Books I read in 2020

I went from reading multiple books a week to reading almost none. That's the way it was, with the first half of the year being essentially a prolonged break for me (interview season, quarantine) and the second half being work.

1. The Subtle Knife - Phillip Pullman (RR) - 5
2. The Amber Spyglass - Phillip Pullman (RR) - 5
3. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie Kondo - 3
4. Sabriel - Garth Nix (RR) - 5
5. The Incendiaries - R.O. Kwon - 4
6. Sourdough - Robin Sloan  4
7. The Prince and the Dressmaker - Jen Wang - 5
8. A Mother's Reckoning - Sue Klebold - 5
9. Sea People: the Puzzle of Polynesia - Christina Thompson - 5
10. The Cabin at the End of the World - Paul Tremblay - 2
11. The Secret Commonwealth - Philip Pullman - 4
12. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail - Cheryl Strayed - 3
13. Educated - Tara Westover - 5
14. Severance - Ling Ma - 4
15. Pretty Girls - Karin Slaughter - 5 ** look up content warnings
16. The Night Tiger - Yangsze Choo - 4
17. The Long Walk - Stephen King - 3
18. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens - 5
19. Dear Girls - Ali Wong - 4
20. The Familiars - Stacey Hall - 2
21. The Family Trust - Kathy Wang - 4
22. My Twenty-Five Years in Provence - Peter Mayle - 3
23. Upstream - Mary Oliver - 5
24. Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn - 5
25. Dark Places - Gillian Flynn - 2
26. The Woman in the Window - AJ Finn - 3
27. In Real Life - Cory Doctorow, Jen Wang - 2
28. 172 Hours on the Moon - Johan Harstad (tr. Tara F. Chase) - 2
29. The Feather Thief - Kirk W. Johnson - 4
30. The Deep - Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Huston, Jonathan Snipes - 3
31. Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo - 5 ** look up content warnings
32. Jaws - Peter Benchley - 4
33. Trick Mirror - Jia Tolentino - 5
34. What Doctors Feel - Danielle Ofri, MD - 4
35. In the Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick - 5
36. The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm - Christopher Paolini - 2
37. Wave - Sonali Deraniyagala
38. Wild Ones - Jon Mooallem - 3
39. Spin the Dawn - Elizabeth Lim - 3
40. The Unhoneymooners - Christina Lauren -  4
41. Pachinko - Min Jin Lee - 5
42. Minor Feelings - Cathy Park Hong - 4
43. The Miniaturist - Jessie Burton - 2
44. In a Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware - 1
45. I'm Thinking of Ending Things - Iain Reed - 3
46. Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi - 5
47. The Plant Messiah - Carlos Magdalena - 5
48. The Overstory - Richard Powers - 4

I think this year was lot more about exploration, with a lot of homeruns and a lot of really awful books too. I don't have a lot to say about the books I felt meh about, but looking at my 5 star and highlights of the year, there's a couple of common threads:

- all were un-putdownable for me

- if non-fiction, involved some dark subject matter that was dissected in a very meticulous and compelling way - A Mother's Reckoning, In the Heart of the Sea, Educated

- if fiction, regardless of genre, involved intelligent and well-executed characters

-- if fantasy, expansive and logical and lush worldbuilding was a must - His Dark Materials, Sabriel, Ninth House

-- if thriller, the pacing was perfect - Pretty Girls, Sharp Objects

-- and rounding out the pack, interestingly Pachinko and Homegoing were both multi-generational family sagas surrounding race

I don't know if I have anything more to say about my year of increased recreational reading. I'm happy with how much I got to read in the beginning of the year, and how Goodreads had such a resurgence among the people that I knew from college and med school. I'm just nosy about what kind of things other people read.

My acne journey thus far, intrepid adventures in skincare, and using isolation as time to try out The Ordinary

When I first started medical school, I was hoping that at the end of it I would have a few answers to my questions:

1. Why was it that for several years in high school, I would become nauseated and have belly pains so bad I dreaded to go to class - every weekday, like clockwork, from 7 AM to 9 AM?

2. Why did I have acne, and what can I do to get rid of it?

The answer to the first question is probably that depression and anxiety can manifest as physical symptoms, particularly in young people. As for the second, I don't really know, but my skin has slowly, slowly improved.

Over the years, only three things have actually made a discernible difference in my skin: hormonal birth control, topical retinoids, and salicylic acid. I thought that coming off birth control would cause a rebound in my acne and asked my PCP to prescribe me spironolactone (I got an IUD, which does not provide the systemic androgen suppression that my combined estrogen and progesterone birth control did). Being the intrepid medical student that I was, I decided to see what my skin would do without hormonal birth control and without spironolactone, and to my surprise...it looked fine.

I've used a topical retinoid (Differin, available OTC) since college, and it's really the only thing that reliably keeps closed comedones away. Because of the prophylactic anti-aging benefits, I see no reason to stop using a topical retinoid, and my next adventure will be to see if I can get tretinoin prescribed for a lower cost than Differin (this could be a gamble, and I'm not sure if this will pan out.

All of this is to say my acne is actually, for the first time in my post-pubescent life, mostly gone. This great source of teen and young adult angst and self-confidence issues is...gone. By my standards, at least, since I know some people in my life with truly flawless skin. For some people, my skin with all its post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, is the worst it could ever look for them. For me, it's the best it's looked in over a decade.

So why am I trying new skincare? Simply put, my goals are changing. I've locked into a routine that reliably keeps my acne at bay, but now I have PIH to tackle, and skin tone to even out. I want to prevent aging - and I would like to add I am a religious SPF user for years.

Before isolation, I bought a few items from The Ordinary, and also received some from a friend who was going to start Curology. With this unexpected windfall, I saw the opportunity to try a bunch of products, fuck up my skin, go back on my progress, and experiment. When the pandemic hit and it became clear I was going to spend my days at home, I decided to try these out.

So this is what I ended up doing:

AM: Niacinamide + Zinc, moisturizer, SPF
PM: cycling between Differin, Vitamin C, and Mandelic Acid; moisturizer

Preliminary thoughts are that I'm tolerating Niacinamide + Zinc after an initial breakout that resolved. The Argireline actually works, but now that the lines I was concerned about are gone, I stopped using it and am saving it for later. Jury is still out on the Vitamin C and the AHA, but again, because I started all of these around the same time, it's hard to say what did what, other than my skin does actually seem better. That's what before and after pics are for, after all.

