Past, present and future

You know when you say "This is the last time I am ever...", insert whatever you'd like, I am certain we have all done this at times when we can't wait for something to be over or to leave some place we do not want to be. Life is funny this way, you never know when you'll be back. Seven years ago exactly I said it was the last time I ever had to drive to the town of South Bend, IN, for a fencing tournament. The last time I ever had to spend a day in that freezing gym, the last time I would ever be at Notre Dame. I remember that particular weekend very well because it was a time of transitions in my life. I was finishing college, it was my last year as a competitive fencer, applying to grad school, moving to a new city. I knew I wanted to go to New York, and earlier that week I had found out that I had gotten accepted to Cornell. I was ecstatic. I didn't care one bit how badly I fenced that weekend. I remember telling people that I was moving to New York soon. I was going to get a PhD, I had all these grand plans. Who said that life happens when you're making plans? John Lennon, I think. Yes, I was making big plans, I was excited, I felt like life was finally happening. And, I also felt like I was finally leaving something behind. The days in the freezing gyms, the nervous anticipation before competitions, the life of a college student. I was ready to get out, move on, life this life I thought would be so much bigger and better. Perhaps not coincidentally, I reconnected with an old acquaintance that weekend in that freezing gym, someone I had met years before but never kept in touch with. I would end up falling in love with him; now that I look back to it, I can see that it was very real yet so naive. Our romance was doomed for failure from the start, partly due to my moving to New York, but probably - and most likely - would have been anyway.

Fast forward to the present day. Friday afternoon, my plane touched down at the tiny airport of South Bend, IN. Many things have changed: the gym is no longer freezing, I stayed in a more comfortable hotel, the nervous anticipation of the competition no longer comes from competing, but from having to judge those who compete. The people are mostly the same, which is why I go to these tournaments. I am unwilling to cut my ties with the people who were such a big part of my life for so long, and still are in many ways. What has really changed since 2005? I am older - maybe a little wiser - have a PhD now, only to be changing paths again, moving on again, this time not even being sure where to go. I am no wiser about love either. And strangely enough, when I was walking out of the same gym I couldn't wait to leave 7 years ago for good, this time I was fighting back tears because the possibility of not seeing those people and not being back ever again was absolutely heart wrenching.

What does this mean? I am not sure, but I feel like I should learn some big lesson from experiences such as this one. Maybe the lesson is that even when we look ahead and make plans (and can't wait to be done with what we are doing now, how many more days do I have as a postdoc left??) we should not be so quick to leave things behind. Why the hurry? Why does everything have to be so final? Can we keep some of the things from what seems like a past life with us? At least in our hearts, I hope we can. I read a beautiful sentence today about what it's like to miss someone, from Stephen King. "She simply lived with his face in her heart all of the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache."

Two yolks in one shell

I've just discovered that you can borrow Kindle books from the New York Public Library for free!! It's awesome!
I've always been fascinated by the idea of having a twin.

Fortunately, I had a twin. Twins enjoy what the rest of humanity craves: a perfect communion with another person, the absence of all loneliness. We are born with that certainty, two yolks in a single shell. We carry it with us into consciousness. When self-consciousness is born in us, we feel part of something and someone else larger than ourselves. (We pay a terrible price, however. Unlike the rest of you, we know what it feels like and we have to give it up, breaking eggs to join you in this vain search for an omelette to absorb us.)

Arthur Phillips: The Tragedy of Arthur

What you shouldn't do on a first date

Religion should not be brought up on a first date. To me, religion should not be brought up at all, but we do live in America and it's hard to avoid it. But a first conversation with someone? Ugh. And ok ok, it's Lent, I get it, if you're not going to eat meat at a restaurant that has the best steak, maybe you do need to say something! But, I don't think I've ever been told before - after telling the person that I was not at all religious and in fact did not believe in god - that knowing right from wrong comes from a religious education and doing the right thing comes from a fear of god and hell. Coming from an educated, otherwise very nice, polite and just a bit of a tight-ass. What great moral values! I sounded as offended as I could and went into a long tirade about knowing right from wrong without a fear of god.

This is still not as bad as my first date with the guy who confessed that he used to be gay but then found god who showed him the right path, but yeah, what the fuck???

