Ipanema...what girl?

I'm too busy to blog right now, except to note that the weather in boston is balmy, with blue skies and a hint of manure due to spring plantings. I also wish I were in Brazil right now, because apparently this is what Brazil looks like: pure eye candy. Thank the lord!

brotherbrow photoblog

I've felt every sinew beneath those abs...for my anatomy exam next week.
Thinking back, of all the places in the world I've visited, why didn't I go here?!?

installation part 1

Partial mock-up of the art installation at the SMFA. The final installation at SCCHC would be 12 feet tall, floor to ceiling, on a wooden support. It's finally crunch time.

the camera works

Hmm..lenses

Out of sheer boredom while studying for an exam 2 days ago, I went online and made the biggest impulse buy of my life to date: a camera. It's a Canon film SLR, the 'cheap' kind with only 1.5 fps and a plastic body, but it's something I can afford. I've always wanted one. No more ripping off other people's wonderful talent online; from now on, I'm on the straight and narrow. Feel free to read whatever meaning you want into the previous statement.

The impulse camera purchase forced me to think hard about buying lenses, and the result was 3-4 hours of online research for lenses that could have been used for studying. That said, I didn't think studying for this test actually mattered too much. I think I was right. Let's hope the results are as rosy as I thought it would be. As for the lenses, I've done more than 18 hours of reading about various kinds and comparisons by now, and am no where close to feeling comfortable with any of them. I decided to buy two low end Canon lenses, a 50 mm f/1.8 and a kit zoom lens that's been rated by everyone to be crap. We'll see. There's plenty of beauty in a blurred photograph.

Spring break is almost here. yay. bermuda shorts! In boston (hopefully!?!)

In Defense of Flirting (for those who judge)

(Ken Rosenthal)
A look, a smile, an eye contact that obliterate the outside world to leave only the interaction between people: this is, among other things, flirting. Some people have problems with it. I want to defend it. Sure, there are plenty of other ‘ills’ of the world that may need a rhetorical defense, and this one is the most frivolous of all. But frivolities often reveal something more fundamentally important than their innocuous shells. Flirting as something frivolous--and how one may respond to the act of flirtation--is a window into our individual moral qualms and judgments, our perception of acceptable personal expression and outlook on human relationships, and even perhaps our self-esteem--all things that demands serious attention if we are to live happy, contented lives.

Kate was right. She and I had this conversation a long time ago, when we were still freshmen--it was about, of all things, flirting. At the time, I was practically puritanical about it. Several years and a coming-out later, I concede defeat. Kate has always been right about flirtation. It doesn't always have to bear a sexual burden, anymore than a skimpy dress is an open invitation for getting yourself molested. A flirtation is not an indicator of sexual promiscuity, or intentions of infidelity. Webster dictionary defines flirting as being able "to behave amorously without serious intent" and "to show superficial or casual interest or liking." Clearly, those people at Webster can instruct me on the true meanings of 'behaving amorously', but I'd prefer to stress the 'without serious intent' or 'superficial' part of the definition to make my case.

There are many uses for flirting, and woe is the person who reads it as only a prelude to sex. In the animal kingdom, flirting in terms of sexual relations for nonsexual aims abound. Male giraffes stimulate each other to erection, but they seem to do it to reinforce social bonds. In certain societies of monkeys, females rub their external genitals together for many things, including saying hello. While I've yet to see this behavior between 2 women at a bar, it's not a stretch to understand that humans, too, use sexual identity and sexuality in social contexts that go beyond the sexual act.

Nurses flirt; doctors (the good ones that patients like, and plastic surgeons) flirt. Flirting is flattery, endearing if done with taste. In many instances, it allows the user to get what he wants out of others, which is, after all, the point of most social interactions aimed at specific goals, be it extra help on an assignment from the TF, or getting a co-worker to do a favor. It is, coincidentally, a way of self-expression, of relating to others in a social context. Casual flirting makes the day more colorful for all involved, gets attention, opens up conversations and boosts self-esteem. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with relationship status, age, loose morals, or predatory behavior. Like anything else, it is about context.

