Sunday, July 27, 2003, 03:07 p.m.

South of the Border

Ok another weekend comes and goes, this time i spent it road tripping down to Dillon, SC with a group for the northeast Subaru crowd. In the span of 24 hours we drove almost 1000 miles going to this crazy mexican-themed tourist trap thats exactly halfway between NYC and Miami, FL. On the drive down i was on the verge of passing out and fighting sleep for nearly the last 4 hrs of the trip, giving in when one of the guys offered to drive the last hour so i could pass out without killing myself on the road. When we got there, it was kind of dissapointing to find that not as many southeast subie guys showed up as we hoped. South-of-the-Border in Dillon was this super-cheesy mexican-themed, redneck-employed, half-assed theme park/tourist trap in the middle of nowhere. Weather was humid as hell and we got to see the whole of the place in a matter of a couple hours. The pluses to the trip were the really spicy bottle of ginger ale i had, so i bought a couple cases to take back with me, and the coconut milkshake i had made. Their ice-cream parlor was packed with people trying to get out of the heat. The place reminded me of one of those horrid theme parks that your parents would drag you to on vacation and you would feel like the biggest loser in the world and pray that nobody you knew would catch you there. Then if you were visit such a place when you were older, you would just point and laugh. Funny, thats what i did most of the time. I hate sounding so snobby about it, but it really was a joke of a place and i wished that we could have picked our meeting spot somewhere nicer like Myrtle beach instead. Sill on the way back home, had a great drive and the weather was beautiful thru all of N Carolina and Virginia. The whole drive back home was only ruined by a speeding ticket i nabbed in the DC area. I think i can dodge the ticket, but i have to do a little more research on it.

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Thursday, July 24, 2003, 04:10 p.m.

"Check out our forensic medicine classes."

I saw this flashing on a billboard for the PCOM (Pennsylvania College of Osteopathic Medicine) while i was driving home last night. Those of you who watch CSI know that forensic medicine deals with a lot of glamorous and glitzy medical investigation of wrongful/criminal deaths and etc. The tragic irony of this was just one week ago, a PCOM female med student who dissapeared while jogging in the park, was found dead about 5 days later.

Horrible life ironies aside, i was driving back home from some asian yuppie social event downtown. One of my buddies at work, Joe, is korean and from the area and very well connected. He heard about it and invited me along, and even tho i promised myself i was going to be good and go home and study, i ended up going back downtown and having too much to drink again. The event was ok, but a lot more guys than women and i wasn't really in the mood to approach a bunch of strangers unless i was introduced. It's just not my style. I got to know both Joe and his friend Jae and we had a great time, capping the night off with a horrible game of pool. Remind me not to try to win a game after having 5 cocktails and beers.

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Sunday, July 20, 2003, 09:14 p.m.

Ed Kwon coast to coast...

I just realized as i was driving home today that i've spent time in both SF and NYC in the last 7 days, which is pretty cool since i've never done that before. This country is getting smaller to me by the day...

Ok, so i live only 2 hrs away from NY, so its kind of an unfair boast to make, but still, what a week its been.

First, a lot of my friends knew that i went to SF last weekend, but they weren't privy to the fact that i spent only 16 friggin hours in the Bay Area and about 14 hrs of total plane rides -_- Then this past week was more fun fun in the OR sun from 6 to 6. We switched faculty preceptors this week and i'm now paired up with one of the other anesthesia residents. My new mentor is dimitry baranov, one of the neuro anesthesiologists, and probably one of the coolest people i've met in the program. This guy is jewish russian in heritage, and has lived in both israel and england, and fun to talk to about virutally anything, wether it be world affairs or just amercian culture from a foriegn perspective. Plus he is so laid back, where last week i was constantly in fear of doing something wrong, his usual answer is 'the shit is all the same, i don't fucking care, that sounds good to me'. I've heard 'shit' and 'fuck' out of his mouth more in the last week than i've heard in the last year, and hearing it with a russian accent makes it so damn amusing. I can tell this coming week is going to be fun too.

