R&R

Last week was spring break for the students, so I spent a few days visiting beautiful Sonoma County to see my old mentor and visit my old non-profit.

My favorite doctors and dentists were busy at work last Tuesday, so I had the chance to drop in, observe a few cases, and deliver the good news. When I was still at this non-profit, I felt like I was always walking among giants - people who were brilliant, well-established in their current careers, and seem to have everything in order in life. The doctors and dentists I worked with came from big-name universities in undergrad and grad - Brown, MIT, Columbia, Yale, etc (one of them might have been a Harvard grad...but I can't remember). I felt so small and insignificant. That feeling probably won't go away, ever. There's always someone better and smarter.

 I stayed with my mentor and her husband, who live in a fairly nice part of town and own a gorgeous house. Their house makes a U shape and the courtyard overlooks a public grassy area with a little creek. It's currently frog-breeding season (apparently), so there are a bunch of little tadpoles swimming around the creek. I woke up every morning (armed with claritin) to see this:

My only regret is that I did not take pictures of the vineyards in the autumn. A lot of the vineyards in Sonoma County are grown in fields of rolling hills or in pockets of nearby mini-mountains that turn different shades of red, orange and yellow in the autumn. 

I visited two local wineries and picked up a bottle of 2011 Magnolia Lane Sauvignon Blanc by Kunde (fruity and refreshing) and received a bottle of 2010 Durrell Vineyard Pinot Noir by Chateau St. Jean as a gift. The bottle was $55 and boy, do I feel guilty. It was really delicious though. My mentor told me to share it with my med school friends, but it's so delicious I don't want to share. Well, we'll see what my friends are like when I get there. I'll share it with a good friend. The server at the Kunde Estate was awesome. He talked a little bit about his own experiences brewing beer, ciders and wine. I learned about the difference between using oak and steel barrels to age wine and about the acidity and alcohol content in white wines.

People always rave about Napa County wines, but I'm pretty happy with Sonoma County vineyards. The customer service and friendliness is much better, in my opinion.

My mentor and her husband are Italian, so they also had me try Fernet-Branca. The taste wasn't as fearsome as they made it out to be - surprisingly smooth with a hint of peppermint - but you could definitely feel the liquor going down.

Part of me wishes I stayed longer, but that's alright. I'm planning to go back in June. 

Mingle Down!

I made one too many poop jokes last month, and so karma dictated that I needed to suffer from a bad case of The Runs. That was rough. I was also feverish and no matter how much water I drank, I kept feeling thirsty. It was so bad that my skin was dry. I went to bed Sunday night feeling 'off.' When I woke up with a fever at 6am, I knew I wouldn't make it to work that day. I was still feeling off on Tuesday so I took that day off too. It's kinda random how it just hit me out of the blue on Sunday night, because I had just gone on a pretty rigorous hike that morning.

I didn't work on my secondaries at all on Monday or Tuesday. I would nap for 1-2 hour stretches and wake up with just enough energy to eat and move my legs a bit. I am working on my secondaries now. I submitted one yesterday and am working on the next one today.

So far, I've been turned down for one secondary and one interview. I feel like I should feel more down about it, but I got over it fairly quickly. Probably because I still have more secondaries to work on, and so I still have hope (I hope). I also think that I should be writing more at a faster rate.Some of these schools have a December 1 due date for secondaries, so I definitely need to finish those first. Ideally, I would finish all of my apps before that time.

I really worry about my timing, because I had chosen to delay my app for another month to retake my MCAT.

I've gotten to that point where I can start reusing some of my phrasing/sentences to answer essay prompts, which definitely helps speed things up a bit.

Right now, I'm fighting off a cold. My energy level has been fluctuating on account of my being sick last week and this week. This post is kind of scattered because I'm a little woozy from the night-time cold medicine kicking in.

Next update will be about work.

Good night!

California Academy of Sciences...and Ice Cream

Will preface this by saying thanks to Solitary Diner and Ah yes, plans and other non-blog-o-sphere friends for the input on my job situation. I have decided to leave, and am trying to hurry things along. There are just too many things to deal with that shouldn't even be problems, like, "Hey, I thought I submitted my direct deposit for the second time last month, why hasn't it kicked in yet?" Or, that one time I overslept and asked my coworker why he didn't call to remind an elderly, forgetful patient to come downstairs, he responded, "Why should I? It's not my fault you were late." If I knew he would be such an ungrateful prick, I wouldn't have covered for him all those 15+ times (not an exaggerated number) he missed work by leading exercise classes that should have been his responsibility.

Anyway. Oversleeping is bad mmmkay. Moving on...ice cream!!!

