kate

 dear LJ,

it's been a long time. 

these days i'm struggling to understand how my struggle to understand why psychiatry is so painful for me can tell me something about who i am. if that makes sense. it's weird, i'm super interested, but it's so insanely painful. and it's not painful because it's sadder than any other illness. shit! other illnesses make even less sense to me! e.g. why someone's life should randomly be over because they happen to have childhood/young adult cancer that they had no control over. damn. it just doesn't make any sense.

maybe i'm struggling with myself. maybe i'm admitting to myself that some of my patients just drive me totally up the wall because of their illness... and that that makes me a bad person. maybe i'm annoyed at the general culture of psychiatry, because they seem to take no responsibility for the medical part, even though they ARE medical doctors. instead they get the medical students to do that part.

i'm kind of kidding though. it's 100% true, but i also wanted something dramatic to say for my first LJ post in years. i'm not really in crisis.

so...  i've more or less put my life on hold for the past 3 years. (is that really true?) it makes me want to do something crazy. something totally nuts. like go on a dissociative fugue and set up a new identity for myself somewhere in the caribbean. or get pregnant the second i can get maternity leave. heh heh heh. or (even more crazy) keep going, don't drop out of school, do my residency, try not to spend any money and pay back my 1000's of $$'s to OSAP in under 5 years, and then get a job and save money and do what i'm kind of more or less supposed to.

or i could devote more time to the guitar! yes!

sincerely yours,
katharine

sounds like an oxymoron eh? medical students protesting.... impossible!  well - i saw it.  it was really interesting. at first people were afraid to chant anything... like they all had the impression they might be doing something wrong if they were too loud... even most of the organizers had never been to a protest in their lives.  for anything.

Hey interfriends,

So... As ya'all probably know, I started this queer club for medical and dental students because i felt ridiculously isolated and a wanted people to help me try to raise awareness of queer health needs and issues among to-be-doctors... many of whom - trust me - won't get it any other way. / I also want to change the curriculum which is shitty.

We're screening C.R.A.Z.Y. to try to get people to come out on next Monday at 3:45 in the Medical McIntyre building. If anyone has any related queer event announcements I should make or any suggestions for things we should definitely do, please help and email me! Or if any Queer McGill UGE OUTLAW or other folks want to come (at least for the beginning to chat a bit) I'd like that too.

Or anything really. I haven't set the room yet, but hopefully that'll happen tomorrow.

so...
1) i'm going to ottawa probably on friday night. anyone going then? want to drive me? bus with me?
2) also, my family is planning some kind of football in the park party sunday afternoon (4:30pm?). and anyone who will be in town is invited. this kind of intergenerational sporting event should not be missed. bring your parents and grandparents.

in other news... i had a nurse-doctor event, and wished miranda and i were at the same school. we looked at/pulled out people's lungs, and they were all different colours, depending how much they smoked. (my dude only had one- poor guy) and... no one wants to join my gay club. so maybe i should just have a mcgill-medicine-sponsored party for my gay friends. anyone interested?

so... the deadline to start a medical students' club is today... what do you think of the title?

MM... SO GAY
McGill Medical Students’ Organization for GLBTQ and AllYs

any better ideas?

on campus i've been seeing some funny things. like a lady walking a rabbit on a cute little leash, a man eating a can or tuna with a fork (at second cup), and a woman (my age) with a shirt saying, "future yummy mummy". is motherhood a new trendy fetish? oh mcgill.

So these are the folks I've been spending some time with recently. Left to right, there's me (showing too much skin?), On Lee (San Franciscan, really good at frisbee), Dan (professor in Austin texas), Andrew (my ridiculous and childish supervisor), Anne-Cath (Swiss, likes cooking and horses), Dani (Swiss, likes butterflies and grasshoppers and everything) and JS (from St. Cesaire? how do you spell that anyway?) Sadly Tania is not in the picture. She's a REAL texan.

In any case, I spent some time with them. They're nice. Bear pics will follow.

hey everyone,

i might be moving to toronto next year. if i can figure out how to long-distance fill-in the acceptance forms with julia's help, that is.

Yeah the roadtrip was pretty great. Then, at the end of it, we (me, JS, AC, and Dani) stayed with hippies. Ridiculous! They were such intense hippiesd that they even had Tibetan monks to go with their prayer flags! I'm so fucking serious. I met them. The monks, that is. And I ate the monks' groceries because they eventually got on a plane and left a lot of them.

Then, saw Miranda. We watched the new Lara Croft movie. Fucking amazing. Then... drove up the island. Actually, the swiss couple had to follow our suburban (in their suburban... hahaha) because they didn't know where they were going, right? So I made them follow me into a Dairy Queen drivethru in Courtney. Which really confused them, but I thought it was funny. They ordered a small cone with blueberries - eventually... which didn't exist.

