Orleans to Boston, which makes me think he's probably going back to Harvard for Homecoming, or the Harvard Yale game, or whatever it is that is exciting for a football player.

I wonder what #44 is doing now... I should facebook him.

Okay, just facebooked #44. He's workign as an analyst for Citigroup in Boston and is still with the girlfriend. Alas.

Celeste seems to think now is a good time to talk about translation.

Thoughts from the back row

Okay, I've decided that I absolutely must be early to class. There are too many sucky seats to like, come in late and end up in the back. The architecture of this room is absolutely ridiculous in that the ceiling slant is shallower than the room slant, so if you're in the back row, the top of board is cut off by the ceiling. Its also really hard to hear because the speakers and microphones don't really work all that well, and when they do, speaker placement is a bit shady.

There's this girl in my med school class who's profile looks a lot like someone I went to high school with. Every time I see her from the side, I get kind of freaked out.

PS, I found out that super gunner (from my last entry) has a blog. Its awesome, as is he.

Daisy asks lots of questions. Josh says she has a really sketchy boyfriend. I'm not looking forward to having her in my group for Foundations in Medicine.

I'm fairly certain that my Cell Bio prof is a big stoner, which is cool. He is easily the most entertaining of our profs so far.

The Gunner

Med school has brought about a whole new breed of students - the gunner. The gunner is basically the on crack version of the front row pre-med from undergrad. The ultimate gunner in our class is definitely the dude who has the drawing program installed on his computer and has a USB pad that connects that lets him draw along with the lecture. Its hilarious to sit behind him and watch as he copies the power point drawings into this program, which he has running along side his notes.

Lots of people use computers in med school, including me. At any given time, people are on im, checking email, reading the sports pages (which is the only thing i've seen the awesome Harvard football guy do). The highlight has definitely been the amazingly loud im sound during the middle of Cell Bio. If the prof wasn't such a stoner, he probably would have cared.

Okay, I can't pay attention to class and do this at the same time, I'll update more later.

The Rebuttal

Yes, yes, I know that I've been neglecting the blog lately. I apologize profusely. Lets just say they weren't kidding when they said that med school was a lot of work. In fact, I've been so out of it that I haven't even noticed that Evan has responded to Ilana's post. I am so sorry to all. Anyway, her are Evan's comments.

EVAN said...

WELL ILANA!

let me just say, i still believe you all put too much faith into this arch. i really don't think its coming back. they didn't all hear the voices behind it, ONLY harry and luna did, just like only harry and luna saw those horse things that pull the carriages. i think she intentionally made it harry and luna again to kind of intensify her character. while luna is a little loopy and says she alwyas hears the voices they are still there etc etc. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT HARRY IS NOT CRAZY AND KNOWS WHAT LUNA ACTUALLY MEANS, that we always hear the voices of the dead in our own minds because they never actually leave our minds and hearts etc etc. that's what i think, it's easier for rowling to get that point across with something like an arch where there is no actualy visible death only like, a "passing" instead of having sirius be murdered and dead on the ground. by having him just kind of, fall into death and disappear, it's easier for her to convey the idea to the children and adult readers that when someone dies they aren't completely gone.

i really believe that. you'll all think im a genius someday.

First of all, Evan, I already think you're a genius. Secondly, the horse things were called thestrals, and I believe that Neville could see them too. Personally, I would like some closure with the arch. I want to know what the voices were, and I hope that JKR explains it in the last (tear) book. Evan's points are good, but I think its just a bit too metaphorical. JKR doesn't seem to be one for mentioning something and then not going back to it. I think we were all able to see that when she made Chamber of Secrets relevant four books later.

good point

oh, what i'll do to not study...

MICHELLE (12:22:17 PM): I lied about the sword destroying the journal - I think it was the snake's tooth!

good point! how could we all miss that?

now, back to anatomy!

Its been a while

but yes, there is more Harry discussion! I know that I've been pretty bad about posting lately, but I promise that I'll soon do a "beginning of med school recap" or something. Lets just start out by saying that my first exam is in two weeks, which is just ridiculous. But enough of that. Onward to Harry!!

ILANA (1:50:39 AM): i completely think you're right that Petunia is a squib
ILANA (1:50:58 AM): i also want to reitterate that i'm certain the heavy locket no one could open (from book 5) is one of the horcruxes
ILANA (1:53:53 AM): i disagree with your buddy who says that voices behind the arch in the ministry of magic are metaphorical. that isn't how J. K. Rowling works...it's a far too concrete reference to be a mere metaphor (afterall, why would they all be hearing the voices by the arch if it were just a metaphor...they could be hearing them anywhere) and she likes to throw random things out and only explain them one or more books later. she's a whiz at tying up loose ends...i would be shocked if the arch doesn't come back to play later. i don't think that Dumbledore or Sirius will come back in the flesh though, although i do believe there may be "relics" or clues they have left behind with the intention of guiding Harry at the right time...and in that way, they will emerge again.

Sigh. I love Harry.

