Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match!

Hello!

Match week 2019 is finally upon us. After 4 long years filled with endless amounts of studying, a ridiculous number of exams, clinical rotations, and residency interviews, I'm proud to say that I will officially become an OB-Gyn!

Becoming a doctor has been a dream of mine since I was 4 years old (yes, really). Medical school has definitely been difficult, but I never truly doubted my ability to actually achieve this dream until I started to apply for residencies this past fall. My friends will tell you that I'm crazy for making that statement, but let me explain myself. I consider myself an average applicant for the field of OB-Gyn. My step 1 score is right on average for past OB-Gyn applicants. I made Honors and High Passes in almost all my courses but was not high achieving enough to qualify for AOA*. I had a good number of volunteer experiences and a handful of leadership experiences. I participated in research but was never able to publish anything. Overall, I felt I checked all the boxes and had many meaningful experiences that I could talk about on the interview trail. Now, you may be thinking, "You're definitely crazy! All of that sounds amazing!" The reasons why I continue to insist I'm an average applicant are because my step 1 score is average and the field of OB-Gyn is becoming more and more competitive. Theoretically, I interviewed and ranked enough programs, but you can just never be sure especially after having met so many amazing applicants who were interviewing at top-notch programs on the interview trail. Regardless, by the grace of God, I have matched to an OB-Gyn residency position!

I'll find out where I will be training on Match Day on Friday, March 15th. Keep a look out for that announcement. I also still plan on writing more blog posts about my residency application and interview experience. I've been holding off because it didn't feel right to give you all my perspective and advice without knowing if it actually worked for me!

To any fellow MS4s reading this: congrats if you've matched as well! If not and you're currently going through SOAP, just remember that this experience doesn't define you. You are an amazing and successful individual who has reached an education level that only 1% of the world's population have also achieved. There is a reason for everything and just trust that there is a reason for your current struggles, a plan for your life, and many people who love you.

Much love and talk to you all again soon!


*Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) is a national medical school honor society. Members are the highest achieving students in their respective medical school classes and chosen based on basic science and clerkship grades.

I'm Back?

Alright, it's obvious, I suck at keeping this blog up to date. I've always loved the cathartic nature of reflecting on one's life through a blog or journal yet never seem to be great at keeping up with such self-reflection tools for longer than a few weeks. My growing collection of store bought, DIY-ed, and digital means for journaling perfectly represents my struggle. Regardless, here I am with thoughts of nostalgia and self-reflection crawling back to my digital journal that will forever be waiting and saved as a collection of 1's and 0's on the interwebs. Looking back at my scarce collection of published and saved but never published blog posts, I've noticed a trend for when I return to this blog: I tend to return either just before or immediately after a big change in my life. Today is no different. The last post published on this blog lists the things I've learned about myself and medical school at the end of my first year of medical school. Since then, I've continued with my medical education and have accomplished and passed many milestones like taking Step 1 at the end of my second year, starting clerkships and getting to know some amazing patients and medical professionals during my third year, and finally applying for and interviewing for jobs as a fourth year. This is the part of my life from where I write to you all now. I'm nearing the end of my OB-Gyn residency interview trail and have to turn in my rank list of programs in 2 months. After that, my future lies in the hands of an algorithm and, more importantly, God.

I had a lot of initial thoughts of what I wanted this post to be about: advice about residency applications, advice about residency interviews, and/or reflections about my journey applying to residency. I will hopefully eventually write a separate blog post about each of these topics, but I think for now I'll leave this one as an update on where I am in my life now and what my future plans for this blog are. In an ideal world where I am not a lazy procrastinator, I will follow through with the above as well as maybe detail future trips I hope to go on. Until then, just know that I'm doing well, the residency interview trail is long and tiring, and medical school is long and tiring. Overall, however, I wouldn't change anything about how I've lived my life for the past 3.5 years.

I hope you all are doing well also.

Lessons from my First Year of Medical School

Some of these will be more serious, others are very tongue-in-cheek.

1. It's okay to abide by the P=M.D. mentality (pass=M.D.) when first starting out or even for your entire medical school career.*
2. It's also okay to push yourself to achieve that Honors if that's what you want. Just don't let it stress you out and turn you into a gunner.**
3. Be confident and proud of where you are. You were chosen for a reason, own it.
4. With #3 being said, don't let your achievements and experience get to your head. You do still need to be humble.
5. The phrase "high-yield" will become a part of your daily vernacular.
6. The medical field has purposely tried to over-complicate things by creating new words for simple things like bruises and nose bleeds.
7. Every space, line, ridge, and bump in the human body has a name that you will have to learn in anatomy.
8. Your white coat and medical school I.D. can open many doors for you. You no longer have to beg doctors to let you shadow them.
• Subpoint: people outside of the medical field will mistake you for a doctor if you're wearing the socially accepted uniform of scrubs and white coat 
9. Your professors are great people and will do almost anything to help you succeed.
10. Your undergrad degree, if useful at all for medicine, sorry liberal arts majors, will probably only help you in certain classes for 1 lecture at best. . . the material is much more in-depth now.
11. You will encounter people who are really high-strung and stressful to you, don't feel like you have to associate with them. Choose to surround yourself with people that will encourage you and help you.
12. Don't feel like you have to follow the advice of the upperclassmen or even your classmates. If their study methods don't work for you, don't use them.
13. It's okay if you slip up in your grades a bit. There's a learning-curve and a big transition from undergrad to medical school. What's important is that you adapt and persevere. Also see #1.
14. Some people in your class will know 100% what they want to do when they grow up. It's awesome if you are one of those people. It's also completely fine if you're not.
15. Try to get along with your anatomy tankmates if you don't already. It'll make the 2-3 hours dissections that much more bearable.
16. Wash your anatomy scrubs at the end of every week. If you don't keep up with it, they will stink forever.
17. Try to desensitize yourself to your cadaver somewhat, especially when doing crazy things like cutting the body in half.
18. With #17 being said, do occasionally remember that your cadaver was a person with a life and a family who graciously donated their bodies for your education.
19. Don't worry about Step 1 just yet. Some of your classmates will talk about reading First Aid, but don't worry about them. Focus on completing your first year first.
20. Some members of your class will want to party and drink every weekend. If that's you, great, but don't forget about why you're here. If that's not you, don't feel like you have to become that person. Do the things that you love during your free time, because free time will be hard to come by.
21. Figure out what are the things you need in your life to keep you sane. Medical school is demanding and you're going to have to prioritize things in order to keep doing them.
22. You can get sucked into studying all day, every day. Don't feel like you have to to keep up with the work. It's important to still feel like a human being. See #21.
23. Keep up with your friends who aren't in medical school. You'll need to have some conversations that aren't about the brachial plexus and drug interactions.
24. Don't get upset if your friends and family who aren't in medicine don't think it's cool that you held and dissected a heart in anatomy lab. Everyone has their own criteria for what they consider cool.
25. Stay connected with the events that are going on in the world. There are things going on out there besides the Circle of Willis.
26. Never before has not having anything to do ever been so glorious
27. You might start freaking out now about rotations, Step, and match, but don't! You'll get there in your own time and when you do you will conquer them head on.