Friend of mine had her wisdom teeth extracted, so naturally I briefly crawled out of my hermit hole to laugh at her puffy cheeks to celebrate. We went to the Ice Cream Bar. They make their own ice cream and the soda is made right in front of you.

Brownie sundae with one scoop of bourbon and caramel  ice  cream and vanilla ice cream.

The Line

At what point does a person cross a line and think, "Alright, this job sucks. I'm miserable. I need to get out." Where is that line? It's all relative, of course, and should depend on the person in question.

A few months ago, I went through this really strong need to quit. I toughed it out because I had more pressing matters, like my MCATs and my personal statement. I'm entering Month #11 and have been battling that urge to just walk out. Forget the two-week notice, here's my 'fresh out of the printer' two-second notice. I also bore with it because someone told me, "As a medical student/resident/doctor, you're going to have to do things you do not like."

Sunday Brunch

Sunday brunch was not so great today. Mainly because I didn't get to choose the venue. =P
No, really though. I'm not sure whether it was the scrambled eggs or mimosas, but my tummy hasn't been happy all day. I really shouldn't be drinking cocktails with artificial fruit juice, anyway. Nothing good ever comes out of those kinds of mixed drinks. My stomach has turned into a fruit snob, in addition to a beer snob.

But it was good to see these friends again.  I got together with two sassy ladies from my undergraduate days.  It's nice to talk to people who are not necessarily on the medical track in life, but are equally driven to do whatever they want to do.  One of them is going to make that big move from California to New York City in one month.  I think she wanted a change in life, and will also prepare to apply to schools for her Master's in Business Administration.  The other friend is going to work her way towards law school, eventually.

One of the things we talked about was where to go for grad school.  For medical schools, I think my chosen schools are evenly distributed across *most* of the country. The caveat is that I have not applied to very many schools in the Midwest.  Many of those schools favor people who are local or residents of nearby states (which is fine), so it seemed like a waste to apply to those schools. Anyway, I have been pretty tight-lipped about which specific schools I picked...aside from the obvious California schools.  Usually I just tell people that most of my preferred schools are in California and on the east coast." I dunno why, I guess I'm just very private about these things.

Anytime I mention "east coast," someone always assumes I'm aiming to be in New York City and inevitably says:  "Oh, you'll fit in just fine in New York City."

"What? You too? Why?" (I finally asked why)

"Well, people in NYC are very blunt.  They are very 'to the point.'  And, they don't care what other people think about them because they have an 'I'm from New York, so whatever,' attitude." (I don't know how accurate that is...But this is what I'm told from people who have been/lived there)

"Soooo basically.......I'm an asshole."

"........Um.............Yes."

"Bwahahaha!"

So there you have it, I'm a jerk. :D

Just kidding, I'm not, really.  I did notice that my blunt-ness became more pronounced in college.  I think it may have come from working with anesthesiologists (researchers and practicing doctors) all day.  Something about their personalities just brought that out in me.  I've also become a lot more sarcastic.  Unfortunately, these types of personality traits are not always well-received in the working-world, so I only let those aspects out when I'm around people I know well.

Anyway, it was fun to see these people again.  I got stuck on one of my secondary essays and have not been particularly good at motivating myself to write this week for various reasons.  Will try to reboot myself once these crummy mimosas are out of my system.

Homeroom

Next stop, Homeroom macaroni and cheese restaurant! 90% of the menu is some variation of mac and cheese. The remaining 10% are sides, beverages and dessert. All pictures were stolen from user-posted pictures from the restaurant's www.yelp.com webpage, because my pictures aren't as good. The restaurant is in Oakland, CA. I rarely go there for food because San Francisco has plenty to eat and I have to pay toll, but I had to go there for an orientation and met up with friends who work in that city.

The restaurant's main decorative piece. The arrows show where certain things were brewed/grown.

Spicy mac and cheese. I don't remember what was in it exactly, and the online menu hasn't been updated. Mine had a lot more red pepper flakes though. I also asked for them to sprinkle bread crumbs on the surface. As far as I know, all of them are baked in the oven for a certain amount of time...so food does take a while to come out.

I also ordered the Veggie pot pie to go for whoever wants to eat it at home. I did take a bite out of it though. It was deeeelicious. 

I took this picture with my crappy phone. 

Another thing that I thought was cute was their "frequent diner cards." Some stores or restaurants have a card for frequent customers. Every time you eat there, they give you a stamp and after 10 or so visits, you get one free meal or free item. This restaurant bought those dewey-decimal card cabinets that school libraries use to keep track of their books. It's cool to see it again, but I never liked going through the cards. Actually, I hated school libraries in general. There were always boogers on the books. Or a squished bug. I always used my allowance to buy books because they would be booger-free.

