That's my people...

Korean grandmas are notorious for being rude and out of control. Here's a clip one of my friends took while at a wedding in korea.

-bender

Rollin

They see me Rollin, they hatin, patrollin and trying to catch me ridin dirty...

I don't know what to say right now. Let me try and give you an update on my life Bender.

Rolling through the motions. Trying to just stay out of everyones way and keep everyone out of my way. Sometimes I get frustrated at the stupidity that is everywhere and I seriously wish I had Bruce Almighty's powers every once in a while.

My car is doing good except for the nice dent someone left on my car (bastards).

Some stuff I would like to share with you but I think I'll save that for a phone conversation.

Yes... My life is that dull right now, but guess what.. I like dull, I'm happy and loving life.

I hope everything is going good for you on your rotation right now.

Take care,
Joe

It's been a while

So I'm doing a week of psych consult with rabbit. It turns out that I don't hate psych that much after all. I really enjoyed my day today and am looking forward to this week.

Hey Joe,

Here's an update on my life.

1. My car is dead...I'll get around to getting it fixed. It just doesn't want to start anymore. I don't know why. For the time being, I'll just ride my bike.

2. I started using Rogaine this week. Yea...pretty sad.

3. I heard from Mo. She is moving out to boston to go to Harvard B school.

4. Highlight of the week...hard to say. It's a tossup between finding out that Atul Gawande was a guest writer for the NY Times this month or getting a new desk.

-bender

blahgging

when did I get so old? bah... why am I such a late bloomer? fuck man, meeting the parents in a month and I have to somehow explain to them why I'm 25.. almost 26 and back in school again. The trip is getting more and more stressful, bah... I hope I come up with something good... cuz seriously, the truth is... It's because I was flaky and unstable before... And I'm sure her parents aren't going to want to hear that. Damn... who walks out on a promotion from SOE, who studys for 6 months straight to do well on the LSAT's only to walk away after the test and quit on that?

Sometimes I hate myself... always gotta atone for your past wrongs, now is my time.

If you got some advice, I'd love to hear it.

Fire Season...

I'm on my way somewhere, not sure where... but I'm going there.

Been getting job offers and one good paying job, especially for having no kitchen experience. Kinda happy about it, but it's out in Griffith Park, on the Hollywoodland side. And it's summertime, already 1 fire out there burning it down, hope their aren't more fires out there for the rest of the summer. Cuz there is nothing scarier than knowing you can burn down and be trapped in a campsite.

We'll see what happens...

Joe is hot... and not the sexy kind.

Coming At you Hard and Fast

So I went to a place called Farm Stand... nice little joint in El Segundo. Ate their with my classmate and probably one of my only friends at school, Les. The weird thing between the two of us, is we are the fiercest competitors and hate losing... especially to each other. Yet we became natural partners and since we met in the first quarter we've always been in the same group/team. He's a workhorse and loves food and cooking, he is in the kitchen more than I'm awake in a day. I keep up with him because of my natural ability to lead and adapt. We have similar tastes and we love pushing each others buttons, but at the same time we know how to get the best out of each other. All it will take is him talking shit for 10 minutes to get me to raise my effort to pull out the best dish out of our 5 course meal. He's the same way, if I'm spitting mad shit at him, he'll come back with the nicest fucking plate of the day and I'll be steaming the rest of the day. Monday we split our classes, but tuesday we went opposite ways. I went for speed and then started getting creative with leftovers and he went for perfection with one item. Needless to say, we both wowed our Chef's and ended up smoking the rest of the class. Our group is probably the strongest from top to bottom than any team the school has seen in the past 2 years. We've been teamed up with a couple upperclass students to compete in the state and regional competition but I think both Les and I will dropout since we are too old to be eligible for Nationals and World trials.

Regardless of what choice I made in coming here, I got out of my groove out here in santa monica. But with nothing more than a little shit talking I am inspired again. An A or A- is not good enough anymore, I want Best of Quarter, not just Merit Scholar... but BOQ. I want Les' title and he knows it.

This is getting fun...

