just breathe

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert ...

2011-03-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished the documentary Gonzo, a sometimes too-polished (but still enjoyable) account of Hunter S. Thompson's life and writing. I learned about George McGovern, saw Rolling Stone editor Jann Weber cry, and got inspired to resuscitate my blog, which is limping along at an average of one entry per year. I may not have a salt-shaker of cocaine at my disposal, but I'm still obligated to commit some words to a page once in a while to continue to call myself a writer. One of the most moving parts of the documentary was at the end, when his ex-wife refused to glamorize his decline and 2005 suicide. She pointed out that another generation, post-September 11th and in the grip of Bush II, could have benefited from his writing.

Concurrently, I just started reading Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, in which HST follows the 1972 presidenital campaign. I was delighted to discover that the introduction to the book was written at the Seal Rock Inn, close to my original San Francisco home in the Outer Sunset. Rolling Stone put him up there for a 50+ hour drug-fueled attempt to wrench some publishable material out of him. (It's still available, low-season, for $114 a night if anyone has writer's block and an impending deadline.)

I recently returned from a trip out to the Salton Sea. I wish I could write a truly gonzo account of the experience, but my anger and shame have solidified around the event like that jar of bacon grease John keeps in the kitchen.

For the past few years, this trip has been an annual mini-Burning Man for some segments of the Los Angeles cycling community, but this year we collectively managed to botch the event, piss off the locals, and get ourselves permanently banned from the off-the-grid colony of Slab City and nearby Niland, CA. We paid a fitting pyrotechnic tribute to our too-soon departed friend Tomatoes, but did it too close to many homes and a local landmark, Salvation Mountain. We made too much noise, and left too much trash. HST would have disapproved, not of the copious consumption of mind-altering substances (my vice: Stone Smoked Porter), but of our aimlessness. There is so much Fear and Loathing still out there today, far too much to squander our gonzo energy in a lost weekend in someone else's desert backyard.

I apologize -- that's as much lecture as I hope to ever produce in one sitting. Contact me for the complete PowerPoint presentation "Salton Sea IV: Why Everyone Thinks I'm a Narc."

Bottom line: my project to revive some personal gonzo has begun. Read more, write more, ride more. Live more.

PS: I'm so angry that the NYT is putting me on a diet of 20 free articles a month, but hopefully it will force me to embrace a wider range of media sources. I've gotten a little too comfy with the cadences of the Times and The New Yorker.

Nobody mixes oranges with chicken.

2010-06-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Today was my third day back as a medical student, and it was also a Wednesday. This means that exactly halfway through my inaugural week, I got to partake of a UCLA hospital cafeteria tradition: the Wednesday Orange Chicken. WOC is a deep-fried chicken breast smothered in a vaguely Asian, vaguely citrus orange-colored sauce. Eating WOC is inevitably followed by gastric distress and a vow to never eat it again (routinely broken the following Wednesday.)

After tweeting about my meal (very @jhvu), I was reminded that Orange Chicken now holds new significance for me, as it plays a major role in "The Food," a drama I just discovered about the seedy underbelly of the restaurant business. It's an homage to the some of the finest television ever created -- "The Wire" -- and (just to warn you) I felt a similar existential emptiness when "The Food" ended its run after four episodes.

While recovering from my WOC encounter with a bottle of mineral water and a large, comfortable chair, I started thinking about the new importance that food has in my life. For a long time, I took a medication that changed my sense of taste. Some tastes were blunted, others disappeared completely. Eating became a chore of caloric intake, while for others around me, the activity was a passion. I knew intellectually that I was eating amazing, Jonathan Gold-reviewed food, but I just wasn't getting the accompanying religious experience.

A few months ago, I got to stop taking the medication. I can't remember the first meal that I realized I was actually tasting, but I do remember a gorgeous Saturday afternoon savoring Hainan chicken at Savoy Kitchen. I wanted to try the snails, but we already had ordered too much food. (By the way, I'm not normally so chicken-centric.) Since then it's been a crash course in Los Angeles eating: pho bac at Pho Minh; "just a few" oysters at The Hungry Cat; Sichuan at Chung King; the lasagna from Bay Cities Deli. I also made Cà Ri Gà at home and could actually taste it while I fine tuned the seasoning.

One last thing before I go find something to eat: I am so excited to have met a fellow Drew student who read my (my!) blog while deciding where to go to medical school. I am so flattered, and I am looking forward to finding him and his wife some decent (although maybe not up to Seattle standards) seafood.

PS - "deep-fried" is not in the AP Stylebook.

One Year Later

2010-06-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

I took that test, and I passed it, sucka.

I stitched up a little girl's eyebrow after she ran through a glass sliding door.

I did CPR, and he died anyway.

I held a heart. For real.

I was a patient, and hospital pillows suck.

(five months pass)

I danced at Hungry Beat!

I'm starting school again on Monday. "Pocket Medicine," how I've missed you.

And thank you, John. So much more than "thank you."

Things That Make Me Sad

2009-06-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

Thunder and rain this afternoon, some study-break venting.

Turmoil at End of Path From Bed-Stuy to Harvard
Chanequa Campbell is an honor student at Harvard, and unapologetically Bed-Stuy. Some black men are suspected in a fatal shooting in a Harvard dorm. Chanequa is black. Now Harvard won't grant her her degree. SWB? Studying While Black?

Abortion Doctor Shot to Death in Kansas Church
Everyone knows about this one, but I am so sad I had to make sure it got an historical tic mark in my blog. George Tiller had already been shot in 1993, yet he kept practicing. So brave. Our mandate to provide women with their basic human right to health care should not endanger our own lives.

Sitting at my desk, antsy and distractable, these two can remind me to keep working. There are others out there tackling much harder work. And there is much work to be done.

Three Reasons Why It's Awesome to Be Me Right Now and One Little One Why It's Not

2009-05-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

1) I'm typing this while sitting in the sun in my family's backyard.

2) I stole, er, borrowed John's iPod while he's out of town. At first I was deleriously happy to dig into his collection, but I soon realized that with that much music, I had to have a strategy, the way a world championship hot dog eater approaches a stack of hot dogs. I've set a goal: I'm making my way through the S's.

3) I've asked the school for extra time to study for Step 1. This means that I will start rotations a month or two later, but it also means that I will preserve my mental health. And I will learn the information instead of just cramming into my short-term memory. And I can spend some time with the friends and family who have supported me for these crazy three years.

Just one little downer: I'm missing John, who's in New York with our friends for NYC Popfest. I'm sending energy his way to buy some irresistable DIY indie pop merchandise. Girls love that stuff, I'm no exception.

All of this daydreaming about a silkscreened owl tote bag made me miss an obvious developing sunburn.

Time for a siesta!

Day Nine

2009-05-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

Experimenting with circadian rhythms. Got up at 6 am, having my most productive day so far. Forgave myself for not studying in the afternoon, which is a deep energy trough. Think, siesta. It exists for a reason. Still made it to Trader Joe's to stock up on brain food. (I'm eating my way through their granola selection, so I hope my brain likes granola and greek yogurt.) Daydreaming about dinner while I wait for my 6 pm second wind. Followed by my 8 pm reading in bed and my 9 pm bedtime. Yum.

I've just canceled my trip to New York, leaving John to travel by himself. I wanted the vacation and I wanted to support my friends, but studying just isn't going as smoothly as anticipated. Much bumpier, actually. I'm trying to help John rearrange his plans, and it's depressing. I'll miss him, and there's something sad about traveling while missing someone else.