This last item was a gift from a friend. He mentioned that there is a Pyramid brewery near his work place, and offered to buy me one of their specialty beer brews. I usually like the Pyramid brews I've tried so I said "hell yeah!!" I was expecting a pint-sized bottle or however much a wine bottle can carry. I wasn't expecting a whole jug. The best part was having everyone stare as I carried it out of the restaurant.

Angry Bird plushie for size comparison. 

I'm also excited by the fact that this jar looks reusable. Hooray for practicality! I had to pay for his dinner because he bought me a giant jug of beer.

I get really excited about beer in general. Not enough to be a snob about it, but close. I have a lot more fun going to breweries than wineries...even if I'm the designated driver. I've given up on wines. There have been a few wines that I have liked, but not enough to want to consume a full glass or buy a bottle. It may also be that most of my friends prefer red wines, and I've noticed that red wine tends to give me headaches. Then again, cocktails make me nauseous unless they are mixed with real fruit and fruit juice...not that syrup crap.

Okay, I admit it, I'm a food snob.

The total amount of nom-ery for one person, including a non-alcoholic beverage, is about $15-$18 after tax and tip. For the Bay Area (which includes San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and other places I don't care about-kidding!), it's a pretty good price. I can eat out for less without resorting to fast food. I still have to budget very carefully, otherwise it's easy to exceed $100 or even $150 on dining out each month. In general, I try not to dine out at restaurants where the meal exceeds $20, and I'm only willing to pay $40+ for a meal if it's a special dinner. There are also certain times of the year when I dine out a lot, and months when I never eat out.

If or when I make it into medical school, I definitely won't eat out as much. I gotta eat all these things now!!

The Last Summer (Maybe)

But before that, a picture of our baseball ball park with a rainbow. I haven't been to a game in a while.  This picture was from the days when each ticket was $1 off every time one of the pitchers, Tim Lincecum, struck 

out a hitter. 

Yesterday was my med-school-bound friend's birthday + going away party. It was also held in conjunction with her little brother's birthday party. It's not in this photo, but there were four cakes. One birthday cake for each person, a medical school cake, and a random cake-sized fruit tart just for funsies (!!). The medical school cake was a Napoleon cake and the round dome pictured is a Princess cake.

I don't know what it is with her mom, but she cannot or does not judge how much food to order for the number of people coming. Three cakes is really, really not necessary and four is just too much. It's not just the fact that some of it probably gets tossed, but also because my friend will make us play a horrible, horrible  game that involves making the loser eat food.  (I say "horrible" in a very tongue-in-cheek way because, you know, true hunger and starvation is genuinely terrible)  She always picks the food item that our group collectively did not like.  This year, it was the princess cake. The cake is way too sweet for me, even without the marzipan coat. We played a card game this year. Each person had to guess whether his/her card was higher or lower than everyone else's card, without knowing what his/her own card was.  The player has the opportunity to keep the original card or swap from the deck and hope for a higher one. The two people with the lowest cards have to eat cake.  I can proudly say that with two people colluding against me, I was the last man standing, winning by the narrow margin of cake icing and marzipan. She is a sadist. 

Ugh, my stomach hurts just thinking about cake. I don't want to eat cake for a long, long time. 

This might be the last summer where 90% of us were together in one group, because this sadist friend was kind of the common denominator for the girl-group and guy/nerd-group.  I'm not particularly sad about seeing people go. I think more along the lines of, "Hey, that's cool. You get to do something really cool and maybe fun."  Mostly, I hate that feeling of being left behind, doing not-fun and not-cool things.  It's a lame feeling, but I'm not the only one who thinks that way.  

As my friend puts it, "Who will we have wine-jug parties with now?!?! The two of us can't finish a whole jug of wine!!" 

Summers Past

Funny how we change over time, and how people drift apart. 

When my friends and I came back home from college to bum around, we used to get together a lot. 

The result one July 4th weekend was a lot of sangria that no one finished. I think we only made a dent in the middle bucket. This was the product of letting someone who does not know how to make sangria help make sangria.

Now we're all scattered. Some are away for grad school, while the rest of us work. My happy hour buddy is moving to Los Angeles for greener pastures and another friend is going to medical school in three days. 

I'm going to need another happy hour buddy. 

