things that have made me smile recently (and boy, there have been a bunch!)

trying to get back into blogging and realizing part of the beauty of it is that i can just write little tidbits of things rather than drawing out some large parallels between my life and the great truths of the world...er, you know what i mean.

it's 7:30 am. i'm starting outpatient cards today after being out of the hospital for a month. should be a nice switch from the MICU, but not such a sweet change from 'vacation' (ie studying and doing AMSA stuff like crazy month). since there's not much time, im making a list and going back to the topic of my blog - things that have made me smile recently. these are in no particular order.

1) i always thought i wasn't really good with kids, but decided to volunteer as a 'big sister'/'mentor' for this adopted asian girl anyway as part of a pilot program called GIFT (Growing in Friendship Together). most of the mentors are college kids that are also adopted, and all the mentees are Asian girls who have been adopted. we have group activities about once a month and then we also meet with our mentees separately. last month was the first month where both me and my mentee were able to join the group activity, where i met the other girls.

a month later, i emailed one of the moms who was helping out with this month's event (the Moon Festival, or zhong qiu jie, held last Friday night) for directions. she emailed me and said:

Hi Tanya,I've attached the flyer. Also--funny thing. K. just got a stuffed leopard and she named it Tanya. I asked her why Tanya and she said "Mom, you know--Tanya like the cool woman from mentoring?" She is such a watcher, she's clearly checking out all the mentors even while hanging out with her own.

That totally made my day! I was kinda feeling out of place before since I was one of the oldest mentors, but it's cool how something little like that can definitely make you feel like you're doing something right. later, at the Moon Festival, each pair of girls had to make a poster with pics and tidbits of what we liked doing together, what we learned about each other, etc. my mentee wrote (verbatim) 'I like evrything about Tanya!'. yay mentoring (and being a role model) for other young girls!

2) Finishing Cecil's. Yep, I read all 1100+ pages of the 'Essentials' version. I think I'll try to skim again, but it was not bad after you got into the groove of it.

3) AMSA family. Ah, AMSA is like a drug...gives you the high, but then you can never escape it. I spent a long weekend at AC Exec/GHLI and I totally got sick afterwards from not sleeping enough and being in intense meetings for a ridiculous number of hours each day, but it was really amazing. A shortlist of things that made me smile (will continue later since Chris is dropping me off at the hospital in five mins):

-getting lost in Dan's truck on the way to the retreat center with CJ and Dan Murphy. Fresh baked goods from Mom's Apple Pie Bakery. Trying to squeeze in and still drink our morning coffee.
-im'g/googlechatting with dan and vishad during the super long meeting
-late-night conversation and franzia sangria (with sliced apples) courtesy of julia
-encouraging people to listen to their hearts. kicking certain people out after it was way too late.
-writing my own global health vision statement.
-driving and walking with flavio for lobby day in DC
-late night talks, leftover chinese food, and capoeira performances at the AMSA townhouse
-having some really short (but valuable) quality time with rishi in the 10 mins we overlapped at ghli
-eating a homemade meal prepared by a lot of the male partners at ac exec - so nice to get out of meetings and have yummilicious food waiting for you
-teamwork (on a huge number of levels)
-watching 'the office' parodies done by med students about small group

ok, gotta run. more to come soon! it feels really good to blog again :)

continued from cards clinic (where I was actually sent on an unofficial consult to the hospital with the other med student on service..):

i'll continue on AMSA later. but, other things:

4) liz's eval of me (see 'comments' under previous blog entry). i dunno why, but evals like that make me feel so good about myself! am i a nerd? yeah, totally. do i like it? yeah, a lot :)

5) meeting up with suhani for sushi at DTW. i am starting to really get into airport dates. my first was with dan a few months ago at Dulles, where we had dinner and chatted, and this was my second official one with suhani. i havent seen her since she moved out to madison, and it was awesome to catch up, get some hugs, and to just spend some time with an old friend.

6) spending time with sup and karlo (two Ford School of Public Policy grads and APA caucus peeps) in dc, and grabbing dinner with davekumar. i was in dc a few weekends ago for this hiv psychiatry training and the american psychiatric association fall components meeting. the training was pretty good, but the highlights were definitely hanging out in a hotel room at jw marriott downtown, going to the adams morgan street festival with karlo and sup, visiting them in their place near dupont circle, and eating dinner with dave. i also met some cool people who are into global psych and caught up with roxanne, who was a global health fellow in geneva.

7) seeing patients again. a friend questioned if i was still into clinical medicine, and i have to say, i am! i saw a consult today in the hospital and really enjoyed looking up the history, taking notes, and talking with the patient. although im taking a year off, a mentor told me that i should try to keep my clinical skills as intact as possible, and i think i'm going to try to work with docs i respect in clinic if i stay here on my year off (which im really leaning towards doing).

8) family time! i see my parents almost every wknd if i'm around. they've been super supportive and really never fail to put a smile on my face, especially when we're ragging on my dad for being his silly self.