my tummy is mad at me

I was a very bad girl today. As you may have learned from my previous posts, I have terrible eating habits. My diet is an unbalanced as Tom Cruise. I know this is one of the primary reasons I find myself struggling with constant lethargy. A few months ago, I was on a big healthy eating / work-out craze. It actually went pretty well and I felt really good overall. This also helped as it was during the time I was studying for the MCAT.

However, since early June, I found myself facing finals and lots of out-of-town travel. I completely stopped working out (though the evil people at Boston Sports Club still get paid for my lazy ass). My healthy diet went to pieces as well. I will give you a brief summary of my gastronomie:

• I don't have breakfast
• Lunch consists of whatever may be in the cafeteria, or some fast food takeout that day
• Dinner is most often takeout, usually of the Asian or Middle-Eastern variety
• I find it virtually impossible to refuse any of the following: cookies, chocolate, chips, chocolate chip cookies, caramels, chicken nuggets from either McDonald's or Wendy's, ice cream, cake, ice cream cake, samosas, gyros and any type of pizza.

I've tried to be a little bit better, but my willpower is at an all-time low. This morning, I woke up and vowed to be health-conscious. It started off well as I had a banana for breakfast. Mmmm, potassium. As I got off the T, a bunch of people were standing there handing out free granola bars. I didn't want to take one. I knew I shouldn't. But they were FREE. And granola is good, right? So I grabbed one. It turned out to be a S'mores flavored granola bar. Even I couldn't justify the health benefits of a S'mores granola bar.

As an aside. The people handing out these granola bars have been doing so for the last week. They are members of the Hope Church. They give you a business card that says the following:

Yes ... it really is free!

We hope this small gift brightens your day. It's a simple way of saying that God loves you, no strings attached. Let us know if we can be of more assistance.

The back of the business card has the address of the Church. Now, the first time I received the card and free granola bar, I didn't think much of it. The second time, I did get the warm and fuzzies that these people are really nice, and gosh darnit, God loves me. This morning, I seriously contemplated attending the Hope Church. Now that is some serious marketing.

So I slipped up with the granola bar. A salad for lunch, I declared! I had to go to the post-office during my lunch break. As I was walking, I passed a Starbucks. And that was my downfall. Today, Starbucks is handing out free ice-cream. This lovely woman was handing out pretty sizable ice cream cups. I shouldn't. I shouldn't. Don't do it Sophia. Oh, but I did. I sat outside and ate the entire thing of ice-cream for lunch. It was terrific. For about 10 minutes. After that, my stomach fuly retaliated. Ice cream for lunch? Who do you think you are missy? Please give me some nutrients that do not fall into the sugar or high-fructose-corn-syrup family.

I needed to put something remotely food-like into my displeased gut. What to eat? I wasn't even hungry, but I needed something. Something.... and then my eyes fell on the Wendy's across the street. My feet propelled me there before my brain could even think about it. Suddenly I was ordering their chicken nuggets. So bad! But so good. I ate them in 2 minutes. Mmmm.

My stomach has filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences.

modern life

At some point yesterday, the main headline on CNN.com was "The Internet Transforms Modern Life."

Well, DUH.

Are you seriously telling me that given everything going on in the world today, the most important headline was effectively telling me "Whoopee for the Internet!"? How apathetic is the media-viewing population that these are the types of stories that keep them engaged? I am sure I sound hypocritical because I devour all celebrity-related gossip and read the Entertainment Section of the newspaper before I read the front page. But still. This is ridiculous.

Also, given that poeple had to be on the internet in order to read this article on-line, I'm pretty sure your target audience already knows that the internet has transformed their "modern lives." It's like telling people who are waiting for food at a restaurant "I would like to inform you that you are hungry."

Stupid, stupid CNN. Why I still read it, I don't know. Their movie reviews are pretty good. Speaking of the internet though, I guess it's pretty cool that I have the opportunity to blog. There's modern life for ya. Prior to this I would have had to keep a personal journal and then send you all copies of my inner thoughts by snail-mail. And then I would tell you to mail it to 5 friends and that if you didn't do that you would be cursed and grow warts all over your face ... ahh, memories.

