Happy Halloween! And General Updates!

Happy Halloween!

So wow, it's really been yet another 2 years since my last post. Where does the time go? It's truly been a whirlwind of events and sometimes, I really can't believe how many years have gone by. Sign of old age, I know.

I've graduated from residency and am now a full fledged board certified pediatrician in a private clinic in the city that primarily takes care of a lot of the underserved population. It can be pretty hectic at times since we accept same day walk ins, but so far, I've been adapting to the new schedule. It's wayyy better than residency hours, for sure. Been quite a long road to get to this point and I'm so grateful I've made it to this stage of my life with all the support of my family and friends.

I got engaged on New Year's Eve 2016 and we got married recently this May! The weather forecast had been threatening rain storms up until the very night before, but we lucked out with cloudy but relatively dry weather. It was an incredible day spent with our loved ones and it feels like it was just yesterday ... perhaps because I'm still in the process of finalizing photos for the albums.

We had an awesome honeymoon in Japan (hitting up Tokyo, Kyoto and Okinawa), ate a whole lot, flew back to reality and we moved into our new house. Attended some of our friends' weddings in the following months. We've since also flew back to Asia and visited Taiwan and Korea for yet another friend's wedding. (It's a big year for getting married!)

Now that we have finally settled back into somewhat of daily routine life, my mind has been turning toward writing again. It's something I can't believe I've had the stamina to power through during my younger years and would love to work on again. Been reading more for pleasure since residency has ended and I remember my adoration for a well written tale of great characters and worlds. (Speaking of worlds, the husband took me to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for my birthday and it was incredible. J.K. Rowling has truly created an endless realm of stories and I can't wait for the new Fantastic Beasts movie to come out!)

So I'm considering giving Nanowrimo a go and perhaps posting fiction online again to keep me on track. Have you guys moved onto any writing platforms besides fictionpress? Let me know how things have fared for you guys in the past few years. Hope life has been treating you all well!

... Residency

So the last time I updated this blog was when I matched into my residency program.

Annnnd now, I'm in my final year of residency.

So, as per norm for my usual updating speed. 

Haha. Sorry. Residency is indeed a time suck. It's hard to believe I'm the senior on the floors, let alone I'll soon be graduating and going off into the real world as a "real" pediatrician (who still needs to pass the boards - I've signed up for a lifetime of exams apparently). Where exactly has the time gone?

It's been long hours and a lot of work, but there have been some great times in the past 2 years: I've managed to squeeze in two cruise vacations to Bahamas and Bermuda, went to Disney World and Wizarding World of Harry Potter!, hung out with friends, family and the boyfriend, was the maid of honor for my cousin (said cousin had a baby who just turned 1!), tried Paint Nite, escaped two Escape the Room games, explored the city, studied some, worked a ton, but overall, not a whole lot of change. Still the same dorky self (my newest app is Pokemon Go - Team Mystic!).

What I haven't been able to do unfortunately is any real writing. :( Can't quite get past that rut beyond a few pages of a new story before scrapping it and restarting. Argh. 

But anyway, I hope any readers who still checks in on this blog are doing great! I haven't checked fictionpress in forever, but I hope there have been nice updates to the site and excellent stories published. 

Past two years' travel highlights:

Crystal Caves, Bermuda

Unfinished Church, St. George, Bermuda

Match Day

So how does getting into a residency program work? For U.S. medical students, graduating from medical school is the first step. Residency program is where we complete our training, where we're no longer babied, and we have to work through sweat, tears, and blood, all that grueling stuff that shape us into doctors who can finally be sent out into the public to practice alone, safely and responsibly.

For most fourth year medical students, the big day is Match Day. It's the culmination of all your years of work and the past few months of applications, waiting for interview invitations, deciding which interviews to accept and which pre-interview social you'd attend, traveling for the actual interviews, hospital tours, meals with the residents, and struggling to come up with as many responses to "Do you have any questions for us?"

After all the interviews, we struggle to form our rank list in the order of which hospital program you'd like to work for more and the programs formulate their own rank list of all the candidates they've interviewed. A giant computer at NRMP takes in our rank lists, does its magic, and we all wait for Match Day, the day when we find out which residency program you're going to spend your lives at for the next x number of years.