Once I'm done with the Mandelic Acid, I'll start using my Lactic Acid in its place. I'll try out that AHA+BHA mask eventually. I'll do it slowly, and try to be meticulous about tracking how my skin reacts. It seems pretty contrary that I'm going from a relatively simple skincare routine to one that is more complex, with new products, but I'm doing so to address the reality that my skin has changed. The old problems have resolved, and now I can address the other things.

A review of the clothes I bought in 2019

The first half of this year was taken up by clinical rotations largely spent in a small capsule wardrobe of all the wards-appropriate clothes I own. June to November were spent in scrubs: one month of anesthesiology elective and four of orthopedic surgery rotations. Other than that, I've been schlepping around my apartment in loungewear and wearing the same three outfits to friends gatherings and dates just for fun. So, not much new added to the wardrobe this calendar year, but some key items like my black leather boots.

January to June

1. Frye black leather ankle boots - $112 - after years and years of thinking about buying black leather ankle boots, I finally did, and it was worth it. Is there more to say?
2. Red crop top - gift from roommate - birthday present from my roommate, who also wears crop tops in our mid-20s. It's pretty loud and bright for my skin tone, but I've found occasions to wear it out.
3. Black and white striped dress - secondhand, from roommate - cute little dress that I wore to many a summertime date. It was too short for my tall roommate, so she passed it along to me, and it fits me just right.

July to December

1. Leather saddle bag - vintage - $25 - I bought this purely on impulse when I was wandering around downtown Charlottesville. There is an abundance of cute vintage stores and could imagine myself living a cute life in that cute town. I even tried on a few dresses from the 1940s just for fun, chatted with the people working there, and definitely felt like I needed to buy something. So I did, and it barely fits my phone, wallet, keys, and small miscellany. But I got a lot of use out of this little bag and I'm glad I did buy it, even on impulse.
2. Asics running shoes - $60 - my old ones were wearing out badly, and I found a colorway I liked on discount on Amazon.
3. Muji green merino wool turtleneck sweater - $55 - actually, this was an impulse purchase, on sale. I've wanted a green turtleneck knit for a long time, and tried on all the ones offered by Uniqlo and Muji one day (they are very close to each other in Boston) and bought my favorite. I actually do feel guilty about this one because it was not well-planned.
4. ExOfficio underwear, 3 pairs - $28 - Black Friday deal. Am phasing out my shabby underwear and wanted to get some that were high quality, lightweight, and designed for handwashing and drying quickly.

Total 9 items

Total $280

My post-mortem of my 2019 purchases is that despite the relatively small number of items, some were poor decisions. The green sweater was an impulse purchase that stemmed directly from me wanting to dress my fantasy self, a more put-together, poised person than I actually am. The color drew me in! I tried on four different sweaters in that color at MUJI, but really, I don't think I needed it. The green blouse doesn't suit me at all, and now that I'll be mostly in scrubs, I don't need to have more blouses at all. I feel like I'm aging out of some of my clothes, and that I do need to reassess my wardrobe, but the unhealthy thought patterns and impulses are still there. I'll need to work on that.

I'm actually staying at my home program for residency, and staying in my apartment. I was kind of expecting to have to leave, and undergo a massive decluttering and cleanout of my belongings. Despite my staying put, that's a worthy endeavor and I'll use this quarantine time to do that.

By the way: I'm patting myself on the back for the underwear purchase since I now know I have another year of handwashing ahead of me!

A one-bag minimalist sprint for interview season

First of all, the itinerary:

• 1/9 AM - travel to NYC from by bus
• 1/9 PM - interview social for Hospital #1
• 1/10 PM - interview at Hospital #1
• 1/10 PM - travel to Boston by bus, sleep at home
• 1/11 AM - interview at Hospital #2
• 1/11 PM - interview social for Hospital #2, sleep at home
• 1/12 AM - travel to California by plane
• 1/12 PM - interview social for Hospital #3
• 1/13 AM - interview at Hospital #3
• 1/13 PM - travel to parents' house by car, sleep at home
• 1/14-15 - sleep at home
• 1/16 PM - travel to LA by plane
• 1/17 - Hospital #4 interview and interview social
• 1/18 AM - travel to NYC by plane
• 1/18 PM - interview social at Hospital #5
• 1/19 PM - interview at Hospital #5
• 1/20 AM - travel to ABQ by plane
• 1/21 PM - interview social for Hospital #6
• 1/22 AM - interview at Hospital #6
• 1/23 - sleep all day in ABQ
• 1/24 AM - travel to PHX by plane
• 1/24 PM - interview social for Hospital #7
• 1/25 AM - interview at Hospital #7
• 1/25 PM - red eye flight back to Boston

And now, what I packed:

• Suit
• Blouse
• Grey dress
• Black wool shirt
• Grey Uniqlo heat-tech shirt
• Grey t-shirt
• Black gym shorts
• Black tights
• Nude tights
• Heels
• Black ankle boots
• Navy blue Uniqlo ultra-light puffy jacket
• Watch
• Black Fossil handbag

...and necessaries like underwear, computer, Kindle, chargers, toiletries, chocolate. Surprisingly everything fit comfortably and the bag was always accepted for United Basic Economy, whose luggage restrictions are one single item that can fit under the seat in front. I am very proud of being able to make the trip with such lean, lightweight luggage. In fact, I think such a trip would have been bearable only with such little burden.

Why did I do this to begin with? Mostly to save money and save the hassle of keeping track of all my stuff, at the cost of having a perpetually wrinkled suit. Some of it was a challenge in seeing if I could do it, kind of prideful, I admit. The bottom line: I did it, and it was convenient. And now it's done. This two weeks of travel coincided with a nasty upper (eventually lower) respiratory infection for the same duration, complicated by sore throat and very diminished voice in the beginning.

And now it's done, and I get to rest and agonize over my future.

I wrote this post in February and it stewed in my drafts for all this time. I matched into orthopedic surgery! I'm going to be an orthopedic surgeon! I'll find out where on Friday, but for now, I'm just happy happy happy that I've fulfilled a dream of almost eight years. More coming soon!

