news from the alma mater

We got an email with the announcement that President Diana Chapman Walsh will be resigning in 2007. Click here for the news release.

I am greatly disappointed and saddened to hear of her resignment. I know she will find this opportunity to take a break from it all and approach new projects with the same wonderful zeal that she led our much-loved College for so many years. Diana's cool. She's a superb leader-- an example for all Women. She's approachable and warm. She's someone that I admire and wish I could emulate in some small way... and for that, I'm grateful that I have such an exemplary role model. I can't help but to compare her to my current institution's Dean who is also a strong-minded Woman in a high-powered position but whom I viscerally disagree with on a lot of major issues and directions.

President Walsh will be very missed... and always remembered.

concert etiquette

You may have noticed that the font on my entries has changed... It's because for some reason, I can't find the font button anymore on blogspot! What happened to it? Weird...

Anyway. I'll be the first to tell you that I'm a big Classical Music Snob. This is because music has been a major part of my life for as long as I can remember. The facts, however, are that I started piano at age 7. When my parents took me to pick out our beautiful baby grand, they say that I "promised" them that I'll play forever. A couple years later, I also started the violin. My mom found us the best teachers in the City. We were with the Mori violin studio for a loong time and I took lessons from the late Robert Turner, most of whose students went on to Juilliard.

But it was really at the Mori studio during my most formative years that I got my main training. I wish I could explain what the Mori family studio was like... it seems almost crazy looking back now but we really were one big family. They had a huge house with lots of small rooms so they would have their students come over to their house on Saturdays and Sundays. It was like a mini-music camp, EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND. We would practice for 10 hours each day and we would take turns receiving lessons and instructions for the Moris. During the summer, we went there several times a week and when we didn't, we would practice at home for hours.

We were with them for what felt like a looong time; probably 5-6 years? and then we switched to Ms. Rose who changed my life. She taught me to be a well-balanced musician, unlike at the Mori studio where we were all brain-washed into thinking that Violin was Life and Life was Violin. Ms. Rose appreciated our academic endeavors and she encouraged outside interests. We started out a little frightened of her because there's this story going around in the "music world" that she made a boy cry who had come to audition for her... but she turned out to be gentle in her harshness. :)

So throughout all of this, we would go to these concerts and our teachers would take us backstage to meet the artists. I have autographs from all the famous violinists from Perlman to Zuckerman to Sarah Chang. I also played in an honors youth orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen on whom I had the BIGGEST crush ever. But then I met him and he was short and had this annoying voice.

I say all of this to say... my mom and I were at a Joshua Bell concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last week. These are my pet peeves:

1. Loud breathing... it's really annoying when someone near you breathes audibly. I know you can't really help it but please.

2. Clapping between movements. A few people even gave standing ovations to Joshua Bell after the first movement!!! Hello? The piece is not over and you're interrupting the flow. My memory may be a little distorted but I think Chicagoans do this a lot... The Angelinos don't! They know their etiquette!

3. Any sort of giggling or rustling of papers or crinkling of plastic. There were these kids in the next section over who were trying to muffle their laughter because someone's stomach growled. They should have been kicked out.

4. If it doesn't have lyrics, then it's not a SONG. It's a piece.

Book Review

Susan also brought me "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro, author of "The Remains of the Day" which apparently is his most famous. But I read "When We Were Orphans" a while ago and liked it but didn't love it.

"Never Let Me Go" is crazy. On the back, it says that it's about an "exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside." I immediately thought "oh, maybe it's going to be kinda like Marlborough" (my HS). If that website link doesn't seem exclusive, bordering on cultish scariness, I don't know what it is. (Actually I liked my 6 years there but wait there's more...) The summary on the back also went on to say "It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules- and teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were."

So I started reading, thinking it was going to be all reminiscent... and was totally wrong. It starts out incredibly weird and you can't figure out what's going on and what is UP with this school and these students... I've never been so captivated and so in the dark about the book's main premise before... Ishiguro does a really good job. Slowly, you find out what the book's about and let me tell you, it's wild. Very futuristic, foreboding, and scary science fiction-y. I highly recommend it!!

