Hello 2014, I've Been Expecting You

   Ever since I started med school almost 4 whole years ago, I have been looking forward to the year 2014 - the year I finally reach my life-long goal of becoming a doctor.  This year, even more so than last year, will be full of milestones, changes, progress and challenges.  This year is going to be a wild ride.



   Here are last year's resolutions revisited:

1. "Re-find my happy place": I think I made great progress on this goal.  Third year got the best of me mentally, and I am thankful that 2013/fourth year were so much better.  Yeah, there were times during fourth year where I've had a lot more free time, so that definitely contributed, but I've also been a lot better about using my free time to recharge.  I've also been so much better about just doing whatever I want in the moment - whether that's crafting, blogging, binge-watching tv, painting my nails, etc - and not feeling guilty that I should be doing something more productive.  I'd say I was pretty successful in re-visiting old hobbies and exploring new ones.  I also made a lot more effort than usual this year to spend time with family, med school friends, and non-med school friends, which I think has enriched my life as well.  Overall, mission accomplished, but it shouldn't end there.
2. "Become an OB/Gyn rockstar": I nailed this one, I think.  I accomplished all but one of the goals I set out for myself, though they seemed daunting at the time.  Though my research isn't at the stage where I'd thought it would be at this time, I'm still really proud of myself for what I've been able to achieve so far.  I worked my butt off during my sub-internships, studied hard for Step 2 CK, and put WAY more hours into my personal statement than I ever anticipated.  Interview season started off a little slower than I would have hoped for, however, it picked up towards the middle, and now I can say I am comfortable with the number and quality of programs that I've interviewed at.  
3. "Train Melvie": This was definitely just as hard as I anticipated it would be, and there were times when BF and I were both incredibly frustrated, but we did it!  Don't get me wrong, Melvie still has moments of bad behavior (like when he decides to destroy something while we're gone), but he is such a good dog now, extremely well-behaved 90% of the time.  I'm soooo glad we got him.  I mean, I love this stupid dog to death.  My favorite part about him is how every morning he wakes us up by jumping into bed, laying between us, and "cuddling" us awake.  
4. "Keep a cleaner house": Well, this last year I was cleaner than the year before, but this is very much a work in progress... Not much else to say about that haha.
5. "Be more of a morning person": Yeahhhh.... not so much.  Fail.

   New resolutions for 2014:

1. (Couples) Match into OB/Gyn residency:  I'm well on my way to this one.  Two more interviews to go, then the rank list is due in February.  After we finish all of our interviews, BF and I will sit down and pow-wow about all our favorites.  Then, on the ever-so-fateful March 21, 2014, we will get that powerful little envelope which reveals where we'll spend the next 5-7 years (thanks to BF and his pediatric surgery aspirations lol).  I am so excited!
2. Graduate from medical school with my M.D.
3. Find a new place to live the next chapter of our lives.
4. Finish my research project: I'm hoping to have written my manuscript at least by the time I start intern year.  We'll see if that actually happens...
5. Be a good bridesmaid: I'll be helping throw a bridal shower in a few weeks, so I hope that turns out well.  I hope I fulfill all of my bridesmaid duties well.  Also, another goal is to fit into my bridesmaid dress that I bought on the small side as motivation to lose weight.  I tried it on yesterday and it didn't zip all the way up... so I have work to do haha.
6. Make the yearbook for my class.
7. Revamp my blog:  I've had this stupid, irrelevant layout for almost all of med school.  Unfortunately, I know nothing about design or HTML-ing, so this will be a challenge.  But I'd really like to start residency with a prettier blog.
8. 365 days of gratitude: I saw this video of a woman who took a picture each day for a year, reflecting on the positive things in her life she was thankful for.  I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, as reflection and gratitude are huge parts of living a happy, fulfilling life, however I haven't found a format I can stick to yet.  In the past, I tried a paper journal, but I just always ended up not doing it.  This year, I'm gonna try this type of "photo a day" format electronically via Tumblr, so that I can hopefully even do it during residency.  I've decided to keep it completely anonymous, so I can be 100% honest and not hold anything back.  
9. Live it up before intern year starts: Veg out.  Travel.  Drink a lot.  Spend time with friends and family.  Keep doing arts & crafts.  DO IT ALL NOW WHILE I STILL HAVE SOME SORT OF A LIFE!
10. Survive the first half of intern year: Hopefully I'll do more than survive.  I really hope I thrive.