True, flirting is a romantic act. But as Webster defined it, it is at best a superficial romantic act, done without necessarily an expectation of something more. In this context, flirting is a way of being kind to others, paying complements to that which any of us, deep down inside, wants: desirability. As a medium of exchange, flirting thus becomes a potent social lubricant; like alcohol, it intoxicates those who are on the receiving end, breaks down barriers of communication, and lays open the opportunity for further interactions. Whether the result is sexual, or casual, or business, is entirely up to the persons involved.

People define the boundaries for flirtation, so it is true that what some find as permissible may not appeal to others. This is only fair, but it beckons the question: what defines permissibility anyway? Is it relationship status? Is it intent? Is it content? It is easy to criticize the one who flirts, because we superimpose ourselves into the situation and use our lens of experiences to cast sweeping judgments. But if we all take a step back to see the myriad of contexts that exists outside our preconceived notions and experiences with flirtation (i.e. previous flirtations were about sex, therefore all flirtations lead to sex), then we can begin to appreciate how others may use the act for different ends--fun, humor, conversation…are all good applications of flirting. As a bonus, we may even realize that we have misread flirtations in the past, that our experiences have been colored because of our inability to appreciate the nuances of human interactions, leading to missed opportunities for friendship, discovery, and dialogue.

In a world so hung up on what one does in the bedroom, can't we all just relax about casual relations between people outside of the boudoir? Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Confidence...

My art pieces are now hanging in the school of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the student gallery. After 3 hours of hammering nails, fussing about borders, and trimming edges, finally, I think it looks decent. I feel an undeserved sense of accomplishment, even though the bulk of the piece is not yet made and I'm only displaying about one half of the final installation. The piece is thus half dressed, half nude, like the guy here, open for criticism. So far though, I've had 3 SMFA students commented favorably on the installation. I was further pleasantly surprised that they all looked just like this guy. Mmmm art students.



Mona Kuhn

I have a job!

Okay, so it doesn't pay, and I don't have an office with a window (ahem, Mikey!), and I'm pretty much the office bitch, but still it's a job. With any luck, I'll be able to crank out 3-4 papers this summer: (it's clinical research, with pre-op and post-op data, so things move faster) possibly some review articles (it's just a giant book report, except you use Medline instead of the local library), and/or some interesting surveys (again, highschool stuff).

The beauty of this is that my boss is an MD, who is on the residency committee, and understands exactly what a first year medical student like me needs: papers, papers, and more papers. He's not any random Ph.D who has all the time in the world to ponder the big questions and drag on the quest for truth; no, he's a "get the most bang for your buck" kinda guy. Me likey!

I just have to learn everything about the cornea now. Dry eyes anyone?

All things Indian

Jo Whaley

This weekend has been all about community, Indian style. I went to Ghungroo, an Indian cultural show sponsored by the Harvard South Asian Association. Lots of Bollywood, some dark satires, and overall a great time. It was great to see old faces (very old faces...like people who graduated 2 years ago...) and the usual turnout of so many people on campus who are not South Asians to participate in or watch the show. For a brief moment, I believed in multiculturalism.

Back at old sleepy Med School, my dorm-mates also coincidentally decided to have Indian food night, and went out to buy a bunch of exotic ingredients (fenugreek anyone?) to cook things like Chicken Tikka Masala and Keema and Kofta, and even Roti. I decided to chip in with the cooking. I had great success with the chicken tikka masala, and although we did set off one fire alarm, evacuate the building, and have the Boston police and fire department visit our humble abode, we pulled off the night with all around successful food. The roti was seriously good; it even puffed and everything! In retrospect, chicken tikka masala takes a looong time to make (3 different recipes in one!), so I will reconsider that choice in the future, but the keema and kofta was simply decadent. There was a real sense of community that was created simply from us all cooking together, rolling roti dough balls, and setting things on fire. The smoky, charred smell of success and cardamom was overwhelming.

