i'm off to catch a bus to o'hare, wait excessively long for my delayed flight, arrive in stinking houston texas around dinner time, ride a hotel shuttle, check into my 1-star hotel (maybe it's 2), get some dinner (do they have room service in 1-star hotels? 2? do they have a lobby?), study, sleep, wake up uncomfortably, make some coffee (do they have coffeemakers in 1-star hotels? do they have coffee?), shower, study, walk to testing center, take a 6 hour exam where i feign empathy and interest in actors who feign pain and disease, take shuttle back to airport while questioning my exam performance, wait excessively long for my delayed flight (maybe wait on the plane), arrive in o'hare after dinner time, grab some food, hop on the van galder, and get back home 'round midnight or so.

who's jealous?

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 10:03 AM |

i'm finding it harder to focus, even though this board exam looms only 5 days (counting today) away.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 3:39 PM |

i'm back at the parent's hizzy for now. NYC PART 1 has come to a close, and it was a blistering success. MUCH MUCH LOVE FO SURE to radbard and tam'ron for putting me up for 2 months ("our asian refugee," they called me. or "adopted son." or "hanger-on," "squatter," "uncle jason," or "rory.") they were the generousest hosts and most wonderfulest friends to stay with. (if you ever need a place to stay in NYC for a LONG period of time, GIVE THEM A CALL)

yesterday was a long day of interviews and near-tragicomic misses. i know i haven't given a good solid update for a while, so i'll do my best to make amends now. brace yourself, this is going to be a long one.

INTERVIEWS
i've gone on 6 interviews so far: Brookdale University Hospital (for prelim medicine), St. Luke's-Roosevelt (anesthesia), Einstein/Montefiore (prelim medicine), SUNY Downstate (anesthesia), and Maimonides (prelim medicine & transitional year).

the impressive programs, i've found, tend to be the ones with the most structured interview days. you walk in, pick up a name badge with your school identified on it (so helpful in initiating ice-breaking small talk), a glossy folder with glossy inserts featuring glossy writing about their glossy program, help yourself to a lil' dixie cup of coffee, maybe half a bagel, and grab a seat next to someone who you think you might be able to have decent conversation with. or, if you're like me and tend to arrive early because you overestimate the commute on the subway, you sit next to whoever has arrived 30 minutes early like you did.

usually then we proceed to informal introductions, where the faculty may greet us all as a whole or walk around the table and individually say hello. then there's usually a presentation outlining the history of the institution, how the program is structured, and what makes it so great. then the group gets split up and you go off for interviews with faculty and staff or for a hospital tour. after that is a lackluster lunch, more informal chatting with residents and staff, a post-lunch tour (if you haven't gone already), and then that's it.

those are the good ones. the bad ones have been just sitting in a conference room with one resident and the program secretary, and just listening to them go on and on about the program for about 3 hours. the worst is while you're waiting for interviews and the staff is insisting that you ask questions, but you've been all questioned out for the past 2 hours, so you try to think of stupid shit to ask. and you know you're getting a lot of the same bullshit answers from program to program.

then there's the interviews themselves. the good interviewers, they've clearly read your file. they ask you questions that are unique and clearly directed towards you and what you've written about yourself. and those are the most fun to answer. gives you a chance to show how you're not like the other 9 nondescript asian dudes interviewing for the same position. the bad ones, they're clearly reading your file as you sit there in front of them. the worst ones, they open to the first page, read it in front of you, and never progress beyond that during the course of the interview.

the big perk about the interview process, methinks, is meeting all the other students. yes, a lot of them are dorky. hell, MOST of them are dorky. this is medical school, after all. also, most of them are asian. still. i've definitely met a bunch of cool folks that i would probably pal around with if we ended up in the same program.

there was the overly-testosteroney indian kid from kansas city, who let me know that he was "on a roll" on the interview trail, as far as the ladies were concerned. i went with this dude to the Met with a couple other guys from the interview day, and they were definitely more interested in the leggy model-types browsing the collections than they were in the collections themselves.

and i met this chap from england, who was originally recruited to the US to play college soccer (his father was a pro footballer back in the day), busted up his knee, and ended up in medical school. totally cool guy, we talked a lot about london and soccer (i had little to add on that end) and his accent ("comes in handy", he told me).

i've also found many a student that are moving along a trail very similar to mine: not from new york, rotated through NYC programs, looking to do anesthesia in the city, also applied to programs in chicago and california, etc. it's a trip to look at some of these kids on an interview day and imagine that they could be my classmate, teammate, and/or future colleague (sheesh).

