for the past few weeks, i've kept a tuesday ritual i just could not miss. house md, 8 pm on fox. i've never actually watched the series before the vacation, just heard a few tidbits and praises here and there, but now i think i see what the *hype* is about. maybe it isn't exactly the riveting drama series that would hook most people, but the medical context, the witty dialogue, and the suspense that comes with every new diagnosis is enough to whet my appetite for the next episodes to come. may sound twisted, but it rings true for me.

one thing that captivates me about the title character, aptly named house, is his perceptiveness and thinking-out-of-the-box style. from the most obscure case specs, he pulls out the most outrageous diagnoses, like a tick in a girl's vagus (imed people will get this) or messianic herpes. yes, it can get a bit out there, which a major criticism i've heard on the show, but they put that stuff in there to impress, and impress they do. house doesn't even leave the insight to the patients, he pulls it off on his colleagues too, a sort of psychoanalysis from hell. and what's just amusing is he gets it all the time. i know i'm hardly the kind of person you could call intuitive, so house does serve as a goal to aspire to, of sorts.

when the show really gets into the spin of things, i like to think that some of the terms they use are actually vaguely familiar to me. most of the time, that's just what they are: vague terms spouted by the doctor characters in the heat of the discussion but easily forgotten by the time their next symptom or diagnosis comes along. i wonder, will i ever get to that level as a doctor? sure, it's all scripted and they're just good actors, but seeing it on tv doesn't mean that it doesn't really happen. will i ever be able to diagnose on the slightest whim, or call out half the drugs they know? even if achieving that level of medical know-it-all isn't plausible, i'd like to be a half-decent doctor at the least. if i ever do, i'm still a long way off from getting to that point.

maybe a few chapters of clinically oriented anatomy could help. better get started then.