life in its ridiculous glory

the irony of a time to celebrate

2009-05-27T21:59:00.002-04:00

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

wishing

2008-03-16T14:38:00.001-04:00

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

damn food network.

post-feast fun

2008-02-07T23:45:00.001-05:00

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

2008-02-07T16:48:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-21T23:00:00.000-05:00

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

2007-09-23T01:46:00.000-04:00

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

2007-08-20T19:24:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-22T02:35:00.000-04:00

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.

silver cello

2007-05-05T23:51:00.000-04:00

went and saw the arcade fire at constitution hall in washington DC last night. the journey there and back was arduous, to be sure, but the time spent while we were there was priceless.

we arrived just in time to see the opening act, the national. this was the first time i've attended a concert NOT hanging out with my friends. because the hall doesn't do general admission, we ended up with seat at all corners of the auditorium. at first, it was a bit of a bummer. i was up in the balcony, toward the right, so i got a good view of the entire stage from afar. reminded me of the bill graham civic auditorium, but smaller (i think) and with seats and carpeting in front of the stage. really nice venue. security was very strict about sticking to the seat on your ticket and not bringing anything but bottled water back into the hall. after purchasing a drink, a snack, and a t-shirt, i felt a little better. retail therapy's great.

then the arcade fire went on. i had forgotten about the intense feelings that being a great band induces within my heart. it had been too long. regardless of your opinion about their music, the arcade fire undeniably puts on an AMAZING show. highlights included the neon poles at the front of the stage which turned out to be cameras which projected the bandmates' at a live show with faces while they were performing onto these large circular screens on the back curtain. the violinists pranced in their hip red shoes while they pulled their bows across the strings. two guys kept time, hitting drum sticks on everything on stage, except the people. i think at one point, one of them waltzed with a tall lamp. the glimmering silver cello, initially a decoration, was actually played with passion. there were eight people on stage and the musical synchronicity, the performance coordination, the physical energy that they each put into the show was overwhelming. the entire auditorium was packed. everyone was out of their seats, dancing, singing, reveling in the moment. the songs that had been on repeat in our mp3 players for the last year were now being given new life and new meaning. the lead singer even invited everyone to forget security and dance in the orchestra area. i was dancing and cheering in my little 3 ft x 3 ft space, drunk on the spirit of the music. arcade fire played two crowd-pleasing songs for their encore, then closed the night.

we ended our night in DC in dupont circle, at kramer's bookstore and their 24 hr cafe, indulging in thai buffalo wings, smoked salmon quesadilla, steamed mussels, lobster ravioli, moroccan tangine lamb, and grilled atlantic salmon. perfectly delicious.

**********************************

on a side note, i still understand few of words arcade fire sings in their songs. but it's beautiful because the sound patterns of the lyrics work with their voices and their music. their music reminds of certain precious times in my life. i'm guessing it'll be even more wonderful once i figure out what the lyrics are.

orient yourself

2007-04-28T01:36:00.000-04:00

that's surviving anatomy 101. the first step is to figure out the surrounding environment before making any decisions about where you stand. where are you going? where have you been? once your coordinates within the body are known, you have the tools to answer the questions.

that's pretty much how to survive medical school, too. medical students come from such various backgrounds. it takes a little time to figure out where you stand in your class, your city, and your career. we're all so used to being the best of the best. to compete with each other means humility and acceptance of your class ranking. honoring the class means infinitely more work than it did in undergrad, precipitating a choice to be made between the library and extra-curricular activity. do you take the extra hour and attend a meeting on health disparity? or do you spend it pre-reading the next lecture and formulating questions beyond the scope of the class? we learn to prioritize the responsibilities we take on, orienting ourselves toward the loftier goals of our medical careers. world-renowned surgeon? better start shadowing. breakthrough research? meeting with a mentor with my project ideas today. rural medicine? i'm better learn all sorts of emergency, wilderness, family, management techniques because who knows what will walk through the door. first, though, we need to determine what the goal IS. i've almost sure i'll be a primary care physician in the future. but other questions need to be answered: do i want to do research? what are my interests? how do i envision my practice? how do i want to be involved in the community? at the very least, what will i be doing this summer? in the last year, i feel that few of these questions have been answered with any definity. as much as i recognize that there's no hurry (yet), it's difficult not to feel pressure when the 30 classmates standing around you have grandiose, multidisciplinary plans for themselves. every so often, i remind myself there's a reason i'm in pittsburgh, that there's a path for me, and that i will find it soon.

nothing quite prepared me for the onslaught of medical school. imagine the heaviest course you could take in undergrad...and multiply by 100. they call it the "waterfall" of information - the student can try as hard as she can to retain it all, but it's impossible. the next gasp of fresh air is drowned by four lectures and a PBL presentation. the first few months are, additionally, a constant deluge of social gatherings, opportunity meetings, non-science curricular obligations, and becoming accustommed to the city in which you now reside for the next four years. it's a difficult transition, something i've been grappling with for the last year. the first few months were tough - being homesick, missing the work life, getting used to hellacious teaching, navigating pittsburgh's lack of urban planning and amenities. i mourn the loss of my innocence, that i'm in training for my career as an adult. i'm 24, but that doesn't mean i should be allowed to hold someone's life in my hands. i feel so far away from home, our family is frequently spread across the world, my loved ones are 3000 miles away....what if something happens? it's a grievance that visits daily. it has been a long process and i think with the close of the first year, i can finally put certain parts of my past to rest. i've (almost) released the longing for the feeling of home, the idyllic days at Cal, and life as an employed young woman living in the East Bay.

there are still issues to be dealt with. for example, my creative side has been neglected for months. i haven't gone dancing in ages. when will i travel or learn a foreign language? issues like these are put aside for the next exam on friday or the impending physical exam session for which-i-have-not-read. or does it need to be? the first year of medical school has been an uphill battle to rise above the pressures and protocols to realize what i want out of it. am i the driven student or am i the community organizer? do i care about the honor grade or am i happy to pass? do i foster my old relationships or build new ones? are these mutually exclusive? for the most part, there just isn't enough time to do everything. like many over-achieving students, i have a bad habit of being interested in anything half-appealing. i can't spend the rest of med school feeling torn between my classmates' dreams and my own. i have some choices to make about how i want to invest my time and energy. i need to orient myself, find what's important to me, and proceed accordingly, disregarding what the "popular" thing to do is. some activities will be immensely beneficial for myself and my career and there will be those that will not matter in the long run. i'm okay with my passes in class right now. P = MD, after all. we'll get that extra immunopathology information next year. we'll learn more about neuropharmacology the year after. medical school is a lot of repetition. my job is figure out how to supplement my medical education for my own heart's desires. and stick to it.

speaking of which...

huzzah for psychedelics

2007-01-24T23:12:00.000-05:00

drug use and drug policy was and still is a fascination of mine. working with danceSafe for so many years, mingling in and out of crowds who would partake in various mind-altering substances, gotta love those raves! and clubs! or just a good old saturday night. i'd say i had my fair share of drug experiences. getting to visit alexander shulgin and his wife was one of the highlights of my involvement. we won't mention whether any of my drug experiences were direct or not. but drugs, be it alcohol or E, affected my life profoundly on many levels, from the public health classes i took to the people i socialized with to the way it opened my perspective on the marginalized groups of society.

it's been a while since those days, probably for the better, now that i'm all "grown-up" supposedly. doctor must set a proper example. yet, here's an article which sparked my interest for the umpteenth time, publicizing studies that i've been following for the last couple years on using E as a psychiatric treatment, the way it was meant to be used from the 1970s.

http://www.slate.com/id/2158144/?nav=ais

so before you proclaim a "war on drugs" (don't even get me started), consider what is a drug. consider the number of legal substances used and abused that are much more harmful for us as humans. consider why some drugs (alcohol, tobacco) are legal and others are not. think about the benefits that lie in some of those drugs listed under schedule 1, especially those that are plant-derived. if an illegal drug can help a person work through anxiety and post-traumatic stress with little to no side effects, isn't it worth exploring?

perhaps recreational use could be a option too.

crazy med student

2007-01-10T01:17:00.000-05:00

as i sit here in my pink adidas headband that pey got me for christmas (along with an excellent racquetball racquet), debating how late to study for fuel metabolism, i ponder about the odd things that people will do. for example, i will be awake for the next few hours studying for an exam that is pass/not pass and has little to do with my ability as a doctor (unless i fail). i have already spent the last few nights awake until the break of dawn going over the pathways of fatty acids and glucose. instead of working diligently this evening, my classmates and i deliberated all the places we would really like to travel to, but do not have the means or time to do so. and then we griped about how our non-med friends seem to have it much easier and better than we do.

earlier in the evening, i had my nose numbed and cleared before an ENT fellow stuck a fiber optic camera in my nose and down my nasal cavity. i saw my pink spotty epiglottis and white vocal cords, which stretched when the doctor told me to say "eee." there's a lot of fleshy tissue down near my larynx. it was SOOO cool. my classmates crowded around the tv display thought so too. i also have very clean ears and an intact tympanic membrane (ear drum).

look what the first four months of medical school can do. i've spent days in scaife just absorbing anatomy terminology without seeing the light of day. i've taken my experimental streak to a new level, being part of a champion kickball team, learning how to climb, and taking on racquetball (yes, so doctor cliche). i'm finally adjusted to life in western pennsylvania, though i'm still marveling when white stuff falls from the sky. i know terms i could barely pronounce six months ago and i can perform a physical exam (don't ask me what's wrong...yet). i've made friends with super intelligent people of all backgrounds and experiences - with a common passion for medicine. i've realized medical school takes all kinds - some intense, some worldly, some empathetic, some erudite - to produce the most able physicians that provide the best patient care. it's crazy stuff. we're crazy people. otherwise we wouldn't be doing this.

summer of goodbyes...or see you laters.