(Photos: reading material and a new owl in the family.)

Ride safe, everyone

2009-05-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

John and our friend Brian got doored on Wednesday morning.

For you non-cyclists, "dooring" is the act of opening your car door into the path of an oncoming bicycle, moped, pedestrian, emu. Getting "doored" is running into said door.

John escaped with some scrapes and bruises; Brian went to the UCLA emergency room with a broken thumb and a broken collarbone. After Brian got discharged, we all went to eat at Santa Monica Seafood and sat there, slurping on our clam chowder, feeling lucky.

I'll probably be complaining less about studying for a while. I hope.

This hour is colored pink on my daily schedule ... for relaxing. So I'm cooking some rice and waiting for John to come home for some late-night at-home sashimi.

Day Two

2009-04-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

Day One sucked. Insomnia. QBank is buggy. Do I have swine flu? Flashcards take a really long time to make. John points out that the test is named after me: US - M - L - E. Ha ha get it? Okay, that didn't suck so much. That was maybe sort of kind of cute. Basil plant holding up well.

Pause

2009-04-26T19:16:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday and I'm home from a bike ride, stuffed fulled of Lebanese food and two scoops of Scoops ice cream. I've officially finished the second year of medical school, and tomorrow I start studying for Step 1.

Yes! I said it! I am finished! I may be firing up the coffee pot in less than 12 hours and hitting the books again, but that doesn't make me any less ecstatic.

I mean it when I say I couldn't have done it without family, friends, and John (my rock). Taking them for granted is a terrible by-product of the tunnel vision of medical school, but they all had the infinite patience to stand by me. They are amazing human beings.

Time to put my feet up and read The New Yorker.

PS - Happy birthday, Kat!

Breathe in that desert air.

2009-04-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

I went to Joshua Tree last weekend for a friend's wedding. I left the travel plans to someone else, and it was great to be able to pack a bag, hop into the car, and head out on a road trip. First stop, donuts.

We stayed at the Joshua Tree Inn, where rock star Gram Parsons died in Room 8 in 1973. We were in Room 4, and I sadly report no paranormal experiences, although my friends snarked that John's snoring was otherworldly.

Before we headed out to the national park, we stopped by the Integratron in Landers for a Sunday morning sound bath. The Integratron is an all-wood dome with excellent aucoustic properties. (The architect cited extraterrestrials as consultants on the building design.) The sound bath is a half-hour meditation with tones played on crystal bowls that reverberate throughout the building. The woman who played the bowls described the experience as feeling the sound "flossing your brain."

The rest of the trip we spent in the part making frequent stops for large rocks and freaky-looking plants. My favorite was the ocotillo. It blooms with orange flowers at its tips.

We wrapped up the trip with a visit to Zelo in Arcadia for corn, red onion, and balsamic vinegar pizza.

Streeeeeeeetch.

2009-04-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that all this sitting at my desk not blogging was slowly, mercilessly tightening my psoas muscles and curling my spine up like a Frito (food snobs, you know what those are.) My friend and massage therapist did some incredible work on me yesterday and now I'm about two inches taller and strangely thinner around the middle. It's so nice to stand up straight again and to not be in pain. I'm proud of myself for going and getting it checked out instead of my usual course of action - whining, taking pain meds, letting it generally deteriorate for another few months.

I'm going out tonight to show off my excellent posture and to see The Tartans play. They're my friends and neighbors, and I have been telling them forever that I will learn to play the trumpet for some of their songs. That may not ever happen, but we are going with them to NYC Popfest in May. Groupies!

Eww. Gross.

2009-03-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

I am so relieved to see that the Word of the Day changed. (Yes, it's called RSS.) There is this cowboy phase in the beginning of medical school where it is cool to pretend that nothing is yucky or freaks you out. I have once again become comfortable with my squeamishness. Yesterday the WotD made my stomach feel funny. Like thinking about s-q-u-i-d.

Uh-oh. Moblog.

2009-03-29T10:14:00.001-07:00

I just learned that you can update your blog from your phone. You could do this two years ago, according to the date on the Palm blog archive, but I still had things like a land line back then. Also, I'm doing this in my kitchen, when I could be on the computer in the next room over. I'm just curious if this will do anything to my inconsistent blogging problem.

Spring cleaning

2009-03-28T10:07:00.000-07:00

I'm not even going to make excuses this time. I am an inconsistent blogger. I should actually change the title of my blog.

I. am. so. close. to being done with classes. I look both ways when I cross the street. Twice. In the crosswalk. Only when the little green person is on. I eat my steaks well-done. I use lots of hand sanitizer.

June 11th - USMLE Step 1, the boards, The Big Test.

July 6th - First day of surgery rotation.

I've reached a new equilibrium. I am accepting the ups and downs. I lost my phone and someone stole the registration tags off of my car. I discovered that you can get ultra-fine point Sharpies in 24 different colors.

Last week I cried in the parking garage. I could feel the weight of the building, the physical plant of the medical school that had taken a part of me over the last three years. The next day I was euphorically munching on a new recipe for rosemary french fries around a table with friends. (Wait a minute guys, was that really rosemary?)

My back hurts. John is loaning me his Aeron chair. It is yummy.

Lately I find myself surrounded by people having babies and raising kids. They are doing pretty much the most amazing job on earth. Period.

I am not going to kill this basil plant on my desk.

Betcha thought the Yakuza got me ...

2008-10-03T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I'm a little obsessed with that story. It's so ... William Gibson. Black market organ donation, Asian mafioso ... he was writing all about it back in 1984 in Neuromancer.

aaaaaand

I'm sorry I haven't written in four months (June, July, Aug, Sept - yup, four.) I went through a bit of a rough patch, got put back together in the brand, spankin' new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, had a week's vacation, and then -- poof! -- I'm a second year medical student up to my eyeballs in microbiology.

I started getting more migraines. And more. And more. Being in the dark, horizontal and quiet, was preferable to being on my bike, or eating ice cream or ... anything, really. I was really scared. I was really not fun to be around.

I started a blog called La Migraineuse to try make it all make sense. I discovered a whole online migraine community, but I don't really know where I fit in it, or where I want to fit in it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the blog.

Eventually, I ended up in what neurologists call "status migrainosus," which is basically one migraine, all the time. I got admitted to the hospital, and they gave me a three-day infusion of anti-seziure medication.

Everyone had a different name for the treatment -- brain flush, brain rinse, Jiffy Lube for the brain. And it worked. My neurons calmed right down and I spent my days chatting with my dad (who spent the visit on the comfy pull-out couch) and ordering food from "Catering Services."

So ... to catch up:

We moved. We love the Bicycle District. Coffee, ice cream at Scoops, the Bicycle Kitchen, vegan food at Pure Luck and the knowledgeable and attractive staff at Orange 2o Bikes. 1:15 to school if you cheat and take to bus, 1:30 if you go for a morning ride.

We went to Burning Man. No one died. Yay. Dusty pictures of us looking dusty to come.

I survived microbiology ... Return of GI, Endocrine, and Reproductive Medicine. Bwa ha ha.
Things that seem like a good idea after a day of rest after finals:

A Dark Century. 100 miles. At night. Two weeks to train? No problem (?)

Learning how to brew beer. Apparently it's the new knitting.

Yikes! Did the Yakuza take your liver?

2008-05-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

While John is suiting up for a wedding in Palos Verdes, looking like a Japanese mobster, the LA Times breaks this: Four Japanese gang figures got liver transplants at UCLA.

