Lessons from the ER, Part II: Keep Your Mouth Shut

3:08am. Lord.

I sat there in my chair, constantly pushing F5, hoping that new test results would come back from the lab so I could update them in my chart and get rid of the patient. I felt my eyes start to droop.

Lessons from the ER, Part I: Leave Your Jimmy Choos at home

I sat at my computer station, staring at the ER patient status board on the screen.

Twelve patients in the entire ED. Twelve. Out of thirty-four beds, fewer than half of them had bodies. And about a third of those weren’t even real emergency cases, just whiny twenty-somethings with itchy va-jay-jays and blood in their urine.

The Mayans Got It Totally Wrong

I live in a state of perpetual fear.

I can’t help it. I grew up in a stereotypically science-based Chinese family, surrounded by doctors and nurses and scientists. As a child, I was always bombarded with warnings of “don’t touch that, it’s dangerous” or “if you put that in your mouth, you’ll get cancer.” Apparently, with the exception of fruits, vegetables, and twice-boiled water, every single thing in the world was bad for me.

Growing in California certainly didn’t help things.

An Open Letter to Posterity, or, Why I Shouldn’t Be Allowed Near Minors

Dear high school kids I met in the Georgetown Summer Medicine Institute,

You scare the crap out of me.

I Am a Menace to Sobriety

I turned 24 in Dahlgren Memorial Library. Fitting that the first random article Wikipedia took me to that day was on Ammit, the Egyptian female funerary symbol, a demon known as the “Eater of Hearts.”

The Freewheelin' Bob...uh...Gordon

Since my first year of college, I have not lived in the same place for more than a year. Yes, I lived in Berkeley for five years, but I went through the annoying process of packing and unpacking all my stuff at the bookends of every school year. I never had the chance to create years of memories in a single house. As soon as one place started to feel comfortable, June would hit us in the face and shake us out. We packed up our hobo bundles and, hitchhikers' thumbs up, ambled down the street to look for yet another place to sleep for the next year. It was always pretty unsettling.

Corporate Whoredom

Let's see how many of you are screaming "bloody sellout!" at the monitor by the end of this.

I'm currently sitting in SFO's brand-spankin' new Terminal 2, waiting to go back home to the medical library. The terminal itself is well-organized and just chock-full of that Bay-Area-smug-hubris that we know and love. Holla, Virgin America: slick purple lighting? Personal satellite TV and games?  Actual leg room? Welcome to the Mile High Nightclub. As Tom Haverford would say, "I have two questions for you. One, are you ready for the investment opportunity of a lifetime? And two, do any of you have pacemakers or a history of epilepsy?" (Because you know I'm gonna be looping the music video to 'Ye's "All Of The Lights" over and over while on that plane.)

The Outer Limits

I shuffled my way through the crawling security line of good ol' SFO at the buttcrack of dawn, bleary-eyed and still unsure of my destination. I looked down at my boarding pass again. Omaha. Nebraska. Corn, cows, and Christians. Three good things, but really, what else does Omaha have?

Grumpy Old Men 3: Stroke-Induced Brain Ischemia

Many of us non-undergrads frequent the on-campus restaurant/bar at Georgetown, The Epicurean (or, as I like to call it, The EpiKorean, considering their massive representation among the staff there). It's a pretty neat place - it's not dingy and crappy, the food quality is above average, there are lots of TVs for sports-viewing, and the happy hour specials draw us like bears to honey in our post-exam dazes. (Feel free to ask any Georgetown medical student about Dr. Suarez's anatomy exams, but prepare to shield yourself from the ensuing nosebleeds/vomit/swinging fists.)

Post-Racial America: Still Racist, Still Hilarious

There's a joint on Georgetown's main campus called Vital Vittles, roughly on par with the Quik-E-Mart that Apu Nahasapeemapetilan (thanks, Wikipedia) runs in Springfield. I typically enjoy going to "Vittles" thanks to their wide selection of food and their great policy of charging exactly one dollar for most 20oz. sodas.

My lunchtime visit today just elevated my love for Vittles to a whole new level.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup Is In My Blood

PermaRA and I, both Bay Area natives and first-year bEast Coast transplants, like to play this little game called “check the weather back home.” We’ve never won this game. Typically, the weather here has been so much worse than the unbeatable beauty of The Bay that we had to stop playing it as a drinking game, for fear of developing Alcoholic Liver Disease.

What Would Don Draper Do?

While I was riding BART to The City last week, I noticed an advertisement for Gilead Sciences, one of the more well-known biopharmaceutical companies in the U.S. The poster, an anti-HIV/AIDS campaign ad, featured our boy Big Time Timmy Jim throwing a pitch. It said:

"Until there's a cure, Tim Lincecum throws strikes."

I saw this and was horribly confused. So if there remains no cure for HIV, Lincecum will keep being awesome and light up K-Ville every time he's on the mound, but once this terrible disease is cured, Timmy will suck ass and the Giants will lose one of its heroes? Seriously, nobody wins here. (Except maybe Los Doyers.)

John, Paul, George, and Ring-u

Happy New Year, everyone. No, I didn't make any resolutions. Can we move on now?

My mother turned another year older last week. Guess which Beatles song she won't be listening to this year.

There's a great little Japanese joint in San Mateo called Izakaya Mai, a place so authentically Japanese that English is still a bit of a novelty to all the servers. Imagine a Japanese beer hall that also serves sake and really great food - that's an izakaya. My mom and sister frequent this place, and I always try to tag along when the opportunity presents itself. (The food is fantastic, but that's not why I go. I go because of the toy train running along the ceiling all around the restaurant.)