I started reading again: 18 books in 2019

Somewhere in Sacramento

Looking at the title, this seems a pretty pitiful number, but certainly much better than previous years (close to zero). Despite four months of 90-100+ hour workweeks, this year I have had more free time than all the other years of medical school, and suddenly began to read for leisure again.

I remember what it was like to be a voracious reader as a child and a teenager, and was increasingly disillusioned with myself for numbing my brain with endless social media. I even throw podcasts into this since I definitely use them as a way to pass time without really gaining anything from them. So my month in Chicago kickstarted what will hopefully be a habit of reading more, writing more, and being more critical and deliberate with the content I consume, and how I choose to use my precious free time.

Bolded and highlighted titles are those that I strongly recommend. Italicized titles are those I am currently reading and expect to finish before the year is over.

1. The Hazel Wood - Melissa Albert
2. I'm Not Dying with You Tonight - Kimberley Jones, Gilly Segal
3. The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon
4. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid
5. Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
6. Becoming - Michelle Obama
7. The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware
8. An Enchantment of Ravens - Margaret Rogerson
9. The River at Night - Erica Ferencik
10. Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng
11. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo
12. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie
13. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara
14. This is Going to Hurt - Adam Kay
15. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness - Susannah Cahalan
16. No Exit - Taylor Adams
17. The Outsider - Stephen King
18. Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng

I expect to keep up this pace of reading into the first quarter of 2020 since I'll be traveling for residency interviews and not socializing with my classmates while I'm on the road. I don't really have a set TBR, but here are some of the books I definitely intend to hit in 2020.

1. The Secret Commonwealth - Phillip Pullman
2. Dear Girls - Ali Wong
3. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Daneilewski (RR)
4. Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo
5. Catch and Kill - Ronan Farrow

What does the future hold for me, and this blog? I really don't know that answer (other than I seriously hope everything works out and I match into orthopedic surgery), but hopefully I can use this space to log my books and talk about them in manageable batches. Looking at this list, it definitely seems my tastes are shifting away from fantasy and science fiction and towards contemporary mysteries and thrillers. Additionally, my goal is to read more medical humanities since my medical school library has an abundance of them (and everybody is too busy studying to read them for fun, except the graduating students).

Half measures: minimalism game 1-15

The Minimalism Game is likely new information for absolutely nobody, but the spirit of it is to get rid of (give away, donate, recycle, trash) n items for n = 1:15 consecutive days. I participated because though I think I have been pretty good about keeping my consumption in check, I do have clutter that I am sick of seeing. I also didn't have a good sense of how much extraneous stuff I had, and wanted to challenge myself to purge my space of things that do not have a place. As much as I like Marie Kondo's methods, I understand that where I have the most room to shrink is the komono = "miscellaneous things" category, and not so much the others. So these first 15 days of the Minimalism Game, 15 non-consecutive days over several months, was my ease into decluttering.

I don't think I ever embarked in any massive full court press decluttering campaign before, maybe because I always favored a slow fade. I revisited a blog post I wrote in January 2016 where I was clearly overwhelmed by stuff in my apartment, and am glad that the feelings of being trapped and being despaired by a space have never resurfaced. I think too that even now, I use minimalism as a framework to process my need for control in a life that often feels out of my control. Those feelings in January 2016 came mere days before I was accepted to medical school, at the peak of what may have been my closest scrape with depression. The past few years of medical school have not had nearly the same ups and downs as college, yet I'm still coping with the old ways: trying to exert control over my life through what I own.

I read something on Reddit recently about the very topic: minimalism cult as a proxy for coping with depression and anxiety, and perhaps there's some truth to it. But take my participation in this game as lighthearted tidying up and self-improvement. Practically speaking, I am moving next year somewhere unknown across this country - hopefully because I have matched at an orthopedic surgery residency program. I actually am now in Virginia for a month for an away rotation enjoying the lovely 3-story home of some medical students who own an order of magnitude more things than I do (but I do appreciate the Southern hospitality) while some other medical student rents my room in Boston (the tidiest it's been in a year, Chinese hospitality). 

Last photo is not relevant, but just needed something to complete the line since I lost one of the photos

Anyhow, maybe an excessive amount of words for an insignificant post. Somewhere around day 10 I decided to fuck all the random pieces of paper I was counting and just recycle them all. So, all in all, I needed the kick in the ass to get rid of the detritus in my room.

And lastly, a sentence from the last post: A general goal that I have is for each item in my possession to have its specific, designated location.

I'm closer to that goal, and I still think the same. Minimalism Game will resume with the much more challenging half when I return to Boston in November.

Makeup inventory

Every year or so, I am overcome with the need to gather up all my makeup, arrange it just so, take a picture, and write a blog post about it. Maybe a bit more frequently, I write out all that I own from memory, to see if I can do it. If I can't, it's a reminder that I have too much. I think maybe the stars aligned and I've been thinking more about makeup and beauty and expectations for female beauty and groomed-ness and put-togetherness that I write this post today.

First, the inventory itself, and then the rambling:

• Maybelline Fit Me matte and poreless liquid foundation - 220 Natural Beige (2018)
• Sephora powder foundation - Golden Fawn (2016)
• Wet 'n' Wild blush x2 - Pearlescent Pink and Mellow Wine (2010)
• Estee Lauder kohl pencil - black (2010)
• Wet 'n' Wild eyeliner pencil - brown (2010)
• Wet 'n' Wild eyeshadow palette - Comfort Zone (2014)
• Urban Decay eyeshadow palette - Naked2 (2013)
• Burt's Bees matte lip crayon - Redwood Forest (2019)
• Revlon lip butter - Pink Truffle (2016)
• Bite amuse bouche lipstick - Chai (2015?)
• MUFE lipstick - N9 (2014?)
• Maybelline mascara - Snapscara (2019)

Note: I picked my favorite pans from the two eyeshadow palettes and put them in this little metal business card holder. It works for me. The matte black from the Naked2 palette fills in my brows.

