Shaken Not Stirred

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Follow the Stream

I think that many people's decisions about life are because they want to follow a pattern of succession, one which they know will lead to a place they think they should be going. One of my friends and I were discussing the issue of marriage. For many people it follows the dating card. You find someone, you get comfortable with them and then you marry them. I remember during senior year in college, everyone was either getting engaged or hoping to get engaged. It followed the stream of life--graduation from college, getting a job and then getting married. All of this accompanied by a house with a picket fence. It just happened that way.
My buddy was telling me that he didn't want to follow this route, however because he was caught up in the whole evolution of a relationship, he found himself going in that direction. My advice? If you are feeling this way, how are you going to feel in 10 years, two kids, three car payments and a mortgage. You see, you can't just follow a stream to the mouth of the river, but you have to explore the woods around it. What if that river doesn't really lead anywhere? Then where would you be? Am I making any sense, or am I only justifying my comment to my buddy to "break it off". By the way, the chick already bought her wedding dress. However, no date was set and no invitations were sent out. So I think he's going to nip it before the hor's d'overs get picked.
Anyway, my point is, I think that you can't go down a beaten path, unless that beaten path has good landmarks. Otherwise you just end up getting lost, even if you had a map.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Dear Diary

One of the reasons I first started this was to have an on-line journal that my friends could read. Since I basically keep in touch with everyone that I ever meet, it's sometimes difficult to write all of them personal letters. I don't believe in the mass productions that some of my friends write--unless it's those holiday family write-ups (those are always fun cause they let me know that Johnny Jr. is now walking and Muffy now has two teeth). I believe in a personal touch, letting my friends know what is on my mind. I think once I saw other people's blogs--which I have access to being a member of blogspot, I thought, wow these people are making other people think, with their witty J.D. Salinger-like entries. And to follow suit, I tried to write about relevant subjects--which became rather mentally exhausting.
If you read one of the comments made by Mondeep who has a great blog, she said just think of it as an on-line journal that I'll be able to look back on. She's right, I can keep my thoughts, stimulating or boring in a place where I can look back on it. And then I can decide whether I've gone in a positive direction or need to steer myself back on the beaten path.
It's back to the real meaning of "blogging". Which I think really is just a fancy word for journal. I think--don't quote me on that.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Free Your Mind

I've recently been struggling to find something to write about, my excuse being that I don't have contact with the world outside my study buddies and that I don't have a television. So much to say about what drives my mind to form opinions. Talking to Saritha, I realized that #1 television news should not formulate my opinion and #2 a blog is about what is basically on your mind. It's regurgitation of what is actually on your mind. It took one of my best friends to help me realize that I do have more to talk about than just boring food--which was a worthy topic because it was on my mind at the time.
Right now my mind is constantly racing around diagnosis and etiologies of disease. For most of the day, I'm reminding my cortex to store certain formulas for recalling this information which plagues most medical students. My review professor is helping me to file this information in the most convenient and relatively easy way to understand compartments in my head.
I know that I am capable of storing stores of information. For example, I know that my memory is a vast wasteland of knowledge. It can recall almost every episode of "Friends", including dialogue, guest stars and show synopsis. I'm learning to do this with my basic sciences information. So I've added to my vast-wasteland, knowledge of biochemistry, microbiology and physiology. So along with Jennifer Aniston's punch lines, I also know the rate-limiting-enzymes of the glycolosis cyle and the 7 urease positive bugs or the 7 diseases associated with rashes on the palms and soles. It's been incorporated into my vast-wasteland.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

It's Better to Bar-B-Que

I realized why I like to barbeque so much. Not only does the food taste better, but there is less mess to clean up. There is the mess to clean off your hands and also those few utensils to wash. But for the most part, the kitchen remained clean.
My roomates Dr. Butch Alvarez and Dr. Eddie Levya (he's from Texas), decided that our dinner would be roasted over an open fire. Not only was the meal tasty, but we were done with the clean-up in probably five minutes. We didn't have any marshmallows to utilize the last of the flames, but we were able to use the butter (I'm not quite sure why it was on our grocery list). We had steak, hot dogs, corn on the cob and some Stove-Top-Stuffing (oh yeah, that's why the butter and also the mess in the kitchen).
Have I discussed food for the last two entries? I'm really hard-up for topics. When you sit in lectures all day, discussing things you barely understand, how can you rehash this information in blog form?
I promise, once I get through all this, my entries will become better. Don't abandon me!!!

