of all the charlie browns, scrubs is the charlie browniest...

enjoy :)

saturday night sighs

i haven't written in a bit, i apologize, and now look-it's december. crazy. basically, i didn't have time between taking an exam, basking in the glory of having just taken said exam, relaxing over thanksgiving break, and falling into the depths of despair ("have you ever been in the depths of despair?") after returning to school. sigh.

medical school is like prison with crappy stuff to do. i guess like hard labor or something ("look down, look down, don't look them in the eye....look down, look down, you'll be here till you die.").

as i've said before, though i don't remember if so on here, i wouldn't wish med school on my worst enemy.

shall i back up a bit?

basically, i had an exam on november 16. ahh, then a gloriously free weekend. we had class on monday thru wednesday, but i was still recovering from the exam to do much work, and anticipating the best food centered holiday (except hanukkah, mmm, latkes...) which meant that unfortunately, i went into the break already behind. whoops. and then, it's not like i could really do work over the weekend, what between baking my apple pies and making mashed potatoes (almost 20 pounds for 20 people, it was just about enough...) and driving up to pete's parent's and congratulating his sister's recent engagement (yay, maggie) and going to the yankee candle factory (i had to breathe through my mouth in the candle store, half a breath and i already had a headache) and walking around the property and climbing a tree and driving back to syracuse.....

see what i mean?

so then the week began, when i finally had the, "oh, duh" moment of "wow, i'm really behind" and the "aw man" moment of "wow, life sucks back at school, home is way better" which combined in the way it tends to do to spark fierce denial.

let's just say i didn't quite catch up this week.

and now it's saturday, and i finally pulled myself together enough to sit down and DO SOME WORK and QUIT THIS STUPID DENIAL CRAP and realize it's ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE if i don't DO WORK RIGHT NOW!!!

sigh.

so i did some work. go me.

nostalgia

a few nights ago i randomly went through some of my old papers from undergrad while hanging out with kelvin. a couple were simply hilarious. i thought i'd share one here. this is from "arts and music," sophomore year. the assignment was to find some pieces of art at the museum of fine arts (mfa) in boston and comment on them. what everyone else knew was that these papers were not really graded, just looked at to see if you had the appropriate number of pages and the ticket stub from the museum, which you had to turn in. so i had some fun. here is the paper, i put in some pics to help:

"Arts and Music

May 9, 2004

MFA

On a rainy Sunday afternoon, a small group of responsible students trekked to the wild city of Boston, with one sole mission: find the pieces cryptically marked out for them on the paper given by the professor. They took the T, the red line to the green, to the Museum of Fine Arts stop. One member of the group, Matt, led the way toward the first of four stops. Going upstairs, around, through the gift shop, the small band emerged in one of the most popular exhibits of the museum, the Impressionists. Upon first entering, the bronze sculpture of the ballerina by Degas welcomed us in. We were surrounded by Monet’s, Van Gogh’s, Renoir’s, all these glorious paintings. But where was the one we were looking for? No, not a landscape, it says here it’s a portrait. Let’s see, no wait—that’s Van Gogh. Hmm…where is it? And there, in the corner, almost hiding from view was the source of our search. Cézanne’s portrait of his wife.

I can’t say our first impression was very good. It isn’t a particularly pretty picture. The colors aren’t as appealing as the other paintings in the room. The composition is a little off too. It is a painting that makes one think. Why would he draw it like that? I couldn’t help but feel that is I was his wife, I wouldn’t be too happy with it. “Honey, why is my face flecked with green? You made me look sick!” and “Dearest, couldn’t you make it pretty like those other boys do?” would be probable comments.

What is it about the painting that I don’t like? First there is the color choice. The bright red armchair sharply contrasts with the blues and greens of the rest of the portrait. The use of green on the shadows of the face gives an unhealthy, ghostly countenance. The composition is a little problematic too. The left arm of the chair is slanted down and out of the picture. Also, the dress seems to be the main focus of the painting. Her face is not the focus.

As our small group discussed these issues, we made our way around the rest of the museum. We found ourselves in a large gallery, full of paintings. As we wandered down, I noticed a painting similar to one discussed in our class. I was drawn over to the wall, and peeked down to look at the name plate. “Hey guys,” I shouted, “Is this one of the ones we needed to look at?” And it just happened to be true. This was El Greco’s “Saint Catherine.” The painting itself was very different than most of the others in the hall. It used dark, smoky colors, shadowing the woman in the center. The woman had a small pale face that floated above her shadowed neck. The colors spoke of Mannerism, the style employed by El Greco. They were haunting, mysterious, beautiful.

Moving on from the great hall, we headed towards the modern art section. Following the room number given on the assignment paper, we searched for the sculpture of interest. A museum employee was no help at pointing out where it was, but we knew we were in the right room. There was just a few paintings, an odd sculpture on one wall, and a giant cheese grater…oh, no. The cheese grater? That’s what we are supposed to be looking at? Yup, Mona Hatoum’s “Greater Divide.” An oversized kitchen utensil. As we stared, astonished at what our professor was making us look at, we discovered a few of the puns we were to recognize. First, in the name. A “grater” as the “greater” divide? Cute… a homonym. Also, we are on the other side of the grater. We are the “grated”. Cut by a sharp piece of metal into identically shaped shreds. I’m assuming she’s mad at society in some way, it seems to be the common thread of modern artists.

Only one more painting to study, but unfortunately we had no idea where it was. Blindly meandering through the museum only seemed to lead us further from where we wanted to be. No need to look at colonial furniture, or Egyptian tombs. Finally, a kind guide pointed us the right way. Oh look, we’ve been here before. It’s the grand hall where El Greco’s painting is. But this one is on the left. Ok, let’s try to find someone with a dwarf. Yes, this is it. Wait, which one is the dwarf? There is the small blond baby boy dressed to the nines, and a little girl with a rattle and an apple in her hand. I suppose the boy is the prince, and she is the dwarf. There are some theatrical elements in the painting, I suppose. The young child acting so pompous and royal, with a courtly subject to honor him. The rich red color of the background coordinates with the princely greens of the subject. This is a boy who will someday be king, and knows it. A small hat with a large plume sits to one side of the portrait, suggesting even more the styles of the young royal, trying to play the part society set out for him to be.

