Sighing at the sea

I am wondering exactly how one can be expected to study when this is the view out my dorm window:

...it's as if the sea is taunting me while I study the venous sinuses of the brain.

Speaking of the brain, this past week, we actually sawed into a human skull, reached behind the cerebellum, severed the spinal cord and removed the brain...it was a most surreal experience.  Anatomy lab is the only part of medical school which doesn't make me feel like a bumbling idiot thus far - perhaps because it is the only class in which anything I learned in engineering seems to be helpful (just think of a muscle as a rope and the orbit/insertion as the attachment points - then 'supination' becomes a positive torque and 'pronation' a negative).

I think coming to Beirut has made me more honest - this past week, I had two experiences which have convinced me of this.  In the first, someone told me that given what they see on TV, it was tempting to think of Americans as stupid.  This is certainly not an unusual comment - the perceptions of America and Americans here are almost as skewed as the perceptions of the Middle East and Arabs in the states.  However, given I was in a very bad mood, I decided to give responding  a shot.  I very calmly asked if this person thought of me as stupid - "no, not at all" came the response.  I asked if she thought of me as fat, lazy or closed-minded, "of course not" she responded.  "So, do you figure I'm unique or do you suppose there just might be others like me?" I asked before walking away.

The second involved a third-year medical student who stopped me in the streets and asked if I was enjoying medical school.  I thought about it for a while, then responded "no, not at all."  "But you are happy overall here in Lebanon?" he continued.  "No - not at all" I responded again.  "Well, I really hope it gets better" he replied.  "Me too" I said before we shook hands and parted.

A week from this coming Wednesday, Brooke arrives to visit me - I have never looked forward to anything this much in my life.