T-1

It's the evening before starting my medicine rotation. I had an amazing dinner a la hibiscus. Now I'm unwinding to fleetwood mac. I don't know why, but I'm really sweating this rotation. I've had nightmares over the past week and I've just been dreading it. I don't know what I'm worried about. I have no problem with the sleep deprivation or busting my ass for my patients. I'm dreading my medicine/surgery rotation because at some level I know it's a sneak peak into possibly the next decade of my life.

Anyhow, I'm still really confused about what I want go into. I'm torn between peds, meds (some combination of the two) or urology. These next few weeks will really distill my understanding of myself and what I want to do. I wish I could be that confident guy who has clarity of vision to make others believe...to make myself believe. I'm confused about what I want...oddly enough $125k/year, as ridiculous as that sum is in actually, doesn't seem like enough all of a sudden. I'd rather prefer to avoid outpatient medicine although it's what every grain of me believed in until recently.

It's funny. I had this conversation with a friend I grew up with since 2nd grade during my break in LA. He slapped me around a bit and asked me "why don't you know what you want to do yet?" I'm at an excellent medical school and I have all the tools at my disposal to make an informed decision about my future career. I'm not gonna kid myself about my motives. I can joke and say that I like urology because I'm coming back to my first love: my penis. The truth is, the money and lifestyle are the draw. Pretty simple. Bust my ass for 6 years and be set. Doesn't seem like a bad proposition.

There are some things that I rediscovered. The last few weeks reminded me that I've got a really strong circle of friends that would walk through the depths of hell with me. I've got an amazing girl in my life that I am crazy about. We've made huge strides over the past few weeks...I can fart in front of her and she feels comfortable enough to start showing me the crazy. Every girl has the crazy, some just do a better job of hiding it. In many ways, every girl is the same in that respect, just as all guys have a scared shitless insecure kid inside of us that wants to cry out to his mama.

wow...this blog is really tangential.

Everyone talks about how their families are so supportive blah blah. I love my family, but every time I go down to visit my folks in LA, I feel a dead weight on my shoulders. We disagree on most things and tend to keep the conversation very superficial. My last conversation left a really bad taste in my mouth. They have their vision of me marrying a nice korean girl, living in LA, making a boatload of money, being prominent in the church, blah blah. The conversation turned a little ugly. I basically said that I wasn't sure what it meant to be korean...I know the language and I enjoy the food. That is the extent of my understanding, perhaps a little bit about politics. I can't relate to koreans in korea, or even koreans in LA. I've never had close korean friends and have largely been rejected by most koreans until I got into Stanford and became their golden boy. My dad ripped me a new one about me being lazy, it being my fault for not reading more about korean culture and discovering my heritage blah blah. He raised me to be what I have become. Whatever. I'll work with 2nd generation guys, but I can't relate to the 1st generation folks. It's a huge personal failing/character deficit on my part because I'm willing to bust my ass to understand and accommodate all other groups of people as a doctor, but I can't see past my parents' own shortcomings or cultural background. The conversation basically ended at the airport with me saying, let me off, I don't care.

Damn...I need to man up.

-bender