#small-adventures

Sorry for the lack of updates. As I've posted earlier, I've been swamped with midterms this entire month. Thankfully, I have a short break before my next round of finals. What I've been up to, in no particular order:

I joined my program's IM soccer team. My soccer game has definitely gotten rusty since my days on the high school JV soccer team. Despite my utter lack of skills, it's a good way to keep active and get to know people in my program better. 

I'm trying to make aerobic exercise a higher priority. A few weeks ago, we did an EKG lab in physiology, where each of us recorded our EKGs and completed questions based on those recordings in an effort to learn how to read an EKG. In the process of doing these questions, I discovered that I have tachycardia. (In my defense, I had just finished a coffee before class.) My goal is to drink less caffeine and exercise more so that I can have a long, healthy R-R interval on my EKG recording when we do this redo lab as first years.

I started shadowing at the hospital. It's always exciting to pretend to be a real med student. In addition to following around residents, I've been able to talk to 4th years doing their clinical rotations. After hearing their experiences, I've affirmed my suspicion that our group of post-bacs takes academics much more seriously than the actual med students. At first, this made no sense to me. Upon further reflection, I get it: many of the other students have suffered the multiple application rounds hell that I went through these past couple of years. The feasibility of our future plans relies on doing well this year. Basically, I need to up my game.

Free weekend= a full day of eating and wandering around Philly with some new friends. Highlights include: Crepes at Reading Terminal Market. I'm also looking forward to eating some cranberry apply pie that I bought from Beiler's Bakery. Wandering through Old City and taking touristy pictures at the Liberty Bell. Boba from Chinatown. Struggling to split the bill after dinner. My legs are exhausted from walking back and forth across Center City, but my belly is full and I'm content after a long day of wandering around Philly with some good company.

This festival-filled weekend highlights why I love living in Center City Philadelphia. (Cool events, a seemingly endless supply of good food, shopping, the diversity of my fellow Philly residents!) Unfortunately, I'm here to be a student, which means that I periodically must study for midterms instead of wandering around the city.

However, I did attend Night Market Philly in Chinatown, where I enjoyed some curry kebabs, Korean BBQ and macarons. (As an aside, I've learned to be much more lenient as to what constitutes a "macaron" in the States. The Sugar Philly Truck is no Pierre Herme, but I wouldn't say no to one of their milk&honey macarons.) I even tried some "popping bubbles" boba for the first time. (Yes my friends, there is quality boba to be had in Philly.) Honestly, I have never seen so many people out at night in Philly. Though the lines were long, I'm glad I took the time to put my books down and experience the city. 

Today, I needed to take a break from studying in my room. Like a dutiful student, I packed up notes to review at the local Starbucks. Barely a couple blocks from my apartment I notice that the road's been blocked. Instead of the usual cars filling the street, I see crowds of people, a stage with musicians and vendors lining the road. Turns out, today is the Midtown Village Fall Festival. I wandered through, eyeing the food and crafts stands, but didn't linger, as I'm trying to be a dutiful student. At least the festival provided some good people watching opportunities as I plowed through flashcards and a practice midterm?

I don't know if it's the rain or my brain recovering from re-learning how to study, but my mind has been scattered while attempting to write this post. I apologize if this short series of reflections is disjointed. In no specific order at all, some thoughts on my first official week in Philly:

I started 2 out of my 3 classes this week- microbiology/immunology and biochemistry. While these courses (especially microbio) have presented a lot of information, the material seems manageable. Physiology starts this week, and I have high hopes for the course, as it seems the most relevant of my courses for eventually becoming a doctor. My schedule is surprisingly lovely: with the exception of some shadowing in October, I never have to be in class before 10am and I'll have Fridays off. I suppose this means that I have no excuse to do poorly in class. Everyone in the program seems incredibly studious. Then again, what did I expect? I'm in a program with a group of premeds. I'm trying use this opportunity to set some good study habits. Like actually reviewing my notes after lectures. 