* My school still follows a Marginal Pass to Honor grading system. This won't fully apply to you if your school is on a Pass/Fail system.
**Gunner: a person who tends to sabotage peers in order to get ahead

1st Semester Recap

Why hello there!

The last time I was able to write on this blog, or even think about writing about this blog, I was about 2 weeks away from starting medical school. Since that last post, a lot of things have happened in my life with regards to medical school. In fact, these past 4 months have probably been the quickest, most stressful, and busiest months of my life so far. Highlights, in no specific order, include:

1. Officially donned my white coat for the first time and said the Hippocratic Oath
2. Met my first patient (my cadaver) and successfully completed anatomy lab without vomiting or passing out
3. Took my first National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Shelf exam and did decently well
4. Worked with my first standardized patient (SP) and learned almost all aspects of the physical exam (Neuro is to come next semester)
5. Became an Ambassador for my school and talked to interviewees and high school students about our school and med school life in general
6. Joined a women's Bible study and became a member of the leadership team for the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA)
7. Got selected to go on a Spring Break global health trip to Santa Ana, Honduras
8. Met a great group of friends who are supportive and totally not gunners
9. Took 8 exams in 2 weeks and received a Pass or better on all of them
10. Finished my first semester of medical school with High Passes and Honors in all of my classes

Even though there have been bumps along the way, especially during my first block week of exams and finals, I don't think I've been much happier than I am now. I feel like I belong at school and as #8 reflects, found friends who will build each other up rather than tear each other down to get to the top. My top 2 criterion for a medical school were a supportive class and great opportunities to get clinical experience. My school exceeds both of those criterion by miles and I am so glad to be here. Thus, I have truly learned that school rank doesn't matter. What matters for me in my medical education is that I am happy and surrounded by people that will do anything to help me succeed, because how I'm feeling has a greater impact on my performance than my school's ranking.

I learned a lot this semester. . . probably more than I ever did in a year at undergrad, and I know I have a lot of learning to do. The biggest lesson for me, however, was that I am competent. I earned my spot in my class and I don't think the admissions committee made a mistake. I thank God everyday that He has put me on this path and is with me every step of the way.

I have a long road in front of me and a lot of things still left to figure out, but for now, I'm proud and happy to say that I am 1/8th an M.D! 

Life Update - Being an Adult is Hard

Hello again,

I always seem to come back to this blog in times of reflection and semi-boredom. . . no offense. It's not that I will only write posts if there's nothing better to do, I'm just unable to make myself seem coherent when I have some extra time on my hands.

Moving on, the biggest lesson I've learned this summer is: being an adult is hard. I don't really consider myself an adult (or just don't want to accept it) yet as I still have 4 more years of schooling left, but this summer I have had to deal with the inevitable search for an apartment and all the associated adulty things like finding an electricity provider, buying renter's insurance, finding an internet provider, and creating a budget.

My biggest realization in dealing with all of this is: being an adult means making a lot of phone calls. I really dislike making phone calls. I'm a millennial; I am used to sending emails and text messages. I'm also an introvert; I prefer staying indoors and limiting my interaction with other human beings, especially human beings that sound like they resent every phone call they get from a (potential) customer.

Regardless, I'm really proud of how I've handled everything. Even though it's been really stressful, I'm very happy with how I've handled things and relieved/glad that things are working out. (I'm signing the lease and moving into my apartment in a week!) If anything, this only makes me a little more confident that I'll be able to handle medical school like a champion which leads me to the second update I want to provide. (Good segue*, me!)

Medical school will officially start for me in t-minus 18 days. (Insert screaming emoji) I've bought scrubs embroidered with my school's logo, ordered my white coat, bought a new (required) laptop, registered for MS1 retreat, and looked into stethoscopes. In 12 days I'll get my ID badge and all the fancy computer/website authorizations needed to do medical school. In 2 weeks, I'll attend orientation and participate in the white coat ceremony! A lot of things are happening/soon to happen and it is so daunting, scary, nerve-wracking, and exciting.

I hope to keep you all updated on how things go. This blog is already a mixed bag of topics/themes, but hey I have a mixed bag of interests/experiences, so I hope to continue the focus on my journey to becoming a doctor. Actually, as I type this, I think I will try to make a video or write a post about medical school interviews and my experience.

Until next time guys. (Hopefully next time will be soon, but no guarantees.)


*Don't you think segue is spelled funny? It's like it's trying to compensate for something by being weird to spell.

