another thing i NEED

Except this time I'm more serious. I really, really want this painting. Its ridiculousness cannot be better suited for me. But it's so expensive and the money, I do not have it.


Well, if my job a few weeks ago ever mails me a check, I have a pretty good idea of where that's going!

I would tell you where I found this, but then you might go buy one for yourself and there are only 20 being made. So, a secret it shall be until I make my move.

8 hours of football later,

I am probably going to fail this exam. But we're most likely going to the National Championship. I can finally breathe again, and maybe concentrate on reasons why other people may not be able to breathe.


This is how I really feel: SDKFJSDKFJSDKFJKDSFJKS OH MY GOD WKEREJKRJEJERJREKEK WHY AM I NOT BACK HOME WITH OTHER PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THIS????

Oh god, Hunter Lawrence. Oh god, college football. Oh my god, Texas.

i want these.

Almost too cute to exist.


Found on simple + pretty.

it is time for christmas!!!

also known as "christmastime!!"

Last year, my holiday spirit was totally lacking because there just wasn't much seasonal goodness around. This year, we sacrificed our exam grades to the season and got a tree and decorations!


We even have stockings! (photo taken by kamnas) Mine is the middle one.

Decorating with candy canes.


Delicious cookie goodness. You can't tell, but those are Christmas trees. And a snowman. And Kamna's "STRIPED" candycane cookie.


The roommates and Kevin, who was kind enough to help us light our tree. Yes, the three of us are wearing the same shirt. No, you do not get to know why....yet.

Sigh. Maybe the greatness of this Monday will be enough to help me power through to the next one. And what am I going to do about Saturday, when there are 8 hours of college football to watch? Decisions, decisions.

i know, i know

I haven't been the most consistent blogger lately. At first the monotony got to me, because I do the same thing every single week. Then anxiety over the future got to me, which usually manifests in me as an inability to do anything but sleep and eat. Now I'm so excited about the holidays that they are practically all I can think about, but I am trying to restrain myself from vomiting green and red and holiday cheer all over ze blog.

A good thing: The elementary schooler I tutor weekly has had a complete 180 change in attitude. Well, not 180. He still tries to cheat at every single game we play (I won bingo 3 times today, which really irked him) but he will do his math and reading if I just ask him to nicely. What a change from last year! I'm impressed. I'd bring him treats if I were allowed to. Maybe a tiny one for Christmastimes.

donate your organs.

It's officially on my driver's license since I switched to Maryland. And I'm in class right now watching a a video about a 9 year old who received a heart transplant. How appropriate! So yeah, don't be selfish with your organs. You can't take them with you.

HAPPY HALLOWEENZ

Reasons Halloween was weird this year:

1) I went to Masquerade Ball sans my roommates and Brandon. I guess one year of precedent with them around isn't that much, but it felt strange that they weren't there. Fun, though! The venue was way better this year and the costumes were quite lolz.


I was Taylor Swift to Amir's Kanye. I've never really been part of a two-person costume before. Turns out it went over much better when Kanye was near me. If he wasn't, everyone was like "who the f are you?" I did get to lip synch into my guitar hero microphone when they played "Love Story." Hahaha.

Also, I lost my trophy. I honestly think someone took/moved it but why? It was an IM basketball trophy that I borrowed!

2) I gave out candy to younguns! It made me feel like a super old person (haha, sorry parents) but I've never lived in a house that got trick or treaters before! I had to make an emergency candy run to Safeway with Brandon and we still got cleaned out. I blame Safeway, though. Somehow they failed to stock enough big, variety bags of candy and I had to buy smallish bags. Next year I will buy in advance and be far better prepared. I didn't even get to gorge on the leftovers. =(

3) Another sadface - I woke up ill on Halloween morning. So instead of heading to Fells as I had originally planned, I spent the night on the couch watching the Texas-Okla St game. I'm feeling a national championship coming on...

H1N1 vaccine is finally available for all healthcare workers. For the first time ever, I am a part of that group! So I'm going to wait until next week because of the current illness, but then I will be protected and so will my patients. Woot.

nom nom

On Sunday I found this recipe for cheddar-jalapeno scones, and yesterday I went to the store and today I made them.

They are so good.


Look at the flaky insides! Nom nom nom. The top was really crunchy, too, because of the egg brushed on the top. So good. They probably could have been taken out of the oven a wee bit earlier, but I was watching lectures and not checking on them.

Look! I used a dinosaur sandwich cutter for two of them!

So, on the blog I got the recipe from, hers look way classier. Part of it is that mine are probably overbaked, and I used yellow sharp cheddar instead of white, but I'm also convinced that she has perfected the fine art of food imaging. Even if food is friggin' delicious, it rarely looks as good in the pictures I take. Case in point, because these "scones" are awesome.

Anyway, if you want some delicious biscuit-type items, they'd be perfect for breakfast or as a side to a southwest or cajun meal. Or to eat throughout the day, as I have been doing. Soooo tasty.

the last good weekend

I don't think there is a similar concept in the South, where it never really gets cold. But today in Princeton was likely the "last good day," ie, the last time the sun would be shining strongly enough to lend appreciable warmth, so everybody took that one last venture outside that didn't require full winter gear. Brandon and I went to Princeton Battlefield and crunched around in the leaves, where he took a really flattering photo of me. To quote him, "it's like a Bigfoot sighting."

It's funny cause it's true. Anyway, I also ate a pumpkin donut today, so overall an overwhelmingly sucessful "last good day." And now I'm back in Bmore, dreading the work week. School week? Same same.