While muckraking at King-Drew for years, the LAT now looks Westside for scandal, and gets the paté of stories. Let's say that anyone who gets their morning tater tots at Cafe Med has had an inkling about the tale for a while.

Things You Will Not See in Los Angeles Today

2008-05-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday, May 17, 2008 1:19 pm -- 95º
19% humidity wind SW 7 mph

Woo Hoo!

2008-04-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

I passed.

Neurology rocks.

Close-up with my sister's horse Bugsy. Got carrots?

Freedom

2008-04-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning several times in a panic, thinking I had to get up and study. And then, groggily, between the sheets, I realized that it was all over. Block 4 was over. There was no more studying to do. And I wait for my scores, Zen-like. Either I start neurology next Monday or start considering other career options. But I did what They wanted me to do. I took the first year of medical school, not once, but twice. I think this video really sums up what it feels like:

Want more? I sure do. Type "wing suit" into youtube.

Still Alive

2008-04-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

Just in the middle of a really tough block. Musculoskeletal medicine. AKA All the Muscles and Bones in the Body. There are quite a few, but they're pretty cool. We spend a lot of time in the anatomy lab.

Listening: Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta (props to Aviva)
Specializing: Psychiatry
Loving: the knee
Bitter: the trigeminal nerve
Eating: Annie's Mac & Cheese

33% Grade

2008-03-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

I've been awfully wrapped up in school lately, but I can't forget to tell you about this delightful Saturday morning event I witnessed two weekends ago. One of Silver Lake's attractions is the Fargo Street Hill, which happens to be the steepest paved road in California (or some superlative like that.) Fargo Street actually passes by my apartment, and I can gaze out upon the Fargo Street Hill from my front porch and think, "Gee whiz, that is one steep hill."

Well, it just so happened that some dedicated and certifiably insane cyclists had the same thought, followed by, "We should have a race up it. And up nine more really steep hills." So on this glorious Saturday morning -- perfect for riding and perfect for standing on one's porch drinking coffee in one's pajamas -- we watched riders cut back and forth across the street like downhill skiers in reverse, and when they got to the top, then they came screaming down the next street over -- Baxter Street, which must be the second steepest paved road in California (or something.)

I shouted encouraging words like, "That's totally crazy!" and "That really looks like it hurts!" while John snapped photos. The cyclists came out looking like ants, but if you look at a big enough photo, you can tell that they're really on bicycles.

It struck me as a particularly fitting day for riding up a hill with a 33% grade, since just the night before, John and I had celebrated our one-year anniversary with a late-night dinner at Yang Chow. I can't really write anything that won't sound mushy and trite, but I felt pretty damn lucky to be slurping up Slippery Shrimp across the table from one world-class guy. I know that there were days -- weeks -- this past year that must have felt like riding up the Fargo Street Hill. Here's to a year ahead of rides on 4th Street Bicycle Boulevard. (I'll ride in front and keep a lookout for potholes.)

Oh, and flowers!

2008-02-20T00:19:00.001-08:00

Early in the morning on Valentine's day, I leaped out of bed to discover that my alarm hadn't gone off and that I was supposed to in the car driving to an 8 am class at that very moment.

Some reflex arc allowed me to assemble underwear, socks, jeans, wooly top in the appropriate order on my body, and I was saying a quick goodbye to John when he suggested I look in the kitchen by the coffee maker.

I went out to the kitchen and thus commenced much squealing and cooing and other noises I don't usually make. A dozen of the most beautiful long-stemmed roses I have ever seen, and the only ones I have ever received.

As much as I eschew Valentine's Day as a Hallmark holiday, I was utterly floored and moved, and floated through the day hoping someone would ask me what I got for Valentine's Day.

Could John be the classiest human being alive? Very possibly.

(More photos by this classy fellow.)

To a Magnificent Meniscus

2008-02-20T00:08:00.001-08:00

This is the view from a tiny camera inside my mom's knee. She tore her meniscus -- the padding between her femur (upper leg bone) and her tibia (lower leg bone) -- a while back, and you better believe it hurt like heck.

She's been pretty much immobilized since winter break, when I got to go bug the orthopedist with her. We looked at some MRIs, twisted her knee around a bit and said, yep, that's a torn meniscus.

So props to her for sticking it out through a six-week wait for surgery, and more props to my dad for running around the house getting things for her.

What you're looking at is a lovely, smoothed out meniscus, with all the nasty frayed parts clipped away. She should be up and climbing stairs in a few weeks!

So yay Mom, yay Dad, and yay technology for making teeny tiny cameras and teeny tiny scissors.

New Header

2008-01-31T22:08:00.000-08:00

I used PhotoShop and an itty bit of HTML tonight. It felt good. That photo is looking up at the westbound flight path to LAX, as seen from a Lennox elementary school playground. I was there for a health fair about a year ago, and how many cases of asthma did I see? Not pictured: High-voltage power lines stretching up and down the street as far as I could see. I'm sure I'm on some watch list, given how many pictures of power lines and airplanes I snapped that day. But it was just so unbelievable -- huge jets passing overhead every few minutes and the incessant buzz of electricity running through thick cables.

The Surly Bonds of Fact-Checking

2008-01-28T04:13:00.000-08:00

It's 4 a.m. and I'm listening the NPR, reminded by "The Writer's Almanac" that today (Monday, January 28) is the day in 1986 that the Challenger space shuttle crashed.

I remember exactly where I was sitting in my fourth grade class, when a runner from the main office came and whispered in the teacher's ear. Shortly after, a television was wheeled into the room so that we could watch the news. We watched as the coverage unfolded, as footage of the explosion played over and over. I was reminded of the experience as I sat, glued to my television, on September 11th, 2001.

But to the main point of this post. Garrision Keillor incorrectly credited Ronald Reagan with a quote from an aviator-poet of the Royal Canadian Air Force. As soon as he read the famous words, my fact checker mojo turned on. Not one to give Reagan a lot of credit, especially not for elegant prose, I looked up the original source.

Slipped the surly bonds of Earth ... and touched the Face of God belongs to John Gillespie Magee, Jr., not the Great Communicator.

Introducing: Lumpy the Car

2008-01-24T23:06:00.000-08:00

Previously known as "Lucky." My car, uncrumpled. It's a custom job -- I paid someone called the Dent Experts $1000 to pound all those little bumps into the hood. Photo courtesy of my dad.

The bRidal Industrial Complex

2008-01-24T22:33:00.000-08:00

Snagged straight off of BikeSnobNYC, but this needs all the play it can get: the Primal Wear bRide 2B Jersey.

The Primal Wear B-Ride 2B Jersey. Just right for the Bride-2-B! Chain rings and bike chains make up the "lace" on this bridal get-up. Classic corset design will let you show your "skin" without getting a sun burn (and not to mention a little extra exposure for the tribal tattoo partially visible near the "exposed" lower back).

This makes me want to barf on so many levels. Somehow, when I got back on my bike, I thought I was pedaling away from the insanity that include things like the modern cult of the bride. Also, if I'm about to get hitched, I'm gonna be riding around in a REAL corset, sunburn be damned.

And the tribal tattoo? I don't have words, only a face:

Thanks to a BSNYC poster for showing us how to do it right:

Courtesy of Sheldon Brown, of course.

Ironically, I'm in the market for a corset for an upcoming theme ride. Now I'm gonna shop extra-seriously for something extra-slutty. And it's not gonna be white.