After this stop, the trip ended. A now weary group left for the train, back to school, back to the cloudy gray day, glad for a chance to leave the day-to-day doldrums of school life, waiting for a time to come back and explore more fully the wonders housed in that fine museum."

so i was grasping at straws a little there, huh? i hope you enjoyed this little piece of the past.

facebook is so cool

i'm sure even the most computer/internet illiterate of you folks have heard of the awesomeness of facebook. reconnecting with old friends, staying in touch with distant friends, being able to plan events and send messages and post pictures...it's pretty amazing. recently i had one of the most awesome facebook experiences ever. i became "friends" with my favorite author. no, not c.s. lewis. he's so dead. the other one. the great donald miller.

personally, i've been a fan for a while. since high school sometime, with the glorious "prayer and the art of volkswagon maintenance." after i read it, i wanted more. i remember years of mindlessly checking the "christian inspiration" sections of book stores, habitually looking in the M section for a new book. it took quite a few years, but one came. "blue like jazz," which most of you probably have heard of, because that one actually became popular. and then a couple more followed.


i actually did get a chance to meet him. he spoke at harvard, at the veritas forum. i went up and shook his hand. i remember thinking, well, it's not every day that you get to meet someone who wrote something that has changed your life. i almost said it to him, but i don't think i did.

i joined a group on facebook for fans of his books and ideas. there was an update that don miller himself joined the group. i thought, "hey, why not? lets see if he'll let me be his friend." so i asked. and he accepted!

i think the funny thing is that i really do have access to him now. like, i could write on his wall or send him messages. and keep up on his day to day stuff. oh, he has a girlfriend, by the way. and tonight he's doing his laundry. see, this stuff is awesome. and i'm not even really stalking, because he is allowing me this access. isn't that cool? not like i'm actually going to write on his wall or anything. i don't know. or maybe i will. either way, i'm excited.

it's a whole new world.

things that always deserved to be posted on

1. winning the world series.

i love saying it as if i, personally, won the world series. my friend congratulated me in class yesterday, and i joked, "yeah, it was tough, but i just held on and kept working hard." why do we do that? anyway, i was immediately homesick after the game on sunday. you would be too, if you were watching it alone in your living room while doing homework, streaming the game on your computer--making it super-low def, i might add.

i wished i was anywhere else. especially that i was with someone who cared about the game. there are red sox fans in my class, i'm just not really friends with any of them. my friends can't believe that i watch baseball games on purpose. they think it should be solely as punishment. whatever. serves me right for befriending a bunch of canadians.

then i think of 2004, how i watched the game with everyone else at my school, and we celebrated into the night. and how i went to the parade to cheer with the rest of boston. i wish i could do that. so, actually, i've been a bit of a funk since the world series ended on sunday. it's just not the same out here, in medical school.

at least i'll have more time to study now.

2. actually, i just didn't want to end the post with a downer. so i'll just write about how i bought tomatoes at a farmer's market on friday, and really enjoyed adding them to every dish i've made since. grilled cheese, pasta primavera, salad, another pasta dish i made tonight with ground beef. i also recently bought some herbs, and the basil and chives have been awesome. also adding those to everything i make (see above list).

grand day out

i had an exam on monday. it was a beautiful day out. i wanted, needed, no--required--a bit of time outside of the city. it's hard to stay here in syracuse day after day. first of all, even in my apartment i can hear the highway all the time. it's never quiet. and especially right now, when i'm feeling distanced from new england and the enjoyment of new england sports with family and friend (go sox), i needed to get away.

afarin was with me. but of course, the boys were much too preoccupied with a little game i like to call halo 3. because that's the name of it. anyway, enough about those losers. so afarin and i went down to lafayette, pretty close to the apple place pete and i went to. we actually stopped at the store there and picked up some apples and cider and stuff. anyway, i took a couple random turns and ended up in the middle of some beautiful rolling hills.

here's me enjoying the leaves. they smell so good. afarin was a little skeeved that i immediately just laid down in a pile of leaves. she had such a sad childhood. apparently there's not a very good fall in iran. i guess canada isn't bad, but she didn't move there till she was 16. too late to get used to the wonderfulness of fall leaves under your head.

i feel very proud of this queen anne's lace. it shows the power of perspective.

blue and orange go well together. just ask any mets fan (there's always next year).

i hope you enjoyed this bit of respite. i know i did. even thinking about it right now reminds me how good it was to get away, even for an hour.

a little late is better

i had a bit of time on my hands and thought i would update with some pics i took the last time pete was up and we went apple picking.
we found a few apples..and a whole bunch of empty trees. heres pete trying to find the rest of the apples.

ahhh, here they are. lots of apples. good job, pete. way to not give up. these were empires. we got some macs too.

here you can see a bit of the view from the apple orchard. it was on the side of a hill with a great view of the countryside that surrounds syracuse.

i thought i should also show a pic of the bookshelf that pete made for me. isn't it lovely? there's all books in it now. i'll have to show it again, maybe i'll have an entry with a pictoral tour of my apartment.

purple soup

i watched the movie "ratatouille" today, which was very enjoyable and quite inspiring. quick summary: it's about a rat who likes to cook and gets to be the secret chef at a fancy pants parisian restaurant that makes all the good food, while hidden by a hapless busboy (seriously, i feel like i only see the word "hapless" during movie or book descriptions).

anyway, i was inspired. also, i have an exam coming up in a week, so this is one of the last real free time (obviously i don't mean real free time like normal people have it...but whatever) i have to spend some time cooking. soon it will be back to the frozen burritos and ordering in.

so i thought i'd make soup. seemed like a good day for it. this being the third time i've ever made soup, and the first time without a recipe, it was an adventure. basically i just threw in everything i had. onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, beans. a can of chicken broth. garlic. every spice i own (all three of them) including a couple secret ingredients. and some milk.

at the inclusion of the last ingredient, something strange happened. the slight pink tint due to the pink beans, with the white of the milk, and who know what else, turned the soup a rather unappetizing shade of purple. or more of a lavender. or kind of grey. anyway, i was amused.

oh, it still tasted great. i'm not exactly like bridget jones...she got colin firth. though pete says he likes me just the way i am....

anyway, my mind is running away from me. i hope everyone has a good week. i'll be spending my time trying to study amidst the playoffs.

the only thing to look forward to...

it's sad when you have people planning on coming to visit you, and then they do, and you realize that you have no one else to visit until the exam. that's how i am.