2006-08-01T10:03:00.000-04:00

i'm finally back in action, after having spent the last two weeks in complete idleness. thought about calling up friends to see before i leave, didn't actually do it. watched a lot of movies on hbo: catwoman, vanity fair, elizabeth, shrek 2 (multiple times), madagascar, the skulls, etc. dangerous thing, a few hundred tv channels is. does everyone go through shanghai withdrawal? after i pulled myself out of my depression (which my darling boyfriend so understandingly tolerated), i eventually got around to completing administrative forms for school, little financial issues that piled up while i was away, logistics of moving, downloading and organizing music...things that i could've done in one day but took my time about.

for our farewell slmc trip, the girlz and i made a trip up to lake tahoe. none of us had been up in the summer...it was gorgeous! brilliant colors of nature, fresh air, clean blue water. we wanted to do a bunch of things, but ended up playing uno on the hot sandy beach. playing in the lake made for a sweet alternate activity. of course, we had our traditional game of kings before we went out for the night at the casinos. we reminisced about our past classic moments, shared our lives of the present, and expressed our dreams & fears for the future. jenn's leaving the bay area as well, but for usc PT school. i can't believe it's been 5 years since we met. i still remember the first time i met her beginning of freshman year on our way to fort point (in the city) in mark's creaky van with questionable brakes. the other girls, jenn, and i clinging together in the cold and fear of the "albino man" while mark and shuichi hid behind us. ah! i'm going to miss the sexy ladies oh-so-painfully...

i arrived in pittsburgh yesterday for my search for a flat. this trip kickstarted my motivation for action. the one week i have at home when i leave thursday will be most precious. last chance to see familiar faces, visit old haunts, and enjoy california until winter break. i realized last week while pey was visiting, just what i'll be leaving behind. it hit hard...my life of the past 18 years - adolescence, high school, uni - revolved around the City and bay area. it's true my sister made the move to the east coast fresh out of high school and made it well. i admire her for that. i didn't consider what it entailed when she did it. this is the first time i'm moving farther than an hour's drive away from home. yet, i have four saturated years of memories from cal that my sister didn't have to leave behind, which make it infinitely more difficult to be apart from the culture i hold so dear. no more berkeley bowl, clubbing at suite 181, tim's place, emeryville, indian rock, napa, bitterswet chocolate cafe, lake merritt, sushi house, amoeba, the mission, citizen cake, shows at the warfield, CAL!!, downtown SJ (yes, even there)...oh, i can't name them all...it's too hard to realize how much i'm going to miss all my friends...

but it's not forever. just for longer periods of time. ain't no thang.

home will always be home. the people will still be there, or somewhere i can visit. the culture will continue to thrive. the places will persist while others make their own memories there. i'll be the one in the "roll on you bears" shirt with my potato gun at fort point, looking for the albino man.

adjusting

2006-07-20T00:27:00.000-04:00

how ironic that i post about the ephemeral nature of friendships made from this point in my life on out...only to get most attached to the people i've had the least amount of time to hang out with.

my flight landed in san francisco on monday morning...typical crowded, cricked-neck UA plane ride complete with turbulence and technical difficulties with the movie. it was the most depressing ride of my life. i cried in the taxi to the maglev station, at the gate waiting for the flight, and while we waited for the plane to take off, until i fell asleep from exhaustion. only reason i didn't cry in the maglev is that it's pretty awesome: 8 min ride from pudong to the int'l airport at 430 km/h. by the time the train's accelerated to its max speed, it has to start slowing down...weird design.

so my mom picked up up at SFO and i forgot to put on my seatbelt in the car, accustomed to the ways of shanghai taxis. looking across the baby blue skies, breathing in the familiar green scents of the pennisula hills, i actually missed the skyscrapers and neon lights of the city. i've hung out with some uni friends who live in the area the past couple days, which has helped to get me back in the groove. it was good to catch up with them, hear their boy stories, laugh about the past, contemplate the future. one of them is going off to PT school at usc when i leave for pittsburgh...life just won't be the same after this summer.

yet i can't help but miss life in shanghai. maybe it was best i left at a high point, so all the memories i have are of the happiest days there. i honestly believe i'm going through shanghai withdrawal. i enjoy my mom's cooking, but i miss deciding which restaurant to meet at and taking the metro with my flatmates forever to get there. i miss eating street food at 3 am. i miss anne and arpen, mike and christoff, gemski and agnieszka, ron, jerry, ian, scottish chris, catherine, and the many other people who helped shape my shangers experience. i miss watching house in the flat, buying fan tuans on the street, singing numanumayea with michael, being gangsta with arpen and ron, learning british, cramming onto the bus, being the wonder of shanghai that is an english & mandarin speaking chinese, dancing in the rain, beers from the family mart, excursions in the sweltering heat... even after cal graduation, i wasn't as heartbroken as i was on monday. you feel like you'll definitely see your college classmates someday, somewhere. shanghai was like first year uni packed into one month and instead of knowing you'll see them next year, it's over. pbbt. and because you know you have such a limited time, you make events happen. memorable events. that stay with you. i left a part of my heart on the other side of the pacific...

so now i look toward the future. new people, new places, new life as a medical student. still have to get through the next month, seeing all the friends i can, securing a place to live, tying up loose ends here, and shipping my life across the country. better enjoy my last days of freedom...

ma vie en images

2006-07-11T04:39:00.000-04:00

my last week!! still so much to say and reflect, but let's have some visual aids shall we?

yu yuan with agnieszka and arpen

hangzhou

the flatmates...awwww...

ta-da!

2006-07-11T04:32:00.000-04:00

of all the bars in shanghai, he had to walk into mine...lol.

moving forward

2006-07-05T02:04:00.000-04:00

after reconciling with the end of college, moving away from the world i've created for myself over the past five years, i'm struck by how fast people come in and out of life. cal was four years of relative stability...every year, a few older friends left berkeley, but for the most part, the people that i was closest with were never far. during this last year in oakland, there were new people in my life all the time. it was the first time i had coworkers to get to know. i had three distinctly different roommates throughout the course of the year, each of whom allowed me to take a magnifying glass to a particular part of my nature. great thing to do while working on med school apps. ironically, the more people i met, the lonelier i felt ( as my previous posts demonstrate). i never felt completely satisfied in these new friendships. why? because there wasn't any history there? or because i just didn't find a kindred spirit in the bunch? in any case, the likelihood of seeing these people from the past five years again once i move away is minimal. just like how i haven't seen most of the kids from high school since graduation. even with the advent of myspace and facebook, it takes effort to keep up with the numerous people that walk through a person's life. i learned this the hard way, spending much time having late night AIM chats that i can't even recount, trying to consistently email old friends, even making random phone calls, which i neVer do. it's been scientifically proven that a person can adequately know about 250 individuals without getting mixed up. count up all your close friends, your coworkers, family members, lover(s), neighbors, old classmates, etc. and see if you can fit that 250 in your head. and imagine how much time and effort it takes to keep up with those 250.

now that this has become a tangential rant, my point is that i'm getting used to the idea of people NOT being a permanent fixture in my life. i've been spoiled by attending uni close to home, best friends from high school attending the same college, an extension of the first 18 years of my life. i will always marvel at how much influence one person can have, regardless of time spent with them. i have friends from all over the world now who have touched me in one way or another. yet as i grow older, i don't expect to have meaningful long-term friendships with every person i meet. it's a moment in time that two people were meant to share. future encounters will happen if we intend it.

six degrees

2006-07-03T06:58:00.000-04:00

do you believe that your life is shaped by every person you meet? it sounds very cliche chick flick, doesn't it? maybe i'm just easily influenced, but i often feel affected by even a single encounter with a person. in simple conversation, i'm struck by how many times i'm reminded of a high school girl friend or that guy in my bio class at Cal, the professor at extension or the art teacher i haven't seen in 10 years. even more amazing is how people make friends in the first place. dorm mates are forced to interact. classes provide opportunites three times a week at a set time for you to talk to someone new. but the guy who walks up to you at a conference and teaches you something that changes your outlook on life...how do you explain that?

so here i am, in shanghai, on the other side of the world. i was totally expecting to be here with 5 other nerds. instead i've met guys and gals from all over the world and having the time of my life. it's kinda like freshman year where you get to know people very intensely because you live and party with them. i get to do it again in a month when med school starts. =D i'm going to miss every single person i've met here, including the doctors. the cynical side of me slightly doubts that every single person who does tpa can be so fantastic. but they are! especially my flatmates. chris is the sweetest guy, michael's hilarious, and gemma's so lovely, inside and out.

speaking of moments in time, guess who i saw at a bar last friday night?? guess. just guess. it was too crazy to believe. i'll put up a picture when i get around to it.

life is great besides. i lost 50 yuan to arpen when i bet on argentina in the germany v. argentina game. i won 20 of it back when england lost (just playing devil's advocate), then promptly lost 50 more when france actually beat brazil. maybe i should pay more attention to football.

time for street food!!

passing time

2006-06-28T01:39:00.000-04:00

i'm not in a huge hurry to get back to the traumatology clinic. to tell the truth, i'm a little bored with it right now. there's a lot of down time, waiting for patients preparing under the heat lamps. and dr. gen only massages them for about 5 min each. it's a bit difficult to learn anything when

a) i don't have a lot of experience in how it's supposed to be done
b) i don't know specifically what's wrong with the patient (back pain doesn't say much), and
c) it's all over so fast, i can't even formulate questions to ask about it.

it's all hands-on, literally, which i don't know how to do. practicing the techniques can amuse me for only so long. so i've spent the last few days reading. i've finished half of the basic TCM theory book. at least i'm being productive, but i wish i could make more of my time here. dr. gen also told me that my next rotation's going to be even less informative since it's internal medicine and all they do is write presciptions for chinese herbs. agh! i might actually learn a thing or two if i understood the doctor-patient encounters, but they're ALL conducted in shanghainese. =P oooo frustrated.

on the social side, i found out where i was last thurs night. it took a little consulting with my flatmates. me and chris went to Pho with a bunch of tpa people, then met up with them at park 97 in fu xin park. cute cozy bar. good times.

yesterday catherine and i took the initiative and went to the 88th floor of the jin mao tower at dusk to see shanghai from atop. it's been such a struggle organizing 15 people at a time, so we just WENT. SOOOO amazing. we watched the sunset and the city come to life. the street lights and building signs look wondrous against the huang pu river and canals. i'll upload pictures soon. the jin mao is the 3rd tallest building in the world. 2 down out of the top three! petronas towers in k.p. to go!

settling in...

