Post Chicago..and b-school

I promise i will update my blog with new pictures from my trip....as soon as i'm done with my impending midterm and final...:*(

a part of me still want to be in the spring break mode, but the reality doesn't allow it. So I'm sitting here, ditching class (once again) for the impending midterm tomorrow. I'm likely to do the same next week, for the final which will also probably kick my ass. my class is pretty cut-throat. Our average compared to last year's class is always 20% higher. no wonder this is doing wonders for my self-esteem. it just doesn't seem possible for me to retain all the information in my brain. I'm sure if i study day and night eventually i will. but i think my hair is falling out enough as is.

So the other day i was whining to my friend about the economy and how i'm caught in an awkward situation. seeing that my real passion isn't so much the clinical side of pharmacy, or the retail side of it. but industry is hard to break in. So she was suggesting that i try out b-school. It's an interesting suggestion and i have put some thought into since that day. But it only stresses me out even more. it means more applications, more recommendation letters to ask for, and more school rankings to consider. I also feel kind of inadequate about my lack of experience. Although some of the summer internships i was shooting for, aside for R&D, require that you be a mba candidate. and i was lacking it at the time and therefore didn't qualify. But is it worth it? is it going to be worthy of the investment i put in? is it worth another 2 years of my life? Afterall, i will be hitting 30 at that point, so i will have spent most of my 20 something years pursuing for various degrees. And if i do end up with jobs that are very well-compensated, is it going to further put me in the unfavorable category of successful women without a man because she's too intimidating and has wayy too many degrees? these are all factors to consider, inevitably.

A part of me do feel like that i'm so over LA. I am ready to pick up and move to a different city for work/job/graduate studies. i just feel very powerless over the whole situation, where i am going to be, where i want to be, and what i will be doing within the next 5 years. I wish that there's some kind of plan or guidance i can follow, and that i don't have to do it alone.

A stye, a finger infxn, face, and something else, and a stye

Thank God for the discovery of antibiotics.....as i stated to my sister yesterday. For some reason, I feel that i've become really bacteria-infested. And I'm reluctant to attribute it to my personal hygiene problem because nothing has changed, and my room is not that disgusting. I attribute it to the chronic stress and the lowered immune system. Its making me susceptible to all kinds of bacteria caused diseases that are otherwise preventable if i actually have a functioning immune system to fight them off.

So yes, without the invention of various antibiotics i would truely be in a horrible state right now, with pimples all over my face, styes that crowd my eyelids most days of the year, and really bad infections everywhere. I have been having about 4 styes this past month, and i'm getting over the last one, which is humongous, on my lower right eyelid. It got so bad i had to stop wearing contacts for a week and just warm-compress it with hot towel, wash my eyes out, and got Bacitracin eye ointment from my optometrist at lenscrafters (which turned out to be totally cool cuz i had no idea they could prescribe you antibiotics as well. in my mind i was dreading having to make a trip to school clinics just to get that one prescription). Still my both eyes itch from something, and i'm trying the hardest not to scratch them in fear of spreading to the other eye. But yes, recurrent styes SUCK...they take turns torturing you and make you look like a freak with a bump in your eye. -_-

Then it was a mild finger cut that felt really itchy. all of a sudden my middle finger was having a red patch that was super itchy, and this happened right after the exam. I didn't pay much attention because i had assumed it to be a paper cut. I didn't put any meds on it or take extra care of it, and just took a shower when i got home. Then yesterday the same finger (middle finger) had some throbbing, intense pain at the tip of the finger right beneath the nail bed. It was so bothersome that i had to press on it to distract myself. At which point i sort of realized what had happened. it didn't go away at all so before i went to bed i put some antibiotic cream all around the tip and some bandaid over it. and then i finally got some relif (which proved my theory to be right, it's not just a finger pain from typing).

so my point is, there are naturally colonizing bacteria in/on our body everywhere, and under normal circumstances, but we never feel the inconvenience or discomfort, until you're somewhat immunocompromised. I am actually not sure any more when my stress will REALLY go away, because i think it only goes downhill from here (with rotations, residency/fellowship, a real job...). i always fear the consequences of stress because of everything we've learned at school. at this point i can only be thankful that i'm getting the MANAGEABLE stress-related diseases, not the big guns (like cancer)....

Film Review...

So after 3 weeks of the movie's release i finally get to see it, probably the last person on earth..(ok, and the two friends i go with that makes the 3 of us). I've been wanting to see the movie since i read the book. The book itself is a easy read, almost like a column from Cosmopolitan, in the Q&A format. Bascially, women ask this guy Greg about their guy problems and they hear the honest truth from him, in most cases, HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU. you'd think it's so obvious right? well, not to women in love (or blinded by love). guys are just SO LUCKY.

So anyway, overall it was poignant and entertaining, and i certainly enjoyed the all-star cast. But i'm hating the characters too as i watched it: the psycho girl, the "other woman", the pushover....I wonder if we all fit into these stereotypes in one way or another. I certainly hope i dont. It was almost painful watching some of the things that they do on screen, which i would never, and had never committed. I guess it's good and bad: if you put yourself out there and be willing to meet guys in all shapes and sizes and heartbreakers and all, you are going to have a fun, lively dating life. Whereas i know exactly what to do to preserve my dignity, well, i spend a lot of time wondering why there's no dates. I dont really call guys who dont' seem to be interested me, i dont count "texting" as "calling", i dont keep in touch with guys who are superficial and just like to have women around, i dont like jerks who act they are too cool for you, and i dont wait around next to my phone cuz i simply dont have time for that, and if someone cheats, i dont think i can even try to have a relationship with him again. Him sleeping with another woman, that's just gross and disrespectful.

But they have to give the moving an ending. So despite the fact they say it over and over again in the movie that "think of yourself as the RULE, not the EXCEPTION", they made exceptions for the characters. So the playboy falls in love with you, your committment phobic bf proposes to you..etc. Kinda ruins it for me, just like Sex and The City. The ultimate happiness of a woman, still depends on the fact whether she has someone significant in her life. Like Carrie Bradshaw, your badboy bf will eventually come around.

It's hard to lie to your gf when you seee the obvious truth that she's dating a jackass, or that the guy she's seeing is simply not into her, because we all tend to cheer each other up. We dont like hearing harsh words so we dont tell the truth to people we care about, in fear of breaking their hearts. But maybe sometimes we NEED to hear the truth. We need to see it from 3rd party's perspective that, maybe we are just not seeing the whole picture. I can't swear that i'm going to tell nothing but truth now to my gf, but I am certainly goin to try to. I do it the most with my sister, which is why she thinks i'm blunt like a guy and very bitter sometimes.

People tend to say/think that i'm kind of self-deprecating or sarcastic about things, and I do admit that there are elements of me that are rather Seinfeld-ish. but I dont think it's a low self-esteem issue. It's my honest to God opinion about myself. And I'm surprised that people think so negatively about this characteristics. Especially in the US, no one wants to hear that you're doing shitty, we all have to gloat about something about ourselves (whether it's job, love life, salary, appearance, past glories...etc.) But i'm okay with the idea that i may have a hard time getting the job i like because i'm hitting a lot of walls, and i'm ok with saying that i may continue to be single for a long time to come. It doesn't necessarily mean that i enjoy these things, but i'm not dellusional to say that they dont exist. This is where my stress is coming from, and this is why i can be insecure when i blog because i do think about them, constantly.

And this is the part of growing up i dont like.