happy spring! from my very spring-like cousin, lila~

shocking

i've never really had the stomach to sit through an entire episode of mtv's "my sweet sixteen", but i've heard enough about it to know what it's about. an interesting article in the ny times today:

"The show, in its third season, follows teenagers as they painstakingly plan their elaborate celebrations (which can cost as much as $200,000), argue over the details with their parents, fret over guest lists and shop for their first cars. There are tears and tantrums and nouveau-riche displays of conspicuous consumption. Marissa, a daddy's girl from Arizona, dyes her two poodles pink, so they'll match her dress. Her party was the show's season opener.

..."Everybody else spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I didn't spend anything," Mr. Reid said proudly. "I got my friend's club. I got my friend to perform and I got my friend to D.J."

"There's absolutely no way that I would ever spend that type of money," he continued. "I think it's over the top and sickening and a real poor representation of wealth."

...Priya, who received a Mercedes convertible and an assortment of diamond jewelry for her birthday. Her sister's graduation gift package included a Bentley, diamonds and two homes in India.

"I was really surprised," Divya said, "because I was only expecting a Bentley and one house.""

wow, i'm so amazed! :P article click here.

dancer in football flags

i played flag football today! i still can't believe my lab talked me into it. the last time i played was in junior high (wow that was a long time ago). my lab was desperate enough to ask me to play, and sadly, we got beaten badly. but i was happy because i caught one pass and blocked another pass. it was actually kinda fun! i stretched a few muscles i didn't realize i had though - i never used to get strained muscles, but alas... as s likes to jokingly tell me, i'm not a spring chicken anymore. ;) the hardest part was that we only had two girls so i had to play the entire time.

i might play again next week. hehe. my dad used to be captain of his football team in high school in texas - i definitely didn't get those genes.

one step forward, one year's worth of steps back


click to enlarge

relating especially to the girl on the left. progress in lab is getting better after months of nothing... but other worries (always) pop up. like, a big one is, what if my results show that what i'm studying, is actually not important for anything? eek. good news: techniques are slowly starting to work in lab - especially the technique i'm using has been published, many times, to not be effective in my model system. but i got it to work! thank my lucky stars. bad news: it's starting to look like my hypothesis may be wrong. boo. need to repeat though.

love monkey's back! yes, touted as the male version of sex and the city, it's a really good show that got disappointingly pulled from cbs, but is now airing its first season in its entirety on vh1. airing tonight!

obsessions

is life just one obsession after another? is life just one distraction after another?

just spent some time with a friend, pouring over bootleg broadway clips, boring others... theater is definitely one of my obsessions.

ballet is another obsession - sf ballet is starting up again this week!

fashion is another guilty pleasure - more watching than buying, since I can't afford a lot of it. :P on oprah, oscar de la renta was on - he makes such breathtaking gowns. i love the casualness and the flirtiness of the first outfit. the second outfit looks like a big sugar-spun confection.

years worth of email

i finally got the password to my second "email account" that the school requires, which has higher security, apparently, to help protect patients' privacy (i think). it's annoying actually, but i just opened it and there are hundreds of emails that have been sent since 2004. whoops. i'm trying to delete them all, and i realized how many mandatory meetings that i missed, hehe, as well as a gas leak in our building. eek.

had a really nice dinner with med school friends - it was a good time to toast the advent of spring with close friends.

 
from cuteoverload.com

happy easter! 

bare



discovered video footage of bare: a pop opera... i love it! it probably won't ever get produced again, but i love the music, especially michael arden, the star of bare (the guy in the red vest and mask in the video footage above), who graduated from juilliard - he has a spine-tinglingly good voice. the lyrics are amazing as well - a story about the struggles of sexuality in puberty, trying to converge the ideas of religion and honest self-discovery.

Jason, praying:
"Can I turn to You in my need?
Would You take me back or watch me bleed?
Are You there? There at all?
And as I fall from the person that I tried to be
Could You really love someone like me?"

Sister Chantelle, talking to Peter:
"God don't have a guestlist
We're all invited to his feast
...
Heaven knows, nothing works
They're known to misquote their verse
Preaching hate, but I'm saying 'Wait!
Where did Jesus mention that?'
Some are small, some are dumb
Keep on pushing, change will come
Till then just keep in sight
God is on your side
...
God is love all the time
Search your soul and I think you'll find
God don't make no trash
And if you're wondering why I'm a fan
It's because there's a black woman inside the soul of every gay man"

Peter:
"God I need your guidance
Tell me what it means
To live a life where nothings as it seems.
Spending days in silent fear,
And spending nights in lonely prayer.
Hoping that one day when you wake,
Those feelings won’t be there.

