Late autumn updates

Do I even live in New England if I don't post pictures of the foliage? Autumn came and is on its way out. We got a tiny moment of snow last night. It is starting to get cold. We're making another turn around the sun.

Clothing, cosmetics, personal finance, and minimalism

Clothing

I bought another flannel from L.L. Bean, and plan on revisiting my review of it from last year, now that I have a brand new one to compare to a year-old one. I have plans to buy another pair of professional-looking trousers, but am waiting for sales. I also have some socks and underwear to replace. This means Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping, which I have deliberately avoided for years. I am possibly also deferring my black leather shoe (or boot) purchase for another year. I just haven't found one that I really like.

How do I build my professional wardrobe while keeping consumerism in check? As much as I try to limit myself in how much money I spend or how many items I buy, it's also important to limit how much time I spend thinking about or planning what I'm going to buy. On the other hand, isn't having a plan better than not having one? Either way, I am not satisfied with the amount of mental space I routinely use thinking about purchasing stuff. There's got to be some kind of a balance (obviously I haven't found it yet).

I also finally (finally) washed my jeans that I bought in January. It sounds disgusting, but I wore them only in <50F weather, freeze them on the weekends, and they held up well. Raw denim cult, my friends. I'll write something about them soon.

So here's something a little disappointing: my friend group talks about shopping a lot. They really love Uniqlo, and as someone who owns a lot of Uniqlo clothing, this normally doesn't bother me. And it really is a minor annoyance, but they incessantly talk about sales at Uniqlo, make multiple orders a month on Uniqlo, and joke about lacking self-control from buying at Uniqlo. I only noticed this recently because they went crazy over a specific scarf that one of them had. Two others bought the scarf immediately. Something about that makes me uncomfortable, despite how many Uniqlo garments I personally own.

Cosmetics

I'm getting back into makeup again. My goal is to have a bare bones makeup kit of items that I love and use regularly. Currently, I have holes in some parts of my kit (skincare, base), and excess in others (eyeshadow). It makes me feel more professional and put together. I will be patient in editing what I have, adding and subtracting, until it is perfect. It is 100% consistent with my personality that I am hyper-focused on what I look like. What I mean: I love my face without makeup, but if I do wear makeup, I am extremely critical about how it looks when I put it on, and how it wears throughout the day. I must still look like myself. I use very little makeup, but what I use must matter.

Personal finance and minimalism

I fell down the rabbit hole of personal finance and financial independence blogs, especially those written by residents and attending physicians. This is something I must learn.

Regarding minimalism: I'm trying. More now than ever, I realize I need to get my perspective in check before I go about trying to 'minimize' any other part of my life. I recently went to talk to one of the deans about how hassled I was by people gossiping about me (mostly my research) and he repeatedly asked me why I cared. Why did it bother me so much? I don't think I had an answer. He told me to read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (because I told him my sibling told me to read it years ago), talk to my friends and family, and keep doing what I'm doing. If there are people gossiping about my work, then I must be doing something right.

In other fronts, I'm working on reducing waste in my life. Still trying to go low waste, it's hard. But this is important to me so I'll work harder at it.

Step 1

This is the first part of the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) that will determine whether or not orthopedic surgery is magical thinking or a real option for my future. So I am studying. I am doing better in school than last year, studying better, but there is still so much room for me to improve.

I've been thinking of potential vacations to go on after I take the exam in May. The dream vacation is to do a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon, but that is a far reach of a vacation. More realistically is Katahdin in Maine.

Research and scholarly pursuits

We're finally writing the manuscript. Our project won a prize at a hospital poster session. I'm glad that something I worked hard on since this time last year is finally coming to fruition. And now, I'm looking for more research projects. I want to continue working with my same mentor, and I feel more and more strongly about orthopedic surgery.

At the same time, I am more and more curious about general surgery as well.

..speaking of my mentor and orthopedic surgery, I shadowed him in clinic this week and it was awesome. It was a lot more fast paced than the surgical oncology clinic I normally go to, but I really like his style. Straightforward, to the point, but super comprehensive about all the options a patient could have, non-operative and operative alike. Orthopedic trauma has truly a crazy spread of patients, from little old ladies to a guy my age shot several times over a basketball game, joggers hit by cars, custodians falling from ladders, etc, etc. Vastly different patients with vastly different injuries, needs, goals, and lives. More than learning about how to care for fracture patients, I have another role model for how to talk to patients, how to listen to patients, and how to identify when they have questions, reservations, or things they don't understand.

Recreational reading

I took Thanksgiving break to read as many books as I could. Sabriel (Garth Nix); The Two Towers, The Children of Hurin, and part of The Return of the King (J.R.R. Tolkien); and The Hot Zone (Richard Preston) are all great. I'm not a book reviewer, but I can recommend all of the above.