2006-06-26T01:57:00.000-04:00

theoretically my last post was published but thanks to the Chinese government, i can't actually access my blog here. my new flatmate michael had the same problem while at wagas cafe, so it's definitely not a matter of location.

it's been 10 days since i arrived and i'm finally adjusted to the time, the food (even street food!), the schedule, and even the weather. it's been "huang mei tian" here in shanghai - two weeks every year where it's humid as hell and each day is dotted with random torrents of rain and thunder loud as gunshots. but at least the sun isn't pounding down, so the walk to the bus stop in the morning is rather pleasant.

every day i come to work about 9 and leave around 4. both dr. ji (supervisor) and the drs. i work for keep telling me to take it easy and rest. they're either really nice or they just don't want me around. =P

today is my first day in "traumatology" which turned out to be massage/acupressure. dr. gen uses heat lamps to first increase circulation to the area to be treated. the patients lie under these lamps for 30-60 min, then dr. gen presses certain points in a certain way (still figuring this out) for about 5 min and they're done! sometimes they're strapped in this contraption that looks like a torture machine which helps align their body by pulling at their feet. it's quieter in this clinic, so thus far i've done more reading than work.

this past weekend's been pleasant. not as much sightseeing as i would've liked, but the tpa people got to hang out a lot. thursday night, michael arrived from seattle. he's also pre-med, but currently applying to med school. he's traveling to india afer this, then ghana, then bolivia, which totals a year of traveling. crazy! he was a bit tired from flying, so...me and chris went out somewhere for dinner that i can't remember at this moment. to be edited!

friday night me, mike, and chris headed to barbarossa because it was pippa's last night here. barbarossa is a lounge near ren min park. to get to the front door, you walk down a path through what's essentially a tropical rainforest. then there's a bridge across a giant lily pond moat and the building is situated on a mini island. there are four levels, including the rooftop, each with its own theme. drinks are pretty expensive for shanghai standards, but standing on the rooftop, looking across the water, trees, and greenery to the shanghai skyline makes it worthwhile.

saturday a bunch of us went to old town to try to see some temples. unfortunately, due to a late start and the yuyuan bazaar, we never actually got to any temples. we did go through the yu yuan, which is this huge, gorgeous, 16th century set of gardens. it was like a beautiful maze full of secret walkways, ponds, and ancient buildings. each doorway was a different shape to frame the next garden. each bridge was a heavenly creation. every window was intricately carved. every garden was like heaven on earth...so lovely and peaceful. such a contrast to modern shanghai. =D as soon as we finished at the garden, it started raining. four of our group caught the first taxi back. me mike and arpen were left. we spent the next 20 min trying to catch a cab, but in shanghai, as soon as it starts raining, it's an impossible feat. so we hid out an old 1930s style teahouse for a while, chatted, and watched the street turn into a river. when it finally let up a little, we spent another 15 min in the rain before an empty cab showed up. soaked to the bone, we went back to our flat and i ordered in papa john's (in chinese, also quite a feat) for us, which we happily scarfed down to an episode of house. then we went out for a lovely night at i love shanghai where ron had the brilliant idea of trying all the shots on the menu since it was all you can drink. they were pretty good, not very strong. i haven't been drunk in shanghai yet. perhaps that's a good thing. while we were leaving, chris wanted to get sketched by a street artist, but the picture turned out horrible and we left the bar in a hurry. oh, chris is so especially awesome when he's drunk. =D

yesterday was anne's 24th birthday, so we had a small party at agniewska's flat consisting of chips, cheese, and jam-filled angel food cake topped with whipped cream. anne's french, so ron and arpen went to xiang yang market and bought a ton of french label fake stuff including an LV purse, cartier watch, chanel sunglasses, and a french football jersey. we also got her a bottle of evian, which is quite expensive here. we tried again to go to the temples, but they close relatively early, so we ended up at the china sex museum at the pudong end of the bund sightseeing tunnel. that was a very graphic 45 min, but it was also educational. the exhibit discusses issues like oppression of females (foot binding, prostitution, etc.), sex education, fertility icons, and of course, there were genital symbols galore. the best was a monstrified human sculpture about 3 feet tall wrapped in chains everywhere except for his schlong which was as long as he was. the title was "the only part of man that cannot be restrained." quite powerful. =) afterwards we went to pho for dinner in anne's birthday honor.

i'm taking it pretty easy over here. my aims are to learn as much TCM as possible, but at the same time, enjoy shanghai and people i meet. i feel a little guilty i'm not spending more time at the hospital, but there's only so much i can learn without having learned TCM before this and i'll be working my ass off come august. so far i've been happy with what i've done with my time here.

i've picked up a little more chinese. it's a bit of a change to go to work and communicate to the community in chinese, then go home and talk to my friends in english (plus accents!). pulls back a little on the full chinese speaking experience, but it preserves my sanity. i guess this is what my parents went through when they went to the US...forced to speak an imperfectly mastered language most of the day and using the native tongue at home. i guess it's the experience of most American immigrants. it's not very easy. many times so far, i've had to rely on describing objects i can't remember names to or places whose names i can't read in chinese. sometimes it works, but there's still so much i wish i could ask or say at the hospital than i just can't communicate. and i think i only understand ~70% of what the doctors explain to me. agh...such frustration.

final thought: why doesn't shanghai harness all the heat produced from air conditioning, factories, and the damn weather to produce useable energy? the heat from cooling these gigantic buildings must go somewhere. obviously it's heating up the environment along with the pollution. it seems to make sense to channel it into something productive. maybe i'm just weak sauce about the heat. =)

writings in shanghai

2006-06-21T23:34:00.000-04:00

so much for writing often. it's been almost a week and it's my first entry. it does take a little time to orient oneself to the shopping, people, food, and partying. =)

today i was sent home from work due to a cough...and lack of work to do. two of the doctors have the day off today, including the one i usually work with, so i'm spending some quality time my friend internet.

it's loads of fun here in shanghai! i'm living in PuDong, on the eastern side of the huang pu river, in a 5th floor flat with two roommates gemma and chris - both from south england. i have my own room, surprisingly...a/c AND a full-sized bed, which is bigger than my bed at home. =) the flat's quite nice and spacious with hardwood floors, a kitchen, big screen tv, dvd player, and a western style bathroom. only contention is the family of cockroaches that live under the bathroom sink. my friend rose and i had a time of it trying to figure how to kill papa roach after coming home from a bar one night. spraying roach raid for 20 sec seems to work very well.

i haven't actually done much sightseeing (eg the bund, french concession, xuyuan gardens, funny towers), but the city's pretty cool. the metro's relatively convenient...just have to watch out for people cramming in and out - no one waits their turn here. the cab drivers barely say anything when you get in and out of their car. bargaining at the shops has been SUCH a learning experience...i fall for the pity card or just get tired of it and end up paying 50% of the asking price, rather than the 30% you're supposed to get. the people here are rather rude...they won't be the ones to move out of your way when you're on a collision course on the sidewalk. it's more liberal in shanghai than the rest of shanghai - women wear tanktops and short shorts, very necessary in the humid heat. the caucasian folk complain they get stared at constantly though. PuXi, the west side, is where most of old shanghai is - all the temples, colonial relics, parks, etc. pu dong was farmland 20 yrs ago. now it's skyscrapers galore. a lot of new tpa (teaching & projects abroad) kids are coming in over the next week, so i'll probably do some sightseeing with one of them. i also plan on going to suzhou and hangzhou, both cities a few hours outside of shanghai known for their landscapes.

highlights/impressions since i've been here:

PEOPLE
- there are a lot of british folk here and i can just feel their accent rubbing off on me. YES! =D there are a couple americans, a canadian, and a french girl with more people joining us soom. all the english journalists are leaving to be replaced by american medics.

- most...no, wait, ALL of the other volunteers don't speak mandarin. it boggles my mind how they've gotten around so far as most of the people i've met don't speak english. ron gets pissed cuz he's cantonese and they assume he understands them. lol. i'm a modest celebrity with my survival mandarin/chinglish so now they just make me do all the talking. more practice for me! unfortunately, i'm no good with the shanghainese, which every other chinese person and their mother in shanghai uses.

CITY
- for the first couple days, i wondered why my contacts were so cloudy. was i not cleaning them? were they defective? but they don't hurt...and it's only when i'm outside... hmmmmmmmm. damn shanghai smog.