So Match Day this year was officially March 21st. Some students applying for more competitive fields like dermatology care more about March 17th though, the Monday of that week when everyone gets a generic email informing them whether or not they matched. My classmate - a derm applicant - specifically took Monday off from our rotation while I covered for her because she didn't want to be working if she found out she didn't match (she did! Matched back to our home school program!). And you find out through the grapevine which of your classmates who sadly did not match.

Since I'm going into pediatrics, a less competitive field, Monday was not a super huge concern for me. I still had butterflies just in case I'm actually an extremely unlikable person and all my programs hated me on sight, but fortunately, all went well. On Monday at noon, I checked my email from NRMP with that suspenseful subject title "Did I Match?" And it was a very brief email with the most important words Congratulations!  You have matched! bolded. So YAY!

And then we had to wait another four days for Match Day on Friday to find out where we're matched to. Except for this dumb NRMP computer glitch this year that actually allowed some resourceful candidates to be able to check their match results earlier - a seriously dumb glitch involving a simple right click, view source code - but since I didn't find out about the glitch until NRMP fixed it and it was too late to check, this is all moot point to me.

But I have to say, not finding out earlier and being able to have anticipation build til Friday ... it was worth it in the end for me. Because there's nothing quite like that atmosphere of being in an auditorium with all your classmates and friends, that heady rush of excitement and nerves as you get up to collect your own sealed envelope, the countdown to noon when everyone, all at once, cracks open their letter and finds out where they're heading off to.

I, myself, took a few seconds to really absorb the words. My name ... my medical school name ... Congratulations, you have matched! ...

And then I saw the name of my first choice listed.

I think I must have let out some incomprehensible sound, like a whuh, covered my mouth and turned to my friend. She was shaking her head and just thrust her paper out to me. I shoved mine at her. We both got into our first choices.

There's a breath of silence and then screams of joy overfill the auditorium. Everyone gets out of their seats and starts running around, finding their friends, and grabbing each other in tight hugs. Some are crying, some are laughing, others are in shocked silence. Cameras flash and a school photographer follows people around, picking out the happy faces. A lot of people are bouncing around, especially my fellow pediatrics applicants - we're naturally bubbly people?

There is nothing quite like that roller coaster of emotions.

And then, of course, everything turns a bit anti-climatic in the aftermath. Your program emails you a welcome email and then starts cracking down with multiple HR forms, NPI request, resident work hour attestation, sleep deprivation attestation, etc. ("We own you now. Please sign your life over ASAP.") But yay, I don't care, I'm still living in my fourth year medical student bubble! I'm still excited over signing all your scary forms! Real job confirmed!

Baby

Wow, way overdue for a post. So sorry, had been studying and all. I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!

This year, we decided to host a Thanksgiving potluck for the family, but since our oven had been broken for a while now (like years), we had the genius idea to just throw the turkey into the barbeque outside rather than dice the bird up for soup. Hours later, Dad went out in his down jacket to check on it, where we found that the grill had run out of gas. Fortunately, most of the meat was cooked and the skin was nice and crispy, but the wings were still raw and had to be stuck in a wok to be cooked some more. Because them giant wings would not fit in our teeny toaster oven.

And that's how we roll for family holidays.

The next chapter of Through Me is still ... in the works. I had intended to finish it once and for all for cousin's birthday, but that didn't happen. She wasn't very happy. She's still not so happy. As I can imagine, you guys might be in a similar state. Sorry! I'll try my best to finish it for the holidays.

Also, remember how I said I'd include more interesting pictures with my posts now that I got my amazing smartphone? Except it's been several months now and I can safely estimate that 99% of my camera photos are of my cousin's children. Baby obsession! As much as I'd love to plaster this blog with pictures of baby sleeping, baby feeding, baby yawning, baby smiling, baby crying, baby skeptical face, baby omg stop freaking me out with that phone already, I'm not sure that you all and baby's mom might appreciate that. So I'd just offer one Kodak moment:

Alright, maybe just one more:

Oh, the agony of being so beautiful.

It's like the kid has this built in defense mechanism against me. Whenever I visit her, two times out of three, she'd be napping. It's like she knows when I'm coming for her. Well, newsflash to her, just because she can face plant whenever I try to snap a picture doesn't mean I can't pick her up and shove my camera into her face eventually. Resistance is futile.