So, now I"m in Port McNeill and it's kind of like I never left. The biggest highlight I've had so far, was the impromptu Rod Stewart singalong I had with two loggers... well, actually one master mechanic for WFP and one truck driver. Hilarious.

Apart from that, I've seen a lot A LOT of animals. And been really miserably cold so that I thought i was going to die.

But I miss Montreal. Isn't that always the way? Have fun tomorrow - all y'all, riding those unicorns.

Hey!

I'm in Kamloops, BC. It's really beautiful, driving through Jasper. It snowed yesterday while we were driving. And I slept with the noise of a frequently passing train. But I'll see Miranda tonight! (With any luck!) And it's so exciting to have an all-expenses paid road trip.

I love you all! THanks for opening my mail for me.

K

hey guys,

i have a cousin working in climate change in the canadian government. she had a trip to peru planned for this week. BUT it's been cancelled:

the new government does not want her to go talk about canada's policies at the climate change conference there, because it doesn't know what its policies are anymore... (or if it has any?)

bad sign?

In other news, Heather and I (as well as having a b-day party on the 28th or 29th) have a fun date tomorrow. What for? hee hee. Strip aerobics with Carmen Electra, courtesy of S. Manns! I can't wait, hea.

Also, I found asubletter for May, meaning CS will be a st. andre resident in June once more. All great news.

who knew abalone were so beautiful?

My new favourite person (as of two days ago) is Stan Rogers. Please make CDs for me of him! Jos, I'm directing this at you, (probably) the only person who will care and/or have his music.

PS> Did you know he's a maritime fake who ACTUALLY grew up in Hamilton?

so friends, i'm trying to write a paper about... well... i haven't figured it out yet.

basically about how doctors are incompetent at talking to queer people about their sexual health. i.e. 'you don't need a pap test because you don't have intercourse with men' kind of thing?

yep. so, i don't want to only quote from scientific papers, so could anyone who has 'beef' email me? i want to have some anecdotal stuff to say too. katharine dot hudson at gmail dot com

thanks! i don't know if this is the best way to go about this kind of thing (i'm sure it isn't) but i'm doing a last minute job so i don't know what else to do.

hi everyone. i'm drunk at school again. fricken frick. why is there always free alcohol while i'm doing work? free alcohol and fake flowers with carrot petals and green onion stalks.

in any case, i'm drunk at school again. i had a lovely functional and fabulous morning with madamemalchance and some ugly chick. i had an even lovelier visit with robbie mac-g who is the best host ever. and i'm going to ottawa on monday or tuesday if anyone cares. i also stole a wine glass.

xoxo
K

I just wandered around until I found Rob's place after the int. That's how small this city is! I walked to the North End, asked where the Sobey's was, and then found it by accident. Then I walked in the back door because no one was home. I hope no alarm went off or anything. I am in intense menstrual pain, and will fall asleep now.

Also, Amanda Wilson and Celeste Yu are among the other 49 here. If I go to Opa! for dinner, I'll see them. But I think I'll lie on the couch with Scrapperton the kitten instead, and feel like dying.

Also, Halifax is cold but beautiful, and Anneka is going to Montreal next week - news for all of you interested. ANd I cried the whole way through North Country. And the int went exceedingly well.

Let me start by saying that modern air travel fucks me up. I don't actually have any idea how far I am from mtl. I keep staring at the Pacific and forgetting that that's what it is, because it should be so far away.

Well... guess what's totally beautiful? Where it's kind of a perfect temperature and the aloe plants are as tall as me and have big orange flowers on top? And where I can still run into Holly on the street corner (with planning) and see Molly wearing the same clothes and acting the same as she always did in Mtl?

Yeah yeah. I tried to give SF the montreal gossip, like they asked, but I'm afraid there wasn't that much. Help me out!

I saw Alcatraz with the fam. And some Rodin sculptures and the cable car museum. And Scream Club with Molly, Claire, and Crystal.

It's very lovely and pleasant here. It kind of makes me think that Montreal has nothing to offer! No crazy plants or high mountains with lovely views (fine one) or ocean or enormous park with buffalo and drumming hippies in it (fine we have that too). But at least we aren't anticipating earthquakes. And they don't advertise hospital ER's (only 30 minutes!) in the montreal metro because they're a consumer product (terrifying!). At least yet.

I can't wait to come home to all of you - as nice as it is.


...Also, Molly has a chicken in her back yard (she made it a coop). I picked it up, but hopefully I don't have the avian flu.

I'm going to San Fran with the family to see my aunt and uncle. Hopefully I'll see a lot of Molly, Crystal and Claire too. Wish me luck! Also, there are still 3 hours for you to give me something to take with me and deliver.