pete came up the weekend before, and then my family came up this weekend, and it was all very fun and well and good, but now i'm left with nothing to do but study. it's very depressing.

so i'm trying to do other things. today i went to a writing workshop, which was very interesting. a poet came, and the few of us there did some writing exercises. she was talking about techniques to get the most therapeutic advantage out of writing, like journaling and stuff. some of it was a little loopy, but fun. like try writing with your non-dominant hand. it slows things down, and is harder, so you really parse your writing, distilling it to the important stuff only. ahh, it feels good to get on here and stretch all my good old typing muscles. i can just talk and talk for ever....

i'm just kidding.

med school is ok. discouraging, time consuming, overwhelming. what else is new.

i went swimming today. that was fun. arlin, who still lives in clark tower, next door to the pool, let me keep my stuff in his room to dry. so i didn't have to lug home my wet towel. which was good, cuz my bag was heavy and i was carrying a platter of leftover thai food from the workshop. and it was raining. i would not have been happy with one more thing to carry.

i hope everyone is doing well. feel free to comment, especially if there's something i haven't talked about in a while you are interested in. i would be happy to oblige.

oh dear, watson

yesterday my mom clued me in that james watson, of watson and crick (remember, DNA?), was on "on point" on npr. seeing as i subscribe to the podcast, i synced my ipod up and listened to part of it on the way home.
it brought back some funny memories. my junior and senior year of college, the biology students were required to go to a certain amount of seminars, i think so that we would learn about how to give seminars ourselves. something like that. anyway, one time junior year, noah and phil and i went to a lecture at harvard by the aforementioned james watson. and it was...interesting...

first of all, the place was packed. but he didn't seem like much of what you'd expect from such a big name in science. he gave a tangled autobiography, interspersed with sudden bits of advice. he said he was writing a book, which just came out. it seemed like he was pulling stuff from that.

anyway, we ended up leaving the lecture early so we could head back home. we had to do a writeup on the lecture, which i remember being difficult to do because of the lack of real information he imparted. no current research, that sort of thing.

i guess that was the point. on the radio, he seemed to be saying a lot of the same things i remembered. so i pulled up my old write up to compare. thought you might be interested (note: we weren't being graded on how well we wrote, it just had to be one page long):

"April 19, 2005

Jr. Seminar

Seminar writeup

On March 22, I attended a seminar given by Dr. James Watson at Harvard Medical. He is well known for discovering the structure of DNA with Francis Crick. He received the Nobel Prize for his work, and the discovery completely changed the direction of biology in the past century. The title of the talk was “My life with DNA”, and was based upon his autobiography which will be coming out soon.

He discussed his early childhood, especially his boyhood in Chicago. His mother was nominally religious, but his dad was not. At around the age of eleven he decided to be an atheist. At the seminar, he recommended being an atheist Democrat. He went to college at the University of Chicago, and studied zoology. He then became very interested in genetics, and went to Europe to study it in detail. He spent eighteen months with Crick before they made their discovery.

He gave much free advice at the seminar. He discussed the phenomenon of having more than one Nobel Prize winner in the room. He admonished against, saying it would just be too boring. He also said to not be the most brilliant person in the room. He seems to have been in rooms with lots of brilliant people. In the biology research world, he urged the audience to talk to your competitors.

Watson did a lot of work with the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is well known for having an uncanny sense of what is going to be the big field of study for biology, and people who have not taken his advice say they wish they had. Biology now would be a very different place if he had not been here."

tgif....for reals

well, i don't have anything in particular to write about, but i thought, why not give an update anyway.

i had my exam on monday. i don't think i've recovered yet. hopefully this weekend will help. i've also gotten into a weird sleeping pattern where i'm exhausted by the end of the class day, come home, flop over on the couch after checking my email and fall asleep. then i can't sleep at night. so i guess by "weird" i mean, "really annoying".

pete is visiting this weekend, coming up tomorrow. thank you for coming. he has a canoe trip in the morning with some kids from charles river church. on october 1st, we've been dating for two years. which is a little crazy.

cleaned up my room a bit this week because it had gotten so crazy with the exam. finally found a place for some things that had been lying on the floor in piles for a few weeks. well, at least i keep the front room pretty neat for afarin. i try not to be inconsiderately messy. i also got a couple things on the walls, slowly working on improving the cozy factor.

i don't if any of you know that halo 3 came out this week, but now you do. maybe i should have asked if anyone cares. nah, too late now. anyway, my friend matt is probably as i write getting himself the xbox 360 and the new game. which hopefully will make this weekend even more super awesome. also on the video game topic, i recently tried out guitar hero up in the boys room, and i have to say it's a pretty cool game. it's like dance dance revolution but with a guitar. and i'm actually pretty good at it too, which is nice when you have spent the last year trying to play video games with a bunch of nerds who spend all their free time honing their skills. i'm just not that dedicated. but i picked up this one pretty quick. i hope that someday someone gets a wii. that seems like fun.

not too much else going on. i think i'm going out in a bit downtown with some pals. should be fun. monday night we went out to dinner after the exam, but we haven't really had a lot of hang out time.

ok, that's all for now.

"e, as in network"

well, this weekend was a lovely wedding. lots of good food and music and people. while at the reception, pete and i were dancing and i noticed that a guy who was sitting at our table had gotten up and was taking pics of us. he had a big fancy flash and everything. i was a little sad that i wouldn't see the pictures, though. then at the end of the night,i picked up my camera and went through the photos and noticed a bunch of pics of me and pete. he had been using my camera! which was really nice. i didn't get to thank him. thank you, jeremy husband of liz who knew suzy from camp when they were kids.

notice the white man's overbite?

i came home on sunday. our wireless internet had been installed while i was gone, so i went to try it out on my laptop. no go. i had the password, i could see the network. no connection. kelvin had been here when it was installed, and he said that it worked for him. i was getting frustrated. when afarin came home that night, she tried to get her computer working for a while too.

the next day after class i was resting in my room and i heard afarin on the phone. then "click" she hung up and a strangled animal cry came from the other room, "i'm going to kill myself!"

i got up to see what was the matter. fight with her bf, or mom? no, she had been on the phone with the cable company for 2 hours trying to figure out what was wrong. she was transferred to five different people, when finally someone gave her a new password to try. when she wrote it down, she noticed something. it was exactly the same as the one we had been using, except that what we had thought was a "9" was actually an "a". and now the internet worked perfectly.