Essence of Sushi Rolls

I not so recently got a smartphone since my old phone was ancient and had been begging for retirement for a while now. Whenever someone used to ask me for my number, I had to follow it up with a warning: "You can call me, but my battery life dies after roughly fifteen minutes of chatting unless I stay plugged in to a wall. I'd prefer emails if you don't mind."

Once, someone responded with a "That's okay. I can always text you.", followed by a ;). 

Me, Very Not Amused: "I do not have a text plan. Please do not text me. Ever."

So my phone was pretty much useless except for emergency calls and setting alarms.

After a week of using my new phone with an unlimited text and data plan ... I do not know how I had ever survived without it.

Now, I can access directions or text friends for help anywhere so I don't have to get lost so easily. I can take photos and videos and just email them to myself instead of tediously plugging a camera into my laptop for uploading. I can waste time on colorful free Android apps. I can google anything right on the spot. I now have modern technology. I am connected to the world.

Except I still refuse to sync phone with facebook and twitter. I don't really go on facebook much because I can so easily lose hours just stalking  perusing people's photos. And after trying out twitter for a bit way back when a friend first convinced me to, I realized that I was a major twitterfail since it was such a reaffirmation of how boring my daily life is hahaha - why am I laughing? :( Also, I didn't like how some acquaintances from real life managed to find me on twitter when I didn't expect them to so I couldn't exactly tweet about writing anymore without getting questions. Writing life's still mostly a secret and I prefer to keep it that way.

Back to the glory of my new phone: the most important part of this new technology update is that I realized that I can snap so many pics on the go now and start inserting some proper images to break up my rambling posts. How exciting.

Except I am such an amateur point and shoot. Not even an adequate amateur actually, I'm the type who goes "Ooh, let's try an artistic angle." then "Ah, crap, angle captured my messy messes in the background." then "Eh, oh well, realistic art, tra la la!"

Example:

Brother made sushi rolls from some vinegared rice, seaweed, avocado, crab sticks, etc. the other day.   

Me: "I shall take very nice pictures now!"
Bro: "Why?"
Me: "Because I want to. So stop eating for a moment."

Me: "Damn, the plate is all sticky and dirty."
Bro: "I will eat now."
Me: "Here, clean this up. Get these -"
Bro: *chomp*

Me: "Noo! I told you to clean up the plate, get all those little grains of rice!
Bro: *chewing on a piece* "I thought you wanted the rolls lined up at a slant so I ate that piece for you."
Me: "I didn't say that."
Bro: "There's a slant now."

 

Me: "I'm hungry. I don't care anymore. Behold, mountain of pink in the background!"
Bro: "You know you can just clear off that plastic bag from the table -"
Me: "Pink mountain, arise!"

Captain Planet, He's Our Hero

When I was a kid, my cousins and my brother and I would play "make-believe anything". No, that's not what we called it, but we were really, really into this make-believe business. We acted out anything from our own hot creative mess of a Mighty Mutant Morphin' Club to The Boxcar Children to camping with a blanket over four chairs until we grew so big, one of our cousins was inevitably stuck sleeping "outside under the stars". And we loved to pretend we were Captain Planet's Planeteers. We even made our own paper rings, we were that legit yo.

Except whenever we played make-believe, my brother - the youngest - always got stuck with the less than heroic role. We were always "saving" him and he was always getting "hurt" or "kidnapped" and he could never ever be Fire because my older cousin already got dibs, but we tried to pretend his Earth power was still cool. Usually by going "AHHHHH!" and staggering around the room whenever he brandished his ring and belted out, "EARTH!" Like we were in some epic earthquake.

I remember now that we must have fed him some line such as you can play Earth and Heart. Two powers! What a bargain! But honestly, years later, I couldn't even remember there was a Heart person until a friend recently mentioned it in a late night conversation. Why were we discussing Captain Planet? Can't remember, don't ask haha.

Him: "No one ever wanted to play Heart. He was useless."
Me: "Heart? There's no element like that."
Him: "There is a Heart power. No lie. He was that short little kid with a monkey -"
Me: "OH! Wait ... what exactly did Heart do?"
Him: "Exactly. What does Heart do?"

Well, apparently, Heart can speak to animals ... and care about people a lot ... and I guess, recycle really well.