- crossing the street here is always an adventure. they're 10 lanes wide and no one (drivers, bikes, and pedestrians) follows the lights. i got caught between a bus and a taxi on my first day here. =P best idea is to walk fast between people so just in case a vehicle does hit someone, it won't be ME.

- getting used to taking taxis. they're just as crazy as the ones in taipei, worse than the ones in new york. hm should've tried the ones in tokyo. at least they provide a seatbelt for the passenger seat.

- been to xiangyang (fakes) market TWICE since i've been here. i actually haven't gotten that much (not suitcases full like some people), but if anyone wants any purses, wallets, belts, watches, DVDs, i'm definitely going back before it relocates on june 30. the gov't cracking down...they want china to be more respectable. =D

PARTYING
- pool party on the 5th floor rooftop of the purple mountain hotel. lots of expats dancing to hard house in bikinis and less. free manicures and massages. drinks were not so shanghai priced. watched the sun set over the shanghai skyline and danced into the night. that was my second night here...SO awesome.

- staying out until 5 am at karaoke on sunday night when i had to be at work by 9 am. how can i say no to ron and agniewska's pantomines of spice girls and celine dion? and the room was only 168 yuan (~$20) for 14 of us from midnight to 5 am. AND they let you have alcohol in the room.

- went out to a bar called i love shanghai. it's just an awesome name. oh yeah, and it's 10 bucks for all you can drink until 2 am.

- tues night was rose's last night (she's the first one i met here) and catherine's birthday. after an italian dinner, we went out to bonbon, the home of godskitchen in shanghai!!! the 47th dJ in the world (yes, 47th) was spinning and well drinks were free with 50 yuan (~$7) admission. aMazing night. arpen was saying i have to go to fabric in london where you wait 3 hrs to get in, but dance till 8 in the morning. sighhh. i thought i was old.

ME
- going out so much has aggravated my jet lag AND a cold. went out sun and tues night, slept 10 hrs both mon and last night. one of the doctors i work for took me to see someone at the hospital, who prescribed me some cough syrup and cefaclor (anti-infection) medication. hope it helps.

- my placement's really great. i'm at the Shanghai TCM-integrated Hospital in PuXi. this week i've been in acupuncture, where the first day, Dr. Hu taught me how to pluck needles after treatment. after learning how and where to attach the electric wires, i'm a regular medical assistant again. i've also tried cupping, but he doesn't do that so often. in between patients he answers any questions i have and teaches me some TCM theory or about medicine in China. now we're working on inserting the needle, which, like injections, is a lot harder than it looks at first. skin is tough! plus it hurts if you don't do it quick. =| i'm practicing on paper for now. but yes, i'm scheduled for internal medicine, external medicine, and massage over the next few weeks. my chinese is horribly inadequate at the hospital, but i'm picking some up every day. they're very accommodating and try to understand my chinglish. each doctor sees about 60 walk-in patients alone in the morning (3.5 hrs)!! there are people everywhere - sitting and laying on beds. they walk in, they get treatment, they leave. it's a very quick modality. amazing results.

what's even cooler about this placement is that they actually practice integrative medicine. they'll combine acupuncture and western medicine to treat an illness. or they'll use TCM first to take down the pathogen, then use western drugs to complete the cure. they even use acupuncture in place of anesthesia for throat surgeries. dr. hu has a few stroke patients that have rehabilitated quite well with acupuncture. i hope to learn a lot of useful applications here that can be translated into western hospitals.

i have so much more to say about the cost of living, street vendors, shopping, etc. but it will have to wait. even though i'm not at the clinic, i should work on my needling and read about basic TCM theory. until next time!

family vacation

2006-05-25T00:00:00.000-04:00

i'm currently uploading my photos...i took about 240 on my camera and my dad took about 80 more. =)

taiwan was lots of fun! i can't believe it's been 6 years since i saw my relatives...8 years since my sister's been back. she was 11 last time! everyone's still pretty much the same...the adults a little greyer and pretty much all my cousins are in college or graduated now. oh, how we grow up. i ate SO much food...
xiao long baos, spicy beef noodle soup, sashimi, fresh fish and shrimp from the local river and ocean, grandma's chow mi fun, wild chicken, rice balls, fresh soy milk, red bean mochi with a strawberry in it, omg it was unbelievable. we did a lot of sightseeing, like going to the ju ming outdoor sculpture museum an hr north of taipei and the taroko national park in hua lien. taiwan's a beautiful place.

i've always recognized that i'm missing out by not having any of my relatives here in the U.S. i've forgotten how much it means to be around people related by blood. to see where your roots are. to watch our grandparents and know where your mom's ideals came from. to hear stories from your aunts and uncles about your dad when he was four. to see the family resemblance amongst you and your cousins. there's a special place for family...

japan was also gorgeous. our tour stayed in eastern honshu, one of the four islands of japan. we stayed in narita at an airport hotel the first night, then traveled across Tokyo Bay where the toll was about $137 for our bus to cross the bridge (~$60 for regular cars). japan transportation IS expensive. =D we crossed through kamakura where there is a great buddha statue and it is said the most artistic women in japan are from. next stop was odawara castle, which is the entrance to the fuji-hakone-izu national park. we ended up in akami where they have natural hot springs and we all bathed in them...naked! no, the guys and girls are separated, but it is a little weird to be naked in front of your mom and sister at first. then you see all the old naked women trotting around and you feel okay. the hotel was right next to the ocean so when we went to sleep you could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs. the next day we took a ropeway ride down the mountains. we were supposed to see mt. fuji, but it was too cloudy. still beautiful vistas though.

then we took a boat across the lakes at the base of mt. fuji. after lunch, we headed to tokyo where my family went shopping during our free time in shinjuku, where our hotel was. my mom bought an $89 hair dryer that steams and dries. while we bought it, the salesgirl tried to communicate something about the electronics and differences in voltage, but her english wasn't good enough. four more salespeople swarmed around us and couldn't help. finally, after much gesturing and random vocabulary, we figured out that the motor would run faster because of U.S. voltage so my mom would have to be careful not to leave it on for too long. =D that was the only major communication issue we encountered while we were there. the next day we toured tokyo: meiji shrine, a temple where an annual festival was occurring (lots of shopping stalls!), ginza, the toyota headquarters, and finally, the waterfront nearby. it was a warm breezy night, perfect for walking down the new boardwalk, enjoying the lights of the tokyo skyline with your dad. =) our last morning there, we took the subway to shiboya, power shopped at shiboya 109 where my sister and i spent $140 in 15 min, and walked to harajuku, spectating the japanese fashion the whole way.

it was an amazing trip. i'm a lucky gal to be able to experience so much of the world and other ways of life. japanese culture is so fascinating. now i want to travel back at least every two years and go to both islands. most importantly thought, i spent some quality time with my family, both the people halfway around the globe and the one i have right here.

tick tock

2006-05-02T01:23:00.000-04:00

where does the time go?? how is it already may? that means there're only three and a half months before i start med school! it's going to go SOO fast...

instead of passing time reading about other people's lives, i figure i should start posting more often in my own blog. after all, this is going to be the primary form of communication i have with most of my friends for the upcoming few months. too bad they don't know it yet. =)

after bungling through my last emo trip, i'm feeling a little more secure in my place in life. a little more settled about the future of my relationship with pey. a little more prepared to leave my precious norcal for the East. not having plans troubles me sometimes. i have issues with being a free spirit, making whimisical decisions, releasing control. i crave structure, a system to support my choices, the ones i do want to make. yet i detest limits for choices ought to be endless and there are no boundaries to my ability. again, watch me, the walking paradox.

in any case, allow me to announce my planned whereabouts:

05.8-21 - taiwan and japan
05.31 - last day of work
06.1-6 - san diego
05.21-06.10 - last days in the east bay ~ let's live it up!
06.10-15 - home home
06.15-07.17 - shanghai
07.17-early 08 - home home
early august - leave for pittsburgh. !!

i'll be busy...but not too busy for my friends. don't be a stranger.

becoming a doctor

2006-04-11T01:31:00.000-04:00

shota kept asking why i wasn't more excited about going to medical school. i guess it just struck me all at once what it means to be accepted...what it means to be a physician. yes, there're still four long hard years of study and training, plus at least three more of 80 hour workweeks after that. if i make it through all that, THEN i'll be a doctor. but this is the first step. a medical school thinks i'm qualified to practice medicine...on people! of course, while i was applying, i believed i embodied the ideal future doctor: i have the academic record, the personality traits, the passion, and the vision. it's just a little different when an institution validated my belief in myself. crazy. i'm jumping for joy inside, but little butterflies of apprehension are fluttering about the cloud of celebration.

dr. a's seems much more excited than i am. every day she teaches me something new, plans another detail of my future career. so far i've applied LN2 to seborrheic keratoses (harmless, sometimes itchy growths), tied sutures in square knots, and most recently, injected local anesthesia to patients prior to biopsies. i like all the procedural work. it's a nice break from interviewing patients and sensory assessment. i plan on having LN2 and sterile instruments ready in my primary care office just in case someone comes in needing it. but yes, it was awesome getting to DO medicine. i kept thinking, "wow! i'm injecting into someone's body! i can feel their flesh with the end of this needle! this takes SOME trust the patient has in the doctor!" and then it was all done and i went back to being assistant. but what a thrill! i can't wait for more tactile exams with the patient as my medical career progresses.

wax and wane

2006-04-07T03:09:00.000-04:00

god, life is such an emotional roller coaster. i'm usually pretty steady, but the last few weeks have thrown me up and down. sometimes i love my job, then i hate it. i'll fear for the strain the next four years will put on my relationship with my boyfriend. next moment, it'll seem like it'll be a piece of cake. i'll adore the people i hang out with before getting annoyed with them. healthy, sick, healthy, sick....almost healthy again. to me, this doesn't feel balanced at all. something's not right.

there's almost some underlying dissatisfaction throwing everything else off kilter. i can feel it when i pause during the day. nothing intense. just a small dark spot consistently marring my light. don't feel quite right at my apartment. nothing's going perfectly...always off the bull's eye. i think i've been distancing myself from people in general. i think i've become more selfish in the past year. i feel an ownership to my time and energy. so i haven't been devoting much to developing relationships with my coworkers. and deservedly, i suppose, no one seems to care about my well-being. since i spend most of my time at work, it comes easy to feel lost in life. but for the most part, i haven't felt truly happy in a long time. even with my med school acceptance, i just haven't felt fulfilled. there have been fleeting moments of bliss (most recently during this past weekend in san diego), but even then, there were major ups and downs - mostly self-inflicted. i don't know why, but i've been thinking some terrible thoughts. thoughts that depress me and scare me. my super-id's going "you're being silly" but my ego's taken over. i wish it was pms. i just want it all to flow again...

excuse me?

