Money money money

I just finished reading Michael Lewis' The Big Short about the build-up to and burst of the housing bubble in 2008. I wasn't at all interested in economics to be very honest, and if it wasn't for book club, I would have never picked up this book; but I have to admit I am so glad I did. Even after spending a lot of time googling things I did not understand while reading - for example, the most basic terms such as "shorting", which I had no idea was a verb before I started reading this book - plenty of things remained that I still don't understand about this crazy financial world. I guess the whole point is that Wall Street was somewhat intentionally made so complicated that nobody would be able to understand its intricacies; thus, making it easier to hide or move money around in somewhat sketchy or even illegal ways.

To me, what is most astonishing are the greed and the amounts of money that was being "played with" (after all, it's not so different from gambling in a casino), and really, it was all other people's money, ordinary people's money who were a little too gullible and all too eager to own their own houses - after all, that's the American dream, isn't it? The amounts of money described that was invested/used in shady shorting deals, etc. are in the billions if not more. There was only one transaction described in the whole book that I could even grasp in terms of how much money it was. There were a couple of young guys in NY who put up all their savings of $100,000 to bet against companies that were in some sort of turmoil and they made hundreds of millions in the end too. But $100,000 is an amount I can at least grasp. I can imagine that one day I might even have that much money. Granted, that would be in two decades or so, after paying off all the loans I will be taking out, finishing medical training and maybe saving a bit of money. Until then, I am pretty sure I will be living pretty similarly to how I live now, which I am not saying to complain at all, just a statement.

One of the reasons I have a hard time grasping what it means to have millions of billions of dollars is that I am pretty comfortable having much much less, and there are people who have even much much less than me, and they are ok too. I have been thinking a lot about money matters because I am quitting my job soon and will be going back to school, a very expensive school, and so I am applying for all kinds of financial aid, scholarships and such, but in the end, I will have to take out some if not a lot of loans, which is very very scary! If it wasn't for people taking out huge loans, and so many of them, we would probably not be in the mess we are right now. I want to be the last person who contributes to this mess, but I am really hoping that this investment in my future will pay off - not like a mortgage loan on a house I can't afford.

I've never been overly conscious about financial matters, never tried to save money, but I don't really care about expensive things. My most valuable asset is this nearly 4 year old MacBook I am writing this entry on and who knows how much that is worth now. I don't buy expensive clothes... well, I do have to admit that once (or twice) at the encouragement of a friend who does have expensive taste, I did buy unreasonably (to me) expensive jeans and guess what? Both (!!) pairs of $200 jeans ripped on my butt within a few months. Now, of course my first thought was "damn, I must be getting fat" but I really don't think that was the reason as my $40 and $30 jeans are still in perfect condition after years. This reminds me, the second pair of those expensive jeans ripped as I was taking some stairs at a beautiful beach in Porto and had no choice but to buy a pair of harem pants for I think 10 Euros, and I just loved those pants! But I digress...



So the other day, when I finished the book, I started thinking of all the great things I have done this past year, despite the fact that I am no millionaire. I have visited Hungary twice, gone to a wedding in California, visited friends in Minneapolis and Kansas City, applied to a lot of expensive medical schools and went on a few interviews here and there. I can think of only one time in the past year when I was thinking "if only I had an extra $1000!!" and let's be honest, it would have probably been a horrible idea to take an overnight bus to Toronto and a flight the next morning to Havana for the weekend.

Yesterday we had a post-doc candidate interview in the lab and afterwords, a few of us took her out to lunch. She's coming from the University of Connecticut, lives in a smallish town, owns a car. She was asking us about NYC, what it's like to love here, how expensive it is. We told her to definitely expect something very different from UConn. It is expensive, sometimes unreasonably so. But with some effort, it's completely possible to find a way to reasonably live even in this city. I am comfortable right now, although I am also alone and it's much easier when you don't have to worry about anybody else eating a good meal or going to school. One day, hopefully, I will have those $100,000 (at least) but who needs millions and billions?

After The Storm

Sometimes, the 10th or the 20th or the 100th time I listen to a song, it suddenly means something more. This morning, this came on the shuffle and I thought "this is exactly how I feel".

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Full moon, no shit!

Tonight there was a full moon. I looked up at the sky from Union Square and I made a mental note of it: there was just one full moon. Which is important; in some strange worlds, there might be two moons. You never know. Crazy things happen at full moon.