So naturally, my little brother would gamely pretend to talk to a stuffed monkey for all of five seconds before "EARTH! EARTHQUAKE!"

"AHHHHH!"

This comic made me think of him and our cousins and our younger, more carefree years. Do I feel old.

If we had played this Guntron team though ... yeah, bro would probably have been the bullet. Haha.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My friend baked cookies and cupcakes for class:

See the ones with heart shaped icing? They're specially indicated for her closest friends, her "crew". Naturally, I got one of those hearts haha. Since it was a red velvet, she saved me a second funfetti one. This is why we're so close. She feeds me and I get fed. (Yes, technically, this may appear to be more of a parasitic relationship than mutual symbiosis, but let's not tell her that.)

The school also had a candygram thing going on today and I received two from some generous classmates. Ah, this is truly what Valentine's Day is about: baked goods and sweets.

Finished off with some dinner plans after class and ... seriously, this day is all about food for me.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day with your loved ones too! :)

How to Ruin a Celebrity Sighting

Warning: This post contains some general spoilers for last season's Grey's Anatomy. 

I was on the train with a friend a while back when all of a sudden, she pulled out her cellphone and mumbled, "Here, I want to show you something."

Since this usually meant she had something to say that she couldn't voice out loud, I went silent and waited.

Her thumbs flew over her qwerty pad for a bit before she showed me the message: Doesn't that girl sitting across from us look a lot like Reed from Grey's Anatomy? 

First thing that popped into my head: Sure, celebrities on a train. Yeah, right. 

So ...

"Who's Reed?" I blurted out loudly. 

My friend gawked at me, her eyes flickering over to the girl in question, and she covered her face in mortification. "You know ... Grey's Anatomy!" she hissed.

"I don't know. I don't watch much Grey's. I only caught part of the season finale when most of them were dead or shot already. So ... she died, right? Like ... on the floor?" I asked, not bothering to whisper since there was no way the girl across from us could possibly connect the fact that we were talking about Grey's Anatomy in reference to her so-called resemblance to one of the characters. So what if she looked like this Reed character? It's not like she's actually Reed. "She must have been one of the first ones dead, right?"

Friend stares at me, speechless.

"So who is she exactly? Did you like her character?"

"Well, yeah ... she was ..." My friend gave up. "Google when you get home."

So I finally turned my full attention to the girl across from us and since her eyes were cast down, I helped myself to an unhealthy amount of ogling. Memorizing her face so I'd remember her features for googling purposes later. Admiring the knit hat she wore over her short pixie cut. Eyeing the black Chanel bag resting on her lap. Sighing over her knee high brown boots. Ogle ogle ogle.

But while she was very chic and pretty with this slight smile playing on her lips, she seemed like a regular rider blissfully unaware of the silent scrutiny from the strange girls across from her.

Later, when I got home, the first message I received from my friend was: GOOGLE REED! NOW!

Then she immediately followed that up with a link to the Google images she'd already pulled up. Reed a.k.a. Nora Zehetner.

 tvguide.com

Oh. Wow.

Reed from Grey's Anatomy was sitting on the train across from us.

Reed from Grey's Anatomy was sitting on the train across from us!, I typed to my friend.

Friend: yeah, it was totally her because when you said who's reed so loudly, she laughed a little when I looked over at her. thts why i covered my face!

Me: what? really? dude, i kept staring at her! i thought i was being so stealthy.

Friend: omg rofl.

Me: no wonder she kept smiling.

Friend: haha

Me: and there I was ... just leering at her.

Friend: lol it was totally her. i just can't believe you said who's reed so loudly.

Me: well ... i didn't believe you. 

Friend: i'm good with faces!

Me: i just thought you were one of those sad people who think they see celebrities everywhere. like elvis.

Friend: What??

More recently, a summary: School. Got dragged to one of those haunted attractions thingies by friends for Halloween; don't ask me to describe what happened in there because I came out in a bleary daze. School. Had Thanksgiving dinner at cousins' place where we roasted a whole turkey for the first time in our lives (we were more of a chicken family before). School. Had rounds shadowing doctor for chest pain and renal failure patients. Wrote a paper on pros and cons of TOLAC (trial of labor after c-sections) and had a workshop presentation debate on it yesterday. Exams on path and pathophys still coming up.