You learn to play the straight man,
Your lines become routine.
Never really saying what you mean.
But I know the scene will change,
White picket fences and a dog,
A trophy bride and children,
God, I know that’s what he wants
But Jason, what role do I play,
Am I a savior or a phase?
Am I here to damn you,
Or to help you navigate this maze?

Where confusion is a crime,
So you fill your life with sound,
And if you dance like hell,
You hope you never touch the ground.
What happens when the music stops?
In the silence will he stay one day,
Or realize that these feelings are going away,

So we drive ourselves insane,
Spinning circles in our souls,
As we dance around and play pretend.
And once again,
Reprise our roles."

intramural innertube water polo

one of the cons of being one of the very few females in science, in general (especially neuroscience) is that i always get bugged about playing co-ed intramural sports, where girls are required to play at a certain ratio. in innertube water polo, goals made by females also get two points, versus one points for male-initiated goals. it encourages girls to feel comfortable about playing, but also encourages coercion of girls with no experience whatsoever with the idea that one person (female) floating in an innertube in the pool is better than not having this floater.

an email conversation replying to an email invite to join the intramural water polo sports team for the neuroscience department:

K (male): "Hell yeah. And don't worry, I won't wear my speedos."
G (female): "Does that mean they'll be free for me to borrow?"

age

the sf ballet was breathtaking last night - the program of the season to see, and it was well worth it, even though my expectations were so high I thought I'd be disappointed. It started out with the brilliantly beautiful Allegro Brilliante, then mellowed out with the emotional Chaconne, pulled you into a cerebral/visceral Fifth Season (my friend's fave), and ended with the Sandpaper Ballet that had the audience dancing in their seats.

i definitely realized i like the older dancers better - their emotional artistry is SO much deeper and so much more expressive, and the details of their dancing is so much more attuned with the entire performance. a review on a younger dancer, vanessa: "Balanchine's "Rubies" was notable mostly for the stagnation of Vanessa Zahorian, a principal who can whirl like a top but shows little engagement or decision-making onstage. The chops are there, and always have been, but where is the fire behind the eyes?" this quote really nails it perfectly - my favorite dancers with fire in their eyes: yuan yuan tan, tina leblanc, gonzalo garcia, stephen legate. i really want to see yuri possohkov dance, a dancer famous for his choreography who's definitely preparing to leave soon, i think.

ballet class

went to ballet class for the first time in a while. i think it was the break in the stormy weather, with the sunshine... it was so beautiful today! anyways, my least favorite thing about ballet class are the catty looks - girls checking each other out, to see who's the skinniest, who can lift their leg the highest - it's like going back to junior high! sigh. but the experience of self expression is well worth it. i hope i can go more regularly.

my life as it would have been

my name got accidentally put into the third year lottery, so if i were continuing into the third year of med school instead of my PhD, this would have been my life next year:

Rotation1 PED
Rotation2 SUR
Rotation3 OBGYN
Rotation4 FAP
Rotation5 IM
Rotation6 PSY

it's kind of a nice schedule - starting out the year by working with kids, then having family practice during my fourth rotation would mean that i could go snowboarding on the weekends... and the hard ones with lots of overnight calls are broken up (surgery, internal medicine) aren't back to back (altho having peds, surgery, and obgyn is a lot...). it also meant that i would have done surgery and internal med with some of my friends. ack. it's hard to be left behind, no matter what amazing things i may be doing in the meantime.

all these different routes our lives could have taken. our life as it could have been. i wonder... i could have been:

• a working and a poor/in debt resident in neurology/neuropathology/neuroradiology/dermatology/ortho surgery hopefully somewhere outside of the sacramento area
  
• a ballet dancer at the san francisco ballet, maybe with yuan yuan tan as a mentor ;)
  
• dare i say, married??
  

what else could have been?

logistics

a day taking care of little things... taxes are finally over. also got a chance to handwash a bunch of my cashmere sweaters thanks to the fear of moths. also getting used to the hour we lost to daylight savings - trying to keep track of which clocks i've changed, and which ones i haven't.

amidst all the logistics, i watched the 100th anniversary celebration of the juilliard school, live at the lincoln center. i was reminded of what an institution the juilliard school is, and the breadth of education they have, and how they graduate the best of the people in the arts. i always knew that their music is amazing, but also reminded that their expertise extends to dance (they danced a beautifully moving modern dance piece, altho I'm not sure which dancers would spend their best years "training" at a school while they can be living their fullest at a company), acting (their acting was so subtle and so convincing and very compelling - really drew you in), and even their jazz education. it was a nice reminder of the arts, and how i need to get myself into a city with lots of cultural arts. ^^

newest discovery: sudoku

at the cliffs in san diego. enjoying some down time. i need to move soon. ;) i miss civilization.