But maybe I'll buy one for John? Now that would be hottt. Oops, never mind, they only come in CAUCASIAN!

Bleaaaah. Live in sin until we run out of oil.

MLK on Vietnam

2008-01-21T23:54:00.000-08:00

Today I was reminded of one of MLK's most powerful but lesser-known speeches: his speech on April 4th, 1967 to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City. He lays out an argument against the Vietnam War, and posits that working for civil rights is just one part of a greater struggle for social justice around the world. (I can't really write anything that isn't dwarfed by King's own words.)

Democracy Now! reports that "Time magazine called the speech 'demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi,' and the Washington Post declared that King had 'diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.'"

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

What have we done in the past 41 years? Listen to or read the speech here.

Bravo!

2008-01-13T21:37:00.001-08:00

I woke up before dawn yesterday (another bravo, but not the subject of this post) in order to take John to the start of his first brevet. "Brevet" is French for "diploma," and John definitely deserves one. Brevets are long bike rides that come in several flavors: 200 km, 300 km, 400 km, 600 km, and 1200 km. Riders are called "randonneurs," French for "rambler." This one was 200 km, or 126 miles, which works out to be about 120 more miles than I ride to get to school each day. They started in Malibu, headed up the coast to Carpinteria on PCH, and then came back again. At about 6:30 pm, John arrived back at the start point tired, hungry, 6 pounds lighter (eek! that's 2.72 L of lost fluids!) and happy. Well, happy to see pizza, at least. I'm really proud of him and I told him that lots in the brief time before he passed out last night. He's got me excited about riding more and covering more distance, and I'm unnaturally interested in this 1230 km ride that happens every four years called the Paris-Brest-Paris. Riders ride from -- well, duh -- Paris to Brest in the northwest of France and back again. My mostly-rejuvenated randonneur pulled no punches when he pointed out that we had to stop every few miles on our wine country ride. I'm sticking to my story that it was the incredibly yummy trail mix we were carrying that day. So a huge BRAVO to John and a promise that I'll be up to doing the next one with him. In the words of Yoda: “Do or do not... there is no try."

ISO: POTUS

2008-01-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

I've had the plague for the past couple of days (on the mend now), so I've had some time with the NyQuil bottle to contemplate the Big Picture. I realized that while I could tell you how a candidate's sympathetic nervous system is responding on the podium (assuming they're all mammals), I don't really know that much about the 2008 presidential election. I was too embarrassed to admit to my parents that I watched the caucus results on the local evening news. Then my dad came up with some gossip about John Edwards and a $400 haircut. Further embarrassment when I had no knowledge of it and no retort.

Grassroots politics died for me the day Howard Dean made that weird noise, but I think -- after four years -- that I'm ready to see other candidates. Given my relative success with online dating in the past, I submit to you a list of what I'm looking for. In no particular order:

1. Speak. It's not right that I have to change radio stations when All Things Considered plays a clip of the leader of our country speaking. I really don't think I've made it through a full clip in seven or so years ... I just wait to read it in print and the pain is a little easier to bear.

2. Read. Books. With chapters. Bookstores are piled high with delicious texts -- history, economics, foreign policy, sociology -- these might come in handy when running the world. I'm jealous. Read the books that I can't because I just started the page-turner Lippincott's Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

3. Iraq. Fix it. I don't know how, but do it. I'm sure there are a lot of smart people out there who have spent their whole careers thinking about the Middle East. Type "civil war" and "Iraq" into Google Scholar and see who pops up. Invite them over for coffee. They might even have written a book (see #2.)

3a. The War on Terror. Enough already. It's 2008 and we're debating whether or not "simulating the experience of drowning" constitutes torture. We're combing Central Asia for some guy in renal failure. I'm more tired of it than the folks making infographics over it CNN. My children are going to ask me about it, like I asked my parents about Viet Nam or McCarthy, and I'm not going to have a good explanation.

4. The Planet. Start fixing it, too. There is so much to do, I'll just give you the basics. Oil. Sucks. Stop killing people for it, stop running things with it, stop making things out of it. Got it? Ratify the Kyoto Protocol already, and I mean this one, not the second one they come up with in 2012. (Hey, another guy you may want to have coffee with. You may just hit it off, but don't ask him about the recount.)

5. Health Care. Um, fix it. I subscribe to the radical notion that all human beings deserve access to medicine. You should too.

6. Sex. Just a few items here, but generally none of your business. You hopefully consider most of this topic to be part of #5 and not #7. We can have it with whomever we want, we should have the opportunity to learn how to protect ourselves against diseases and unintended pregnancies, and we should fund all of the same overseas.

7. Religion. Generally none of your business, and evolution happened.

Extra Credit
A. War on Drugs - Pointless. Racist.
B. Race - Still matters.
C. Guns - You may own one (1) if, for some reason, you are dependent on game as your sole source of protein.
D. Bike - Ride one. Cool.

That's about it. Time to put down the green syrup, turn on the NPR and wade through a year's worth of sound bites. But maybe I'll watch "Obama Girl" one more time. (Obama vs. Giuliani is actually my favorite.)

P.S. - I really hope that I get put back on some watch list when I hit "Publish" because I've been missing that personal touch at airport security.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T17:54:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

What I've been up to ...

That's John and me at SantaCon, a gathering of hundreds of Santas who wander the malls and street of Los Angeles shouting "Buy more stuff!" and singing dirty Christmas carols and generally making trouble.

I was "hipster Santa," so I tried to be ironic by dressing in black, attaching a pom-pom to my Swobo riding beanie and wearing large sunglasses.

We got a police escort out of Pan Pacific Park, who explained that this convergence of Santas might be a distraction from some other, more sinister activity (starts with "t" and ends with "errorism") ?!? It ain't a party until the LAPD helicopters start circling overhead.

We got some media coverage thanks to Boing Boing tv, who ran not one, but two features about us. We were generally wary of television cameras in our face, but the Boing Boing pieces turned out pretty good. We know the "OH-kay" guy, along with most of Santas flipping off the camera or hitting on the reporter.

But I haven't spent all my time wandering the streets. I passed my Block 2 exam, and oh, boy did I pass. I even passed the anatomy section, which I've never done before. That's the test where they stick little pins with flags on body parts -- a human golf course -- and ask you to identify parts. I'm sure there are people who got 95% and are flagellating themselves over that missed 5%, but I am relishing my delicious 78%. Cut-and-paste of my butt-kicking score:

Final Exam

Title	Grade
Anatomy (100 pts.)	82.5 (82.5%) *
Final Exam - Part A (100 pts.)	80 (80%) *
Final Exam - Part B (100 pts.)	70 (70%) *
Final Exam - Part C (100 pts.)	72.22 (72.22%) *
Final Exam - Part D (100 pts.)	90 (90%) *

Category Average

78.94 (78.94%)

To summarize, WOO HOO!

Spent some time at home with my family. We agreed to do a "low key" Christmas and pretty much dispense with gift giving. I'd have to say it was one the most relaxing, enjoyable Christmases I've had. My family, on Christmas morning, eating cinnamon rolls and wearing paper crowns from the English crackers we just exploded:

What a nice family. Not one you'd see roaming the streets of Los Angeles. From left: Mike, my sister's sometimes boyfriend; Kat, my sister; me; my Dad; my Mom.