Question in a previous post comment from Anonymous: Can you please blog about your pre-med and med school experience in general? Like how hard it is? :O 

Sure! I'll try? Haha, I'll attempt to write some slightly interesting posts soon but sometimes, it's hard thinking of a good topic since not everything is cool and all shocking medical cases like you see on House or roller coaster drama like Grey's Anatomy or something like that. The life is more like ... a whole lotta studying. And running on little sleep. And trying not to give wrong answers to the doctors who point you out in your small group. Boring and a little sad. If I really write what goes on usually each day, you'll probably pass out asleep by the first paragraph.

But if you want to know a little about what I did yesterday, it went something like this:

9am: Trying to print paper in computer lab before workshop starts. Classmate runs up begging me to print two copies of his paper too. REJECTION! New cheap-ass environmentally friendly limitations on printing page quota means hell no, classmate should must log into his own account to print his own mess. He continues to beg, unwilling to deal with the hassle of logging in and out due to the time, and then offers an I.O.U. for double the pages on his account. Alright, fine. I will collect.

10am-noon: Workshop debate on VBAC versus C-sections. Doctor's wisdom: EBM ≠ CYAM. (Evidenced Based Medicine ≠ Cover Your Ass Medicine.)

12pm-1pm: Lunch from the nearby deli. I'm all sandwiched out. :(

1pm-4pm: Lectures ... oh my god ... must ... stay ... awake ... Oh, hey, crossword in the newspaper.

4pm-6pm: Small group on chest X-rays. Gets called up to the front of the room to point out what's abnormal. "Err ... look at the lines ... the EKG leads ... is this AP*? No? Okay ... well ... the heart is, um, pushed toward the right." "Yeah, good, sort of ... the patient has dextrocardia." "Right, exactly. ... I'll just go sit back down now."

And this has mostly been the general routine of my pathetic life, rinse and repeat. Now I just need to get through a chest x ray assignment, two more exams, and then it should be winter break! Where I'd then have board exams to prep for. Yippee. But I'll try to fit in some writing time too hopefully. Until then, please bear with me for my slow responses and updates.

TM Chapter 29 Status: 11 pages in

*By the way:
AP = anteroposterior (X-ray beams pass from front-to-back)
dextrocardia =  heart is located in the right side of the chest instead of the left

Where Are The Sheep?

Catching the view from the Top of the Rock with a friend a couple of weeks ago:

Me: "Hey, the map points that out as the Sheep Meadow."

Him: "Yeah? Oh, so those blobs must be sheep!"

Me: "Hmm ... no, I think those are people ..."

Him: "But they're not moving."

Me: "Sunbathers?"

Him: "They seem like they're all the same color though. They're all ... brown."

Me: "Brown sheep?"

Him: "Maybe."

Me: "More like tanned people, I think."

Him: "Alright, hold on, let me look this up on my phone and we'll settle this once and for all."

Him: *fiddles with phone*

Me: *fiddles with map*

Me: "Oh, hey, look here, the map also says sheep grazed there until 1934. Hmm, what year are we in again?"

Him: "Yeah, well, wiki says ... okay, fine. You can wipe that smirk off your face now."

Other recent happenings: My cousin's first born was born - it's a girl! I had to bring my notes and hunch over to cram for my neuropsych final at her one month banquet, but she's absolutely adorablicious. And the food was great. I also went out to celebrate a friend's birthday and we had Venezuelan food. Guacamole and arepas with pork brisket, yum. My other cousin coincidentally had his birthday around the same time and we feasted on pasta and tiramisu for dinner. (My life revolves around food.) His sister later surprised him with an iPad! Dude, she should be my sister haha.

Yet another friend's birthday is coming up so we just went out last night and tried Ukrainian food for dinner, where friends claimed I took my time pondering over the menu just to have an excuse to repeat borscht a gazillion times. Well, borscht turned out to be pretty yummy. So were the pierogies. The stuffed cabbage ... not so much. We also demolished a whole cheesecake topped with berries. Restaurant rejected our surprise cake from outside so we made do with just forks from a nearby cafe and sat in the outside seating. There is something strangely satisfying though about just forking into a cake, civilized pieces be damned. (Indeed, my life revolves around food.)

Otherwise, life has been pretty boring ever since I got back to school. The workload has been seriously picking up its pace. I just had a subject board exam last week and more weekly exams lined up for this month (clinical epi, systemic path, pathophys, and so forth). Sighs.

