be somebody, do something

Such a thug. 

He cracks me up.

how could you ever possibly resist a face like this???

I just downloaded a new cd - Kaleidoscope Machine, by Katie Costello. Excellent. She's from Hermosa Beach, CA, and she's only 17. Her songs convey a much older soul, and her voice is richly layered beyond her years. One song in particular, "Congratulations", struck me - here's a snippet of lyrics: 

why does there exist a need, to be somebody, do something,

whose origins are from the box we all know too well

what i need  is to be okay

being nobody, knowing it'd be alright, alright

what made us think that being happy 

came from a piece of paper that said congratulations?

I was up in NJ for the holiday, and the highlight of my trip was definitely seeing my sweet, sweet nephew. He is almost 20 months old, and - although I am highly biased - one of the cutest kids ever. He loves music, and "dances" whenever he hears it. His dancing consists of swaying back and forth and bending his knees so he bounces up and down....it is so adorable. Sometimes he gets his hands into it and goes all out. He absolutely loves to dance - even to my mother's cell phone ring! (Although in all honesty, her ring is "Sweet Child O'Mine", which has been a favorite of Trey's since he was a baby!). We were watching the movie Hairspray one night, and he absolutely LOVED it. He was enthralled, dancing along with it. He is such a good kid - you can take him to any restaurant and he'll behave. He is getting mischievious - he likes to pull hair and sometimes he hits, but then when you go to reprimand him, he'll open his mouth (his sign for giving you "kisses") and rest his head on you. So he definitely knows his cuteness factor is skyhigh. I miss him already so much. 

This is the last week of classes, so things are getting crazy with work, and I am finishing up my Columbia application to their Sociomedical Sciences program. I really like their program, but I don't want to get my hopes up. Why would I get in now, after being rejected 2 years ago? *sigh*. I miss NY. I do love it here in Chapel Hill, and it does feel like home, but I also really miss Manhattan. I miss beers at Dorrians, Pinkberry runs, even the crowdedness of the city sidewalks. I miss good cupcakes. And good falafel. Anyway, at this point, I will be happy if I get into ANY program. I can't even think about what happens if I don't get in. I can't believe, though, that this is the end of the semester. It has absolutely flown by. Next semester I will be taking: my Master's Paper (like a dissertation, we have to register for it), Reproductive Health Policy, Pediatric Pharmacotherapy, and Neurotrauma in Sports. I'm really looking forward to my classes, the big dork that I am! 

giving thanks

So here I am, in NJ for Thanksgiving, and thinking about all the things I am grateful for in the past year. Oddly, I'm also thinking about Eve Carson. It was her birthday last Wednesday, and I just keep thinking, what are her parents doing? How are they surviving, day to day? What are the holidays like for them this year? How do they wake up every day? It strikes me as incredibly heart-wrenching. This is a young woman who should not have had her life taken from her at such a young age - especially not in the brutal way that she did. I often wonder what she was doing last year, and whether she would have ever thought she wouldn't live to the next Thanksgiving. In my Research Methods class, one group did a project on students' perceptions of safety, and one of my friends mentioned the "Eve Carson effect" on our perceptions of how safe we are in Chapel Hill. Without even having to discuss it, we all knew what she meant by that. And that made me very sad. So much can change in a year, a month, a day, an hour. As Joan Didion wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking, life changes in the instant, the ordinary instant. Which is why I am grateful and thankful for so much this year, especially all the little things. 

I am thankful for: my blood family. my "chosen" family. the health of people I love. friends. mentors. my wonderful baby nephew (who will always be a baby to me, no matter how old he gets!). sunshine. warm sheets and cold pillows. smiles. phone calls from long distance friends. gingerbread lattes on cold days. the warm golden amber of autumn leaves. serendipity. synchronicity. good books. breakfasts with Morgan. faith. hope. courage. the wonderful kids I babysit for and have babysat for - Luke, MJ, Rachel, Bryce, Chase, Harrison, Pilar. gummy toothless smiles and incoherent phone calls from these kids. hugs. kindness. prayer. life. the wonderful summer full of opportunities I had at MSKCC. the amazing people I met at Memorial, including my supervisor. all the bloggers and people I've met through blogspot. 

