WHOA. SLOW DOWN, WORLD.

Apologies to everyone I have half assed communication with for the past two weeks. 6 days of school, 10 lectures, 185 classmates, 3 days of bf + family visiting, 1 white coat ceremony,  1 roomate moving in, and a shitload of material to learn all crammed into two weeks has been full on social v academic warfare.

But things will simmer down, right? Either that or pick up exponentially x.x

Well, not going to say I didn't expect it. Here's to the start of med school.

Crash Course on moving to Manhattan

Hi, I'm Angela's best friend Jon. She was naive enough to ask me to write a guest post regarding living in New York so here it goes:

This is my 3rd week living in the upper west side and I still get confused by the subway system. 

Shit is expensive

Seriously, no dollar menu at Mcdonalds? $15 shots of stoli? $600 bottle service  to get 4 guys in to a club and you don’t even get an actual table or seats?? This shit is crazy.  Unless you’re an investment banker you’ll probably be getting owned by the prices here. The only bottles and models I’m fucking with are Gatorade bottles and MATLAB models.  For the prices I’m paying to live here I could probably support a small village in Sudan.

Finding an apartment sucks if you're not rich

To find an apartment you’ll have to decide if you’re going to rent or sublet. If you rent you need to make 40x rent. For example a shitty $1500 studio on the “upper” east side on 95^th will require you to make at least $60,000. I write upper in quotes because people will advertise apartments above the 90s as the Upper East Side but it’s so far up that it’s essentially Harlem rather than the lavish gossip girl stomping grounds that one would hope for. Additionally, you’ll most likely work with a broker and that will cost you about another rent’s month in addition to the 2 month deposit you’ll probably have to put up.

If you instead decide to save money and sublet a place you’re also probably fucked. Half the posts on craigslist are probably scams; The other half are filled with lies. 2 bedroom basically means you get the living room in a 1 br apartment. That nice room in the east village that you see for a reasonable price is a 6^th floor walkup with 90 sq feet of space. Not only are most of the apartments shitty or lies, the real estate market is extremely competitive. For each apartment that you find that you’d actually be willing to take there are dozens of potential renters competing with you. Basically don't expect to live anything like they do in Friends without some serious $$$$$$$$$$$!

It smells like pee everywhere

It shouldn’t be a surprise that new york smells like shit. The subways smell like pee and the streets are lined with garbage. You’ll also see rats that are bigger than cats and abnormally large insects that have thrived eating the garbage lined streets of new york. Apparently bed bugs are also a major issue with shitty apartments here so you should pretty much never buy any used bed furniture while you’re here.

The weather = WTF!??!

If you're used to california weather then the east coast is going to suck. There is nothing more confusing than trying to prepare for a humid 95 degree thunderstorm in the middle of July. The winters are equally frustrating because your lips will chap if you go more than 2 hours without chapstick. You'll also have to dress like an eskimo to keep warm.

No more driving!!!

If you love driving like I do then you'll be disappointed if you move to New York. Driving in New York is not only frustrating and probably slower than the subway, but also as expensive as renting a second apartment. If you do take the subway you can essentially get anywhere in the city in under 30 minutes. Trains usually come in under 5 minutes which is something you can't really say about BART. However, in the morning and afternoon commutes the trains are extremely packed and you'll sometimes have to miss a train and take the next one to get on.

There’s tons of shit to do!                                                                                                           

Probably the main reason so many people come here is the variety of things you can do. Last friday I saw Starry Nights at the MoMA, went clubbing in the west village, took a limo to koreatown to eat, and got home at 5am. The next morning I went to Ippudo in the east village, walked central park, went to the museum of natural history, and went to a rooftop bar! It’s pretty much impossible to be bored here. The only question is whether or not you have enough time and money to take advantage of these opportunities.

parents just left two hours ago.

this is nice and all!

but i miss my parents/ other human beings already. Q_q

24 hours and I move to LA

And somehow it hasn't hit me yet....

"We can do whatever you want today"

The past month has been nothing but spoils. With no 9-5 job I got to hang out daily with L&L, family, and friends. As always, my parents have been too good to me and provided me with all my at-home needs, even though I'm inevitably a brat and take them for granted sometimes. June and July has blessed me with the opportunity to stay home and watch the olympics, make ice cream from scratch at whim, and go on trips with my favorite people.

Ah, trips. A string of trips kept my busy pretty much the entire last two months: Disneyland, Vegas, Yosemite, and finally the motherbeast of all my vacations thus far: two weeks in Brazil.

Brazil: The TLDR and lessons learned:

1. Vacation constipation. You can run, but you can't hide.

2. Always carry your passport with you. Always.

#3 is a lesson; one that I'll introduce with an anecdote.