Upon leaving after the alarm, one police officer turned around and told us, "damn, that there smells good!" as he gestured to my chicken tikka masala.

oh yeah.

True resident stories....

These colorful stories are not meant to be humorous or making fun of patients, but were presented to us as a sampling of the myriad of delicate issues encountered in a hospital. They are, conveniently, stories having to do with the abdomen, because we're covering that region this month. I'm reproducing them here because I am fascinated by the pathos inherent in each.
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An ER resident was called in late one evening to see the case of a man, in his early 20's, with a bowel obstruction. Upon entering the room, the resident heard a persistent buzzing noise and couldn't identify it.
He asked the man, "Do you hear that buzzing? Or is it just me?"
The man replied, " Um doc, yeah that's me."
The resident asked, "So can you tell me what happened?"
The man, timidly, recounted the story of how his girlfriend had stuck a small vibrator up his anal canal, and it got stuck there. Previous attempts at another hospital to try to remove it using an enema did not work, and actually pushed the object further up, pass the bend into the colon.
The resident then asked, " So how long have the buzzing been going on?"
The man replied, "The vibrator has been on the whole time...we just changed batteries..."
The resident ordered an x-ray, which confirmed the location of the object. Using a rubber covered metal wire, which was bent to resemble a hook, the resident went fishing for the vibrator. He managed to grab hold of the object and drag it back toward the anal canal, when the man exclaimed " Okay doc, I think I got it now..." The man then forced a bowel movement that ejected the black, plastic, still buzzing vibrator.
The resident proceeded to clean up, when the man asked: "Um, so doc, can I keep the thing?"

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A 3rd year medical student doing his psychiatric rotation was called down for a consultation on a patient on the surgery ward. Reading the patient's chart, he found the following story:
"the patient had a ruptured colon due to his partner fisting him in an act termed 'spleening' whereby the goal was to travel through the colon to reach the spleen and massage it in an effort to induce a 'high'. According to the patient, he was high on crystal meth during the act, and did not notice the pain. The ruptured colon had to be surgically tied at two ends, with the descending colon emptying bowels into an externally placed bag, and the anal canal tied off for at least 6 weeks in order for the colon to recover. The primary reason for the psychiatric consult: the surgeons didn't know how to assess whether the patient might attempt fisting again, thus rupturing the colon before it could heal. They thought a psych consult would know how to do it better.
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An 82-year-old woman comes into the ER complaining of pain in her lower abdomen. An abdominal X-ray revealed the presence of a bottle cap inside her vagina. The attending kindly asked the woman: "I see what looks like a bottle cap here, could you tell me what happened?" The woman replied, " Well, it was my 82nd birthday yesterday...and I felt lonely after my husband died..." (Apparently this case is a common one, as in beer bottles used as dildos can sometime loose their top, or in other cases, glass objects may break inside the vagina, thus requiring surgical intervention)
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A 30 yr old man comes in and complains of lower abdominal pain, claiming that he "accidentally sat on the sprinkler" after an x-ray reveals the sprinkler head well within his anal canal.

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"call me Kevin..."

Physical diagnosis class: 4:00 pm

We were working on diagnosing the thorax and associated structures. I, meanwhile, couldn't hear a thing through my stethoscope. In came a resident. He wasn't very tall; brown hair, Spanish features, or perhaps Italian--I couldn't tell. He looked in his mid twenties, spirited and clean shaven. There was no ID badge in sight, but I have ran into him wearing his white coat in the past . Hazel eyes. Always smiling.

I stopped him and asked," I'm sorry, what is your name?"

He stopped. Laughed a bit. "Call me Kevin."

"Would you like us to call you Dr. Kevin?"

"Oh no, no." I think he blushed. " Dr....I mean Kevin is fine."

"Could you help us?" I asked with a smile. "All I hear is meat." I smiled again.

He chuckled loudly. "All you hear is meat. hehe."

He had beautiful hands.