I am ashamed to admit I did participate in a post-card-chain letter thing when I was in elementary school. I don't even rememember the details, but I was told to send out 5 postcards to random people (who these people were or how I even got their mailing addresses is beyond me). If you didn't do it you would have bad luck. If you did do it, you would get 100 postcards in the mail from people on all corners of God's green earth.

Needless to say, that was a waste of 5 stamps.

I tried to update my blog yesterday and the font suddenly got very messed up (thus explaining my last post). What did I do to my blog? I tried to fix it but was having quite a bit of trouble. Finally, I had to reselect the pattern of the blog and republish. It worked out OK, but there were a few bugs. In the "help" section of blogger, they told me I needed to go into the HTML guts of my blog and rejigger some things there.

Wow. I felt like I was looking under the hood of a busted car. Staring at all this HTML code made me feel like I was in a digital jungle. All I wanted to do was put a space between the post title and the actual text! I finally figured it out, but did not like this whole "Fix it yourself" element to this blogging site. I am not yet prepared for that modern a life.

hello

why is the font messed up

candy jar

A woman in my "office" has a candy jar. I say office in quotes because it's not really an office, it's a hospital. But where I sit might as well be an office. I have a cubicle. AGAIN. But I digress. Candy. This woman who sits in the cubicle next to me keeps a candy jar. And she puts some money candy in there as well - Hershey Kisses, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The works.

Of course, the problem is that I am a chocoholic. I really am addicted. I tell myself not to eat her candy, but then I go and take some of it. I suppose it's not that bad, right? Wrong. There have been multiple days where instead of getting breakfast or lunch, I load up on chocolate. This candy jar is very bad for my system. Last night I almost passed out because all I had eaten that day was an egg & cheese sandwich and 35,000 Hershey Kisses.

I've been staying at work late to try and make progress on my application essay (status: just plain old terrible). Unfortunately there are no good dinner or takeout places near here. I hate that about Boston - or Cambridge at least. No good fast food. No Taco Bell. No Subway. No place for me to get some decent food.

How messed up am I that I consider Taco Bell and Subway decent food? But that's a story for another day, I suppose.

I should probably cook at home. But I refuse to. Primarily because I am lazy. And also because the other people in my apartment cook. But they don't tend to do the dishes or clean the kitchen on time. I am loath to cook in a kitchen that has not been properly cleaned. I may sound a bit OCD here, but there is a reason:

Last night, as I was coming home and opened the door, I was greeted by the smell of fish. Not the pleasant grilled-salmon type smell. The fishy fish smell. I walked into the kitchen, and discovered one of my roommates tearing the guts out of a poor fish that still had its head, skin and tail attached. AND - get this. He was using his Swiss Army Knife to fillet that sucker. There were fish guts everywhere. I could not deal. I went to my room and ate my falafel on my bed in front of the TV. So lonely.

Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about the falafel place near where I live. It is quite good. But eating there 3 times a week has made it ... umm .. less good.

Mantra of the moment: NO MORE HERSHEY KISSES!

flat tire

I had a lovely weekend. Well, almost. The beginning of my weekend proved to be very relaxing and fun. I came to NY on Friday night, and spent some quality time with two of my best friends. I saw my parents Saturday. We went to the mall to buy my Dad walking shoes. I feel I must re-emphasize how much I LOVE SUBURBIA. I love the mall. After picking up some walking shoes, we drove on over to the movies and saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Two thumbs up from me! Two thumbs down from Mom & Dad. Two thumbs up and four thumbs down. Which I guess boils down to two thumbs down. Damn arithmetic!)

Sunday we went to the mall again. What luck! After the mall my Dad dropped me off so that I could catch the bus back to Boston. It was at that moment that all the goodness of the weekend stopped accumulating.

