sublet interview

I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes, we get really bored of studying and find really unique/creative ways to deal with it. I’m somewhat proud to admit that throughout the last two years of med school, I have only really self-diagnosed myself with two things:

• Narcolepsy
  I’m pretty sure I don’t actually have this (it’s more likely to be prolonged sleep deprivation), but I can fall asleep within 3 minutes anywhere/at any time and start having all kinds of crazy dreams. I also get hypnagogic & hypnopompic hallucinations whenever I fall asleep in the catacombs
• Compulsive Eating Disorder
  I spend most of my day thinking about food/planning the next week’s worth of meals, and am very capable of stuffing down somewhat frightening amounts of food in one sitting. In all honesty, I probably don’t have this either (I just really, really like food), but it would explain my constant preoccupation with food. ._.

Anyway, my other favorite pastime study break (aside from food + the gym) is pranking other unsuspecting friends/students. Past examples have included supermanning past my friend’s study window. About a month ago, one of our classmates was discussing the possibility of subletting my friends’ apartment while they were in Ohio for the first couple months of rotations, so they thought it’d be hilarious to pretend to interview her. They took it a step further and asked me to be the secretary/scribe, and we all dressed up to make it more official/believable.

There’s a chance that we went slightly overboard with this, but we figured we might as well go all-out to make it convincing.

We even left a water bottle and a snack at her seat!

They started off by noting that she was late and asking her to sign in (while they posted an “Interview in Progress” sign on the window). They also asked for her resume, and looked at each other with a disapproving sigh when she said she didn’t have it with her.

The questions started out somewhat normally:

1)      How do you feel about pets and are you planning to have one?
2)      Do you plan on having visitors over? Are you planning to have parties at the apartment?
3)      Do you smoke? Drink? Use illicit drugs?

(This is where I chimed in so she’d know I was actually taking notes on her responses.)

4)      We understand you were the class secretary. Can you please describe your responsibilities?
5)      Please describe 3 strengths and weaknesses.

I’d like to note that one of the strengths she listed was “great driver,” and my friend asked in all seriousness, “Are you referring to the time you almost ran over me and my at-the-time-fiance?”

6)      Which color of the rainbow would you be and why?
7)      What time of the day do you usually start drinking?
8)      Our administrative dean walks in here wearing a sombrero. What would he say and why is he here?
9)      What song best describes your work ethic?
10)      Say you invited us over for dinner. What would you serve us?
11)     How would you rate us as interviewers?

She gave them a 4 because she was completely unprepared for said “interview.” She thinks we are terrible people, but is glad that we had so much fun scaring the crap out of her.

Advertisement

supermanning

I apologize in advance for the terrible quality, but this is a screenshot of a video of a video (just let that digest for a moment). That’s why it’s so pixelated. Since our lives are so often just filled with studying, we often take study breaks to clear our minds. Last fall, it involved me supermanning past the window where my friend was studying.

That’s a pretty good shot of my brachioradialis. :O

In my spare time, I like to practice flying. :D

payback

I was going to call it revenge, but that sounds a little too extreme. Ever since my study buddy and I divorced (don’t worry, nothing catastrophic happened; we’re still friends and we still trade food [more accurately, he still gives me food]/notes and hang out/talk regularly–it’s just that I really can’t function without sleep and he’s divvied up the work with someone else/I didn’t want to intrude), I’ve had a lot more free time on my hands, especially in the sense that I don’t ever feel like I need to be home by a certain hour. Technically speaking, even before, I wouldn’t have had to since my neighbor never sleeps anyway, but still, I just feel like there’s just something very abnormal about going downstairs at 2 a.m. to study through the night, haha. With this new-found “free time,” I’ve been hanging out with my other friends more (and studying more at school because again, who wants to pay for more electricity?).

After a gym session the other night, I was headed back to the catacombs and two of my friends were going out for pizza. I should mention that I constantly give them crap about driving to different parking lots to repark their cars for “efficiency.” In any case, Mike drove from the gym to the catacombs (a distance of perhaps 60 feet, but he claims this is more efficient) to pick something up and left his car running, so I ran and dove into the truck bed and curled up until he came out again (at which point I leaped out at him). Although I did not get him to scream like a little girl as I’d hoped, he did give a surprised yell, so still better than nothing.