This is probably the smallest my makeup collection has been since high school, and it's through a concerted effort of not buying new things, being honest with myself and tossing products that are old/not suited to me/etc. I think a longer post about my relationship with makeup and beauty and self-image are due at another time, and this is something of an easy appetizer to write. Over the years, I have progressively owned less makeup, consumed less beauty content, and worn makeup more often (but less of it). Though I always wore what I consider "minimal" makeup - as in, foundation only for special occasions and residency application photoshoot - these days, it's black eyeshadow brushed through brows with a very light hand, and a single coat of mascara. A little lipstick blotted on if there's time. Eyeshadow and blush for social outings. Priorities are to have a low maintenance routine that wears well - and wears off well - over the day, a slow, pretty fade instead of a ruined mess. Can't stand that, and I find foundation and liquid eyeliner suffer from that.

There is room to whittle down. High coverage foundation, be it liquid or powder, has almost no role in my life. Personally, any kind of base makeup makes me slip into uncanny valley, or at least distance my done up face from the one I am familiar with. There's redundancy in brow products. I've never gotten the hang of eyeliner pencil so that will probably go at some point. And most of the lipsticks look the same. I have no desire to try or buy new makeup, and will just replace what I own organically, as they run out or no longer serve a purpose.

With that, a vision of the future:

• sheer liquid foundation
• sheer face powder
• blush, 2 of them
• brow product, just 1
• mascara - I'm happy with the one I use now, and I'll be better about replacing as it expires
• small eyeshadow palette, likely constructed from single pans - the amount I have now is fine
• lipstick - 1 sheer red, 1 my lips but better (MLBB), 1 more for variety

High quality, reliable products. With that list above, and the inventory I have now, I have all my bases covered, and happy with what I won't own. Hopefully minimal and timeless, as empty as those descriptors are. But that's what I want, and I think that's what I have here.

Commonplace book

The concept of the commonplace book, a receptacle for information and thoughts, came to me from A Series of Unfortunate Events in elementary school. So started my habit of carrying a pocket-sized notebook to scribble in. We received a yearly planner from school from 6th to 12th grade, so I used those. And then in college and medical school, it was back to notebooks.

And that has continued. They have always been cheap dollar store notebooks or gifts. Days were always drawn out in wobbly colored pencil. Despite my best efforts to appear organized and orderly, the contents of my commonplace book - and, of course, it is also a planner - reveal me to be a disorganized, chaotic wretch. The basic format has not changed:

• standard weekly planner format, always Monday to Sunday, six boxes with the weekend sharing the last. Deadlines and events and flights always immediately populated because I can't trust myself to not forget about them
• blank pages for whatever else: lists, brainstorming, drafts for presentations, information, questions, pearls collected from the wards, steps to induce and emerge from general anesthesia, how to close a fasciotomy, wardrobe planning for autumn/winter 2019, etc
• in earlier iterations of the CPB, there was one of each section, but I found it more convenient to have a few months of planner, a section of free pages to be used while that planner section is active, and then the next planner section, then the next free pages, etc

A sample of pages from past books loosely in chronological order: exams, deadlines, lists upon lists, course material, sketches, information, information, information, etc, etc, etc. When I went home last, I flipped through the old CPBs and took these photos, and tossed the books themselves into the recycling.

I don't know if this has increased my productivity or my focus because I have never been without it. I don't have any interest in buying a pre-made planner or improving the aesthetics or adopting any other system of organizing information at this time. Inevitably I will make a Google calendar for flights and interviews for residency applications, and will likely be subject to a shared calendar for residency, but for my personal use, I am happy as is. As much I admire the bullet journal movement, it is not for me. I am a person of habit. I am a person of habit.

Lessons in minimalism: month in Rhode Island, out of a suitcase

My room, my suitcase, my sleeping bag. Missing in this photo is the other identical chest of drawers and the other identical broken landline

I spent the second month of my Internal Medicine rotation at a community hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, about an hour away from Boston by train. I took this as an opportunity for a minimalism challenge, and as a trial run for the three months I'll spend this year on away rotations for orthopedic surgery. Here was my attempt at packing light, with the safety net of easy trips back to Boston for things I forgot to bring in the first place, and things I didn't need to bring and took back to my apartment. Despite learning very little in this hospital (in fact, the medicine practiced there is comically bad), I did learn a bit about minimalism (in this very specific context). Namely, I can get by with not a lot, I have room to trim away, and I can sleep in a sleeping bag very comfortably for a month. Read on...

Clothes for a month

In brief, here is what I brought:

5 blouses for wards, 1 of which I never wore
3 t-shirts for exercise and for lounging
1 flannel

3 pairs of trousers for wards
2 pairs of shorts for exercise and lounging
1 dress for the wards, which I never wore
1 pair of jeans

Black boots, boat shoes, and running shoes

Not pictured are my raincoat, undergarments, socks, etc. Essentially, I got by fine this month with this limited wardrobe, but we had laundry in the house provided. Looking back, I could have done with less for the wards, and probably more for exercise since I found myself hand washing after every run. For my orthopedic surgery away rotations, I can shrink this down to one outfit for clinic, a suit, a set of scrubs just in case there is a delay in getting hospital-provided ones, and obviously at least another set of workout clothes, as this is, after all, orthopedic surgery.

As lean as I thought I was packing, there were some leftover items - my green silk blouse and grey dress - that I thought were just too formal for the wards. That's something I've found for myself, that the order of formality of dress code that I've seen is: surgical clinic (business formal) > medical clinic (business casual) > medical wards (business casual) > surgical wards/OR (scrubs). At least that's how I perceive it.

Left: the shoes | Right: perhaps the first and last time I show a stethoscope on this blog

As for shoes, I think darker soled boat shoes would work in almost any medical situation in New England (I say that with some humor, but actually I've gotten away with even these beaters). The black boots will come back in the winter, and my black pumps will come with me for away rotations. The stethoscope will become trauma shears and I'll bring a smaller bath towel next time.

While I was unsurprised that I could tolerate and enjoy sleeping on a bare mattress in my sleeping bag for a month, I was surprised that I so quickly reverted to convenience foods, fats and refined sugars, disposables and take out so easily. I gained weight and was eco-unfriendly, ate more meat than I'm proud to say, and indulged myself a bit too much. This is obviously not ideal since I normally cook all my meals and prepare them mostly with my health in mind, and I do have months of chaotic schedules and new living situations before I need to wear my interview suit. A suit that I wore at age 20-21 interviewing for medical school.