My Promises for 2015

2015 holds a lot of great new adventures for me. I will graduate from college. I will start medical school. I will start living as a "real" adult. Since I will have what I consider a fresh start after graduation in May, I wanted to publicly commit to some goals for 2015 as I did at the start of 2014. (Link to that post here) However, rather than calling them goals or resolutions, I want to call them promises because that's just what they are: promises to myself. Now that I have achieved my long-time goal of getting into medical school and officially starting down the path of achieving my goal of becoming a doctor, I have some less tangible "goals" in mind. These are things that cannot be checked off after receiving a letter in the mail, but promises to myself that I hope I will have kept when I reflect on my 2015 on December 31, 2015.

In 2015 I promise to:

1. Make myself happy by putting myself first. This sounds bad, but I have spent the majority of my life doing things because I want to make the people around me happy. I fully embrace, value, and understand that much of my happiness comes from making the people around me happy (this is why I think I would be a good doctor who won't become jaded by the prospects of money and fame). However, it's time that I start feeling happy by making myself and only myself happy (as long as it's not at the expense of another person's happiness or well-being of course).
2. Be open and start building great friendships. Since transferring, I have gotten resigned to starting up conversations with people and truly taking the time to get to know them. I'm also not great at letting people get to know me. If I want to rectify all my regrets from college, I need to keep this promise when I start medical school.
3. Stay confident and believe that I belong at the medical school I am attending. I struggle with confidence in my intellectual ability. I think that's the result of a grueling pre-med course load and belief that I cheated the system to attend my current university. However, as my past two semesters of grades and recent medical school acceptances have shown me, I am capable and I should be going down this path.
4. Stop overthinking and take some chances. There have been a few times where I was not confident or brave enough to leap off a cliff (metaphorically speaking). This of course is caused by my lack of confidence in my own capabilities and qualifications. However, if I want to take advantage of every opportunity I need to just confidently say yes and go for it.
5. Remember everything it has taken to get to where I am now and everyone who has helped me in any way along the way. Ultimately, this promise stems from the fact that I would be very disappointed in myself if I start to become egotistical and stop putting others before myself when I need to. The line of work I am setting off to enter is somewhat set up to force people to forget the ultimate goal of the medical profession: helping others. Thus, I want to make sure that I never ever forget that goal.
6. Continue to make my parents proud. My biggest fear is disappointing my parents. I came close to realizing that fear at the end of my senior year of college. However with my recent medical school acceptances, my desire to hear the words "we are so proud of you" come from my parents mouths was fulfilled. Now, I want to keep it.

2014 may not have been the best, but it definitely proved to be the start of a great 2015. Hopefully, when I read back over this post in a year, I will be happy with the promises I have kept and did have a great 2015.

Reflection on My 2014

This is really strange coming back to this blog. I had started it with the intention of building an online presence for myself that was active and placed me in the creator category rather than the passive viewer category I had been in for so long. I still sometimes think about continuing that idea and making that thought a reality but haven't quite found the courage or time to actually do so. . . maybe that will change in 2015.

As I sit on my bed under the covers in my pajamas with my wet hair in a towel typing this up with Top Chef on in another browser window while people outside celebrate NYE with fireworks, I can't help but think about everything that has happened this year.

Here are the biggest positive things that have happened this year:

1. Most notably, I was accepted to medical school. And not just one medical school, but two! That last sentence feels very strange for me to type because I am not one to brag about my own achievements, but I think considering how my college application process went I deserve to toot my own horn a little. Plus, knowing that two medical schools want me reminds me that this was not a fluke.
2. I made all As and A-s for a second semester in a row. This is a weird accomplishment to type because I had always made straight As growing up. I broke that streak, however, in high school and have since struggle to return to it. I'm glad that I finally was able to do so.
3. I was named MVP of my ResLife staff for the 2013-2014 school year. I realize that part of the work that went into this title was done in 2013, but like I mentioned earlier, I tend to think about years in terms of school years. Regardless, it was nice to be recognized by my fellow staff members after feeling so uncomfortable and undeserving on the RA position when I started out.
4. I have continued to build and strengthen relationships with people at my university. While this may seem like a small accomplishment in comparison to the other things on this list, this one is very important to me. Since transferring to my current university, I have felt alone and without many friends. I left some great friendships behind at my previous university, failed to keep in contact with them, and failed to keep in contact with my friends from high school. Especially considering some of the negative aspects of my 2014, this point makes me proud because it exemplifies how I continued to try and make best of my situation even though it hasn't and probably won't turn out the way I want.
5. I have started to become more comfortable with being alone and relying on myself. I guess you could say that I have always had to be self-reliant for my entertainment as an only child. However, I would spend a large part of the day either in school with my friends or in daycare with my friends. Therefore, while I have had to become comfortable with only having myself or my parents to entertain me when at home, I still had a lot of social time during the weekdays when away from home. This changed since moving and transferring. Now, I really only have myself to rely on for entertainment and that was a BIG adjustment for me. I'm used to having friends and lots of people to really talk to. Now, I don't have that as much, but now I'm starting to become okay with it.
6. I finally started to feel like an adult and didn't panic or fail. As I flew home for Winter Break, I realized that I had gotten on a plane and traveled at least once every month that I was back at school because of medical school interviews. My very first trip was the first time I had ever booked a flight, made a hotel reservation, and successfully made it to my destination and back entirely on my own. I was so nervous and worried about everything turning out the way I had planned so that when it did I was so proud of myself. Now I am more confident in my ability to be a functioning adult.

Here are the biggest negative things:

1. My parents and I have moved away from the place I called home for almost 14 years of my life. Moving isn't foreign to me; this most recent move was the fourth move for me. However, our previous location was definitely where we had spent the longest and I don't have many memories from the 3 prior locations. So this move was sad for me because it rendered me very alone. Immediately after transferring, I was very unhappy because I was having a really hard time meeting people and making friends. The one thing keeping me going was knowing that during long breaks, I would be able to see my friends from high school. This move took that away from me. So while I feel slightly better about how things are going at my current university, it still isn't the same.
2. I have never felt more alone, friendless, and unhappy than I did this year. This is fully related to negative thing #1 and a little contradictory to positive thing #5 but is very true. I initially spent the greater part of this year feeling this way. I had felt crummy after my first year at my current university, thought that was slowly changing after my second year at my current university, only to be brought back to a state of loneliness and unhappiness after ringing in 2014 without my friends. This only amplified during my summer break when I was stuck in a city I had only lived in for 3 weeks prior and had no idea where to go, what to do, how to get places, or any reason to do any of those things.

