'Tis the season

Christmas seems to come earlier every year, or at least Christmas season does. It was not long ago that radio stations would mark the Thanksgiving holiday by pausing their regular programming and playing Christmas music 24/7 until December 26. But last Tuesday (November 17!), I noticed that several local radio stations had started the carol carousel. Amusingly, some competing radio stations began promoting themselves with slogans like, "Think it's too early for Christmas music? So do we . . ." It's not that I dislike Christmas music; on the contrary, I adore it. I look forward to when radio stations begin playing it. The trouble, though, is that there's a big risk of becoming desensitized by the time the big day arrives. Five weeks of nonstop Christmas carols will transform anticipation and novelty into oversaturation, and what could be worse than being sick of Christmas carols on Christmas??

On a more positive note, this is a good time to be a chess fan (as if there were ever a bad time). The New York Knights upset the New Jersey Knockouts last week, catapulting themselves into the championship match for the second time in franchise history. Their first finals appearance came in 2006, when they lost to the San Francisco Mechanics in a tiebreaker. This year they're poised to win it all, with only the dangerous Miami Sharks standing between the Knights and chess glory. The championship match will be played on Monday, December 7 at 7 pm.

To tide you over between now and then, the chess world has offered the World Blitz Championship, which ended Wednesday, and the World Cup, which began on Saturday. Ten Americans embarked for Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, to play in the World Cup, although only four of them advanced past the first round. Grandmasters Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk, Alexander Shabalov and Varuzhan Akobian will all do battle tomorrow in Round 2. Good luck to them, and congratulations to all who competed! As for the World Blitz, it was won by 18-year old Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has unofficially taken over the number-one world ranking. I thought I was a big deal for holding the #13 spot in the USA for my age group when I was 18; Carlsen's accomplishments put mine in perspective, to state it mildly.

Paramedic school continues to go well; I completed Stage I of my clinicals yesterday with another shift in the Emergency Department. There are five stages of clinical in all, with each one built around time in the ED but including various other, unique locations. Clinical I had the operating room and morgue, for example, while Clinical IV will rotate us through the psych center and burn unit. In the classroom, we began Pulmonology/Cardiology today, which includes EKG monitoring and Advanced Cardiac Life Support and will take us through the end of 2009. After that will come EMS Operations, Medical Emergencies II (we do Medical Emergencies I later in the year for some reason), Pediatric Advanced Life Support and Trauma.

Happy Thanksgiving!