Despite having my metal tumbler, which I did use for all coffee, tea, and water, I treated myself to many disposable plastic bottles of juice provided in the emergency department (??? not going to question it). These kinds of things are my weakness so though I'll Refuse as much as possible, it's more likely Reduce and Reuse that will justify this behavior

So, less a collection of lessons than incoherent rambling, as per usual. I think I may try to pack everything into a backpack and a piece of checked baggage for my aways, and prioritize maintaining diet and exercise for the next few months and the rest of my life. Minimalism is a proxy for the lifestyle habits and changes that are in line with my values, etc, etc. 

An update about medical school

My big plant, this time last year (it doesn't look like this now, unfortunately)

I am two months away from finishing my third year of medical school: two months of internal medicine before I take Step 2 CK, take a one month pit stop in anesthesia, and then four months of orthopedic surgery. Home and three away rotations I am (yet) applying to. Research has been stagnant. My mentor believes in me more than I believe in myself. I scarcely feel ready to apply for residency, but here I am, at the edge of it.

I agonize enough over this process on my own, so I won't belabor it here. Essentially, I haven't changed my mind about orthopedic surgery. I haven't changed my mind about orthopedic trauma, specifically. I am more afflicted now with impostor syndrome than ever before. I have never been more uncertain of my abilities and my talents and every other qualification I may or may not have than right now. At the same time, I have toured most of medicine as a student and determined that nothing is close to orthopedics, and that it must be my future.

I finished my neurology clerkship, which was one of the good ones. Unfortunately, I saw three people die in one day in the Neuro ICU/SICU. All were inevitable. Two were peaceful, with family around them. The third was a futile, but all hands on deck resuscitation attempt of a gentleman who was hemorrhaging all his blood and bags upon bags of more blood from his dural venous sinuses (could not be repaired). I felt kind of useless because of my inexperience and because of the futility, but I made myself helpful by running supplies around, measuring and dumping blood from his hemovac, cleaning up, and finding chairs and tissue.

I've withdrawn a lot from my first friends in medical school and leaned in to others, namely my roommate and our mutual friends, and other students applying in orthopedic surgery. I take care of my plants. I clean my room. I make food for myself, ignore my other roommate, and sleep when I can. Two of my patients on internal medicine are dying, one in a matter of days and the other in weeks. Time just moves on.

A review of my 2018 clothing purchases

Better late than never!

2018 was the transition from second to third year of medical school and all the responsibilities and growth and worry and challenges and accomplishments that go along with that. I did not, in fact, carefully develop and curate a professional wardrobe for the wards, but instead kind of just trundled along faking it with clothes that I already owned. I think I'm okay with that.

There are a lot of other things that happened in 2018, but as always, here is a roundup of the clothes that I bought. This is a practice to keep myself accountable, but also help forecast what I will need and want to buy in 2019. I think there has been a shift away from listing and counting in minimalism, but that kind of thing is in my nature.

January to June

1. Calypso St. Barth green silk embroidered dress - secondhand, Poshmark - $46 - this was a dress I had saved to a Pinterest board sometime early in college, and I found it on Poshmark and bought it with two friends' weddings in mind
2. Grey wool trousers - secondhand, gifted - $0 - my sibling bought these trousers from some thrift store and gave them to me. I didn't think I would wear them as much as I do.
3. Uniqlo blue striped linen shorts - $20 - nailed it with these shorts, wore them all summer
4. Eileen Fisher black silk t-shirt - secondhand, Poshmark - $30 - not a lot to say about this, other than I wear it weekly and hand wash it

July to December

1. Uniqlo black ponte dress - $30 - bought after our cat died, a bit too short for some clinical situations, but I do wear it to didactics
2. Uniqlo blue down puffy - $70 - as mentioned in this post

Total - 6 items, $196

Reflecting on this: it's not a lot, and I do see many flaws in my wardrobe pertaining to not enough. I am wearing through my hardworking black ballerina flats. A lot of my undergarments and socks are either falling apart or have undergone repairs - by the way, I'm pretty happy about increasing my skills in mending clothes! But I still anticipate replacing many things soon. While I don't think I look shabby, I do think I have room to improve my professional appearance. Ultimately, I'll be in a specialty that is in scrubs the vast majority of the time, so maybe I'm holding out on buying professional clothes to really nail in the quality over quantity point.

My last point of reflection is really about minimalism, and also about materialism. I think I understood this year that I actually am pretty materialistic in the sense that I have very strong, emotional attachments to my belongings, which makes decluttering hard. On the flip side, I really do subscribe to minimalism and hate excess in my life, so I restrict myself in owning things because I don't like to part with them. Somewhere, there is a balance between (1) being detached from earthly possessions and not letting them possess you, and (2) being attached to your stuff and in turn treating them with respect and care. Some intersection of the two is the basis of rejecting our modern disposable culture, and the basis for a ton of William Morris quotes/wardrobe curation/simple living and slow fashion/ethical consumption. Something something no ethical consumption under capitalism, but also, I don't know how I feel about influencers in this sphere. Greenwashing, too.

Anyways, that's it. Happy (belated) New Year to all!

Four years later, I finally bought a pair of black ankle boots! More on them later.

On my third winter in Boston, I finally bought a puffy

I'm giving away my vintage leather jacket, and I bought a down puffy from Uniqlo for triple its price. This was a good decision. Watch me justify it.

I bought and loved this vintage leather jacket when I was 17, in 2012. It saw me through the coldest, windiest day in Berkeley. It even saw me through a torrential downpour in Berkeley when I was walking home, and saw two raccoons slide into a storm drain -- it stopped me dead in my tracks, and I forgot to worry about the effect of rainwater on old leather (no effect). But in truth, I almost never wore it because it was almost never cold enough to tolerate it in Berkeley.

I wore it a lot more in Boston, where there are a lot more cold (30-50F) and non-rainy days where a heavy leather jacket is appropriate. But the more I wore it, the more its flaws bothered me. Windproof, but way too heavy. A distinctive look, but it added so much bulk to my frame. It's an attention-grabbing piece in person, and I'm not one who wants all the same wow cool jacket every time I wear it. It also smells bad when rained on.

I had a gap in my wardrobe to the effect of "too warm for the parka, but too wet for the peacoat or the leather jacket." For a long time now, I've wanted a down puffy, a staple of Boston because of its practicality. Added bonus of being important when camping. Something lightweight, reliably warm, and easy to layer under or over.

