Once Under the Fish and the Salsa in Wisconsin

Hi all! Now that I've finished the first couple of years of medical school at Duke (which were a lot of fun but far too many stories to post here; feel free to call or e-mail to catch up if/when you're in the mood!) and took the USMLE Step 1 (first medical licensing test). I'm now off to Oxford, followed by NIH, for a little while to do a DPhil (Oxford PhD) in engineering, looking at 3-d ultrasound and MRI imaging of the heart. After all that, I'll head back to Duke for the last year of medical school.

Anyway, as I hope to have fun pictures and stories to share at Oxford, I've made a little Wordpress site to gather them. Hope you enjoy it, and maybe I'll even see some of you in England!

Ha. So when is the last time I've posted here? Long, long ago, I think, and a good deal has happened since then. So much that I'm not going to be able to recount it all. I graduated from Penn State last week, and senior year was a bit of a whirlwind for a lot of reasons. The beginning of the year was a ton of classes and MD/PhD applications and interviews and the like, and the end was a ton of interviews and re-visits and thesis-writing and an absolutely amazing girlfriend and friends. The year was filled with wonderful adventures of should-have-been-working-on-thesis-or-math and other unforgettable times with friends.

Graduation was bittersweet; my family got to meet lots of people who mean a lot to me, including professors and advisers and the like, and all said good things. Next year I will be going to Duke University Medical School and Oxford University through the NIH Graduate Partnership Program. (Basically, 2 years at Duke, 2 years at Oxford, 2 years at NIH, and 1 year at Duke, at the end of which I'm a Duke MD and an Oxford DPhil.) So that should be pretty cool. Sadly, the awesome girlfriend and I are going in different directions, so for those of you who don't know, we're broken up now (and on the best possible terms, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it).

To people at PSU, or people I knew from PSU or the surrounding areas, I will miss you all very much, I will try to visit, and please try to keep in touch. If you need advice navigating PSU, med-type things, or life in general, or just want to say hi, my gmail address should work forever. This summer I will be mostly in the DC area, but "this summer" ends in early August for me.

In my continuing quest for certifications and the like, my pilot license was delayed by a few conflicts of interest between the plane I train in and the ground, but that should be back on schedule soon, and hopefully I will be a private pilot by the end of the summer. I am an Advanced Scuba Diver, Scuba Rescue Diver, Nitrox Diver, Scuba Training Assistant, and Dry Suit Diver. (NAUI, of course.) And I am a NREMT-B with ACLS, PALS, NRP, and WEMT.

This may seem strangely like a previous entry.

Hey all, so the summer is going swimmingly, and maybe at some point I'll actually update on that. (Short update: I've at least submitted AMCAS at this point :-P) This is just a quick announcement that I'll be teaching a CPR for the Professional Rescuer (this is a Red Cross class equivalent and recognized as BLS for the Healthcare Provider by the AHA) on Saturday September 22 (no home football game) at the State College Red Cross office in suite 203, Glenland building (corner of Beaver and Pugh). I know a few of you have asked about classes like this. This class will include adult/child/infant CPR, oxygen administration and bag-valve-mask ventilation, two-rescuer CPR, stroke recognition, etc etc. Cost is $65 and includes pocket mask, books, and about 6 hours of my oh-so-wonderful instruction. I may be able to arrange some kind of being-my-friend discount if you need it, since the Red Cross likes me these days. (Just for the record, I teach as a volunteer.)

The class will start around 8:30 in the morning on June 16; if you are interested in taking it or have any friends who would be, just let me know and I'll get you set to sign up.

Cheers to all, and hopefully I'll actually post an update at some point :-P

Hey all, so the summer is going swimmingly, and maybe at some point I'll actually update on that. This is just a quick announcement that I'll be teaching a CPR for the Professional Rescuer (this is a Red Cross class equivalent and recognized as BLS for the Healthcare Provider by the AHA) this coming Saturday at the Red Cross in State College on Pugh Street. I know a few of you have asked about classes like this. This class will include adult/child/infant CPR, oxygen administration and bag-valve-mask ventilation, two-rescuer CPR, stroke recognition, etc etc. Cost is $65 and includes pocket mask, books, and about 6 hours of my oh-so-wonderful instruction. I may be able to arrange some kind of being-my-friend discount if you need it, since the Red Cross likes me these days. (Just for the record, I teach as a volunteer.)

