Month: May 2018

Me, A Doctor

/ Elliot Chan / Leave a comment

It’s good to see that my father is finally impressed. It’s such a nice feeling knowing that your parents are proud of you. Like, I finally know that.

Now, it was a lot of work. School, I’m talking about.

But boy, to genuinely know that your parent’s life goals are accomplished, hell, there is no better sensation. Honestly, this feeling, uhmm! It’s is like ten orgasms.  

Ten orgasms. And think, it only took one orgasm to make me, a doctor.

I save lives now. I save orgasms.

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When you think about it, that’s pretty cool.

On the spectrum of the universe, I’m on the exact opposite side of a cockblocker. I’m on the opposite side of the universe.

Man, that’s almost as good as being a doctor — not being a cockblocker. Is there a word for that? I should know, I’m a doctor.

I always find it weird when a name for something is that it’s not something else. Take the word “non-fiction” for example. Oh I read a book, and it was non-fiction. That’s like saying, I read a book and it was non-good. See? Weird. And for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about and can’t follow along, what I’m saying is we have a word for non-good, it’s “bad.”

What I do like is how we have the same word for different things. Homonymous, they are called? I have trouble saying that word. Look at it: Homonymous. How would you say it? Say it out loud right now: Homonymous. Yeah, you don’t know if you are saying it right either.

I like homonymous, that’s why I think a non-cockblocker should be called a doctor. Same word, different meanings, same mental image. Like when you see someone helping you get laid, that guy is a doctor. He’s a miracle worker. He’s a man of God and science. I like that hahaha! I’m going write that definition in Urban Dictionary when I get home. Remind myself to set a reminder for that. I’ll totally forget, I forget everything.

Anyways, what was I talking about before I got distracted. Oh yes, my happy parents. They are so happy. I can remember the day they told me they wanted me to be a doctor. They made that claim in front of my family and friends when I was too young to even know which part of my body I was standing on. I now know, because I have gotten an extensive and expensive education since. They said, “Elliot is going to be a doctor, because doctors make a lot of money.”

Well, mom and dad, prepare to have a son with a lot of money, because as of today — which I am graduating from doctor school at my university of choice — I start my journey to great wealth.

Now that I’m a doctor, it’s going to be smooth sailing from here. You get pampered if you are a doctor. You aren’t only wealthy, but you are also respected. People treat you well. One way they treat you well is that they have to say a title before your name.

For example, if my name was Kern Eberhart, they will have to call me Dr. Eberhart. That’s good, because Kern is such a bad name. It sounds like a move you make with a piece of heavy machinery. I guess, the word kerning relates to the printing press, and I guess that is a heavy machinery. Wow, did I just prove myself right? Ha, that’s why people like me.

Another way they treat you well is with respect, and the respect comes from the fact that — yes, you are rich — and that you are now credible.

A doctor knows what he (or she) is talking about. You can say what’s on your mind and people have to take you seriously.That will be such a nice experience, being at a party and Tommy Wong starts rambling about some crazy conspiracy theory, and I’ll butt in with some hard truths. “No Tommy,” I’ll say, “it’s actually us humans that are controlling the lizard people.” And everybody will nod, but Tommy Wong will still go ahead and pull out that smartphone and Google. Then he pulls up some dark web post affirming his theory, but nobody believes it because that post was not written by a doctor. I guess, the moral of that story is that you should not be a Tommy Wong and you should listen to your doctors.

Oh and lastly, there is the saving people part. I find that part quite satisfying as well. Maybe not as much as having everybody address me as “doctor,” but still pretty good. Honestly, okay… I know we were just talking about truths over there in the previous paragraph, but I’m going to lay some hard truths on you right now. Ready? Okay, here it is: I’m not a people person. I’m actually very introverted. I know, right? You think someone who dedicated his life to saving people is going to like people. That my friend, is irony. If a child or a more feeble-minded friend asks you what does irony mean, please use that example. I think it captures that word fully.

Needless to say, it was worth it, mom and dad. I couldn’t be more happy that you steered me onto this path of becoming and now being a doctor. You called it! You guys were gamblers and you put all the chips on that one card and I flipped it over and it was the doctor card (Ace of hearts). You win the game of life. It’s every parent’s dream to have their offspring be doctors and my parents achieved that mission.

I’m proud of them. In fact, I’m probably more proud of them then they are of me. They really stuck to it. At any point, as they watched me studying, could have came over to me, tapped me on the back, and said, “No, that’s enough son, why don’t you focus on your illustrations for a while? I think that picture of your family in front of our sad-looking house is a project worth bringing to life… in completion.” I could have been a caricature artist, but I turned out to be a doctor. It would have been so easy to have that conversation. I think if she said that to me that day, I would have stopped. Then where would I be? Maybe still a doctor. Maybe dead. My mother could have killed me that day. I’m proud of her for not. Killing me would be the exact opposite of wanting me to be a doctor, if it was my parents. They really didn’t want to kill me.

