It’s been months and months, I know. I’ve been flying.
Literally. Since I quit my job in early April (bye!) I’ve thrown myself into training for a private pilot’s license. It’s challenging, fun, and exciting. In other words, it’s the best thing I can think of doing before matriculating to a medical school this summer. Continue reading
Today, March 9, 2013, is officially Beat Duke Day. For those of you unfamiliar with the greatest rivalry in college sports (and to some people, the greatest rivalry in all sports), tomorrow night my beloved Tar Heels take on the darker, more evil shade of blue from the University of New Jersey at Durham – better known as Duke University.
Yes, it may be a game of basketball where grown men and women cheer wildly as overgrown 19-year-olds bounce an orange ball and run back and forth for two hours. Or, as I would argue, you can see it as a fundamental battle between the light… and darkness. Continue reading
Two weeks ago, I tore my hamstring. I’ve been trying to think of creative ways to explain how it happened: defending a sobbing infant from a rampaging bear, freak freeclimbing accident, landing a base jump. But the truth is, I injured myself playing recreational, co-ed, two-hand-touch football – during the first game of the season.
I need something to do.
As I mentioned in my last post, Interview Season is Over, many of us med school applicants are now in the Great Waiting Period, otherwise known as application purgatory. (This is different than Secondary Hell, yet precedes Acceptance Heaven; we like biblical analogies in premed, since we will soon become evolutionists worshiping at the throne of evidence-based medicine.) Continue reading
After spending the better part of a month flying to and from medical school interviews, I have one overriding question: Why does flying suck so much?
Flying used to be fun. A trip flying the friendly skies was an event where the airport was an exciting place, you complimented the pilot on a good landing and the flight attendants smiled and said “sure!” when you asked for the entire can of Sprite.
When did that vision die? When did airlines become cattle car operators with a dull coat of paint, and when exactly did we allow our fear to scare us so badly it’s recommended we arrive at the airport two hours early to sit through Security Theater? Continue reading
I complained for the duration of my entire postbac program about physics.
Why do premeds have to take a year of physics plus the associated labs? What possible relevance does shooting metal balls out of a rubber band launcher, and tracking how far they fly, have for medicine? Why is my professor such a disinterested teacher? Why do I have to sit through an hour of tutorial a week?
This morning, all my questions were answered. I, with the help of the electronic circuits unit from second semester physics, successfully performed surgery.
Am I a doctor? No. Am I in medical school? No. But I, surgical instruments in hand, spent my early Sunday morning removing a tumor from a patient – an unsightly but benign tumor that was causing significant distress to the patient’s family members.
I am of course talking about the buzzer on my dryer. Continue reading
I’m a morning workout person. I like the early hours of the day; it’s quiet, there’s no traffic, and no one wants to talk to me. I go to the gym before work because it’s almost empty. More importantly, the gym is running a promotion with my company where everyone gets a free 8-week membership. So going after work would be like visiting a meat locker of coworkers. Not my favorite idea. Continue reading
My titles are nothing if not dramatic.
When we left off, Ellen and I were taking a minibus ride to Bangkok. It was a frustrating trip because we stopped at a gas station nearly every hour, which meant I bought a lot of unpronounceable Thai snacks. Some were tasty; some tasted like burnt wood.
Now, because I am clearly a charming little tourist (and humble) I made friends with the couple sitting next to me. Ellen was not sitting to me; she had done what she always does on motorized transportation and passed out in the back. It’s a pretty amazing skill, actually. Anyway, the pair next to me were Dutch travelers who spoke excellent English. I mention this interaction because it scored us a dinner date once we arrived in Bangkok. After wading our way through a veritable army of pushy taxi drivers, we walked about twenty minutes toward the backpacker district of Khao San before stopping for dinner. Continue reading
Long title, I know. Sorry, not sorry.
When we left off, Ellen and I had just reached Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. We disembarked from the boat and were immediately met with a swarm of drivers. In Cambodia, the predominant form of tourist transport is a tuk-tuk, which roughly translates to “extremely annoying driver of a box attached to a motorbike. Tuk Tuk drivers are, to put it mildly, everywhere and insanely irritating. No matter where you are or where you go, there’s sure to be a gang of tuk tuk drivers hanging out outside, just waiting to pounce on you as you exit. (“Tuk tuk? You need tuk tuk ride?” NO I HAVE TWO LEGS, LEAVE ME ALONE.) One of the highlights of this trip has been the relative non-pushiness of the people in the tourism business here; tuk tuk drivers were the notable exception.
(“Tuk-tuk?” I JUST GOT OUT OF ONE YOU MORON.) Continue reading
This story begins with a man named Mr. Triet, a travel agent who met Ellen and I upon our arrival to a hostel in the Mekong Delta town of Can Tho. We had bussed to the area because of its famous floating markets; every morning, a gaggle of boats congregate at places along the Mekong River to basically trade wares.
We took motorbikes from the bus station to the hostel – a somewhat harrowing and exhilarating experience when you also have a backpack to carry – and were checked in by Mr. Triet, who we thought managed the hotel (he didn’t. Oops). After waving off the usual hard sell of a tour of the floating markets the following morning, we set out to explore Can Tho and promptly got tremendously lost, making a wrong turn literally out of the driveway of our hostel. Continue reading
crashing resident 