Have I mentioned I love that part of fall? The let's-flavor-everything-pumpkin part? I love pumpkin bread and pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin ale and pumpkin spice lattes.

Crazily enough, not that fond of pumpkin pie. I feel that other pies tend to put pumpkin pie to shame.

I don't know if we've had our last good day in Baltimore yet, but at least I'm prepared this time with a warm coat. No more hiding out in the tunnels this year - I will have to go outside every day. Oh, the horror.

maybe i should get a bike

because my Baltimore road rage increases with every day. An eighteen wheeler cut me off today on my way to school by RUNNING A RED LIGHT. Red lights stop no man, or car, or extremely large truck in this city. I could have died?

But bikes are so cold to ride about on in the winter, and I am no Tim Ford, all braving ice sheets of death. We all know that my favorite feature of my car is the seat warmer. Sorry, sunroof.

The fact that I am still typing about this over 12 hours later shows you - my blood pressure has only been on the rise since moving here. I must find some sort of outlet.

Today I went to a happy hour that reminded me of the Driskill's in Austin. No, it wasn't that good, but it was in a fancyish hotel and I could close my eyes and pretend that I have a job that ends at 5 and I have nothing to do when I get home. I do miss the fancy drinks, though. And the baked brie? I shall never get over it.

Sometimes I think I should have been some sort of career counselor. There are so many jobs that get me really, really excited. Not that I necessarily want to do them, but I think "oh my god! that is so cool. that has got to be somebody's dream job." and then I want to find that person and introduce them to the job. It would be like matchmaking, but instead of dates, jobs. God, I cannot escape my innate nerdiness.

(Today I found out one of my friends is training to be a genetic counselor and I nearly fell over myself in some sort of COOL THAT IS AWESOME fit. I need help)

QUESTION: Have I ever played matchmaker with real people? I do not think so.

but i don't have to make this mistake.

i always listen to this song repeatedly when it gets cold outside. it makes me sad.



sadness is good sometimes.

happy diwali!

Yesterday we had a dinner party to celebrate Diwali. Diwali was described to me as "Indian New Year's," and also as a festival of lights. Unfortunately I did not learn much about Diwali besides the part about lights and how we are not supposed to have wine glasses in that picture. Ignore those.

Also, Kamna let me borrow her clothes so you'll get to see me in full Diwali regalia. But first!

Last Friday Tom and Bryan came into town. The next time we're all in the same city, I have to dress up in a bear outfit when we go out. I lost a bet.

For some reason, I look extremely pleased that I will soon be a bear, and Bryan looks constipated. Poor Bryan. Maybe you should consult Dr. Trashcan.

For the record, I will in fact be a better doctor than a trashcan. SOMEDAY.

On Monday we took our horrendous Micro/ID exam and now it is finally finally over. There has been much celebrating this week as a result. Monday was the post-exam party, Wednesday was Paul's birthday, and yesterday was Diwali.




It was so cold in the last photo. We were outside for no more than the two minutes the sparklers took to burn down. But for those two minutes we were dancing around like crazy people. The boys (men?) stayed indoors and may or may not have been mocking us.

The weather is awful. Honestly, I love fall. Weather in the 50-70 degree range can be nice, especially with the sun out, and the leaves are all crunchy underneath your feet. Unfortunately, this week has been the equivalent of winter in Texas - already in the 40s. The worst part is the rain, though. The once-crunchy leaves become mushy and your pants never stay dry. I just want to stay indoors and drink hot tea and sleep.

I'm off to catch a plane to North Carolina to see Tami. I haven't seen her in forever. She's probably forgotten what I look like. How will she know who I am at the airport???

when the first cup of coffee tastes like washing up

I have hit a new low: I am dreaming about doing laundry. Even my dreams are trying to help me be more efficient with my time.

To thwart them, I spent a while today making a coffee cake. I have yet to taste it, but based on smell alone, it will be delicious. Pictures and review to come.

One of the most thought-provoking things in my pathophysiology notes is this:
On average, chemotherapy's per-person survival gain is 10 months.
Coronary bypass's is 20 months.
And highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) for HIV gives a whopping 43 year gain per person.

I find this to be staggeringly amazing. Intelligent drug design at its finest. And even more amazing - this accomplishment after, at the very beginning of the HIV epidemic, the US government tried to sweep the whole thing under the rug and give as little research money as possible to those on the front line looking for the virus. Quite the turn around.

Bryan and Tom are randomly, separately, both in town this weekend. I have the biggest test of the year on Monday. The timing is incredible, but somehow no less than I expect from them. Antics to follow?

i made this!

Homemade yellow cake w/chocolate icing. The icing was a little strange - made with sour cream. (I liked it but it got mixed reviews.) I wish the cake had been perfect, but it was a little dry. Mom says I probably overbaked it. I give it like a 5.5/10. Maybe a 6.5 after you leave it in the car for a few hours and it gets moist. Haha.

Kamna did the design because I knew I would mess it up. A hispanic quarter century?

Nom nom. Despite its not being the best thing I've ever made, most of it was eaten. I made it for my roomie's birthday so we took it to the birthday dinner. 25 hungry people left little cake behind.

It was my first attempt at a two-layer cake, so hopefully I will have better luck next time. I also took the recipe off a food blog, which does not have the pre-approved nature of family recipes.