curses on you, wireless internet installer man with ambiguous handwriting.

also, back to the title: in the password was also an "e", which when the man at the cable company was saying it over the phone said, "e as in network."
afarin asked, "n as in network?"
"no, E as in network."

the world is over as we know it

happy rosh hashanah

a beautiful day off on a thursday, which this year is my crazy long day. i'm excited. i slept in a bit, how exciting, and then made myself a lovely brunch (i sauteed onions, celery, and carrots together, then threw in a couple eggs). now i'm trying to figure out my proposed schedule for the rest of the day. tomorrow i will by taking the bus to boston, pete's going to be in a wedding on saturday, which means that i have to pack and stuff. and also that i have to get a significant amount of work done today, so i do not fall behind with another weekend off. hence taking the bus, i can work or sleep on it, which is a much better deal than having to drive, and then be tired at the end, etc..

anyway, i think there's definitely a bike ride in my future today. i'll just have to figure out where to. and then there's volleyball at 6 on campus. i have a hypothesis due in my cases class tomorrow, which is this big horrible assignment that i already worked on last night for a couple hours, but i'll still need a lot more time on it today.

oh, i also need to get to target at some point.

off subject, but i'm wearing socks right now. which is approximately the first time in about 4 months i've done that. it's a little sad.

time flies...when you're so busy you don't have time to think

and also when time moving means less time to be able to study. and that it's slowly getting closer to the exam. and maybe because i do have a little fun, and we already know about the properties of fast-moving time in those circumstances.

now i will apologize for having abandoned my blog for the call of higher learning. i have returned. the last few weeks have been busy, but pretty good. second year is shaping up nicely. i'm trying to implement all my study strategies that i worked hard at forming last year (read: learned to study like afarin does. she's way smart). and it's actually going ok. bigger work load, definitely, but less stress than last year.

though i did take labor day weekend off. i couldn't help myself, it was in the name. just kidding! actually, i went back out to massachusetts for a wedding. and to see joy. which was very important. being away for a weekend creates the odd phenomenon of looking forward to the next weekend, not to relax, but so you can do those things that you only have time to do on the weekend and you haven't done in two weeks so now there's a lot of stuff. and catch up on studying.

oh, the wedding was lovely. i wore a polka dot dress. that's all the important info.

friday night i cooked dinner for some of my friends, then we all hung out for awhile. nice and low-key. i love hosting. i think afarin does too. there were candles involved. and brownies. and mashed potatoes.

well. i'm going to go get some dinner now. oh, and i don't have a tv, so i've been watching shows online. have gotten very into ugly betty. great show.

i promise i'll update soon. pinky swear.

that sexy new glazed over look

hi all.

i'm back at school. i'm tired. i spent five hours today working on hw for my cases class. reminds me of last year. i'm already behind on lectures. and i'm really tired. did i mention that yet?

on the upside, i have a nice apartment. i'm glad to see my old friends again. and i have a big new bed that i am about thirty seconds away from being able to jump into. glory.

ok, mom, now you can stop hounding me to update my blog.

summer is NOT over (but it's feeling that way)

i'm in my bedroom in south boston, in the process of packing. which means, of course, i am doing what every member of my family does in this circumstance: procrastinating. which is why this seems like the perfect time to update my blog.

somewhere up north pete is also packing, probably way more enthusiastically than i am...but still with that lovable ADD quality that we share (at least when packing). at some point he'll make his way down here, help me carry all my heavy things to my car (fingers crossed), and we'll continue south to the promised land: narragansett, ri. assuming our bikes haven't been stolen yet off the back of pete's car, we'll make a quick stop at the apple store in braintree where i pick up my ipod (ok, i guess there was a slight issue with putting it through the washer...the battery didn't like to stay charged...but that's what a 90 day warranty looks like...moral: do crazy things with your apple accessories as soon as you get them), and then we keep going.

i've realized a couple flaws to the plan. first of all, i'm hungry and i don't know what to eat. i have a bit of food still, but it's sort of random. like, maraschino cherries and ketchup. ok, i also have oatmeal and triscuits. and beans. i won't starve.

ok, i've forgotten any other flaws in the plan. i'm sure there are some. but now i'm having trouble typing in that jittery low blood sugar way. i'll go munch on some crackers and cherries.

"once" in a blue moon

this was one of those movies that sticks with you. well, first of all, the awesome music stays in your head. and it took me a while to stop crying from it. seriously. it was so good...though i don't know how much everyone would enjoy it...like i can just imagine my dad saying something sarcastic about it..."oh yeah, it's so beautiful...and stupid!" ok, actually, dad would say something much wittier. but that's what he would really mean. but REALLY he would mean that he was touched by it but was suppressing the emotion in the best way he knows how...

anyway, enjoy the trailer. see the movie if you can.

the end of an era

i'm only sort of looking forward to this saturday. july 21st, the day i go to the borders in braintree and pick up my preordered copy of the last harry potter. i remember last time, when the sixth book came out, how i laughed and cried and needed a hug when it was over...what will happen this time?

i'm not ready for it to be over.

but in other harry news, my cousin was in the hartford courant. she's the one that went to the premier of i can't remember which harry potter movie in new york with "i love alan rickman" painted on her face. here's the pic of her, on the left:

"RICHARD MESSINA ( July 11, 2007)
KATE HOLLYWOOD, 19, left, and Amanda Ryder, 18, have read the Harry Potter series since the first book, and have aged along with the book character. They both are huge Harry Potter fans now, and are photographed in Kate's bedroom."


you can read the article at courant.com

well, i hope you are all enjoying my new spate of posts. i'm nothing if not inconsistent. :)

mid week update

well, first of all, i'm sure you are all wondering how my phone is doing. luckily, it's pulled through and recovered to perfect condition. and, for those who like to think ahead, my computer and my camera are doing well. they seem to have averted any aqueous accidents....knock on wood...

but i really wanted to update because pete (and rich...and paul...) have finally moved into their beautiful new home in north andover. for those who don't know the story, and those with short term memory issues, the three guys up there are house sitting for a family that had to move to amsterdam for two years and felt like letting them live there...rent free...