We had a half-day of orientation on Monday, where we were given an overview of the program. Right after orientation we sat in for our first, long biochem lecture. The combination of long lectures and not-long-enough orientation resulted in not much time to bond with other people in the program this past week: I suspect that most of us head home right after class because we're too exhausted after being barraged with information for a couple of hours. Nonetheless, the people I have interacted with seem really nice and collaborative. To kick off the long weekend, we did have an after-class bonding event on the basketball courts, which was surprisingly fun. I've also been in touch with a couple other girls in the program that live in my neighborhood, and we've been able to grab froyo, gelato, and lunch together. Overall, I'm really excited to get to know everyone better. 

Speaking of food, I'm at great risk for eating myself broke and fat. My apartment is within a short walk of many restaurants, cafes and shops. If I don't burn through money eating, there's a good chance that I might burn though it shopping. Obviously, I cannot wait to explore more. Also, I'm incredibly close to the historical areas in Philly. While out on a run this weekend, I realized the park that I'd been running to is across the street from Independence Hall. 

I officially leave for Philadelphia this Sunday morning. The reality of leaving WA hasn't hit me yet. Then again, I've always found goodbyes to be anticlimactic. Life has a way of sweeping forward despite one's greatest efforts to find closure.

To be honest, I'm nervous as hell about moving and becoming a student again.

Since finding out that I was accepted to Temple University last week, my life has been a whirlwind of emailing future classmates looking for roommates, searching for studio apartments, doctor's appointments, paperwork, prepping for my last few weeks of work and ticket purchasing. The whole idea of moving out to Philadelphia hasn't felt real until I started making all these concrete preparations.

With each passing day, I'm getting more and more excited about moving to a new city. I can't wait to learn my way through Philadelphia, and make a place that is mine.  At the same time, I must admit that I'm nervous about about diving headfirst into the unknown. I personally do not have many close ties in Philly. Living on the West Coast makes it impractical to spend a weekend to get a feel for my future abode. (Indeed, my current anxiety has been focused on locating an apartment to avoid being homeless for the first few days of school. Luckily, we have some family friends in the area that have kindly agreed to help us scout apartments. I've also shamelessly enlisted my mother as my personal real-estate agent.) After having some difficulties finding a roommate, I've decided to live in a studio, and, having lived with either my family or roommates my entire life, I'm both scared and excited to truly live on my own for the first time. 

While student life is still a far cry from "the real world" this certainly is a step forward in my life trajectory. Shipping myself across the country to live on my own and realize my dreams in a big city... it sounds like a cliched movie premise, I know. Med school, here I come!

I know, I've been horrible about updating regularly this month. I've been given more hours at work, and after a whole day of working with patients I'm exhausted when I get home. To mark the 1 year anniversary (June 12th!) of the gap year, I've being working on a short post about graduation and the transition from college to gap yah life. Expect this entry to pop up sometime in the next few days.

In lieu of a more meaningful reflection, I've compiled some short bullet points from this past week:

A successful (1 hour!) meeting with the dean of admissions at the UW. We talked about my interview at length, and she gave me some good tips that I intend to keep in mind for Philly. Despite the fact that we discussed why I did not get into medical school, I came out of the meeting feeling more confident about my decision to keep pursuing this dream. After my meeting, I enjoyed some window shopping and froyo at the U-Village while waiting for traffic to die down before driving back home.

Braving wind and cold to watch my baby brother graduate from high school this past Saturday. It was heartwarming to see him undergo this milestone. I could tell that he knew that something life-changing had just occurred. On a side-note, you know you're starting to get old when high school memories feel like a distant, almost other-worldly experiences. 

Being a good Filipina and witnessing to the mind-f**kery that was the Bradley-Pacquiao boxing match.

Youtubing and laughing late into the night with Rebecca and Steve. Highlights include: My Drunk Kitchen, Gunther, Sexy Sax Man.

Shake My Hand by The Jakes on Grooveshark