I really like thinking back on my year. I have never really been one to embrace the whole New Year, New You thing but I do appreciate self-reflection. While I initially thought 2014 was the worst year of my life so far, those two lists above prove me wrong. Maybe that feeling stems from the fact that we tend to dwell on the negatives in our life rather than the positives, but also has to do with the fact that those 2 items on my negative list overshadowed a vast majority of my 2014. Like I alluded to in negative item #2, I really only feel like my 2014 began to look-up in the last 3 months of the year.

Here's to 2015 and all that this year will bring!

New Year's Goals

I know I suck. . . I haven't done anything with this in about five months. Can I still use the, "I'm busy with school and figuring out how to get into medical school" excuse? Hopefully so, because that honestly is the reason why. It's not like I *cough* forgot about this blog or anything. Just to prove it, I use Google Chrome. And on my start up screen, I have a few apps, one of which is Blogger. Every time I turn on my computer, which is pretty much every day if not multiple times a day, and go to do homework (look at Tumblr or YouTube) I would see the little orange Blogger icon and think, "hmmm I should post something" and then get distracted before I could. I'm also go to put a disclaimer right now that I have been writing essays for the past hour and a half, so I'm not even going to try to proofread this post and make sure I have commas where commas are supposed to go. I mean who am I kidding, I don't really use proper grammar all the time here anyways. So now that I have rambled for a bit as per usual, let's get on with the purpose of this post.

I am now eight days into 2014 and while my New Years was particularly boring and sad, a story for another time, I naturally have been thinking about what I want to accomplish in wonderful 2014. I was never one for New Years Resolutions because 1) I have a lot of goals that can't really be accomplished within a year, or shouldn't take me a whole year to accomplish and 2) while I think it's nice and wonderful to think about how you want to change your life in the coming year by making a resolution, most people tend to give up on their resolutions by the time February hits. Side note: I think I just made that list because I just finished re-reading Paper Towns by John Green and he does a lot of those lists in that book. So instead, I have come up with some things that I want to do in the year 2014 and hope to keep up with them throughout the year, or as long in the year as they have to be kept up with. You'll understand what that meant in a minute.

Just as the majority of Americans, I want to exercise more. I think I did a pretty good job doing that near the end of 2013, but I want to do better this year. Another side note: does anyone else who is in school tend to think about years in semesters or just school years? Like when I say "near the end of 2013" I really mean the fall semester 2013. And it's also hard for me to think about 2013 because I want to think about it as the end of my sophomore year and beginning of my junior year. Anyways, I hope to do some form of exercise for at least 30 minutes at least three times a week. But let's be honest, I will be proud of myself if I exercise at least once a week once classes start up again. My other goal for half of 2014 is to study for the MCAT for at least 30 minutes every day. I haven't decided if I want to give myself a break on weekends or not, I think I'll wait to see how well I do once classes start. Time is ticking away and I am getting closer and closer to when I have to take the MCAT and I only want to have to take it once.

To keep me motivated for both goals, I have adopted the "Don't Break the Chain" method. Initially created by Jerry Seinfeld and then brought to my attention by Charlie McDonnell, I think it's one of the few techniques that will actually keep me motivated because I am such a visual person. If you don't know what I'm talking about go ahead and check out Charlie's video "Don't Break the Chain". Karen Kavett has also made some 2014 calendars if you want to go ahead and try this technique out. Go to her page here to print them out.

I've done relatively well since starting, however, I didn't start on January 1st because I kinda didn't think to do it til afterwards, but better late than never right? Let me know if you decide to try this method or what your New Years Resolution is!

Zombie Run!

Hi!

So, I have a problem with starting sentences of emails or blog posts, or even the vlogs I have to do for one of my classes. I'm going to try and start breaking this habit now!

Anyways, as per usual I have been up to my eyeballs in work for school. My profs have the bad habit of assigning things all in the same week, especially exams, rather than spreading them out nicely over several weeks. Thus, I have weeks where I'm crazy stressed and others where I have no motivation to do any work whatsoever because of the previous stressful week. This is one of those no motivation weeks. The problem with this vicious cycle is that I put off doing work I can do when I'm not crazy busy until I actually am crazy busy, only adding to my busy-ness.

Since last week was a crazy week for me, I wasn't really able to do anything for the weekend prior to Halloween or that Wednesday night. But, to make up for it, a club I'm in called GlobeMed put on a Zombie 5K to raise money for our partner! Since I couldn't dress up for Halloween, I made up for it by being a zombie for the run. Now because I'm the overly ambitious college student, I ended up putting more on my plate with this run than I needed to and made it a hall program in my residence hall. Therefore, I ended up having to hunt people down in my res-hall and get them to sign up/sign a waiver. NOT FUN! But it all went to a good cause and our club ended up raising over $1,000!! Pretty awesome if I do say so myself.

Being a zombie was a lot of fun. Some of the runners took some casualties in their attempts to avoid getting "infected," but I think everyone had a great time. I will say though, it was kinda awkward waiting for the runners to come by while people who are trying to enjoy the park notice us and have no idea why we have zombie make up on and ripped up shirts.

Just Another Day in College

Hey!

So this week I've been slammed with homework and tests all during Homecoming week. Curse you professors for not letting me have a social life!

Anyways, the rivals of my old university always said that students there only learned how to be a farmer. They would make jokes about tipping cows and drinking beer. What's strange to me is that in my two semesters at this "red-neck" university, as people like to call it, I never dealt with or saw anything related to a farm. Interestingly enough, I had to change universities to finally see farm animals.