Fri night i went out with some buddies from work for sushi and drinks. Mala, andy, ben, tung, vik and i tried to hit one place but found it was already closing then found another place called shiroi hana (kind of like the place in chicago that janelle showed me) and ended up keeping the poor staff waiting for us to finish eating well after closing. We hit a lounge/club called loie which was alright, except i thought the dj could have spun better music. On sat i slept in *finally* and took off to NYC in the afternoon, spent the day hanging with my old high school friend mike. We went downtown and had some of the best burgers in the East Village for dinner and then hit one of his favorite business school bar/hangouts. I was telling him how i wasn't used to seeing so many people around at night, but he looked at me funny saying that since its the summertime, a LOT of people were gone and these crowds were pretty light. Now i'm really curious what NY is going to be like in the fall. Sunday i got to introduce mike to my friends may and caroline and we went for brunch and milkshakes down in the village. I lucked out coming to town on such a beautiful weekend and was really glad everyone got along. Plus i had introduced mike and may online earlier in the week cause mike is a current Stern business school student and may wants to apply for their mba program. As i was going home i was not paying attn, missing my exit on the jersey turnpike and driving the entire length of NJ before i realized i was an idiot. Oh well at least i got the scenic view and learned it costs exact $6.20 to drive thru the whole state. As all my friends have been saying, i really need to spend a whole weekend at my new home or i'll never settle in. I wish i could start from this point but i've already got plans to road trip down to N Carolina. Who knows, maybe a therapeutic flaking out on plans may be in order.

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Tuesday, July 15, 2003, 10:30 p.m.

Shortest weekend...evar!!!

This past weekend i spent 16 hrs in NorCal/Bay Area, and 14 hrs riding planes. How the hell did this happen?

I made plans over a month ago to visit NorCal for what i thought was going to be the last time in a while. Seeing that life was going to be busy again as a resident as well as life on the east coast, i figured i'd make a quick weekend trip and say hi/bye to several people. Aya convinced me to come the weekend when the BA subaru club would have their annual Mt. Hamilton meet, and it seemed like fun in years past so i thought it would be cool to check out. I planned on arriving early on Sat, spend the day in the city, meet up with friends for a little dinner and kareoke, then go to the subie event on sunday, then fly home on the red eye. Of course this was before i found out i had to take a stupid anesthesia department exam on that same Sat, and the date was non-negotiable. So instead of leaving 7am and arriving around noon, i left at 6pm and got there after 11pm. I was picked up from the aiport and managed to spend what remained of Sat night with Aya and Hank grabbing a quick bite to eat. America Wes, by the way, is a terrible airlines and i won't use it again if i can help it. The plane was cramped and they didn't even serve food on the long leg of the trip. We crashed at Hank's place in Sunnyvale since it was close to the meet point for Sunday's agenda. I found out that Hank was living at Andy's house, whom i haven't seen in over 2 years. We sat around and caught up on stuff before going to sleep. Andy was probably the only one from #a! who witnessed my ridiculously short arrival in the BA.

The following morning aya and i got up way to early and met a big caravan of cars just as they were leaving for Mt. Hamilton. The road we took was famous for having more turns than there were days of the year. And for a 5 mile stretch of road, that was a hell of a lot. It was actually pretty scary riding as a passenger, not that aya was a bad driver, but on a road that twisty, i wanted to be in control. Of course my driving would have probably scared the shit out of anybody. Over 120 cars showed up and it was a great turnout, plus many of the webboard's biggest personalities were there, and people whom i exchanged msgs for years i finally got to meet in person. I was kind of surprised how many people knew who i was too. I think i also had the distinction of being the person to travel the farthest distance for this event. I ended up getting back to the airport for my redeye flight, missing northern cal a lot. I'm pretty sure i'm going to try and look for a job out there when i'm done. I can't help it, the area fits me like a glove. We'll see what happens.

My plane arrived back in philly 5:30 in the morning and i drove straight to work, with only a couple hours of sleep on the plane. Did i mention those stupid french airbus planes are cramped and horrible? To top the day off, i had to stay late at work until 9 pm because i was on an assigned short call night. By the time i got home, i was an exhausted wreck which is why i wasn't concious enough to write this until tonight.

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Saturday, July 12, 2003, 10:37 p.m.

Flying the friendly skies

Two weeks in anesthesia have gone by and the days are still long, but fun. I like the guys that i'm working with and hanging out with them while taking the department inservice exam today, made me realize that. When i moved to Indy, i was was being so pissy and didn't let myself have fun or get to know anyone, or even make a remote effort to have fun. I think its time to change that and appreciate what i have, because i really do have a lot, and if i can't enjoy myself, then shame on me.

I'm sitting on the plane on the way to SF right now and realized something. Turbulence makes me feel comfortable. I don't know what it is exactly, but i think its like the sense of comfort and security i feel when i'm at home during a big thunderstorm. Despite being chaotic and crazy as hell on the outside, i can't help feeling safe, even in a bumpy plane. Another weird thing i noticed in the security checkpoint was someone bring goldfish as carry-on luggage. These were fish tied up in plastic bags full of water but i thought they couldn't live very long like that. I don't know what she was thinking but i don't want to hear her cry when she ends up having a sandwich bag full of dead fish after a 2 hr flight.

