Spring – when a young man’s fancy turns to…

Growing up in Regina – the only major city in the country that’s not on a coastline or riverbank – you miss out on the Canadian springtime ritual: flooding. All that winter snow has to go somewhere, right? (Vancouver and Victoria don’t count – you just get the once-a-century tsunami instead. It balances out, I guess.) In Fredericton, it’s business as usual.

Of course since the city’s been around for over 250 years they’ve managed to come up with a reasonable solution: don’t build anything important within 6,5m of the bank. But when the sky is clear and the temperature’s a balmy 20-degrees and your fancy turns to a long-awaited run or ride along the river valley, you do kind of wish they could come up with a way to keep the trails open.

It’s not just the water that puts the trails out of commission, at least for a little while – you also get a flotsam (or is it jetsam?) (Edit: I guess it’s neither) bunch of junk that washes up and gets in the way. Driftwood and such – at least, nothing in the news of anything more “exciting” ever washing up on the banks of the Saint John. That is a good thing.

These two obviously have their springtime in Fredericton down pat:

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Washed out trails didn’t stop the first Critical Mass of the year starting up though.

I always wanted to check one of these out. Basically, you get a bunch of people on bikes together, and you go around on the street. You don’t really go anywhere in particular – that’s part of how it’s supposed to work, no organisation, no set route – it’s just to be on the road, safety in numbers together, alongside cars and trucks and such, asserting the common privilege (not a right, of course) of operating a vehicle, motorised or otherwise.

The clichéd confrontation – angry driver: “You’re blocking traffic!” Angry cyclist: “I am traffic!” I don’t know if that actually happens. When I was in Victoria and Vancouver I never saw any Critical Mass events; I guess since biking is already a part of everyday life and traffic there there’s no need to state the obvious. The same way how the rest of the world wouldn’t need them either – you’d never hear of cyclists needing to assert their existence in, say, Amsterdam, or Beijing.

According to Wikipedia, sometimes there are conflicts involving Critical Mass – apparently enough to warrant an entire article, “Conflicts involving Critical Mass”. Like all conflicts generally, this happens when people become immature and decide to flout the law – drivers fail to yield or drive unsafely around the bikes, or cyclists ignore the rules of the road and actively obstruct traffic.

I wasn’t sure how Fredericton Critical Mass usually behaves, so I wanted to hang back and see what everyone else does before actually joining in. If it was just going to be some kind of perverse “revenge” against drivers and an excuse to piss them off, count me out. Everyone looked pretty nice though; and, the majority of people had helmets too, so they seemed like a reasonable bunch.

It was supposed to start up at around 5.30 or so, but when 5.45 came around and I was getting restless and hungry, I went for dinner instead and just lazed around the park. Enjoy it while it lasts – who knows, by this time tomorrow it’ll be flooded over.

Going, going…

All that talk about airports on the last post, and I forgot to mention “mine” – YYJ. Victoria’s airport, fresh after some expansion and renovations a little while ago – it’s still got that new airport smell, and does the city a fantastic job making those first impressions and last looks. It’s been such a welcome “welcome back” the past two years.

Wood-framed floor-to-ceiling windows let in precious sunlight (precious – it is the rainy Pacific coast, after all)

There is a skybridge for the WestJet 737s and Air Canada Airbuses, but most flights are Dash 8s or CRJs (or, at most, Embraers), and you have to step out to the tarmac to board/deplane – fortunately (almost) never any cold or snow to worry about, and the rain canopy’s only a few steps away

Plenty of art to fill the space and waiting time – it’s actually worth coming early to take it all in! There’s the whimsical

and dynamic – it moves!

and a taste of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria collection on the walls too

As you’d expect from the “cycling capital of Canada”, there’s bike racks, and for those true Victorians who fly with their bikes, a reassembly stand to put it back together and get back to town

And banners in the carpark add some colour

This series actually used to be on streetlights Downtown (specifically, these ones in Chinatown), but they moved them out to the airport as a new edition of banners went live

Banners are great for city streets. They make so much more sense than permanent signs: you can change them and rotate them around between sites for variety, they take on different looks with the changing daylight, the fluttering in the wind adds a life and energy you can’t get from motionless signs or ornaments, and when they’re worn out, you can just make more!

