does this still work?

There is nothing on the food network at the moment.

I first wrote on this blog over five years ago? And why are there no new template options?

babel ... not so much

Due to some effective persuasion, I've decided to try and start working out again.

Earlier this evening, I went to run on the treadmill in the makeshift "gym" in my building. For the first half of my workout, I was alone in the room.

Halfway through, three guys walked in. They were in their late twenties, were dressed to work out ... and were drunk. One guy had a bottle of Hoegarten (heheh) in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

I continued running as the three of them began their strange workout. I finished and began doing some stretches. While I was stretching, I heard one guy say "Hey, did you guys read that article in the New York Times ... about high definition?"

And the other guys were like "Uh ... no. Was it about DVDs?"

The first guy said, "Um, no." And then he launched into a different language. I am not sure what it was. He became very animated and was giggling a lot as he explained the article to his friends.

And as I sat there stretching ... all I could think was "smooth move dumbass." I had read the article he was describing in detail to his drunkedy drunk friends. It was about high definition TV ... and the problems it was causing for workers in the porno industry.

Please ... speaking in other languages to talk about people or to talk about inappropriate subjects? Like that's new? Give me a break. Desis INVENTED that. Why else do you think there are like 4,000 languages in India alone? We just don't like each other that much ... and pig-Hindi wasn't cutting it to tell your one friend that you think your other friend is a moron.

bizarro blog

My memory is certainly starting to slacken with age. Which bodes so incredibly well for my next few years in MEDICAL SCHOOL.

But yes. Memory. I was just surfing the web and wanted to check out the blog. And I couldn't remember if I had "The" in the website or not. I typed in:

http://thesophiachronicles.blogspot.com

And ... Bizarro Blog.

Note to self, and ... readers ... the correct address is http://sophiachronicles.blogspot.com. Though by reading this I can safely say that YOU have the correct address. Congrats! You know me better than I know myself.

Do you think the title and format of the other blog are a little eerie, given my old format and my as-yet-current title?

*~*~

Just finished an exam and now am tidying up before I take off for winter break. I love downtime.

dissection

Hello All.

Per some friendly prodding, I am back to pontificate and procrastinate.

I apologize for not writing in a while. Who would have thought med school was so time consuming? Actually, it's not even the time consuming element that has prevented me from writing too much. Med school just isn't terribly amusing. Interesting? Yes. Challenging? Definitely. Intermittent spurts of uproarious laughter? Not so much.

So far school is great. Anatomy was a bit of a challenge - we have a new curriculum which tried to have us learn all of anatomy in 7 weeks. Suffice to say, that didn't go over too well. I also became very frustrated at the archaic naming of muscles in the body. Why do people make things so much more difficult than they need to be? In a particularly prolonged rant to some classmates, I decided to break with tradition and started naming my own muscles. Here is a dictionary:

Bicips brachii = Armus bendus
Anal spinchter = Poopus stoppus
Latissimus dorsi = Backus flexus
Gastrocnemius = High heelius sexius

You get the idea.

*~*~

A few weeks ago I went to the Harvard Yale football game. Talk about sad. While I had a great time seeing friends and tailgating, I have to admit that the alumni representation left something to be desired. Here is a picture of the Class of 2000 / 2001 joint tailgate:

I am amused as to how they took extra-special effort to designate this the "official" tailgate. Some things are better left inconspicuous.

*~*~

I had gone apple picking a while ago. Apparently some people need help with the concept:



Also, someone snapped this infamous photo of me ... and appropriately labeled it "The Greatest Auntie Shot of All Time."
So there you go.

if you can't beat 'em, join 'em

I am officially in medical school. Which basically means I study all the time, and I make new friends by complaining about how much work we have to do. Note that this simultaneously alienates me from my former friends. Quite the dynamic equilibrium. (I know what you are thinking ... oh no she did-nt! To which I respond 'oh ... I certainly did'!)

But all is well in the land of intellectual self-aggrandizing and social ineptitude. I hit the expected hurdles: homesickness, self-doubt and la piece de resistance ... loneliness. I am having a difficult time making good friends at school. But I think this is par for the course - making friends is a long-lived process and it takes several iterations to find the good ones. I am on my way though ... slowly but surely I found my way to the back row of the lecture hall. Every morning I roll in a few minutes late to lecture, and plop down next to similarly minded classmates and engage in a lively game of "What the hell is the professor talking about?" Followed by my next favorite game of "Let's make fun of everyone but us, since we clearly are the coolest kids in school."

I had an idea to have a class-wide dodgeball game (but dropped it once I found out they already have one in the spring). I wanted to call whatever team I formed "Picked Last." Because clearly, if you are at my school, you were picked last whenever they played dodgeball. Except for the six foot tall girl in my class who apparantly was a rock star Ivy League basketball player. And who has been assigned to my anatomy group (which starts in a little over a week. The frequency of blogging, I am sure, which increase right around then because that's where the good stories will come from). But yes, she is in my anatomy group. I am sure it will make for quite the comedic scene. Has anyone seen the movie Twins? I envision our anatomy table to resemble that somewhat. Except multicultural. Sort of like Benneton-meets-Twins.