   Happy new year!  I'm excited for the next chapter, but a little sad that this one is ending.  

Dear Right Side of Brain, Please Wake Up

   One of the unfortunate consequences of going into a super left-sided-brain profession, is that if you don't make an effort to nurture the right side of your brain, it atrophies*.  I can make a ton of excuses about lack of time, lack of energy, blah blah blah.  But the truth of the matter is that I have done a piss-poor job of paying attention to my right brain.

   I wasn't always this asymmetric.  Back in high school I was extremely creative and working on projects ALL THE TIME.  I used to sew, paint, collage, draw, dance, you-name-it!  College rolled around, and I sorta lost my creative juices in the midst of studying and doin' what college kids do.  Flash forward to med school where I briefly went through a photography phase, taking a ton of pictures of everything and everyone.  But once I started studying for boards, I turned off the right side of my brain in order to buckle down, and I recently realized that I may have forgotten to turn it back on...

   There have been times in med school when that poor half-a-brain tries to take a breath of air to come back to life. For example:

• my various attempts at pretty nails
• our genital bake-off
• when I tried to pretend I was an interior designer
• when I made these cute uteri magnets

   I have no excuses to continue neglecting my creative side now, and anyway, my head feels lop-sided.  So I am gonna turn on my creative juice faucet, just let it go and see what happens.  First on the agenda: I really wanna start journaling again.  I've done this from time to time in the past, and I'll keep up with it for months, but then I'll just get bored of it.  Also, I love blogging and all, but there are a lot of things that I don't feel comfortable writing on here for anyone in the public to see.  I like to use my blog more as a memoir of this crazy journey called med school - something that people can read, and either learn from or something they can relate to.  My goal is not to air all my dirty laundry.  

   Another reason I'd like to make artsy projects is because it really makes me happy.  I'm feeling so tired and burned out, and I just wanna feel like a fun, happy-go-lucky person again.  The happier you are, the more confident you are.  Besides, I could really use a confidence boost before I try to sell myself to residency programs during interviews.  

 *This is most likely not true; I'm just exaggerating. Though if anyone knows of any studies exploring this topic, I'd love to hear about it...        Oh great, now I'm using the left side of my brain AGAIN

Hello 2013, I've Been Expecting You

   I can never seem to get my New Year resolution blog post up until a week after NYE - but better late than never!  Today marks the last day of our three week break from third year clerkships, and I am feeling more rested now, but I am so glad I'm on an "easier" rotation next (primary care).  The first week and a half of break were fun, and were mostly spent flying off to the east coast, running around meeting up with BF's family and friends, which was super fun, but it got a bit tiring towards the end.  Then, when we got back, we went straight to my family's house, and stayed there for a few days, until I got really sick with the flu on NYE.  Unfortunately, I was so sick that I spent all of NYE sleeping and puking, and BF spent the whole time taking care of me and puppy.  Since then, we've been having a nice little staycation, which was much needed to take care of all the boring things we've been neglecting in life, like cleaning the house, grocery shopping, paying bills - but meh, who likes doing any of that anyway?!

   We've had our puppy (Melvin) for exactly a week now, and he is so cute!  Training him has been exhausting and has made me not want to have kids for a while, and sometimes he is such a brat, but then he gives me his little puppy-dog-eyes, and then I just melt. 