We also gathered for a last run-through of the complete head-to-toe exam on Sunday evening and many awkward-hilarious comments were exchanged.

The best of the bunch was probably, “I’m going to come in your eye.”

F/I: …What?
I: Mike, that’s horribly inconsiderate.
M: No! I meant look inside your eye!
F: Not sayin’ a word.
I: Really, Mike, that’s horrible. You don’t say things like that to people. Her eyes? Really?
M: No!!! I didn’t mean it like that!
F: That would really hurt, just sayin’.
M: Augh!!!

We’ve been doing a pretty healthy amount of ripping on each other (all in good fun, of course). They were making fun of the fact that I was ticklish yesterday since they were trying to palpate for my liver and my aorta during the abdomen portion of the physical exam.
M: Palpating for her liver is impossible. I can’t tell where her ribcage ends.
F: Yeah, apparently, I have a really long ribcage. I found out the other day. :[
I: Yeah, and if only she would stop laughing. Cool it, Farrah!
F: I’m sorry! I’m trying! ;_;
I: I’m not feeling anything other than her 8-pack.
M: Her aorta’s easy though. You just have to start slow and gentle and then go deeper, or her six-pack gets in the way and punches you in the face.
F: Thanks, guys.

For the record, I don’t actually have a 6-pack or an 8-pack (not a visible one, anyway).

We also went over our celebrity lookalikes the other day. Sean’s is Jim Carrey because of the chin. Mike’s is Josh Hartnett, although his features are more defined. I don’t think I really resemble any celebrity, but I’m a fairly biased party, so Sean and Mike looked up a list of Asian actresses and went from there.
S: Her?
M: Nah, Farrah has bigger eyes than that.
S: Maybe her.
M: Maybe. Or Lucy Liu, but I think Farrah’s eyes are bigger.
F: It might just be the picture. We both have freckles, and my eyes are smaller when I smile.
M/S: Wait, right there! Her! I think you look the most like her!

The “her” in question is Gong Li, so I’m pretty darn flattered, to say the least. I don’t think we actually look anything alike other than the fact that we’re both Asian, but hey, I’ll take it! :O

a new addition

I probably mentioned a couple of these guys before, but lately, I’ve been hanging around school more often (more specifically, with them, because we all study in the same place, albeit all in different rooms) due to the fact that I…
a) have taken to studying alone
b) use less electricity/resources/things I have to pay for if I spend more time at school (yes, I really am that cheap)

Anyway, I’ve been hanging out with them a lot more recently because they’re hilarious and really fun to be around. I love how they interact with each other, and whole-heartedly believe that it’d make for an awesome TV show. (We cast each other off as different characters from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia today, which I’ve really only seen one episode of thus far. Sean is Charlie, Isaac is Dennis, Mike is Mac, and I’ve been defaulted to Sweet Dee by virtue of the fact that I’m the only girl.) Our hypothetical show is “It’s Always Sunny in Lewisburg” (except this is a lie; always snowing would be more accurate) and/or “HBLers + 1” (Isaac is the only one that actually goes to class).

One of them (Isaac) graduated the same year as me back in Davis. We were actually also in the same major, volunteered at the same hospital, and had common friends, but somehow never spoke to one another until we saw each other at the gym during orientation last year.

I met Sean at my interview (as far as we can remember, we’re the only two from our interview group in this class) and remembered him because he was the first to interview and pretended to cry when he came out, but I’d called him out on it because I saw him walk into the admissions office to ask for a tissue with a huge smile on his face.

