Name Sorcha inghean ui Dhonnchaidh Description "Dhonnchaidh" -- her name-tag gives away the woman's Scottish descent, and her insignia readily identify her as a captain and a doctor -- and that's where the easy answers end. Dressed in the dark blue jacket and skirt of the air force, Sorcha is a study in contrasts. The seeming invitation of her lush body and platinum blonde mane is balanced by the business-likeness of her uniform; the liveliness of her sparkling green eyes offset by the lines around them; the animated conversation she makes starkly contrasted by the obvious tenseness that seems to always make her smoke around other people -- vivid and jaded at the same time, Sorcha looks no less than gorgeous to the morbid. Her fingers are never idle, clutching a Gauloises, or seizing a cup or a glass, almost as if she were ill at ease without something to hold on to, and there is a strong air of impatience about her whenever no one provides her with a shattered world to focus on. TimeLine EDUCATION 1972: * 1990: ACT/SAT (A levels) 1990-1996: Faculty of Medicine 1995-1996: Externship, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts POSTDOCTORAL TRAINING / RESIDENCIES 1996-2000: National Capital Military Psychiatry Residency Program (formerly Malcolm Grow U.S. Air Force Medical Center (MGMC)) PRESENT 2000-2001: (duty somewhere. place can be adjusted for her to have history of any sort with other player-characters) (maybe give her some injury that prevents her from partaking in away-missions? : ) 2001-2002: SGO Stats Body. "What do you mean, exercise? Mr BMI says I'm perfect, thankyou, and exercise isn't the only way there.", she says, quickly picking up her Gauloises from the ashtray, a thin column of smoke marking her position in the room as she takes a drag, then parks the cigarette again, letting more ash accumulate in the tray. Intelligence. She makes a dismissive gesture with her hand. "That whole IQ thing is severely overrated. I mean, think! If you're in the middle, you know, median, IQ 100, you have the widest selection of mates. At an IQ of 150, you have much less choice -- even if you find someone else with that rating, they're bound to have specialized in something entirely useless. Like, you're a vet and you wrote your thing on how the mating behaviour of seeing eye dogs is affected by seaquakes, while they're all into heraldry or mathematically proving how Iceland will never win the World Cup, or something weird like that. So I'm saying, never put down the grunt. No, sir. And professionally speaking, IQ doesn't say anything about -- well, anything. How people will react in combat. Whether they have a commanding presence. Battle stance. Shellshock don't care about IQ." Knowledge. "Knowledge always was kinda, easy come, easy go. Quickly assimilated before an exam, and as quickly forgotten afterwards. And then when I discovered speed-reading, it was no holds barred -- you know that old joke where the prof hands the MD-to-be a telephone book, and she just nods wearily and asks when the exam will be? Like that. Actually, studying was a bit like that, like the joke, I mean, but it really didn't bother me all that much." Charisma. "Yes, very nice. Look, I've forgotten more about amnesia than you've ever known, and you don't have it. Now, get back to work." Dexterity. "I was just saying-- oops! ...uh, you didn't really need that anymore, do you? Sorry. We can, like, help you to not get overly attached to material possessions, by the way?" Strength. "...yes, we'd better find a place for that to live, yes? Oh, over there. Kindly put it next to the DSM-- no, the III-R, not the IV-TR. And the other five boxes go yonder, if you don't mind. Say, would you like some coffee or something? Oh, good, I'll be over with Doctor Reynolds, then, just let me know when you finish?" Looks. Sorcha is a study in contrasts. The seeming invitation of her lush tanned body and platinum blonde mane is balanced by the business-likeness of her uniform; the liveliness of her sparkling green eyes offset by the lines around them. And still, Sorcha is no less than gorgeous to the morbid, and it is all too easy to imagine her in one of those smoking-causes-cancer ads. Letters to myself . First day in MGMC. So, I made it. Did it have to feel so anti-climactic? I wonder if looking at it from the other end will feel any better. I brought Cal, Sine didn't want him. Oh, and apparently, calicos are the Maryland "state cats." Fits that I should learn that only now. Also, "state cats"? What's next, state bloody jellyfish? I think there's also a state crab, so it would be possible. . Ceilidh never writes, not even to parade her children in front of me in paper effigy. I somehow thought that -- well, absence would make the heart grow fonder, or something. . "A guy boards a coach. 'Those sitting on the left cheat on their respective spouses.', he declares. 'Those on the right are nuts.' 'Wait a minute,' a guy sitting on the left protests, I never cheated on my wife!' 