Monday, December 31, 2001

New Year's Eve (12/31/2001)

Do you know the song the 12 days of Christmas? Since there are 12 days, Christmas isn't officially over.

First Day of Christmas

Read the blog below

Second Day of Christmas

My family (mum, dad, sister, chiu-chiu, chiu-mu, and various cousins) went on a road trip to San Francisco. Our first stop was at Solvang, which was a familiar place for us since we've had many retreats in Casa Sirena. My cousins bought icecream, but my mind was in the various danish bakery shops. Pastries, yummmy ..... must resist ....

Next we went to Hearst Castle in San Simeon. William Randolph Hearst was this larger than life (the inspiration behind Citizen Kane) publishing magnate. We arrived there by 2:00, but unfortunately all the tours to the castle was sold out. We decided to see a movie on the building of the castle instead. My favorite part of the castle is the swimming pool, because I love to swim. Out of all the pools I've been to in college, my favorite one is the CMC pool and my least favorite ironically enough is the HMC pool. To be fair, the area surrounding the pool is pretty with a bunch of roses but the pool itself is overchlorinated.

Freeway 1 is really beautiful, but it is sorta treacherous to drive at night. Anyway, we were able to make it to Monterey safely.

Third Day of Christmas

Monterey was probably my favorite part of our Northern California trip. If you like ocean views and golfing, Monterey is the place for you. We went first to see Pebble Beach and wandered along the 17 mile drive. It was a beautiful juxtaposition of trees and the sea. Did you know that Pebble Beach was originally a Chinese shipping village? That's why there is a place called China Rock, which my cousin Ben considers to be sacred :)

Fishes ---------> Aquarium

Fourth Day of Christmas

Drat, it rains way to much in SF. What made it worse was that our family did not bring an umbrella. We did go through the touristy sites: Fisherman's wharf, crooked street, union square, Legion of Honor Museum, Golden Gate Bridge and Park. I really wanted to go to the wine country, but it was just too foggy and rainy.

Fifth Day of Christmas

Hint: If your tire blows in the middle of the freeway, use the callboxes and wait until they connect you to AAA. Don't assume that they will call AAA for you. We were very lucky that we were travelling on 101 instead of the 5 when the tire blew. We were close to San Jose, so we were able to get some replacement tires. One of the best things about my family is that we are able to see the good in even the worse situations. They are simply the best! (We know that in all things God works for the good of all those who love Him, Romans 8:28, John's paraphrase). We made it back to LA safely.

Tuesday, December 25, 2001

Christmas! (12/25/2001)

Merry Christmas everyone! I met three of my college friends today: Alan Hatakeyama, Justin "Ellie" Busch, and Eucen Fu. Since Eucen saw _Lord of the Rings_, he met us after the movie. A few observations:

1. If you are hungry and are too lazy to cook, you have two options: Jack in the Box (told this by my sister, Paulina) and Chinese food.
2. Your normal malls are closed except for those reaching an Asian clientele.
3. Movie theatres are actually open.
4. Christmas movies are way better than summer movies.

I would say the _Lord of the Rings_ was a beautifully made movie, but it left me hanging towards the end. True, I havn't read the book, but I wish they had more of a resolution ala Star Wars Episode IV. New Zealand is also the most gorgeous country outside of Middle Earth, but of course I'm totally biased.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading out to San Francisco so I'll write more about it when I get back.

Carpe diem,


John

Monday, December 24, 2001

Saturday 12/22/2001

From my earlier blogs, you may know that it is a tradition between Dave Beydler and I to go to Donutman and In N' Out. Alas, I heard that the strawberry and peach donuts were not in season so we decided not to go. We did find an In N' Out 6 minutes from Dave's new apartment (Dave didn't know about this before. Hmmmm ....). He just bought a martial arts movie, _Once Upon a Time in China_ starring Jet Li. I would highly recommend it for people who like Jet Li's stuff (ok, I don't know what I'm talking about since this is my first Jet Li movie. However, I heard that this was the movie that launched him into superstardom). The main character is China's answer to Robin Hood, but aside from his superlative fighting skills ... get this ... he is a physician!!!!