Given my excessive blogging about the bus, I will keep this short. There were 2 buses: one at 6:00 PM and one at 6:30 PM. I was on line to board the 6:30 PM. The woman shoving everyone onto the 6:00 PM suddenly yelled: "Room for one more on this one! Room for one more! Come quick!"

Here is where I failed to think through my decision. I grabbed my bag and ran to the first bus.

Now, many of you probably would have thought about this, but I let my excitement about getting on an earlier bus get to me. Which seat would obviously be the unclaimed seat on the bus? That's right. The one next to the bathroom. And next to a ... let me say euphemistically ... unclean and unkempt middle aged man. Even so, I was pleased with the fact that I would get home 30 minutes earlier.

The ride was relatively smooth and stinky, until we were about 30 miles from Boston. When we got a flat tire. Our bus driver told us nothing for 45 minutes, until suddenly he said that another bus is coming to get "some" of us. Which bus? That's right. The 6:30 bus which I was originally supposed to be on. Mind you, that bus was FULL. Those of us who got on had to stand in the middle of the bus for 40 minutes until we got home.

It was quite an adventure, but luckily I made it home without further complications. I can't help but appreciate the irony of the situation. Patience, my friends, is definitely a virtue.

I am so smart. S-M-R-T!

Someone had that quote from Homer Simpson as their signature on a medical student bulletin board I have been secretly frequenting. Some people go to bars to drown their sorrows. Me, I lurk in on-line geek boards. And let me tell you, I like it. These people are just as, or sometimes even more neurotic than I am.

Last night our MCAT scores were posted on-line. A few people were keeping vigil starting Tuesday to see when the scores would be posted. These people were all freaking out and sharing their best/worst case scenarios. I am paraphrasing, but I swear to you these were some direct quotes:

• Summary of a conversation between two posters: "I need to relax, I'm so nervous about getting my score tomorrow!" Response: "Go to the gym, take a walk, have sex." Response to the response: "Wish I could, but I'm saving myself for marriage."

• "If I do well, I'm proposing to my girlfriend tonight!"

• "I wrote a Perl script that logs in to the site every 15 minutes, checks if my score is available and then will text message my cell phone with my score when it's posted."

I am content with my score; it was right in the middle of my expected range. I was completely wrong in my assumption of score breakdown though. I walked out of the exam thinking I aced the verbal reasoning, and that I had some problems with physics and biology. My actual score report revealed that I did well in science, and OK in verbal. Which goes to show exactly what I was saying the night before I took the test. English me no good. I better start prepping for that TOEFL, know what I'm sayin?

Overall though, I'm so glad to be done with the anxiety of waiting for my score. There were so many what-ifs: Would I need to retake the test? Would I need to seriously reconsider the schools I had in mind? Luckily, I can take a breath and continue on the path. Not that I'm smooth sailing or anything ... I am struggling with my essay. Writers block is no fun. I really mean it - why can't I just include a blog entry? It's more entertaining than your formulaic essay which begins: "I have wanted to be a physician since I was a mere fetus." Actually, that would be kind of funny.

OR attire

I began working full time at the hospital in June. I don't do much medical stuff, though. I sit in a cubicle. I work on data management. Basically, I do what I did before I decided to become a doctor. Sigh.

It's kind of lonely here. I have no coworkers. They all left / were forced to leave. So I am lonely, Mr. Lonely. Being alone has its advantages - I can concentrate and get work done when I need to. But it has several disadvantages as well. Primarily, I have nobody to eat lunch with. Eating alone is always a depressing activity. Food should be shared and celebrated. Not consumed while sitting alone staring at people in the hospital cafeteria.

My lunch today consisted of a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. I sat for a minute to eat my lunch, and looked around at the various people in the cafeteria. Obviously, there were hoards of doctors, nurses and students walking around. Two docs wearing scrubs walked past me. I noticed something a little strange about both of their outfits:

They were wearing scrub shirts with a low V-neck. And both docs had a not insignificant amount of chest hair, which was totally exposed. I began to wonder if these guys are aware of their seeming incongruousness. They are wearing OR caps and booties to cover their feet. But their chests are a haven for potential OR contamination. Maybe they wear another robe on top of their scrubs when they are with patients. But still, I would think an undershirt would be called for in such a sitaution.