...AND OTHERWISE
rodbard and i really tried to pack in the bad-eating habits towards the end of the stay. we scarfed down papaya king hot dogs, a whole array of heart-stopping food at schnak, way too many nights at the neighborhood chinese jawn TING-HUA, and some other shit that i'm having trouble recalling. i do remember a night where we made all sorts of shitty food at home, i.e. pizza rolls and mini taquitos and buffalo wings etc. we also ate lots of sugar cereal.

highlights of last week: placing a conference call to one chas p. ubaghs, esq., via the wonderful facilities of the bard's soon-to-be-former workplace. he couldn't chat long, cuz he was off to see harry potter. (speaking of which, i'm def going to see that sometime this holiday weekend.)

we also picked up a $4 bootleg copy of the new 50 cent movie, which was filmed using a camcorder in the theater. and hey, for $4 - pretty good. well.. the story arc was engaging enough, anyway. sort of. actually, 50 cent still looks like the world's luckiest retard and raps like his mouth is full of peanut butter and bullshit. and the entire romantic subplot was excruciating, if only for the fact that the female lead was quite attractive and to watch her love scene with 50, well, you could only imagine her pain. also, via conference call, chas alerted us to the "very gay" prison scene in the movie. jeebus cribmus. there's like an entirely too long scene where 50 and a bunch of randoms in a prison shower get into a brawl. a buck ass nekkid prison shower brawl with SO MUCH COCK. not even joking. seriously, way too much.

now that i'm thinking about it, that movie kinda blew ass.

AGENDA
sooooooooooo, what do i have left to do so far?
i'm flying to houston (fuck) on monday to take the dreaded and hated STEP 2 CS exam. basically an 8 hour session where you see standardized patients (read: actors) and write notes. there's an angry patient, a sad patient, etc. should be so fun, and be fun i mean 100% misery. i fly back that tues night.

after that, i'm done with major testing for a while. what a relief. the plan is to maybe start taking care of myself a little better again, what with the decline in major studying. i might re-join a gym! then interview season REALLY kicks into high gear.

12/1: UIC (prelim) + happy hour with UIC residents (medmayne, i expect you to come along)
12/2: UIC/Christ (prelim)
12/7: UW-Madison (anesth)
12/8: Michael Reese Memorial (prelim)
12/9: Rush (prelim)
12/10: UIC (anesth)
12/13: Univ of Chicago (anesth)

i'll need place(s) to stay during those chicago stints, so if you've room (and esp if you live nearby any of those spots), please, let me know.

12/16: i have this purported interview at USC which i'm more and more likely to cancel, esp since i haven't booked a ticket yet.

and then i need to be back in NYC Jan 2nd, since NYC PART 2 begins the morning of Jan 3 with an interview at St. Vincent's. so what may happen is NYE in chicago (right? right?!) and then fly out of o'hare the next manana. right now it's looking like i'll be out there til 1/17 or 1/18. i restart rotations in madison on 1/23. and on 1/28 i have another interview in NYC. if i keep that one, that will be a fly out and fly back the same day sort of thing. maybe.

SO WAS THAT LONG ENOUGH FOR YOUS?

p.s. the Brooklyn branch of tha 446 got a little bogged down towards the end of the stint; magic started being created right at the end of my stay out there. rather than rush everything, it's been our decision to push back release of the workingly-titled "Brooklyn EP" to February. NYC PART 2 will facilitate the finishings of these magical projects.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 10:53 AM |

first interview, brookdale hospital.

t-minus 1 hour or so.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 7:12 AM |

received an invitation to interview at the Tufts-New England Medical Center (Boston) today. not sure if i will accept. i already have 6 interviews in NYC, 2 in chicago, one in madison and one at USC (although i may cancel that one). plus 10 prelim interviews and 2 transitional year interviews so far. i really doubt i'm going to all of these. as more come in (hopefully), i plan to decline some of the ones i've already accepted and do some rearranging.

but anyway, still not sure if i want to bother traveling to boston for 1 interview.

i am listening to the get rich or die tryin' soundtrack. so far it is better than the get rich or die tryin' album. but not as good as junior's cheesecake.

huh.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 6:30 PM |

more madness at flickr

the weekend came and went much too quickly.

