Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Time

Since beginning med school, my concept of time has been completely thrown out the window. Med school is weird, for instance, we have no consistent schedule from day to day like in undergrad and classes may end or begin at any point throughout the semester. My perception of time (which is really no perception at all) continues to evaporate as the days of each week all sort of blend together. Mondays feel like Fridays and last month feels like it happened about a year ago. It makes me wonder how this women we just recently read an article about in class viewed time...after a mere 122 years.


Here is an excerpt from the article, it made my morning yesterday!

In 1997, the oldest person to have ever lived died at age 122 years and 164 days.1 Jeanne Louise Calment lived in France, took up fencing at age 85, and still rode a bicycle at 100. She did quit smoking when she was 117, reportedly because she was nearly blind and felt embarrassed asking for a light. In 1965, when she was 90 and had no living heirs (she had outlived her daughter and grandson), she entered into a legal agreement to sell her condominium apartment to lawyer Francois Raffray, who was then age 47. He agreed to pay a monthly sum, similar to a “reverse mortgage,” until she died, so that he would obtain the apartment. Unfortunately for him, she survived him, and his widow had to continue the payments. In many ways, one can view the life of Jeanne Calment as an example of “optimal aging.”

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