PS Points to whoever read "I made this!" and heard the little kid's voice saying that after the credits on an xfiles episode.

kanye, making my days a little brighter lately

fake it till you make it

Tami says this a lot when we're talking about work, and I think it a lot when I'm interviewing patients. The only way I get through patient encounters is to pretend like I know exactly what I'm doing and what I'm talking about. I'm pretty sure if I acted as nervous or clueless as I usually am, the patient would panic and not trust me with a thing. So I smile, shake hands, ask questions with confidence, and try to look at competent as possible.

It doesn't always work. Yesterday I was trying to take a blood pressure, but I was doing it sort of awkwardly, and my preceptor was like here....let me show you how to make this less awkward. lolz lolz lolz. At least I had my stethoscope in my ears in the correct direction!

Yes, that has been a problem before.

It's also interesting having to ask your preceptor for certain things you want to get out of your experience. We saw some patients and I took notes and did a few menial tasks to help her out, but when she listened to hearts and lungs I never got to take a listen. Afterwards when we were summing up I told her that it would be better if I actually got to practice some of the physical exam myself - I mean, how am I supposed to know what a murmur or rales sound like if I never hear them? Anyway, for some reason I was nervous to ask her to let me do more stuff, but she was like "of course, of course."

I think it's that real doctors intimidate the **** out of me. Seriously. You have no idea how much stuff they know. I have probably been taught a lot of it, but I can barely remember any of it. It's embarressing and stressful and motivating. When am I going to be the repository of knowledge that they seem to be? Answer: not for many, many years. Le sigh.

ANYWAY. You would think I'd end this post with something like "and now I'm going to go study so I can be more like them." Well, it's Friday, and I'm stressed out, and I'm going to happy hour instead. I will count it as a win if I get some good studying in sometime later this weekend.

Side note: I get to go see Buzz Aldrin tomorrow! what what. Exciting. At a book fair! Also exciting. I do love me some books, and some space, and some wanna be astronauts. Or one, anyway.

the moth

I have a new obsession: The Moth podcast. It's just a podcast where people tell uninterrupted stories with no notes. Some are hilarious, some are frightening, some are insightful, but they are unfailingly good because they are always told with a tremendous amount of voice. You feel like you know the person telling the story by the end. And you usually like them.

Anyway, this (and other podcasts, namely This American Life & Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me) do an amazing job of speeding up your drive. I drove up and back from Princeton and the time just flew by. I love it. It's the perfect compromise. I can't listen to books while I drive (because if I get distracted, even for one instant, I stop listening) and one plot for the entire drive can be tedious. And what if you don't like the book? The podcasts switch things up every fifteen minutes or so. And music usually entertains me for a while, but I can get bored eventually while driving if all I have is la musica. So! Glory be to public radio. Which I burn onto a CD, but anyway.

Princeton was fun. I like it there, even if Brandon doesn't. Of course, I have the luxury of visiting. It's a pretty little place to visit. Too quiet and too cold to live there, though. I'll take pictures in the wintertime and post them so you can see how it's like a fairy tale town in the snow. It looks magical.

Unfortunately, since coming home, I've been ill all day. Hopefully I will be 100% by tomorrow because this week is going to require me to use all the time I've got.

CREDIT TO KAMNARS

Bacillus cereus

self-explanatory.

ah, lecturetimes.

i think about important things.

I have decided that sushi is the perfect first date food for me, for the following reasons:

1) Mexican food makes you smell....like Mexican food
2) I don't like Italian food all that much YES I KNOW IT'S WEIRD
3) Delicious peppery things get into my teeth (weh)
4) Also bready things get into my teeth
5) Many other foods have the potential to make me feel ill, THEREFORE:

first dates should be sushi. I had this revelation tonight after a girl's night. I was like hey! I smell normal, nothing's in my teeth, I am comfortably full and my stomach doesn't hurt. VICTORY.

I give delicious seafood a close second.

Uhh....so that's what I thought about on the way home from girls' night.

Anyways I shouldn't be needing to go on any first dates because I have Brandon! And he is finally home. And we are both in the same place, and by "the same place" I mean two and a half hours away from each other, but that beats this summer by, quite literally, miles and miles.

Brownies are in the oven and it's Wednesday and I'm out of excuses to avoid studying. Except you know that I will find a way.

I applied for a jorb today. I would make money! I would collect urine samples! lolz

labor day in PA

One of my classmates (Logan) invited the entire class to his parents' house in Pennsylvania for Labor Day. Only 5 of us came, so it's not as crazy as it sounds. Too bad for everyone else, though - it was a blast! And much more relaxing than worrying about the upcoming exam all weekend. I drove up with Craig and Birju. After a solid 3 hours of driving and listening to NPR podcasts, we made it.

The farmhouse from the pool area. You can see the barn in the background.

We immediately put on swimsuits and relaxed in the warm sun. Then Logan's mom put us to work gathering corn for dinner.

Craig and Birju working together.

My very own baby corn!! Awwww

We then had a corn shucking contest that I lost spectacularly. The first corn I shucked had a worm in it!! This was damaging to my competitive psyche. Le gross. Anyway we cut the parts with worms off and most didn't have worm damage. Apparently worms are what happens on an organic farm!

Dinner was the next adventure and I helped prepare the chicken by basting on some sort of delicious butter-vinegar special sauce.

Look at the end product! Yumz.
Post-dinner, I watched some college football, and to my absolute joy OU lost to BYU. I couldn't have been happier. I wish I were going to be in Dallas for the Red River Shootout to rub it in their faces before our game in the traditional trash-talking parade the night before. They've got absolutely nothing to brag about this year!