2006-03-30T05:08:00.000-05:00

at our office, we have a policy of asking patients when they check in whether their address or insurance has changed since their last visit. usually i say, "you still live at ______ and you still have ______ insurance?" yesterday i happened to blurt out something the other receptionists say. "has anything changed since your last visit?" i completely expected the typical "no, it's all the same." instead, the lady launched into a very detailed explanation of her medical complaints, which i thought was surprising and a little amusing. after i explained to her i was referring to her contact info and insurance and the patient sat down, chris remarked, "i was wondering when that would happen."

i hadn't thought about it before then, but her response should've been much more common with the way we word that question. phrases that we say repeatedly lose so much meaning when we abbreviate as much as possible while still retrieving the same answer. and we feel that everyone should know what we mean because we've said it so many times. it's easy to forget that not everyone will understand language specific to your world. hence, the effort of communication - developing a fresh connection between your world and someone else's amidst your comfort zone.

it's an effort i need to remind myself of from time to time.

reflective sunday

2006-03-25T15:32:00.000-05:00

ok, it's actually saturday, but it's one of those cloudy, windy days without a specific plan. back in cupertino, a day like this called for hours spent letting my mind wander on unpredictable tangents. also known as zoning out.

driving along the 580 today, i remembered the first time i saw the signs for harrison st. and grand ave. and the uneven pavement of oakland streets. it was my first time going to le's place to pick him up for a dancesafe event. this must've been 3 years ago. little did i know, i was wandering down into central oakland right off international with my brand new jetta. not that there are gangs ready to jump you, but it's not the best part of town. what did i know about oakland except the murders they report on the news? it was trying to navigate the streets that curve around the lake i didn't now existed. liquor stores on every corner, run-down homes, locked gates on the doors of every building, fried chicken restaurants everywhere! i lived in berkeley, but this was a different level. there were other times when i took the lakeshore exit because we were lost on the freeway.

how ironic that i ended living here after graduation. how lakeshore is now the road to home. how much i love lake merritt now, despite the havoc it wreaks on the street layout. how the liquor store on the corner was a convenient refreshment replenisher for our party. how i frequent the lakeside farmer's market now along with the old hippies, new families, and everyone in between in the community.

i'm going to miss oakland.

new news

2006-03-23T21:50:00.000-05:00

med schools applied: 14
secondaries received: 11
invitations to interview: 4
acceptances: 1
still awaiting: 2

today seemed like the day when all the med schools i'm still waiting for decided to send me information updating my status with them. first of all, two weeks ago, i was accepted to the university of pittsburgh medical school!! i'm going to be a doctor!! frances called to tell me the absolutely fabulous news and it was awesome. people keep asking if it's my first choice and all i can say is, i'd be happy going there. it's such an adorable little city with rivers, bridges, neighborhoods...and they really want me! i'd be happy going to mayo or wash U too...that was probably one of my best decisions. it doesn't make sense to apply to places you wouldn't be happy living in for the next 4 years. anyways, so i interviewed at those two other places...i love the mayo philosophy, but rochester is less contemporary than the pittsburgh and st. louis. i may need some more for my soul than chili's and snowshoeing. st. louis was all right. it didn't seem particularly happening and it's got the highest tuition out of the three. today i received an invitation to interview at jefferson medical college in philidelphia, what i considered my back-up school. i doubt i'll go, just because it means taking time off work and i don't think i would choose jefferson over pittsburgh. but i figure my application statistics aren't too bad, considering how lazy i was about the whole process. so far, it's pittsburgh, here i come!!

next step: plan the summer.

gotta move out of oakland, do some good works in asia, and spend a couple weeks in san diego before i move to the east coast!

interviews...

2006-02-15T03:59:00.000-05:00

I've been to two medical school interviews so far: Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Pittsburgh. Both schools were quite impressive, particularly the facilities. WashU just built brand new classrooms and study carrals in the new Learning Center. Pittsburgh has the most extensive simulation center out of all the medical schools. I enjoyed both cities a lot, but I may be biased toward UPitt since Frances showed me such a good time. =)

What I wanted to report was that both faculty interviews, either by luck or match, were just perfect. Dr. Kim at WashU had lived in Berkeley for 5 years and loves yoga, so most of the interview involved chatting about healing energy and my undergraduate experience there. Dr. Yazer at Pittsburgh (amazingly enough) happened to love trance music so we discussed various artists, musical genres, its availability in Pittsburgh, and my involvement with DanceSafe. Oddly enough, DanceSafe and integrative medicine were the two areas of my background that I thought would be too controversial to bring up in the interview. Much advice was given against discussing my views on these subjects in fear that I would offend my interviewers. Yet somehow either these interviewers found in me a kindred spirit, one who could supplement their opinions, or setting my space when I came to interview REALLY helped (with aid from friends I'm sure). It's been a great experience so far to not only feel truly qualified to be at these prestigious institutions but also to feel wanted by the people who have interviewed me. How comforting to know that there is a match out there for me, despite all the rejections (7 and counting).

So when people ask about med school interview horror stories, I have nothing to say...yet. One more interview to go at Mayo. Cross my fingers that it'll be as good (if not better) than the ones so far.

happy new year!

2006-01-05T01:54:00.000-05:00

another year, another resolution. ;)

i had a lovely holiday with my slmc girls naughty nancy and prudence. amazing how pleasant vacation can be when you don't plan anything. <3 to them. if you want details, nancy's xanga entry sums it up quite nicely. i actually really enjoyed spending new year's with a few beloved friends and kissing my boyfriend at midnight. who needs wild drunk crowds?

some potential resolutions:

1) watch 1 hr or less of tv a day.
2) read or write instead of watching tv.
3) renew my resolution of cleaning out emails within 4 days.
4) run energy >10 min every day.
5) do physical exercise >10 min every day (besides walking 4 miles in the office).
6) learn something new medicine-wise every day.
7) call/write more letters/emails to friends.
8) speak chinese to my parents.
9) simplify my material life.
10) create for the world. daily.

see any trends? i think my goal is simply to be consistent. i do really well under pressure, but it seems that some things just work out better when you practice often, like piano. oo piano...

speaking of being proactive, time to wash away the yoga sweat.

i miss these...

2005-12-08T05:02:00.000-05:00

first thought: 72% dark chocolate chips are darn good 2 am snacks. they're also good in hot chocolate melted on the stove.

second thought: i miss staying up late to do study and be unproductive. can't do it too often during work unless i want to a) be a zombie the next day or b) get wired and flushed on caffeine. but today it is worth it. i watched a darling chick flick called sweet november and i'm going to type up some essays reallllll soon. plus it is almost the end of the week, the deadline i set for these apps, so i must act quickly.

my old roommate called and said she got the perfect job in the perfect city. i'm really happy for her. somewhat envious as well. she's making so much progress in her life. i feel like i'm in a rut. my roommate now is making big changes soon too. now's the time to do it. sometimes i feel tied down, like i COULD be radically changing my world too, but something's keeping back. maybe it's people or familiarity or routine...but i should focus on the fact that my situation IS only temporary, i am moving on to better things, and i'm still making progress, just not in a travel-thousands-of-miles-and-change-my-homebase sort of way....yet. funny how we feel the need to compare and compete when really we should focus our energy on developing ourselves.

i just realized the year is almost over and i think i may not have kept one new year's resolution for 2005. at least i remember what some of them are. at least the email one. intend to improve next year. do monthly check-ups. yes!

