Frankenpen

Friday, October 15, 2010

So I'm now nine weeks into medical school. It's been crazy times, filled with...well, studying. Seriously, I'd love to share some hilarious anecdote with you, but it would be something like, "Oh, and THEN I realized that phosphatidylcholine can be made via TWO DIFFERENT REACTIONS depending on the tissue of synthesis! OHHH!"

And now you are all bored.

So, instead of witty tales of sphingolipids, I'll share with you something about my method of study. I'm sort of a tactile learner, I guess, because I can remember something really well after I write it down. As such, my study regimen has come to center around hand-copying the notes I take on my computer in class. Then for each test, I rewrite a condensed study guide of the major points from each lecture.

This is no mean feat, friends. I have killed three pens so far. They were good and faithful companions for about a week, after which they pretty much kicked it. My pen habit was going to get expensive, I could tell, because I had grown accustomed to a well-shaped gel pen.

Upon killing off number three, I reached into my drawer and realized that the only economically viable option remaining was use of--I am loathe to say it--a BiC pen.

Now, nothing against BiC.

Well,

No, pretty much everything against BiC. The price is the only attractive feature on these things. They're little sticks that dig into your hand and do not make for comfy writing, especially when you're going for the marathon like I often do.

I tried using a BiC, but after just two minutes of writing I could feel my fingers aching from where its hard plastic pressed into my flesh. This, I thought, will simply not do. But what would? I can't justify buying expensive gel pens just because they feel nice in my hand!

Then the wheels started turning.

I had a pen carcass with no soul, no essence, but a perfectly viable body.

I had a BiC with a usable cartridge, but no beauty that man should it desire.

I felt a mad scientist laugh well up within me as I realized that I, Doctor Frankenstein, could raise my beloved pen from the dead by forced transfer of a foreign lifeforce!

BEHOLD WHAT SCIENCE HATH WROUGHT!





Frankenpen allows me to use BiC cartridges to my heart's (and wallet's) content, but sheathed in the surgically altered shell of my beloved gel pen.

What could possibly go wrong?

The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.
-Frankenstein,
Mary Shelley, Chapter 3, pg. 34

1 comments:

Britt said...

I could totally hear the laugh.