I am about 9 pages in for TM Chapter 29 so please bear with me. Hopefully, I can squeeze in some writing time one of these days and finish this once and for all. Thanks for understanding, everyone.

Mockingjay & Sailing Away

School recently started and work's been picking up. There's a midterm and a group powerpoint presentation on the neuroscience of sleep creeping up next week.

I did manage to fit in some last bit of summer fun.

Finally read Mockingjay! I enjoyed it for bringing closure to this epic series. While it didn't quite match the way I adored book one, The Hunger Games, it was a bittersweet ending that at least made me go "Ah ... hmm ..." rather than "Ah! Blargh!"

Suzanne Collins sometimes tend to brush over certain death scenes of her characters or Katniss is too busy escaping or passing out to really allow us to linger on what just happened - which I can understand as a stylistic choice: high paced action punctuated by casualties, no time to breathe, fear, think. Death? It happened. So it goes.

Still. I just wish we could have dwelt on certain moments, certain characters just a tad longer. Some parts left me in such a dazed funk, I was still trying to get my mind to wrap around it three pages later and barely processing where Katniss was running to.

But all in all, I loved the characters and the world Collins set up and it was an utterly awesome trilogy.

A few weeks ago, a friend invited me out sailing on his uncle's boat. I'd never been on boats and yachts before, not even a cruise; the closest thing I had going for me was a ferry ride. So yup, it was fun. Nice sunny day, gentle waves, and then ... beers and wines were brought out.

Each person got a beer bottle to him/herself and as I slowly worked mine down, my face reddened its way to tomato status. I am truly the cheapest of all cheap drunks.

He joked, "Hey, after some alcohol, the waves start feeling pretty steady, huh?"

"Yeah!" I agreed a tad too enthusiastically.

He eyed me. "You're starting already, aren't you?"

I clapped my hands to my cheeks. "Yeah ..." I mumbled. "It's a sunburn?"

He ended up finishing both of our cups of wine so I wouldn't over-enthuse myself off the side of the boat.

Taboo

I thought I'd be able to get through this summer without a single mosquito bite. Failed. My neck has a lump that's fast entering goiter size and my left foot is swollen from a bite so badly, it hurts. Today, the bite mark turned black like a bruise. Not good. I'm so allergic to bug bites, I should roll around in a bubble outside.

On Wednesday, my friend had her barbeque (where I picked up the bites); we burnt a lot of food to a crisp because we didn't want to pick up salmonella and then of course, we assessed the crispiness because we didn't want carcinogenic properties. Basically, we ate a whole lot, hung out with her golden retriever, and played Taboo. Except when you have a bunch of really competitive med students together, the clues we start giving get ... interesting. 

"This is what you give albuterol for!"

"ASTHMA!"

"What are we studying to be? But not primary care! Okay, what does this specialized person use?"

"SCALPEL!"

"This is where we purchase attires ... oh forget it, blank junction!"

"GAP!"

Yes, by interesting, I did mean way nerdy.

Of course, I'm a tad more eloquent and cool so I threw out a few gems of my own:

"Yo, this has a red ass."

"BABOON!"

Went out to lunch yesterday with a friend (she's also doing med - entering this year) and then we checked out Bed Bath & Beyond so that she can pick up some supplies for her dorm. It was nice to catch up since we hadn't sat down face to face in over a year now; especially lovely to do so while perusing cedar balls (only wish this were an interesting euphemism) and cushions. She got this giant under-bed storage box that's about her size which the saleslady wrapped up with two pieces of saran wrap before handing it back to friend; so she lugged it onto the train back to her place like a bulky surfboard ... or mini coffin. 

Folks were also passing out free samples of Science Diet dog treats on the streets so I swooped in to grab two bags for my friend's golden retriever. Now they just need to pass out free treats for humans, like chocolates and ice cream bars. Yes, please.

Studying for my exam next week has not been going well. Barely made a dent in neurology and I still have behavioral sci to review. I barely remember behavioral sci, but I have convinced myself I could go at it in one day since it should mostly be psych and child development stages. Yeah, this will probably come back to kick me in the butt in the upcoming weekend. Who else hates that summer is coming to an end?

