Happyland, USA

It's always hard to imagine that places exist in which people simply live happier, but they do.  I mean, truly, deeply, genuinely happy.  It's downright enraging if you live in a place like New York, because it makes you feel like your anger is unnecessary, and New York is the sort of place in which anger is in your bones and leaching it out would make you weak, barely able to stand.  To be in a place that is happy is to imply that happiness, like melancholy, is a place one inhabits, can get stuck in and finally break free of.

Despite having just taking a vacation in June, I was scheduled for another for the second half of September.  I barely gave any thought to where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, because the last vacation had been so recent and I really didn't need a mental break the way I did last time.  I toyed with the idea of hitting India or just bumming around home, when my best friend M suggested I see my friend C in California.  C, who I have known since I was twelve and is a member of my core girlfriends, basically left home at age 18 for college and simply never looked back.  She has done world tours on a shoestring (and now ties a sari better than I can), tracked tortoises in the Nevada desert, performed field research in the Galapagos and finally settled in Santa Barbara for grad school.  She is terribly clever, and quite simply one of the best and most patient people I know.  I hadn't seen her properly for about two years, with the exception of all-too-brief evenings together when she happened to come home.  She was only just in the process of setting up her SB arrangements when I asked her to come by and visit.  Needless to say, she was all over it.

The thing about California is that, despite the casualness which everyone tries to exude, it is a land of extremes.  As I write this, I am in an airport shuttle on a highway wisely nestled between steep, chopped hills and the rolling, foamy sea.  A mist has settled over us, masking the red sun, and giving the eerie illusion of a Maine november.  At every turn is Latin cuisine that makes you wonder why anybody in New York even attempts mole chicken, or wine that makes you drop $80 on a cross-country shipment without thinking twice.  The nerds at Lenovo throw a seriously wild party, the roads move at 85 mph without the slightest hint of impatience, and everywhere you turn, someone is bending over to extend you a courtesy that you didn't even ask for.  It is, as they say, easy living.

But, spending time here long enough, one wonders what the difference is.  Does it really boil down to year-long sunshine?  Temperate weather?  The knowledge that a hazy morning really will burn off into clear afternoon air, every single day?  In principle, I don't believe in running away as a method of resolving an issue, although I am a person who often feels the urge to run / turn her back / cut things off when she isn't happy.  But the more I travel, the more I wonder whether New York, with all its neuroses and dissatisfactions, is really the place for me.

LDN

Things I have learned in the past 36 hours:

1) The aisle seat is NOT preferable when you are sitting next to a woman who ate NYC street food before getting on the plane.

2) They have Ben and Jerry's vending machines dispensing little mini-pints of ice cream at the Heathrow airport.  I live on the Eastern seaboard, how come we don't have that???

3) Gherkin is a far better name for this.

4) I am truly addicted to my Android.  Last night, I realized I was going to have to go a whole week without TMZ and I nearly had a heart attack.

5) I did not drink enough on Memorial Day, otherwise I would not still be feeling all that wine I had last night :/

Not So Much a Throwdown as a Slowdown

A corollary to go with my bad-luck-turns-into-good-luck theme is that things are almost never what I expect. I've been sweating and dreaming (nightmare-ing, really) and just worrying myself into a hole about the start of residency for weeks now. I've been dreading the responsibility and feeling excited for the importance of it all, and just generally expecting that it was going to be a big huge change.

Predictably, it is boring and easy and anti-climactic.

I've been assigned to start on gynecology, and I had no complaints about that because I really do love the field. This particular hospital doesn't have any obstetrics, unfortunately, but I still enjoy things like clinic care and hysterectomies and such, so I really didn't change my expectations going in. The attending is super nice and a great teacher, and it is really a pleasure to be around attendings who let you do things but don't pressure you if you're not sure which way to go when you're starting out.

But my god, the boredom. It turns out they only have 2 half-days of clinic a week, and nobody scheduled cases because they didn't want patients post-op over the holiday weekend. And the following week, even clinic is cancelled. So basically, my job is to wait for consults, and I have not had that many so far. (I did have one very young teenager miscarry her pregnancy, and then go 10 rounds with me on starting a reliable birth control method while showing no indication that she would change her 3-partners-in-2-months pattern, but that's ureters under the ovarian arteries. Ha! Water under the bridge! Gyn humor! HA HA!!!)

I've been so relaxed on this rotation, people keep coming up to me and saying that I look too happy to be an intern. The program director for surgery keeps asking me why I'm wearing an actual skirt instead of wrinkled scrubs. My co-intern teased me about the audacity of wearing dusty pink peektoe heels. And everyone keeps checking their schedule to see when they get to go on gyn.

In other news, my parents are leaving relatively soon for a massive trip to Asia which will include attending my sister's MBA graduation and hanging with my expat cousins in Shanghai. Needless to say, I am super jealous and wish badly that I could go, but I'm also having an odd feeling of dread. They'll be gone for quite awhile, and I can already tell that I'm going to really miss having them to call and complain to and get scolded by. Which always surprises me, because I am the average Indian twenty-something-treated-like-she's-16 and every time I come home I get scolded and nagged for this and that, and I hate it. HAAATE it. But I know that when they go, they're going to have such a good time that they'll do what they usually do, which is out of sight, out of mind, and not worry about me at all. The last time my whole family was on a trip together without me, my mom kept hanging up on me because she had parties to get back to. Parties. The time before that, my parents went on a cruise with my British aunt and uncle in the Caribbean. I was studying for finals during winter quarter in college, and feeling stressed and depressed and lonely. I got a call from them while studying on my birthday, and they sounded too relaxed and semi-boozed to talk me off the ledge (mind, it takes like 1 rum drink to do that to my mom).

