thanksgiving was short, but necessary. my favorite part was tied between: family raffle of miscellaneous gifts/knickknacks/goodies and hanging with lara/rita/kerri in barnes and noble and then subsequently stuffing our faces with mexican food.
while browsing b&n, i looked at a lot of dalai lama books. when i was in dharamsala, i read most of “the universe in a single atom” which was fantastic, but i wondered whether i should read one of this self-help books. it seems silly to me that i would be able to read a book and really change myself, but i suppose anything is possible. however, i think it’s not sufficient to just read the book to be changed— you have to really get into it and apply whatever he’s telling you to do, which is hard! how am i supposed to be good at meditating when im learning it from a book? i’m sure it’s not as easy as it sounds. nevertheless, i should give it a try. maybe christmas then.
ugh, just caught up on the biochem lectures and its 2:19am. it’s so cold that a good part of me doesnt want to leave annenberg. (what’s the point? i’ll just end up here again tomorrow anyway.) i need to wake up early and go grocery shopping or else i will starve this week. now i know how the grasshopper felt, except i have no ant to save my sorry, wintry, hungry ass. gah!
1 day ago |
even though every day of first year is pretty different from the next, the amazing part is that it’s remained about the same for every first year student that’s ever gone here. the profs are nearly all the same, the lectures are nearly all the same, the tests are similar, the experiences are pretty much identical for every student. it’s almost like every day is a milestone that the first years are going through and the older students can recall these moments with incredible clarity. it’s pretty comforting, actually.
i feel extremely lucky to be going to school here, where i think that i am getting a very comprehensive and wonderful education in an environment that doesn’t try to antagonize the students. for the most part, i feel that we are taken pretty seriously and treated with the right amount of patience, respect, reprimanding, etc. that suits our stage in development.
i’ve been putting off studying for a big long while now. hopefully, i will be a glycolysing/gluconeogenizing/fattyacid synthesizing/pentosephosphatepathwaymaking genius when you hear from me again.
1 week ago |
dear daul kim.
you were the bestest model ever. you were a freaking genius with clothes and photos. you had awesome taste in everything. you were artistic and hot. you had fantastic command of the english language, and i loved reading your blog.
im sorry you couldn’t stick around longer. i will miss your fantastic photos and insightful musings.
your fan,
—dodo
1 week ago |
woke up at noon and ran with mary.
tried on vibram five finger barefoot running shoes and liked them enough to decide to buy a pair later on. street pretzel.
studied in jack’s coffee shop in… where were we? extra good coffee. extra good cherry almond scone.
ate indian food in the same neighborhood. paid way too much for salmon.
schlepped home by public transit even though it was messed up.
home. chatted with roomie. shushed by other roomie.
room. should be doing clinical epidemiology hw, but i have a headache that coffee cannot fix. want to squish hands into my temples.
2 weeks ago |
one question i often ponder on my daily runs is whether i would be friends with myself if i could be introduced as an outside person. the disturbing answer to that question is that i am afraid i would probably find myself strange and annoying and obnoxious and perhaps, not that friend-worthy! there are traits about myself that i would rather change, and when i see that these things have negative effects on the people around me, it gnaws at me. i am plagued by this constantly; i dont ever want to alienate people or make people angry or bothered by my personality. this links into my transition into being a professional, but ultimately it also goes beyond this facet as well.
in conclusion, i love and am grateful for my friends and family for sticking by me through my flaws and shortcomings. they are doing something that i can’t be sure i can do for myself and they continue to support me as i try to work on these aspects of myself.
3 weeks ago |
but thinking about choosing a specialty is both exciting and stressful. it’s like trying to choose a garment that you will be happy making and wearing for the rest of your life. it will identify you, shield you, and if you do a good job in constructing it, it will serve you well for a lifetime. of course, there are pros and cons to every entity, but one has to anticipate being able to deal with the cons and enjoy the pros much more than in any other situation.
currently, i feel that i wear three hats. the first is global health: easy to explain because of the watson and because i want very much for my work in medicine to go beyond a local sphere. i also feel that it’s possible to make a more lasting impact in some countries abroad who really need health care. the second hat is research: my secret love affair with the lab hasn’t really gone anywhere since summer of 2007. i still think that im inclined to do lab work, since i enjoy it so much, but i also feel that there is a reason why i always chose to pursue medical school over a phd program. the last hat is surgery (or plastic surgery to be more precise): it is a hat i’ve never really worn at all. ive observed cleft palate surgeries at CHLA before and i still think that those have been the most captivating types of procedures for me. there is a component from art, from medicine, from mechanics and ultimately, intuition. of course it’s ridiculously hard to get into these training programs, but a first year medical student can dream.
ideal path: research in craniofacial defects in developmental biology, then transition to plastic surgery for cleft palates, and then travel to other countries to do cleft palate surgeries. (too specific, i know. im sure something will throw a wrench in the gears soon.)
alternate path: research in heart defects in developmental biology, then transition to cardiothoracic surgery, then travel to other countries to do heart surgeries on congenital heart defects.
alternate path: radiation oncology. (another specialty i liked, but know nothing about.)
alternate path: work in public radio.
alternate path: chef.
1 month ago |
