at the very beginning its worry,
then it becomes denial, you escape from it, you try to run
next comes panic, pure, sheer fright of vast magnitudes
but when push comes to shove, when you're face to face with the enemy,
you grit your teeth and think, bring it on, bitch.

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

Valentino on Rome: "It is about timelessness and continuity, it is about classicism and a sense of beauty that belongs to all periods of history and at the same time none in particular." (:

fever

J.K.Rowling deserves every last penny of whatever millions of pounds she has earned from writing Harry Potter.
the last harry potter installment was delivered onto my doorstep at 10am yesterday. i started reading it properly at 9pm on till 4am that morning. the next day i got up at 8am to feverishly continue, i couldnt stop, i was mesmerized, gripped, hooked, cast a spell upon. whatever. it was a strange feeling. when i was reading, i wasnt hungry, tired nor ever sleepy. my dad came at 10,(not half as welcome an interlude as it rightfully should be, haha) i drove him to ladenburg, a gorgeous little town just off heidelberg where we strolled around, laid on the grass and had the most amazing lunch in this little restaurant that had a secret cosy little garden at the back where customers dined. (:
after we got back, i finally laid the book to rest at 4pm, whereupon i collapsed into bed, completely emotionally exhausted. i've lost track of the the number of times i cried when reading, i laughed, i panicked, i swore, i was frustrated, i was in pain, i was so scared my eyes flew across the pages, not taking anything in until i'd turned the page and released the breathe that i didnt even know was holding, once i've discovered that harry and his friends have escaped, unscathed. i missed my best friend while i was reading, i knew if she was with me, by my side, she would have understood every single feeling, a harry potter fan as great as i am. many a time i wanted to pick up the phone to call her, if not for the time difference.
a book, a mere book has the outrageous effects of a potent drug on me, and i loved it. i loved the fairy tale ending, i took it all in, the cheesiness, a beautiful gift after all that angst, suffering, pain. i will miss harry potter so much. i've been with harry on every step of the way, it feels like i'm parting with a friend....

running away really isnt easy, aka a bunch of randomness

on a russian website about the benefits of drinking tea : "Drinking Canned Capitalism (Coke) contradicts the very principles of the open source movement, for it is a closed source product, manufactured by a huge, evil corporation."

"girls are so much more fun than boys"
"boys are good for dodgy stuff though"
"yeahhhhh"

i get stared at, a lot. little girls stare at me in utter amazement and wonder, which i suppose is all right, perhaps they've never seen an asian girl. fine. middle-aged men not only stare at me, but when i walk around them they actually turn just to continue staring at me. middle-aged men are... well, i suppose you know what i mean. so i just ignore it. old men stare at me but that i'm used to, old men are generally very friendly to me, not in a freaky way, so thats alright. but old ladies. my god, they are they worst. they stare at me unflinchingly, unabashedly, and refuse to look away even when i meet their stares head-on. honestly! have they never in their 70 years or so of life seen an asian girl on the bus, on a bike, on the road, wherever?!! and it isnt like i wear outrageous clothes or do stuff in public that they might disapprove of. grrrrrr!

lately i've noticed that everyone knows more medicine than me. especially friends of mine doing chemistry or mechanical engineering or languages or philosophy, whatever. bleargh! haha

when you hang out with certain people all the time, after a while you forget how amazing these people are. and out of the blue, someday, something happens and what has always been in the back of your mind resurfaces: these people are exciting, interesting, extremely talented, extremely capable, intelligent amazing people. and you're glad you have friends like these (:

me? nerd? seriously.

sometime ago i had a conversation with a dear friend which went like this:
me: u know the text i just read was seriously interesting, *launches into a lot of complicated terms and med-talk*
him: ....
me: sorry. i think i'm becoming such a nerd
him: who do you think you're trying to kid?!

that conversation was etched into my mind and makes me laugh whenever i think abt it. am i SO un-nerd like?!?! haha. well. i present to you the med-sch nerd scale.
(thanks to facebook, http://www.geocities.com/abhinith/medical_school_nerd_scale.htm, and too much damn inertia to get down to mugging on my part)

