In the same vein (no pun intended): when I began my anesthesiology residency, I received a free subscription to the journal Anesthesiology as part of my resident membership in the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The first issue came: frightening! As had been the case years earlier with the NEJM when I started med school, I couldn't understand anything. The table of contents might just as well have been written in Urdu. Flash forward a year: my first scientific publication (a Letter to the Editor) appeared in Anesthesia and Analgesia. Nothing like a little fear to accelerate the learning curve!