I feel like I’ve said ‘bye to Victoria so many times already the past two years, getting spun around for rural placements every few months. I always did a sort of “farewell” tour each time – one “last” run, one “last” coffee stop, one “last” Munro’s book buy and all that – but of course I’d be coming back anyway in just a few short weeks, so they weren’t really good-byes at all. I guess they were just sort of dress rehearsals for the “real” farewell, now.

Everything taken off the walls, unhung from the doorknobs, packed up and ready to go. I don’t know how long it usually takes to pack up an apartment or house, but I thought the movers were pretty quick: my entire 1-bedroom, boxed up in a hour and a half.

The funny thing is, I guess having said all those “good-byes” over the past two years, it actually doesn’t feel so sad to leave now. I know it’s not that I wasn’t around long enough to get attached to the place, or make enough memories and experiences – I do have 8Gb of photos (which, by the way, did get recovered from my laptop) to prove I lived here, after all. Maybe having left and returned so many times, to find everything just as I remembered it, and just as quality as ever, I know it’ll always be there.

That’s said, there’s things I’m really going to miss. And I don’t just mean the pretty touristy frills that are making so many cruise ships and tour buses stop by this time of year, and seduce people to marry and retire here (Victoria is home of the newly-wed and nearly-dead, as they say) – though of course, that was all bonus.

But I’m really going to miss the basics of city living it does so well that make the place great for people who actually call Victoria home. One of my preceptors looked at my rotation schedule and said I “go through cities like most guys go through women” – but I’m really not so promiscuous about it! It’s a city’s substance, the “inner beauty” that I’m looking for; the unappreciated things normal people don’t take pictures of – like the airport, and those banners.

I’ll miss the consistent street signs in Clearview

and the free-flowing roundabouts instead of frustrating stop-and-go intersections

and the hanging flower baskets

I’ll miss all the cycling amenities

and that it’s a place where bike stands actually get packed

and that they’ve got Momentum for free at newsstands! The usual bike magazines make cycling look like the exclusive domain of Lance Armstrongs and such; it’s nice to have something that shows slower people doing mundane, everyday commutes can be cool too.

I’ll miss the random wildlife that, urban as the city is, still manage to carve out their own niches

I’ll miss cafés all over the place to write postcards

and catch poetry slams

and study

and study

and study

or just snack

I’ll miss the street art

and the power transformer box and emergency supplies container art

and the independent cinema, that’s always packed and popular: the Cinecenta at UVic

and random film fests

and all the restaurants – most restaurants per capita in Canada after Montreal; and since Victoria’s so much less-spread out, it feels like there was a favourite on every corner. There’s the Baan Thai

and Rosie’s Diner

and the Little Thai Place

I’ll miss that the local Filipino community has its own community centre, and has weekly home-cooked meals for people like me who don’t have mums and dads around to cook up old favourites (or big kitchens and vents to dare trying making them at home)

I’ll miss the things you just stumble into that pique your curiosity and get your heart and mind racing, like Café Philosophy

or Nato protests

or car accidents

and the things you just stumble into that pique your curiosity and get your heart and mind settled and calmed, like Botanical Beach

or Gowlland Tod

or the University Chapel

I’ll miss that there’s not just the usual public art galleries, but random independent private ones too

I’ll miss that even low-rise apartment buildings, office parks and suburban strip malls put some effort and have some standards into how they’re planned and built and look

And though I never used them, I’ll miss that taxis are low-emission Priuses and not lumbering full-size gas-guzzling American cars

All in all, I’ll miss that it was a city I could actually say I was proud of, that it was a healthy city, that it got the basics done pat. Kudos to everyone who, in their own way, big or little, appreciated or not, make Victoria what it is. Some of my medical rotations took me to not-so-nice places I wish I could be mayor for a day or year, so I could fix them up. But never Victoria. If anything, being Victoria’s mayor must be a pretty intense, scary job – knowing that the city has so much going for it as it is, I’d be constantly worried about not keeping up and dropping the ball.