Chapter 1; Casa Fleming

Medical school is mind numbing. My Id longs for escape. Lots of thoughts have been roaming through my head lately…Now, if you're tempted to stop reading right this minute, wondering if this is one amuse-bouche-for-the-mind too many--relax. 'Chillax' if you will, as I attempt to convince you that my mind's musings are worth your time, during lunch breaks, at your cubicle. To start, Molly's meditation on traveling has spurned me to conceive what I hope to be a series of entries on my travel experiences, in bite size, stylized vignettes. Call it a retroactive travel journal if you want.
Here goes...

-CASA FLEMING-

We arrived in Tuscany via bus, crossing the Swiss/Italian border on a day trip across luminous fields of wheat and tall cypress that I glimpsed intermittently between naps. The driver left us at the bottom of the hill, forcing me to drag my uncooperative Samsonite up-hill, grinding the wheels against the coarse gravel pavement lining the path to the house. From the drive way, the house was reminiscent of an old barn, and it was not until I cleared the row of cypress blinding my view that I realized how gracefully proportioned it was, this old thing, with red tiles for a roof and stone facades and uneven ledges, worn from years of use. Casa Flemming was old; apparently the house stood on a medieval fort, its foundation a collection of stone slabs gathered from all across Italy by long dead descendents of Roman gods. The stately house stood on a tall hill that oversaw what seemed to me an endless carpet of olive trees--their waxy leaves fluttering in the midday sun--stretching as far as the eye could see. The nearest neighbor was at least four hills away, I counted.

Mrs. Flemming, our host, grabbed my hand. "Welcome! It's good to see all of you." Her bejeweled wrist flickered as she talked. Casa Flemming was her summer residence, her rejuvenation before returning to the business of running the 'American Schools,' a European educational empire stitched together by her own two hands half a century ago. Except for Mrs. Flemming, her cook, and assistants, we had the house to ourselves. In her opera night robe, she cut a billowing trail of black embroidered silk and perfume as we followed her to the back patio to see the stone swimming pool buttressed on one side by 2 tall cypresses, the white cast-iron benches strewn about with ease, and the fuzzy hills of Tuscany undulating before us, unfolding into a misty haze before emptying into the blazing sunset.
I think I gasped.

Lovely Train Ride...

Traveling. A metaphor.

Molly is the greatest.

blue: fixed.

Mona Kuhn

some changes

I've decided to fiddle around with a new template, and this is the result. I admit the blue is a bit odd, but I've yet to figure out how to change that...if you can help, I'd much appreciate it. Oh and, of course, I WISH medschool were like the people in the artsy photos above--languid, oddly hot, and full of gratuitous nudity. Eh, one can dream right?

Confucius, why won't you die already?

A disturbing article in the NY times Education section gave me a mild temper tantrum today. I usually don't get this bitchy except maybe over bad decor, but still....

The article was about rich asian immigrants (they're shopping for homes in Scarsdale, people! Scarsdale!) moving to the US in order to...you guess it: train their sons for MIT. It is highly ironic, I might add, that the purported reason for this departure from the motherland to America is to 'free' their children from the stress of competing in the rigid formal educations of the Far East (i.e. drone factories for future Microsoft programmers). Apparently, over there, it's just too much pressure; but over here, it's all fun and games like SAT prep courses in middle school, college coaching to get into MIT., and violin lessons even though the son is tone deaf (but Harvard LOVES to see forced-labor overcoming intrinsic lack of talent, so I guess there is a sick logic at work here).

The quote below, from an immigrant mother whose businessman-husband in in Beijing while she lives alone in in the States to tend to their coached prodigy, sounded freakishly familiar to me:

"Seven more years before he finish[sic] college. Then? I don't know," she said. "Whatever he will [sic] do, where[sic] he will go, I will go. To give the boy good life[sic]. That is all."" (Sick!)

Damnit woman! It ain't the 1800's anymore! Get a life! Let your son get a life! Jeesh! Enough with this Confucius bull crap about the 3 duties of a female: 1) attend to parents until you marry 2) attend to husband until he dies 3) attend to son until he...is sufficiently suffocated to death from your relentless cultural tyrrany!