Dave just received a shaved ice machine from his brother. Shaved ice is awesome! Here goes:

1. Cheap
2. Easy to make
3. Healthy
4. No calories aside from the syrup
5. No cholesterol

One of our other fave food places is B man's teriyaki and they have good shaved ice, too. However, the key to shave ice is the syrup and Dave has some ultra secret stuff imported from Hawaii. The best part of the day was playing with the voice recognition software and foosball. I can speak stuff fairly rapidly, and it was interesting to read the computer's interpretation of what I was saying. We didn't have any time for ping-pong, but hopefully we can squeeze in a game or two before I leave for Minnesota.

John
Thursday 12/20/2001

Leaving on a Jetplane

Ok, the title is from a corny John Denver song (sorry John :), but it was pretty cool that he and Amy sang it before I left for LA. I've always enjoyed flying, but I'm not really sure how I was going to react after the September 11 tragedy. Normally I go on Northwest airlines, but since it was during the holiday season I booked a flight on United instead. The bad part is that I had to make a detour to Chicago instead of going directly to LA. The trip was pretty boring, because the people next to me was more interested in sleeping than talking.

Note to self: O'Hare is a very confusing airport. I arrived at 5:15, so I thought that I had plenty of time before boarding at 5:45. Unfortunately, I got lost in the airport and I ended up in the baggage claim area. AARRRGGGH!!! I wanted to go back in, but the security person told me that I had to stand in line to get back into the terminal. This was about 5:25 p.m. I waited in line, frantically looking over my watch to see that I could make it in time. After I crossed the metal detector, this guy decided to frisk me with his metal wand. I don't know why since I didn't make any bleeping noises. Next, the baggage handler told me that they found a pepper grinder in my suitcase! It was just some of my medical equipment that I decided to bring home to LA. I didn't have to suffer this indignation in Minneapolis :) My watch read 5:50 after they finished checking me and then I ran frantically to terminal B. Once I was there, they said that the plane was delayed. Phew .... Although I probably would have made it if the plane had been on time.

I sat next to Sue, a very friendly Wisconsinite. She has travelled all over the world and she is currently on her way to Fiji. Not only that, she also raises emus on her farm. The nice part about emus is that they lay very big eggs so you can make an omelet for your entire family. For my inflight movie, I saw _Pay it Forward_. Although I liked parts of the movie, I can't in good conscience recommend it. Pay it forward is a brilliant concept, but there are too many scenes that strain credibility. The last part of the flight was fairly unnerving since we hit some turbulence close to LA. Overall, United was ok but I'm still partial to Northwest (better food).

Thursday 12/20/2001

Warning: Medical Jargon Ahead!!!!!!!!!!

I'm finally done with all of my tests for the year. Yayyyy!!! I'm especially glad that I didn't overstudy for my pathology lab midterms, but Dr. Crosson gave some ridiculously hard questions for the lecture portion. I've been studying pathology with Katie Fox and she has helped me tremendously. I'm fairly good at understanding concepts and memorizing details, but for some reason I have a tougher time remembering slides. What is nice about having a partner is that I can create a little story to accompany the pictures. That seems to help me remember the slide. For example, one of the slides has a wispy cotton candyish quality with a fairly large hole in the middle (polycystic ovary disease). This slide has spindly, yet uniform quality (thecoma). This slide doesn't look like anything!! (the pituitary :). You may think that this is weird, but I'm only following in the grand tradition of pathologists. Example: Bread and butter: Fibrinous pericarditis. Fish flesh: Wilm's tumor. Fish mouth: Mitral Valve Prolapse. Finally my favorite: Caseating tumor necrosis. Medical school definitely warps your mind!

Strawberry: 50/100 Pear: 40/100 Banana: 30/100 Tomato: 0/100 Lemon: 20/100

Take the What Fruit Are You? test.

Sunday, December 23, 2001

Hi. This is Paulina, John's sister. We haven't really done anything besides the regular visiting of relatives and eating at generic restaurants.

It was my birthday yesterday, and we went to Islands. *Useless trivia: John got the Maui burger, with white bread.*

Also, John doesn't know what porphyria is.

Signing out,
Paulina.

(My site is here!)

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

Christmas service at Stadium Village

December 16, 2001

We had a really cool Christmas service over at Stadium Village. The evening started out with pastor John interviewing random people with a videocamera about the meaning of Christmas. It was really neat to hear the kids to the more mature folk talk about what Christmas means to them. Next we had actors, ummm ...., portray Joseph, Mary, Herod, and Simeon. Ok, it was JR, Becka, myself, and Chris Sanny who brought to life these people in the bible. I can't see myself as Herod, I'm probably the anti-Herod if there ever were such a person. I guess the costume made it a little bit more believable. I looked just like Tarmac the magnificent (Johnny Carson's alter ego)!

