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ceruleanbubbles6
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Name: ceruleanbubbles6
Birthday: 1/6/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: feeding squirrels, stars/moon/sunlit sky, art (drawing, photography, painting), biomedical engineering (combine my favorite science, helping people, and being an enginerd), never ending pursuit of knowledge, social justice, working to discover and fulfill His plan for me
Expertise: coming up with random ideas, laughing so hard my stomach hurts, talking rapidly and infinitely, procrastinating, running on little to no sleep
Occupation: Student
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/17/2002
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| ...for my annual blog post. I still read my xanga subscriptions occasionally and today I realized that the last time I posted was exactly one year ago! In that year, I've finished my first year of med school, got to see my nephew (born in May 2009!), spent an amazing month in rural Uganda, and came back to start my second year of med school.
This past year has taught me a lot about myself in some ways, especially about how essential community is to my happiness & about the constant duel between my idealistic and pragmatic sides.
Mayo's been a great place with regards to education and I'm quite appreciative of the resources it's offered me. However, moving to a midwestern suburb and having a very small med school class have reminded a great deal of what it was like growing up in the 'burbs of Ohio. Pretty much, people are generally friendly and nice, but it's difficult finding more than a very few people that I can truly connect with in any meaningful way. Thus, working relationships are all fine since everyone's very respectful of other people, but developing a real sense of community is difficult. Plus, people here tend to be a very pragmatic sort, which is reflected in the utter devoid of culture in this town (lack of good restaurants, the arts, anything that's fun and frivolous). I find that I'm one of the most idealistic people in my class with regards to career aspirations (i.e. working in underserved communities / on global health issues vs. the practical aspiration of being in a field that pays enough to have a lovely house in the 'burbs & has flexible hours).
From the other perspective, my time in Uganda has shown me how I've become more pragmatic since college. First, however, a summary of my experience. Uganda was amazing. I was there for 4 weeks working with an NGO called Uganda Village Project (http://www.ugandavillageproject.org/index.htm) and got to live in a rural village with 4 other team members (1 Ugandan + 3 other Americans). It was interesting living without electricity or running water for a month, but actually a lot less difficult than I thought it would be. I mostly just cherished the experience of being with my awesome team members and being a part of the village community (and having kids always playing in our yard!). In the village, we worked on public health outreaches to village members, including presentations on malaria, waterborne diseases, HIV/AIDS, and safe pregnancy. We also worked with the local government to organize the construction of a shallow well, with the local health center to organize a HIV testing day, and with a nearby secondary school to set up an HIV education club. I also got to do some traveling on weekends and got to go rafting on the Nile River and go rappelling down a 100m cliff next to a waterfall, which were quite memorable experiences!
Being around the other volunteers, whom as a whole were extremely idealistic, made me see how pragmatic I've gotten in some ways. It was absolutely wonderful being around people who care about and can thoroughly discuss global health, development, & social justice issues. However, I think I've gotten more cynical with regards to moving past the point of believing that change can occur via sheer enthusiasm (i.e. there's a whole lot of disparity in resource distribution that needs to be addressed). I find that I often think about how to make things progress within existing constraints (ie. optimize the system, work towards concrete and tangible goals) vs. imagining that the constraints no longer exist. That does cause me to limit "dreaming big" though. I guess my thinking has become more narrow / focused rather than broad/grand. I think it was also seeing how most of the people who've had really interesting idealistic jobs (working with child soldiers, etc) also had independent means of financial support and didn't need to work a more mundane job to support themselves. Sigh. I miss the old incredibly-idealistic-me with "if i care enough, it can happen" to being the more practical-me with "I would love to take a gap year and just travel / volunteer, but what about health insurance, money for necessities, etc? " I dunno, I think it's part of growing older as well as linked to the midwest suburb pragmatism (which has likely rubbed off on me) vs. the university/academic setting idealism (that I loved being immersed in while I was there).
I guess I'm less wildly idealistic as I was before, however, I still firmly believe in pursuit of that which you're passionate about in life vs. pursuit of a comfortable existence. I think I now just focus more on finding concrete and tangible ways of trying to turn pursuit of my ideals into realistic endeavors.
well, that's been my life in a nutshell for the past year! perhaps i'll add more later....or perhaps I'll wait til next year for another update!
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| I returned from Asia, after which I spent about a week in Cleveland, then moved out to Mayo / Minnesota last week. Strangely enough, returning to Cleveland led to some feelings of getting old / growing up. I found it strange since this was all happening one year after graduation, moving out to philly on my own, and working a 'real' job, etc, which are all more typical 'markers' of 'growing up'. However, I think the feelings were most likely due to loss of that which I've linked to my childhood. First and foremost, my beloved dog Sammy died while I was in Taiwan. I'm glad that she lived a long and happy life (to the ripe old age of 14+ years), but it was very sad hearing about her death, and even more disconcerting coming home and realizing that she was gone. I feel worst for my dad, who was home alone (mom and I were both in taiwan) when Sammy started having extreme trouble breathing, and who took Sammy to the vet where he had to decide to put her to sleep to end her suffering. She will be dearly missed. I don't think I realized how much of a role she played in our family until she was gone. She was very emotionally perceptive, so much so that she would run and hide under a desk whenever any loud arguments occurred in the house). Even more so, she would go and find people during times of stress or sorrow and provide comfort. I remember many angsty/miserable moments in middle school & high school when it was too complicated dealing with people, yet Sammy was always there, affectionate and comforting. I will miss her quite a lot! 