It’s been a really good day thinking about how happy my parents are and how much money I’m going to have and how much respect I’m going to get and how my parents didn’t want to kill me. I’ll have to say, being a doctor is pretty sweet so far!

 

What you’ve just read is the first post in a series entitled “A Fan Fiction of My Life by My Number One Fan, Me.” Did you enjoy it? Yes, subscribe to this blog or follow me on Twitter to get the latest update. 

 

Read the second in the series: I Am A Controversial Artist, AMA

Achieving Oneness and Other Things to Think About Before Drinking

/ Elliot Chan / Leave a comment

Why did we start raising, clinking our glasses and saying cheers?

Let me set the scene: your friends have gathered around, each holding a glass of champagne or a shot of tequila — it is a night to remember, even though you may forget in the morning — and you know there is only one way to complete this scene, with a toast and then the obligatory clink of the glasses.

The three-traditions-in-one of raising the glass, clinking it, and saying a few kind words may have originated at different times for a variety of reasons. Some historians believe that the act of raising the glass came from the Greeks, as an offering — a prayer to the Gods for good health.

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Source: Unsplash

Whereas the clinking of the glass, or making any sort of noise with the glass or goblets, might have come from Germanic tribes. It was believed that the noise would scare the ghosts and bad spirits away who were often suspected of frequenting large social gatherings and festivals.

Then there is the small speech, the toast. The toast was once used in a literal sense, as people used stale toast to soak up the acidity in the wine. As the vintages back in the days were not as high quality as they are today, this helped with the flavour. It’s also worth mentioning that the act of wasting food just wasn’t something that people took part in back then. Think of it as a wine-soaked French toast.

I digress. The toast, the small speech version, was established in the 17th- to 18th-century when offering a praise or a shout-out to friends, family, and associations and then taking a large gulp of wine was an apt way to get drunk. Eventually, toastmasters were established to reign in the people who were giving toasts. Left without officiating, people would end up toasting everyone in the room.

Nevertheless, the explanation of why we clink the glass and say a few words before drinking that I appreciated the most is the idea of Oneness — how drinking excites all our senses.

Achieving Oneness

Think about it. What do we do when we drink a glass of wine?

Sight

Before we drink a bottle of wine, we are most likely in a liquor store, browsing through the aisle looking for the right one. Now, you might already have one in mind, but sometimes, you need a bit of marketing to help entice. Whether that is the label, the award badges, the copy, the price, or just the way the bottle looks — as superficial as it sounds, sight is often the first attractor when selecting wine.

Then, once you pour the wine into the glass, you bring it up to the light and appreciate the colour. Is it red or white? Had it been influenced by oak during the process? Before you even touch the wine to your lips, you already have an idea of what you are dealing with.

Touch

​Depending on the type of wine, we might chill it or we might serve it at room temperature — heck, we might even heat it up. The temperature of wine matters if you truly want to experience the drink at its ideal state. This can rather mean storing it in the right place, like a wine cellar or putting it in an ice bath before serving.

Then you have to find the right glass to serve the wine in. This also equates to the sense of touch. The way your hand holds the glass when bringing it to your mouth, the way your mouth contorts itself and creates the pathway for the liquid to flow. As wine lovers know there is a certain art to the way your wine sits and aerates in your glass and the way you hold the vessel. Certain structures of the glass change the way you hold and drink. It changes nothing, but in a way, it changes everything.

Smell

The third sense of consuming wine is the sense of smell. We all know how smell affects taste, and this is quite clear when you are wine tasting. We all have this postage-stamp-size nerve cell in our nasal gland called the olfactory tract. Some believe that our olfactory tracts do more for the way we appreciate taste than our taste buds. The sense of smell opens a channel, enabling us to taste the wine in an expansive way. 

Taste

I always like the idea that you can only taste something for the first time once. It’s like watching a movie or reading a book for the first time. You are taken on a ride and each turn or dive the author takes you on is a surprise. The second taste is when you actually get to experience the nuances of the product. You recovered from the slap in the face. You begin to notice the red herrings and the details of the story, the same way you start to sense the full bouquet of the wine. 

Hearing 

Lastly, here is where I like to think the clinking of glass comes from. By contacting glasses together and uttering a word — “cheers,” for example — we complete the experience. We give the moment what I like to call Oneness, where the act of drinking wine becomes an act that evokes all the senses, thus completing it.

We often like to think of ourselves as one physical thing. We are not. We are the combination of many living particles. We, like the universe, are made up of a bunch of interlinking elements. We are the bacteria living inside of us, we are the thoughts drifting in our head, we are the perception that other people have of us, and we are the presence when we enter a room. Yet, when it is all combined, we have this Oneness.

The idea of Oneness teaches us to take care of every little part of ourselves. In wine tasting, in order to achieve oneness, a completion, a care for every part, we needed to add it ourselves. We have to go out of our way to do it. So it goes with achieving oneness with other aspects of our lives.

For more on oneness, check out this trippy article.
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