1 You have ever said "Netter is god".
(not Netter, but Trepel. and Prometheus. and... i remember saying once that i want to marry Trepel. god!)
2 You can discuss autopsy/ anatomy over a meal
3 You own a 4 color pen
4 -it just isn't enough colors for you
5 You use more than one color to take notes
6 You have use up more than 6 highlighters in the past 6 months
7 you have ever highlighted something YOU wrote
8 you retype handouts given in class
9 you haven't had a date in 3 months
10 you haven't had a date since entering med school
11 you have not been able to remember the normal term for something because you were thinking of the medical term (ie reflux for heartburn)
12 You get more sleep in lecture than at home (its utterly unbelivable how much i sleep in class :/)
13 You know the correct spelling for pruritus
14 - you also know what it means
15 You have ever asked a question in class
16 - The prof. didn't understand the question
17 - you didn't believe the answer the prof. gave
18 - you went to look it up to see if they were right
19 You can't hold a conversation on anything other than med
school
20 You skip class to study
21 You've said you didn't do well on a test on which you beat the mean
22 You spend more than 15 hrs a week on e-mail
23 You have a callous on you finger from writing
24 More than one professor knows you by name
(oh, i wish! i hv close to no personal contact w/ professors. urgh)
25 When you ask a question, a new professor has said "Oh, I've
heard of you"
26 You can name more amino acids than past presidents
(that is so true, its actually quite funny)
27 You use more than 5 acronyms an hour when talking
28 you actually know what PERRLA stands for
29 You know all the steps of the TCA cycle
30 You do not read PTA as parent teachers association
31 You can remember the muscles in the forearm
(i try. but its seriously a lot of muscles. :/)
32 You know the strucures in the urea cycle
33 You know the dermatome distribution
(28-33 did i not tell u that i have not learnt anything?!!)
34 You can't remember what you had for breakfast
(i can, cos i always have the same thing :"> )
35 You can't spell world, much less backwards
36 You've ever been sexually aroused by the breast shadow on an
X ray
(wtf?!?!)
37 You equate "morning stiffness" with Rhematoid Artheritis
38 You actually know normal values for plasma Na 39 -K
(duh!! thats the basics!!! :p)
40 Missing class causes you extreme stress
41 You have seriously asked someone "So how does that make you feel?"
42 You have asked will this be on the exam
43 -Just after the prof. said it wouldn't
44 You identify with Deb on E.R.
45 You have made a medical joke 46 -no one laughed
(nv try a med joke on non-meds. seriously)
47 -You figure they just weren't that far in their studying
48 You wear your stethescope around your neck on the bus
49 - you don't even know which way the thing goes in your ears
( :"> the day will come though. soon.)
50 "SOB" means short of breath to you
51 You have gone to student health with suspicion of a disease you have studied
52 -within 3 days of the lecture
53 You have answered a question in class
54 -asked by the professor
55 -it was a rhetorical question
56 You can quote lines from the movie "Malice"
57 -you believe them
58 You can flip your pen over your thumb
59 - with both hands
60 - you do so throughout class
61 You have corrected a professor in class
62 -the rest of the class didn't understand the lecture to
begin with
63 You know how to calculate specificity
64 -positive predictive value
65 - anion gap
66 -you can't balance your checkbook
67 You don't know what the weather was like for the past week
68 You don't know what the weather is like right now
69 You actually talk in open ended questions
70 DIC isn't a slang term for the penis in your book
71 You think B- is a bad grade
72 you have stressed about a pass/fail class
(DUH! well, considering all my classes are pass/fail classes :/)
73 You study during most of your meals
74 You saw nothing abnormal about the Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder
75 You draw all of the slides not already provided in the handouts
(hey! thats called the art of note-taking! :p)
76 -including the cartoons (humourous type)
77 Anatomy makes you hungry
78 You would even consider saying "Ease back on my finger at
your own pace"
79 You know the size of a RBC
(duh.)
80 - you don't know the size of a football field
(:">)
81 Your eyesight has worsened by 10 pts or more in the last year
82 You have the library hours memorized
(i do have them pasted directly over my table so i can refer to them anytime. most impt opening hours, ever!! celebrated all night the day they announced they'll extend the opening hours and also open on sundays :p)
83 You have your own seat in the library
84 You score more than 95 on the Epidemiology final
85 You own more than one white coat
86 You have debated between giving up sleep or eating in order to find more time to study
87 You started studying for boards more than 2 months in advance
(on and off, but definitely started panicking more than 2 months in advance. :/)
88 You have never received a personal invitation to discuss
your grades with the dean
89 A tie is the only addition necessary to what you normally
wear when you go to see patients
90 You wear scrubs to tests
91 You have made plans to study on a beach during vacation
92 - you actually did
93 You have a designated seat in lecture
94 - You have ever asked someone to move from "your seat"
95 You sleep less than 4 hrs a night
96 -you think that is plenty
97 -you have thought about cutting back
98 You study more than 35 hrs outside of class
(i probably really should start doing that, you know...)
99 -you think you are a slackard
(u seriously hv to see the rest of the faculty before you judge!)