We also had Maria Sanny's friends come over to do a mime bit (that was a stroke of genius) of how these two yahoos (Chris and Tom) helped to arrange the manger scene for the department store. Then we had a beautiful rendition of O Holy night by Jessica and Amy. At the end of the service all of us joined together to sing "Silent Night" by candlelight. Praise God for Christmas!

Margaret Douglas makes the best desserts. My favorite dessert of the moment is shortbread cake topped with yummy chocholate. I gotta ask her for the recipe. Once I get it, I'm going to blog it here.

John

Saturday, December 15, 2001

Someone Spiked the Egg Nogg

Ok, alright I knew beforehand that the eggnog was spiked but I drank it anyway. I usually don't drink any alcohol at all, but I indulge myself to some spiked egg nogg approximately once a year (alright, once in um .... 25 years!). We had a Christmas party over at Nu Sigma Nu, where we exchanged our Christmas gifts. I had a really awesome secret santa this year (Sarah Carter), and she went above and beyond the call of duty to give me great gifts. She heard from Tammy Knutson (my partner from clin med II) that I had only one tie, so she went out and bought me two ties thus tripling the number of ties I own. My secret santee was Kirk Wangensteen. I was so tempted to buy the _George Bush is the greatest mag_ (he is a diehard democrat), but I ultimately decided to give him a CD of salsa music. The best part was the wrapping -- an add for clementine oranges (I thought that was a nice touch :).

Giddiness continues ...

We went out and sang songs over at Phi Chi (one of the other frats). It was kinda lame, because everyone in their frat was out studying. We did get Rusty (the elder statesman of Phi Chi) riled up. His bark is definitely worse than his bite :) (He's normally a really nice dog).

Friday, December 14, 2001

It's unfortunate that the link to Waterlilies is broken, the art test was probably one of the coolest surveys that I took on the internet.

I still remember when I first read about Monet. It was my junior year in college, yet I had never really studied over at Denison's (Scripps' library). Seely Mudd (Mudd's library) was closer (ok, i was lazy), but Mudd lacked D's elegance and grace. Mudd's library was just like all the prefab, Soviet inspired, post-modern cubic buildings, that you wish would be a little less square.

Just imagine a place with stained glass windows, an outside courtyard garden, a catacomb of books, wood paneling with latin inscripton, artifacts from antiquity, a world of silence interspersed with the rustling turning of books, and a sanctuary for the mind and soul. It was here that I discovered Monet.

Sometimes you feel like you have an immediate kinship with art, where it actually becomes a part of your soul. Usually for me it is in the music of Bach (a subject for a later blog), but that night it was Monet's turn. That evening I savored all of his paintings that unfolded before me. Like his impressionistic paintings, I can't quite put my hands on every single detail but only the emotions of what is left.

After thinking about it, I believe that the art survey was remarkably accurate in depicting who I am.
I'm entering the last stretch for finals week. Yes, I am feeling quite tired these few days, however there is a neato bible verse that I came across in church last week

Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness ..."

If there is one thing I miss most about California (aside from family), it is the sunshine. I wake up when it's pitch black and leave in darkness. That brings me to another favorite verse of mine

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

Psalm 139:9-11

John

Thursday, December 06, 2001

If I were a work of art, I would be Claude Monet's Waterlilies.

I am soft and gentle, but very colourful. Although based in reality, I look at the world through a filter of impressions which shape how I see things. Splashes of light help to define my presence and bring an endearing quality.

Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

Wednesday (12/05/01)

Babies are cute!

Ok, I just had a big dose of pediatrics yesterday. Babies, lots of them. Fortunately most were healthy (well-child checkups), and a lot of otitis media (ear infections). The only downside is driving all the way down to Shakopee (30 minutes on a good day, 90 minutes when it's snowing). I'm still quite nervous when I'm with little kids, because I'm still not sure how I can look inside their ears when they are crying their lungs out. Even so, they are still cute.
Tuesday (12/04/01)

The highlight of my day was going to a Tales of Christmas over at Roseville Covenant Church. I went because two of my friends from Stadium Village (Amy and Jessica) participated in the event. The funniest moment of the night (for me) was seeing Bob "Russell Bulb" Stromberg pick Pastor John Sanny out of the audience for his skit. Bob knew John back in the old days and he would always pick on Sanny. I was wondering how I would find John, but it wasn't hard to do after that skit.