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Undigestable

I think once you are use to a certain type of food, or the way it's prepared, your taste buds become accustomed to it. And everything else ends up paled in comparision.
Recently I ate at a Thai food restaurant that served the most awful Phad Thai I've ever tasted. I could have stirred up this dish in my own kitchen. The sauce tasted like ketchup mixed with pepper, salt and other unrecognizable spices. I almost vomited eating it. And for the fried squid appetizer--it was a frozen version of calamari, only reheated in the microwave. I'm not going to say where I got this less than delectable dish, but let's just say, I'm not eating there ever again. The waitress kindly wrapped up my untouched meal and I threw it out in the parking lot dumpster.
I guess I'm just use to eating at great Thai restaurants. My cousin Irene Salutillo Matigga made sure of that. While we were roommates thru my pre-med years, we feasted at several choice restaurants (after going thru her rigourous approval). I'm telling you, she should have been a food critic, not a nurse. So anything that I've eated since pales in comparison. One of our favorite restaurants is "Thai One On" in Baltimore (I think Germantown is the aactual location). There was another really good place in Pittsburgh, almost down a dark alley. But Irene scrutinizes these places and then brings me there. I'm spoiled to fine dining in that aspect.
I'm not sure where this entry is going, or even how to end it. I guess I just wanted to vent about the bad undigestable food I got. But I'm not going to slander any restaurants, cause everyone else in the place, except my study buddy and I, seemed to be enjoying their ketchup and spices.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Just A Tad Bit More Important

Lately I've been writing about the impact the news has on people and also the relevance with which we prioritize news stories.
Take for instance Brad Pitt. I clicked on a story about him, thinking it would solve my curiosity concerning his recent break-up with Jennifer Aniston (my favorite Friend ever). Instead it was about his interview with Diane Sawyer sometime this week. In the synopsis of the interview Brad talked about his recent trip to Africa and the devastation he saw.
This to me, is more newsworthy than the private emotional "hell" he must be going thru because of his divorce. I wonder why we don't see news stories like this.
When I wrote for the Daily Athenaeum at West Virginia University, I was in charge of the student body/council beat. People were always asking me to write about the things they weren't getting done, the promises they didn't keep and whether or not they were actually a "real" entity in the student force. I instead chose to write about what kind of impact these students made--the volunteer work they did, the charities they helped to run and the students they reached out to. My stories were not met with that much enthusiasm, but I had an understanding editor who chose to print them none-the-less. I don't know if I reached anyone--or changed anyone's opinion about the student Board of Governors, but at least I printed a "truth" that was usually buried beneath a more "exciting" story.

Sunday, June 05, 2005

No Real Opinion

I haven't read the news in so long, nor watched television. My opinions now concern the physiology, neurology, and biochemistry which I study on a nightly basis.
I do check in on the "news" with yahoo. I think my friend Saritha and I have discussed the realness of news and how distorted it may be. After all isn't mostly based on a reporter's view of a story?
For instance, the whole Paula Abdul controversy. When I had watched the story, it seemed completely one-sided. She was never interviewed and the only people that could confer the accuser's story was his parents and his friends. No other witnesses came to testify. Just seemed a little shady to me. But my friends were all jumping to the accuser's defense saying he had all the proof he needed. In the end it all blows over because something else more interesting comes up---the Tom Cruise and Katie Holms relationship.
To get back to my point, who's opinion really counts in the end? I've always been told not to worry about what other people may think. That it's only yourself and God that you have to worry about. And yeah, I've realized that it's only His opinion that will matter in the end.