Then one of the Weygandts' family friends brought over a huge hollow log that he "found" somewhere. And he lit it on fire. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. The log was so thick that you could touch the outside and it was still cold.

Proof!


Amazing, no? It burned for hours and hours. Toward the end the boys got a little bit crazy. Logan's dad drilled into the log to make a jack-o-lantern smiley face and then everyone took turns chopping the log up, till it was no more.




And that pretty much ended our night. All the medical students were exhausted and passed out. All the other kids stayed up drinking and messing around. Haha. I slept on the couch downstairs and the next day I learned how to can food! We made our own salsa and canned it. But I'm saving that for the next post because I need to study. So! Stay tuned.

pretend all the good things are for you

I would update this blog more if I brought my computer to class, but it turns out I pay little to no attention if there is a computer available during lecture. Sacrifices must be made to the gods of academia.

Speaking of those "gods," they have deemed that we can't have any food in our lecture hall. They took away our free neoplasia breakfasts/coffee because we brought the food into the lecture hall. To punish us. Oh, I'm sorry. If we're having class from 8am to 1pm, we might get a little hungry in the meantime.

It's cool, everyone eats in there anyway. What can they do to us? There is actually no way to punish us. I want to start a blog called "Eating @ Armstrong Auditoriums" and post pictures I take during class of people chowing down, then send the blog link to the building administration. Just to spite them for taking away our free food. How low can you go?

James is in North Carolina right now with Tami. I think this makes me a bad friend. I wanted to go this weekend, but airline tickets were insane and I have an exam next Thursday, so spending 12 hours driving was not really feasible. And Tami had to work one of the days too. It feels ridiculous how close/yet far away I am.

So if you haven't read this article in the New Yorker, you should. Texas probably executed an innocent man. This has always been my problem with the death penalty. I would say sure, an eye for an eye, a life for a life, if you were 100% sure about guilt, but we're not infallible. We make mistakes. And how can you live with making a mistake of this magnitude? It's chilling to think about.

Another week of school is almost over. Labor day weekend has yet to shape up. Will I go to Philly? A Delaware beach? Ikea? ???

The weather has been absolutely beautiful lately. I don't remember this twilight summertime from last year, but that's probably because I had yet to suffer a mid-atlantic winter. So every bit of sunshine counts right now and I'm trying to store up against the cold. Like...a bear? I'm probably eating enough right now to go into hibernation. Class makes me eat.

it ain't my birthday but i got my name on the cake.

Whaaaaaat this weekend was so ridiculous. I am still sleep deprived because of it.

Friday was the NO PANTS PARTAY. I had one of my emotional freakouts (argh) but dang! It was fun. I need to post pictures but I'm too tired to do that now - I'll have to do a pure picture update later. Besides, Kamna has all the good ones, as always.

Anyway, more house parties shall be thrown. We got several compliments on how fun it was, but I also had someone tell me that "everyone at that party got really sick or threw up." Well...maybe our next party will be moderation themed. NOT

Then Saturday Amber came into town. hi skuuuuuuuuuuuu! We caught up on the gossips over dinner. It's so nice to be able to walk a block to the square. Then we went to Tom and Jathin's House party. It was a zoo. If that many people had come to our place, our carpet would have been ruined for sure. Amber got tired early and went home, and Kamna and I tried to meet some first years. Then we decided it was a lost cause so we danced to "I'm on a boat" with Johnny in the living room....three person dance party? Because "I'm on a boat" did not attract any other awesome people, we knew for sure that it was a lost cause and decided to leave. (jk, jk) (not really.) Then we came home, heated up leftovers, and sat around chatting with Amber until 4am. Whoops. Did I mention that I was barely alive this whole day? I did not escape the plague of my own party.

And did we take a nice relaxing Sunday off? Oh no. Apparently Virgin Mobile throws a summer freefest every year, and it is actually literally free as in it costs zero dollars, so of course we went to Merriweather Post Pavilion, of Animal Collective album name fame, and saw soooooo many shows. And Red Bull parashooters, one of which was Richard Branson, all landing on the roof of the stage and spraying champagne everywhere. That man has fun. Anyway, we saw Jet, The Bravery, a little of The National, Weezer, half of Girl Talk, and most of Franz Ferdinand. The acoustics were great at the main pavilion stage. Weezer was a freaking blast. It was like seeing the last 10 years of my life flash by...while dancing like a crazy person. At Girl Talk, I wanted to be on stage, but at Weezer, it didn't matter. It felt more personal. It also felt like I should be playing Rock Band. Say it ain't soooooooooooo...

Then, tonight, Kamna's mom made us delicious Indian food and showed us acupuncture. The food was sooooo good. Nom nom nom. She's even taking us to class tomorrow! I think that means we don't have to leave as early. Woo hoo.

Other things happened over the weekend. Like Brandon leaving for Greenland. =(. I talked to him today, though, and he's made it as far as Denmark. Eek! I'm so nervous about his trip. It's too cold there for Texans.

On top of all this, I'm supposed to be studying. Right. Loading dose = concentration * volume of distribution / bioavailability. OH DANG did I retain something?? See parents, I do study. Sometimes. Maybe.

oh AND I stabbed myself in the eye on Saturday night with mascara, and I now have pink eye. WIN

snuggie

oh yes.

technology fail = life fail

We have a beautiful new building for class at Hopkins. It looks like the medical school of the future. However, it does not operate like the medical school of the future. Somehow they didn't think to test the videotaping technology, so my day yesterday went something like this:

9:30am: wake up. extremely pleased that i am still at home.
10am: dressed and ready to watch the first two lectures on my laptop
10:05am: suddenly very concerned about the absence of posted lectures
10:10am: gchatting with everyone online to figure out what's going on
10:15am: extremely frustrated that my stay-at-home plan is failing me
10:30am: go to safeway, buy brown sugar and vanilla
11am: bake a million cookies

Seriously. In my anger I baked soooooo many cookies. At least I didn't completely waste the day?