You see neurons in soap suds in your shower.

You feel like vomiting and automatically lay in the rescue position
(who does that?!! seriously, unless theres no toilet/sink nearby, but still! haha)

When drinking, you and your friends think that the increase in your AST/ALT tomorrow is going to be hilarious!

You still do drugs, but at least you know what they do to you. And never fail to inform those you're doing them with.

You blame neurotransmitters for anything going wrong in your life

You can have a conversation about the abscess you drained today while eating cream of broccoli soup without any problem at all. Or for that matter, over any kind of meal.

You have named a dead person…and talked to them about your stresses while finding their lumbar plexus
(this is super-duper ultra true. though i gave up finding a suitable name for her, i did talk to her and rmb asking her to help me through the exam! )

You know that specialties are pre-defined by personality type.

The drama in your life now is worse than it ever was in high school.

When you go out with non-medical students, you're abnormally quiet, because you don't know what to talk about besides med school. (not entirely true, but i do realise that i talk about medicine a damn whole lot, among med students we usually dont talk much abt anything else :"> still can hold a decent conversation w/ non-meds though)

You can name the four people in your class who are the question-asker, the arguer, the bigshot doctor's son/daughter and the stoner/alkie/druggie who's never IN class.
(some people in my class make me wish they might choose to study something else because i seriously fear for their future patients.)

You know countless dirty mnemonics for parts of the body, but couldn't tell anyone what the front-page headline today is. (absolutely correct)

Your life consists of three parts: studying, drinking, and sleeping.
(oh the med students can drink, they can seriously drink amongst other talents of theirs which involve sleeping and studying. a lot a lot. do everything in excess, thats rule no. one)
You refer to the semesters you took organic chemistry as "The Good Old Days."
(when u graduate onto biochemistry, looking back, plain old organic chemistry was so great.)

You consistently tell people that they just don't understand how bad it really is.
(people must be SO sick of hearing me say that :p)

You know that, in theory, you have a family and friends, but you can't place the last time you saw them.
(friends who are not geographically immediately to me, i regret to say that i never!! hv time to go visit them :/) You don't bother dating because the divorce rate is 70% for physicians.
(now thats a good excuse for not getting a date. heehee. though i have turned down dates because of NO TIME- admittedly, the guys werent cute enough ;) each day i come more to terms with the fact that i wont get married and have kids, so its alright.)
You constantly find yourself saying things like "I just have to get to spring break" or "I just have to get through Step 1."
(constantly. constantly being the key word. current mantra: just survive 28th july. just survive 28th july. just survive 28th july.)

You understand the complexities of the USMLE as well as internships, residencies, and fellowships.

You question every day if you should drop out and open a coffee shop, then realize that as soon as you were two semesters into med school, you were too far in debt to be anything but a doctor. (i actually like what i'm studying, but as with everything i'm sure there'll come a day when i question my own sanity)

You're not really sure which professional organizations you're actually a member of, but you never joined the AMA.

People assume you know something when you tell them you're in med school, but you know that you haven't learned anything.
(people, I KNOW NOTHING! seriously. :/ )
You've dissected a penis and can explain the way Viagra works.
(i'll get to the second part. in due time, my friends. in due time. feel free to ask me for advice when that day comes :p)

People constantly ask what med school is like, and all you can think of to say is "It really sucks."