Thanksgiving

I have a lot to be thankful for

• my family loves me and supports me in every way: emotionally, financially, in small ways, in big ways
• I am exactly where I want to be doing exactly what I want to do
• I have great friends, old and new
• I am healthy and happy
• I have great mentors that push me to do strong work and let me see and do cool things
• I am finding time for creative pursuits and personal enrichment

Mt. Monadnock | New Hampshire

I realized that since coming to Boston, I have blogged very little about the city of Boston, ye, the state of Massachusetts. Instead, a good portion of my content has been excursions to Vermont and New Hampshire. Here is another one of those adventures from earlier this month.

Mt. Monadnock is one of the only geological points of interest in New England that I knew about prior to moving to New England. It has featured in the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and (quite curiously) H.P. Lovecraft. While internet sources disagree about precisely how many people climb Mt. Monadnock each year, it is generally agreed that it is one of the most summited mountains in the world, trailing Mt. Fuji.

We took the White Dot Trail up to the summit. It's a 3.8 mile loop with an elevation gain of 1771 ft, to the summit at 3165 ft. Mt. Monadnock is not a particularly tall mountain, but it is the most distinguished feature of the landscape by far.

I very wisely wore many layers and my fancy hiking boots. The hike begins with very modest uphills, and then very abruptly transitions to some steep scrambling over boulders. We kept a brisk pace because the clouds looked ominous and we definitely did not want to be caught in the rain during the ascent. I personally really enjoy scrambling and thrive on steep, steep uphills...but rain would have made the ascent very precarious. I'd say that this hike is one where good traction and ankle support are especially important.

We hiked up in short, fast bursts on major uphill sections, taking in the rolling New Hampshire valleys under threat of rainfall with each break. Because I use my iPhone for all my pictures and generally go nuts editing on VSCO, I am prone to sort of amateurish landscape photography. I'm also not used to taking pictures under such ominous clouds and mercurial sunshine (or lack thereof), so please forgive the visuals.

The second major snack break

There are two major stretches of steep scrambles, and at the end of the first was where we had a major snack break. This stretch of flat was perfect for boulder hopping, looking at all the trees growing between rocks, and stretching out. We rested a bit and then made our last push to the summit, which was a bit farther than we had initially thought.

Looking for stunted trees at the second major snack break

Lunch at the summit, which was ridiculously crowded but still very enjoyable. I can see why Mt. Monadnock is one of the most-climbed mountains in the world: it's very close to Boston, it's fairly accessible to novice hikers, and they pay-off is wonderful, both in the summit itself and the feeling of digging in to get there. I don't know if any of my photos can express how steep it was in some sections, but it took real effort, perhaps more than any of the hikes I've documented here so far.

Getting ready for the final push to the summit, which was farther than we thought

We didn't spend quite as much time at the summit as I had wanted, but it began to drizzle and we wanted to get some of the steep, scrambly descent behind us before it poured. It never did quite pour but the rocks were at some points completely covered with rain, and some of our party did slip. The descent is more anxiety-inducing, and my joints did take a beating...but luckily, I didn't fall.

Some trees on the way up. I tend to write before I edit photos, and am still not great at spacing things out. Here, the text describes the descent and I haven't even gotten to the summit pictures yet!

All in all, we left Boston at around 9 AM, stopped at McDonald's, got to the mountain and hiked up and down, went to Taco Bell, and returned to Boston at around 5 PM. I chipped in $7 for the rental car, bought hash browns for $1, bought a honeydew for $3 near Taco Bell, and mooched off some of the junk food that someone was too full to finish.

The summit

• Location: Mt. Monadnock, in Mt. Monadnock State Park in New Hampshire
• Distance/duration: 3.8 miles loop, about 2 hours to the summit
• Elevation gain: 1771 ft
• Difficulty: moderately strenuous thanks to the really steep, really fun scrambles; could be harder in rain or winter or hotter weather
• Points of interest: that sweet, sweet view
• Overall: this was a really fun, satisfying hike. The scrambling was tough, but entirely worth the pain. I can see why this place is so popular, but at the same time, the trail and summit are very crowded.

By the time I got around to editing the photos and finishing the honeydew (I froze some of it), I realized that my first year of medical school was just about over. How do I describe this first year? I can't articulate it well in this addendum to a blog post about hiking up a mountain, but here are a few thoughts about this year and the summer to come.

