Unlazy summer days.

So my dad thinks i've just been chillin for the past like...7 months since I went to India and while i've definitely been a LOT more relaxed and i've been sleeping a lot, I think i've still been relatively productive?

For instance, med school apps aren't exactly a walk in the park. I haven't been super on top of them because the secondary essays are a drag, but I am still...on time. I'm working like 20 hours/week at nordrstrom and doing a decent amount of reading as well. I've only seen a few movies and a shockingly low amount of scrubs and other tv shows.

It's hard to keep track of where exactly my time goes, though. 20 hours/week isn't exactly a lot, and GPI hasn't really taken over my life yet. I read a lot more news and current events, but it's not like that takes a ton of time. Somehow the hours just don't seem to add up.

9am wake up for work

10am-4pm work

4-4:30 drive home

4:30-5 read/snack/chill

5-6 email/read news

6-7 nap?

7-8 dinner

8-8:45 walk the dog

8:45pm -12:30am randomness/gpi/apps/phone

12:30-12:45 shower

12:45-2:00 read

2am sleep.

not a bad summer vacation. i just wish my job were a little less mind-numbing.

Dear 3rd-year-medical-student-Kathleen-of-the-future,

I just finished reading What I Learned in Medical School, and one of the stories that really stuck out to me was about slowly getting the humanity and sense of self beaten out of you once clinical years start. So I just want to remind you not to let that happen.

You're becoming a doctor to help PEOPLE. Don't forget that. Don't get so caught up in treatments or diagnoses (although those are pretty cool) that you forget there's a patient behind that chart. And I don't know what health care will be like in 3 years, and I know you don't have to worry about who has insurance, etc, as a student, but remember what Nordstrom said during training - treat everyone the same, and don't make assumptions. I think that might apply to patients as well as customers.

More importantly though, don't forget to take time out for yourself. If staying longer at the hospital is "optional", go home at least some of the time. Catch up with old friends, get out of the medical mindset for a bit. Try to maintain some sort of balance, and retain your personal identity. Don't go crazy. Go to a yoga class. Catch up on the news. Watch a movie. Sleep. You can never have too much sleep.

That's it for now. I hope you're having a good time :). Medical school can't be all that bad if you don't let it be, right?

Cheers,

Kathy-as-I'm-applying-to-med-school

Celebrating the Fourth with Lemon Cookies!

Things at work are improving (not that they were ever bad, aside from a sometimes-grumpy coworker). I'm getting the hang of the register and working efficiently. I used to be really impressed by the speed and skill with which tailors and cloth-sellers in india handled cloth, but now I realize that it takes about a week to get pretty good at doing just one thing, and a few weeks to get really fast. I don't really need to think when I work, I just need to pay attention. I guess (and hope) that that's the difference between a real expert like a doctor and a tailor. Although there's not as much of a difference as I once thought - depending on how you look at it, one is just a more complicated skill than the other.

But a good thing that's come out of work is that i now possess the recipe to the amazing lemon cookies we sell. I tried my hand at making them, and they're good, but still not as loose/light as the ones we sell. I have some more dough that I'll bake from frozen (rather than from room temperature) tomorrow for our family bbq. I followed the recipe otherwise, so hopefully that'll make the difference. Pictures from tomorrow...today's are all gone :)

Pulkit's coming to a family event tomorrow for the first time! Took 4 years but we're making progress :)

Goodbye contact lenses :)

LASIK = awesome. June 26 - probably more life-changing than my semester in India (okay not quite true but close). There's not much else to say. Dr. Boothe knows what he's doing. Less than 24 hours after surgery I was seeing like 99% as well as with contacts. And it keeps getting better. Especially after having to wear glasses for 2 weeks prior to LASIK, it feels all the more freeing.

In other news, started work at the Nordstrom Cafe in the Galleria. I had no idea there was even a restaurant there until a week and a half ago, but they have surprisingly good salads and AMAZING lemon cookies. They're like cake cookies (instead of cookie cakes) - suuuper soft with yummy lemony icing. It's a pretty fun place to work, although the cash register still confounds me at times. And having a job makes me appreciate weekends that much more :) I <3 sleeping.

