now i'm 26

so i'm officially 26, i had a good birthday. quiet but nice. no party, no cake, but a good japanese dinner with radu followed by make-your-own-s'mores at Cosi's. that was fun. got a pretty necklace and build-a-bear from him, a very useful amazon gift certifcate from my gfs (thanks girls, how did u know!), will and grace dvd set (used to be addicted to that show), and gift certificate to a very nice restaurant in new haven. my mom sent me 8 GIANT asian pears--she's hilarious. but she knows me well, and how much i love fruit. the sad thing is, i'm so spoiled that i dug through her box looking for the "check" that she mails me every year, but found nothing. i guess that means i'm officially "grown up" and out on my own! =( no more free money for me...

the weather was sooo lovely today (65's) i took 3 walks, one by beach, and two around new haven. the leaves are changing colors too, so that's really nice. can't wait to see everything turn red/yellow in a few weeks! then it's gonna start to snow...aaauuugghh! better bring my board from cali! i bought these chocolate-covered dried fruits from trader joe's and i can't stop eating them! good thing i gave radu 1/2, but still....i'm nearly done with my half in a day. dangerous! so much for my "diet"....

teaching hand-washing to pre-schoolers 

i'm almost 26!

wow how time flies! i'm so old! i swear i feel like i'm 21...like nothing has happened since i graduated from Cal. i guess it's good to feel young, but sad that my life is seemingly at a stand-still for last 5 years! has there been much progress?? anyhow, enuf whining, should be glad to be alive!

above is a pic of the preschool kids we taught hand-washing to. they are soooo smart--then again, half of them have MDs as parents. one kid was explaning, "white blood cells eat germs, red blood cells carry blood". WOW. take about little mds-to-be.

this past wknd was crazy busy. we left Yale at 5am Sat to get to Boston by 8:30am for the tournament. Our team got 5th place, but very close to 4th (lost 5-6). pretty good considering we didn't have all our strongest players. i won every game except for one, so that was good. it was tons of fun--the only hardship was that radu's ex stayed with us...and it's just odd. she and i are friends (used to be doubles partners), but i know it's never easy seeing an ex with a SO. anyhow...i caught her sneaking glances at us, and to make matters worse, she insisted in staying in the same hotel room as radu and me. maybe i'm just being paranoid...but i felt as if i was being watched. at one point during the tourney, she said in an annoying tone, "come on guys, go get a room!" radu and i were just standing close to each other and talking, not touching or anything! i felt horrible after that--i always felt uncomfy with PDA, and now i'm more self-conscious than ever! oh well....i shouldn't care so much what others think.

last two days following tourney have been busy too. at hospital 13h monday, 16 hours yesterday, and crammed 4h to make a ppt on sickle cell anemia to present to MDs today. now that all is done, i feel relieved! i can truly begin to relax and prepare my b-day bash! plans?? perhaps dinner, carve pumpkin (never done that), go hiking for some foilage viewing, badminton, and if the weather holds up (60mph winds last 2 days with rain, 30-40's), i'll drag him to six flags for the "fright fest" haunted house/amusement park rides. i get freaked out easily when ppl jump out, he gets freaked out with roller coaster rides, so it'll be a fair exchange. =P can't wait!

question for readers

getting general survey of my dedicated readers:

1) do you eat breakfast (food within 1h of awakening)?
2) does it make you hungrier by lunchtime (hard to gauge if you've always eaten breakfast)?
3) do you feel you have decreased appetite later on in the day (i.e. dinner)?
4) what time is your last meal of the day?
5) how often do you work out? if you do, what time appx and what exercises/sports do you participate in?

just out of curiousity...kinda releated to my thesis topic!

badm tournies

just got back from tourney #1 in NYC...did poorly in both WD and MX and lost 2nd round in both. but radu did well once again and got his #1 singles out of 45 men. so he got a bunch of noodles (tourney called "Noodle Cup") and an air purifier. lucky guy. i need to play better next week at the Boston tourney...it should be another fun, busy weekend!

oh, after 8.5 straight days of rain non-stop, the sun finally decided to make an appearance, and the world came out! we got to go walking around new haven and hiking again, finally! i hope the sun sticks around...i want to see pretty leaves soon! and brrrr...getting cold now! 45 degrees at night!

guys have no sense of female body weights

so i asked radu a few dangerous questions:
1) how tall am i?
a: he said i am probably 5'6. crazy, huh? he thinks he's 5'11, i think he's at most 5'10.
2) how much do i weigh?
a: he said at first, 100, being the "safe" answer. i laughed and said, be truthful. he said...um...145? after i nearly oogled out my eyes, i reminded him i'm 5'1, and asked him to guess again. and you know what he said?? "umm....135? 137? 140?" and proceeded to go upwards!! sigh...not looking so good!

my patient passed away....

so it happened, my patient passed away. there's bound to be a first...and even though i knew she was deteriorating, her death was still unexpected. she was a sweet old lady with parkinson's, admitted for aspiration pneumonia and unable to eat 'cuz everything she tries to swallow ends up in her lungs (thus causing the pneumonia). anyhow, we talked to her family today and decided to put her in comfort care in a hospice tomorrow (basically stop all feeding and meds and allow her to die peacefully), and she didn't even make it. the nighttime MD found me (i happened to be on call tonight) and told me the sad news--she passed away at 6:30pm while i was at a meeting. =( i hope she's in a better place now.

my monthly update...

this is really sad. i can't believe my blogs are down to one per month!! but not to waste time or space, let's catch up:

SCHOOL
- just finished internal medicine I, it was okay. long hours...some days i'd be there from 6:45am til 1-2am being on call, and back again at 6:45am the next day. plus working at least 1-2 full weekend days for most of the month. at least i don't have it as bad as the 1st year residents who are required to work 30h shifts (6am til 1pm the next day) every 4th day. sooooo happy i'm not a med student so i'll never have to do that! i did learn a good amount, despite feeling dumb just about every other hour...
- interesting anecdotes: had a homeless pt that i kinda connected with and really wanted to help her out and believe in all her "medical problems" that she insisted she had (everyone else thought she was a psycho)...i was pretty much her only advocate, and then she ruined all the naivity and trust from a newbie like me after being caught smoking cocaine in her own hospital room by a nurse!! she was kicked out of the hospital and out on the streets in less than 1 hour. our attending MD wanted her arrested!
- i got kicked out of a room by a 300 lb patient with heart failure...and took it with grace. =) she screamed, "stop asking me the same questions everybody else asks! i already answered it all--get it from them! and get out now!" interestingly enuf, i had no hard feelings, and actually left with a smile on my face 'cuz that means i had an excuse to not finish my exam and get home early (i know i'm a slacker...)
- despite long hours, feeling dumb, and being bored half the time (we spend 2-3h each morn talking about our patients...), the best thing about this rotation is the free daily lunches! we get catered and get a variety of foods like gourmet wraps/sandwiches, salads, pasta, chili and rice, chicken and salsa, lasagna, pita and chicken, huge cookies, etc...it's so bad for my diet, but so good for my empty wallet! i swear, i'm surprised i haven't gained 20# from all this eating. it even got to the point where the sight of sandwiches/wraps and even cookies (yes, spoken from cookiemonster) kinda grossed me out!! WAYYY to much! sad thing is...many times an entire tray of food (enuf to serve 20-30ppl) is left untouched, and the custodial staff just throws it away. what waste!
- my 4th rotation started today, and it's internal medicine II--a continuation of the last one, but this month i work mainly one-on-one with PA-Cs, and only MDs at night when i'm on-call. so i get a first-hand experience of what a PA does in internal med. the hours are much much better--8am til 5:30pm on normal days, and 8am-midnight on call nights (2x/week). i was speechless today when my PA-C told me to go home at 5:30pm...i was like, "what? are you kidding? out this early??" hehe...=P now i have to spend the extra time at home studying and working out all the yummy food (and not blogging, arg!)
- i got props from my PA-C today--i suggested putting in a nasogastric (NG) tube for a aspirating patient, and she's like, that's a great idea! the MD agreed, and i got to put in the tube (basically shove a tube into a nostril down the throat to the stomach to "feed" medication to pts who cannot swallow, quite uncomfy). my 2nd successful NG placement this year, yay!

BADMINTON
- it's tournament season!! yayaya!! after a summer of downtime, it's time to dust off racket...actually, i broke my racket literally in half just hitting a clear, and my cousin from Taiwan got me a new racket as well as new shoes! i'm so excited! early b-day gift! i'm very very proud of my broken racket as it takes me a year just to pop the strings....and to break a racket is a huge accomplishment on my part! too bad it was a gift from my old mixed partner...but i'll keep it for remembrance!
- so the next two wknds i'll be competing in NYC then in Boston, then a few weeks later i'll compete in Philly. it'll be great--getting better partners now too!
- radu and i agreed long time ago not to be mixed partners, as we both agree its deleterious to our relationship. =P some ppl are surprised, but i'm sooo thankful for it. we haven't done very well at practice playing together, but then again, we play against men's doubles who are both much stronger than me, and he has to do double-coverage. plus, i think he's too much of a finesse player and it drives me mad!! i'm like, "SMASH SMASH SMASH" and he just "drroooopppss...." and i'm left at the net waiting, and waiting...and setting him up to smash...only to see a drop, and waiting...and waiting...arg arg arg!! he gets all pissed too 'cuz he knows we have the ability to beat 2 guys, but somehow we just don't get it together. plus, i get annoyed when he tries to "coach" me with obvious tips like, "don't lift half-court!" or "they always hit to your backhand and you can't get it." oh well, it's still great to play!

PERSONAL
- besides radu/badm above, we are good. we actually got to the point of absolute boredom...do any of you have suggestions for fun things to do on a rainy day? or any day? new haven is getting really really dull..we've done just about every walking tour around here, eating at many of the restaurants, played stupid games, watched tons of tv/dvds, talked, etc. we were gonna drive to new hampshire this past wknd for the foilage, but the stupid storm detered us so we will postpone it. at least the next few wknds will be filled with badm tournaments--always fun!
- i wish our PA class had more socials during this time. i actually miss my classmates--we are on diff rotation schedules and rarely get to see each other. =(
- as for my floormates (remember i'm back in the dorms), i plan to maybe throw a birthday brunch/bday party kinda thing to kinda bring ppl together on my floor. it should be fun--lotsa of them were on my floor last year too! oh, one guy just dropped my room and gave me a BBQ pork bun from NYC chinatown--how nice!
- i think i get to see my Cali east-coast gfs in a month in philly! yay! =)

arg, i should stop blogging 'cuz it's 9:20pm, i still have to read on HIT (heparin-induced thrombycytopenia) to prepare for a presentation tomorrow 'cuz i couldn't explain what it was today on rotation, and do a few clinical cases, and work on my thesis! and i have to workout too! not enough hours in a day!!! boohoooooo =P