My first year of medical school was a lot of things. It was an affirmation in that I know more than I began that I am where I want to be doing exactly what I want to do. It was a challenge, academically and professionally, but I learn best in challenges and in failure. I made some good friends, and had more fun than I am used to having. I also found mentors: a resident who wants me to succeed, an assistant dean who let me cry in her office twice and then helped me find my courage again, a preceptor and role model who taught me not just about surgery and how to care for patients, but how to be more confident and capable.

I think I always had an impression of Boston being some kind of intellectual ivory tower of medicine, and it kind of is. However, our hospital is decidedly blue collar, safety net, and deeply concerned with the intersection of medicine and social good. I was lucky to have found and stayed on the same research project since the autumn, and will work harder at it this summer. It's about both medicine and social justice; orthopedic surgery and opioids. The opioid epidemic in New England (and the Rust Belt and Appalachia and small town America) runs deep. It's systemic and demands policy at all levels of government. It's a fight I have been waiting to enter.

As far as Lord of Three Realms goes, I have a few posts waiting in the wings. I also realized that I have half of my Germany posts from last summer yet to be written. I hadn't expected my blog to turn into New England day hike report central when I first started medical school, but I do have some hiking planned this summer, and I will take pictures and write about them. More recreational reading, and more excursions out of my culinary comfort zone (I have recipes to try).

Last thing: I'm thinking about working on the blog itself...like actually adding headings and categorizing things reasonably.

And that's it.

Spring semester forecasting

Gloomy woods in Tilden Park

Now this is the final hurrah at UC Berkeley. The objective of this semester is this: I must become a well-rounded adult. I must prepare myself to be an educated, self-sufficient, autonomous, capable, thinking member of society, and future physician. MY GPA DOES NOT MATTER AT THIS POINT but holy Hell do I want to graduate cum laude or magna cum laude. I can take the classes that I think will most fortify my knowledge, but also be fun and interesting. I do not plan on attending any more medical school interviews, and have turned down/withdrew from a few schools. I will throw all of my free time into (1) making the most out of the last semester with my close friends, (2) finishing my research projects and publishing, and (3) making the most and best positive change at the Berkeley Free Clinic. I'll probably find a hill to figuratively die on.

Without further ado:

"A placeholder title for a class for semi-privacy reasons" (4 units, letter graded): this is an upper division class cross-listed between bioengineering, including about an even split of undergrads and grad students, having to do with the design and performance of medical implants, with particular focus on mechanics and materials science. With that description, a clever snoop can probably find exactly which class this is. The reason for the vague title is that this class is taught by my PI, in whose lab I have worked since the summer after freshman year. Needless to say, I am thrilled to be in this class, which is taught by a mentor and professor whom I have always admired, about a subject that I have always been interested in. I entered college and my bioengineering major dreaming about medical implants, I have worked in a research lab studying implant failure, and will continue pursuing this interest into medical school, and hopefully the rest of my career. Furthermore, my favorite classes at UC Berkeley have been those upper division bioengineering courses that have this huge mix of students: bioengineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering...group projects + the scholastic melting pot have made the most rewarding learning experiences I have ever been privileged to have. My classmates are incredibly diverse and I have much to learn from them.

Intermediate Spanish (5 units, letter graded): finally. One of my ultimate goals of college was to improve my Spanish from the level I took the AP Spanish test at in 2011. It turns out that my skills have atrophied: I am not as proficient in speaking nor understanding, and my grammar is more haphazard. There's no remedying it except for taking a class and working hard to learn it, practicing every day, and willing myself to learn a language and learn it well. I will have Spanish-speaking patients in the future, and I hope that by improving in this area, I can better serve them.

The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (4 units, P/NP): the introductory computer science course, taught in Python. After hanging out with my majority EECS and CS friends for the past 3.5 years, I will finally see what the fuss is about. I don't anticipate programming much in my future, but CS 61A is one of those quintessentially UC Berkeley courses, with a staggering >1000 enrollment a notoriously difficult professor (the infamous Prof. Hilfinger), and an almost mythic status as a general interest course of the 21st Century. I'm the only senior in my discussion/lab section, and one of the very few non-freshmen. An old dog can learn new tricks!

Wealth and Poverty (4 units, P/NP): this is another mythic UC Berkeley class, taught by former United States Secretary of Labor, and prolific Facebook soapboxer Prof. Robert Reich. I'm hesitantly excited for this class because I want to become more knowledgeable about the intersection of politics, economics, and society in this country...but Robert Reich's reputation precedes himself, as a loud, outspoken Left-wing radical, a decrier of GOP shenanigans, etc. These are not bad things, but I'm on the quest to build a political opinion of my own, which includes the decision of who to vote for in the Democratic primaries. First lecture down and he's emphasized that his political ideology is unimportant for the course, and that we should develop our own based on critical thought and research. So far, so good. An interesting feature of this course is that Prof. Reich hosts a small(er) group discussion after lecture; in the first "salon" of the semester, I asked my question and he answered, all in the presence of the film crew that had been recording all lecture.