As I walked into the ER for my shift, there was some sort of commotion: not a strange thing. There was a man standing in the middle of the hallway with no pants on. Again, not uncommon. It must be some primal instinct: when people are very drunk or high, one of the most common things they first do as they get to the ER is start taking their clothes off. So there is this guy with no pants on. Then, as I am watching, he reaches down his underpants, takes out something (you have 3 guesses!) and throws it on the ground not far from me. Yup, shit. Nurses are screaming, calling security, they grab the guy, he's laughing; it must be hilarious throwing your own feces around when you're wasted. One nurse says "I wish I could grab it and throw it in his face, let's see how he laughs then!", another just notes "It's full moon today". A minute later, he's tied to a bed, no pants, no underwear, not a pretty sight.

I was thinking, when you're a doctor, a nurse, a person at the ER, you really see people at their very worst. When they are vulnerable, weak, frightened, embarrassed, or just stupid. The very worst of the human condition. Kind of depressing. To me, it's kind of fascinating. Maybe doctors are a strange bunch; are they the kind of people who are fascinated by this condition? What happens to people when they are pushed to some extreme? Some are extremely graceful, while some throw their own shit around. Maybe it's the full moon, maybe it's just people.

Dreams

It got real cold over the weekend in New York and I decided that it was a great opportunity to stay inside, be lazy and get organized. For example, I had a pile of unopened mail on my desk. Nothing important - no, I don't leave mail from medical schools unopened for example :). So I started to go through every envelope. There were a couple of pleasant surprises: I got a nice certificate from New York Road Runners to commemorate my marathon finish. It has my name, my time, my place in the whole field, among women and my age group and it's signed by NYRR CEO and marathon queen Mary Wittenberg as well as the mayor. It's a nice touch - well, for nearly $200 it costs to register for the NYC marathon, it's not that nice. I was a little surprised that out of the 47,000+ finishers, there were only about 17,000 women (for some reason I thought it was closer to 50/50). Looking at this piece of paper, I thought, wow, just a year ago, a sub 4 hour marathon seemed like a superhuman feat to me. I had a goal, I trained, I got faster, I got more confident, I ran as best as I could, and there it was. Who says anything is impossible?

The next larger envelope contained something I had ordered for myself before Christmas as a present. It worked out nicely since I totally forgot about it and it was quite a surprise when I opened it yesterday. It's a print from this amazing NYT cartoonist, Christoph Niemann, who ran the NYC marathon last year with a notepad and live-drew the entire course. There were several drawings among these I loved but this one I felt special about. To me it symbolizes the spirit of the marathon. And more. It symbolizes that point where the race almost completely crumples the spirit. It's that point where you are ready to surrender to it, to just give up and stop running. But you don't. And somehow this picture reminds me not only of that moment - several moments, in fact, seemingly endless moments - on 5th Ave where I felt exactly like the guy does on the notepad, but also reminds me that I made it past that and didn't give up. Here it is - now on my wall in a nice frame:



I also finally got around to getting a nice frame for my diploma. It had been sitting between two oversized books in its protective envelope since the summer. It was time to get it out. It's also a symbol of not giving up more than anything else. I started a new folder for my medical school applications too: the acceptance folder. It now has 4 letters in it. As a reminder, I am tempted to start a rejection folder alongside, to never forget to stay humble and aim higher. But in any case, a lot of dreams I had considered unattainable are now hanging on my wall or lying nicely in a tucked away folder on my bookshelf. It's a pretty good feeling. And proof that impossible is absolutely nothing.

Unmade promises

I've been reading a lot of Murakami lately. 1Q84 is a beautiful mystical love story. His short stories sometimes also contain some gems. Like about polar bears...

Tengo's memory will stay with me, of course. The touch of his hand will stay. My shuddering emotion will stay. The desire to be in his arms will stay. Even if I become a completely different person, my love for Tengo can never be taken from me. That's the biggest difference between Ayumi and me. At my core, there is not nothing. Neither is it a parched wasteland. At my core, there is love. I'll go on loving that ten-year-old boy named Tengo forever - his strength, his intelligence, his kindness. He does not exist here, with me, but flesh that does not exist will never die, and promises unmade are never broken.