Recently, my disdain for the leather jacket and disenchantment of the wild, wild west Americana look it brought reached its peak, and it got cold enough to wish I had a down jacket. So I did it. I decided to lose the $20 and not bother reselling the leather jacket, and shell out $70 for a hooded down jacket at Uniqlo.

Which seems at odds with the minimalism-sustainability-slow fashion ethos I admire: I'm ditching a secondhand, high quality piece for a more expensive fast fashion one. But it's a decision two winters and cold springs in the making, and one that makes sense given my shift in tastes and priorities. I can take the puffy camping. It weighs almost nothing. It's subdued and functional, and just as warm. It has a hood and a high collar.

That's the way it is. As goes my favorite William Morris quote: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." I have replaced something that has never been useful and was formerly beautiful, with something that is extremely useful and kind of beautiful.

Thank u, next

And to further my point, this is a picture of me from college with that leather jacket. Possibly Halloween 2012?

The most California cookbook of all - The Art of Simple Food - Alice Waters

California, my home state, is on fire. The air is smoky and people wear masks to go outside. Low visibility. School cancelled at UC Berkeley - if this were three years ago, maybe I would be eagerly packing up my laundry hamper to go home for Thanksgiving break a few days early. Now I'm in Boston watching this unfold from afar. Truthfully, I don't know how I would react or feel if I were in California now. Right now, we're expecting our second snow in Boston. It's a surreal nightmare happening far away, at home. Towns destroyed. People displaced. People missing. People dead.

In reality, this post isn't about fires or even about California at all, but just a jumble of thoughts about eating and cooking that have been cooking since my surgery rotation, begun in September, now a week ended. Long story short, thanks to long hours, I've been eating less and eating worse.

To bring these thoughts together, I'm sharing some extracts from Alice Waters' - of Chez Panisse fame - cookbook The Art of Simple Food. As a point of food anthropology (lol), her perspective on fresh and simple food was apparently revolutionary, and this food was emblematic of that kind of hippie Berkeley, California attitude. Fine dining gone green, French-inspired but with local ingredients because California is the center of the produce universe.

Anyhow this was a ridiculously rambling preamble to what should be a brief post. Also, I find it kind of cool but weird but awesome that our hospital has a food pantry, a rooftop garden, an apiary, and actual farmers in a city that is frozen for a third of the year and has zero compost bins.

Without further ado...

...Alice Waters' book begins with an introduction about how the food culture of America is terrible. Fast food, microwave dinners, etc. As a medical student on her surgery rotation, three years removed from the organic vegetable/fresh bread/cheeseboard/hella fruit paradise that was Berkeley. California, and now subsisting on black coffee for breakfast, half a Clif bar before the first surgery of the day, the rest of the Clif bar before the second, and ginger ale/peanut butter/graham crackers from the PACU the rest of the day, and instant noodles for dinner...I decided to read the rest of the book after the clerkship finished. Without really knowing a ton about Alice Waters while I lived in Berkeley, I devoured the book. I even noted recipes I wanted to try. Her kind of snobby attitude about how we must all be green goddesses and Luddites and foodies was kind of aspirational.

1. Eat locally and sustainably - that's a lot easier to do in California than Massachusetts, but I've been known to drag home big bags of local apples and cider and cider donuts, local honey. Other than that, I don't know the last time I paid attention to where my food came from. 
2. Eat seasonally - beyond seasonal offerings like stone fruits vs. apples vs. oranges, and Halloween-themed vs. pumpkin spice vs. Thanksgiving-themed vs. Christmas-themed things, I regrettably haven't given seasonality a thought. Actually, no. Tomato soup is only for the summer and early autumn, when tomatoes are in season. And I look forward to it every year.
3. Shop at farmers' markets - this I actually do, when our market is open in summer and early autumn. Apples, mostly, and tomatoes. I'm a farmers' market kind of person, and it really makes me happy to go to them and just walk around, though the one I go to is small and more arts and craftsy than one where you can actually do your groceries at.
4. Plant a garden - how I wish I could do this
5. Conserve, compost, and recycle - there is no composting in Boston, but the other two I try. Recycling more than conserving, admittedly, with my zero waste attempts mostly futile.
6. Cook simply, engaging all your senses - I realized recently that a lot of the food I cook has the same texture - mushy, mostly. When I try to make stuff my mom made growing up, it tastes approximately the same, but the wrong texture. That's something I can work on.
7. Cook together - this is probably a universal joy. It's fun to cook with friends, and something that I miss. My roommates and I, in all the apartments I've lived in, have vastly different dietary requirements and tastes.
8. Eat together - another universal joy. I like going to potlucks. My friends and college cooked and ate together a lot. It happens less often in med school, partly because we all live spread out over Boston, and because we're a lot busier now. Lots of good memories of being with friends crowded in a kitchen making messes, and then hanging out and eating the stuff we made. Doing dishes, even. This is something I miss and wish I could do more of.
9. Remember food is precious - always. 

And so, I have a lot to learn from Alice Waters, and a lot longer to go towards home. And even though she's kind of a food snob, I don't mind trying to improve my relationship with food and cooking with this book as a model.

As a last, unrelated point, my home cooking has become a lot more like the food I grew up eating. And maybe my greater goal is to master the simple, quick, and comforting Chinese home cooking that makes it into no cookbooks. That, most of all, is going home.

Ten item summer clinic capsule wardrobe - Family Medicine, Radiology

Clothes, hand washed, drying

This is more of a capsule wardrobe by circumstance, not deliberate curation. A bit about the status of my personal style and wardrobe now: I was building my professional wardrobe slowly over the past two years, and have settled on an equilibrium that I am happy with. I also moved to an apartment with much more limited storage, and am content being confined by space and eye-stress from clutter, if that makes sense. We also don't have a laundry in the building, so I am hand washing for the most part, and dragging my stuff to the laundromat less frequently.

I had my Family Medicine rotation - primary care, outpatient, plus a train commute - for six weeks, and it's over. The weather is slowly changing, but still swelteringly hot into the 90sF some days. I'm on Radiology nowadays and though nobody is really going to pay attention to what I'm wearing in a dark radiology reading room, we are in the hospital and I do feel obligated to dress better than I did in FM (+ no commute).