But at least as Mayor you get a great reserved parking spot Downtown – now that I’d take in a heartbeat

So one last rummage through the bargain books

get the mail forwarded to my parents’ address

and one last café stop to post these photos

and, of course, add a UBC sticker to my car rear window – this is the real reason why I keep signing up for higher education, the stickers

And that’s that.

Three flashbacks

Back in Victoria on a week’s leave (and to do the yearly military fitness test – I passed), reliving my old haunts again. Flashback: for some reason every time I return I don’t actually live new things, but only relive the places I’ve missed since first-year. Well, I did mix it up a little: instead of the usual Starbucks grande dark and a Svelte strawberry yoghurt, I detoured to Bubby Rose’s, a little Jewish bakery on the way to the hospital.

It’s not like the Jewish bakeries I remember in Toronto. United Bakers and the Haymishe Bagel on Bathurst St (at Lawrence St) were no-nonsense, no-frills, working-man’s sort of places. Loud, busy, eat-and-run or take away: too many people wanting their carb fix to be a comfortable place to rest and linger, or idly chat with the staff. Bubby Rose’s, on the other hand, is much too welcoming, too cute.

I didn’t realise it was St Valentine’s Day until I saw the heart-shaped cookies next to the spinach and feta croissants I usually get. Glazed in red and white, iced with lovey-dovey sweet nothings: “Be mine”, “My chou-chou”, “Kiss me”. I debated getting one to go with my croissant, just on a lark, try to get into the spirit of things, singleness notwithstanding… nah, just get two spinach and feta croissants instead. It’s healthier.

I think the cashier figured out my debating in front of the bakery display. “Any special plans for Valentine’s?” No, just another day, same old same old. “Yeah, me too. Nothing special, no gushes of love.” Well, maybe it’s building up to something. I don’t know what that was supposed to mean, but she laughed a cute little laugh, and that was a nice start to the day. I felt compelled to add a tip on the credit card slip.

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Flashback: so about a year and a half ago, this happened:

There I was, starting my last week on ICU (a week ago, before Emerg), when a bright, keen, beaming girl, smiling behind a bookish pair of thick-framed glasses, nervously knocks on the door. “Hi, is this the ICU? I’m M, the 4th-year med student on elective.”

You can probably see where this is going.

Maybe it was M’s enthusiasm for medicine, when clerks are supposed to be jaded and stressed-out for CaRMS (“Don’t worry, I won’t steal your patients!” she promised; we only had 6 at the time); or her non-Science, non-premed background (an Arts undergrad in linguistics – she had the balls to do something non-Science for premed “because it’s interesting”); or her walking-the-walk about physicians and activism (did an HIV/AIDS elective in Africa, and was going to the CMA Leaders’ Forum in Ottawa (that she even knew about it is pretty cool; I was the lone delegate from Queen’s my year)) – that’s what I go for, people with those random intangibles I admire and look up to.

Or maybe it was, like me, her dependency on coffee every morning (just a little medium from Timmy’s… so cute!); or her off-the-wall sense of humour (“I was trying to make a joke… no one ever understands me!”), or something more subconscious… but by the way I was tongue-tied on my morning rounds patient reports; or extra sweaty and nervous whilst intubating and putting in IJ and femoral lines when she was shadowing; and otherwise just awkward and palpitating like I was around D and T in med school… Whatever it was. Who knows how these things happen…

Fast-forward to yesterday, late afternoon – I happen to be back in Victoria on leave, she happens to have matched to residency here too, I walk into the lounge to check my mail, she’s already at the computer, I’m caught off-guard, she smiles that same beaming smile I remember from a year and a half ago – “Hi”, I fumble and pretend to check something in my coat hanging on the wall before putting it on – “Oh – hi”. And knowing it’s St Valentine’s, my poor single heart is already primed to flutter all the worse today.