You've never had problems before, but 6 months into med school you're on birth control, an anti-depressant, an anxiolytic and sleep medication.

You can name 3 specialties you're interested in, then immediately rule two of them out because they don't pay well enough to pay off your debt.

Half your class is Asian of some sort. The other half is Jewish. All of us are completely nuts.

You can name at least three people whose parents pushed them into med school, when they really wanted to be a vet/beautician/teacher/etc

A "study group" is you, your syllabus, and your red bull.
(red bull isnt my drug of choice, but close enough)

You assess beverages for amount of caffeine before buying only those with more caffeine than coffee. Then you explain to the cashier how caffeine works for you.
You've done physical exams on your roommate, boyfriend, girlfriend, and any close friends.
(SO. TRUE. sorry, cant help it :/)

You think "AWESOME!" if someone keels over in front of you.
(not awesome like, awesome for that someone, but awesome cos you know... u know!)

You're still excited to see "real patients."
(YES. YES. YES)

You're pretty sure you used to be a normal social person, but now you can completely stop conversations by talking about the time that guy pissed and bled all over you during a code.

You speak only in acronyms and abbreviations; HIV, CMV, USMLE, Dx, Px.
(u will NEVER believe the amt of acronyms we use. its totally crazy)

You meet someone and have to put off a date for months because you're crazy busy.
(sad. but true! still, vastly depends on attractiveness of said person)
Advisors tell you that you have to balance your life with med school, and then are baffled when you ask them how to do it.
You've been told by at least 2 mentors that you really don't want to go into medicine.

You've thought something like "what's another $10,000 in loans?"

You're really frightened by the thought of some of your classmates becoming doctors.

You go a week without sleeping with no problem at all.
Grey's Anatomy, House, Scrubs, Dr. 90210, Nip/Tuck and ER are your favorite shows, but you point out all the wrong things in them all the time.
( if i had the time u can bet on it i'll get equally hooked to the rest of the shows. not advanced enough to point out mistakes yet. though do get hugely excited when they mention a disease i know/a procedure i've seen. :"> )
You have diagnosed yourself or others with at least 5 rare diseases (PML, Kaposi's sarcoma, Measles, Rheumatic Heart Disease, etc.)
(hey, favourite pastime. what can i say? *shrugs*)

People talking to you for longer than 10 minutes start to get a glazed-over look while you wax poetic about kidney function. And you don't even notice.
(the classic. people ask me politely what my presentation is going to be about. the minute i tell them they hastily try to change the topic)

You keep trying to "catch" the kidney on healthy patients, because Bates says you can. Nevermind that every doctor you know says you can't normally.
(bates is awesome. enough said)

nerd or not, the next 3 weeks are going to be hardcore.bring on the mugging!

the incredible lightness of being

meet me, the proud owner of a FÜHRERSCHEIN!!!!!!! :D i would uncork one of the gazillion bottles of wine i have left over from last weeks party in celebration, if not for the annoying fact that my flu is still making me watery-eyed, stuffy-nosed and blocky-eared. gah.
it has been the bittersweetest journey to getting my license. how the times pass. as i walked down the street today i passed by the optic shop where i got my eyes checked in order to register for the driving school and now, its 4 months later, and its over. 4 months ago. a third of a year-i was still working at the hospital at that time and now my second semester is nearing to an end. i'm seriously going to miss driving lessons. i had the best, funniest, nicest, cutest driving instructor anyone could possibly ever wish for. there's so many stories i could tell about him, but i guess here's not the place. anyhow, heidelberg is such a small town, i'll bump into him again sooner or later. plus i'll see him again when i use my gutschein- a half an hour free drive with the school's porsche. PORSCHE! vrooom vroom! (:

hey you,
ever since you left, it has been raining in heidelberg non-stop. i've had an extremely emotionally-draining, tumultuous and difficult past couple of weeks. but today, the sun is shining and your flowers are in full-bloom, and its the prettiest sight i've ever seen. thank you for the flowers. i'm pleased to tell you that they're doing very well indeed! (: i think, i hope, the storm may have finally passed. i am better. i am no longer sick and no longer sad, and thats something.