This is what it looks like if you actually go to class:

And that's the view I'll be seeing until they get their act together with the videotaping.

On the upside, living in my new house has been better than I could have hoped for. I will dedicate a post to my lovely house this weekend, after our first house party! It will be epic.

last days in Htown

Last Saturday Dad and Becky threw a barbeque! There was SO MUCH food. And the whole family was in town, which was so nice. It's super convienient to all live in the same state. I like that we don't have to leave Texas for visits.

Look how much Annabelle has grown! I feel like she just got here yesterday.

And so cute too.

My friends came to the BBQ as well. Shiner has a new beer called Smokehouse? It was good, and it was jawesome to see them. I hope everyone stays in Houston for the time being, it makes it a lot easier to catch up when I'm back. Guys, plz to modify your life plans around what's convienient for me. Although we were missing some people like Saunders & Tim. Lame! Tim said the rollercoasters he was riding were more fun than the BBQ, but this must be a lie. Also, he had not tried the boudin.

Anyway I spent that night downtown with friends, and then came back on Sunday for two days of errands and shopping and family time. Tuesday night we went to an Astros game! Hooray!

Unfortunately, the stros lost. This seems to be their thing lately. (lately?)

Blarg. The last two days before I left, I was sorta miserable. It's hard for me to come home and leave again. I get really nostalgic and weh weh weh. I just did not want to come back to school. Plus, I just got an email that they are going to start taking more attendence. WTF. I liked how it was!! I would write what my toast was at the end-of-first-year party was, but my father has warned me against slacker-type talk on my blog for fear of future job sneaks. Hey, job sneaks? I watched all the lectures online anywayz so back off.

This weekend I'm in Princeton/New York. Brandon is somewhere creating anerobic media while I update my blog. I pretty much live on the internet? His professor just walked into the office and said, "you're not Brandon!" Whoops.

I'm adding pictures for sad children to my webcomic list on the right. You should read it because it is extremely sad/funny, which is one of my favorite types of humor. A softer world falls under that heading as well.

I would consider this blog a total success if I could just get 1 more person hooked on webcomics. Bwahaha.

Quote from "rusty"* Briggs

"Obama throws like a girl. You know what Bush did really well? He could throw a first pitch. Remember after 9/11? He went to Yankee stadium and threw a strike. That's about all he did well."

*that's for you, James

memory

I had a great time this weekend. I wish I had taken a few pictures of everybody together. Ah, well.

I have a few very sense-based memories, and sometimes I'll smell something or feel something and I'm suddenly thrown right back into how I felt at that moment. Really hot, relentless sun beating down reminds me of walking to play tennis with Tim. Not playing the tennis, walking to the court. I'm half zoned out, half listening to Tim talk, spinning my racket and thinking about playing the game, half thinking about a sandwich since we always walked past jimmy john's to get there, thinking a little bit about what we'll be doing later but mostly just feeling the sun and the racket. Not wanting to be anywhere else or doing anything but exactly what I was doing.

I think that's pretty much my personal definition of happiness. Not wanting to be anywhere else or doing anything else. I really liked this article in the New York Times because he says it a thousand times more elegantly than I could:

"I suspect there is something inherently misguided and self-defeating and hopeless about any deliberate campaign to achieve happiness. Perhaps the reason we so often experience happiness only in hindsight, and that chasing it is such a fool’s errand, is that happiness isn’t a goal in itself but is only an aftereffect. It’s the consequence of having lived in the way that we’re supposed to — by which I don’t mean ethically correctly so much as just consciously, fully engaged in the business of living."

Emphasis mine. Anyway, I've been happy here (in Texas) and I guess what I've got to do is get a little more engaged in Baltimore. Avert my vision.

the beat is biology but what is the song?

sometimes i wonder how other people experience the world relative to how i experience it. actually, i wonder about that a lot. 

here is a petty example (really, really petty): can other people estimate time as well as i can? today i had a timer set for 20 minutes and i decided to get up after 10 and i checked and the time i got up was 9:48 on the timer, and that's pretty damn good. and i wasn't always this good with time, either. i remember one year when i basically discovered that i was very good at judging discrete chunks of time. maybe that's what helps me be on time to stuff so often. i have a very good sense of what time it is, how long something will take, and when i should leave for the next thing. maybe other people do not have this sense, or maybe they just do not care. ANYWAY enough with boring time talk. if only it were time-travel, instead.

i had a wart frozen yesterday and it's way, way more difficult to function without a left thumb than i thought. i can't open doors, wash my hair, hold my phone, type, or do a thousand other little things (ok, i can type just fine) because of the stupid thumb. i am highly displeased. i thought this would be an easier process. 

today i sunbathed without burning myself. this....this is cause for celebration. i am built to burn. that sounds cooler than it is. 

tonight we go dancing and i am SO EXCITED. all i want is a waltz. 

put on my blue suede shoes and i boarded the plane

I heard that song twice today. I also happen to secretly love that song, so I was super pleased. Way to go, day. (Also: suede is really hard to spell. I tried "suade" first.)

