for new yorkers

"All anyone in New York ever says is, 'everything's fabulous!' even if they're on Zoloft for depression" -Bergdorf Blondes

i would love to do a rotation in new york, maybe an elective in fourth year or do my internship there. maybe in chelsea?? that would be awesome. :) (i'd look for every excuse not to work and to sip coffee at joe's and go sneak off during overnight shifts to see the american ballet theatre.

"Ballet, according to a 1975 study by Dr. James A. Nicholas in The Journal of Sports Medicine. The study, which examined 61 different activities, ranked ballet most physically and mentally demanding, followed by bullfighting and then football.

Ask a ballet dancer to tell you about her injuries and the answer may well be, "Which one?"

[in a seminar to educate dancers about their health] Shocking facts: not eating enough can lead to weight gain. And advice to live by: breathe.

"We [dancers] are trained to be stoic," Linda Hamilton said. "We can dance with sprained ankles. We can dance when we are breaking up with our boyfriends. We can dance when we are starving."

Kinder and gentler is nice, but it is far from clear how much the discipline of ballet will change. And dancers are austere, competitive creatures; getting them to acknowledge their weaknesses, even for the sake of their health, requires a radical change in attitude.
"
article here.

i would love to be a doctor for dancers... orthopaedic surgery? or psychiatry for dancers to handle the stress of anorexia and competition?

 

alessandra ferri in a beautiful arabesque~

Room with a view

View from our room
Originally uploaded by jochang621.

maybe i need more optimism.

realized this after re-reading my latest entry. but maybe it's b/c i expected the worst, that i had an ok time. ;) no thunderstorms, but had beautiful weather altho it was chilly (we californians sometimes realize that it's FREEZING when it hits the 60's). the first year class mostly stuck together, and was properly initiated with four glasses of wine at one sitting. at least my cold didn't get worse. it was beautiful at the lake, we even got to boat out into the middle of the lake without capsizing (altho we came close by first packing our boat over its maximum number of people, and then climbing over each other to switch rowing).

i can't believe i'm going to be a grad student! orientation on tuesday, and classes start thurs.

being sick + being forced to participate in a graduate group overnight retreat in an area that's supposed to thunderstorm all weekend = unhappy jolene

shaun of the dead

Shaun: [trying to motivate his sales team at work] "As Mr. Sloan always says, there is no "I" in team, but there is an "I" in pie. And there's an "I" in meat pie. Meat is the anagram of team..."

[looking through Shaun's records for suitable records to throw at two approaching zombies]
Ed: "Purple Rain."
Shaun: "No."
Ed: "Sign o' the Times."
Shaun: "Definitely not."
Ed: "The Batman soundtrack?"
Shaun: "Throw it."

traffic woes

i agree that traffic here in the sacramento area is pretty bad, b/c the drivers are horrible. i know LA traffic is famous for being bad, but the drivers are at least nimble and fast and usually gauge how other drivers are going to react before they cut you off. here, they're reckless. i was literally in one guy's side view mirror point of view, and he nearly crashed into me as he changed lanes into me and i swerved to avoid him. ACK. it's so scary and hard to understand - did he not check his side view mirror?? after that, i saw a truck making a five lane change in *heavy* traffic to make this one exit. i'm also noticing more and more than people drive from a range of 90 mph to 50 mph on a 65/70 mph freeway. it's pretty insane.

slightly hungover this morning, went to ice skating class nonetheless. it's still fun. when the rink was emptying out, it was fun just skating, covering the entire rink, and practicing my spirals. when i first started ice skating, my goal was just to be able to skate forward comfortably. it's like when i started flute, my goal was to become just as good as my aunt (who has amazing tone, but is mostly self taught). i think i set really low goals for myself so that i can say that i surpass my goals. :)

i talked to a friend about life plans. f said that i should meet my future significant other at age 28. it's so complicated tho, b/c i'm not sure if i want kids before residency, or after. for f, we talked about how he had an upper age limit for his SO, but not a lower one. bad...

what would have been perfect is if i had my first kid during my PhD before third yr of med school, and then have med school change its policy so that we didn't have overnight call, and then have my second kid after residency. sigh, it seems hopeless to even think about planning ahead.

so complicated.

i think i had a big breakthrough in lab today. it seems too good to be true, i kept on rechecking my notes. now have to think about what's coming up next.

making homemade peanut brittle.

note: a big shout out to mslee, person of the week! :) hope medicine's going well. try to keep from punching out an attending, ok?

finding the tiny and elusive superior cervical ganglion is a little like doing the splits - for almost two months, it's been impossible to find, and all of a sudden, today, I'll have a 100% success rate.

woohoo~ things are looking up in lab.

before sunrise

i'd heard a lot about the movie, but never realized what it was really about. kind of dreamlike. it's a really specially unique relationship, a one-of-a-kind relationship everyone dreams about and seems so rare, but then it haunts me how every relationship in the world is just as special and just as unique. maybe all relationships are truly all the same, but then again, is it necessarily such a bad thing?

is every relationship just as epic, just as mesmerizing and riddled with sadness, just as ravishing?

a world of two people in love, reaching across cultural/gender divides and stereotypes and familiarity, and the humanity of understanding between two strangers. yet mixed with the uncertainty of unfamiliarity, awkwardness, and the urgency and sadness of the fact that they will probably never meet again. like the sadness of a slow harpischord fugue.

"If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but... who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt. "

excited about watching the sequel -

in an interview with julie delpy:
"How has Ethan changed since the first film nine years ago?
I think he’s grown tremendously. I think he was a puppy in the first film – it really felt like that way. It’s true in your early 20s women have a certain maturity that I only realize now, and even as you get into your 30s. At the time, I thought he was a great person, but kind of sometimes immature a little bit. Now [he’s] totally not and our relationship is dynamic. Now we’re both immature."

interview with ethan hawke:
"How much of your own personality did you write into the character?
I have always seen Jesse as kind of like 1/3 me, 1/3 Rick [the director] and 1/3 Julie Delpy's fantasy man."

Street poet:
"Daydream, delusion, limousine, eyelash
Oh baby with your pretty face
Drop a tear in my wineglass
Look at those big eyes
See what you mean to me
Sweet-cakes and milkshakes
I'm delusion angel
I'm fantasy parade
I want you to know what I think
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Latched in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream
Caught in the current
I'll carry you, you'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me? Don't you know me by now?"

"Celine: I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away." 

dancing matt

this video brought about a mixture of emotions - funny (for obvious reasons), a little sad (he quit his job to do what?), and awestruck (in exotic locales he films at). watch it here (click on "WATCH NOW")

happy labor day weekend! filled with ice skating, a possible trip to a water park, a visit to a friend's new house, and a bbq.