i know, how cool is that? the house is lovely, 4 bedrooms, lots of rooms downstairs, huge yard....but the decor leaves a bit to be desired. unless you really like lots of floral wallpaper, cow figurines, and cheap prints. and for some reason the boys aren't up for it. they have been told that they can paint, hallelujah, and they can move any of the tacky stuff up to the attic...which is good. i helped. i turned one of the floral curtains around so the white back can be seen instead. which, in hindsight, just exchanges bad decor for kooky decor. oh well. we'll see how long it goes before the boys change it back.

otherwise things are going well. working at the bridal shop..."the altered bride"...and babysitting a bit for the boy who lives upstairs from my apartment. life is good.

water wonderful

this WILL NOT become a trend...despite the recent evidence to the contrary:

1. i got a new ipod nano for my birthday. well, with birthday money. thanks, grandma. actually, don't tell her that's what i got. she will, as we all know, mildly disapprove.

well, the other day i ran out of clean clothes and decided maybe i would wash them. we have a washer/dryer right in the apartment here in south boston...fancy fancy...

do we all see where this is going?

as i pulled my clothes out of the washer and into the dryer, i reached for the one last thing left.

it looked like a sock.

it was not.

there was my beautiful little silver ipod, with the headphones still attached.

clean as a whistle.

i panicked (of course), and tried to turn it on. i saw a faint glow in the background, but mostly i was distracted by the cloudy, swirling patterns in the foreground. and the thought racing through my mind of how much my parents were going to be upset that i ruined the most expensive music playing device i've ever owned two weeks after i got it.

sidenote, i wonder if i'll always be worried about what my parents will say? probably. oh well. here's to you, mom and dad.

so anyway, i left the ipod on my windowsill, hoping to dry it out. the buttons weren't being particularly responsive, but i could at least get it to play music. i left it alone for a little while.

a few hours later, the screen looked much better, but not perfect. i went over pete's house, and brought it with me. when richard saw it, he was like, "what the heck did you do to this?"

"washed it."

"no way!" he seemed excited. well, i'm glad to make his day.

by the next day, however, the screen was completely back to normal! no one would ever know the journey my sweet ipod had made.

well, until i told you all.

2. water is not my friend.

last night i was sleeping peacefully, when my phone alarm went off. i don't actually own an alarm clock, i've been using my cell phone since i went to syracuse. it's small and movable, perfect.

though this morning, i noticed that the alarm was much quieter than normal. and when i grabbed my phone, i noticed something else. it was soaking wet. when i glanced at the spot where it had been resting just moments before, i saw what the problem was. there was a puddle. on my windowsill. in front of my window. which was open. and through said window, i could see the ground. also with puddles.

so, i guess it rained last night at some point. into my room. onto my cell phone.

it was too early in the morning for real panic, so i tried to press some buttons, noticed they weren't working too well. and then slept for another half an hour, which meant that when i woke up, i knew i was going to be late for work, so i had to run around like a crazy women to get to the shop at a reasonable hour.

oddly enough, the phone actually was working ok....but then suddenly stopped working, almost. almost because i can turn the phone on, but then none of the buttons work. or if i can get one to work, i can't actually do what i want it to do. like i press the menu button, and the ring volume screen comes up. and the power button doesn't work once it's on, so i keep having to take the battery out and in to try again.

it's very sad.

i think i can actually receive calls, but i can only make them if i'm really lucky.

i hope it all works out. i hope the insides dry up all nice and don't give me any more problems so i don't have to live without a phone for an undetermined length of time. cuz it's not like i have a land line. that would be silly...who has a land line these days? i could theoretically skype, but that costs money, unless it's to other skype people. and i'd need my computer and internet for that to work.

so i've decided that i prefer my water in a glass, or a tub, or a pool....not anywhere near my electronics. are you with me?

it's only temporary

today is my second, and final, day at a lovely temp job i had this week.

why so lovely, you may ask. well, i really am enjoying answering the phone, getting to say all perky, "good morning, j calnan and associates." until the clock strikes twelve, when i then say, "good afternoon, j calnan and associates." and then people tell me who they want to talk to, and i transfer them, using the nifty transfer button on my avaya phone (if you're wondering, they were pete's competition, but he holds no grudges). and sometimes they ask more tricky questions, like can i speak to accounts payable, and then i have to ask for what project, and then i have to look it up on my sheet, and then i can tell them the person who is in charge and then transfer them.

and sometimes faxes come in, and i have to staple them together and figure out who they go to, because it's not always to the person that it says it's going to, because people try to be tricky.

and then when the mail comes i have to open about two hundred envelopes with my letter opener and then i stamp them with the date stamp and then i staple the sheets together and then when i have all of them open i figure out who they go to and then put them in their respective mail slots.

speaking of the date stamp, i am not very good at it. sometimes the date doesn't come out at all, or only half of it does, so i have to stamp a few more times, and they usually end up looking like a kid was messing around on them. but all i'm thinking about is when the judge calls me for the trial and i have to say that i received the letter on july 5th, just like the stamp says, and keep everyone from getting in trouble for shady business ethics. not that i know there's anything shady going on. but i'm prepared if there is.

i also have a job at a bridal shop, doing the least fun things that can be imagined done at a bridal shop. which basically means stuffing envelopes and addressing them and stamping them and then sending them out. lots of envelopes. but i'm enjoying myself there too. i'm surrounded by pretty things, and the seamstress lady is very nice to me. and i got to take a taxi to the cleaners with a big puffy dress, which was fun. and boston is lovely, especially on boylston where i am, near the public gardens.

and i guess it does feel good to do something again. i had my month off. it was good. i relaxed, i traveled, i read a ridiculous amount of books. i am now willing to use a small portion of my brain again in exchange for a bit of cash money. or check. i'm not picky.

home sweet southie

this is not the update on the past few weeks. this is just to say that right now, i'm sitting on a new futon mattress from ikea on the floor of the second floor apartment i'm living in this summer in south boston. my new home for the next six weeks. and i'm glad to finally be here. and have a bed. though the bed part is still in the big brown box it came in, since i just purchased it about, oh let's see, and hour and a half ago....that'll have to be for tomorrow.

i also bought a bike today...bed and a bike in one day seems like a full day to me...

long time no post

sorry guys, it's been a few crazy weeks. i'll give the short version now, and try to update more fully as i can.

so let's see,
~i finished my first year of school!
~we celebrated my parent's 25th
~i vegged for a week
~two interesting phone calls from school....i'll explain later
~weekend with college buddies in boston
~looong travel down to dominica with nelson to visit joy for the week
~the caribbean rocks, seriously
~my birfday
~now i'm in ct for a couple days until i move to boston...

so, of course i have a ton of pics and stories. i will consider which are the most entertaining, and update as i can.

beginning of the end

it's my last week here, my last week of first year. i had my last lectures today, the rest of the week is reviews and time to review, very sweet of them.

i'm so excited to be leaving soon. so as i sit here, wasting time on the internet, watching "notting hill" on tv (i can multitask with the best of them), i am just imagining the days that will come very soon with the beloved FREE TIME....that i don't have right now. now i just have borrowed time.

i had a fabulous weekend, complete with an impromptu visit from pete, and a lovely memorial day cookout with friends.

alright, now it's time to get back into the mindset...i have to study...there's lectures to review, notes to be taken.

though perhaps a nap first....