John wasn't able to make Christmas day -- he does have family of his own -- but he stopped by long enough to flip the hub on my bike and turn it into a fixed gear. For those who don't know what this is: this makes it so that your pedalling is directly linked to your rear wheel. No coasting, all pedalling. Why? You ask. Some say it makes for a smoother riding experience, and makes you a better rider. Some would say it's a silly fad, but I wanted to try it out.

Me, posing with my bike. I can ride it too, sort of.

Other tidbits: Welcome back, Kirsten, Chris, and Soren to the Lower 48. They are settling back into life in tropical Providence, RI after 6-ish months in Alaska. I hope she keeps her blog going, though, even though she doesn't have moose in her backyard anymore.

Got to go think of some resolutions ... #1: Write more often and with more substance, #2 ...

Ho Ho Holosystolic Murmur!

2007-12-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

Studying for finals. I think that's funny. I'm sorry if you don't.

This vole is very, very busy. This vole is not doing her share of dishes. Partner vole deserves medal for living through this. Partner vole will get vole treats.

I took time out from the heart, lungs and kidneys to make our apartment look a little more festive:

I think that's a Serotta under there, but John would be the expert. I'm still searching for some of those classic glass balls to complete the look. And the whole thing comes off the stand, should someone actually want to do some wrenching.

B-b-brrrr. For SoCal, it is cold. I have started commuting by bike and bus, and I spend a lot of time outdoors these days. I'm enjoying it so far, but I have underestimated the chill a few nights in a row now. John is furiously buying winter gear at REI -- it's so cute -- and I am digging out what I have left from my days of mountaineering. Hats. Gloves. Long stretchy things made of synthetic fibers. Pics of me ridiculously bundled up to come.

The upside of riding to work/school is that you get to eat whatever you want! I recently treated John to an all-you-can-eat breakfast at the artery-hardening Cafe Med at UCLA. Below is the damage, or what remained after about 60 seconds:

Hot wings were the absolute best, followed by the hashed browns. Bacon also excellent, coffee needs improvement, but cut the grease and woke me up for class. In general, commuting rocks -- the food is great, you arrive at school with your brain working and not wanting to kill anyone.

Can't WAIT for break. Sleep. Convert bike to fixed gear. Buy band-aids for shins and knees. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

I'd end with some fascinating physiology tidbit, but I'm just too tired.

When the dust settles, compromising photographs from SantaCon.

Adventures on Four and Two Wheels

2007-11-21T21:08:00.001-08:00

The Thursday before last, I rear-ended a remarkably understanding woman driving a Mercedes while going west on Sunset Boulevard. I was lost in a reverie regarding the kidney while on my usual route to school. I went when I should have stopped in stop-and-go traffic. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and her car sustained little damage.

Lucky (the name of my car), however, was not so, and photos make it appear that I attempted to drive under the luxury vehicle on my way to class. The class happened to be Clinical Skills: Abdominal Exam. My classmates palpated enthusiastically, eager to find signs of internal bleeding, but all they found were an achy back, some sore ribs, and multiple frazzled nerves.

Against advice, and probably, in retrospect, against the law, I drove up to Santa Barbara for a Veteran's Day weekend with John and the family. We enjoyed some riding around Santa Barbara, including a visit to Velo Cafe (web site with shopping coming soon!), a bike shop packed to the gills with frames, parts, and accessories from around the world. I went to the bathroom and passed a floor-to-ceiling rack of vintage water bottles. We met the very nice owner Baron, who regaled us with tales of shopping for vintage bikes around Europe. He let us into a back room with lots of vintage cycling clothing. I picked up a maroon jersey (unfortunately Trojan colors) and some wool cycling shorts. The best part was watching John take in more bike parts than he could use in his lifetime ... you could see the gears (the ones in his brain) turning.

The next day we warily eyed the sky for rain and drove to Buellton for a "Sideways" ride -- a loop between Buellton and Lompoc that takes in some of the wineries and sights from the movie. To be honest, I was flat-out terrified that I wasn't going to survive the 40-something mile ride. Fear and copious amounts of coffee forced an emergency bathroom stop in Solvang -- a fake Danish village that attracts a lot of tourists but is frustratingly short on bathrooms. In case you find yourself in similar dire straits, I have mapped the location of the Solvang public restrooms.

The first few miles were creaky at best. I felt clumsy and awkward on an uphill stretch against an annoying headwind. But by the crest of first big climb, I was feeling better and taking in the scenery instead of gasping for breath. First stop: Babcock winery for wine tasting, trail mix, and some duct tape modification to my flapping pant leg. Then we headed toward Lompoc, while the wind headed toward Buellton. We looked around for a bike shop in Lompoc for a while, realized we weren't going to make it to Sanford Winery before it closed, and stopped for grilled cheese and pie. On the way back we took the smaller, winding Santa Rosa Road. As night fell, John managed to get his chain wrapped in an alarming tangle between his big chain ring and right crank. We attempted not to panic and John worked mechanical miracles while I held a headlight over the operation. The rest of the ride was in completely dark and eerily quiet; later John and I confessed our fears of the dark. Mine: running over a skunk. His: getting attacked by a mountain lion.

We shouted deliriously when we saw Pea Soup Anderson's, and kept up the noise until we hit the parking lot at our final destination: The Hitching Post. Undaunted by an 1 1/2 hour wait (John, helmet in hand, pants tucked into socks, in the lobby: "Did these people just ride to Lompoc and back?!?") we rode some victory laps and then sat down at the bar with a bottle of wine and roasted artichoke, followed by the best steak (flat iron) of my life.

(Photos by John on his spiffy iPhone!)

Extra Crunchy

2007-11-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

I've got a blog about cars brewing, and I want to write about my awesome weekend riding bicycles in Santa Barbara. But today, for reasons I can't really go into, I feel like a vole again. As always, thank goodness for my vole partner ... perhaps I'll send him for some ice cream.

PS: I spanked my Block 1 final. But I'm still voleish.

A few words about fake blood

2007-10-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

a) It does wash off. So far.
b) It is not anticoagulated! Luckily, in fake-blood hematology, the most effective anticoagulant is water. Studies have shown that a 1:3 water to blood ratio gets stuff moving.
c) If you want to create arterial spray, put your anticoagulated blood in a ziploc freezer (don't take your chances with sandwich) bag and poke a tiny hole in. Bingo! Systolic pressure!
d) Make sure the bag is sealed.
e) Do all of the above in a bathtub.
f) Leave ample time for fake blood to dry because that is so not going in the dryer.
g) Don't tell John I did any of this in our apartment.

Happy Halloween!

I missed my own birthday.

2007-10-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

So I've been having a little pity party as of late, the usual "oh-I'm-so-depressed-that-I- have-to-do-first-year-over-again" festivities. But I was so pitiful this time that I bailed out of my own birthday, first out of a fun bike ride (all downhill!) on Tuesday and a birthday dinner last night. I finally finished picking up party detrtitus (kleenex and empty Ben & Jerry's cartons) and got back to my e-mail and the InterWeb. My most exotic birthday greeting comes from Anchorage, Alaska, where my friend Kirsten is still blogging as the snow comes down. She sends me e-mails with the word "sledding" in it and the Google-driven ads on my e-mail go crazy. Dog-sledding vacations! I was thinking fish tacos and Coronas, but now that you mention it ...

John bought me a great big owl candle to be my spirit guide, staring down at my from my bookcase while I study. He also bought me a first edition of The Classic Cuisine of Vietnam, from whence the curry comes. Phew, now I can branch out. This is blasphemous, but I was getting a little tired of it. The cookbook has awesome food photos circa 1979 and a nice story behind it -- when author Bach Ngo left Vietnam, she had thirty minutes notice, so she threw all her recipes in a suitcase and took off.

