Sorry. I have very little time to write or think or otherwise contemplate my life. Things are going well; ortho is fun. The dudes are great to hang out with. I don't think its me for reasons not entirely clear to me.

The Harvard Conference absolutely rocked. I made oodles of contacts in UNICEF, the UN, MSF, IMC, etc etc ... great people doing interesting work. The ony disconcerting thing about the conference, however, was the fact that it consisted mostly of old white men. The lack of ethnic diversity in a room where the discussion focused most on disaster releif in Africa and Asia was simply appauling.

In any event, it was great to talk to people who have been in the field for decades and see their perspective on life -- the good and the bad.

And ... now back to the books hardcore. Ortho Sub-I [which I am terrified of] starts tommorow!!!!

Eep.

Ortho Sub-I: T minus five days and counting ....

Signed up for Ortho Trauma ... get to work with Baumgaerdner ... who, turns out, is a fellow Stanford alum. I checked him out on the Stanford alumni website ... dude majored in Art.

Recent reads:

[1] In the Merde for Love - by Stephen Clarke

I picked this book up in anticipation of my brother's immigration to France for a post doc position. I figured, I should get a headstart and learn a bit about French culture and French language, all the while getting a laugh or two to boot. Perhaps reading this book was not the best choice. It has its moments of utter hilarity, I admit -- and believe me, I appreciate those parts -- BUT in general, I found Clarke's description of his hero's philandering ways to be overdone ... and tiresome, really. And worse yet, I only learned one French word from the entire book: "merde" ... which might as well be used to describe the book itself. Rating: 5/10

[2] Social Intelligence : Beyond IQ, beyond Emotional intelligence -- by Daniel Goleman [in progress]

Fascinating so far. I have always thought of myself as socially inept ... so I picked this up to continue my never-ending psychoanalysis of myself. I'll let you know how it goes.

Upcoming events:

[1] Cell phone -- I dropped my cell phone into a pile of merde. I doesn't work anymore. I'm getting a new one come Tuesday. Sorry if I haven't been returning any of your calls.

[2] Humanitarian Health Conference - Sept 6-8 at Harvard
I'll let you know how this goes.