So it turns out thinking that I was maybe ready to go back to school was a load of BS. I do not want to go back to school. I like it here. The weather is ridiculous. My iphone is saying it's 97 degrees outside. I just ate a popsicle...sitting indoors. Yesssss.

Since I have been home I have

+slip and slided down a large hill, and flashed people not one but two ways
+been downtown 3 times (WTF??)
+hung out w/ the gatos & puppies
+had delicious beers
+seen voxtrot!
+had good food with the fam
+had more good food
+to clarify i have had mexican food, american chinese food, beef, and turkey. mmmm turkey, how did i live without you for 2 months?
+gotten an iphone (too hip for sku)
+seen people from the far away past
+and the much more recent past

Aaaand I can't think of a single bad thing about being here. Two stepping tomorrow? Texas Exes happy hour on Thursday? BBQ on Saturday? Yes plz.

I probably won't make it up to Austin, and that is sad, but it seems like most of the people I want to see are here. Howwww convienient for me.

delay due to TYPHOON reason

and that is why I'm still sitting in Taipei waiting for my flight at 12:14 am. (The above was written on a sign for EVA airlines. I wish I had my camera for documentation.)

Soooo I just tried to purchase food/water, but I have no Taiwanese money, no money exchangers are open, they don't take AmEx, and I don't want to use my Visa $25 gift card in case the phones in LA don't take AmEx either. Yar. I felt like a hobo, getting all this food and then being unable to pay. I also have all these baht just sitting around, now. I was rushed so quickly through Bangkok that I literally only stopped to pee. I did not even sit down in the waiting area.

I do not know where my next gate is. My ticket says one thing and the monitor says nothing. So I'm just waiting for a loudspeaker annoucement, wishing I had some liquid.

I must be tired, because this post is coming out more pathetically than it should. I got here. I will make my original flight to LA, despite the fact that it is delayed by 3 or so hours. I will still make my flight to Houston on Saturday - and that's the important part.

Good things:
+I got an aisle seat on the flight to Bangkok (I did have to pay for it, though...)
+and an emergency exit seat on the next, which meant limitless legroom! and they had movies too. and they fed me, and i felt like i had never been so hugnry in my life. like i said, in bangkok i had exactly 0 minutes to do anything
+ i have this sweet bag that's my carry-on that says "HAPPY VIRUS" on it. it's so cool that a security chick commented on it. yep, i have officially become asian.

....i've about run out.

Weird thing: I found out about this typhoon by reading a blog this morning in Chiang Mai. Tom's ex-roommate teaches English in Taiwan, and I saw her post, and I was like OH NO. I checked the Taiwan airport, but they said all my flights were on time, so I was like ??? Of course I get there and my noon flight is delayed until 10pm. The internets, both informative and not.

Before I forget, I had a real medical school moment - the first I've had in a long while - when we were talking about how much we skipped class/slept through it and I mentioned that in one of my classes in college a friend finally turned to me and asked me why I even came, since when I did show up I just ate a sandwich and then fell asleep. I told my friends the class was really interesting though, and they wanted to know which class, and I said "tumor biology! Cancer is really cool, actually." And I got a few sets of rolled eyes and an outright laugh. I forgot who I was with! It made me simaltaneously nostalgic for med sku and glad I've been away for a while. Haha.

OKAY I should probably go find out where my stupid gate is. Ugh. I am tired. I am going to get on this plane, find some free water, and then pass out.

UPDATE it is 1:45 am and we still have not left. They did this really funny trick where they put D8 on the monitor and then were like PSYCH! your gate is totally D9. I wanted to destroy them. There was a mass exodus to D9. Where we are all now sitting and staring at each other. I know there's a plane here....what on earth are we waiting for??

PS The reason I am updating this so much is because I have no reading material left. None. The shops are closed. I'm not counting my anatomy board review book. I'm not.

oh nos

it's my last day. i just did some amazing packing. i should get a medal or something. you have no idea. apparently i bought an entire bag's worth of gifts. i don't even know who they're all for. i'll sort it out when i get home.

tonight we are having a party. at least i think we are. it will come together later, i'm sure. then tomorrow i will have one last mango/passionfruit smoothie and leave chiang mai. sadness! =(

i'm really sad today is my last day to drive my motorbike around. i only have this one picture of my motorbike:


it's not even me on it! it's elena, looking happy and terrified. haha.

and it is not nearly as cool as this picture of my friends in a moto gang:

too bad, once again, that my camera is gone. oh well.

this post should include a discussion of how crazy it is to drive here, but i don't have time! so maybe when i get home i will try to describe the insanity.

anyway i think i'm going to go drive around a bit one last time. get some lunch, go to the zoo, go to this place that sells cool teas....a good day. then come back, shower, and get ready for dinner/drinks tonight!

to face mask or not to face mask

Study: Face masks seem to protect against flu

At first when I saw this article, I freaked out. I've been telling some of the people I know here that there is no real point in wearing these masks as a preventative measure in public.

Even though EVERBODY here does it. It's scary. It creeps me out. It's like I'm in a horror movie and the other shoe's going to drop any second.

But then I read the article, and they're talking about people who already *have* the flu wearing the masks to prevent transmission. Well, that makes total and complete sense. And I am vindicated by this line:

"It's still not clear whether healthy people who wear face masks in public can prevent themselves from getting the flu."

The point is that yes, if someone is sick and coughing and you're in their immediate vicinity, it will help. And it will help prevent a coughing person from spreading fine virus-filled droplets that hang in the air and can be inhaled. But it's not really going to do much in wide open spaces, or even in movie theatres, if there's nobody sick around. It's more important to wash your hands. Viruses are tough little boogers and can stick around on surfaces for a while. You touch the surface, you touch your face...SWINEFLU2009.