Ngo's story and the apocalyptic fires raging around us the last few days got me thinking what I would take. I have one box of letters and photos that would go, and I guess my two laptops would contain everything else. I think about disaster scenarios enough (hey, I'm a SoCal native after all) to know this right away, and hopefully I'll remember when the time comes. I also hope I stay calm and do smart things like this one guy who I heard kept calling his answering machine. As long as the answering machine picked up, he knew his house was still there. (Me, I'd be headed for the wine aisle of the nearest grocery store. Is there a Trader Joe's on the way to the evacuation site? Thanks.)

While I sit around feeling sorry for myself, hundreds of square miles catch on fire. Clearly I'm in the right place. Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone. I'll be stumbling around with a Herradura bottle as soon as I am able.

PS - I know you know that I love this blog, but this is especially delightful. Yeah, they kinda do.

Vole Update!

2007-10-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

At the moment, I have survived my (second) first anatomy lab and I reek of formaldehyde.

But ... I just learned that voles mate for life. My friend Minh was willing to get close enough to me to report this very exciting fact. He was completely unaware of my recent interest in the rodents.

It seems that voles have more receptors for vasopressin and oxytocin, chemicals that work in voles and human to produce the very romatic-sounding "pair bonding." We get it when we cuddle or when someone leaves the toilet seat down for us.

Here are some vole life-partners for you:

WTFWAMFS?

2007-10-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Loosely translated, kindly tell me when my exam results will be posted because I am going out of my mind.

Out from the Vole Hole

2007-10-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen my scores yet, but I'm bouncing back -- even I have a limit on self-loathing and second-guessing.

Special thanks to John for peering down the vole hole and yanking me out with a trip to Brooklyn Bagel this morning, and for sending me this story about bicycle-riding day laborers.

As is the eternal conundrum of the left, how to unite those who ride bicycles to make a statement (and for fun!) and those who ride out of necessity. I've been wracking my brain trying to work cycling into a research project for medical school ... I'll stash this article away for future inspiration.

By the way, I voted for the guy who got the Nobel Peace Prize and all I got was this lousy War on Terror.

But I did discover Loose Change - Second Edition in my local video store! (Yes I still frequent one ... sometimes I get too impatient for Netflix.) I know, I know, sometimes I take my conspiracy theories too far, but I totally had my dad convinced after watching it.

Tonight is Midnight Ridazz ... finally relaxing and getting my ride on!

Crunchy

2007-10-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is a vole. Owls eat voles. Today I feel like a vole.

T minus 45 minutes

2007-10-09T13:44:00.001-07:00

And thank you, Stephanie, for reading. I hope you get into that anatomy class. Then we can both smell like formaldehyde at the same time. We can go to Boiling Crab to freshen up.

Awwww

2007-10-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry if this makes you want to barf, but I always appreciate a shout-out. Look at it this way, at my age, I put my boyfriends through an intense vetting process. Don't want them dropping dead during, um, a bike ride.

The Grinch Who Stole Health Insurance

2007-10-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

George W. Bush. He just vetoed a bill to expand the Children's Health Insurance Program. Let me get this straight, our fine POTUS doesn't think that poor children deserve health insurance? What are they supposed to do? Get off their lazy butts and get a job with benefits? (Oops, no time, too busy studying for standardized tests!) Invest in their health savings accounts?

Here's a photo of President Bush right after he sold his soul to Satan (again):

And by the way, and he did it while visiting the Amish. Look out -- if he visits a Buddhist temple or Quaker meeting house, we should anticipate that we're finally invading Iran.

Arrrrg.

Geeking out

2007-10-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

I'm in serious study mode, but I've found a fun outlet for my nervous energy.

MedGadget is holding a science fiction writing contest. Maybe if I'm not too shy, I'll post my entry here. Here are some of last year's winners.

This Blackwater report is totally nuts. Mother Jones was pretty interested in them back in 2003. (Just wanted to give a shout-out to my alma mater.)

Embryology - the study of what makes Emily curl up in the fetal position.

I love this photo

2007-09-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

Reminds me that an ER doc at UCLA is doing some amazing work on the Thai/Burmese border. Check out Tom Lee, MD and the Global Health Access Program.

Off to bed, immunology has got the best of me. In another life, I will be a photojournalist.

Hipster Doctor

2007-09-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

First off, many thanks to John -- a voracious blog consumer -- for finding this for me and pulling me out of a studying-for-finals funk.

So there's some serious buzz about Jay Parkinson, MD MPH, who has just set up shop in Brooklyn. Williamsburg, to be exact, which is like the Indus Valley for hipsters. According to the WSJ Health Blog, he's got no office, makes only house calls, and manages his practice on an iPhone and a laptop. His super-sexy web site posits some pretty good ideas about the doctor-patient relationship, and in medicine in general:
"I believe that health care should be accessible, affordable, and personal." Definitely.
"We'll make decisions about your health together ... my main goal is a solid understanding of your own health." Sure thing.
"We can solve small problems early before they explode into something large and costly." Good thinking.

Here's the deal: he's a genius, with a brilliant business plan. But he's not a hero. Er, not my hero. (Sorry, John.)

He treats patients ages 18 to 40 -- a relatively healthy demographic. (I could insert all sorts of snarky comments about latte burns and fixed-gear-bikes-without-brakes accidents, but I'm not that kind of person.) He's bringing a fairly tried-and-true practice model called "concierge medicine" to the Williamsburg crowd. You pay for 24/7 access, a warm and fuzzy doctor-patient relationship, and his connections to "some of the best ranked hospitals in the world with the highest quality specialists."

But what if ...
Something goes wrong? Even his quoted "bargain" price for a trip to the neurologist (for my pesky new problem with migraines, say) is pretty steep: $850.
You don't have the fortune of living in lovely Williamsburg, or you just turned 41?
Maybe you turn out to have a chronic health condition that Dr. Jay just can't manage over his iPhone?

Parkinson isn't the only one who's caught on to health insurance for the hip, young, and healthy. Blue Cross offers Tonik, a no-frills, bargain insurance plan (with a slightly less cool web site.)

I guess Parkinson will improve health care for 1,000 fortunate Williamsburg residents. He seems like a well-meaning guy with a nice smile. But I can't get behind fixing a broken system by opting out of it. 45 million Americans are uninsured right now and another 50 million could be financially ruined by a major illness. Parkinson's got an MPH from Hopkins; he knows this.

I could go on. I should. But I have to study, so in 3 3/4 years, I can flash my winning smile for a county hospital badge, one that's got my name on it with an MD at the end.

Alice Waters and the Three-Legged Chicken

2007-09-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

If I were a chicken, I would like to go out as a bowl of Ca Ri Ga -- Vietnamese chicken curry.

I've taken the recipe on as The One Thing I Cook, and I had a craving for it this afternoon. (Photo by John)

I pondered the chicken's point of view while driving 14.6 miles round trip to purchase lemon grass and other wholesome, organic ingredients at the Whole Foods in Glendale. I drove the whole way without A/C (to save the planet), so I felt hot and sweaty when I arrived. Just as if I had ridden my bike.

Inside the supermarket utopia, I wandered around in a daze as usual (must be the hemp shopping bags) and forgot to buy, um, chicken. Then I stared intently at a woman while she talked on her phone the entire time the checker checked her out, bagged her groceries, and processed her check. (Who writes checks?)