Confused? This week is Homecoming for my university and the theme is a county fair. One of the events planned was a petting zoo. And what better to have at a county fair petting zoo then goats, chickens, a pig, and BUNNIES! Below are some pics for your enjoyment!

All I have to say is that while I resent the criticisms of my old university about its agricultural program even though people go there for its awesome engineering program, I did find the animals to be a great way to relax a little before the three exams I have to take this week.

Automatic Toilets

Hello!

Just as a mini update on my life, I've been busy with schoolwork and clubs for a little under a month now and everything seems to be going smoothly.

Now on to the point of this post. Have you ever walked into the bathroom and noticed that the person who was in the stall before you didn't flush the toilet? That's happened to me on multiple occasions in classroom buildings, the library, random grocery stores, and even here in my suite. The thing that always crosses my mind when I see something like that is, "How do you forget to flush"? I mean if you're of college age or going grocery shopping, then you have probably been going to the bathroom by yourself for a long time and have had a LOT of practice flushing the toilet. So why am I bringing up this unsavory topic on my somewhat normal blog? I think I have come up with at least one reason for why people forget to flush. That reason? It's because of automatic toilets. You know the one's that have a sensor and flushes automatically when it senses motion? I think that we as Americans have been lulled into the belief that practically every public toilet is now automatic and thus after finishing our business, we just up and leave without checking to see if the toilet has flushed. Now I'm all for automatic toilets, they supposedly conserve water and apparently make our lives easier. But in my opinion it complicates our lives more. Sometimes the toilet flushes when you're not ready for it to flush. Sometimes it doesn't flush at all and you have to push the little button to manually get it to flush. And sometimes the amount of pressure it has isn't enough to properly flush. Plus if people continually think that manual toilets are in fact automatic, than it just makes the lives of other people who need to use the bathroom harder. People, at least women, tend to avoid toilets that haven't been flushed just leaving all that waste sitting in a toilet for every single person looking for an empty stall to see. And if no kind soul has flushed the toilet by the end of the day, then it's the custodian's job to see that the toilet has been flushed. I mean a custodian's job is hard enough, and having to see waste sitting in a toilet bowl for a whole day and having to flush it themselves cannot make a hard day's work any better.

I guess my point is, is that we Americans take certain things for granted. We become even lazier just expecting things to happen for us without us having to lift a finger. Now I know what I have just typed doesn't apply to everyone and some people may get offended, but I'm just stating an idea that I had.

College Kid Problems

Hey guys!

So once again, long time no blog. Basically just as a quick recap before I get on to the point of this post, I'm back at college, transferring was successful and I like it here so far, I've been so much busier here with all the things I'm doing and trying to do, hence the lack of posts. I'm so busy that basically the only time I'm in my room is to sleep.

Anyways, here I have work study money and so I've been basically selling myself going to job fairs and posting my resume on the school's online job database. Initially I was feeling discouraged because a lot of the people I know who have work study money got interviews for jobs pretty early on, or had already found a job, meanwhile I'm getting emails saying that positions had been filled or were no longer accepting applications. Then all of a sudden these past two weeks I get emails asking me to come in for an interview. At first it was just one, which is really all you need when looking for a job, and during the interview the people made it sound like I was a shoo-in. The catch? Well I had to talk to their boss first and she's a pretty big stickler for the rules and likes things a certain way. Now I follow the rules pretty closely myself, but something about the way the people interviewing me described her made her seem a little daunting. So after the first interview, I got another email from them the next day asking to meet their boss. This morning at 10 I met her and she seemed nice but never really let me get in a word. It was essentially a lecture about how she's not paying me to sit on Facebook. Flashback to the day of the first interview with, let's call them Lab 1, I get another email from another lab, Lab 2, asking me to come in the next morning at 10 for an interview with them. Now if you're paying close enough attention and I'm explaining this clearly enough, you'll notice that I'm supposed to have two different interviews at the same time. How did I manage that? I didn't. I emailed Lab 2 back saying that something had come up just after I responded back to him and asked to reschedule. He never got back to me until well past the initial 10 o'clock interview time. Returning to present day, I had just talked to the boss of Lab 1. I receive a third interview email from an after school program asking me to come in this afternoon at 4. Now after the interview with Lab 1, I was told that I would hear back tomorrow morning about what's going on with the job. So naturally because nothing was set in stone yet I agree to the interview at 4 with the after school program. So I attend the interview, after a horrifying 20 minute trek around campus and the surrounding streets to try to find the school, and discover that I'm only up against another person who if doesn't get back to the boss this afternoon, the job will be mine. She has already given me all the paperwork and essentially made it sound like I have no choice but to take the job if it is offered to me. I will hear from her this evening about what's going on.

So let's recap. I have three possible job offers and no idea what to do if I get all three. I haven't even interviewed with Lab 2 yet and don't really want to tell him I'll meet with him if it ends up that I get a job offer elsewhere. Deep down I really want the job in Lab 1 because it will give me research experience, but I would hate to deny the after school program job if I get it especially since it seemed like I couldn't say no. And seeing as I'm supposed to hear back from the after school job before I hear back from Lab 1, I'm afraid to say no to the after school job just to hear from Lab 1 that I didn't get the job. Now throw in Lab 2 and I feel bad for not getting back to him in a more timely manner because if he is my last resort, then that just looks bad on me.

I know I don't really have any right to complain because I'm sure there are plenty of kids who would love just one interview offer, but I really don't know what to do. I think this all stems back to my inability to say no to people and also makes me think of Rory Gilmore from the show Gilmore Girls where she rejects a job for her first choice job only to not get offered her dream job. I like the options but I'm afraid to say no to one and end up with no prospects in the end. I guess you could also say that this goes into my inability to make a decision also.

Well that's the major thing that's been going on in my life today, besides homework, classes, and club meetings. I guess that's college for you.