On our first night in Manaus, Janice and I were looked up and down by two men as we were walking to the grocery store. At first we shrugged it off, thinking it was just a slimy pair of guys. A minute later, we crossed the street and as we turned to look at them they were running in the opposite direction they had come from; one of them with a backpack in his hands and the other wielding a gun. 

What. The heck. That could have been us! Stupid me for carrying my bigass Canon strapped around my neck- might as well have written "I AM A TOURIST-ROB ME" on  my forehead. Thank goodness Nayson, brown as a local, was also walking with us and stared them down as they were eyeing Janice and me. Lesson learned:

3. If you ever feel unsafe in a foreign place, don't go out at night. If you happen to find yourself out at night, be vigilant and look like you belong.

Not going to talk expand too much on Brazil because nothing but a deeply invested post would do it justice. I don't have the capacity for that at the moment... I'll save it for another post. And anyway, I had planned to fashion this post as a resting place for my thoughts about the all too imminent future.

---

Begin: Thoughts on the all too imminent future.

As the end of the week approaches, so does my move to LA. I'm excited yet apprehensive for the move as it marks the end of my 22 year residence in the great Northern California. 

I'm ready to meet new people, but will miss being able to see loved ones every day. I'm ready to go back to school and learn things, but I know that all too soon I'm going to miss the freedom of my current schedule. Call me a geek but I get a little giddy at the thought of being able to study science again. I say this with caution though, as I know once the studying begins, it will pile on mercilessly. I have heard that that starting medical school is like "trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant." I can only imagine how overwhelming and copious the workload will be- but if it weren't stressful it wouldn't quite be medical school now would it.

As I enter a new stage of my life, I've been contemplating the things I could do with a fresh start. An aspect of my life I've been trying to get on the right track again is my running (no pun intended). Ever since ending high school, running has evoked in me a sense of both joy and despair. Joy because, well, running is my element. It's the only activity I've ever felt I truly "excelled" at and the only one that provides me with an emotional reverie to slip into during times of need. But sometimes when I reflect upon my post-high school relationship with running, it feels heavy. Having no coach to guide me, no team to run for, and no section championship to train left me feeling really... wasted. Like my potential for greatness was stymied by my own ineptitude. Sure, I ran a few races over my college career but they were all kind of dreary, half assed efforts. I never thoroughly trained for any race I ran. I'd like to change that.

A few weeks ago I signed Lloyd and I up for the "Awesome 80's race"in the Pasadena rose bowl on September 1st. After signing up for the race, I decided that it was time for me to actually put an invested effort into training again. So yesterday, I sat down with myself and had a little meeting. I planned out a workout schedule for month of August, and realized that this was the first time in my life I had done so.

For every race I have ever run, I had either prepared for it by having a coach tell me what to run (high school) or by running whatever I felt like each day (every single freakin race post-high school). Never have I actually made a workout schedule for myself until this one. Without a doubt I know that by nature of being a medical school student, there will be conflicts with this schedule. But I've realized that there are both pros and cons to the situation:

cons

-The sheer time it takes just to attend school is lengthy, making it hard to find the time and place to run

-Studying will take time (...duh) which means I will have less time time to run

-I've scheduled in a lot of 6am and 4pm workouts. 6AMs may be a pain in the ass to wake up for, and 4PMs in the LA heat may predestine me to unpleasant heat exhaustion

-No fremont older and no tilden park. WHERE am I going to run? I know that with time, I'll find some good areas but settling into a new hood and new hills may be rough. I know myself pretty well. And so I know that I will probably get lost as soon as I start exploring.

pros

-Running calms me. This is an infinite "pro" against med school stress

-I hear stories of those people who start waking up early every day and find they have more energy and focus during the day. I hope I'll be one of them...

-Despite "con" #3, I'm kind of excited at the idea of waking up early. I always feel good after a run, and the idea of beginning the day on a high note should resonate well throughout the day.

-Finally being able to meet new people means being able to meet people who also like to run with me some days!

-USC has a gym. For last resort late days at school, I suppose I can head there to get my fix.

OK, gonna finish this post quickly so I can zip out and get an 8 miler in: the remaining item I have on my list is to stay off Facebook until my move is down (so..Sunday?). I have too many things to take care of at home. No time to dilly dally online!

K, bye blog, thanks for listening to me rambling. As always, I reward you with pictures and media!

1. Haha which of these sounds like a phony professional..

2. at the 10 minute mark, I melt a little bit  (thanks for the link, Theo). Hence the namesake of this post

edit:typ0s