So after a brief moment of earth-mama joy when I thought a big green snake was crossing the freeway (it was a garden hose) I drove over to Ralph's and bought chicken -- the Picnic Pak. I am such a white hippie girl, but raw chicken on the bone so grosses me out.

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be studying for finals.

Alice Waters is publishing "The Art of Simple Food" -- it's hailed as "The Joy of Cooking" for the Chez Panisse crowd. It's supposed to have easy recipes for cooks who like that scene but don't always have the time to squeeze their own agave nectar. (Would tequila be close enough?) It sounds like a good way to venture out from the comfort of the Ca Ri Ga.

PS - here's the recipe.

Into the (Sort Of) WIld

2007-09-19T17:01:00.000-07:00

My good friends are in Anchorage, Alaska right now. They've been blogging since they got there this summer. Kirsten is one of my best friends from Santa Barbara, and Chris, her husband, is a professor on sabbatical. They have a son, Soren. Their writing covers navigating moose on bicycle, recipes for 60 pounds of halibut, and knitting squid hats. They're funny in the best way - dry, and they take pictures of moose poop.

Autumn Migration

2007-09-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

Monarch butterflies migrate thousands of miles each year to winter in Mexico. (I wish I could say the same.) So as my orange and black winged friends head south, I'm migrating my blog back to Blogger. Interim posts can be read on my on-again, off-again MySpace page.

In a nutshell:
I quit medical school. Er, took a Leave of Absence.
I met a wonderful person named John who makes me laugh and corrects my grammar.
I started riding my bicycle again.
I started medical school again.

My sister bought a horse, which I thought would cause an uproar in la familia, but he's more like our first grandchild. His name is Bugsy ... I'm crocheting him a blanket right now. In brown, I guess.

I'm at that age where people I assumed would be around forever aren't anymore. A Wrinkle in Time author Madeline L'Engle is one of those people. She passed away on Septmeber 8th at 88. "There is such a thing as a tesseract."

PS - When you (I) constantly blog about yoga and transcendence, it usually means that you're (I'm) a complete mess on the inside. Good blogging demands mess on the outside. I promise to do my best. No more yoga poses unless they enhance your sex life, but we're still freeing Tibet. On bicycles.

What the ...?

2006-11-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

Everything is so much more complicated that I exoected. It's like medical school -- we're learning how ro manage myocardial infarction, but the real work is outside of school. The stupid things you say over a beer stick with you all night. Blacking out is often so welcome. But I try to remain moderately disinhibited ... able to converse about real life things, but not sinking into existential wallowing. Dodgeball helps, although I'm not always sure I'm in the right mindset to be throwing thing at other human beings. No throwing up. Do laundry. Maintain minimal progression on the laundry front. Read, even if it's with accompanied by a 40. Draw pictures ... come visit my transcendental dry erase board. We will get through this, but by bonding together instead of my instict to hole up in my apartment alone. I will put the legs on my couch this weekend and everything will become so much better. All my best for the weekend. Find some sun, get some, may you be blessed with the universal cardiology "Ah-Ha." Namaste. No really, I mean it.

Homecoming

2006-06-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm in Santa Barbara, at my parents' house, where I grew up. I just got back from a two-day house-hunting adventure in Los Angeles. My dad grew up in LA, so he was a great tour guide. Two close family friends came along too, so I had an entourage at each open house I attended. I had to explain that it was only me who was going to be living in these places, not all five of us.

Being in LA really made me less freaked out about medical school. After quite a bit of searching, my mom and I found the David Geffen School of Medicine, which is sort of hidden inside the UCLA Medical Center. It was good to see it; it made it less mythical. I bought a t-shirt at the bookstore, like a big dork.

Something really important to me about moving is finding places that fit me, like bookstores and yoga studios and coffee houses. I found a great cafe called Literati that serves delicious organic food and coffee. My black bean soup and organic greens made me just a little more relaxed about the Big Move.

To sum up: I'm sunburned, have heard too many bad jokes (thanks Dad), and I just might survive this whole medical school thing.

Namaste.

Cold feet in the summertime

2006-06-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

So it's been a month since I was accepted to Drew/UCLA. About 40K people apply to medical school each year. 16K are accepted. I was one of them. So why am I so anxious and miserable? I'm having nightmares about bloodied bodies being opened up in the OR, waiting for me to come fix them. I've chewed my fingernails to the point that I'll need reconstructive surgery on both my teeth and my hands. When co-workers say, "you must be so excited," I smile a huge smile and then run away.

I'm not up to this.

I'm scared. I'm scared of sitting through my first biochemistry lecture and being in way over my head. I'm scared of holding a scalpel that first day to my embalmed cadaver. I'm scared of the quiet hum of the freeway when everyone leaves me alone for the first time in my stucco apartment in Los Angeles. I'm scared of searching for a coffee shop to study in. I'm scared to look for a bar that's not a meat market. I'm scared of standing in Trader Joe's with a cart full of frozen dinners realizing that I'm totally on my own.

This is where faith would come in handy. I'm reading a book by an Episcopal theologian, John Shelby Spong, called The Sins of Scripture. It talks about some of the more oppressive texts of the Bible and how they can be interpreted in historical context to not be so destructive. It's refreshing to read about a faith that I'd almost given up on, and see my own beliefs reflected. I think I'll be checking out a church in Pasedena, St. Edmunds, where my good friend is a priest.

And yoga will also help. Sigh. I have not been in so long. I need to find a yoga studio down there that meets my needs, both spiritually and physically.

I'm starting to read the I Ching: The Book of Change:
"Instead of emphasizing the eternal, the unchanging, the immutable ...the I CHING is the only book of ancient wisdom that makes change itself the center of observation and recognizes time as an essential factor in the world and in the development of the individual."

Knowledge is the best defense against fear. I am also reading First Cut: A Season in the Human Anatomy Lab: an excellent bookk about the anatomy lab, and about our relationship with our body and with our inevitable death.

Okay. Another day? Let's do it.

Going back to Cali!

2006-05-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

It's official. I've been accepted to the Drew/UCLA Medical Education Program, and I've accepted their acceptance. I got the phone call on Thursday, and I've had four days to decide. Wow. All this time I thought I was going to Pittsburgh, and now I'm headed for Los Angeles. It's all a little overwhelming ...

Here's the deal with Drew/UCLA. It's a special program that trains doctors to work with underserved populations. I'll spend my first two years at UCLA, and then I'll do my clinical years (3rd & 4th) working at county hospitals and community health clinics through Charles R. Drew University. Drew is associated with MLK-Drew Medical Center and I'll also be training at Harbor UCLA Medical Center.

I made this decision while on an awesome little vacation with my mom and dad. My dad is a retired high school teacher, and while he was still teaching, he found out about this special program where you can take a group to camp out on Alcatraz. My dad is fascinated by Alcatraz, and I'm pretty into it, too. (Did you know that Alcatraz means "pelican" in Spanish? Did you know that American Indian activists occupied the island for 18 months in 1969?) We walked all over the island, and saw lots of parts of the prison that you don't see as a tourist. We watched a fireworks show from the roof that night, and then we slept in actual cells. I've slept over three times now, and I can vouch that there's definitely some paranormal stuff going on. You hear a lot of things -- voices -- that you can't explain. I love it!

Got to go ... I've got a lot of planning to do!