Offensive Touching

Fav cousin - a recent law school graduate - was sprawled on the couch, exhausted from taking different bar exams three days in a row. A paper wristband - a lot like the kind they sometimes slip on you when you go clubbing - was still looped around her wrist, announcing that she was a proud bar exam survivor.

I sat on the edge of the sofa next to her, watching our older cousin's babies wreak havoc.

So engrossed was I by the utter chaos two little beings could sustain, I jumped when she poked me in the side. I turned and the expression on her face was of this tired dismay. "Sorry!" she blurted out. "Offensive touching!"

Haha, someone's been studying too much.


Speaking of babies, the older cousin recently announced that a third one is on his/her way. When she asked her eldest, her four year old son, if she wanted another baby sister or a baby brother, he said, "Why are you having so many? One is enough."

Ah, kids.


Recently watched Inception. Went into lab to help out with sensors drawings for my old mentor. Hung out with people, ate a whole lot. A friend's friend made the trek in from another state, but still missed dinner, catching us just as we were about to say good-bye so some of us accompanied him for late dinner part two because he bribed us with two bottles of yogurt soju and popsicles. We are easy folks.

Celebrated a friend's birthday. Caught up with some old news and envied some friends for the trips they have planned (Hawaii! Prague! Argh!) Studied only a little even though the first day of school - and hence, my exam - is coming up next week. How does summer pass by so fast? How?

Tomorrow, there's a bbq at a friend's place which is at the ends of the world so I'm aiming to squeeze in more studying on the long train ride (Which means I will probably end up passing out and taking a long nap instead).

So ... summer's been fun. Too bad it feels so short. I managed to read quite a bit - and by that, I mean I just wandered into the library and grabbed a bunch of random books off the shelves, ranging from Dan Brown's Deception Point to Jennifer Cruise's Getting Rid Of Bradley to Sarah Rees Brennan's The Demon's Lexicon to Meg Cabot's Insatiable. And various others. Totally arbitrary haha. Loved some, liked some, deemed some forgettable. All in all, I enjoyed just being able to read for leisure without some immediate exam or deadline breathing down my neck, yay.

Writing Status: 8 pages into TM Chapter 29.

TM Chapter 28 Posted

Through Me Chapter 28 has finally been posted! Finally. Finally.

This chapter was especially hard to get out because I wanted something major to happen, but like always, Adel and Tristan's discussion got out of my hands and I realized that it wasn't going to happen until Adel gets back to China. But if I kept writing, I wasn't sure if I'd have a reasonable cut-off point and I doubt you'd want to read Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Encyclopedia.

Plus, I had a major case of writer's block. My Google Docs account now officially have about eight beginnings of various other stories because I was trying to write anything to get me out of the funk. However, it is now summer for me and I do hope to finish Through Me once and for all sooner than later. I start school late next month with a Neuropsych and Behavioral Sci exam the first day, but I am hoping to get out at least another chapter (maybe even finish the story?) before I start studying.

But yay, tis summer!

Cousin just graduated from law school and she's raking in the big bucks now! Even though an exam (curse those stupid things!) prevented me from attending her graduation, I'm so proud! My bro went, but the only thing he mentioned was that the cheese at the reception was good.

It was also recently my birthday so I celebrated with family, med school friends, and high school friends on separate occasions. Ate a lot of food, had a lot of cake, drank a wee bit (still gave me quite a buzz, but that's not saying much when half a glass of coke and rum can already send me reeling).

Okay, some people said it wasn't merely a buzz. Probably when I started jabbing at a friend's biceps and declaring, "You have such big guns!" And when they had to loop my arms through theirs while I insisted on walking my buzz off. And when I stated that I wanted to paint my nails orange and brown, which was something I really don't remember saying.

I also watched Toy Story 3 in 3D! It really wasn't necessary to catch it in 3D, but the movie was so good anyway. I have to admit that Toy Story 1 and 2 weren't my favorite Disney films - 1 was good, 2 was alright, but they didn't hold a place in my heart like Finding Nemo or Aladdin or The Little Mermaid or Mulan or yeah, most of the classic Disney flicks. However, Toy Story 3 ... it just really blew my mind.

I rewatched it later with my brother and at the end, he admitted that he maybe, might have, sorta teared up a little. When I laughed at him and said I didn't (I totally already did the whole tearing thing the first time), he said that's because I was a "soulless, heartless being".