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Monday, July 7, 2003, 10:04 p.m.

What a short weekend

Half my weekend was spent down in Washington DC hanging out at ken's place. Despite my fears that I90 would be a horrible crowded mess, i made it down there in record time and hit no traffic whatsoever. I figure the holiday weekend was making things unpredictable. I know that on any ordinary friday, the Baltimore rush hour will be a killer. Something to keep in mind for my future visits down there. Ken and i met up with a group of his trance club friends for dinner in the only Indian joint in chinatown. I found this almost as funny as the lone chinese waiter that was working there. After dinner we headed off to this lounge club called Home. We arrived early to make it in time for 2-for-1 drinks and even tho it was kind of empty at first, we took over the whole upper balcony where there was another smaller bar and pretty hot bartender. Eventually a lot of people strolled in, although i started getting too drunk to actually hit on anyone. I thought it was pretty cool when we were included on the invite list since the group i was with knew the DJs there. I was 'plus one' when they read names on the list including 'ken plus one'. Maybe next time i'll be a name and not just a number. We left shortly before the club closed at 4 am and struggled home by taxi. I was thinking of sticking around to go to a big party in Baltimore the next night but went home in the afternoon to take care of random biz. I ended up flaking on my plans to NYC because of the stupid weather. Whats the point of rolling into town when nobody wants to be outside anyway? I'll wait for the damn heatwave to break.

In other news, i don't think my cable modem provider is all that great. My connection keeps timing out, it was a pain to setup and now i'm having trouble getting it to cooperate with my router. Oh well, not like i have much choice and it is about $20 cheaper than most providers. I guess if i did choose it i'd have to say 'i got what i paid for'. Hopefully after tommorow i won't have to keep speaking with tech support.

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Friday, July 4, 2003, 12:56 p.m.

Philly: week 1

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone! I find it kind of ironic that the city i'm living in (Philly) and the city i'm leaving for (Wash DC) are pretty key hotbeds of Independence day celebrations. I almost wish i could hang out tonight in town with some buddies at Penn's landing and watch the fireworks, but tonight down in DC is going to be fun. I'm sure i'm going to catch some fireworks.

Since i only had 2 free days before i had to start my anesthesia program, i had to hit the ground running. It's been really fun but exhausting, and just like when i started interal med, we literally got thrown into the deep end. When i went to hospital orientation on Monday, i was really stoked to find out two friends of mine from U Mich med school were both starting with me. Dennis had already finished 3 years of surgery before he decided to switch and was joining me as a CA-1 and another old friend from high school and med school, Samir, was starting as a GI Fellow this year. Guess he had much better luck than i did, but i'm a lot happier where i am. Me and another resident were paired up with one of the anesthesia staff 1 on 1 and everyday we'd preop, basically check out the patients on the next day's OR schedule and prep them. Every morning i'd have to roll in at 6 am which meant waking up around 5. I was kind of surprised i'd see so much traffic that early in the morning. The commute home sucked of course, but i found a great commute route by the Schuykill river which was always moving and ironically ran parallel with the congested I76 freeway. Our staff preceptor, Dr. Hecker, more or less had us do ALL the work, only stepping in when we looked hopelessly clueless or doing something wrong, which was usually every 5 minutes. There's nothing like putting someone in a near death state for a few hours and bringing them back. I always used to think the anesthetists were just sitting around but we were constantly monitoring everything, every second of every minute, pretty intense stuff. When it came to doing procedures such as lines and intubations, the big IV access lines i had no problems with, peripheral IVs i've NEVER done (always a nurse's job before) and i stunk horribly. Guess what i'll need to work on. Hecker was rough on us i thought, but fair and never gave us too much shit. Personally i never let it get to me much since i'm the newbie here and i figured he wanted to see how much i could take. I've been treated much worse in the past. Despite coming home dead tired i've never had this much fun before.

Last night Jackie (DJbunny) and i met up for dinner, and she took me to this great sul lung tang restaurant. When i suggested going out for korean food, she then asked me WHAT KIND of korean place. I've never had that kind of choice before but the koreatown located up in northern philly is nice. I see myselt going up there a lot to eat, drink, shop, whatever. I was a little dissapointed to find out Jackie just recently hooked up with someone, but i suspectede that already so it was all cool. Still, she's cool, loves eating out, doesn't hold anything back, has been treating me great and wants to hook me up with all the cool places to see and do around here. Plus being korean she understands me a little better too. There are worse things than having cute buddies, definitely someone good to have on my side.

As i mentioned before, i'm driving down to DC this afternoon to crash at ken's for dinner and clubbing. Should be good and i MIGHT head up to NYC the end of the weekend, but we'll see.

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