Maybe all of this is just me trying to make myself feel better. I had an upper respiratory tract illness a few weeks ago, complete with cough, and people treated me as though I had the plague. I have never been self-conscious about coughing before, but I would get actual dirty looks if I had the gall to cough in public. One time, I was standing in line at the movie theatre for Harry Potter, and I coughed, and the guy behind us in line literally ran away from me. He left the line and bolted. Elena immediately doubled over laughing and as we looked over at the guy, he started laughing too. The paranoia - it's intense!

I look forward to coughing wherever I please when I return to the States.

tom wolfe = not my best friend

Here's the thing. I can't decide if I hate Tom Wolfe, hate his writing, hate his characters, or hate what he has to say about the world we live in.

I first read I am Charlotte Simmons. Blah! I really hated it. I hated it for two main reasons - I strongly dislike his prose. There is just something about it that drives me batty. He's hyperbolic all the time. He sounds so full of himself. And any time he comes near sex he makes me nauseous. I mean, "loamy loins"? Really? And his main character - ugh. Okay, I understand how a girl from a small town could show up at a large university and completely lose her moral compass. But she is just so utterly defeated that I ended up despising her. I guess what I'm saying is that she turns out to be very, very weak, which made me nauseous. Again.

In the end, in my opinion, she's totally unlikeable, and, in my opinion, very one dimensional. I suppose the book is meant to "capture the college experience" but it's so, so bad. It doesn't even come close. Every character is a cliche. The dumb jock, the womanizing frat boy. Nothing special here at all. And it's so long! 676 pages of crap.

Obviously, I really disliked this book. Most reviewers did too.

Anyway I just read The Bonfire of the Vanities. I still hate his prose. The plot is better here - but probably only because he doesn't attempt a deep study of just one character. It's about Wall Street in the 80s, racial tensions, vanity & ego. He does well with vanity and ego, either because that's really what he considers to be his characters' major flaw, or because he is himself full of it. I gather that when it was published it was timely and well-received, a scathing upbraiding of the behind-the-scenes machinations of NYC. Turns out I still don't much care for his writing. Everyone's so predictable, unlikeable, again, weak.

So I shall not be reading any more of Mr. Wolfe's work. Not unless I decide to give The Right Stuff (about the Mercury 7 astronauts) a chance. It's nonfiction, so it could be better. And I do like astronauts.

And I do agree with him about at least one thing: NASA needs money. And to get money, it needs a visionary. Even here I find his prose grating, but when I got to the end I agreed with what he was saying and I suppose that is what counts.

it's the final countdowwwn

Yes! Youtube has a short clip of the snake announcer from the show we saw! Glory be.



So funny.

mae rim & my last sunday walking street.

Yesterday I played with four month old baby tigers! Pictures to come sometime in the next few months - they're on Adam's camera but he has no way to upload them until he gets back to the UK.
Anyway, they were so cute. They run floppily, like awkward teenagers. Like Simba in the Lion King even though (obviously) he was a lion, not a tiger.

Two of the babies were asleep but one was super playful and we spent the whole time playing tug of war with a stick with him. He made a funny growling noise from his throat while we were tussling. No squeaking like Leo and Buster, unfortunately.

However! I am still allergic to tigers! They are cats, after all. I itched the whole way home.

I saw a tiger taking a bath, too. Just chilling in a big pool of water. I also saw a full-size tiger peeing. Woah. Adam was all "oh, he's just dripping." Right.

Then we went to a snake show. Predictably, they threw a rope at me after talking about jumping snakes and predictably, I got the hell out of the way of the "snake." Sigh.

But by far the best part of the show was the ridiculous announcer dude. Adam and I were so tickled that we were giggling throughout the entire show. He had "the final countdown" on loop in the background, and would just mutter into the microphone things like "you can kiss snake. if you kiss snake, it kiss you! you can go to the DOCTOR!" in a rapid monotone. He must have said "you can go to the DOCTOR" 80 times. We could. not. stop. laughing. I'm not sure if Adam got a video in which you can hear him, but I really hope so.

In the back of the snake farm they had lots of cages with more snakes and for some reason lots of birds as well? One of the birds said hello to me in Thai. It scared the crap out of me. I thought it was some guy behind the cage, but no. It was this tiny bird. I guess it was a male, because it said "sawadee kop" (phonetic-ish spelling). Girls say kaaaaa. Yes, with that many a's.

Yes, I'm joking. I know that he person who trained the bird was male, not the bird itself. =p. Not joking about the kaaaaa that women do, though. At first I thought everyone was sort of mocking me? Or something? (self-centered reasoning, oh yes) But it turns out "kaaaah" is the polite ending to basically everything you say ever. I get emails from people in my office that say "Please return this key to me when you return United States kah." Okay kah.

Today Adam and I went to see Public Enemies before he left for a week to do work in some southern district. Since I leave on Friday, I won't see him again. Lame! But the movie was enjoyable. After that, since it was sunny, I rushed home to sunbathe. For a place that's so consistently warm, I've had trouble trying to even my tan lines out (it has a point - wearing a strapless dress to a wedding) because it's the rainy season and always slightly cloudy. Today was perfect. It was like Texas. I know I'm weird about loving insane heat. I know.

This post is getting too long. Tomorrow, left leg adventures and my last stroll down the walking street.

why doesn't this taste better?