The class will start around 8:30 in the morning on June 16; if you are interested in taking it or have any friends who would be, just let me know and I'll get you set to sign up.

Cheers to all, and hopefully I'll actually post an update at some point :-P

Ladies and gentlemen, I have often asked myself, what is the best short expression or explanation of love that exists. I won't limit myself to any particular subset of love in this question, but I will limit myself to a strict definition of "short." Which is that it has to be pretty short. (On the order of a few lines from a song, though it doesn't have to be song lyrics.) Here are some of my nominations. Some of them are silly; some of them may not be great songs or even great lines, but they're at least all kinda cute, and that counts for something. I expect votes and/or further nominations from y'all.

( Nominations )

So it's spring break. I always have a bit of an odd time writing these posts, because I'm not quite sure just how emotive to be. Ah well; how about a summary of events.

Friday 2 Mar: State Patrick's Day; was on the ambulance, was able to attend Shamrockappella in its entirety, then got very little sleep that night. I enjoyed most of the concert, though the Penns have a tendency to run very long shows. Was never a huge fan of Savoir Faire, and that didn't really change that night, but the other groups were wonderful.

That Sunday was the Nickelback concert, which was lots of fun. Finally figured out how to get back up to the first aid room to claim coats. The opening bands, while well-known, were long and repetitive for my taste; Nickelback themselves I enjoyed quite a bit.

This past Saturday night (the 10th) was my sister's Tres Bien ball thing. Imagine a debutante ball but with 90 girls (her graduating HS class). Parts were long and graduate-y (namely, the part where each girl walked forward, escorted by her father, and curtsied to the people handing out the little medal things. But parts were lots of fun, like the dancing with the amazing guy-to-girl ratio :-P I'm proud of my sister. She's going to Emory next year, and I daresay she might even be ready. And she's stayed really classy at a time when that can be hard to do.

Sunday, I helped my dad clean out his office, because he's moving to another room. And he was going through old medical books, offering me some, and reminiscing over others, and throwing others away. It was awe-inspiring, seeing a lifetime of books there, most marked up, most beyond what you would have to study in med school or residency or even fellowship. The thought of trying to learn that much is a little bit beyond me right now. ::sigh:: Hopefully I'll get there. I got a few pretty good books out of the job :-)

Also got a USUHS coin, that says (on the reverse side): "First our patients, then, our peers and subordinates, finally, ourselves." A bit in conflict with EMS doctrine, which is "First, yourself, then your partner, then your patient, then everybody else." Ah well; I've always kind of wondered about that. I think I'd put partners as more important than the patient, because if your partner goes down, who will help you with the next patient? As far as self . . . who knows. Maybe along the same lines as patient? Or partner? Or something? Ai-ya.

Today I visited my high school, which was fun as always. Saw a few teachers I hadn't seen in a while; missed seeing a few too. And then in Mr. Walstein's multivariable calc class, gave a 45-minute comedy routine focusing around college, EMS, and high school life. To which Mr. Walstein (as class was ending) said, "so you all know what he should really do." To which the class replied, "comedy." Ai-ya.

Sleep well, all.

Hi all, THON was a success; raised a huge amount of money, the people I know in it seem to have had a great time, etc. Pictures below.
( Pictures )

So yes; for those who have me on your friends list, you know I generally try to update once a month or so. And looking back, my last update was December, so I didn't even do a beginning-of-the semester post, really. I'll give the short version of life, because news is always easier absorbed in sound bites.

( Winter break )
( Semester )
( Life )

So yes, as I'm trying to cram two months or so into one post, I did leave a good deal out; feel free to ask for details if you'd like them. Wish me luck in my weekend nocturnal lifestyle; I'll try to get back to my oh-so-frequent once-a-month update cycle :-P

Also, if you haven't yet discovered them, the following webcomics bring me joy: xkcd, Dr. McNinja, questionable content, sometimes dinosaur comics, generally ctrl+alt+del.