Aomame in 1Q84

"He once told me about polar bears - what solitary animals they are. They mate just once a year. One time in a whole year. There is no such thing as a lasting male-female bond in their world. One male polar bear and one female polar bear meet by sheer chance somewhere in the frozen vastness, and they mate. It doesn't take long. And once they are finished, the male runs away from the female as if he is frightened to death: he runs away from the place where they have mated. He never looks back - literally. The rest of the year he lives in deep solitude. Mutual communication - the touching of two hearts - does not exist for them. So, that is the story of polar bears - or at least it is what my employer told me about them."
"How very strange", Satsuki said.
"Yes", Nimit said, "it is strange." His face was grave. "I remember asking my employer, 'Then what do polar bears exist for?' 'Yes, exactly', he said with a big smile. 'Then what do we exist for, Nimit?"

after the quake: thailand

Aim high

Weill Cornell Medical College got a new dean this year. The old one was literally old, frail-looking, the only time I saw him was at commencement - and only briefly, since the graduate school has its own rather useless dean. The medical school and the entire medical center is trying to reinvent itself. They are in the process of constructing a brand new research building across the street from the hospitals; and Cornell University won the bid to build a new technology campus on Roosevelt Island, which is just halfway across the East River.

We were all rather excited when Laurie Glimcher's name was announced last fall. Not only because she's a scientist, an immunologist, a woman, but she is also what someone in our lab called our "Grand-PI". As in our PI - principal investigator, or The Boss - trained in her lab back in the day, so she's is our mentor's mentor (not that the word mentor could really apply to him literally, but let's look past that). Anyhow, there was even an article in the NY Times at the time of the announcement, probably because she also has strong ties to big pharma, namely, she is on the board of Bristol Meyers Squibb. She took her new position this Jan. 1st and already during the first week of the new year, she invited the entire Cornell community to listen to her talk about her vision for the next decade.

The lecture was scheduled in the biggest auditorium our school has and when we showed up 15 minutes before the start, it was not only completely full but people were standing everywhere in the aisles, so we went to an overflow room. Even though she looked small on the screen of this smaller auditorium, I could tell how confident she was talking to all these people. She talked about education, clinical care, research, the health care crisis, interdisciplinary medicine (that's the most commonly used expression these days in medicine), her family - husband, children, grandchildren, dogs - she quoted Steve Jobs about A-players, she talked about the history of medicine, women in medicine, her plans to make it easier for young mothers to develop their careers and many other topics. She was inspiring, seemed personable and above all, as well all know it, she is incredibly successful. It's still rare to see women like her in leadership roles: in a way, she symbolizes a lot of what young women like myself dream about, aim for. To have a successful career without having to give up other parts of a woman's life: having children, a family, dogs maybe :) It seems possible. And it was inspiring.

After her lecture, a bunch of girls from the lab chatted about it. We were all very impressed and inspired. We all said the same thing: it is possible! We also all liked her personal motto, from a Chinese proverb: Dig deep, aim high!

Hungary shall be a Republic

2 weeks in Budapest. 2 protests. Too many conversations about the current state of affairs. Too many articles in the international media about the state of affairs. On my last night in the city, I took to the streets again to protest. According to the liberal media - what's left of it - there were 100,000 people on the streets around the Opera house where the government planned an extravagant celebration of the new constitution, which they dubbed "basic law". Accoring to the nationally owned media outlets, there were a few people. The news on those stations only showed a line of police as they blocked a little side street. Well, I was there, and there were a lot more than a few people, maybe not 100,000 but definitely tens of thousands. Among other things, this new constitution changed the official name of our country to omit the word "Republic". So one of the major themes was the idea of a republic and why we need it back urgently. I stood in the crowd with my best friend, holding hands so we wouldn't lose each other and also because the noise was a bit scary at times.

She is a young doctor and has no perspective in this country. She decided to quit her job that barely payed the bills - yes, she is a doctor - and now moonlights to make ends meet. We grew up together, had similar hopes and dreams, we still do. She loves what she does and wants only to be able to continue doing it in the country she was born in, but it's become impossible. Saying good-bye to her, I felt so sad. I have all these dreams, a future I am planning, an exciting year ahead, with more interviews, decisions and changes. I am excited! She is scared and worried about what this new year will bring. Young, educated people should not live like that! They should be able to dream big and go grab it! And if they chose to stay in their own countries, they should be able to do it there!

Will the protests achieve anything? I have no idea, but people's voices have to be heard. They have to be heard around the world. I hope that next time I come home to visit, there will still be something left to protest for.