#36 on list "things you don't want to happen at midnight on a thursday"

#36: toilet overflow in your second floor bathroom. into the lobby on the first floor.

the toilet had been acting up today, and seemed like it would overflow earlier, so i turned off the water. i thought i had turned it back on, but then tonight my roommate was in there, and said, "i think the toilet's broken." what she was concerned with was that it wasn't flushing. so i said, "oh, i turned off the water earlier and i must have forgotten to turn it back on." so i turned the little knob back on at the base of the toilet, and we tried flushing it again.

well, the water worked this time. the toilet still wasn't going down. and then the water overflowed. i tried to turn the knob off again, but the water started touching my toes-eww...so i ran away. then mary, my toiletmate, put on flipflops and turned the knob off. my roommate ran to tell the rd, while we started throwing paper towels on the half inch of water. we grabbed the mop on the floor and started mopping. my roommate returned with the report of a waterfall on the first floor. oh great.

we mopped a bit, waiting for janitorial staff. luckily for us, the cleaning lady comes at night, so she was available to disinfect the floor. we have a plumber type guy here trying to get the toilet to work. so now i'm watching al gore on letterman trying not to remember #37...."realizing there's a whole other day of work before the weekend."

subscription notice

it's new! now, you can receive all my brilliant updates in your mailbox! yes, that's right, you read it right, you will be able to read all about the highs and lows of my med school experience without leaving the comfort of your homepage (unless you had already set my blog as your homepage, in which case i thank you, though with one eyebrow raised and in a disbelieving tone).

so in order for this to be yours, all you need to do is click on the brand new link on the right of you screen, labeled "subscribe to my blog". if you click there, you will be brought to a screen that looks like this:


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and that's it!!!

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and if you pay now, i'll throw in one free checkup of YOUR choice once i'm certified for those sorts of things OR one 2:00am phone call when you just need to know what that rash actually means so you want to call your daughter/sister/friend/niece/random person whose blog you read/etc who's a doctor and can give you free advice and i won't even complain!!!! to your face!!!! but i might to someone else!!! just so you know!!!!


wow, that's a good deal!

good news, bad news...

which do you want first?

so, remember how i studied really hard for this past exam? well, i ended up getting an 82. which, of course, isn't bad. but when you've studied as hard as i did, it was a bit discouraging. for the previous two exams of physiology the class average had been about 85. then today i found out that the average grade was an 80! so i finally stand before you as a slightly-above-average-at-least-on-one-exam med student. oh, yeah! that's right!

so that was the good news.

some of you may know that this summer i'm planning to work in boston, at the children's hospital. well, i had emailed the lady i had been in contact with there, just to see what was going on. and today, i got an email, a nice form letter, saying that there was another candidate they picked for the position.

in the words of pete,
a jigga what?!

i don't know what happened, but i was under the impression that i had been offered the job...i had been planning on having that job...i did not look for another one...and it's the middle of may, which if anyone remembers trying to find a job when all the lovely college students had already grabbed them, you would imagine what this would be like....and i still have three more weeks left here, which i do not want to spend figuring out my summer.

well, i guess you gotta roll with the punches. so now i'm busy checking out some leads for other jobs that had come up, we'll see what happens. or maybe i'll just relax...doesn't that sound thrilling? but not too much, because then i'll want to kill myself. we don't recommend that.

nostalgia

this week is the last week for....syracuse university. which is NOT the school i go to. here at upstate, the college of medicine has another few weeks....

i've been studying in my fav cafe, and then the tea house, and everywhere has been packed with undergrads excitedly talking about the summer....

makes it a bit harder to study. a lot harder to study.

i have an exam on friday, and it's going to be hard. it's actually 4 exams, but who's counting? i need to do well on them. i think i might. i've been working hard to be the best student i could be this section. but i had a bit of a freakout moment tonight. i was at the teahouse, going over renal notes, when i realized that i had a very hard time recalling the information i was reviewing. which reminded me of all the other lectures i need to review in the next couple days. which reminded me of how it was warm out and a year ago i was graduating, which made me think about how i did not do well on the last exam, which reminded me of how little i could remember of the stuff i've been cramming into my head for the past couple weeks...at which point i started hyperventilating...and my eyes felt a little wet and burning...

and then i tried to remember what the effects were from hyperventilating on the partial pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood and the effect on the acidity of the blood....

and then i moaned.

and kept studying.


i'm sick of this. i need the summer.

yeah, i read dilbert daily

enjoy a lovely comic about blogs. i thought that made it appropriate enough. hopefully, my blog is slightly better than the pointy-haired boss's.

anyway, it's been a busy week in the life of emily. last week's exams did not go, how do they say, well. so i've been working extra hard this week...and trying out some new study tactics. now, i pre-read the lectures for the next day, take notes and highlight during the lecture, and then review the lecture notes after the lecture.

probably should have been doing this since the beginning of the year. oh well. now is better than later.

also, my friends and i are taking a road trip this weekend to toronto, which is going to be pretty awesome. we're going to visit niagara falls, eat good food, go up the cn tower...that's pretty much it. there's two americans and 5 canadians going. so i should have plenty of tour guides.

so i needed this week to not slack off so that next week won't be crazy, after the loss of this weekend to funtown...

a day at the park

the most beautiful day in 2007 deserves a photo essay, i think.

here's nima on the guitar, serenading us with a little flamenco.

nima and afarin are a ridiculously cute couple.

a little reading, studying, guitar playing...

and frisbee of course.

syracuse can actually be pretty

my friends sometimes look they're a band. especially when walking around syracuse with guitars. and posing for the camera.

they are too cute.

tom would only come if we let him study. did i mention we just had an exam on friday....

i'm actually studying too. while in a very cute outfit.

anecdotal evidence

i had some intriguing occurences happen in the past couple weeks.