New addiction to reading news from The Daily Beast. Not always the greatest, but it summarizes top news articles from different sources and puts them into a Daily Cheat Sheet that takes 10 minutes to read. So convenient.

Home at last, at least for awhile.

Five days after I got back from India, I left for Boston for a week, then NYC for 2 days, but I'm finally back for a good amount of time!

Cousins photo, taken at one of our traditional family barbecues the day after I got home. Like Karen said, I don't think I've had better chicken wings anywhere else. And the steak isn't bad either :)

Island Hopper in Boston! It was great to see the seniors again before graduation, and making $400 from Tech Reunions wasn't a bad deal either. Seeing alumni who are coming back for their 70th reunion and still talking about how much MIT has done for them is amazing on so many different levels. I'm totaly running for Gift Chair on the Alumni committee so I can choose reunion gifts :) Something to look forward to - for the 25th reunion, each class member gets a paperweight version of the brass rat. It's GINORMOUS. I can't wait (although I totally can't imagine what lives we'll all be living 25 years from now...). I spoke to alumni who majored in computer science in like the 1950's. I didn't even know computers existed back then. And one guy had been with IBM from graduation to retirement. Imagine the evolution of the computer he must have experienced/be experiencing.

Thailand Cafe in NYC! And froyo (did you know that Red Mango had tart froyo before Pinkberry did? Berryline is better though)! And shopping! And pedicures! NYC was definitely the largest shock to my system since coming back from India. Home is calm and clean and kind of boring in a relaxing way, Boston is amazing, but NYC was just like HELLO.

Except there were these super cute sculptures all over this one subway station.


Awww...

But...now I'm home! Things are still moving pretty quickly though. I met with some people from the Earth Institute about doing a summer internship from home while I was in NY. I need to finish my personal statement and get AMCAS submitted ASAP. I need a new laptop because my screen is shot. I'm considering getting LASIK? I might might MIGHT have an internship with the WHO in July if the lady would ever get back to me... If not, we might go to China to visit my grandma and make a stopover in Thailand for a week or so. Yay summer.

Aaand I still need to finish up stuff from India. Updates/pictures on our final few weeks there soon, I hope.

Going home!

:)

It's been an amazing experience, but I can't wait to get on that plane and be back in the good ol' US of A.

Bicilavadora...Indian style

After feeling kind of down about all the intangibilities (if that's a word) and disappointments we're encountering in our health projects, Pulkit and I decided to focus on something more concrete for awhile. We turned our attention to a project that we've been talking about since the first time we had to do laundry by hand - making a pedal-powered washing machine. 

Much easier said than done, but 3.5 days and 3300 Rs (not including things like buying soft drinks for the workers or excess/wasted materials) after we decided to do it, we were doing our laundry by foot rather than by hand. The design may not be the sturdiest but hey, it's working and it made it through a nerve-wracking, pothole-filled drive from Bageshwar to Devaldhar while roped to the top of a car.

Irfan welding. notice lack of gloves, real shoes, and face mask. On the plus side, the sunglasses make him look pretty cool.

Irfan making holes in the inner drum, by hand. He was a little strange but a true artisan and very skilled at what he does.

Almost done! 

Test run :)

Having a project that is a product is so nice sometimes. It's such a great feeling to be able to see, touch and use something you have made. Personal satisfaction factor is very high, unlike it is for public health projects...

The future of this bicilavadora? Chirag plans on showcasing it in the villages and promoting it as a labor-saving product. People (mainly women) spend at least 2 hours/day doing laundry, and this should cut the time down to 1 hour (for 2 loads) and they won't have to get their hands wet or wring dry, two other complaints about handwashing. We'll definitely leave behind recommendations for modifications, and hopefully there will be demand from the women since we can probably reduce the cost to 2500 Rs or less (50 USD), and that's a pretty reasonable price around here. The workers at Khetwal Industries where this was made may (hopefully) be able to start a business of their own with this but we'll see... Ideally, someone in Chirag or an intern with an interest in appropriate technology/mechE/business would take up this project and 1) modify the design 2) promote/trial it in villages and get feedback from women 3) work with local welders/artisans to manufacture and sell more of these. Any takers?