Joe

Psych sucks donkey balls

So I'm three weeks into my psych rotation. I'm at an awesome site and I work with some of the coolest residents and attendings that I have ever worked with. Even with the awesome people, free food and great hours, I can't stand psych. I seriously count the hours every day as the hours go by. I've been trying to learn and all that good stuff, but seriously. Psych is just draining. Your patients have weird personality problems so they piss you off or drain you cuz they're so depressed. One of the things that I have really learned to appreciate is counter-transferrence. Hmm...actually, I only recognize it when I get mad or annoyed. See, one of the most important things in psychiatry is being able to recognize the emotions that different patients stir up in you and being able to avoid letting those feelings, whether they be positive or negative, affect the way that you treat your patients. So for me, when I have patients who are child molesters or liars, I get really irritated and tend to provide less face time. If were up to me, child molesters would be shot on the spot. It's a good things that things aren't up to me. Anyhow, the days are dragging by and I'm more and more confronted with the things that aren't so hot about me. See, I think that's one of the greatest things about psych. The psych residents all get treated by psychiatrists so that they learn 1) what the experience is like and more importantly 2) to deal with the weakness they have in their lives. In one sense, my specialty choice represents a huge copout for me. It represents my childish fascination with crude jokes and my complete inability to be at ease with women who I haven't known for a significant amount of time.

On a happier note, I had an awesome weekend camping out and kayaking with hibiscusfire & co. The only thing that soured the weekend was my own insecurity. I ended up moping for a few hours after accepting that I was going bald once I took a good look at my sunburnt scalp. I knew it was coming. I just didn't expect it quite this soon. I know it's a very superficial thing. I was still in the denial/bargaining stage of loss. Ags made everything better. Except for the bald part.

-bender

Another one bites the dust

This blog ring is kinda weird. I think it's interesting that some blogs are clearly directed toward a readership while my blog entries are just my thoughts growing roots.

I think I'm feeling like you Joe. I got my fourth wedding invite for this summer. Everyone is getting married, saving up their retirement funds, having kids, etc. I'm busting my ass to try to get into a urology residency. It's possible that I might end up in Chicago, New York or even (cringe) Texas. I'm gonna be busting my ass for 6 years or so to live out my dream. I'm pretty happy with the decision. I don't even mind the shriveled balls I'll have to deal with.

I don't know why. After RSVP'ing for this last wedding, I kinda lost my cool. Had a little trouble catching my breath and felt incredibly sad for some reason. You'd think after taking doctoring class after doctoring class where we talk about our feelings and get in touch with our sensitive side, I'd be better equipped to verbalize my emotions. It'd be nice to have some stability in my life. So far, the only things that I'm sure of are that next year I'm gonna have a little less hair and a little more debt.

I guess the only other thing I'm sure of is that I love you guys, I love my family and I love to eat. I'm gonna cruise down the river on a kayak this weekend with the only people up here that help me make sense of my experiences over the past year.

Man Joe, I wish you could've been there with me on the wards this year. There's a magic in the air when a new baby is born and there is nothing but hope and amazement at life. It's the only time I hope my dad cried. It feels great when you help out a patient, get them their meds, and in turn they thank you. I mean, they're really grateful. You can see it in their eyes. There are moments when you'd wish nothing more than for your rambling patient to shut up. You find them incredibly annoying and all you can do is throw up your hands in frustration. There are moments when you take a hit for your resident and you wait for your attending to stop yelling at you. Then you look him straight in the eyes and say, "I'm sorry sir. It don't happen again." I can't describe how cold the air is at 3am, and the feeling of gliding through the air as you walk from the parking lot to the hospital. You've done it in your sleep so many times that you can time the automatic doors to open in a regular rate and rhythm, allowing only the hem of your white coat to brush against the sliding doors as you pass.

The art of medicine is about learning from your experiences. Learning to pick your battles, knowing when to spend a little extra time with a patient, and knowing how to tell the difference between heartburn, heart attack and sometimes simply a broken heart. The heart of medicine is about being willing to search for the difference between heartburn and heart attack on Friday night, even if it means missing a meal with your loved ones. It's about learning to balance our lives and our checkbooks. It's about not being the center of attention when someone passes.

so am I living out my dream? You bet. As a kid did I dream of a job performing rectal exams and placing penile implants? Not really. Sometimes it just feels like I'm always running.

-bender

NBA playoff basketball

The lakers are struggling. =( Haven't been able to really keep up. I'm on psych, the hours and work are chill, but I'm still tired. Funny how that works out. Anyhow, there was an article in the NY Times today that reported a study showing that white referees call more foul calls on black players than white players. I'm not sure who all these white NBA players are. You know, I can't really think of too many white ballers aside from kidd, nash and few guys from Europe. Do guys from Russia like Kirilenko count as white? whatever.

-bender is running low on his give-a-damn