Things I (and My Friends) Wish I Knew or Did Earlier

1. That for the University of California system, picking any major is better than applying undeclared (that was from my friend).
2. That changing majors is ridiculously easy, which is not what everyone told us. I think my friends and I  fretted about it unnecessarily, only to discover it's really not a big deal in the first or second year.
3. The differences between SN1 and SN2 reactions in organic chem.
4. Studied abroad or 
5. Did PeaceCorps and go overseas to help peoplez, and because the other two out of three years after I graduated really feels like a waste of time, so I could have done something really awesome. 
6. (From my friend) Don't play baseball, football or tennis with Mingle because you'll get hurt in the worst possible places. Sorry Russ, it was an accident, I swear!  
7. To have demanded to see a sports medicine specialist earlier.
8. That I appreciated my research internship more.
9. That I practiced my ukulele more, because now I don't have time =[
10. Don't talk to any of the campus pre-health advisers at my school. They make you hate yourself. 
11. The pre-health peer advisers also tell you the dumbest things. One told a classmate that 'You should keep your course load (even though she was getting Cs), because schools would rather see that you're still able to cope with the workload despite bad grades.' Erm....I kiiinnnnda see the logic, but I'll believe it only if it comes out of the mouth of an Admissions Committee member. 
12. Don't seek out any of the peer advisers for classes/major counseling, because they don't give you any useful information. 
13. Find a major that doesn't have a 1-month wait list to meet a faculty adviser. 
14. That I went for the double major instead of the minor. I could have done it. 
15. That I made extra effort to take more classes with one of the Asian American Studies professors because he was freaking awesome, and awesome is hard to come by.

Hmm what else?

Holy Beer Batter Garlic Fries, Batman!

Beer batter fries are crispy, delicious golden morsels of goodness. I just wish it came with more garlic, so I could part the crowds of the Jazz Festival with a breathy "Hhhhhhhhhhhhhello there." Beer batter mushrooms are also good, which I've had on a separate occasion. All I need now is for someone to make beer batter sweet potato fries. Somebody make it so!!!

I also ate deep fried kool aid, which is basically a donut made with mixing Kool Aid "juice" powder into donut batter. Kool aid itself is icky because it's pure sugar with artificial fruit-flavoring and the blue and purple ones stain your teeth. But the donuts were good.

For the record, I don't regularly eat things that are fried.

The jazz fest was fun but I only walked through the streets to listen briefly to different bands play. Most of the bands were playing slow blues, while my friend and I were more in the mood for upbeat music. There was a lot of food at the festival, which I didn't eat.

I'm still working on my personal statement. I'm getting sick of it. If this was paper, I'd crumple it up and eat it in a fit of rage. There are a few people looking over my statement (thank you!) but it's still tough. I've also gone to the Student Doctor Network forums and asked one of the volunteer proof-readers to take a look. I may take that reader's advice with a grain of salt. I gave the recommendations a fair shot, but given the way I write, I think it just introduced a lot of redundancy. I like what I have now and feel that it best preserves the flow of my P.S given my writing style. That may change tomorrow.

At a certain point, very soon, I'm just going to abandon it in favor of submitting my app.

The other day, a friend asked me how I summoned the discipline to work constantly at my app/MCATs. I told her that her point of view is probably distorted, because we spend everyday comparing ourselves to other people. I think working part-time helps, as opposed to being a full-time student in her case, because I have extra hours in the day to live life. And by that, it means I go to the gym, take the bus home, and shower. I don't have to study for classes, or do homework, or write a thesis or anything like that. And occasionally make time on a weekend for jazz festivals. More importantly, I'm not where I want to be in life. For me, that's the biggest motivator of all.

I didn't say all those things to her though. Being the sucky friend I am, I just told her to "suck it up and do it" :P

Replacement Found!

We finally found our replacement.  I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted off my shoulders!  Now I can  return to my long to-do list without feeling this nagging anxiety that my agency will not have anyone to pick up where I left off.

It has been an interesting experience, to say the least.  At 24, I already felt a huge gap between me and the fresh graduates who turned down the offer with the phrase, "It's not a good fit for me."  Like me, many of them were able to spend their time volunteering and signing up for internships while living off their parents and thus, do not have a good grasp of Life yet.  The economic downturn that started before my graduation and this past year of making ends meet with my meager AmeriCorps paycheck has taught me never to turn down opportunity, especially if it coincides with the possibility of professional development.  Many of my co-workers, who are my age and understand the difficulties of making a living, echoed the same sentiments.  But I learned to acknowledge that some people have very specific goals for their health career that do not coincide with the job description and I realize that fresh graduates tend to have a lot of optimism that may or may not pay off later.  Maybe it's just my cynicism talking and I'm still feeling bitter about the anxiety my supervisor and I endured during the past two weeks.

I AM glad that my AmeriCorps position is going towards an individual who has worked hard to fund her own needs, from bills to her own education.  I'm also glad that because of her own background, she understands first hand the difficult lives of the people my agency serves.  Maybe it was meant to be.  Maybe she just needed someone to give her a chance so she can do something great that will amaze everyone.  I hope so.