2005-11-21T00:55:00.000-05:00

just me

the streets

2005-11-21T00:43:00.000-05:00

today i have done absolutely nil...

go mv

"CPT" baby...

wino

2005-11-19T01:52:00.000-05:00

getting into wine again. i ceased daily drinking when i started this job and while doing applications because it just made me too sleepy. silly me though...after going to SLO wine tasting with pey, now i read everything i can about it: what areas of the globe are coming up, which wineries to check out, growing conditions for different grapes. today was my first visit to vino, a chain of stores in the bay area that let you taste wine before you buy. nice people, good collection of french wines for a reasonable price. note to self: need to start a wine diary. too bad i haven't written down all the wines i've ever had. but who needs to keep such close count? takes some of the enjoyment out of the wine experience...

also need to figure out how to post pix to this blog...

why is it so hard to concentrate right when you need to most? back to apps.

in the know

2005-10-14T23:03:00.000-04:00

i've been waiting to meet some celebrities since i started working in this office. it's not like i can't contain myself for when johnny depp walks in or anything. i just figure that the bay area has its share of famous faces and somebody has to look after their skin. the closest i've gotten is a player for the Oakland A's, but he's not even my doctor's patient. sure, accomplished individuals have walked through the door - artists, entrepreneurs, clothing designers, moms, professors - but no one really exciting. and so, i was ultra happy when i met TWO the other day. legally i'm not at liberty to discuss who our patients are, but let's just say they work in the food industry and both people were founders of products that i adore. meeting them made me such a gushy fan. my doctor must've thought i was crazy. but it made my day being able to speak to such innovative people. i hope they bring samples next time. not that i expect anything...

on a more serious note, my entry wouldn't be complete without a little emotional turmoil. it's been an unusually difficult week. i figured it was PMS, but my mind and body have been more off kelter than normal. i've had symptoms like early spotting and headaches. i've been particularly sad and stressed without knowing why, analyzing myself into a little black hole. i had a great time in NY. my sister and i parted as we usually do - no fuss, no tears. we love each other dearly but we're not demonstrative. i thought about our relationship on the way back from there and i feel that it's changing as we grow older. we're developing a deeper friendship where we can talk about anything. she's the only sister i'll ever have. i'm not sure what i would do without her. that thought upset me and started the ball rolling for a bunch of other issues.

lately, i've been grappling with the role of money in my life. as a child, i was taught to save save save. growing up in consumer american has taught me to spend spend spend. it was relatively easy to maintain the balance when my parents were funding my cash flow. "i'll buy this, but look for the best deal." now that i'm spending my own money, it has somehow translated into this stressful mindset of working as hard as possible to spend and save as i please. it's funny because even if i don't work overtime, i still have way more than i need. yet i become so engrossed in watching where every dollar is spent (okay, i'm not so anal to watch cents). i really want to change this mentality because it's putting me over the edge. i'm working a sat morning and i tutored twice this week because i felt guilty about all the money i spent in NY. i'm so exhausted from assisting, period. this isn't necessary for me to survive. i keep raising the bar for what can earn, but it's costing me time and energy that i ought to be putting into my applications, my boyfriend, my family, my friends, and myself! why do i do this? why do i take on more than i should? what's this need to always be busy...so busy that it tolls on other parts of my life? haven't i learned anything these past few years? anything about simplifying, reducing, lightening? i don't need to be so bogged down...

i got a timeline and an erasure at FSD last night. they were both bizarre experiences. the most bizarre part was that they felt real and experiencing both of them brought some lightness for me in my current depressive haze. apparently i was dealing with some losses in a past life, which were the root of my sadness, but i didn't know it. after getting the timeline, i felt a little more settled inside. it reassured me that this group are people i can trust to bring me to live in my highest interest. it's such a glorious thought. it's rather frightful as well. my reality's shifting. i'm not sure whether to attribute to the changes in my physical world or developments in my mind & spirit, but there's definitely something going on. it's hard to judge when my life now is so different from what i was merely a month or five months ago. i'm afraid of letting go of things dear to me. i allow old objects, pictures, and people to reappear in my space because they're familiar. but i'm learning to recognize when something doesn't serve me anymore and simply to let go. i've already done that with some past friends, though not all, of course. i'm slowly cleaning out my material possessions. soon i hope to release the ancient pictures in my space so that i may think for myself more clearly. my biggest fear is that this process may cause me to lose my boyfriend. there. i said it. i committed to a statement of fear. but just because i said it doesn't make it true. sometimes i wish he was going through this too so that he could understand better what i'm talking about. but i have to remind myself that he doesn't have to. his spirit understands better and the distance doesn't matter one bit.

the most valuable person i can know is myself, truly and intimately. here we go.

best time of my life

2005-10-03T21:09:00.000-04:00

to put some closure on the last entry, everything turned out okay. the incident made me realize how much pey means to me and i'm glad that nothing more painful happened that night. pey and i had one of the most blissful weekends together a couple weeks ago. i love him so much. i just may be the luckiest girl in the world...

along the same lines, i feel like this is the best time of my life. i'm young, healthy, independent, in love, happy, and making progress. no stress of school. knowing that i'm moving on to bigger and better things, i work hard and i'm good at my job. there are endless possibilities ahead with no obligations to hold me back. i have wonderful friends with whom I can share hard times and have great times. the love of my life loves me too and i love dreaming about what our life together will be like. yes, my roommate is moving out suddenly, but i enjoyed our time together and the girl who'll be subletting her room seems to be pretty cool too. it seems like my entire life is in transition, so i'm adjusting to this change with more acceptance than i normally would. i feel so FREE, taking everything in stride. i'm curious if the FSD work has anything to do with it, but i feel like this is how i've lived all my life. it seems almost impossible or dangerous for me to be this high on truly living, but i have faith in myself. i'll just enjoy the ride.

note to self: if ever you feel like life is a struggle, remember how it feels right NOW.

hm, my entries make me seem manic-depressive. how opposite of me.

how could i...

2005-09-21T02:43:00.000-04:00

i did something this past weekend that was remarkably stupid. it was reminiscent of sophomore college nights out in its level of stupidity. too much alcohol, not enough sleep, blackouts, unintentional physical contact. it's a cause and effect progression that i can't believe i let myself fall into it again. i've been there before. i'm smarter than that, or so i thought.

The FSD class has been all about spiritual development, learning how to live in tune with your spirit and to make decisions in your highest interest. well, friday night may have been as first and second chakra as i could have possibly gotten. i was living directly for survival and pleasure, making what i perceive to be the worst decisions. i saw the danger signs too: the yawning during dinner, the personal much-too-much supply of vodka, knowing that vodka only means hangovers, the extra attention from some people, not wearing my watch to time my drinks, losing my water bottle with my vitality (is this supposed to happen?)...but i chose to ignore these signs and went straight down my chakras to hit rock bottom. how could this happen when i've learned so much in the past few months? when i was doing so well? how could it all just disappear in one night?

i caused my boyfriend pain. not once, but twice this week. both times could have been avoided. he deserves better. i feel guilty. makes me self-destructive. no appetite, too much appetite, thoughts of suffering, breaking up, loneliness, self-imposed pain. mood swings from professionally perky to dismally depressive. i can survive without him. but it's only survival. emptiness. i shouldn't be so corded to him; perhaps i am too attached to this way of loving. but this is the strongest way i know and i'm afraid to lose him if i change. i can survive as a spirit without him. i know we are independent. but i cling to the idea of soulmates. he means too much to me. what would i do without him? it's little excuse that i didn't know what i was doing. how could i hurt him when he is only gentle with me? how will i ever redeem myself?

funny thing. when i found out, i wasn't all that emotional. oh dear, something happened between friends on a drunken night. whatever. then i realized what it meant for pey. i had been unfaithful, somewhat. not intentionally, but it wasn't innocent. if he had done the same, i would have been crushed. desperation crept up because the act hurt him. so odd, that something that barely bothers me as a single entity would stir up so many of my feelings because it affects someone important to me. i realized that most of my life, i'm doing things for other people. for my mother, father, sister, boyfriend, friends, advisors, boss, classmates, committee members, tutees, patients, everyone else in the world, BUT myself. how could i not live for myself for so long? i can't remember the last time i did something for ME because I wanted to. like laurie said, it's been a while. yoga was something i wanted to do. and i really liked it. i fill up my time with so many other activities in which i'm simultaneously responsible to someone else. time is so limited...i need to either cut down on the other things or manage it better to fit in some time for myself. like running energy. or yoga. or running. or drawing. how could i live like this for so long?

i don't want to fall in my old patterns. there's a sense that finding more time for myself will prevent that.

[goal] To learn how to get through a day at the office taking energy from the earth instead of my spirit.
[purpose] To maintain the same energy for myself as for everyone else.

firsthand experience

2005-09-15T02:32:00.000-04:00

a couple realizations to note:

1) how damn tired my legs are at the end of the day. today we performed at least 10 surgeries. i spend most of the day setting up surgeries, cleaning up, and wrapping the packs again. INSANE. we also fell behind in the morning AND after lunch so i spent the better part of two hours running around, taking in patients, hurrying dr. a, cleaning up, and prepping path bags.

the days aren't always like this, but it isn't uncommon. days like these make me consider how i would want my practice to be. i wouldn't want to burn out my legs in the first year. i like how dr. f has half days on wednesdays - a nice break ni the middle of the week. i think i'd like to start and end earlier on some days and later on others, alternating to accommodate people's schedules, but allocating time to spend with my family in both the am and pm at least part of the week. i've had a dream to open up my own preventative medicine and healing clinic - one consisting of healers from all different disciplines: chinese medicine, naturopathy, nutrition, ayurveda, etc., but i realized today that i need to network and acquire a following first. so a patient today suggested that i work really hard for a few years first within a hospital or managed care company, forming relationships and building a patient base. it makes sense. then i could spend some time raising a family and perhaps open my dream clinic after that.

2) how easy it is to forget that you're treating a person and not just a body. after doing so many skin exams, it doesn't even faze me when private body parts are blatently exposed. it's just skin and flesh. i'm only there to take notes on their skin abnormalities. but no, i should not forget that they deserve to be treated as dignified humans. not that i'm mean to them, but sometimes it slips that nudity, which seems normal in the doctor's office, isn't considered civil in society. relegating the attitude from the office to the real world may offend other people. it's really is true that it's so simple to forget that you're working on a living, breathing person rather than a medical experiment. i don't want to lose my empathy for the patient, so i must remind myself that these spirits need to be treated with respect.

growing

2005-09-13T02:34:00.000-04:00

a lot of things are frightening right now. tense muscles and nightmares about screwing up at work are proof of how worried i am about failing there. people know that i've never been punctual, but now i'll go out of my way to arrive 10 minutes early for work just to make sure everything will be perfect for the people i work with.