A Rewarding Day of Volunteering

So as you guys may know, I've been volunteering at a local hospital this summer. Now I've done this before and I've never dreaded going to volunteer, but have you guys ever felt like the work you do isn't getting you anywhere? Or you're actually getting in the way and making people's jobs harder rather than easier? Well for the first couple times I had gone to volunteer that's exactly how I felt. But as the weeks went on I started to feel more comfortable and the other nurses would come and talk to me about topics other than what I did or did not want to do to help them. I don't know if I'm just too sensitive or self-conscious, but at least those feelings and thoughts started to go away. I guess the biggest difference for me was understanding that people show their appreciation and gratitude towards others in different ways.

So now that I'm finally comfortable with what I'm doing and have fallen into a routine, I have to leave and go back to college. It's funny how life works like that right? Now I do have one more week of volunteering but I do have to say that the end of my shift today was definitely the cherry on top of my work. As you guys can tell by my bio and major, I want to become a doctor. And today while I was helping out a patient that I have a pretty great relationship with, he told me that I would be a great doctor. Now all I had been doing with him is getting him a coffee with one sweet and low and two creams and the occasional blanket or TV remote, so it's not like I was actually doing anything doctorly. But really for him to say that really made my day and put a smile on my face that didn't go away for a while.

Anyways it's always great to work with people who can give you encouragement. Especially when the patients that you help are fighting cancer and can still come in with a great attitude and joke around with the nurses and doctors.

Boys Can Like Pink Too

Hello!

I'm getting better at posting more often! Or maybe it's just cause I have a lot on my mind that I want to get out in some form or another.

Anyways, so as you all know from my last post, my mom and I were shopping at Academy Sports and Outdoors this past weekend. After looking at running shoes and getting creeped on, we were just walking around the store to see the different things they were offering for sale. Now ever since watching archery at the Olympics, my mom has wanted to try archery. So naturally we stopped at the bows and arrows to take a look. I don't know if the store was just wiped out because of tax free weekend, but there were only three bows left on the rack. One was an average black bow in the front of the aisle and the rest were little pink bows marked as youth size. This family of what I assume to be a mother and her son and I guess the mother's sister was also looking for a bow for the son. The sister sees the pink bow and says, "Hey here's one for youth. It looks like it'll work." Then the mother comes up beside her and says in a disgusted tone that he is a teenage boy and isn't going to want to use a pink bow. Now I glance over at the boy and he seems to be about in the 8th or 9th grade and he says with a smile on his face he can still use the bow. The mother doesn't listen to him at all and continues to admonish her sister about how he's a boy and can't use that pink bow.

Now I understand that little boys typically hate pink and want blue just like little girls hate blue and love pink. But if this teenage boy is willing to use a pink bow and can say this with a smile on his face, what exactly is the problem. It seems that the color designations of pink for a baby girl and blue for a baby boy have permanently altered gender associations with color for even after we grow out of the crib.

I've also noticed that girls are able to do and like all the things that boys are supposed to exclusively like without any societal issues, but boys can not. For example, a lot of teenage girls can say they love the color blue, cars, shooting movies, and football without any problems, but if a teenage boy wants to buy something pink, or go shopping, or watch a "chick flick" his parents freak out and force him back into his correct gender role.

Maybe it's because I live in the "Bible Belt" and parents here are so afraid to raise a gay son, but I don't really see why they have to be so pushy about these things. If anything, preventing a boy to do or like what he wants to do or like might only lead him farther towards things that are "socially inappropriate" for him. This past week has been especially touchy about the subject of LGBT equality with the Chick-fil-a issue, but I personally don't have an opinion about it. Gay equality or not I don't care. I'm not going to vocally stand up for either side and some may see that as wrong but people just need to relax.

Sorry for the ranty post, but I just felt the need to say something. What is your opinion about this? And I know I've been great about the daily posts, but don't think I'm doing BEDA just in case I end up not posting for a while.

Just Another Awkward Moment

Hey guys!

So since this weekend was tax-free weekend, my family took the opportunity to go shopping and get some things for college. My mom and I decided to go to Academy because she wanted new running shoes and to look at the weights. Now I'm not an expert at exercise by any means, but my mom knew she wanted a 20 lb weight because that's what she had used with a trainer just last week. Now I don't know what prompted this kinda chubby (no offense) guy to come up and discourage us but that's basically what he did. I'm minding my own business looking at the pretty colored weights that are clearly designed for the female demographic trying to find one that is 20 lbs when suddenly he comes up and asks me what we're going to use the free weights for. I just simply say, "Oh we're just looking" to try and let him know that we're okay and to go away and walk over to another rack of more serious looking weights. There I find the 20 lb weights and tell my mom. He follows me and says that we should start with a lighter set. Now my mom and I were clearly not interested in listening to him and yet he continues to say that he had started with 10 lbs and worked his way up to 20. Then he gives us a biology lesson and says that starting with too heavy of a weight will cause the muscle to tear and heal slower. My mom once again tries to get him to go away by saying she understands and thanks and yet he still stands there. Finally I just turn around cause that sounded like a good and polite dismissal to me, yet he continues to stand there and look at us.

Now I understand that he probably meant well, but he just couldn't take a hint. I mean honestly, if neither of us are making eye contact or appear to take an interest into what is being said, why continue to talk and bother us.

Anyways maybe I'm being a little harsh, but neither my mom or I felt comfortable with him there. I guess I can just mark this down as a little less of an awkward moment and more of an uncomfortable experience. Nevertheless, it was definitely not a good time.

Reasons Why I Can't be a Teacher

Hello!