On a lighter note, everyone should pick up the December issue of Elle magazine. I am in it! I reviewed books for them and my book review got printed! So go out now, and buy it, please. Also, if you want to donate to my Avon Breast Cancer 2-Day Walk, please let me know - in less than a month, I have raised $250, but I need to raise at least $1800 -- my goal is to raise as much as I possibly can, though. 

I wish everyone a very happy and healthy thanksgiving! 

miraculous disappearing cancer?

Here is an article in today's NYTimes about how some cancers "might go away on their own". Call me a cynic, but I'm not buying it. They do bring up rare cases of melanoma and neuroblastoma, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. They bring up the issue of breast cancer - and how this might, upon further research, let women with invasive breast cancer "watch and wait" on a lump. But what if the cancer doesn't go away on its own? What if it gets bigger and then the cancer is at a more advanced stage by the time one decides to treat it? I don't know. I have mixed feelings about this. There will be people who read the article and are ill-informed and not ask their doctors about it and might have completely different conclusions that are harmful. I've grown increasingly wary of articles like this.....

figuring it all out....sort of

A week from today is Thanksgiving. 2 weeks from today is my birthday, and also the last day of my semester. I cannot believe the semester is coming to a close. It feels like just yesterday I moved down here again. It's actually been pretty cold down here the past week or so, which is good and bad. Good because I love sweater weather and I have a much better winter wardrobe, bad because it SUCKS walking in the cold or waiting for the bus in the cold. But it definitely feels like winter. I even got my flu shot yesterday. But now I'm feeling all blah and in the mood for a weekend full of laying on the couch under my fleece blanket, drinking soup and watching What Not to Wear. But I can't exactly do that when I have a final secondary analysis research paper due 12/2, another paper due 12/1, a final on 12/2, and a final paper due 12/4 (my birthday, great). Oh yeah - and a possible grant proposal due 12/4 and a lit review to somehow come up with. 

I went to go have my mini-practicum paper signed today by the former chief of pediatric heme/onc, and as I was walking through the hospital, I realized I love hospitals. I know that probably sounds really weird. But I do. I am comfortable in them. They feel familiar; natural. And I know this is crazy. I keep whining about this and not doing anything about it. But I'm not sure there's anything to do. But let's face reality - the financial part would be undoable, and what if I didn't even get in to med school? I'm getting too old for this. I don't want to have regrets. I need to reconcile that I am NOT going to be a physician. I'm almost 28. I am too old to be still debating what to be when I grow up. 

playing God

I'm sitting here in the Health Sciences Library, trying to do work and killing time before my class at 2. I've been really bad with concentrating lately, so I went on cnn.com, and found this really interesting article about how med students aren't choosing family medicine and there will be an expected shortage of over 30,000 primary care doctors by the year 2025, as the AMA calculated. That is craziness. And while it all made sense - doctors are frustrated by all the red tape, etc, - it made me sad, too. Because I'd love to be a doctor. But then I remember my own family physician telling me that if his kids told him they wanted to be a doctor, he would discourage them from doing so. 

I've been thinking a lot about genetic testing. I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I am wary of it because it almost feels like we're playing G-d. But on the other hand, if you could know if you had a high predisposition to something like cancer, wouldn't you want to know so you could take preventive/protective measures? Once you know, you can't not know. Once you get those results, your life is changed forever - either way. Is it worth it? 

Let's Raise Money!!!

I know it's the holiday season, and the economy is going down the tubes for the most part, but I just signed up for the Avon 2-Day Walk for Breast Cancer, in Charlotte, NC. It's not until October 2009, but I have to raise $1800 to walk. My goal is to surpass that and raise as much  money as I possibly can. I like this better than Komen, because it's more hands-on and the goals of the Avon Foundation seem to be much more action and community oriented, rather than self-serving, like Komen. 