[ funny that i never did that for myself when i was in school...how i was rarely prepared when i went to class, how i was more nervous than delightful at my professors' office hours, how i could have gotten so much more if i had put that extra bit of effort into my studies. funny how that reflects on my inability to do anything well unless it's for someone else. but that's another story. ]

money's such a big issue now too, now that i have some. where to invest, how much, how to spend, what to buy, how to make more - i think my life revolves quite a bit around money recently. i dislike putting so much focus on it, but hopefully the novelty factor will wear off soon. it's just money. i'm just worried i won't invest it properly and i'll either lose it or not maximize the profits 50 yrs from now. oh horrors. jennifer asked why i'm not more impulsive. maybe i'm just too much of a boring worrywart to be spontaneous. why DO i feel obligated to plan? ha, it's the fear of failure, the fear of making mistakes, the fear of losing something great. a couple times, i've lost opportunites because i didn't plan ahead and i guess they scarred me for life. now i can't do anything on the spur of the moment. =P how terrible to be so restricted. oh, pathetic me. =P to feel sorry for myself is even more ridiculous. lame.

the biggest issue is what it means to change my habits, change my lifestyle, to live in alignment with my spirit. it means letting go of cultural customs, questioning deeply engrained values, envisioning and creating a life i want to live, growing forward and, perhaps, out of allies and friends along the way. now that's a scary thought. i can't let someone else's opinion weaken my resolve, no matter how much they mean to me. it means finally doing something for myself without fear or regard for "the right way." i find myself every night, stuck in the same rut, going through the same routines, wondering, "there must be more..." but being too tired to do anything about it.

baby steps, baby steps. that's how we all grew up.

yippee!

2005-09-01T00:24:00.000-04:00

done with primaries! whew what a relief. i took a nice vacation to SD for the weekend, then promptly slept for 11 hours the night i got back. AND there's a three day weekend coming up. SWEET.

now i can go back to getting my life together, clearing out the remnants of college life, discovering habits and passions, setting my routine - which is never the same week after week... i'm really enjoying just being in the world. not having a tv rather forces me into my own little reality, but i get to see people passing and living life, whether it's at work, around the lake, when i go out. now that my mind is not so wrapped around school, i'm able to be aware of what else is going on. there's a big ethnic festival this labor day weekend in oakland...maybe i'll go to that! it'd be nice to check out some local events. i've never really had a community where i belonged. another option is to call up some old friends to hang out by doing something new. sailing, camping, hiking, volunteering, going to a public event...ahh it all comes together. =)

why medicine?

2005-08-17T03:41:00.000-04:00

why is this so DIFFICULT? arrrghhh i have pages and pages of singular paragraphs discussing my experiences, experimenting with various approaches, and several possible unifying themes, but none of them seem to fit together with everything i want to say! writing this essay shouldn't be so hard. i guess i'm putting a lot of pressure to get it right this first time. i'm going to DIE tomorrow from lack of sleep.

Theme 1: Doctore means teach in Latin. I've been tutoring/teaching for most of my life and it makes sense to continue it at a higher level.
problem - can't fit in research

Theme 2: I care about people. I want to help them understand how to attain and maintain the highest level of health.
problem - difficult to demonstrate without medical experience

Theme 3: I'm interested in a holistic approach to everything I do. Now medicine interests me.
problem - how to explain why medicine.

Theme 4: Natual progression of molecular science background, public health work, and teaching. All were great but felt like something was missing.
problem - makes it sound like medicine is default.

maybe i can combine 2 and 3. back to the drawing board.

complete and utter ____

2005-08-10T02:48:00.000-04:00

i'm stuck in this utter mess i have created, incomplete beyond all words. i'm a disappointment to those who care about me. i have failed to impress. i am but mediocre. i assume an air of capacity, but those who are far superior can stare straight through my weak veil. there may not be a natural hierarchy among humans, but i am slipping out of the rankings faster than a falling star. i feel blessed to be a part of this world, but unworthy all the same.

back in action

2005-08-08T22:34:00.000-04:00

since may, life has been so fulfilling i'm having trouble returning to reality. first was graduation and wrapping up college life, moving out of my home for three years. then came the spontaneous decision to live with an old family friend and move to oakland, a place that i wouldn't have expected to end up after school. i was fortunate enough to have a fitting job fall into my lap right before i left for a month of backpacking in europe with the love of my life and two of my oldest friends. how can you top that?

now i just want to revel in the novelty of being self-sufficient and non-academic. i want to go to work, indulge in hobbies, go on random weekend trips, and be carefree! i want to row for the dragon boat team, become a true wine connessieur, perfect my cooking skills, make websites to share my interests, catch up with all my friends - new and old, earn extra money selling on amazon and ebay, read read read, take up running, yoga!, travel to asia and south america, see my boyfriend more than once a month, produce music, write more, visit my sister in new york, understand financial investments, meditate an hour daily, work in europe next year, organize my LIFE. there's so much to do and so little precious time on this beautiful earth.

yet, i'm anchored to my unfinished thesis and waiting medical school application with deadlines soon approaching. i work at least 8 hours a day and derm work follows me home in the form of disease pamphlets and terminology to study. the apartment still needs some embellishment. my car needs to be cleaned. there is laundry to be done. records and budgets must be kept up and emails always take forever, though most are pleasant to read. i'm resigned myself to the fact that i'll always have projects that aren't finished on time, but the point is to make an effort to complete the most important ones first, instead of the preferred choices. the goal is to be at cause, not in effect. here it goes.

hypocrite

2005-04-19T00:53:00.000-04:00

haha...so much for "starting now." i wasn't productive at ALL last night and promptly fell asleep with the lights on at 2 am. well, tonight's another night. as long as there's improvement, right?

today i realized i have five finals in the span of eight days. frick on a stick!

making change

2005-04-17T16:11:00.000-04:00

i really am horrible at keeping a blog, especially when things get busy (not like that).

spring break was really great. hanging out with the pimping 101 girls in vegas was one thing that i am always going to treasure. who can't beat being with beautiful women with whom you can laugh, dance, eat, shop, and party three nights in a row? the memories of our last year in college that we created will last a lifetime (nancy's eating techniques, hot luv, daniel, shots out of dixie cups, freaky random people from SD, ian, pai gow!, short dude at studio 51, jenn's propensity for black guys - oh wait, that's normal).

on easter sunday of spring break, i was privileged to attend the Shulgin picnic up in the East Bay hills with some of the DanceSafe crew. it was delicious homemade food at a gorgeous picnic setting, a large farmhouse hidden among old pines and oaks, settled between rolling hills. The skies were clear when we arrived, but most of the time was spent huddled under the protection of various greenery and overhangs from random spurts of rain. it was a fun way to meet friends of the Shulgins and hear about how people from all walks of life became interested in psychedelics.

after break, school was extremely busy, mostly because of all the studying i didn't get done in vegas. the immuno midterm almost overwhelmed me, but now that i have it back, i'm glad i studied for it 24/7. my pEy came up for a wonderful weekend. i always love having him here. he's such a calming force in my life, bringing me back to center and helping me focus on what's important in life. we got to have lots of salad and homecooked food, spend some quality time in bed together (hehee), and went hiking at tilden before he went back to SD. it means sooo much that he likes my cooking cuz food's important to both of us and it'd be one thing i'd be afraid i was subpar at for his taste. i just want to make him happy. =) can't wait to see him again in two weeks!

last weekend was a bit crazy. after lab on friday, i met up with armando and al at le bateau ivre, the drunken boat cafe on telegraph. i'd never been there, but it's really cute and they have cool coffee drinks, so i think i'll go there more often from now on. then i met up with jenbug and we went to the city with some dancesafe people for dinner at kan zaman, a middle eastern restaurant complete with hookahs and a belly dancer. the food was SOOO good - i looove hummus, tabouleh, kibbi, grilled veggies, falafel, oh my! we also got wine and beer so we were all tipsy...mucho fun with the crew...the belly dancer had a nice body for a 40-year-old, but was not hot at all. bleh. afterwards, we went to jen's place and hung out, but most of us were tired from working during the day and just went home around midnight. i liked chilling with them cuz they're so different from the people i normally see at cal. they're all awesome people and i can't wait to get to know them even better.