So as you might know from my last post, I am currently tutoring a rising 9th grader in English this summer. Now just to give you a little background on the boy before I delve into my thoughts; he has had a good education in the past and he is a jock. So of course my life becomes a stereotypical nerd helps the jock situation especially since I'm Asian. Now I have no problems tutoring him; in fact he's a really smart kid. He has a great memory and is good at picking up on what I'm trying to get across to him. What I think his major problem is, is he is embarrassed about these tutoring sessions, feels he doesn't need them to some extent, and just wants to forget about school and enjoy his summer soccer season. And I can totally relate because I felt very similarly when I was just a little rising freshman in high school seeing my mom come home with very large and what seemed scary books about the SAT. Now while these problems can be very easily overcome, I just don't think he has the motivation to really work hard. Anyways, school wise he is okay at reading comprehension depending on how hard the semantics are and if he is interested in the story and his writing kinda sucks.

Anyways, his mom asked me to pick a book and read it with him so naturally as the good Nerdfighter that I am, I picked The Great Gatsby. I had remembered the book as being a pretty easy read and interesting once you get passed all the character introduction and truly get into the plot of the story. Plus the book has some relatively obvious themes about social classes and love. Finally, I thought Gatsby would be good because it's a short book and if we read about two chapters a week we would be able to finish it before the summer is over. To my surprise (and fear) reading it over again, the sentences were a little more drawn out and contained larger words than I had remembered from when I was a freshman in high school. But he had already purchased the book and I assigned him the first two chapters. Since the start of reading this book we have gone through three chapters because he didn't have time (or forgot) to read the book while he was on a trip to California even though he had about a three hour flight one way. On top of the fact that we are behind what I realize now is a lofty reading schedule, I don't think he is reading the book to comprehend. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when I'm reading a boring textbook or article, I find myself just moving my eyes across the words without really taking into account what those words put together in sentences actually mean. The reason I believe he's not really reading is because he can't answer my simplest questions about characters even after I point out where in the book the answer is. I mean honestly, if the book explicitly says a character is harsh and mean and disliked then obviously you shouldn't say that character is nice and well-loved. To try and rectify this problem, my mom suggested I write out questions for him to answer about the chapters he's reading so that he knows what to pay attention to. I believe that this is a great idea for him especially because he will probably end up doing something similar while in school.

I realize that this post reads as me complaining about my tutoring troubles, but this experience has made me realize that I was correct all along in not wanting to be a teacher. I'm the kind of person who likes to see results from my actions. I don't have a lot of faith in my abilities to just assume that what I'm doing is actually having an effect when I can't see that they're having an effect. With this boy, I don't really know if I'm helping him improve his reading comprehension and writing skills. He doesn't really seem to understand the book any more from one week to the next and his writing is still kinda bad. On the plus side I finally got him to understand that he needs to read over his essays and actually separate what he's writing into paragraphs. His biggest writing problem from the beginning was run-ons and the number of run-ons in his latest essay dramatically decreased. So he can actually write to some extent; he's just too lazy to take the time and read over what he wrote. I don't want to be harsh and I probably won't say this to his face, but he's not a good enough reader to write the essay and have it be good with minimal grammar issues right off the bat.

If things improve or other extraordinary events happen I'll update in another post.

Bye!

Seattle and Vancouver

Hey!

You would think that I would have more time to blog during the summer, and yet I still have so much to catch you guys up on. Just as a brief summary I would describe my summer so far as relaxing. When my summer first started I was simply spending time with my friends and doing a little studying for the MCAT. My time became slightly less free as I now have a job tutoring! The tutoring gig actually started about the end of June and has been pretty successful so far...I hope. I might go into more detail in a later post, but basically I am tutoring a rising high school freshman boy in English. Then with the start of July, I have started volunteering at a local hospital. Depending on my experiences at the hospital, I might recap my volunteering later as well, but I love the feeling of helping other people feel better. I know that I'm not actually curing any ailment that these patients have and in no way do I expect to, but seeing these patients and the hope they have really encourages me about my career choice.

Now onto the reason for this post. Recently my family and I went on vacation to Seattle and Vancouver. Now you might be wondering why we would go there for vacation during the summer as that's the reaction I received from a lot of my friends, but I'm really glad we went. We started our trip in Vancouver, and boy was I in for a surprise. One of my close friends is Canadian and my group of friends and I love to make fun of her about how Canada doesn't exist. We actually refer to Canada as Canadialand because it's fictional! When I got to Canada I was so ready to have my jokes proven wrong. And to my surprise those jokes actually seemed correct. Canada appeared to be no different than any other part of the US. I mean sure there were Canadian flags everywhere and they call the bathroom the washroom, but really the stores, cars, and customs were the same. What was even more surprising was that Canada appeared to be a mix of Hong Kong and the US. Our hotel was just outside of the city of Vancouver, and yet it was like we were in the middle of China. Of course we might have just been in the Chinatown of that city, but even in downtown Vancouver there were a lot of Asians. Now I've been to China before and I can handle the Chinese atmosphere, but it was still a shock. I have nothing against Canadians and they have a lot of great things going for them, especially their Canadian pride, but Vancouver just wasn't really for me.

Seattle on the other hand...now that's an amazing city. Ever since college, I've truly realized how much of a suburban person I am. But Seattle made me reconsider my thoughts about not wanting to live in a big city. Seattle was the first city I've been in that was really clean and had any type of landscape that you could ever want. Seattle is a port city and so there's the ocean on one side with beaches, snow-topped mountains only two hours away, open farmland, and a lake. Seattle gets a lot of tourism business and I believe that tourists supply a large part of the revenue that helps Seattle businesses run, but that doesn't seem to hurt the city in any way. A lot of my friends couldn't understand why I love Seattle so much mainly because they believe the city to be covered in rain for a large part of the year. And I don't doubt that, because our first day in Seattle it was raining on and off all day. But even with the constant rain, the city never felt humid, which is one of the worst things about living in the south. Sure the city may not be filled with as much sunshine as I would like, but I will trade the better part of a sun filled summer here in the south for 80 degree highs instead of the 105 degree weathers we've been having lately. In fact, the biggest shocker for me from the whole trip was the fact that in Mount Rainier I was in shorts and a t-shirt with a light jacket and standing on a mountain side covered with snow. I loved Seattle so much, that I am seriously considering University of Washington Medical School as my medical school of choice.