Well, let's get on with it.  Here are last year's resolutions revisited:

1. "Continue a healthy lifestyle":  Well, this one was on and off, as it usually is.  I gained some weight during boards and the surgery clerkship.  Towards the end of 2012, I started to get more diet-conscious, and I even lost a bit of weight.  I still haven't been great about exercising though.
2. "Gun it up for boards (in non-malicious way)":  Hell yeah, I did this!  Studying for boards was no doubt the hardest I have ever worked, and it totally paid off.   Mission accomplished! 
3. "Maintain a balanced, happy life with boards studying (and later with clinical rotations)": Yeahhhhh... about this one.  Not so much.  I'm still working on this whole work-life-balance-with-such-little-free-time thing.  I have my ups and downs, and I'm meeting with the school psychologist this week to discuss some better strategies, so hopefully I'll make some progress on this one. 
4. "Blog more": Yay! I did really well with this one.  I blogged double what I did last year! 

New resolutions for 2013:

1. Re-find my happy place:  I really want to fix my work-life balance, and use what little free time I have to do fun, relaxing stuff - and actually enjoy it.  Maybe I just need to change things up, maybe I just need to figure some stuff out, who knows.  This year I want to try new things, be spontaneous, relive old things I once loved, create new traditions.  I just want to live more this year, and not let med school get the best of me.
2. Become an OB/Gyn rockstar:  After a couple of meetings with my advisor, I have a lot of work to do.  I am going to be creating my own research project (GASP!), helping a resident with a separate research project, applying for a regional MSFC officer position, and starting up an OB/Gyn journal club.  Gives me palpitations just thinking about it all.  It's all things I really want to do, and if BF and I want to be super competitive in the couples' match, I gotta do work.
3. Train Melvie:  This is already proving to be harder than I thought.  Having a puppy really is like having a toddler.  Fortunately, after one week of having him, he is already getting better about crate training, walking and potty training, but it's gonna be a long haul, and he has a lot of learning to do.  The next few months will be hard, but it will totally be worth it when he is an adorable and well-behaved dog.
4. Keep a cleaner house: I've been such a slob lately, and I've realized that I feel a lot less stressed when the house is clean.  I need to maintain it at a certain level of clean more often, so it doesn't get out of hand - because that drives me nuts.
5. Be more of a morning person:  I saw this on Bybun, and I thought it was such a great idea.  Every morning, I am an utter zombie, spacing out, doing absolutely nothing, and wasting tons of precious time that could be spent eating a better breakfast, putting on makeup, doing my hair, putting on jewelry, etc.  I used to enjoy the mornings more, but having to wake up at 4am for certain clerkships changed that, so I'd like to get back to listening to good music, enjoying my coffee/tea, pretty-fying myself, and now I'll have to make time to take care of Melvie too!

Looks like I have my work cut out for me!  Here's to 2013!  2012 was full of big changes and milestones, and I know this next year is going to be full of them too.  I can't wait. 

Hello 2012, I've Been Expecting You

I'm about a week late, but Block 5 has already started out busy, so it took me a while to finish this post.  Before I talk about my goals for 2012, I wanted to look back and see how I did on my goals for 2011.

Last year's resolutions revisited:

1. "Do some serious soul-searching/spiritual discovery": I honestly did give some thought to this throughout the year, but I interestingly ended up in the very same spot I started out.  Which is okay with me, it just means that now I am more sure about how I feel!
2. "Lose weight/maintain a healthy lifestyle": I definitely accomplished my goal of getting back to my normal weight after the holidays last year.  As far as eating healthy and exercising on a regular basis, I tend to go through phases.  At times I eat ridiculously healthy and at one point was training for a half marathon, and then there are other times where I gorge myself and don't work out for over a month.  I think overall, the two phases end up canceling each other out so that my overall lifestyle is about mostly healthy. Also, I have been able to keep off all of the weight I lost in 2010, so I'm really happy about that.
3. "Put more effort into establishing and maintaining relationships":  Friendship-wise, I think I lived up to this goal as good as I could have imagined.  I feel like I've really strengthened a lot of my friendships here in med school, and I've learned to appreciate all my friends for all the different qualities they have to offer.  I've also really enjoyed the cooking/dining out adventures I've had with my friends this year, and I can't wait to have more.  What can I say, we just LOVE food!  I've tried to keep in contact with my UCLA and high school friends as best I can, but this is still a work in progress for me.
4. "Take pictures whenever possible": Along with my diet/exercise goal, I went through phases with this one too.  I think I managed to take a lot of great pictures in 2011, and can't wait to take more in 2012.  I will just have to find more opportunities to take them!
5. "Cook some delicious stuff": I more than exceeded at this goal.  2011 was FULL of cooking adventures with my sister or with my friends.  I grew an appreciation for the Food Network.  I also discovered my FAVORITE cook book store in San Francisco: Omnivore Books.  Towards the end of the year, I stopped cooking as much due to lack of time and excess laziness, but I got a professional mixer for Christmas, so I've been re-inspired to cook again!

New resolutions for 2012:

1. Continue a healthy lifestyle:  I would like to continue to eat FAIRLY healthy.  I also would like to get back into an exercise routine, especially with boards studying coming up, I don't want to just be sitting for 12 hours per day for three months.
2. Gun it up for boards (in non-malicious way):  Since all of our classes are graded Pass/No Pass, I've made the conscious decision to spend less time trying to "get an A" in my classes, and more time keeping my life balanced with friends, relaxation, etc.  After an extremely encouraging meeting with one of the school's student advisors, I am feeling energized and ready to work my ass off for boards.  OB/Gyn doesn't require a ridiculously high boards score, but I would really like to have options when I apply to residency programs. I'm feeling like I can get a really good score if I put in the time.
3. Maintain a balanced, happy life with boards studying (and later with clinical rotations).
4. Blog more: about whatever! Towards the end of 2011, I sort of dropped the ball on blogging.  I got really busy, and also felt like I didn't have much to say.  

So here's to another amazing year!  2012 is going to be a year of hard work, and hopefully worthwhile rewards.  

Hello 2011, I've been expecting you!

New Year's Eve was absolutely amazing this year.  You know how sometimes you just have one of those nights with old friends where the conversation is great and you just stay up for hours spilling all of your secrets with each other?  Well, that's what my NYE was.  We were up till 5 am!  To me, that was so much better than any "night on the town".  It was amazing to just be able to reconnect with my friends and talk about stuff we had never even mentioned before.  What a great way to bring in the new year!

Anyway, I've been doing some thinking, and I have been having a really hard time coming up with New Years Resolutions...  So here is my make-shift list for now:

1) Do some serious soul-searching/spiritual discovery.  I feel like my spiritual self has kinda just been in "limbo" for a while, which is okay because I wasn't in any rush to figure things out, but I feel ready now.

2) Yes, this is about as cliche as it gets, but we are going to Vegas for spring break, and since I will be seen in a bikini, I am going on a Las Vegas diet/fitness plan.  I have put on a bit of weight since I started med school (mostly just because I have been lazy and not motivated to eat healthy) but I'm getting back on my healthy kick.  Sometimes you just need a little push!

3) Put more effort into establishing and maintaining friendships.  I know I have some pretty amazing people in my life, so I am going to make more of an effort to keep them around.  More specifically, I plan on actually having skype dates with long distance friends (instead of just saying I will), maybe sending a snail mail letter here and there, the occasional fb message or wallpost, phonecall, etc.  And with the ones that are close by, making more of an effort to spend time together.

4) Take pictures whenever possible.  Maybe learn a thing or two about photography so I actually know what I'm doing.  And on that note, get back in touch with my artistic side.  I used to love to sew, paint, ets and I just don't know what happened to that part of me.  I am gonna search for it!

5) Improve my cooking skills and cook some delicious stuff!

Well, I'm sure there are more things I need to work on, so this is a work in progress.