Of Pretense and Persuasions

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

My sewing machine arrives today! Yet another way to prove that I am my best friend in med school's clone! [she sews all of her clothes, is vegan, and, as of this weekend, started making her own shoes]. I want to make a summer dress. And then maybe a few blouses for the wards. I figure I'd save money if I made my own clothes than if I bought them from Ann Taylor [which is about the only store in New Haven which does not sell yuppie or preppie clothes that are formal enough to suit the pretense of being a smartypants doctor].

*so excited*

Saturday, June 23, 2007

My house. With a new garden wall. Labour provided by my mommy and daddy.

Monday, June 18, 2007


Brown people at MIT go camping:

hee hee! I never stop laughing at this picture.

Granted, I was supposed to trek down to New York today to see the new exhibit at the National Museum of Design as well as check out the Human Rights Watch film festival. Unfortunately, I got a late start to the day and, well, long story short is that I ended up in the library. My mother, upon reading this, will be elated. After 2 days of "summer vacation" I'm back to hitting the books ... gosh, what a nerd. Truth be told, however, I love studying now. I spent the day reading Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine and it is SUCH a pleasure to read. Then later on in the afternoon I ventured out the the Yale Film Study Center and checked out Gretchen Berlin's film called Rolling about the lives of wheelchair bound people. Dr. Berlin is a Yale physician here ... apparently, before coming to medical school she was a producer for TV. She recently won the MacArther Genius Award too for her work on using film to increase awareness of issues relevant to people with disabilties. Well, deserved, I think. The film was pretty powerful.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Today is the last day of my third year of medical school. I would wax poetic at this point, or perhaps produce a slew of indecent vulgarities, but at the moment I am not only writing this but also eating breakfast, trying to get dressed, and somehow create order to my unruly curls in order to be presentable at 8:oo AM Conference which begins in exactly 15 minutes. While I have been pining for a break, I think the next month will be harried like the rest of my life has been. I'm taking the Primary care classes [a school requirement], finding a thesis advisor, and pursuing my new found interest in filmmaking. Human Rights Watch is holding an International Film Festival from June 14th through the 28th in New York and I am bound to make it to some of those events. As for thesis ... there are several exciting ideas floating around in my head and the challenge that remains is finding someone at Yale with enough interdisciplinary talent [medicine + math/engineering/CS] to able to provide astute wisdome and guidance to serve as my advisor. Oh, and I appear to have assumed responsibility of running next year's Pain Symposium.... how that happened, I will never understand. And of course, the art exhibit still needs work.

Saturday, June 09, 2007




I'm going to be having an art exhibition in the Sterling Hall Library in January 2008. I painted this piece this morning. Its mostly acrylic and watercolour on Japanese Sumi-E Sketch Paper.

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Saturday, June 02, 2007

This: http://www.charityfocus.org/new/index.php is what I need.


The world is disappointing me. I've been working in the Hill Health Clinic [located in the poor part of New Haven] as part of my pediatrics rotation. I look at the youth of today and I feel so sad. The kids I have been working with have no dreams, no will to study, no aspirations for greatness. I grew up poor and before I did this rotation, I always thought that I would always have some affinity towards the poor. But honestly, being poor today means something totally different than what being poor in the 1980s was all about. When I was growing up, we had to bust our asses to get anywhere. We had to study harder, be smarter, and excell beyond all reasonable expectations in order to BE someone, in order to simply be acknowledged. Today, being poor seems to mean accepting mediocrity. I asked an 8 year old kid the other day what they thought they did the best at and she said, "Watching T.V.!".... I thought I could smack her. I just wanted to be like, "Man. Just study! Read! Make something of yourself!"

In New Haven, there is so much violence among the youth. They shoot each other because, get this, THEY HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO DO. A couple of med students have already been mugged by like, a group of 13 year olds, because they have nothing better to do than skip school and f***k around. Yesterday, I took care of this 17 year old who is recovering from a gun shot wound to his buttock. He needed an intramuscular injection for an STD infection and when I brought out the needle to stick him he practically pee-d in his pants. I was like, "Dude. You just got shot in the butt a couple of months ago and you're afraid of THIS tiny needle?" He practically fainted on me. Goes to show, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

The stuff in Iraq is also depressing me. I heard the story of the 17 year old Kurdish girl who was beaten by her family for converting to Islam and I was so revolted I wanted to vomit. I am sick of people justifying violence in the name of religion. Complete idiocy. People should be allowed to just do their own thang.

I have also been bothered by the pedantic structure of medical school. I am sick of people who chose to be in academic medicine and then show no interest in teaching. I mean absolutely SICK of it. Being a teacher is such a privelege, such a responsibility, and I HATE people who treat it like its a onerous duty that they have no interest in. Its like, dude, you teach like shit. If you're faculty at Yale, act like you're faculty at Yale.

So much negative energy ... badness. I gues I should do something nice and positive for someone in order to establish some sense of balance in this increasingly chaotic and ugly world.

I think my next new thing is going to be about being a raw - foodist. I want to try it out for a week ... and then a month ... and then a few months. I think it will be a cool exercise in will, in purity, in returning to the earth. I just need to figure out a good source of protein as I'm working out a lot these days. Hmmm. And calcium. How do you get raw calcium?