California dreaming

I went on a whirlwind trip to Northern California last week. Interview, vacation, well, interview but who wants to go all the way to California just for a day or two, right? So I figured I should at least spend a few days in warmer sunny weather - although currently it is warmer here in NYC than it is in San Fran. So I had to take several trains on my trip, I always either missed a train or got to the station way too early, so I had quite a bit of time sitting in the sun doing nothing. I got some inspiration during these times and just started jotting down some things that came to mind:

Almost exactly one year ago, i came to California for an Immunology conference. It was held in Monterey, one of the most beautiful places i have ever been to. We flew into San Francisco, rented a car and drove down highway 1, stopping to eat Mexican food, take pictures by the ocean, watch the sunset over the Pacific. I distinctly remember passing Stanford on the highway in both directions; the sign for the university as well as the medical center. It was before I started my med school applications and I clearly remember thinking that it would be a waste to even apply there; it's one of the top medical schools in the country if not the world and my scores and grades are really not that impressive. When I started this whole process, and to some extent it is still the case, my only goal was to get into a medical school. I had no expectations, well, let's say very little, in terms of interviews and acceptances. The only reason I ended up putting down Stanford on my application after all was superstition. At the time, there was a postdoc from China in our lab, a deeply spiritual woman. She went to medical school back in China and we used to talk a lot about our dreams and life plans. She told me that in Chinese tradition, 24 was the luckiest number and she was absolutely certain that if I applied to exactly 24 schools, I would be very successful and happy. Not that I am a superstitious person at all, but in some instances I feel that it is better to just go along with these things. In this case, it only cost me a couple 100 extra dollars (my original plan was to apply to ~20 schools). So after I had come up with a list of 23 schools, I got stuck. I didn't want to apply anywhere I knew I would not want to go or had absolutely no connection to the location. So, I thought, what is the one place where I would love to go but I never really considered it? It was Stanford: west coast, seemed too far, too dream-like, too good to be true. So that ended up #24 on my list.

By September, I had a few interviews lined up and by Christmas I had a couple of acceptances. I was beyond happy already. Then during the first few days of 2012, I received a surprise invitation from Stanford. Wow!! I had thought that I was done with interviews, and I certainly did not expect to hear from them! Now my expectations are quite different. Especially after having spent a couple of days on this paradise-like campus. On the night before my interview, I was wondering around campus - which at times feels like taking a walk in the woods, but lined with palm trees - looking for the med school building. I had a few hours to kill before the welcome reception put on by first year med students. As I walked along Palm Drive from Palo Alto towards the main campus, I was suddenly taken over by emotions. I just couldn't believe I was really here. I stopped to look around and make sure I really wasn't dreaming this whole thing. A few minutes later, I saw a girl walking in the opposite direction. We looked at each other for a long time, realizing that we had met before, then finding the correct memories, the names that went with the faces. I said "Olga?" She said "Julie?" OH MY GOD! Olga went to Northwestern too, we were in the same year, had some classes together and she lived in a dorm that had a coffee shop where I worked for a year. So we sometimes chatted over coffee. We once realized that we had both hooked up with the same guy and we both remembered just one thing about that experience: a certain body part of his was less than adequately sized. How strange to run into someone from a past life (it had been 8 years or so, we think, the last time we saw each other). After college, she had gone off to get a PhD in Boston (at BU, of all places, which I am not considering for med school) and now is a postdoc at Stanford. I love love love it when things like this happen.

That was when the train arrived to take me from Palo Alto up to San Francisco. Some pictures I managed to snap while touring the campus and going for a late afternoon run after my interviews were done. I couldn't help myself when I passed this School of Medicine sign on my run; even though I don't think my interviews went terribly well, just being there was something great. Sometimes when our expectations towards ourselves change and we realize we might be able to reach much higher than we had thought, it's important to keep our feet on the ground and take a good look at the whole picture. Whatever happens this spring, I am happy, and there is still some hope that #24 will be the lucky one after all!








I spent three more days in the Bay Area after my interview, visiting family and friends near San Fran. It is such a beautiful place I can't even begin to describe. One morning I set out for a run in the Berkeley Hills: found a place called the Blake Garden, which is a public space that belongs to the University of California, I am not sure if anybody actually lives in the huge house in the middle of the garden, but it sure would be a nice place! It's off the beaten path a bit, had to climb up pretty high to reach it, and it's on a little side street, which wasn't the easiest to find (thank god for smart phones and GPS!). It was quiet and peaceful up there with a view of the bay. Could have spent the whole day there! But instead, I tried some delicious desserts at Janice's favorite pastry shop in Berkeley, where I got this cake as a gift for visiting them all the way from New York! People are so nice in California!!

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.