Do you hear what I hear? Flute and handbells of course.

I also liked the West Side Lutheran skit. The Twins are big here, but the Vikings are a lot bigger. The premise is about a Packer fan trying to win over Marge Gundersen, a loyal Vikings fan (I think :). It was really funny, but I had to relive memories of Antonio Freeman making a behind the back catch that sent the game to overtime. Aaargh ...

My favorite thing of the evening was the flute and handbells, but the Chris Rice song was a close second. The words of the song, simply leaves me breathless ... Tears were falling ... Welcome Holy Child (which of course was the point for the whole evening).

John

Monday, December 03, 2001

Lazy Sunday afternoons .... (12/01/01)

OK, I decided to cook (good idea). I decided to cut myself with a knife (BAD IDEA).

Being a medical student probably reinforces your hypochondriacal tendencies, since you get to learn about all these things that can kill you. Since I was handling raw chicken, I thought E. coli, Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella, Streptococcus, Staph aureus etc ... A couple of months ago, I heard a case where a poor little kid died from a particularly virulent strain of E. coli (O157:H1). AAARGH!!!!!!!!! Silly me, I didn't have any topical antibiotic (bacitracin is the best, if you ask me). So I cleaned my wound with Dial antibacterial soap. I know that I'm overreacting and stuff, but they scare you in med school by handing us gangrenous hands and feet in pathology lab. Yuck! Alright, so most of those cases are from people with diabetic complications and a depressed immune systems, but you generally don't forget about them if you see them in person.

Alright, I'm severely exaggerating. I did think about those thoughts for about a minute, before I rationalized that I'm not immunocompromised and my polymorphonuclear lymphocytes still have myeloperoxidase which would enable the oxidation of oxygen into free radicals that would kill these little buggers.
Moving along, this weekend was foosball weekend for me. Jonathan Parkhurst and I have developed a friendly rivarly over this table game. I'm normally a ping-pong gamer, but the ping-pong table is in storage because Caitlin Anderson is moving into Nu Sigma Nu. It's really sad to have Theresa Person move out (she's my body buddy from anatomy), but Caitlin is really cool too :). Theresa also makes the best rhubarb pie. Yummy (food is a constant theme in my blogs). I must have played 8-10 games of foosball that day.

It is really weird, but I don't feel like I study a lot even though I get quite a bit accomplished. One of the nice things about medical school is that it totally increases your tolerance and efficiency for studying. On the other hand, I do feel guilty if I completely waste my time at Nu Sigma Nu (I saw Return of the Lost Ark -- the one with the Nazi monkey). It was actually the second time I watched the movie, but I forgot the plot because I was really sleepy when I watched it with Heidi. After the movie ended, I read a chapter of renal pathophysiology in record time after midnight :) Then I watched parts of another Indiana Jones movie (the one with Sean Connery, the title escapes me at the moment Search for the Holy Grail? or is that a Monty Python movie), but I fell asleep because it was really getting late.
On Friday, my medical school friends threw a "surprise" birthday dinner for me. It was not really a surprise, because I knew about it. The surprising part was that they took me to this middle eastern establishment that had a live belly dancer. Belly dancing is really a lot harder than it looks since you have concentrate on just wiggling your hips and not your entire body. I tried my best up there, but I was nowhere near as good as some of my classmates. The food was good, I had some tabouli, lemon chicken, and my fave baklava. Like I wrote before, I'm a dessert kinda guy. I had a great time there, and we made plans for the second year talent show. We are going to present _The Sound of Music_, but I'm not sure what part I'm going to play just yet.
Normally I'm not an impulse buyer, but I just bought Jennifer Knapp's new CD _The Way I Am_. If you've never heard it before, be sure to buy it, it's really awesome.

I was debating whether or not to go to see Jennifer Knapp's instore appearance at Northwestern bookstore, since it was snowing really bad outside. I finally did go, but arrived about 30 minutes late to see her. The good news is that she too was delayed by the windy swirling snow, so I got to hear all of her songs. My next dilemma was on buying the CD, but I decided that it was worth it to have her autograph it. It was definitely a chance of a lifetime to have an artist of her stature (alright, in the Christian community at least) write happy birthday on the CD cover. It was also a very nice birthday present to myself :)