Here are my pieces:

Tops

1. Dark red sleeveless blouse - $20 - bought this for my medical school interviews and wore it to each one, looked very smart and professional under the suit that I babied it a lot. Now it's shown its nature as a cheaply made, fast fashion item and as nice as the color looks against my skin, I will definitely be spending more on my residency interview blouse
2. Purple flutter sleeve blouse - $15 - bought in 2010 for my high school job. It's very airy and breezy in hot weather, but that hardly matters if I have to wear a white coat. Unfortunately, it's showing its age and the fabric looks pretty worn (100% polyester), but I like the cut and the way it looks on me. I would not choose this color for myself again, though
3. Navy linen sleeveless shirt - $20 - this is a Uniqlo shirt that I wear usually for casual occasions, but it works in a pinch for the hottest of summer days. Very wrinkled, as expected of linen. I don't really want to buy more Uniqlo, but I am considering getting one of their rayon blouses
4. Black silk t-shirt - $25 - secondhand Eileen Fisher from Poshmark. Really good-looking shirt and fabric. With some of the above blouses nearing the end of their useful lifetime, I am definitely looking at buying secondhand, higher quality silk blouses for clinic purposes
5. Dark red mock neck shirt - $6 - from Uniqlo. This cheap little shirt is just barely appropriate for a casual primary care clinic, but I would not dare to wear this in the main hospital campus, even in the cover of darkness (again, Radiology). However, I did rely on it quite a few times in FM when it wasn't disgustingly hot
6. Blue and white psychadelic dress - $14 - this one again. It's 100% polyester too, but the movement makes it comfortable for the summer. I don't wear it too often

Bottoms

1. Black polyester A-line skirt - ??? - bought in 2010. Hardworking little skirt. I love it a lot, very versatile. I took in the waist and shortened (!!!) it to make it more professional, less witchy. It moves very well, and despite the 100% polyester, the cut is very breezy and comfortable in the hot, hot summer. I wear this about three times a week and hand wash on the weekends
2. Navy trousers - $9 - from H&M in 2011, a bit too casual for the hospital, but when there were FM attendings literally wearing leggings in clinic, I didn't care. I feel like this is okay for Radiology, but I have more professional trousers waiting for cooler weather

Shoes

1. Black flats - ??? - Lucky Brand flats dug up from my closet in high school. Don't remember ever buying them, and I never was a flats wearer until this year. I didn't want to tear up my pumps wearing them every day, and they were too formal for FM clinic anyways. These little flats are clear staples in my wardrobe now.
2. Sperry boat shoes - $95 - I don't remember exactly how much I got these for, but they are my default casual shoe and work when I'm wearing the trousers. Not sure I can pull these off once cooler weather hits, with darker trousers. Wouldn't dare wear them on Surgery, though

Looking back at this, ten items is a bit...Spartan. But I do promise you I'm handwashing very diligently. I'm not always comfortable with the "minimalism" game, but I feel pretty good about this. I am still actively pre-buying, that is, browsing Poshmark and keeping track of items I would want to buy. The plan is to replace the purple blouse with one of a similar cut, and buy another one. Professional shoes, too, for the cooler weather. 

The next post may be a roundup of outfits, and the one after that will be wardrobe planning for the autumn and winter. These are the kind of posts suitable for microblogging about minimalism in 2018.

Finally a breather - and something about Spanish

Somewhere in Boston, there is a garden

So, getting used to being a third year has kept me away from writing, but here I am in a more relaxed rotation, ready to write.

The first thing: I got my Step 1 score back. Some combination of disbelief, relief, joy, fear, and anticipation. I will be going full steam ahead towards orthopedic surgery. My score is below average for ortho, but still within striking range. So now what lies ahead is doing my best on my rotations, keeping up with research, maintaining my relationships with my mentors, and looking far ahead at Step 2 and away/audition rotations.

I finished my first rotation, Obstetrics & Gynecology, a few weeks ago, and am just as many weeks deep into Family Medicine. I think I will eventually write more thorough, thoughtful update and reflection posts on each specialty, but that those will come eventually, much like my posts about my trip to Germany in summer 2016, and my Grand Canyon hike. Someday.

The changes in my life, other than the shift from pre-clinical to clinical education and the new three digit number that identifies me are my (1) new apartment and my (2) improvement in medical Spanish.

For the first one: I moved in with two of my classmates into their apartment, where there is a larger, more home-like common space, a smaller kitchen and bathroom, and a smaller bedroom for me. In strict terms of real estate, it's a downgrade, but I realized that my old digs were not great for my wellbeing. I got along fine with my old roommate, but I also tended much towards being asocial and a shut-in unless there was a place for me to specifically go or people I wanted to specifically see. My new apartment is a lot more like my college one, where I interact with my roommates more, and we get along.

That said, a big thing that I realized about myself is that I really miss my college friends. Like terribly so. Maybe it's that we're all scattered out at different rotations, but I don't feel as connected as I used to with my med school friends. We don't actually have that much in common, whereas I felt I was very close with my college friends (and in love with one, who is not my ex-boyfriend). So lately I've found myself really keeping in touch with old friends, and old-old friends (my best friends, the ones I've had elementary-middle-high school + two years of college, and I'm lucky to have two of them).

Hollyhocks will always make me happy

And I guess the last thing I'll say is that my improvements in Spanish have probably been what I've been most proud of in terms of soft clinical skills achieved. My Family Medicine clerkship is at a community health center where probably 90% of the patients are either from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Colombia. 5% more are probably from the Dominican Republic. The others are old white Italian-Americans. So I've had the very special challenge and privilege of learning primary care en español, which means going in to see patients on my own, collecting a history and doing a physical exam, reconciling medications (with some patients illiterate in English and Spanish), distracting the little people accompanying parents to their visits, seeing patients as young as three days old to as old as ninety years old. In the past three weeks, I've perhaps spoken English to ten patients. I feel a lot more confident and competent as a clerk and as an hispanohablante. I am making progress.

I've been getting good feedback as a third year student, but I get really proud when the attending physicians (all of whom speak Spanish themselves, running the gamut of gringa to fluent) ask me where and how I learned Spanish. Even better feedback is when the patients grill me about where I'm from and are surprised to learn I was born and raised in the United States with parents from China, and not Peru or Puerto Rico or Mexico where the Chinese diaspora has also touched. That's the best trophy I have in the road towards professional Spanish fluency.