FRI: may or may not (steve, zaid, aaron, amelia, ed, nate) and amy arrived. all of us stayed at rodbard and tamar's place. that equals 10 people in a one bedroom apartment, plus a coked up kitty. awesome.

we started off the night right by hitting up san loco taco/zozo's, and followed that up by a night of drinking and dancing at trash! at rififi. the party was fun but it was nowhere near the fantastic idiocy of london's trash night, and certainly wasn't anything approaching anything like this.

SAT: misery in the morning. hangovers. rodbard does the damn thing and shows up with dozens of fresh bagels and makes pots of coffee. totes awes. then we split up into two groups, shopping vs. sightseeing. the big hit of the day (for me) was hitting up ALIFE, which was having a backyard cash-only sale, 50% off all stock. i scored these for $40:


also it may be true that brooklyn industries made a tidy sum of money off of our little group this weekend.

later that evening may or may not destroyed magnetic field, as new york witnessed this new lineup for the very first time. then graham smith played. then everyone came back to tam-bard's for a chillout sesh with doritos, ice cream, and chicken lo mein.

SUN: more morning misery. this time we fight it off with frozen pizzas and constant talk that "we're just about to leave." a group of us hauls off to junior's in brooklyn. rodbard and i had an incredible corned beef & pastrami sandwich. some ordered the fried chicken, which included 5 huge pieces of chicken. AWES. then we ordered cheesecake and that was the final straw.

later we decided to walk off our late lunch by walking to chinatown via the brooklyn bridge. some trinkets were bought, someone asked ed repeatedly how much something cost, and i blended in so well i nearly vanished.

for their final night in town, MOMN tore up cake shop, again with graham smith. some blogerati were in attendance, as well as one MTX. then i went home because i had to wake up at 5am for work, and everybody else went out drinking and karaoke-ing and came home at 5am. weird timing. then i went to work and shit was cancelled left and right and i ended up being done by 11:30am and totally wished that i went out last night (seeing that i only slept about 2 hours anyway).

oh well.

SHOES!





k bye.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 2:12 PM |

tha 446 ruins halloween here

hott: the label flies me home for one hott weekend to rap. tha 446 pull off what may very well be their best show yet. dead zombie rappers, dead zombie dancers, one megamayne, one mommiega with a baybay on tha stage, lights, video footage intro, and a freaking hot dog stand across the street. complete strangers pulled me aside after the show and remarked "there sure were a LOT of you guys"

nott: the attending i've been working with this past week started off like a complete cock. basically thinks he's the world's greatest doctor and smartest man, and constantly (tries to) make me feel like shit for not being as smart as him, not that he expects me to be, but nevertheless. on monday he pimped me on physics equations ("even though you were an asian studies major, you STILL had to take physics didn't you? to get into medical school? what kind of school do they have in wisconsin?") and tore me apart when i had concepts correct but mixed up the semantics.

then he asked me if i thought universal health care was a good thing, which sounded like a hypothetical question, but i answered yes because that's what i really think. not to say that i have a plan in place for that or anything, but in general, it's a good thing. anyway he followed up my answer by pimping me on the prices of various anesthetic equipment and drugs, overhead, and the ins and outs of medicare, medicaid, workman's comp, reimbursement, and how i expect to make health care free and still make money. UGH. he also says that by the end of the week he'll have me "voting red."

he's lightened up a bit over the past few days, but it's still kinda painful talking to him. i think i'm just getting used to him, is all. on the funny side, he brought in his ipod today to play some tunes in the OR. as a point of reference, he graduated medical school in 1996, when he would have been around 26 years of age. songs i heard today:

deep blue something "breakfast at tiffany's"

the toadies "possum kingdom"

rednexx "cotton eyed joe"

enigma "return to innocence"

cherry poppin' daddies (he played like 3 of their songs)

seal "kiss from a rose"

i mean, i enjoyed it, sort of, because it was like being 15-18 years old and listening to pop radio again, which only occurred when something went wrong with the stereo in the minivan and i would be forced to listen to Z104 or some similar bullshit. but i also kinda hated it. he did play a cure song though. oh and an oasis song.

ANYWAYS, that new madonna single is hot. the new bun b album is i-ight on first listen. some songs are bangers, and some are just isssssssshhhhh.

i've been shuffling songs on the ipod again. it's good to switch it up. IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING.

this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 6:32 PM |