Now I'm reading "March" which won the Pulitzer! (also courtesy of Susan)

a new vice

Flamin Hot Cheetos is now so last year. I am in love with Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie. I discovered it a few weeks ago at an actual Ben and Jerry's store and then when I went to the Coop to get more, they only had Mint Chocolate Chip, which is gross. I love the oreo cookie part. mmmm. This is my new favorite calorie-laden badness. Anyone who tries to say that any other ice cream flavor is superior, is just plain wrong. :)

It's been a rough day

So lately, I've been working in the adult ER. My final 2 weeks of medical school. It's an interesting rotation which I am mostly enjoying but sometimes I can't stand the "down-time." It's not that our ER isn't busy enough but that it's so inefficient that we can't get patients out fast enough to see the million other patients who have been waiting for 20 hours. It also doesn't help when our hospital goes on by-pass because there are literally no available inpatient beds for the patients who are determined to be sick enough to be admitted.

Anyway. Today was my second shift and it was a tolerably active morning. I had a woman with right-sided chest pain and shortness of breath, ruling out of a pulmonary embolism. I had a young girl on her 4th pregnancy with vaginal bleeding. I had another woman who was generally hurting "everywhere" and we decided it was psychological rather than a life-threatening emergency.

Then the call came in. a pediatric trauma case because we're a Level 1 Trauma center for peds. It was a young kid who was hit by a car while riding his bike. The paramedics found him unresponsive, with no heart beat and not breathing. Their estimated time of arrival was 10 mins. About 20 doctors and nurses gathered in the special trauma room and began putting equipment and supplies together to receive this young patient. You could feel the adrenaline as you watched them working quickly, quietly, and thoroughly. Imagining how much the kid weighed, what interventions would be needed first, how much medications he would need, etc. 10 minutes passed quickly and EMS still hadn't arrived... Almost 20 minutes later, they finally came and the kid still had no pulse. Immediately everyone started working on him simultaneously. Putting in chest tubes on both sides to help the lungs inflate, finding IV access, securing the airway, and all the while doing manual chest compressions. What started out as an almost-exhilarating process, watching the hopeful doctors working hard to resuscitate this little kid, soon became a nightmare as they couldn't get a pulse back. Almost 30 minutes passed before they gave up. It was tragic.

It was my first witnessed patient death. and it was also my first pediatric death. (Though I've seen some pretty horrible things in the PICU). I thought about all the hard work that the doctors put in, trying to save this little boy. I thought about the driver who ran him over and drove away. I thought about the brother who witnessed the entire accident. I thought about the parents who were waiting outside in the lobby. I thought about how fragile life can be that this young boy's life was taken away so quickly and so abruptly.

It was painful for me to watch everyone cleaning up and moving on with the Day. After all, there were other patients who needed us more now. But it hardly seemed like anyone took any time out to think about what had just happened. Maybe it's not possible to do that every time, day after day.

I thought about the miracle of Life, again, and how lucky I am to be alive and well with my friends and family. It's going to be a hard road ahead for me as a future pediatrician, especially if I decide to pursue a subspecialty. But I really believe that this is my Calling and this is what I am meant to be doing with my Life.

May he rest in peace and may God be with his family.

It says I'm liberal

I think of myself as being liberal; I'm registered as a Democrat; but it's true that I hold some conservative views such as the death penalty. I know! It's shocking. But I vow to never become an awful Republican. No matter how rich I plan on getting. j/k (about the getting rich part)

Your Political Profile

Overall: 20% Conservative, 80% Liberal

Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

the bad and the good

I've had a full and rewarding weekend. But I have to start out with a funny story first.
I took the bus from the airport last weekend, back to my apartment. When I told my mom I was doing this, she freaked out and was like "isn't that a ghetto neighborhood? why don't you just take a taxi?" But it's $2 versus $25! So then she goes "ok, sit right next to the bus driver and be careful!!!" I get onto the bus, and the bus driver is this young guy who has no shame in looking me up and down and saying "Ooh, you're my future wife!" I was so stunned, I didn't even know what to say so I said "I don't think so..." and tried to feed my money into the lil machine as fast as I could. He goes "Why not?" and since I can't explain that to him if he has to ask, I said "Thanks..........." and walked away to the far far back end of the bus. ha.