So enough amusing things happened between Thursday and now that I'll give a brief rundown:

-> Thursday night, wilderness EMT oral final exam. Dr. Logan comes in and says something along the lines of: "So I was making up the way this exam is going to work. I spent hours arranging a matrix of who's going to quiz whom, and room layouts to show how people will rotate, and all of that. We were going to do scenarios, where you look over them and answer some questions. But then I realized, this is kind of pointless. You're basically just moving around playing the guess-what-I'm-thinking game. So yeah, how about I just read through some scenarios, we'll talk about them, and I'll give you all the points." The class applauded, and that's what happened.

-> I didn't really sleep Thursday night, because we had a homework party in my room and then my roommate was studying after that, and I'm weirdly sometimes not good at sleeping with any light. But whatever, I probably got a couple of hours?

-> Friday was a busy day. I woke up early for donuts with the dean (a monthly honors college event thing), then went to a couple of classes, then had lunch, then met with Dr. Cunning and found out that I'm nominated for Goldwater by Penn State. Woo.

-> I stopped by the honors college office for a couple of reasons, and wound up being co-opted into hole punching and stapling to get the huge honors diversity report in to old main on time. Woo.

-> I went to EMT a wrestling match, which was more interesting than I thought wrestling would be. It was fun, and PSU won. Anyway, around 9:00 PM I walked back to Ritenour to drop off my duty shirt, finish paperwork, and leave. When I got there, I said hi to the people on the night shift, and Nina, who is altogether and awesome person, was pale and unhappy looking. She said she had an infection and just started antibiotics that weren't agreeing with her (nausea, etc.). So I let her go home and sleep and I took the rest of the night's shift. It was awesome, because I got to work with Julie, who is awesome and I only get to see occasionally (regardless of the fact that now that she's graduated she's becoming a cop in my home town).

-> Didn't get any sleep on Friday night, because we had perfectly spaced calls all night. All alcohol-related. I stuck around and had breakfast with the oncoming day crew.

-> Saturday morning, I went FLYING! AMAZING! On very little sleep (I wound up sleeping an hour or so after breakfast before flying, so from 9-10 AM or so) I hitched a ride to the airport on the ambulance, and took a 45-minute ride or so with Brad, the guy who's going to be my flight instructor. He's a great guy (approves of my being a physics major and is a Mac guy), and let me fly quite a bit (basically everything between takeoff and landing) which was tons of fun. The plane is a Grumman AA1B, and the instructor said, "This is really really responsive. Some people say that it's dangerous etc etc, but the truth is, if you learn to fly in this, you can fly anything." So yeah. Amazing. I'm taking ground school next semester, and flying a little next semester slash over the summer.

-> I got home from the flight, ate dinner with that day's ambulance crew (completely randomly, because as I was walking home, the ambulance drove by going to lunch, and I jumped in). Then I napped until dinner with friends (good Korean food to say farewell to those studying abroad next semester). Then last night, a brief stint at a Hanukkah party was fun, and then lots of sleeping.

-> Today, some studying, the usual.

Exam schedule: Monday, theoretical mechanics; Tuesday, probability; Wednesday, electricity and magnetism. Home on Thursday night, hanging out with people after that. To Costa Rica (for Biol 499A: Tropical field ecology) on Dec 27, back on Jan 11, and back to school on Jan 14 or 15.

Phew. The LJ post for December is thusly made.

Ladies and gentlemen, happy Thanksgiving. Today I am most thankful for all of you. I have wonderful friends, who give me compelling reasons to live, and I wish a lot of times I could do more for you.

Yesterday I visited my high school, which was nice, and then saw Stranger than Fiction with Brittany & co. I have to admit, Stranger than Fiction was a lot better than I thought it would be; it wasn't Will Ferrell standard material at all. In fact, it's probably exactly what I needed to see in the bizarre state of mind I was in yesterday. That plus driving in the rain and the dark, plus some sleep did me a bit of good.

If I can make it through the rest of this semester with some degree of success, I feel like things will be a lot different next semester. If I make it through next semester, I feel like things will be a lot different next year. And I don't mean "different" like "oh my gosh I can't wait it'll be better," I more mean that it's hard to convince myself to get into too much of a rhythm now when life will be changing so much so soon. Ah well, as I said, I have amazing friends who are good to me.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

( My current music )