I have no idea if she actually remembers me from a year and a half ago, but we seem to chat and get along as if she does. She just started cardiology – You get to fix broken hearts for St Valentine’s, nice – and, just as I remembered her on ICU, excited and keen for medicine. “I get to scrub in tomorrow on an aortic valve repair!” I can’t help but admire – most Family Medicine residents by first-year are happy to give up the OR to focus on the need-to-know basics of purely medical management.

So, any big plans for St Valentines? (Oh dear. Did I really say that? Smooth.) “Nothing special.” (Dare I ask?) Well, if you’re free, I was going to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, it’s a French film about, uh - (Dammit! I’m drawing a blank – I should’ve looked at the reviews earlier. Better make up something fast) - a guy who falls into a coma… and, uh, hilarity ensues. She laughs that cute laugh and beams that beaming smile again… “Actually my sister and I were going out for drinks -”

Say no more – a [sigh] inside, and lest I risk digging myself deeper and losing all semblance of self-respect, I do the only thing I can do: run away! Oh, no worries. Happy St Valentine’s! And I beat a hasty retreat, my coat only partly on, and new retro CBC bag slung off-kilter on my shoulder, laughing at myself. Mostly for the geekiness of the situation, but also that I even managed to get the words out in the first place. Still just as alone on St Valentine’s as ever, but this year, I guess at least I actually tried. Who would’ve thunk? Not me.

Anyway… it’s actually a superb medical drama, that film. It’s based on a real-life story, which became a book, Le scaphandre et le papillon: Jean-Dominique Bauby, one of the editors of Elle magazine, suffers a stroke whilst driving with his son, and ends up with “locked-in syndrome”. Totally paralysed save for being able to blink his left eye, but totally mentally intact, and by blinking out letter by letter, able to write a book about the experience. How being paralysed reveals the power of imagination (“I realised I can imagine anything I want, anytime I want”) and of memory (“They are all there, where I left them”) – the two things that make one human, and still do for him.

You literally see the illness experience though the patient’s eyes (or in this case – eye), and what it looks like when you talk about your patients as if they’re not in the room, and make trite promises that “everything is going to be all right”. (It looks awful.) And you get to learn some French medical terms. A “stroke” is an “attaque”. “Cerebrovascular accident” becomes “accident vasculocérébral”. “Locked-in syndrome” becomes… “locked-in syndrome”. You can use “on s’en occupe de vous” to say “we’re taking care of you”, a person, in the same wording you use to say you’re taking care of a job or obligation. And you get to see a little bit of the French countryside.

Maybe if I knew all that about the movie before I could’ve made a better sell to her, and as doctors we could’ve both gotten more out of it, even if my usual nerd/geek/dork-iness makes being friends or something a non-starter. If I ever have a crush again in future I’ll try to research my potential date films better.

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Flashback: dressed up, off to Vancouver for CaRMS residency admissions interviews – but this time, on the other side of the table, doing the interviews. According to the interviewers’ instruction notes, this year there’s 420 applicants for the 94 spots at UBC. And that’s pretty much all I can say – the very next line on the notes, “Our interview philosophy and our guide are NOT public knowledge! Please keep the following information and the score sheet in strict confidence!”

That said, you can pretty much glean the same info off of the programme’s own website: personal and professional experiences can illustrate characteristics of what makes a good physician, so all you have to do is tell us about your experiences and relate them to how they will make you a good doctor, and we give you points and let you in. Most of the questions will be openers to let you do exactly that: “Tell us about a patient that stands out in your memory”, “Tell us about an experience in med school that taught you something about yourself you didn’t know before”, etc.