1. my fish attempted suicide. i was down the hall in the kitchen on the phone, when i heard my roommate scream my name, followed by, "your fish jumped out of the bowl!" i ran back to the room, scooped him up off the floor, and deposited him back into the bowl. then i removed some of the water, to discourage further attempts. it was pretty scary, though i think my roommate was more shaken than i was. rachel the fish must have missed pete. he had been taking care of him for a couple weeks.

2. i signed up for an iv clinic, where we learned to put in iv's, first on a fake arm, then we tried it on each other. i learned i am not very good at giving iv's. but here was the situation. we had already practiced on the fake arm, and i wanted to practice on someone real. one of the other first years there said i could. now, since i had arrived at the clinic, i had discovered that she had done some phlebotomy before. mostly because she wouldn't stop talking about it. in a conceited manner. over and over. there was another girl from our class who felt that the conversation was a perfect time to discuss her previous experience drawing blood/giving iv's as well. when i started working on the first girl's arm, the both of them, and the instructor, were talking about how great her vein's were, blah blah blah.

i missed.

as i was prepping for her other arm, she told her little cronies how one time when she was giving blood, they missed her beautiful plump veins. they all agreed, in chorus, "i can't believe someone would miss your veins!"

they went on and on.

who says that? did they forget i was there?

i tried the second arm. i was just to the right of the vein, so i had to maneuver it over, and i'm sorry for those who didn't want the detail, but the gist is i basically didn't do it right the second time either.

there was not one moment when either of the three "experts" gave me encouragement, useful advice, or at least shut up about non-useful statements.

were they that concerned that they would be perceived as only ordinary? do they really have to make sure that people around them know that they are better? could they just stop gloating for a second as i try to put in my first iv in my life?

apparently, thinking of others was just too much for them.

3. i went to a new church this past week. saturday night, i went online, found the closest episcopal church to me, which ended up being about 3 blocks away. i perused the website, it seemed alright. when i arrived at church, i found that the parishioners were almost exactly half and half black and white, which is pretty rare in a church. i found out later that 50 years ago two episcopal churches had joined together, creating the diversity. there were very few in attendance, about 30 or so. after church, i decided to stay for the coffee, where i met a nice old lady whose late husband was a physician at my school. then the priest lady came over. i told here where i was from, etc, and she asked if i went to an episcopal church in connecticut. no, i hadn't, but when i was in boston i went to this church that was sort of episcopal but kind of emergent...and she interrupts me to say, was it charles street church...?

charles river? i said

yeah, i know the guy who started that.

will messenger?

yeah, we went to the same meeting for [something to do with church] for a few years. that's really cool that you went there. i am interested in working with some of those elements, i'd love to talk to you about it.

at this point, i was absolutely shocked that someone in syracuse, right near where i lived, had heard of the tiny church i went to in boston. most people in boston haven't heard of it.

crazy.




so those are my most recent stories. enjoy.

pray for spring

i never thought it would happen, but i actually have a roommate who likes the room to be colder than i do. previous roommates will concur, i'm sure, of my preference for cooler temps. i come from sturdy stock. my parents actually think i do like it warm, but that's because they keep the house ridiculously cold all winter, to save money i suppose...that's besides the point...

anyway, the past week or so, my roomie has been opening the window a crack before she goes to bed. granted, the insane heat of dorms often requires extreme measures. and granted that it does tend to be a bit warm in our room before we go to bed. and by a bit warm, i mean about 73 degrees. oh, and she has a thermometer, so i'm not making these numbers up.

by the time i wake up in the morning, it's below 60 degrees in our room. that's really cold.

i've put all my blankets on my bed. i sleep next to my sweatshirt, for easy access in the middle of the night.

but can i actually be so nonconfrontational that i won't ask my roommate to shut the window because i'm freezing cold?

yes, yes i can.

so, please, do me a favor. pray that spring will come. that the nights will go above freezing. that there won't be any more snow.


there's supposed to be snow tonight. sigh.

the beauty of friends

i'm talking about those ones on tv...joey, chandler, monica, etc...

it's been tough to get myself to study. i have so many good excuses for me, so i end up getting frustrated and just walking away from me, because i obviously will not listen to good advice but instead just keep doing stupid things, just like i always did, like i'm always saying...

but, man, "friends" is such a great show. just the thing to do instead of studying.



ok, i've been trying to upload a dang pic from one of my lectures...just to give a taste of what we're talking about...and what i will be tested on on friday (so soon after spring break, i know). the big topics are "hemodynamics" which means the movement of blood, and "micro circulation" which i'm not quite sure what that means....the circulation of small things, or very small circulation...i don't know. i haven't really studied those lectures yet. anyway, there's lots of physics and math, which makes me very emotional: at times excited, frustrated, content, sad, but never bored! that's what the rest of the lectures are for...i am a math person. my parents would be proud (the math teacher and engineer, for those who don't know).

oh, and heather, the hood story was no joke.

happy holy week/passover!

part deux

well, the second half of spring break was quite eventful. i'll just give the highlights...

saturday, march 17: erin go bragh, etc. corned beef was had. as well as cabbage.

sunday: more time in the morning at the hospital. i had to force myself to leave so i could drive up to boston. for real. force myself.

monday: pete and i's day. we didn't do much. i mostly just remember eating. though not just good things. story time...
we went to bertucci's for dinner. first of all, the rolls were cold. at some restaurants, that's alright. not acceptable at bertucci's. then, we ordered the mussels appetizer. when it arrived, i was surprised when the mussels were cold. though i grew more concerned when i found ice on some of them. we sent those back, only to find out that they were out of mussels. great. we got the shrimp scampi instead, which they comped, and the waitress hovered for the rest of the meal. which reminds me what else was hovering over our food. the flies. lots of little flies were very interested in what we were eating. i didn't want to look away from the food, for fear they would steal it...