I hope to be writing to you guys soon about the other parts of my life here during the summer, but if I don't, and that's a big possibility given my track record, know that I'll be back soon!

Baking Extravaganza

Long time no see blog! So here's a quick update. I have finished my first year of college rather successfully and am now enjoying the luxuries of not having to go to class or take tests. One of the things my friends and I have done since being reunited for at least some part of the summer is have a baking extravaganza. Many of my friends have Pinterest and thus pinned lots of yummy looking baked goods. So of course we took it upon ourselves to try and BAKE ALL THE THINGS!!

Below are the results of our extravaganza. If you want to try and make some yourselves, the recipes are linked. :)

Nutella puppy chow

Cake batter balls

Nutella cupcakes with funfetti icing
Just a note: the icing is not included in the recipe but you basically bye funfetti icing and then ice the cupcakes.

Not quite finished Twix brownies...when we melted the chocolate that was supposed to be the final layer, the pot we used wasn't cleaned properly and the resulting chocolate tasted a bit like soap...oops :/

Thoughts on Growing Up

Hi guys!

I know I've disappeared from this blog for about two months, but this second semester has been crazy busy for me. I guess that's what I get for taking 20 hours of coursework. Anyways, I have two weeks before my final exams and then after that my freshman year of college is over. I know people always say, "Woah, time just flew by!" but for me it really did happen. My parents kept telling me that life will "speed up" now and I always thought, "Pshhh, no it hasn't this past week felt like a month long" but in actuality they were right (I guess that's kinda their right being my parents and all). But what I had initially thought wasn't wrong. Some of the weeks where it seemed like there just wasn't enough time in a day to get everything done, passed in what felt like the duration of a month. I remember distinctly my first week back after fall break was the longest week of my life. I was sitting with some of my friends in the dining hall on a Wednesday, and saying, "Can you believe fall break was just last week"? I mean honestly, it was just so crazy. But those are college kid problems.

You know thinking about how this school year is almost over, and trying to figure out what to do this summer and next year as well, I couldn't help but think about my future. My friends are all finding crazy things to do independently during the summer; they are acting like true adults. And I know that I am an adult, or at least my age reflects it, but I still love to go home and see my parents, have my mom do my laundry, and eat the food that they buy and cook for me. At this moment it freaks me out to think that I won't be able to relish in these luxuries in the next (at max) 3 years. My roommate got an internship for the better part of her summer, and she's trying to find a room to rent to live in because the internship isn't exactly in driving distance from her house. She literally has to live independently as an adult going to work for about two months, and we're just freshmen in college. It literally blows my mind and kinda scares me.

This week has been crazy for me, but now that I've finished everything for this week I had a lot of time to just chill and watch some shows online. One of which was Gilmore Girls, a show that never fails to make me happy. I have just finished the series finale, where Rory after thinking that she has not job prospects for the summer or future gets a job offer and has to leave in three days. She has almost no time to get everything prepared and say goodbye to her family, friends, and town. Just all the talk on the show about having no time and not being sure when she will see everyone again no doubt freaked me out and made me reflect on my life and my next steps. I know I want to be a doctor, I feel like that's what I have been called to do and I love all the science and just awesome things that can result from being a doctor, medical and otherwise, but all the work and things I'd have to go through to get me there scares me. It doesn't make me second guess my job choice in any way but just thinking about classes for next year, the MCAT, going to medical school, finding a residency and then eventually being an established doctor is a little daunting. I'm getting close to the age where I have to pay my own bills, buy and cook my own food, do everything for myself by myself because I can't live at home for the rest of my life. It's just a lot to take in and I'm ready for the challenge and change, but you can't just help to stop, reflect, and go "Woah!"

Sorry guys, I didn't mean for this post to be so heavy and a little freaked out, but this was something I've been thinking about a lot this past week. Are/were you guys scared about your future or are/were you ready to just take the next step? I hope to be writing another post within the near future because I have a lot of things that I want to reflect on, but we'll see how my schedule pans out within the next few weeks.

Bye!

Awkward Moment #1

Hello!

So you are walking across campus to meet some of your friends for dinner. You leave a little late from your dorm because you get distracted by your phone. So you fast walk your way thinking that at this rate you will make it just in time. There aren't a lot of people walking around so it's pretty easy to weave around those that are going slower than you would like. However, just as you are heading up some stairs that you can't avoid, you see two girls casually walking along in the middle of their conversation. You see a little path next to them that will allow you to pass them without having to slow down. Then for some random reason the two girls decide to take up as much room on the stairs as possible, leaving some space around them, but not nearly enough you need to get around them without hitting one of them. You notice this just at the last moment leaving you immediately behind one of the girls, causing them to notice. Of course you're thinking, "great now I have to wait for them to get up this set of stairs before I can get around them." They of course must be thinking, "what is this girl doing creeping on our conversation"? You realize that this is a really awkward moment for them because they stop their conversation mid-sentence causing you to feel awkward. Finally, they get past that set of stairs allowing you to get on the other side of the stairs and get around them. Of course this puts you further behind schedule, and so you hope to make up some time by running up the rest of the stairs. Now that you think back on this, you realize that it must have looked like you were running away from them. Even  more awkward, but nonetheless a moment in your life that you no doubt have to back on and think, "oh well, it really wasn't that bad actually. If anything I got some good exercise out of it." A good time, indeed.

Now why did I just describe all of this? Well because this of course happened to me earlier this evening, and as the title of this blog entails, I wanted to occasionally dictate the awkward moments in my life that turned out to be pretty good. This is the first one, not because it's the first awkward moment I've had in a while, but because it's the first one I've remembered in a while. I mean when awkward moments are as frequent as they are in my life, you kinda just learn to brush them off.

See you guys later!