I’ll try to be the “nice” interviewer. Maybe one curveball, like “What question were you hoping we wouldn’t ask” – and then ask them exactly that – but otherwise, try to keep things light and easy for them to sell themselves and look good. It’s the final batch of interviews for graduating med students nationwide – and you always save the best for last, right?

There’s something familiar about all of this

Back “home” (as much as us itinerant rural residents can have a “home”) in Victoria for the weekend – 5 degrees (that’s plus 5 degrees) in the middle of January, definitely the place to be in Canada this time of year. I’m between rotations, so no plans at all except quick indulgences into simple pleasures.

Like cleaning my apartment – the feeling of freshly-vacuumed carpet under your feet… mmm. Getting a haircut at the Newtown barber in Chinatown – he still doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Cantonese, but motioning “taper on the side and back, little off the front and top” is universal, I guess. Catching a film at Cinecenta – Milarepa : Magician, Murderer, Saint, the first Tibetan film I’ve ever seen. Taking the bus – and yelling “Thank you!” to the driver on the way out, like good Victorians do. Long walks around the seawall and the harbour – no dog, so not quite blending perfectly with the locals (who all have dogs), but still not sticking out like the tourists lapping up the faux-Englishness.

And of course, dining at some of my old haunts:

Every Sunday Victoria’s Filipino community hosts a lunch with classic old-world Filipino home cooking. Some stuff Lola (grandmum), Mum and Dad used to make when I was growing up, and some stuff they didn’t, probably because even they thought it stunk the house up too much – and if you know Filipinos and their cooking, that means a lot. Which is too bad, because it would’ve totally been worth it. Like this daing na bangus (milkfish (bangus), marinated in vinegar (daing) and fried; it’s boneless, so it’s kid-friendly), pork asado (roasted and sliced; also boneless), vegetables, rice and soup (didn’t catch what they called it), and turon (fried banana rolls). You can see why Filipinos have the highest rates of diabetes among Asians. But again, totally worth it – that’s my mostly-unbiased medical opinion.

Tonkatsu Bento box at Shiki Sushi: deep fried pork cutlet with a barbecue-y sauce, salad, and rice with this salty gravy poured over top – I don’t know what it’s called, or what it’s made of, but it sure is good. If Japanese restaurants were like Chinese restaurants (or Filipino ones, for that matter) and you could just ask for more rice when you wanted some, with that sauce on top, I’d be there all day. Everything on the menu is a dollar more after 5pm, so go early and save. (Forage cap in the background – was in uniform, just came from the naval base.)

And the most familiar old haunt of all:

Takeaway dumplings and duck on chow mein from Hong Kong West – it’s across the street from the hospital, so you can just bring it to the on-call lounge. Unless you already have a menu, you’re really better off walking in and ordering, it’s hard to explain what you want past their broken English on the phone. But they’re super-fast, so you can go and order, walk over to the Starbucks two blocks away and pick up a coffee, and it’ll be ready by the time you get back. And you still have enough time to make it back to the lounge and not miss a minute of Law and Order: SVU on CW11, followed by regular Law and Order on Bravo.

(Yes, I have the routine down pat – like I said, the most familiar haunt of all… With routine comes familiarity, and with familiarity comes comfort.)

One change though to the familiar things I know and love:

New Starbucks cup lids! They’re white like the old ones, but if you look closely the inscriptions are in English, French and Spanish now: “Attention Chaud! Caution Hot! ¡Precaucion Caliente!”. But more importantly – they actually work now. The old ones had a nasty (and messy) habit of leaking around the cup seam, or the side away from you, especially when you’re walking. At first I thought it was just because I was overfilling it adding milk, so I switched from 2% to half-and-half (or even full-on coffee cream) early on so there’d be relatively less volume with the same buffering effect, and that helped a bit. But it still wasn’t completely reliable; the way those old lids just “slipped” casually over the rim should’ve raised red flags. These new ones though, they actually snap on with authority, you know they mean business.