tuesday: i had an interview! at 7:30 in the morning....which meant that the night before i had an emergency buy a blow dryer and nylons event. at cvs. anyway, the interview was at children's hospital and they offered to have me work there this summer, being the official orthopedics department hand specialty lackey. booyah. i then spent the rest of the day hanging around enc, with kara for a bit, then luke, and a bit of a nap in the library. i talked at enc that night about being in med school, which went well, i think.

wednesday: i drove down to leicester, near worcester, to visit an old friend. i spent the night at the durost's, and hung out with jenni the next day.

thursday: jenni-time, then went back to boston to have a small group time with pete, and some other charles river young adults. margaritas and the book of acts. excellent combo.

friday: pete and i drove up to new hampshire. he had a retreat to play at, while i went on and visited another jennie (i collect them). which was an adventure, because i was driving pete's car, which is a stick shift, and i haven't had that many hours driving one, though i do know what to do. and i also got lost...and then my cell phone died. so i had to pull over, and i charged the phone at a dunkin donuts...

saturday: hung out with jennie, then drove back to pick up pete, then drove to foxboro, then i drove back up to logan to pick up my cousin rich who had spring break in florida. whew. pete and rich and i went out to dinner that night.

sunday: i got ready to go back to syracuse. i left foxboro, started driving when BAM! my hood flew open on the highway and crashed into my windshield, forming the most extensive cracks i've ever seen in a windshield, and freaking the crap out of me. i was in the right lane, so luckily i was able to pull over on the side of the road easily. i called AAA (for the second time in less than two weeks) and pete. pete and rich came to save me on the highway, and wait with me for the towtruck. i got a tow, and went back to the boys apartment.

enter bonus spring break time:

monday: figured out bus schedules, talked to the body shop, talked to the glass people, talked to everyone again 600 times, watched that day's lectures online, missed the last bus in the evening....and made my mom's famous sausage soup, which of course was not as good as my mom's....

tuesday: woke up ridiculously early, pete drove me to south station where i made the 7:10 bus narrowly. i slept the whole way to syracuse.

this was the most eventful spring break i've ever had. and i've had spring breaks....drove to florida, stayed with a friend's crazy grandparent's one year....

for a bit of an update: my car has a new windshield, which was more of a hassle than you could imagine. the body shop didn't do anything to my car, because they wanted exactly one arm and one leg in order to do it....so we're on the lookout for a cheap used hood for a 96 saturn.....anyone have any leads?

spring break me off a piece

see, my title is one of those before and after things they have on wheel of fortune.

spring break is going particularly well. after my exam on monday the 13th, i drove on home to ct. good to see the rents again, they still like me.

tuesday i went down to my aunt's hospital to the er and shadowed a great doctor, dr. tilden. he let me take some histories, and taught me a lot about presenting cases: "a 40 year old women with a chief complaint of...." i had a good time.

i can't remember what i did on wednesday. did mom and i run errands? something like that.

thursday was girls day out for mom and i. we got our hair done, mani and pedis, and went out to lunch. mom was a little late to work after all that....what a great example. i saw the cahills of westport that evening (my sis and broinlaw) and we went out to eat.

friday was another day at the er, with a different doc this time, dr. holmes. you might also remember that friday was the nor'easter. i left the er at around noon so i could get home in a reasonable time. i got to my car, turned it on, then went to get my brush out of the trunk to wipe off the snow. as my front door clicked shut, i had the sneaking suspicion i had just locked myself out of my car.

i had.

great.

so i went back in to the er, called aaa, and waited till they came. perhaps because my motor was running, it actually didn't take that long for them to come. i drove home in the snow at about 25 miles an hour. but i made it.

ok, now i have to get ready to go up to nh for the night. the continued coverage of emily's spring break 2007 will be right back.

i know it's time, but i don't know what to say

it has been a while.

lets see. i guess i'll tell funny stories from my past exams.

so for my practice of medicine class, we had a series of three exams in the past 3 weeks. 2 were on physical examination, and one was a graded history-taking.

i guess there weren't too many funny stories from the physical exams...we partnered up for them, and i partnered with my friend afarin (who i will be living with next year, by the way...). the first exam was a bit nerve-wracking, as it had been the first time we had an exam like that, where a doctor is watching what you do. and our doctor was a bit intimidating. he would get up and move around the table, watching what you did. his comments at the end were things like, "you didn't watch her face when you were palpating her abdomen." but luckily, he didn't mark off much for anything.

the second week, we had the second half of the physical exam, which was eye/ear/etc and muscle strength/movement thing. the doctor we had watch us i actually knew from the christian fellowship on campus, so that was nice. the funny thing is, he had absolutely no comments for us. he said, "yeah, you did fine." and that was that. and then he just said that we ended early and he hoped that the people that were going after us did so he could go home early. ok.

today i had my graded history-taking thing. it was basically a role-playing thing where we had a standardized patient that was in just for a physical but it was the first time at the doctor...

well, mine was at 10:00am. i did not sleep well, i had a bad dream that when i got there, there was a physical exam part that i didn't know about....always the worst case scenario, things not being as expected...i ended up waking up at 9, showering, getting dressed, changing my clothes, drying my hair, putting on a bit of makeup, and running out of my apartment at about 9:50. sadly, we were supposed to be there at about 9:45, i didn't get there until 9:55, then when they told us which classroom to go to, i went to the wrong one but didn't realize it until they said, you aren't on the list and i was scared and then i left the room and realized that i was not where i thought i was so i went to the right room but at this point it was late (they were timing us, we had 20 minutes) so by the time i got into the little fake exam room i was a little bit frazzled.

and then at about 10:10, my cell phone goes off.

well, the history went fine. which was good. and the missed call ended up being from the lady at the apartment building that afarin and i had applied at, telling us that there was an apartment available for august. so we have a place to live! it's a two bedroom, 1 1/2 bath, for 878 a month, everything included (except parking-$30, internet and phone). which sounds pretty good to us. here's the floor plan:

now i'm dreaming about decorating. i can't wait. my little dorm room is feeling very small...and dorm-like.

non-comedogenic

in med school, you learn a lot of new words and acronyms, probably a few each day almost.

then i go and look at my bottle of lotion, and there's one of the best words i've ever seen.

non-comedogenic: does it mean?
a. will not produce comedian offspring
b. will not be funny
c. will not work with medical professionals' offspring
d. will not aggravate acne

if you guessed d, you are right (but boring).
if you guessed a-c, you are my best friend.
if you laughed, i love you.

anywho....about those exams....guess i should get back to studying...