So....why am I posting this? I wanted to post a link to my personal page. You can donate if you'd like, and anything is appreciated. I'd really appreciate it as well if you could send the link to anyone you know who might be interested in donating. Cancer affects everyone, and until there's a 2-Day walk for general cancer awareness, I have to be satisfied with this. 

Please go to my page!

Thank you so much!!! Help me raise money!

saturday afternoon....

Trey and Aunt Jaime

Trey, hitting the bottle

Maybe I'm biased, but is this not the cutest picture EVER? 

I just wanted to thank everyone who wished my grandmother and my family good luck, and kept us in their thoughts and prayers - she did wonderfully with the surgery. She hasn't even taken any pain medicine since the day of! She is quite the fighter. She was discharged Wednesday, is glad to be home, and is doing well. We got the wonderful news yesterday that her lymph nodes were free of cancer, and we should know the full pathology report on Tuesday, when she gets the drains out. Needless to say, we are all relieved and pleased with the outcome so far. 

In a little while I will be heading out to a birthday party.....at Gymboree. For 17 three year olds. Yeah. I love kids, but if I ever want to have kids after a birthday party like this, it will be a miracle! I went to Babies R Us and Baby Gap earlier, for a present for my old roommate's baby, and for gift wrap for L's bday. You know it's bad when you DON'T have kids and yet you STILL have a Babies R Us rewards card on your key ring. I managed to get my nephew a really cute rugby shirt on sale at Baby Gap. It's only been a week, but I miss him so much. It's still a novel thing, having this little kid in my family. I love being an aunt. And to think that one day, he will be a cousin to my kids....that blows my mind.  

white coat envy

So.....yesterday at the hospital, when we were in the cafeteria, I kept looking around at all the med students and residents and doctors, and I admit, I was jealous as hell. Jealous because I want to be one of them. I want it so bad I can taste it. And it must have showed on my face, because my mother asked me what was wrong, and I told her. She replied with, "We've been through this - by the time you'd be done your residency, you'd be in your 40s...." And she's right. She reminded me about the conversation Jonel and I had that solidified my choice to go into public health. But daily, I wish I had gone ahead and pursued medicine. I wish that I had never given up my interest in science and oncology 10 years ago. I applied to college pre-med -- who knows where I would be if I had continued on that path? But, things happen for a reason, and I am on this path now for many many reasons. Compared to psychology, this is much more true to who I am. And I guess I just have to realize that I will still be in oncology, just not how I maybe originally imagined. 

faith and hope

Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin does make some good points. I was watching a clip of her this morning talking with Greta Van Susteren, and she said something about faith, in response to Greta asking her about whether she's running in 2012. And she said that faith is important to her, and when she prays, she asks G-d to help her see open doors, even if they're open just a crack. She said that she might plow through the door, or go through it prematurely, but she just doesn't want to miss the door. That really resonated with me. She might make mistakes, but she doesn't want to miss any opportunities. That makes a ton of sense. 

In other news, my grandmother is recovering very well from her mastectomy. The surgeon did find some hard lymph nodes, which he removed, but we won't know the pathology until friday. Overall, I am pretty satisfied with the surgeon. At first, I thought he was a pompous ass, but after the surgery, when he sat down with us and spoke with us, I liked him. You'd be surprised at how differently doctors treat you when they know you've worked at MSKCC. And that you actually know something about cancer. 

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and prayers, my family and I really appreciate it. 

I miss NY.

I miss New York. I miss it in that way that you can only miss something you simultaneously love and hate. I miss walking to Pinkberry on a muggy summer night. I miss the surprise of little kids selling lemonade on the sidewalks of the Upper East Side. I miss the cupcake selection. I miss my morning Dunkin' Donuts - wheat bagel with light cream cheese, iced coconut coffee. I miss the chaotic energy of the city. I miss being inspired everyday at work, and having my oncology idols be mere feet from me. I miss waking up and loving my job. I miss overpriced candy at Dylan's Candy Bar, and pizza at Patsy's, and Jamba Juice. I miss walking along Fifth Ave on  my lunch break. 

Some days I can't wait until I get back there in December.