Hero

2006-05-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

In yoga, Hero Pose is a meditative pose, a great way to stretch out the legs and chill out at the end of the day. I feel like I need it right about now because my life is moving at a crazy pace. I got my financial aid offer from the University of Pittsburgh today -- very generous. I've never received a scholarship before ... it makes me feel pretty good, a little bit of a hero. I also got my nose pierced -- one of the things I swore I'd do after I was finished interviewing for medical school. It didn't really hurt, just a pinch and then a strange metal thing to get used to in my nose. Kind of makes me want to sneeze. Life is good.

Rats!

2006-05-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

I've got two of them. But in a good way, not in a root-through-your-garbage way. My sister rescued a big mama rat who promptly gave birth to a litter of eight. I went home one weekend and got offered some rats the moment I stepped in the door. I can't believe how much fun they are! I've always thought of rat owners as role-playing game types who live in the basement of their parents' house. Now I'm one of them. I've never had a pet before! The one with the blue racing strip is Rez. She's a total spaz. The white one is Sasha, and she's more chill. (That's relative -- her heart still beats 400 times per minute.) They're albino, which is the kind of rat used most often in labs. I hope I got rats like the Rats of NIMH. They live in an enormous cage that was meant for a ferret -- I kind of went crazy at the pet store.

Catching you up ...

2006-05-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to start a blog for a while, but the whole medical school application process was so awful that I didn't want it to consist of me whining post after post. I'm so lucky. I can drink the water out of my tap. I can flip a switch and make lights turn on. I can sit on my deck, grab an internet connection out of the air and write this.

But, for an overview of what happened to me, go to my profile on mdapplicants.com, a web site even more insidious than SDN.

I also wanted to post my personal statement, after a discussion on SDN about how we'd like to share, but are afraid of getting plagiarized. So here is my caveat: Plagiarism is an extremely bad idea, both professionally and karmically. Please don't do it. I really mean it. If you need further discouragement, take this current example from Harvard.

My personal statement, June 2005.

Georgia looks bad. Her chart says she’s at the clinic for a urinary tract infection, but, as a health educator, I’m worried. She’s pale, almost gray, and bundled up in a wool cardigan and denim jacket. Her chart also says she’s 26, but her tiny frame makes it hard to believe. I ask her how she’s doing, and I get a startling answer: “I’ve been living on the street for about two weeks, but then this pain in my back got real bad, so I had to come in.” I mentally piece together a story -- the infection has progressed up to her bladder, maybe even her kidneys, but her immune system is working against malnutrition and exposure. She has made the effort to get to the clinic, and now I have a small window of opportunity to help her. Squeezed into a small health education room, I realize that we are in what my physician friend calls a “teachable moment.” I’m thankful for my two years of experience as a health educator; I try to appear open and supportive as I push back butterflies of panic in my stomach. I commend her for coming in and I reassure her that we will take care of her. I suggest some sexually transmitted infections that she may want to get screened for, and I give her literature about the hepatitis B vaccine. I find her a referral to a shelter and the telephone number for a suicide hotline. After I introduce her to the nurse practitioner, I sit down in the clinicians’ office and breathe a sigh of relief. I realize that this is exactly where I want to be, exactly what I want to be doing.

Long before considering what to write in my personal statement, I prepared myself to explain why I wanted to go to medical school. Friends and family wanted to know what had gone wrong: I had the beginnings of a rewarding journalism career -- how did I stumble onto the arduous path to medicine instead? Four years before I met Georgia, I was a fact-checker at the investigative news magazine Mother Jones. Every fact, every statement, had to be checked for its accuracy; an incorrect detail could call the credibility of the entire story into question. I called embassies, combed maps, interviewed sources and pored over legal documents. Once in a while, to my delight, I would find a new detail that enhanced the story, and the editor would add "my" fact to the final article. I began pursuing one health-related story after another: a spurious link between abortions and breast cancer; the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the American prison system; the debate raging over medical marijuana.

One day, I was interviewing Martin, who had HIV/AIDS and smoked marijuana to combat the nausea he experienced from the assortment of medications he took. As he told me his story over the telephone, I was distracted with thoughts of all the work I'd have to do to meet my deadline. Martin summed up his situation with a sentence that stopped me cold: "This is not about a plant. This is about human beings." Martin was dying, and all I could offer him was the possibility of seeing his name in print. I was getting accustomed to asking very personal questions of people I'd just met, but there was no dialogue, no exchange -- I could do little to help these people whose problems I was documenting. Martin forced me to be honest about where all these health-related stories were leading -- I wanted to be a doctor.

I completed the prerequisites for medical school while fielding two years of questions like “Why?” and “Are you sure?” On darker days, these questions came from deep inside. But I knew I was moving in the right direction. I was fascinated by the microscopic universe of cellular biology and enchanted with the elegance of Newtonian mechanics. While organic chemistry lab inspired loathing in my classmates, I actually enjoyed the experiments. At the Women’s Community Clinic, my health education sessions were the conversations that I had craved as a journalist -- my women patients asked as many questions as I did, and they left more knowledgeable and in control of their own health.

I now volunteer in the emergency department at Highland General Hospital, assisting a clinical research coordinator with emergency medicine research. The focus of my work is a project that offers rapid HIV testing to all emergency department patients. I work with a diverse population of un- and under-insured patients with a variety of medical problems. Every day that I spend in the emergency room, a patient surprises me with their story, their sense of humor, their spirit. The clinicians I meet are street-wise yet compassionate. Instead of being burdened by the crises I witness, I leave Highland inspired and energized about medicine.

My interest in medicine has gained a momentum of its own. From my experiences at Highland and the WCC, I have decided to apply for a position with the Community HealthCorps -- a year-long program that places members in community clinic settings. Now that I am actively involved in health care, the decision feels right -- I feel at home in the clinic, in the emergency room, talking to patients, discussing diagnoses with clinicians. I look forward to learning more about medicine, to medical school, and to my next “teachable moment.” I wonder -- do my patients know they often teach me as much as I teach them?

That's it. That's how I poured out my heart and soul to admissions committees everywhere. They gave me 5300 characters to do it, and I spent every last one.

Stuck on your personal statement? Here's a simple yoga pose that will make the words come a little easier. It's called Legs Up The Wall, or Viparita Karani. It's like a cup of coffee for your soul.

Hello world ...

2006-02-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

Hello there. I'm Prana.

"Prana" means "breath" in Sanskrit. I learned this in yoga. Yoga helps me to remember to breathe, even when the world is distracting you with a thousand very important things and thoughts. Just breathe.

I love yoga, Buddhism, reading, the general outdoors (no guns), dancing and eating. I'm applying to medical school, but I'm not a pre-med. Not in the traditional sense. I'm old. I used to be a journalist for Mother Jones. Now I'm addicted to a website called Student Doctor Network and I obsessively check my e-mail and mail for word -- anything -- from medical schools. I've been accepted to the University of Pittsburgh, so I'm significantly less cranky than I was in, say, November.

If you stick with me, you'll find out where I'm going to move to (Boston? Pittsburgh? New Orleans?) and where I'm going to medical school. You'll get to dissect a cadaver with me, and learn a new public transportation system. You'll also see if and how my long-distance relationship works out. You'll find out if I lose that pesky 30 pounds that I gained studying for the MCAT.

I'm going to Mexico next week, and I've calculated (based on 12 hours of daylight) that I have 54 hours of potential surfing time. Oh, yeah. I also surf. But only where it's warm. Only fish tacos and cervezas stand in my way.

Welcome. It's always interesting here. Just don't forget to breathe.