So I think I feel a lot of things, and I think I need to write a longer post about this. But I now speak medical Spanish much better than I speak medical Mandarin, which makes me feel very guilty on one hand, proud on the other. The next step will be to actively seek out learning or patient care opportunities where I will use those languages.

This year will be one of many changes. I already has been. I'm growing a lot. I loved OB/Gyn, and though I don't love primary care, I look forward to every clinic day. And I'm ready to get back in the operating room. A lot has changed, but really, a lot has not.

Spring into summer update

View of the green, green Colorado River from the South Kaibab trail

None of these pictures are in order. I think my dad took most of these. But since I'm probably going to take an eternity writing up a post about the Grand Canyon hike itself, here are some pictures.

Hello from third year of medical school. I'm starting on OB/Gyn and like it so far. Still waiting nervously for my Step 1 score and having catastrophic thoughts of not scoring high enough for my dream specialty. Felt all kinds of sadness and guilt and inadequacy when my research attending and some of the ortho residents I worked with last year said hello to me on the day I thought I would get my score back (they're delayed and I have to wait longer). Felt something similar when the resident who mentored me since first year called me volunteering advice for my surgical rotation (and then gave me some advice as a new parent whose wife delivered her baby on the floor I'm working on right now). Keeping an open mind is surprisingly not hard, since OB/Gyn is really cool, but it's also not hard to remember how happy and excited and home I felt in orthopedics.

I'm learning some things about myself. I'm getting better at talking to patients. I like our patient population (safety net hospital, non-white, non-rich, many immigrants, many complications). I have more role models now: two gynecological oncologists whose patients trust and adore them. Gyn-onc doc #1 speaks fluent English and Spanish, and proficient Haitian Creole and Cape Verdean/Portuguese Creole. Gyn-onc doc #2 speaks fluent English, Spanish, and Mandarin. About 1/3 of the patients that go through our hospital don't speak English (most common languages Spanish, Haitian Creole, Cape Verdean, Vietnamese...I would have lost my fucking mind if I had heard Doc #1 speaking Vietnamese). I don't think I'll go into OB/Gyn, but I do think I'll eventually work somewhere where I'll need to speak Spanish on the regular. Eventually I'll find my way.

My Spanish is getting good. I thought it was good until I heard Doc #2 speaking with perfect, perfect grammar. Subjunctive tense, correct yo forms of irregular verbs in all tenses, correct conjugation of mandates and everything. The feedback that I treasured most from last week was when a patient I interviewed asked me where I was born and raised, and if my parents were from Latin America. Like everything in third year, I'll get better at the things I want to improve on if I actively seek out opportunities to try. So on I go.

I'm moving into my new apartment at the end of the month, and I'm doing it slowly over the next few weeks. Always kind of been into ~~~minimalism~~~, but I've accumulated some junk during my first two years in Boston and am downsizing. Namely, I'm giving away some of my plants, since I propagated too many of them.

Lastly, I was really affected by Anthony Bourdain's suicide. I loved his shows, and his overall attitude and approach to life. He, too, spent some of his formative years in Massachusetts, and I'll spare the details so you read Kitchen Confidential. Part of this was because it came after the death of one of my friends and mentors from the free clinic I was part of in college. The O was the coolest almost-octogenarian I've met. He helped me find my feet when I was struggling with new leadership and more responsibilities in the running of the clinic. He gave me lots of solicited and unsolicited advice. I owe a lot to him, more than he knew. Wouldn't be in med school if it weren't for him, wouldn't have even wanted to become a doctor if it weren't for him. He said he'd thought he'd die in his 20s, then in his 40s, then went quietly a few days after a stroke pushing 80, surrounded by friends. I wish I could have seen him again.

S/S 2018 | Wardrobe Planning

I'm back from Step 1 hell, and from my Grand Canyon hiking trip. More on that later, but it was the most fun, challenging, and fulfilling great outdoors adventure I've had. I'm glad I shared the experience with my dad, and I hope to do a lot more hiking/camping/backpacking in the future.

It's kind of late for me to do a wardrobe planning post for this spring and summer, but the context is that I'm starting clinical rotations in a week and need enough clinic-appropriate clothes to dress up in. Currently, I own two 'nice' blouses, two potentially clinic-appropriate shirts, one dress, four pairs of trousers, and a skirt. For shoes, it's a pair of pumps a pair of flats. Looking at this, the only things I really 'need' to get are blouses -- everything else I have enough of, at least to get me started. I'll think about adding to my shoe collection when autumn comes around, or if suddenly during my first rotation (OB/Gyn) I realize I need clogs or something. I'll survive OB/Gyn OR with sneakers and maybe my very waterproof snow boots for the time being (only sort of joking).

Anyhow, here are my ideas for adding to my spring/summer wardrobe:

1. Short sleeved Eileen Fisher blouse, silk -- I've actually bought one of these secondhand from Poshmark, and may be gambling a bit on the sizing. I would prefer a looser fit, but the measurements may suggest otherwise. I wanted high quality pieces for a lower price and environmental impact, so secondhand I go
2. Eileen Fisher tank, silk -- there's another one of these on Poshmark that I want to buy. Both would be black, but it's hard for me to find colors that I want to wear (that are not navy, as I've temporarily banned myself from buying navy anything)
3. Muji dress, linen -- last year I sort of fell in love with a linen dress with 3/4 sleeves from Muji, took a great picture of myself in it, and never bought it. I don't know if I'll buy this year's version, but this marketing image with Honey and Silk was so captivating, and exactly evocative of how I want to be when I wear a linen dress (thanks, advertising)
4. Uniqlo shorts, linen -- well, I already bought these and they are great

Lastly, I'm actively trying to suppress my memory of Step 1. It was awful, I felt awful during and after the exam, and I don't think I did well. My dream specialty may be out of reach -- I'm almost certain of it. So I'll strike any mention of Step 1 from here. Grand Canyon post coming shortly, hopefully.

As a final aside, Eileen Fisher is a brand I have only heard of/had any desire to buy from thanks to the blog world. So many people I read wear Eileen Fisher. But, I love linen, and I love silk (of which I own...one garment so far). The consumerist web has nabbed me on this one!