No, not an animal...

I was walking in the markets with a friend last Saturday. I was enjoying it as per normal, meaning liking it and hating everyone who even minutely made it worse for me. A lot of people bring their dogs and it's pretty annoying: it's crowded and narrow-walkways and a dog on a leash makes the traffic build up like crazy. We were walking behind a woman with her dog and I whispered to my friend, "ugh, I hate it when people bring their dogs to the market!"
*sometimes, in a crowded and loud area, there's a point where somehow all other sounds die. at this moment, a whisper seems to travel like an arrow straight into the auricle of another person, heard as clear as a bell*
She turns around, face pre-set to livid. The following exchange takes place:
Crazy woman, "you don't think I should bring my dog here?!!?!? they're allowed here!!
Me, "I know they are, but I think it's a little annoying"
CW, "why can't I bring my dog here?? dogs aren't allowed anywhere!"
M, "actually, they are..."
CW, "you know what? you're an animalist!"
My friend, "okay, guys, things were said, let's just cool down"
M, "okay, whatever"
CW, "you know who shouldn't be allowed in the markets?! immigrants! immigrants like you!"
M, "oh really? your family is originally from Australia right? all your ancestors originally came for Australia?"
CW, "you know what? you're an ignoramus!!"
M, "okay, whatever. bye"
as we're walking away, my friend says, "good job, michael. you had to pick a fight with the only person at this market who's a huge dickhead."
The woman was left behind literally shaking in anger, with her boyfriend holding her and trying to calm her down.
Some notes that only make me happier:
-My friend is a professional mediator so she was good about stepping up. The woman was with a boyfriend (or husband or something) and he didn't say peep!
-I remained calm the whole time. I didn't shout or anything to give her the satisfaction
-My response about her not being originally from Aus. was pretty awesome - I'm quite proud of it. It's a bit of a touchy subject with Australians and it's one of those things that you usually think of 5 minutes later when you replay the conversation in your head.
Otherwise, things have been pretty good. It's autumn here and getting a bit chilly, but quite beautiful. The mornings are so blue and clear and nice. School is full on. Let me talk a bit about school these days, as I haven't mentioned anything this new year. 2nd year is much more intense: it's much more focused on pathology but we're still learning new basic things everyday. In addition, we're supposed to know everything we learned last year and it's just a lot of shit. The other big difference is clinical experience. Last year our clinical coaching (once a week thing where you learn how to do physical exams) was mainly on each other. This year we go around and poke and prod on real patients with real problems and actually get to see stuff. In addition, we're expected to go around on our own once a week and talk to a patient and get a full history and do a bit of physical examination as well. I do like it, I must declare. Talking to a person under that kind of context is quite a unique experience: someone you've never seen before and most likely will never see will tell you about their pains, their depression, their bowel habits, their marriage, their addictions, the problems they have. All while they're sitting in bed, bored and sick and in hospital attire, and you're in a chair dressed up. It's a bit enjoyable, even when the person has hard stuff to talk about, and makes me think that maybe I am going into the right field. Woo!
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Well, I kind of suspected, but it's good to know. A lot of people are really into the whole "antioxidants, d00d, they totally heal your body!" fad that has spread like wildfire, supplying people with the easy false hope they crave and depleting their cash (according to the BBC, the vitamin-supplement market is around $2.5 billion). Well, a Cochrane review article came out saying that there's no proof that anti-oxidants are helpful for sick or healthy people. They can even increase mortality! Ha! Now, this isn't some news article or even a journal article but a meta-analysis review which, from a statistical perspective, is as close to dogma as it gets. The review looked at 67 randomized trials with a total of over 220,000 patients to get to this conclusion. Cochrane.org is an awesome website that I go to to search for scienticious stuff and I recommend dabbling around in it yourselves: it's free and they usually include a "plain language summary" in their reviews. So what? just eat well, people, that's it! Sheesh!