Then brother's birthday rolled around and cousins took us to Olive Garden where we kept those breadsticks coming and coming.

Friend also made a two hour journey to my house twice, the first time to bring me pastries for my birthday and the second time to have a movie night. We gorged on sushi, popcorn, and ice cream while watching Did You Hear About the Morgans? on dvd. It was ... eh. I remember more chewing than laughing.

Relatives from Hong Kong also came to visit so there was a whole truckload of dinners to attend. 

Then my internet died. It revived, but it still dies sporadically sometimes now. I think it's because of the heat here. I'm praying - knock on wood - that my laptop doesn't just keel over. So far, I know three people whose laptops suddenly upped and died on them recently. I'd cry if my laptop crashes. Friend bought me a cooling pad, but so far, I've broken it twice. Good news though is that I had snapped off one of the fan's blades the first time and the second time I managed to snap off another blade the opposite side so now my fan is actually balanced again. It's a good thing. Really.

And yup, that's the basic gist of what's been going on lately.

Oh, and btw, for those who don't know already, if you're a student and have an .edu email address, you can sign up for a free year of Amazon Prime. Comes in handy for all those textbook purchases.

Recent Debacles

In Which Brother Is Broken By Brethren, Volume II

Cousins, brother, and friend came back from their basketball game in the park the other day. Nothing like a bunch of funky, sweaty guys desperately gulping bottles of water in the kitchen to brighten the day. Except bro's glasses were shattered and he groped blindly around the kitchen, looking for the mini tool set in the drawers.

"What happened now? Did J (friend) break his glasses this time?" I joked from the doorway.

All their faces swiveled toward me except for J who sat stoically. "How'd you know?" cousin asked in surprise.

He's playing around, I thought. "I'm kidding because J was the one who caused bro's ankle sprain last time ..." J didn't meet my eyes. "Oh my god, you broke his glasses. What are you made of!"

Once again, like the ankle sprain case, bro was on the same team. J had passed the ball to bro, but the ball had caught bro in the face --> bye bye, glasses.

In Which Narrator Narrates Sad Life & Equally Sad, Not-Quite-Dangerous Incident

We just started a section of pathophysiology which we'd continue in the fall. Exam this coming Monday. In two weeks, we have our board exam for micro and immuno. Then it'd be summertime! And an exam in August before class starts that would require us to review all of the neurology and behavioral science we had learned before in preparation for our neuropsychiatry course. Which pretty much says "Screw your summer vacation, suckers." But I should be to able to finally update Through Me some time soon before things pick up again in August.

Today, we started hospital rounds, shadowing a nephrologist as he checked in on a patient with pleuritis (inflammation of the lining of the lungs and chest that leads to chest pain when you take a breath or cough), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and HIV.

It's cool how some of the terms that would have just flown over my head before are starting to come together. He also quizzed us in the hallway on what we know about pneumonia (S. pneumoniae is the top cause of community acquired pneumonia. Pseudomonas major concern for health care workers. For Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) sensitivity tests, they actually use oxacillin as opposed to methicillin.) Interesting. And somewhat uplifting that we knew more than we expected - or at the very least, had heard of so and so bacteria and drug before. However, at the same time, it sadly reminded us we still need to desperately polish up on more of the micro and pharm (oh god) - especially with our board exam coming up.

Otherwise, I've been having a week of bad luck and I've been in an especially foul mood lately. To finish me off, I stepped my heel into a pothole after leaving the hospital, nearly spraining my ankle and sending me toppling. I managed to grab hold of a friend who was thankfully right next to me so I didn't wind up sprawled on the ground in front of incoming cars, saving some face in front of this nice huge Asian family who was doing group pictures. I have the bad feeling some of their images might show this lopsided girl with her arms flying in the air and one foot in a hole in the background while they're busy grinning, pulling victory signs. Then they'd curse this mysterious loser for ruining a perfectly fine family photo. Story of my life.

Good thing I also clipped my nails recently so I didn't leave scratch marks on poor arm of friend. He was adamant that he would have saved me even if I hadn't grabbed onto him because he has quick reflexes like that. Yeah. Right. I'd probably have died.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

When I saw this, it made me think of a friend who had picked herself up a rape whistle, a siren, and licensed mace when she moved into an apartment by herself.