Friday night, we had a double date:
Here are the boys looking silly. Dan made an AMAZING rack of lamb. It was perfectly cooked and tender. It was accompanied by chards with grapes and almonds, and potato puree. Dessert was the best bananas foster I've ever had. Again, melt-in-your-mouth perfect. I think this may have been Dan's best meal yet! and I feel very lucky that he shares his passion for food with us. It was a lovely evening, catching up and getting to know Meg.

On Saturday, the weather was beautiful and so we decided to walk to downtown... It was about 6 miles of breathtaking lakefront views and even though downtown looks far in this picture, we passed the time quickly. Two and half hours later, we were downtown and ravenous. :) We had brunch at the Artists' Cafe. A bit over-priced but good-tasting. We took the bus back, by the way...! In the evening, we had a triple date! Yes, I know, lots of socializing but with graduation approaching and all, I'm dreading having to say goodbye to anyone.

Today, however, it's been pouring and we're under severe tornado watch. I don't even know what a tornado is, to be honest. I'm from California. We don't have those. After getting lost a few times along the way, I made it to Joy's mom's brush painting exhibit which was impressive. Notice how we're all wearing skirts. That's us, not letting the weather get us down! :)

Let the weddings begin...

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting an exciting corner of the world, known as Little Rock, Arkansas. :) I went for Pip's wedding, my first close friend to get married! I have three more weddings to attend this year.

Here's Mats and Pip. I almost cried when I saw Pip in her wedding dress. She's every bit as beautiful on the inside as she looks in this picture. I have so much respect, admiration, and love for her. I think the World of her and wish happiness for both of them.

It was fun to see Pip and Quyen again, both of whom I haven't seen since graduation. It's easy to get sentimental when you're around other Wellesley women. :) There's this overwhelming pride and bond that exists between us, "women who will." Speaking of which, my sister found this link for me. It's a PBS program on the Class of '69 (Hillary's class) and does a wonderful job of depicting our college in the 1950s and the 1960s. Think "Mona Lisa Smile" transitioning into Modern Day. I don't mean to sound arrogant when I say this but I think I have a different perspective on Life and Feminism and Women's Role in History because I went to a special school.

Anyway, CONGRATULATIONS to my dear friend Pip on her wedding.

busy at work and play

This weekend, my bestest friend from high school came to visit me, all the way from the lovely town of Hartford, CT. I love her because she has a guinea pig named Bobo. And she's apparently obsessed with dinosaurs and dinosaur pop-up books.
This is us at the Field Museum. The only other time I've been there is to see Jackie O's dresses, so this was the first time I actually got to meet Sue, the most complete t-rex in the world. She's pretty awesome.

Of course there was the obligatory stop at the giftshop. I have no clue what these glasses are supposed to be but we like being silly. The rest of the weekend was spent shopping, eating, seeing "Urinetown: The Musical" and convincing Susan that no, not all tapas places have to be as traumatic as the one in Spain that time, so many years ago. We didn't know what to order and so we just pointed at something on the menu and to our horror, the guy shaved pieces of a gigantic unidentifiable chunk of meat hanging from the wall and handed us the plate. I thought he was trying to poison us. This was 5 years ago, mind you, when the "mad cow" scare was still going on in Europe. But we had a great meal at Cafe Ba-ba-reeba and hopefully I succeeded in erasing all horrible memories of that real-life Spanish tapas place.

Now that the weekend is over, I've started my peds neuro rotation and it's slowly sucking away at my Life. No, just kidding. I like it and it's scary to say this but, I do like seeing patients again, but I'm a 4th year, and I can't handle being kept hostage until 8pm. I shouldn't be wasting my time "hanging out" at the hospital, like a 3rd yr all over again. I'm not being graded. Who cares? What are they going to do to me? Fail me? Keep me from graduating? ha.

Anyway, so it's been relatively busy. Not that that stops me from enjoying my evenings during the week. My girlfriends and I had a great three-course meal at Thyme Cafe. As Armand pointed out, I don't know if that's such a great deal or not but it felt like it and I really enjoyed my artichoke soup, steak strips with potatoes, and apple cherry tart. Actually, I wasn't crazy about my dessert but everything else was excellent. Maybe next time, I'll get over my moral hesitation and try the rabbit.