Le Cirque Invisible

My first visit to the Beiteddine Festival today was just fantastic. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the act put together by Victoria Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin's daughter) and her husband, French actor Jean-Baptiste Thierree in "Le Cirque Invisible" or "The Invisible Circus".
I have to say I was deeply impressed by their performance.

In a fine example of equilibrium, a rapidly alternating mood was established between the sheer quirkiness and light humored spirit of Jean-Baptiste's ludicrous but seriously amusing skits, and Victoria's more enthralling acting prowess; the audience never seemed to get enough, and wanted more, of both extremes. The show was an interspersion of skits by either actor alone; Jean-Baptiste Thierree lightens up the mood by playing a few magic tricks to funky music, and as he leaves the stage, Victoria Chaplin strides in with her more poetic and graceful performance.

She simply graced the audience with a masterful display of fluid, stepless movement and manipulation of props ranging from the simplest umbrellas to some of the most intricate mechanical devices I have ever seen on stage. Her fluidity in motion and her fixed expressionless face played perfect partner to an immersive musical score, a fantastic wardrobe, and precision lighting, in the creation of a truly psychotropic performance that left the audience hypnotized. Victoria's uncanny resemblance to her late father went beyond her facial features, with her beautiful acting and showmanship speaking volumes of Charlie Chaplin's legacy. With her 60 year-old body performing like a young athlete's, she made easy work of cable walking and some truly insane gymnastics and contorsion art to stun the audience even harder.
I had gone to Beiteddine expecting nothing more than a 'circus' and I was pleased to attend the fine act of precision choreography that is Le Cirque Invisible. Don't miss it.

A Piece of Heaven...

Nahr Ibrahim, Lebanon - July 2010

... On the coast of North Lebanon... Psychedelic isn't it?
Hey P. :)

FIFA Match Officiating a Disgrace...

I wonder how the FIFA won't release their death grip on the traditional refereeing, whose honest mistakes are changing the course of the entire world cup. We've seen many, many mistakes; England's goal against Germany, Brazil's double handball ending in a goal scored... nothing too far out of the ordinary.
But seeing Italian referee Roberto Rosetti admit to the Mexican players because he knew that the goal scored seconds earlier by the Argentinians was an offside play, and apologize to them because the FIFA wouldn't allow him to change his decision...
Seeing this and how players earn free kicks, penalties and get their rivals booked or sent off by sheer drama school acting at this level of the game is just something that I can't understand...

Get video refereeing and a clean game for everyone.

Vuvuzelas, or Hitler's Tantrum

The interminable background buzz of a trillion bees is just getting too annoying!
If Adolf Hitler complains of this...... I loved the ending.



...

I thought it was cool at first, but as I watched more and more games, the headache grew! During yesterday's game between Denmark and Cameroon, there was this shot of the crowd and this huge group of Danish supporters. They were cheering and flailing their arms and flags around while there was a lone african fan in their midst, standing there, completely still, a Vuvuzela pressed against his pursed lips. Makes you feel like shaking the life out of him until that thing of death falls out of his death grip!!

Join bloggers's quests to get these annoying horns banned!! lol

Will Play for Tips

Hamra, Lebanon - June 2010

A pleasant sight and sound near AUH, where all we see all day are abused children begging you to give them money or buy lottery tickets. 

I have to sing for me to live

a job for me is out of reach

so come on by and hear a tune

I will sing for a bit of tips

The Farce that is Lebanese Telecom...

"No one has noticed, but the Lebanese government is writing yet another chapter in the endless mockery of our rights as private citizens and social entrepreneurial agents of progress and change. The state is extending censorship over the remainder of our liberties into the last frontier of freedom – the internet and its supposed neutrality." - Imad Atalla, for the Daily Star on June 08, 2010.

Apparently Ogero is enforcing the Telecoms Law that bans VoIP (Voice over IP), the technology that enables internet users to make voice calls for reduced rates, and sometimes for free (IP to IP).

Sidewalk in Hamra

Hamra, Lebanon - June 2010

This is a response to "Sidewalk in Achrafieh" Posted on Blog Baladi a few days a go. I said I'd have a pic of sidewalks in Hamra for comparison... well here's what I was talking about...

Try negotiating the parked vehicles and avoiding the garbage juices on this lovely piece of Hamra property... Square footage pricing? Let's not mention that...

Stay tuned for sidewalks with construction material and bulldozers... Coming soon!

The ER Delivers...

Bring it ER, Bring it Med IV... That was the closing sentence in my Beginning of the End post. Excitement and ambition.

I have to say that today, the ER delivered. Today, I couldn't help but think that what was happening was some kind of response to what I wrote and felt a few days ago when I was just starting out...
The ER never faltered, even in the med III ER rotation, in showing us how little we knew, and how completely unprepared we can be for handling situations and patients beyond our qualifications.

A Primitive Cranial Nerve... Did you know about this?

I can't remember what I was looking for exactly when I stumbled upon a research paper for a cranial nerve that I had absolutely no idea about. For those of you who aren't that medically inclined, here's an intro.

Cranial nerves are nerves that arise from the encephalon. They are responsible for many reflexes and control of many automatic functions, such as gaze coordination, taste etc...
There are 12 cranial nerves (CN), numbered CN I-XII in the order that they enter or arise from the brain. If you're interested, here are the known Cranial Nerves:

The Beginning of The End...

Tuesday June 1st, 2010, the first day of the last year of Medicine. Med IV starts today. Med IV means we're getting close.
I hope it turns out as good as Med III.

Starting out in the family medicine rotation. It turns out i'm first in line (with a colleague) for a PM shift in the ER lasting 7 hours (4:00 pm - 11:00 pm) on the very first day. Rough start!

Blogging from the ER lounge (Where I love the Air Conditioning! Just FREEZING!), I just finished seeing a patient with an elbow injury. First thing that came to mind: I miss the ER! I miss the speed with which things were done; I miss the frantically scribbled less-than-one-paragraph-long notes on board-charts. The patient I just saw was triaged, seen by an attending orthopedic surgeon, 2 residents, and myself, taken down to x-ray and back in just under 20 minutes. As comparison, consider that an out-patient case takes about 2-3 hours to be handled.

I miss it. I do.

Bring it ER! Bring it Med IV!

I want my M.D.