Saturday night was nancy-pants' 22nd birthday. we got her an apron that says "i'm naughty nance, let me cook up your fancy" and some gaudy earrings. =D cuz we love her of course. a bunch of monta vista people (tiff, ken, mike, grace, jeff, me, nance) plus vio, martha, and jenn went to her place for dinner - zachary's - so good but SO damn filling. too much cheese. we got her raspberry custard cake and tiramisu for her birthday cakes. then we all piled into mike's car to go to suite 181 in the city. a bunch of people came out for her birthday...nancy's so looooved! the night ensued with dancing on the bar, lots of girl-on-girl freaking, and plenty of group shots (of alky) until 3 am. the venue's really nice and spacious with areas to sit and rest. not that we really rested at all. nancy didn't get sick, so twas good times, good times.

now it's time to reassess my priorities. i don't really have any desire to go clubbing for a long time unless some awesome dj is spinning at a great venue, namely fluid, suite 181, or ruby skye. i'm also not craving junk food or heavy foods like pasta or korean bbq, although i'm not rejecting the possibility of garlic fries at the giants game on friday. i feel that as my college career winds down, it's a good time in my life to cleanse myself of unhealthy material satisfaction and undesirable social pressures to want certain things. it's time to simplify my life before it gets more complicated with adult worries. this morning i went to brett's energy workshop and i found it difficult to ground myself. i believe that part of the process toward thinking of myself as spirit will include reducing the unnecessary concerns on my mind and focusing in on what is truly important to me. CHOICE. this may mean letting go of some of my activities for the time being. i've been in effect for too long. let's...start...now!

spring break blogging

2005-03-23T04:12:00.000-05:00

AGH i just spent the better part of an hour trying to find "another night" by real mccoy. apparently everyone either doesn't have it on mp3 or had it some point and lost it. i wanted it for my 90s eurodance mix for vegas. i'm going to sulk in the corner.

must leave apartment for airport in 6 hours. holay!

real reason i'm blogging: it was time to clean out my profile on AIM and i wanted to remember these. I'm doing pretty will with #1 and #4, so-so on #2, and completely failing #3. oh well, i still have nine months.

"New Years" Resolutions:
1. To deal with all email within 4 days of reception.
2. To phase the term "like" out of my speech.
3. To meditate once a day.
4. To work out once a week.

my daddy is my hero

2005-03-14T03:14:00.000-05:00

my iPod is finally in service! yayyyyyyy!! now i can have access to all my favorite songs and albums at any time of the day!! after nine long months of installing, reinstalling, installing on different computers, updating, downloading, visiting the apple store, talking to all sorts of computer consultants, and bitching about the incredibly incompatible entity that is aPPLe, the jaiPod works works works. I no longer hate aPPLe, but am just rawther annoyed with a permanant wound to my patience. thank goodness my daddy is a genius with computers. he configured the ipod with his computer and then when we plugged into my retarded compaq, it worked! whee!! then his computer crashed from interacting with the iPod. sigh. apple really needs to get the kinks worked out of the iPod/PC relationship.

in other news, i had tea at the Ritz with niwde on Friday afternoon. Little sandwiches and mini pastries make me so happy. I'm sure the Kir Royal champagne cocktail didn't hurt. We had a lovely time talking about our families and dogging the old white people that were in the tea room with us. hey, we were the only minorities there...gotta assert our ren quan. lol. then we spent the rest of the evening roaming union square. we shared a chicken, pita bread, hummus, and champagne for dinner before me, niwde, nance, jenn, and martha sang our hearts out at NRB. hooray for old love songs, r&b, and pop eurodance music!! we'll definitely go again soon...

back to reality and the pressures of the Thesis, Immuno, and the impending Midterm...

self-reliance

2005-03-02T03:39:00.000-05:00

in contrast to the last entry, i'm at the other end of the emotional spectrum today. let's just say today was a rocky journey with me clinging to the wagon, hoping to make it to the end. okay, maybe it wasn't that bad (there will be probably be worse days ahead - ha, isn't that optimistic of me) but i just felt so shot down every time i turned around.

first was my score on the immuno midterm, which i had felt relatively confident about. my mcb test scores in the past year have made me wonder whether i've reached my learning limits in research science. perhaps it's impossible for me to be that smart. next was my gpa which i had to find because i'm switching my major from immunology to genetics. oh, how i wished i'd worked harder when i had the chance. my gpa is no stunner. it's certainly not going to get me into medical school. when i think back to what i was spending my time on, if not studying, i'm amazed at how little i've actually accomplished. sure, i was riding high when i was a freshman as an active cabinet member in a huge campus organization, but then what? what do i have to show for my four years? i'm not a member of asuc senate, nor am i a Cal athlete. i'm not leading a club to make a difference and i'm not a TA for any class. how am i possibly qualified to be anything than mediocre? and who wants a mediocre doctor.... anyhow, the rest of the day was just bad luck: raining while i walked home, problems with my Chinese software (fixed now), problems securing my Calmail connection (not fixed, grr), and my bf couldn't talk on the phone when i wanted to tonight. that last incident made me realize how easy it is to become dependent on your significant other and to take for granted that someone will always be there to listen to your rants. i shouldn't rely on that. he's got his own life and worries to deal with. i'm lucky to have found him and love has no expectations. friends also have their own problems and issues. why burden them with mine? so i must reassert the independent woman within and deal with the increasingly overwhelming stress i've acquired recently myself, which i'll save for another entry. good thing this blog helps a little by giving me an outlet for venting. otherwise there wouldn't be another entry.

living life

2005-02-28T02:29:00.000-05:00

hm...monthly updates...not bad i suppose.

sometimes i wonder if i spend more time observing how things are instead of putting more energy into how i want things to be. as a scientist, i've been trained to view phenomenons with an objective eye, taking different perspectives to begin to understand why it is the way it is. yet, i can't help but feel like it's been a passive experience: learning material to spit it out or apply it in a new situation on an exam, practicing techniques to be able to accurately assay an important experiment, researching dozens of old papers to be able to add one tiny original twist in your own work. Don't get me wrong, I fully realize the power in mastering all of these skills. I have a bumper sticker I bought from a man on Telegraph my freshman year that says, "Enjoy life, this is not a dress rehearsal." I feel like it could be taken one step further to say, "Enjoy life and create..." That's what I feel like is missing from my life. Not only am I stressingly busy, but I feel like I haven't been producing anything new. I'm tired of being fed information. I'm almost at a loss of what to do with it all. I've been trained out of my ears as a molecular biologist. I have years of teaching/tutoring experience. I'm more than competent in a research lab. I have tons of knowledge about drugs, drug policy, and harm reduction. I could review dozens of artists in the indie rock and trance worlds. I've become proficient in Chinese. I can outcook and outbake almost everyone I know and I'm developing recipes for healthy treats. Aside from that, I have incessant bits of trivia ranging from ethnicity in America to Dutch history, nutrition labels to organic chemistry, alternative medicine to pop culture. What am I going to do with it all? Somehow it applies to practicing medicine in the future.

agh monthly brain farts are too draining. I'll try to write more often.

J-oscars

2005-02-02T01:00:00.000-05:00

Movies I watched over winter break (within a span of two weeks):

I Heart Huckabees -Best Indie Film
Baby Boy -Most Ghetto Fabulous
Infernal Affairs II, III -Best Pictures
The Phantom of the Opera -Best Obviously Newbie Actress
The Incredibles -Best Clever Animation
Cheaper by the Dozen -Best Cheesy Movie
Cold Mountain -Best Lame Love Story
House of Flying Daggers -Best Slow Pretty Action Movie
AliG Indahouse -Best Silliness
Before Sunrise -Best Conversation
Closer -Best Movie to Skip
Before Sunset -Best Ending

getting in the groove

2005-01-31T00:46:00.000-05:00

this blog is a bit like using a new language...you have to consciously apply yourself to make it useful...

I am now officially past the legal drinking age. Already i can feel myself maturing. I think the celebration can attest to that. No crazy, packed-apartment, tableful of liquor, loud talking and music party this year. Dinner at Pyramid with people from all different parts of my life, chilling at Thalassa (a bar, not a club) with my closest friends, and dropping by at a good friend's house party before heading home at a decent hour (~1 am). I am grateful to have met and known so many colorful people in my 22 years. My friends are essential to my existence and I care about them all, even if I don't prove it with regular phone calls and lunch dates.

Snowboarding on Saturday was a trek the whole way. We (me, vio, dan) didn't have time to look up directions to Kirkwood before we left, so we blindly got on the 50 when we left Sac. [On a side note, Vio wasn't too happy with me and dan for being so unconcerned with planning the trip, which I felt a little guilty about, but didn't make too much of an effort to rectify cuz i didn't feel well.] However, after calling around, we find out we were supposed to take the 16, NOT the 50, to the 88 but we obtain alternate directions that should get us there. These roads turn out to be the backroads of Tahoe: highways with one lane on each side, winding around the mountains, through forests, AND they're not plowed. After slipping down one highway, having to put on chains on the next one, and almost making to the 88, we couldn't go any farther because the snow on the road was just too thick for the civic, so despite our efforts, we had to turn around. I now hate Kirkwood for simply being so unaccessible. We get back on the 50 and surprisingly it's only 11:30, only four hours since we left Berkeley. Sierra's the only resort we know of in South Tahoe, so we decided to go there for a half day. Now, I've never gone for just a half day, but parking lot was so full at Sierra that we had to park halfway down the road from the parking lot. So we had to walk UPHILL with all of our gear for a good 15 minutes just to get to the lodge. It reminded me of why I should resolve to work out on a regular basis. In any case, we got a good half day of riding in. I've been rusty since I've only gone once this season and I was having trouble then. Losing control of the board and falling over and over when I knew I was capable of carving made me extremely frustrated. I'd blame my boots or the bindings when I knew it was really me, but I didn't want to admit that I couldn't do it. Magically, after a few wise words of advice from violette, I think I've regained my confidence and the rhythm of carving. Can't do without her. ;) We ended the day with large phos at Pho King 2 (which by some freak chance violette DIDN'T get until we basically told her..."there must be a Pho King 1") and bringing Kix back to Berkeley.

Confidence is definitely something I don't have naturally. It only comes when I truly believe I have a firm foundation in a particular skill or area of knowledge and it takes me a long time to build that up. I've decided I have two choices: To learn to fake the confidence or to immerse myself so that I may acquire confidence faster. I haven't decided which option is easier, especially since I'm not good at lying.

and it is done...

2004-12-31T17:10:00.000-05:00

finally started an online journal...yes, sucks to xanga~ =D

happy new year!