the irony of a time to celebrate

it's easier to beat yourself up mentally than to do it physically because everyone can see the scars on your skin...

wishing

i really want to be in Paris, having a pain au chocolat right about now.

damn food network.

post-feast fun

best quote today:

the rest of us in the car, "yes, matt, you're very unique."

matt t, "yeah! i could win...a dog show!"

happy year of the rat!! xin nian kuai le! gong xi fa cai!

repro fun

best quote in lecture yesterday:

professor, "the sperm are produced in the testes, then move to the epidydimis, where they learn how to swim...well, not really..."

claudia, "aww, it's like summer camp."

clean shave

i shaved a man's facial hair for the first time today.

it was like creating negative 3-D art on a white fluffy palatte. slightly nerve-wracking, since the last thing i wanted to do was to have brett walking around with little bits of toilet paper on his face. there's some strategy to it, razing hair with as few strokes as possible. the pressure of the blade on skin needs to be just right.

it was great fun, deciding how much to shave and where. chops? goatee? moustache...um, nO. it took a while since we were playing around with the look. in the end, all of the curly beard came off.

brett said i did a good job, and his skin wasn't even irritated. huzzah!

next time i might make designs.

note of interest

i think i'm still on west coast time, having not really slept before 2 am for quite a few days...

i love med school. i love hanging out with the people here. it's like a continuous sitcom, of which i was reminded from spending two nights in a row with my friends outside of scaife. i laughed the entire night last night, from the time sach picked me up, to the movie theater, while the four of us watched superbad, during dinner afterwards, and on the car ride home. tonight was a similar experience of constant ridiculous commentary on recent occurrences. for a while, i thought my amusement resulted from what grey's anatomy calls the "social retardation" inherent to the medical school process. but i've realized that it's not that my classmates are socially inept. if anything, some of them have the clearest understanding of social interaction compared to many other people. i speculate that the great dynamics in our friendships are because our personalities are so honed that the quirks are simply more obvious than in other people i've encountered. our quirks can collide or sync for some awesomely comedic effect. i say this out of complete affection for my medical school classmates. i can always count on them to be funny, social, honest, empathic (as we were well taught in medical interviewing), and true to themselves. i'll admit that while not everyone is like this, the people i've gotten to know best...they've enhanced my medical school experience infinitely.

as an aside, i've decided that my next habitation unit is required to have a front porch. there are just too many fun things to do on a front porch that i must have one before i go back home to a land of few porches.

back in the 'burgh

in essence, a fulfilling summer. perhaps i will reflect more on it in coming months. for now, it's fresh and for my personal reminiscing delight.


it's good to be back in school. everyone's in a good mood due to three relaxing months away from scaife. people look different. they've been to some wonderful places. there's much to catch up on. we all have happy memories of the summer. yet it almost feels like no time has passed. it feels like yesterday we were finishing our psych exam. now, in a different lecture room, we all still sit pretty much where we used to. faces just as familiar. and we are reminded we're in this for the long run, that this year will be more difficult than the last. i wish some of my classmates had a more positive approach to the situation. times can be tough, but there's still light, especially since (theoretically) we're all one step closer to a common dream of being a physician. sometimes i think skills for coping with stressed classmates would be more useful than medical school coping skills. i'm not unrealistic - i realize the tug and labor this year will bring. but all the bitching doesn't make it easier...just spreads the draining energy. time to test the strength of my space.

already i miss the california sun. we're in for a week of thunderstorms. at least my car is shiny clean.

body and spirit

end of first year. 0.25 MD. 3 more years to go. there's a lot to reflect on in the past years - lessons learned, memories created. it was more than i ever could have expected. the "waterfall" of information poured into our minds wasn't minimized by anyone. i never would have survived anatomy without brian drilling me on the SMART boards in the 5th floor PBLs. the process of imprinting the muscle mechanics of a physical exam into our body movements was awkward and awesome. i'll always appreciate the first apprehensive moment when our little APE group stepped foot onto 6th floor of Shadyside with the purpose of performing a full physical exam on an actual patient: "wow, we're really doing this." remembering all the nights of bitching and moaning from everyone about everything when we should have been studying in the PBL rooms. my plan to "get it all out" of slater and xiaoyi one night completely backfired when our conversation concluded with unanimous disgust with our chosen profession. reminiscing all the hard work invested in our studies and our interest groups and the time taken out to nurture our relationships with our peers and mentors. i feel so blessed that the other kids in my class are so damn cool...wouldn't change any of them for the world. med school truly is filled with characters. crazy classmates are the only thing that will keep me sane. the transition from california to pittsburgh...learning a whole new culture of people, weather, way of life and learning to let go of what i'm used to was truly a challenge on top of adjusting to the intensity of medical school. i'm very happy with my first year though. i feel like i retreat back to a more child-like state with every school i enter. college was liberating. medical school was nothing held back. i played on a kickball team (never been on a team before!), learned racquetball, played hooky to hang out with a friend in a new place, traveled out of the state at least once a month, jumped into organizing for a national med student association without fully understanding what i was getting into, drove to DC and back for a concert, passed my classes (woo!)...and this is just the beginning. this first year was also a time to identify myself, starting with referring to myself by my given name, not a name bestowed by my old friends. along with that came the subconscious decisions of which of my own qualities did i desire to keep and which did i choose to reinvent. who is this jennifer who is going to be the doctor? i've never had such an opportunity before to truly allow myself to evolve without expectation. it was refreshing, but a little frightening. but this is a discussion for a future post.

i wanted to mark today, the summer solstice, because it's amazingly beautiful outside here in berkeley right now. 70 degrees, crisp, a bit breezy, fresh, and absolutely perfect. i've only been home 9 days and already i feel my reality shifting for the better. Maine was a lot of fun...how can you beat spending 6 days playing with your classmates on the coast of Maine amidst stunning beauty? but the long research days and the traveling was draining. from then it was non-stop traveling around pittsburgh, hanging out with people last minute, visiting my sister in NY (so delicious!), and then flying back here, only to spend a day with my parents before driving up to berkeley to start acupressure classes. oh, but there's no other way i would want to be spending my summer vacation!! for the last week, i've done nothing but heal, clear, detox, and do good for myself since i've been back to my old haunts. everything i'm learning, both theory and practice, is so easily applicable that i simply rejoice in the information i'm getting every day. i'm dedicating this summer to "body & spirit." personally and as a medical student, i spend much too much time in my mind and in my head, wandering around with an inflated view on the world and my own importance. acupressure will help me develop my physical capabilities as a a healer, plus teach me how to focus my energy to do what's best for the people i treat. i plan on taking yoga classes once in a while and i'm back at FSD to spiritually develop ME. but most of all, i plan to relax, which will be the most healing because i'll need to revisit this happy place once 2nd year starts and i'm back in my head. there's nowhere else in time and space i'd rather be than where i am now. it's a glorious time to be alive and i can't wait to see what's coming.