I digress. So yes, overall nothing extraordinary. Just life. And the lovely feeling of doing something (however painful it may be) that is taking me to a place I really want to be. Not once during this whole process have I doubted my desire to become a physician. And that is pretty gosh-darn nice.

OK, back to the back row. We were learning the details of the cell cycle late last week. In the cycle, a cell alternates between a phase when it copies its DNA (called "S" phase for synthesis) and the phase when it divides ("M" for mitosis). For several reasons, it is important the M phase follows S phase. Our professor spent quite some time explaining this, and often reiterated:

"S&M are very important. M must follow S. In certain situations, S&M alternate rapidly."

And in there in the large theater, a lone, high pitched giggle emerged from the back row of miscreants.

new adventures

Today was my 4th day of medical school. I feel like this is some kind of bizarre dream and one day I am going to wake up in a cubicle with drool coming out of my mouth.

I went on the hiking trip. I am proud to say I made it through ... barely. This trip was without a doubt the *most* physically challenging thing I have ever, ever done in my life. We hiked part of the Appalachian Trail and climbed over 4,500 feet in the course of 3 days. We each carried heavy backpacks and traveled a total over nearly 15 miles. And I was in one of the EASIER groups.

As soon as we got off the bus, we began our hike. Within the first hour, we had climbed nearly 500 feet. My pack was very heavy for me; I couldn't breathe and my legs felt like they were going to fall off. I honestly thought I would have to stop them and ask them to let me turn around. I was able to push through, but was definitely the weakest link in my group. Originally I was self-conscious, but everyone was really supportive and nobody made me feel bad about it.



My group got along swimmingly. I think the key was that everyone had a good sense of humor. This was quite a relief, as I was really worried about getting along with my classmates, many of whom are considerably younger than I am. We played intense games of poker using M&Ms and raisins as currency. I didn't shower for four days. We had to pee and poop in the woods by digging holes in the forest and hoping noone walked by you. We drank brown lake water (some of which even had tadpoles floating around in it).

The amazing part was that I didn't get sick stomachwise. I think I was so preoccupied with the stress of hiking on the rest of my body, that my stomach was a very low priority for my hypochondriasis. It just made me realize how much of physical pain is due to your mental status.

While the experience didn't transform me into a groovy woovy Mother Earth type, it most certainly changed some of my neuroses. For example, my Brita has been sitting in my kitchen unused, because tap water now feels like an incredible luxury - when earlier I would have most likely grimaced while drinking what I was convinced was "chlorine smelling water."

Once we made it to the top of the mountain though, I felt like I had conquered the world:



*~*~

Tuesday we received our white coats. I guess it's kind of a big deal. I was really excited in the morning. But after hours of relatively boring speeches by various deans and faculty, I was ready for a nap. During our ceremony, we had to each say something about how we ended up in medical school and then go and get our coats in what was supposed to be a momentous and emotional moment.

By the time it got to me, I had to pee so badly that I blurted out some nonsense and then abruptly sat down. After an awkward silence, my neighbor leaned over to me and said "Uh, you need to go get your coat now." Duh.

Also, since I was one of the last people to get a coat, I received a men's size 38. I look incredibly silly. As if I didn't feel awkward enough being in school, let's go ahead and make me look like I'm playing cross-dress up from Daddy's closet. My mom and brother were in town for the day though, which was terrific. Also, I have to say. Harvard Med's campus is just stunning.



It's been a good week. More to come. But so far, I'm quite the happy camper. Literally!

T minus 7 days

Hello hello!

It's the beginning of the end. Of summer, that is. Tomorrow I am half-moving to Boston. And by half-moving, I mean I am going up for two days, dropping off some clothing and an air mattress in my new apartment, and then rushing back to NY a la Speedy Gonzalez.

School begins August 21st. Let me just say: OH. MY. GOD.

I am simultaneously completely ready and totally unprepared to begin school. Does that make any sense? I'm very excited and I know that it's going to be a good time. But the transition is bittersweet; it's been nice being home and spending some good time with family and friends. Luckily, I'm not moving to a place that is completely unfamiliar. Unfortunately for you readers though, that means a never ending stream of posts to come about the lovely, lovely Fung Wah bus!

Don't ask me why (because I seriously can't come up with a good reason), but I signed up to go on an orientation hiking trip. It starts one week from today. Hiking. In the mountains. For four days. Granola - save the earth - Koombaya (sp?) - hiking. With backpacks. And no showers. No deodorant. No shaving of legs. ME. I am going hiking. WTF? I think my thought process went something like this: "Hmm, this is so unlike me. Let me sign up for a hiking trip which will inevitably become a comedy of errors, because I'm running out of material to blog about."

Yeah. Yesterday I went to a sporting goods store to buy some stuff for this trip. Which included a bottle of "Potable Aqua." They are iodine water purification tablets. It kills bacteria from lake water. Apparently we're going to be filling up our Nalgene bottles with lake water and dropping iodine tablets in them and then DRINKING said water.

Note to self: Also pack an economy sized tub of Pepto Bismol. And a Hershey's bar or two. I don't care if the chocolate attracts the bears.

*~*~

My family went on a vacation to Vancouver recently. I had no idea that Vancouver is as beautiful as it is. We then took a luxury train ride from Vancouver to Calgary, which passed through the Rocky Mountains. Quite fun. In a 1930's imperialist sort of way.