And that's all I hafta say 'bout that. Being back in front of a computer all day has caused me to scour the web for all sites that can keep me entertained. It reminds me why I started blogging in the first place. Interestingly enough, I have come across a significant number of blogs who share the exact same 'skin' or design of my blog (the pink template and font). So much for uniqueness. Not to be deterred, I wanted to see if anyone else in cyberspace is using the title "Sophia Chronicles."

Indeed, they are. Some couple had a baby they named Sophia and they monitor her every move on their version of the Sophia Chronicles. I can understand that. This, however, is truly weird.

fanatic

I think it's fine and dandy that Michael Jackson was acquitted on all charges. In fact, I think Michael himself is just fine and actually a dandy. He's a strange dude, for sure.

The trial jurors felt that the prosecution had not proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt. I think it's great that they followed the law and weren't influenced by preconceived notions. I didn't follow the trial or details whatsoever, but I did form a completely spurious opinion that MJ is a freak, but that he probably didn't molest anyone.

What I find infinitely more disturbing is the throng of fans who devoted themselves to the trial. Apparently more than 1,200 people waited outside the courtroom and "screamed with joy" and "sobbed" as the verdict was read.

Here are some disturbing snippets from the article:

• One fan came from Arizona two weeks ago to wait for the verdicts
• Another fan (who came from London) commented that she was "shaking" when the verdict was read
• A woman from Las Vegas sat in court for two months to support the star
• A man who describes himself as a lifelong fan "cried like a baby when the verdict was read."
• Al-Jazeera cut from their normal programming (ha, oxymoron) to broadcast the verdict

MJ is a big deal, I get that. But this kind of reaction is unwarranted. And the fans who took months out of their lives and cried at his verdict? I think we need to get some tough love from Dr. Phil to those people ASAP. Get a life.

plunger

I once heard a zen saying which I have since tried to adopt into my daily routine:

Anger without rage

I admit I have a tendency to fly off the handle on rare occassions. And by rare I mean frequent. I realize that getting worked up about little things is a vast waste of energy; therefore I am truly making an effort to be chill about many things. Anger without rage. Say it with me people.

It seems that every day I am being tested on my ability to keep things in perspective. Today is no exception. Perhaps this has happened to you and you may be able to sympathize with me. Perhaps not, but I shall tell my story anyway. Because I want to.

I woke up this morning and went to the bathroom to get ready and shower. I was very unpleasantly surprised to discover the last user of the restroom had failed to flush the toilet. Ewwwww. I tried to flush. Only to realize that the toilet was clogged, and the person who clogged it left it that way.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have 3 male roommates. Two of them are out of town. I mean, I'm no Carmen Sandiego or anything, but I figured out this riddle pretty quickly. The remaining roommate clogged the toilet. So where was he? Not around.

I became more aggravated upon realizing we have no plunger. So in my bathrobe, I went around knocking on random people's doors in my apartment building, until I found a kind soul willing to lend us their plunger. As I took the plunger and headed back to my apartment, I saw the AWOL roommate climbing up the stairs. He looked at me and said "Is everything OK?"

I asked him if the toilet was clogged when he used it this morning. Now, here is the moment where my patience was truly tested. He could have just responded, "Yeah, I'm sorry, I clogged it and ran away hoping you wouldn't figure out it was me who did that." Instead, he said to me:

"It wasn't clogged when I used it last night, but it was clogged when I used it this morning, so I don't know who clogged it."

First of all, let's analyze the statement. Are you in agreement about the serious absence of logic? Second, why are you trying to evade blame? Even if you didn't clog it, why wouldn't you have the common decency to try and unclog it? Instead, he left me to discover the unflushed (and unflushable) toilet. In addition, he stepped out of the apartment for a while only to return. Why didn't he think of purchasing a plunger in that time?