Second, my parents are planning on moving out of our current house within the next couple of years (in order to get a smaller place), so I was charged with the tasks of cleaning out my room during the week I was home. Cleaning out 15+ years of accumulated books, clothes, gifts, and other objects was a rather daunting task. Going through things brought up so many memories of years past. Also, donating things and physically removing them from my house made me almost feel like i was losing pieces of my childhood, even though I typically don't get too sentimental over objects or places (vs. people and memories). So yes, leaving bits of my childhood behind led me to feel the sense of growing up. Post-cleveland, i loaded up my Accord and left for rochester, MN, which a night's stop in chicago. I must say that I felt rather independent, with driving (partially) across the country, moving into an apartment, and purchasing / assembling my furniture (including a mattress & futon) all alone. Today was the first day of class though, which led a bit to a feeling of 'growing down' aka the opposite of 'growing up.' I'm excited by the start of the next four years here, and my 49 other classmates are a very friendly, extremely diverse bunch of people with a wide array of life experiencs and backgrounds. However...i felt a remarkable similarity between med school and kindergarten: one small class of people that you're with all the time, stuck in the same room for the whole day (which will be the same lecture hall for all of first year), had snack time of sorts (breakfast and lunch were provided today), had a lecture on professionalism ("contribute to an environment of mutual respect", which could be interpreted as, treat others the way you want to be treated and keep your hands and feet to yourselves! hah). Today was quite effective in giving me a sense of the history of the Mayo Clinic and the lecacy of the Mayo brothers though. The Clinic started in the early 1900s when the Mayo brothers, after a couple decades of practicing as surgeons, donated $1.5 million dollars to start the Clinic. They felt that since all of that funding had come from taking care of the sick, that all of it should be returned to contribute to the furture care of the sick. And, although the Clinic is sometimes known for the affluent & famous patients that it occasionally gets, the Mayo brothers used to focus their own personal attention by only rounding on the poorest and the sickest. I heard stories where they would use their own funds to move poor, but extremely sick patients to private rooms with round the clock care. I really get a sense of learning in order to better serve and contribute to the community, which is what drew me here in the first place. let's hope that stays! | | |
| Hello! I'm still alive, although apparently I have not posted on xanga long enough for the format to change, causing me to spend a few minutes figuring out how to create a new post. I'm currently back in Cleveland, after slightly more than one glorious year living in Philly.
Glorious = amazing church / housemates / co-workers / other friends + quite decent job (engineer / vaccines) + awesome city (uber-cheap rent / superb food / decent public transportation / 'tropical' weather / lots to do!). Also travelled a bit, which was quite fun: new york - boston - washington dc - atlantic city - atlanta - nashville - cleveland - cincinnati - columbus - pittsburgh - ann arbor - st. louis - minneapolis, etc More travelling in store, as I'm flying out to Asia today and will be in multiple places as follows:
Beijing: 6/20-25
Shanghai: 6/26-27
Hong Kong: 6/27-6/29
Taiwan (Taipei/Taichung): 6/29-7/7 Relatively shortly thereafter (in mid-July), I'm heading out to Rochester, Minnesota (~1.5 hrs out from Minneapolis), where I'll be for ~4 years for med school at the Mayo Clinic. I feel extremely blessed to have had all these wonderful opportunities! I'm also rather psyched, as all four of my major educational/work affliations begin with the letter 'M'! Mayfield, Michigan, Merck, & Mayo....coincidence? I think not. let me know if your path may coincide with mine! | | |
| Iron Chef victory again!! SnL (Salt & Light fellowship) cookoff secret ingredient: citrus (lemon, lime, orange) my team's menu: grilled citrus chicken stuffed with spinach and cheese
grilled citrus salmon
pasta salad w/ tomatos & broccoli
spinach salad with apples/oranges + lemon vinegrette dressing
lemon sugar cookie sandwiches with caramel filling (cookies & caramel made from scratch...hooray sweetened condensed milk) delicious and friend has the cutest puppy ever, a puggle (pug + beagle mix); much cuter than other friend's strange-looking dog (jack russell terrier + chihuahua mix) and philly has an irish pub named "Irish Pub" and NYC this weekend. Alice is in the states!!! whee. | | |
| Being home in Cleveland for the weekend was good, especially with meeting up with people on Sunday. But...being in Columbus for 2 nights was quite the opposite, despite staying my brother's spiffy 'new' in-the-midst-of-being-renovated-house. Columbus newspaper on Sunday: "No Upset Here"....Ack, ack, ack!!!! | | |
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