Back to Harry

From Michelle:

MICHELLE (7:10:33 AM): I have a Harry Potter comment!
MICHELLE (7:10:54 AM): How could the sword be a horcrux if Harry used it to destroy another horcrux? Can he do that?

Ooh, an intriguing thought... I don't know. Seriously, we have to know more about the rules of horcruxes. That could be an interesting point. If it were the case that one horcrux cannot destroy another horcrux, then Harry himself could not be a horcrux, because he (with the sword, of course) destroyed the diary... hmmm...

A Non-Harry Update

So, my last 58 blog entries have been related to Harry Potter, so I thought that maybe I should give an update on whats been going on in my life, because I clearly finished Harry Potter weeks ago.

So, I moved to New Orleans. Yes, I have left New York. Even I can't believe it sometimes. I'm starting Tulane Medical School on Friday, so last weekend we packed up the Civic and my mom and I drove down here. Let me tell you, it is not fun. Driving for 20+ hours with my mom was quite an experience.

My mom is kind of crazy. She's just nuts. We left New York at 5:30 AM. She started the drive, because I clearly wasn't operating heavy machinery at that hour. She drove for the first 7 hours, which were pretty uneventful. I get behind the wheel and within the first 15 minutes there is a monsoon and we find out that the road we need to take is closed in Tennessee. We had to take a detour on some random local roads. Rural Tennessee seems to be quite the shitty place to live. We spent the night in Chattanooga after what could only be described as an epic battle. At about 7:30 my mom decided we should stop for the night. At that point I was revitalized and wide awake and wanted to keep driving. She wanted to go to Applebee's and check into a hotel and go to sleep. Of course, in the end, she won. I did make her stop at a Barnes and Noble in between Applebee's and the hotel, but it was still a defeat.

The next morning we didn't have to start driving until 7:30, which my mom considered a gift. I drove most of the way through Alabama and part of Mississippi. There is a shitload of nothing in Alabama. Its literally the definition of the open road. I know that New York and the northeast in general is an aberration in comparison to the rest of the country, but it always surprises me to not have roads insanely congested with traffic (hello, the Cross Island) and people cutting you off and not letting you merge, etc. I wonder what some of these Alabamites would do if they were suddenly plopped down in their pickup trucks on the LIE. They'd probably take a shotgun off the gunrack and start blowing out tires.

By the time we got to New Orleans, my mom was driving again. New Orleans has annoying driving rules. You can't make lefthand turns anywhere that you might need to make one. Instead you have to make u-turns or lots of rights. Now, lets go back to my mom, and remember that she's crazy. Something like a traffic law and clearly marked signs isn't going to stop her. No, she needs to make a left and goddammit, she will do it. She didn't get any tickets or anything, but that was the last time I let her drive.

So I drove for the rest of the weekend. The driving through the city wasn't bad. What was bad was my mom. She may be the direction queen in New York, but she's not as skilled in New Orleans. That didn't stop her from thinking she was a human map. The highlight was deifnitely her yelling at me that I needed to develop a sense of direction (looking at a map is a sign of weakness!) and then her directing me into the back parking lot of the Superdome. Seriously, I had been there for 1 DAY! Its kind of a confusing city, because its a crescent shape, and roads are curved to fit with that. Plus, everything has names, which is way harder than trying to get from 72nd and 1st to 84th and 5th. Much less intuitive. Its not helped by the fact that a lot of the names change depending on which part of the city you're in. I was quite relieved to drop her off at the airport on Sunday night.

Spending that much time with just my mom was weird. We definitely ran out of things to talk about by the second day of driving. It got a little bit better once we got into the city and started setting up the apartment. It must have been kind of weird for her. I hope that I never get to a point where I have absolutely nothing to say to my child. I guess its inevitable, though. It made for some quiet driving, which was uncomfortably filled by "I am Charlotte Simmons" on CD, which was really good, but had a bit too much sex to be comfortably listened to with one's mother.

Alas, I'm here now. Its been a little boring because I really don't know anyone yet, so i've been sleeping a lot and watching some TV and trying to get myself psyched up for classes, which start next week. I've ventured out to go shopping a few times (Walmart was completely overwhelming) and tomorrow I might try to go to the mall. We'll see.

I heart Evan for posting

OKAY! I'm going to continue being the only one to discuss Harry Potter on your blog, but I have more to say.

About the Arch, PERSONALLY, i don't think it will be brought up again, atleast not significantly. I think the voices that Harry and Luna heard were almost metaphorical or something. Rowling's way of telling Harry and Luna and us that even though someone dies they're not gone forever, they're still with you in your head, in your heart and mind, you can still "hear" them, etc.

I think that was the lesson we were supposed to get from the mysterious curtain. Although I think she used it and the voices to kind of make it creepy and magical and mysterious i think she still uses all of these things to give some kind of greater meaning, like what i suggested above.

Eh, I'd still like some more closure... at least someone from the Ministry of Magic explaining to Harry that they don't really know what the arch is or how it works, only that those who cross through never come back. And is it possible that Voldemort turned the Gryffindor sword into a horcrux back in the day? I don't remember what the books said. ack!