Also: my total textbook cost of the semester thus far is a whopping $0, which is down from last semester's $15.

Let the sunshine in

For someone who does keep a daily diary, I would think that keeping a regular blog would be a piece of cake. Evidently not.

Here's a collection of ramble-thoughts accumulated over the past month, with my reviews/impressions of two productions I saw recently.

It's times like this where I wish I kept some sort of longer-scale record (ex. a blog) during freshman year, since my worries now are just a continuation of those from 2013. On my plate: academic achievement, letters of recommendation, med school personal statement, med school this and med school that. 2013: will I be able to volunteer at the Free Clinic, will I be able to find a research lab? 2015: am I an adequate de-facto leader at the Free Clinic, will I be able to conduct my own research project effectively?

My worries stem from the fact that I am applying to med school this summer, my ultimate dream for most of my life, my one and only North Star. This situation has been made more dreadful (not dreadful as in plummy, archaic dreadful, but dreadful as in it fills me with some kind of dread and anxiety and eagerness) because my boyfriend has almost exact opposite problems (they stem from indecision and uncertainty in his career goals).

Anyhow, these things, as well as my recent feelings of scholastic mediocrity have put me in a sort of dreary, gloomy mood. To combat this melancholy, I talk to my roommate, my friends, my boyfriend, go visiting. And for something completely new: I went to two shows (a concert and a musical) and they were spectacular.

Bach Mass in B Minor

One of the last of Bach's compositions, the Mass in B Minor (BWV 232) is a complete setting of a complete Latin Ordinary Mass, consisting of the usual movements:

1. Missa (Kyrie and Gloria)
2. Symbolum Nicenum (Credo)
3. Sanctus
4. Osanna, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Dona Nobis Pacem

At the risk of sounding too weird about synesthesia, B minor is a grim, stately, blue key, and through it, the Mass achieved a level of cosmic grandeur that I can't attempt to express here. I attended the University Chamber Chorus and UC Berkeley Baroque Orchestra's performance of this masterpiece, and I don't think my evening could have been better. As a note, with each movement, the Latin lyrics and translations were projected above the stage, which deepened my understanding for this musical wonder.

The Ordinary Latin Mass spans a wide spectrum of the relationship between Man and God, and it spoke pretty strongly to this agnostic. Solemn supplication and mourning for the sins and suffering of Man and Christ (B minor) yield to the hope for deliverance and miracle by the grace of God (D major).

A few of my favorite movements: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Cum Sancto Spiritu, Crucifixus, Et resurrexit, Et expecto, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Dona nobis pacem

Hair

Not as much to say on this one. AB (roommate, CivE) and CB (EECS) and I went to Barestage's production of this musical that CB's roommate was in. A summary: Vietnam War draftee meets a tribe of long-haired hippies and they sing about society and their time, youth and their struggle to find their place and purpose. Given Berkeley's history of protest and involvement in activism during the Free Speech Movement, Civil Rights Movement, and anti-Vietnam movement, I was already engaged with the material.

Interesting thing about Hair is that it was written and debuted on Broadway in 1969, and I was astounded to see how meta their entire analysis of that time was. Anyhow, the female vocals completely hit me, and gave me some genuine chills. The playbill included a lengthy introduction about the modern interpretation of some of the problematic content, including racism and cultural appropriation in the script and staging.

A few of my favorite songs:  Aquarius, I'm Black/Ain't Got No, L.B.J., Hare Krishna, Let the Sunshine In

Afterwards, we got doughnuts, explored an underground parking lot, and watched CB fly a fighter jet around Vinewood, shooting missiles at the city (Grand Theft Auto V, a favorite pastime of the EECS house). A good night.

And now, the two of them together: the Mass began with the choir lined behind the audience in a pitch-black concert hall. One light was shone onto the conductor, and at her first baton drop, the hall rang with the first note of the Kyrie eleison, and it was as if a choir of righteous, solemn angels had descended onto our mortal congregation. And truly, it was a surprise, and nearly got me God-fearing. On the other side, Hair ends in a surprisingly somber way, and the final song, 'Let the Sunshine In,' read as a desperate plea for peace, love, and understanding -- and mercy. It was a demonstration of tragic solidarity (no spoilers here) and the cast took from the stage running helter-skelter to reassemble behind the audience, ending the song without musical accompaniment.

So, perfect bookends. The symbolism was not long-coming; not to mention, Hair ended, too with dim lighting.

Kyrie eleison -- Lord, have mercy. I still think about these two shows. What an experience.