2.12 Distractions
From tv.com: While a severely burned teenager is admitted and his blood tests come back with strange results, House makes himself the guinea pig in his own unofficial tests of a new drug designed to treat migraines to prove a former medical school colleague is wrong about the drug.

So, moving this from the Season 4 thread, from Distractions: WEBER: I received my medical degree at Johns Hopkins University, where I studied under Brightman and Gilmar. WILSON: Hmm! He must be good. You went to Hopkins and studied under Brightman and Gilmar. HOUSE: Shhh... WEBER: …helped me to win the Doyle internship at the Mayo Clinic. WILSON: You were supposed to get the Doyle internship. This guy's von Lieberman? The guy who got you thrown out for cheating? HOUSE: The Dean threw me out. Von Lieberman just ratted on me. Did House get kicked out of JH Medical school or just lose the internship at the Mayo Clinic? If he didn't get kicked out, when was he a legend at Michigan (Humpty, Dumpty)? For me, the Mayo Clinic isn't a medical school -- it doesn't have a dean. So, if the dean kicked him out, it was from medical school. Hopkins. Somehow Michigan, a medical school every bit as prestigious as Hopkins, accepted him and his degree is from there.

As I stated back in the Season Four thread, I'm with Poeia on this. House was nearing the end of med school, had either been selected -- or was the clear front runner -- for the Doyle internship at Mayo. The dean kicks him out for cheating, he's forced to repeat some of med school at Michigan, which somehow allows him to attend, despite the scandal, adding to his reputation, which makes him "already a legend" when Cuddy meets him. We may not like the idea that he cheated, but he cheats all the time now when he's sure he has the answer. He doesn't want to run long tests, he's sure he has the answer, so he treats the patient. He doesn't want to risk a "no" from the transplant committee, so he lies (or at least withholds information). Cheating doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't know the answer, but rather that he felt that doing the work wasn't necessary because he knew the answer or because he felt doing the work was boring and he'd rather move on to the exciting part.

I like this idea Namaste. We've seen it from the beginning, but in S2 we see that this is the poetic, romantic House that loves unreservedly, not so much people (though he does love Stacey, he can give her up), but his love for the genuine beauty of the elegant solution that fits, whether it's commonplace or unique. He is utterly in love with the feeling that happens when he finds the answer (almost akin to a person falling in love and feeling that, yes, this is the one!): it's not really about an egotistical need to be right (though he knows that's how it looks to nearly everyone and so he packages it and presents it as such), it's that he believes in truth and that truth is a devilish thing that hides in patterns giving only tiny clues. He is most like Holmes in this dogged pursuit for the elegant solution that fits, and when he finds it, and sometimes even bonds with it, he is utterly frustrated by the prosaic step-by-step processes of Wilson, Cuddy, et al and their inability to see what he sees. Breaking it down step-by-step for them seems to almost demean his thinking. Ridiculously Old Fraud had a glimmer of this and could see the patterns and this was why they could "finish each other's sentences." He can never give up his love for the beautiful solution, which may be some of his reason, other than the distraction aspect, for going back and wreaking revenge on Von Lieberman. VL was wrong. He gave the wrong answer and House copied him, making House wrong: unforgiveable. He got the Mayo thing undeservedly (in House's POV) and he's about to launch an apparently fraudulent drug (givng House the opportunity to take drugs and provide a humanitarian service). So, very Houseian, he proceeds as an avenging angel, ridding the world of this fake drug, and reaps the benefits of an LSD high as well as delayed revenge as well, best and sweetest when served cold. And then he beds a hooker that looks like Stacey, distracting him as long as she doesn't talk, because the talking, well, that would make it clear what he's really lost. /rambling post

In "Distractions", when Wilson finds House in the auditorium where Von Lieberman is speaking,waiting to do some sort of vengeful thing, Wilson tells House that he really needs to get a hobby. He suggests bowling and hookers. We know House engages a hooker at the end of "Distractions". I wonder how long it took Wilson to take House bowling..... for the first time. :D

Back in "Babies & Bathwater" in the first season, House mentions that Wilson being kicked off the board clears up Thursdays (or whatever day) for bowling, so it's been mentioned before.

It comes up again in Sex Kills (2 episodes later) when they are wearing the wrong shoes for Henry to have testicular cancer. HOUSE: The shoes aren't right. Here's how testicular cancer would manifest itself. First the patient would get the exact symptoms that he's got. Then Foreman would examine him. Then he'd suspect testicular cancer on account of the symptoms being so perfect. Then he'd stick a needle in it. Then he'd call a surgeon. And while that guy operates, the rest of us would be out bowling. And, since we're not wearing bowling shoes, the disease obviously did not progress in that fashion. For some reason, bowling seems to be a recurring theme.