'Well, you should be sitting on the right then, shouldn't you?'" Some of the guys actually laughed. Like it'd buy them credit, or something. Old prof, older jokes, or something, I don't know. "Now, what if I were to tell you that those of you sitting on the left study psychology to find out what the hell is wrong with them, and those on the right just want to learn how to manipulate people?" What kind of greeting is that? Asshat. I just took my pad and moved over to the exact middle of the row. Guess they all hate me now, nobody likes a smartarse. . Great, now I'm officially a repeat offender of the AF personal grooming standards. I feel like Bonnie now, of Bonnie and Clyde infamy. Not. What's the ruckus, it's hardly an inch, anyway. What's an inch between friends? What's an inch if you can look this good? . A guy asked me today what crayon I'd be -- isn't that the stupidest line? I mean, a bollocky crayon? I told him sun yellow. Of course, I could never wear a colour like that. I mean, the thing about blondes, what you have to remember about blondes is -- that a blonde should never wear yellow. I'd look like a bloody banana. Oy, the image. It makes me wonder though. I mean, honestly, if I'm anything, I'm probably that light blue-grey that hotelrooms have at night. At least in the movies they do, when the flickering neon throws crosses through window- frames like the klueless klan. But that's entirely not the point. The guy asked me in town, in some cafe. Are the Grow guys through, then? I think nobody's hit on me here in months. At least long enough for it to actually stand out when somebody does. What does that mean? Have they just all made their respective passes, and I'm "safe" until the next trimester? Will it be like in MD? I mean, sure, I guess they all thought I was a stuck-up recluse and all, but in the end they did come around and I got to be a cheerleader and all that. Blessings of a small school, and all -- I was pretty, I was thin, I was in. They couldn't keep a fast car out of the race, bla, bla, bla. Guess they can here. I mean, they haven't even invited me to their stupid parties. It's a bigger pond. . Sine never writes. I'm almost relieved. Might be a carthasis if she did, though, for her more than for myself, I guess. I mean, seriously, what is she playing at? Does she feel some obligation to be enshrouded in icy silence now that daddy's dead? A heritage of silence? The thousand yard stare? What am I supposed to do about that? She wouldn't accept my help, anyway. "A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country, and among his own relatives, and in his own house." It's all different with family, why can't I save my loved ones? It already didn't work with Calum. Sure, I didn't know then what I know now, but still. . I got to team up with Alison today. Doctor bloody Rondeau. She tells me she finds it easy to imagine me pinching an unruly child and then telling them, "keep it down, or I'll pinch you again!" Thank you ever so much! Isn't it enough she tried to sabotage my presentation last week? I bet she went forces because she realized all her patients would hate her and she wouldn't make a dime out there in the real world. . I decree today that from now on, my drink shall be vodka-cherry! No more Flying Kangaroos, I'm not a little girl anymore! . Ceilidh sent me some CDs. Tori Amos. She knows I'd never buy them, I mean, why pay to get depressed? I think she wants me slit my wrists, or something. Very interesting though, those stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Tell us such a lot about her. Plus, she's from Baltimore, of course. . Oh G-d, I so hate her. I mean, some people are so predictable! "Is it because of your father, then? All this?" G-d, I so knew she'd say that. Right, like my father's shellshocked, and I become a doctor to heal the bloody world? Right-o. Like we're in some corny movie. And can we please talk properly? "Like a light had been put out"? What's with the sophomoric poetry? Where'd she learn that, hippie school for the professionally challenged? How about detached most of the time? How about jumpy? How about withdrawn, or PTS-bloody-D? How about he let me down? I remember him just sitting there, forever changed, like a bloody monument to my inability to help him. I remember eventually wishing that he'd died instead, he wasn't there for me anyway, so why did he have to be around to make me feel guilty? He was gone, but I wasn't allowed to mourn. In my mind, I saw how it should have been, military salutes, the bugle and all. Guess I was a twisted kid. A twisted kid who was a cheerleader and played in a band. I guess I didn't do too badly, all things considered. Sometimes, the whole small town thing isn't half bad, even if no one famous ever came from there. Where else could you be such a shitty bass player and still be in a band? I think I discared the transverse mostly because it reminded me of him. No phones for the flute, either. The bass was better that way, sheathed within the headphones, wearing the halo of distortion, aural contraceptive aborting pregnant conversation, yadda yadda yadda. My first step towards detaching herself from him, I guess. And those awful lyrics I wrote! I'm still amazed at how many ways there are to say "I no longer want to depend on your love" without even noticing it. Umbilical cord indeed. I mean, I had withdrawn too, second stage and all, but I'd come up for air at last. If I could do it, why couldn't he? If his abstraction was reflected in mine, why couldn't my convalescence be mirror'd in his? I so hated him. Anger phase, of course, and then, as a healthy teenager I was supposed to anyway, but still. Also, I was the weird chick with the wonky dad. Sometimes, living in a small town sucks. Gee, that girl's good. I guess I'd like her much better if I didn't hate her so much. . If I ever make money on this (and live long enough to spend it, ha, ha), I think I'd love a small house somewhere, on a little patch of land in or near the woods. Big windows. Wooden planks. Lots of semi-levels connected by a few stairs here and there. Let function follow form! . We are siamese children, related by the heart bleeding from the surgery of initial confrontation holding the word-scalpels on trembling lips