As much as people complain about the long wait times in Emergency Rooms, there is a good reason for it. In the triage area, there are usually two or three staff whose job it is to decide who goes into the ER when. The trick is, there is usually limited space in the ER, and potential patients might range from a total jerk who is complaining of phantom abdominal pain, to a woman who is humbly going into labor but not wanting to bother anyone (both of which actually happened on the same day). So the triage staff have to manage the amount of space in the ER and decide which of the people trying to self-diagnose themselves they should give a room to; basically, the people who rotate through that job hate it because of the stress involved.

Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel. As much as I'd like to recommend this book to everyone and their mother, at the same time I can think of less than a handful of people who might enjoy or appreciate it. Not for any pretentious reasons on my part, I hope, but because the subject matter - while in its simplest sense, is archery - is so esoteric. To paraphrase Herrigel, he is attempting to write about something that can't be communicated through text, so the best he can do is relate his experience and describe it. I thought it tangentially interesting that while the three primary arts discussed in conjunction with zen are archery, swordsmanship, and flower arranging, jujitsu was mentioned as a secondary aspect of zen - because of its similararity to sword-play in involving an opponent, but difference in that blending is the primary and necessary tactic.