I am proud to say I didn't even come close to yelling at him or flying off my broom handle (hee hee). I unclogged the toilet then went about my bidness, know what I'm sayin?

I must admit I am quite frustrated with my living situation, though. Everyone is really nice, but as I mentioned earlier, some of them are not very clean and nobody takes any responsibility. I feel I am stuck between a rock and a hard place since I am very clean and responsible. If my roommate's don't clean, I do it anyway because I am a neat freak. And if the toilet is clogged, it's a good bet that at some point I will be the one to fix the problem. I am adept at playing the mommy role, but it bothers me when I have to assume that role for people I feel are taking advantage of my personality.

But what can you do? My old roommate will be returning from study abroad in a month. She is a nice roommate. She is even more of a mommy than I am.

I will lament the fact that my apartment has no AC until the end of summer. I came into the office today, so that I could work on a computer to take care of some personal work in a comfortable, temperature controlled environment. With a toilet that flushes.

life on a bus

I need sleep. These last few days have been some of the most exciting, yet most tiring I've had in a while.

First, I went to Toronto on Tuesday and Wednesday for Deedar. For my non-Ismaili readers - the Aga Khan, or spiritual leader of our sect, came and gave a speech and blessings. It is (very) loosely analagous to a papal mass. They estimated that about 60,000 people were there.

The experience was really terrific; it was fun to be part of something so large in both meaning and magnitude. My entire family went. My brother had the luxury of flying up from Atlanta. My parents and I traveled as part of a larger group that went from New York to Toronto via Buffalo, NY. We flew from JFK to Buffalo. Then took a bus from Buffalo to Toronto.

Things I learned from my trip:

1) Jet Blue rocks. I hated Jet Blue for a while since I have lost quite a bit of money on the stock. But now my hate is balanced by my love for their service. DirectTV and chocolate chip cookies made the flight so pleasant, I almost didn't want to get off the plane.

2) Long bus rides are painful. No matter how often I ride the infamous Chinatown bus, I still find bus rides over 2 hours to be very taxing. It's hard to sleep and the bus is especially bad for kids and teens who are easily agitated. The bus had many such kids, and trust me, they were agitated. As a result, so was I. Also, my dad claimed my iPod for the entire trip.

3) I'm getting old. First, many friends and family (along with the little woman who lives inside my head) kept reminding me that this would be a great place to meet a husband. I mean, there must be one within the 60,000, right? My dad continually reminds me that my mom was married when she was 26 (I thought she was 27, but he informed me that she was 26 and a HALF. Who says 26 and a half?). He never fails to add on my favorite kicker though: that his mother was married at 12 ... and that makes me way behind schedule.

Oh, and on the bus, I had the following conversation with a 15 year old whose camp counselor I was when she was 5. I shall call her tweenie.

Tweenie:
"Sophia, do you remember when you were my camp counselor"

Me:
"Yes, I do. That was a long time ago ... I was your age when I was a counselor!"

Tweenie:
"How old are you now?"

Me (mumbling):
"Uh, almost 26"

Tweenie:
"Do you have a boyfriend?"

Me (still mumbling):
"No ..."

Tweenie (with a very big smile):
"I do!"

3) 60,000 people is a lotta people. (Yes, I realize how silly that sounds, but for real. It's a lot). Even amongst so many people, though, we managed to find friends and family who we hadn't seen in quite some time.

On the whole, the trip was really phenomenal, but I hardly slept at all. I returned back to Boston to find my apartment in a sad state of disorder. As of now, I'm living with 3 guys, who have some trouble with the concept of a cleaning schedule. Why are boys so dirty? And yes, I understand that this may be one of those shrug-your-shoulders haha boys are so silly things, but still. I hate it. Follow the freaking schedule. I'm not your maid.