Just you wait until he tells you he's gay, dropping out of college, and dating a black transvestite name Yvonne. Oh yes. God has a great sense of humor too.

Okay, so I actually pity her, and the son, and this whole warped mindset of achievement that makes victims out of everyone. After 5,000 years of cultural brainwashing, Confucius is still going strong. Damn old bastard.

Maine...

If I am ever going to a frozen tundra (again), I must remember to bring long underpants. I literally felt myself disappearing into...myself, sensing what it must be like to be a woman with penis envy.

Otherwise, the trip was fantastic. Mikey and I ate too much curry (because I had mistakenly planned to cook for 12 people instead of 2). We rented a cottage by the seashore, where the water was so cold we could hear its ice sheets cracking and churning in the shallow depths, crushing gravel. We had roaring fires, which began at first as smoky plumes that rose from the hearth and spilled into the living room because of dampness in the wood. My clothes still smell of charred timbers.

This was a rare weekend--thank god for President's Day--that made possible the plan for an escape to Bar Harbor, Maine. We took the scenic route from Boston, getting lost several times due to my habit of navigating via intuition--he was good-natured about it. There was no snow in Maine, so all of our plans for skiing or snowshoeing were dashed. Our adventures outside were brief-- snapping photos on a cragged jut of rock here or there, trespassing on private property to sneak a view of moss-lined valleys emptying into the pale-gray emerald bay, and getting yelled-at by an impish woman, in spandex stockings and a facemask, for picking up a few rounded stones along the coast. Maine was desolately beautiful: bulbous mountains appeared to tumble into the sea, leaving tall evergreens to hover perilously above the icy gray water below, with a surf driven by wind that pummeled itself against the juts of granite on which the pines stood tall. We defrosted ourselves in the car and watched gulls hover on the sub-zero gusts that whipped and howled around us. The air tasted of frozen salt.

Indoors, I cooked. We played board games and watched HGTV as I discussed the merits of mauvre over taupe for dressing recessed beams. Mikey tended to the fire, avoiding my musings on interior decorating by smiling and nodding his head repeatedly no matter what I said (I'm used to it by now). On the way back, we stopped in Portland Maine, where waitresses greeted us as 'friend' and streets with eclectic buildings had patriotic names like Congress, High, and Free. How very Quaker of them, I thought. We caught a movie. We drove home in the dark.

It was a largely uneventful vacation. And it was exactly what we needed.

Happy President's Day.

damnit!

The problem of going to a second tier research school: MONEY, and available research jobs. I've never had to be near the state of groveling that I am in right now. This sucks. I didn't even get to submit my application, and the research position is filled, one week after it is open. It's research, not I-banking! The freaking receptionist won't even return my inquiries for an application! It shouldn't be this hard, or demeaning, for students who are willing and able to do work to find positions at their own freaking school!

Screw this. I'm calling Harvard. At least they don't treat me like dirt.

Much Ado About Nothing

For fear of loosing my readership, I figured it was damn fine time I started posting again. The time of course is 2:30 am, but then again I've slept for most of the day.

"Match Point" is a very good movie. It was so good it made me think. A central theme of the movie involves luck, a theme that is very cleverly woven throughout the plot. Talking to a friend afterwards over greasy chiken quesadilla at Rock Bottom, where the drunken fratboys of Emerson College go to pass out (Emerson frat boys...is there such a thing?), I stumbled onto some unfortunate truths: my life has been a series of lucky/unlucky accidents, proven over and over again by my meeting people at the a certain place, at a certain time. While I pretend to be weaving a master plot of career planning to delay an impending midlife crisis, I was overcome by a sense of inadequacy, realizing that it's all largely beyond my control.