DRAGON FRUIT
It looks like it should be in a video game. Like Yoshi would pop it out or eat it or something.

And it comes in two colors, too! White and pink. When you make a fruit shake with the deep pink/purple ones, it looks really lovely.


HOWEVER. They don't taste like much. They are like a weaksauce kiwi with crunches. Kinda like eating solid water. It makes me sad every time, because they look so cool. Sigh.

Imogen's going away party was on Monday night. She left Chiang Mai for good on Wednesday. So sad! She'd been here since January though, so she was ready to go back home.

We started at Small House (my new fav place) where there were a few games of jenga. I lost one game =(.

Then we moved to Monkey Club. Thais don't really dance - they have dance floors with all these tall tables, and you kinda stand around your table and bob up and down. Not farangs, though. We draw attention by dancing however we like. Don't ask me what I'm doing in the picture below, though. This is probably why I shouldn't dance.


My hair looks crazy but I can't help it. I wear it up all day because it's too humid and then at night I look like a mess. So it goes.

So now Jessica is gone (a friend I had back in June) and Imogen is gone and the number of people here that I know well is dwindling! Of course, I'm leaving in 8 days so I'll soon be among those leaving Chiang Mai behind. I can't wait for Mexican food, my pool, family, friends, big BBQ/crawfish boil, giving everyone their gifts, Voxtrot, an astros game, maybe getting up to Austin, etc.

And then it will be back to the grind. We got an email yesterday from our classmates about the exam schedule for next year. Ugh. Who's thinking about that right now? Disgusting.

Laos entries w/photos!

I'm backdating the Laos entries to the days they actually occurred, so if you want to see my pictures, look at the entries on July 23-36. The pictures came out really well!

PS - all the Laos entries are finally up! Hooray! Also, if you click on the pictures, it lets you see a bigger version, which is nice.

two loves

1) I got a new phone. It cost about 21 dollars US and I couldn't be happier. It's an old nokia - I think it's the exact model I had in early high school - and it's amazing! Easy to text on, tons of free ringtones and games, some sort of strange GPS system that knows where I am in Thailand (right now it's saying I'm at the Fine Arts Center at Chiang Mai University, which is true)...I've always preferred stick phones anyway. Flip phones are just too fancy. I really want to take this phone home with me and go retro.

2) We went to a bar last night called Small House for Imogen's going away party. It's just two streets away from where I live, which is always nice because I can walk instead of drive, and it has board games and movie nights and plays American & British indie music! I'm in love. This is the place I would become a regular at if I were staying here. Too bad I'm leaving in just two weeks. Sigh.

back from Laos!

This trip was all traveling. We spent three days to get to Luang Prabang...spent one night there...and took an hour long flight back to Chiang Mai. An hour by air, compared to three days by land and river. Surreal.

It was like a mini-backpacking experience.

Did we meet many Lao people? No.
Did we eat any Lao food? We tried, but not really...no.
(We did have delicious Indian food twice, though. This is really weird, because I haven't had Indian food once in Chiang Mai, though I'm sure it's available somewhere.)
Did we stay in one place for more than 12 hours? No.

Basically, we were following the route that most backpackers take to get from Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos, so we were with tons of foreigners (farang, in Thailand, falang, in Laos) and we really only had the opportunity to hang out with foreigners. The few Lao that the slow boat picked up along our route were from tiny villages and spoke no English.

Interestingly, I may have been one of the only Americans on the slow boat. Imogen and I spent a lot of time talking about why Americans don't seem to do the classic backpacking experience as much. There are a lot of young Americans working in Chiang Mai, but there were few, if any, with us on this journey. I think it's a combination of things: the "gap year" between high school/college or college/working still isn't standard in the US, and few kids would be able to come up with the money for a long trip, even if it was backpacker-cheap. I've certainly never had the time or the money to spend 3 months or more traveling - last year Tami and I were here for two and a half short weeks.

Anyhow, we met tons of people and had loads of fun. And the slow boat itself? It was insane. I can't wait until I have the pictures so I can do a day-by-day update. Imogen lent me her smaller digital camera (she has one of those huge fancy ones as well) so I was able to take my own pictures!

Tonight I'm going to do some shopping at the Sunday night market (and get a massage, and eat delicious street food). It's time to get serious about gifts for people back home!

last half day in Laos

In the morning Imogen and I woke up around 8 and went to find breakfast. We found some lovely raisin toast and fruit salad. The toast came with mixed tropical fruit jam and Lao honey. The honey was sooooo good.

Then we decided to go find Phu Si, a temple on the top of a hill in the center of town. Somehow, we had missed it the day before. It was quite a hike up! After about 100 stairs we saw a sign saying that there were more than a hundred more stairs to the top. Whew! But we made it, and I'm glad, because the views of the city were spectacular!



You can see the airport runway in this one!


They had a buddha for every day of the week. I forget which day this one was for!

We had to rush down the hill to get back to our guesthouse to meet the tuk tuk driver at 11:30 and pay for our room. The tuk tuk driver was actually early (!) but we first ran upstairs to get Trish and Dana's contact info. Then we hopped on the tuk tuk and went to the airport! It was probably the smallest airport I've ever been to. Still, they had some food - smile burger!


You just walk out to your plane and climb the steps to get on! (I'm over there on the right.)


Even though the flight was only an hour long, they served us lunch. It was good, too - hand-made and -wrapped. Little ham sandwiches, pieces of white dragonfruit, and a small cake. By 2:30pm, we were back in Chiang Mai. Craziness!