So I will be free, soon, and irritatingly, I'm not looking forward to it. It's going to be very lonesome.

Tennessee, otherwise known as The Weekend of Amazing Luck

Ahhhh, what a trip.

Let me start off by saying, TN is a terrific state and I really do recommend everyone giving it a chance. The people are so kind, and their state is just beautiful. Everyone should visit, especially Nashville to support them as they rebuild after the flood. But more on that later...

My boyfriend and I decided at the last minute to hit TN, because he had once driven through Knoxville and thought I might enjoy a proper weekend there. We spent 2 days in Memphis and one in Nashville. It just was NOT enough time! We got there early Friday morning, and tried our hand at Cockadoo for breakfast (so new, they don't even show up on Googlemaps yet). We had somewhat slow service followed by an incredible barbeque pulled pork omelet, catfish and grits , and sweet potato with marshmallows. Incredible food. The price to us, for our wait? Free. (Hope I didn't just sink Cockadoo with that, but I mean it as a proper rave review.)

We followed up by wandering into the annual BBQ festival, where teams compete from around the world, and display their pig paraphernalia along with names like "Butt-oh-dacious" and "Ribbed For Your Pleasure". And my god, the food was good, and confirmed when we later visited the award-winning Pig's on Beale ("Natural Born Grillers"). We also checked out Neely's (Down Home With The Neelys) for extraordinary wings and pulled pork, and even went back for more before our flight. On a detour from bbq, we enjoyed fried burgers and twinkies at Dyer's on Beale St.

Mind, not everything in Memphis is food (although even if it was, it would still be worthwhile). On a whim, we followed signs to the Civil Rights museum, only to discover that it is the actual site where MLK Jr was shot and killed, on the balcony of the Loretta Motel. It was so worthwhile to see, we went back a second day to spend time in the building where the shot was fired from (now used to showcase the forensic evidence and following criminal case). We also got to see "The Witness", the oscar-nominated documentary, and the guy that it's based on was even there that day! We also checked out Stax Museum for the history of Memphis blues music. All I can say is, if you love gold-plated pimp-mobiles or anything Isaac Hayes, this is a MUST VISIT.

We scooted our way into Nashville, which sadly does not have nearly as good food, but makes up for it in sheer talent. Nashville was recently flooded due to bad rains, and is now cleaning up the mess. To help, several crazy-famous country stars came to do a benefit concert, which we managed to sneak into at the last minute, and land terrific seats. My god, I did not know that country music could be so good. The lineup included Lady Antebellum (I nearly cried), Brad Paisley, Keith Urban (I WILL marry him, Nicole Kidman be damned), Martina McBride, CeCe Winans, Sheryl Crow, Kellie Pickler and several others. It was just so good, and meaningful. It was also kind of fun to see how a live televised event is organized, since I had never been to one. And now, I am a converted hick.

More to come, as I am completing this post the day after graduating and want to write about that experience as a separate thing. But basically, Tennessee was a hit and I recommend it to all!

mad knife skills

Aaaaaand, I'm spent.

I made it back from a lovely trip yesterday, much of which was spent lying on a quiet beach with my med school girls (and guy) and eating as much seafood as possible. I tried out crab-eating for the second time, and I have discovered the key - it is THE KNIFE!! The Crab Deck gives you these lovely sharp knives with which to pick apart the crab and avoid injuries, which my friends sadly were unable to do. But having more comfort with a knife than most people who know me are ok with (my boyfriend usually keeps one eye on me at all times while I dice a tomato), I actually found that using the knife to both pry open the crab as well as scoop out and eat the meat while dexterously avoiding "the mustard" was the best way to go. Ha ha! I eat off of sharp knives! And build cabins with my left pinky! I am CHUCK NORRIS!!

~a collective round of sighs emanates from everyone who actually knows me~

As usual, I tanned quite a bit and now I think my hands are starting to age from the lack of year-round sunblock protection. (For some reason, I religiously wear sunblock on my face in winter, but not on my hands. And so, my hands are 80.) But I anticipate that in a few days, I will have settled into a healthy glow. Just in time to hit MEMPHIS, BABY!!

The thing is, I'm finding that this extended vacation time actually makes me a bit uneasy. Following The Match (which for me was in February of this year), each rotation got easier and easier, until I was barely there. And now I have about 3 weeks before graduation, then another 4 after. I love being able to finally travel the way I wanted to, but it's actually oddly frustrating to have so much free time.

(Yes, I recognize this doesn't make sense to most people. Or anyone.)

I don't know, I guess that I'm often happier and more productive when I'm too busy. I get more organized, I have a schedule, I don't spend insane amounts of time thinking about non-existent slights from other people. Sad as it is to say, sometimes having real work to do makes me feel like I have a life, because I make time for that life. Whereas now I am 100% in that life and it feels kind of empty. My med school friends think I'm nuts, but a big part of me is really looking forward to starting internship and learning stuff and being busy and working hard. I'm getting emails from my program about lab coat sizes and health forms and orientation, and it's just a little exciting. Like when I was a kid and looked forward to the third grade all summer long. It will be exciting.

(Yes, I know that in 3 months, the word "exciting" will be more appropriately reworded as "torturous". But I'm ok with the delusion.)