Why am I at school in Boston right now? If you say incompetence and a laissez faire attitude that was perhaps too 'laissez' and not enough 'faire', you'd be half right. I sung in college. And it was this serendipitous pairing of my many delusions of grandeur coupled with a voice talent equivalent of Billie Holiday post-heroin that got me traveling the world. I coincidentally also met some very interesting people, like the drunk businessmen in a seedy Tokyo bar that told me a cash-strapped, doe-eyed boy like myself could make a lot of money in this town, in one night, at that steam bath place, in the Harajuku district. I politely declined the invitation for extra cash. Other invitations, however, were more substantial: working in an orphanage in south east asia, for example, sounded like it could have been fun. Four years later, I go to a health conference to find that the position I was offered before had connections to a project I could possibly be interested in. Lucky that. The project manager knows my contact. I could be off in 6 months.

I doubt I'm going to go, however. This opportunity didn't present itself at the right time. I need another round of luckily bumping into people, to work my 'magic' and razzle dazzle my way into a research project, here, in Boston, because it's part of my career planning. And so I'm stuck again in square 1, revising my initial assumptions about luck. Maybe I need it to come in pairs, like twin-prime numbers, ad infinitum. It's only lucky if you have time on your side, along with opportunity. Otherwise, it's just coincidence.

Values, fundamental

It takes a lot for me to get drawn into politics, but my immigrant inclination and vantage point have moved me to comment on the crisis raging through Europe and the Middle East. The freedom to question, to dissent, and to discuss is what enables things like weblogs to exist, but more importantly, it enables the West to be the icon of enlightenment that it is. And it is, correspondingly, irresponsible for the US to stand idly by as long time allies like Denmark, Norway, and (to a certain extent) France are being attacked for the same virtues that we proudly share, the very virtues that millions have fought and died for throughout the course of modern history.

Here are some much needed truths, from a fellow immigrant, the dissident muslim Ibn Warraq on why the west needs to stand in solidarity against this attack on one of the central tenets of Western civilization.

Money quotes:

"The great British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being 'pushed to an extreme'; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case...."

"A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth."

"...Be proud, do not apologize. Do we have to go on apologizing for the sins our fathers? Do we still have to apologize, for example, for the British Empire, when, in fact, the British presence in India led to the Indian Renaissance, resulted in famine relief, railways, roads and irrigation schemes, eradication of cholera, the civil service, the establishment of a universal educational system where none existed before?... The British even gave back to the Indians their own past: it was European scholarship, archaeology and research that uncovered the greatness that was India; it was British government that did its best to save and conserve the monuments that were a witness to that past glory. British Imperialism preserved where earlier Islamic Imperialism destroyed thousands of Hindu temples....The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy...It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery...No, the West needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises, stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes."

And finally:

" When the Chinese students cried and died for democracy in Tiananmen Square (in 1989) , they brought with them not representations of Confucius or Buddha but a model of the Statue of Liberty."

We cannot be ignorant of the delicacy of situations, nor can we be ignorant about the values that enable us to live freely, and we must pay the cost of defending these values. This is a war of civilizations, and I hope the West wins.

Un-doing

A one-liner message. A phone call. An argument. This is how relationships end, as I've found out from my unfortunate friends, whose breakups come at the cusp of the season of Hallmark cards, long stem roses, and chalky candies that taste good only because of the messages you devour.

A fellow classmate of mine had just broken up with his girlfriend, amicably; another, with much bitterness. Change is hard, I suppose, for these relationships that were hold-over collegic ties that couldn't bare the strains of new situations. Perhaps it was distance, perhaps it was time. I told them that they saved on valentines' day gifts. A lame excuse for consolation I know, but it was the best that I came up with, my not wanting to be overly sentimental, or worse of all, depressing. The remark gave my friends a slight chuckle or two.

(I know, I promise not to be a psychiatrist.)

For an old friend of mine, the news of an old boyfriend about to get married unglued the ties, once and for all. The relationship had ended, but then again it hasn't, the two of them, lingering in limbo. But the recent news was the death knell that needed to be rung. It's time to move on and have new valentines, I want to say to them all.

But I know un-doing is hard. Change is hard.
And for once in my life, I don't know what to say to make it better.