I'm very tired though; it's quite hot now and I have no AC. At least it's Friday!

essayer

I am attempting to write my essay for my medical school applications. This is proving to be even more painful than I anticipated it to be. First, I haven't written an essay since college. And even then, I tried to avoid it as much as possible. I was an Applied Math major, see ... I think if I handed any of my math professors a sheet with words instead of numbers on it they would self-destruct. Just kidding. It's not like I went to MIT or something.

So yes, j'essaie. Which means "I'm trying" in french. Did you know that's where the word essay comes from? It's from the french verb "essayer" which means 'to try.' I think it's kind of funny because "essayer" in English would seem to be a person who is trying to write an essay. Therefore, I am an essayer.

Maybe I'll just print out an old blog entry and send it in. Casual writing, no problem. Forced writing - no can do.

let me guess

Yesterday I went to the gym after work. Sometimes exercising can reinvigorate you. Last night did not qualify for such an experience. I attempted to run but felt tired, so I walked for a bit. Then I hit the ramp/buttblaster machine, but ended up watching "Everybody Loves Raymond" and was so engrossed that I think I just stood still on the machine for a while.

After my half-hearted attempt at raising my heart rate for the recommended 20 minutes, I decided to be even lazier and went to lie down in the sauna. Luckily, the sauna was empty. I sat down and began to relax, when another woman entered the room. Normally in such a situation, you keep to yourself. But she looked at me and said "Hi!"

I responded politely - "Hello."

It's not a terribly big sauna, but there were other places for her to lie down besides right next to me. But that's what she chose. I thought she would close her eyes and try to relax. But she looked over at me and said, I quote:

"Let me guess. You must be from Sweden."

I swear. Those were her exact words. I shook my head and said "No." I then got up and exited the sauna.

Sweden? Of all places, Sweden may truly qualify as the most illogical guess for where I might be from. I am small, dark and neurotic. Not a tall, strapping blond sporting pigtails and waterbuckets. Though, I suppose I do like me some Ikea.

deep throat ... unveiled

The informant from Watergate finally came forward. I don't really understand why this is front page news. Or why he wanted to reveal himself at the tender age of 91. Especially given the evolution of the term "Deep Throat" over the past few decades. Do you really want your granddkids going around telling their friends that Grandpa was "Deep Throat"? Combine that with the mediocrity of teaching history to the country's youth and, well ... that's an ass-kicking for his grandkid waiting to happen.

Though I must admit this breaking-news story did stir up a long-lost memory of mine. We had a mock Watergate trial in my high school American History class. And, you guessed it, I played Deep Throat. Which was very convenient, because I didn't have to do anything except sit there and cite the 5th everytime I was called to stand. Speaking of the terrible education system - this was one of those teachers who gave students he liked good grades, regardless of performance. One of my less-appreciated classmates was cast as a lawyer. He had to do so much preparation and pretty much ran the trial. But the teacher didn't like him too much, and he got a B for the project. Whereas I, who was playing poker on her TI-82 (come on, you did it too) - got an A-. Why I remember this, I don't know. But it supports my theory that history teachers suck. And yes, he was a coach.

I have stumbled upon a thesis for this post without even meaning to. Social Studies, history, etc. is so poorly taught that I think ignorance is now the norm. A few weeks ago, as I rode the bus from Boston to NY, I had the distinct displeasure of being seated near 3 high school girls who were visiting New York City for the first time. They even had a camcorder and were videotaping each other saying "So, tell me how you're feeling - are you excited to see New York? OH MA GOOOD! EEEE! OH MA GAWD!"

Highly annoying.

The highlight of their stupidity, however, occured as we were passing through Connecticut. There was an inlet of water to one side of the bus. A large pond, most likely. One of the girls said "What water is this? Where are we?" And her equally challenged friend replied, "Oh ma gawd, it's like the Ocean. We must be going through New Jersey."

On the way from Boston to New York. With a detour through New Jersey. Yup. Where are those National Geographic Geography Bee kids when you need them? Not on the Chinatown bus, that's for sure.