Mike is the one that I’ve decided will hopefully elevate me to my next level of badassery (I like to set arbitrary and random goals of badassery from time to time, if you couldn’t tell). If I can successfully choke him out one of these days, I’ll consider it a win. :O He admitted yesterday that while I “was hanging onto his neck like a leech the other day,” he briefly contemplated whether it’d be worth it to (a) keep his pride and stand up to body slam me into the ground, thus risking several broken ribs on my part, or (b) lose said pride and allow me to choke him out.
F: What!?
M: Luckily, I didn’t need to make the decision, because I turned my head.
F: I can’t believe you even considered that! ;_;
M: But what matters is that I didn’t do it!
F: …
M: If you were ______, I would’ve done it without second thoughts, because she’s a lot more manly.
F: Somewhat of a backhanded compliment, but I’ll take it.
M: It wasn’t backhanded! It was a compliment! I’m saying that you’re a lady. That’s a compliment, right?
F: Holy crud, no one has ever told me that before. :O My dad tells me I’m too mannish.
M: So what I’m saying is, if you were to try to stab me with a knife, I’d probably be like, “Oh no! She’s trying to stab me! …But she’s so pretty, I guess I’ll let her do it.” But if you were _______, I’d just punch you in the face.

I’ll take it.

Mike’s been trying unsuccessfully to scare me for the past couple weeks, but recently stood in the darkness outside the window of my study room and scared the crud outta me, so I retaliated by sneaking into his room while he was out and returning the favor. (I also changed his background to a whole lot of My Little Pony, but he blamed Sean.)

The other day, we gathered around and prank-called Isaac about counseling and potential lawsuits against a pharmaceutical company for the drug he was taking because he recently found out he has psoriasis and has been referring to himself as “the face of psoriasis” (made himself a yellow paper ribbon and everything, to raise awareness).

We’re also starting a band, which I think will consist of Adam (guitar), Isaac (guitar, singer), Derrick (bass?), Sean (drums), me (keyboard, backup singer, assistant security), and Mike (head of security). I guess I may get to live out my pipe dream of becoming a rock star after all!

Just kidding. I don’t actually want to be a rock star. I’m really not kidding about the band though; we’re hoping to do a benefit concert next year.

winter break recap

Well then. That was definitely not the best way to start off the new semester. Since my neighbor is about 10 lectures ahead of me, I spent yesterday in somewhat of a mad rush trying to catch up to him and ended up sleeping at around 2:30 a.m. As luck would have it, none of my 5 alarms went off this morning (either that or I just seriously did not hear any of it) and we had mandatory class at 8 a.m. I woke up to the sound of somewhat frantic honking outside my bedroom window at 7:48 a.m., freaked the hell out, and rushed to school (I made it on time). Since I usually leave a couple minutes before he does, he figured that the fact that my car was still there meant that I was out cold. (Thanks a billion! ;_; )

This is basically why I’m completely okay with him doing stuff like this to me:

I came home one night a week or two ago to find this on my doorknob (it was actually better coiled so that the snake was actually facing me). Keep in mind that I live kinda in the boonies, so it was pitch black. I was talking to my mom at the time, and our conversation went something like this:
F: (starts laughing)
MF: What’s so funny?
F: There’s a snake on my doorknob.
MF: WHAT?! What are you going to do!? Are you going to call someone?!? (She has ophidiophobia.)
F: Don’t worry, it’s not real.
MF: (still panicking) What’s a fake snake doing on your door?!
F: It’s probably Adam.
MF: Why would he do something like that!?
F: Just to be a dick.
He finally admitted to it yesterday, and confessed that it took a good 5 minutes to position it so perfectly on my door. Tis a shame that I had to actually open the door to turn on the light so I could take a picture. :O

Much to my chagrin, classes have started again, but I suspect that if break had been any longer, I would just fall off the whole study-hard wagon. Here’s a super quick recap!

I watched the Nutcracker ballet (for the first time! :O ) in Oakland with my family because we somehow managed to score free tickets that the mayor was giving out (…? I have no idea why or how this happened, but I will take it). We also went to see Les Miserables, which is one of my two absolute favorite musicals (the other would be Wicked). We went to a family friend’s place for Christmas lunch and played White Elephant. It is probably only at an Asian White Elephant gift exchange that you’ll ever see durian as one of the gifts. My entire family hates durian, so I actually haven’t eaten any since 2006. Back in the day, my grandma and I used to eat it together and we’d be mutually shunned by the rest of our family.

I saw several of my closest friends again and definitely Asian-fooded it up (Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian…). :O When I described the sushi buffet I went to to my anatomy professor today, he was overwhelmed with all sorts of jealousy and said that he would forgive me if I left a bento box at his office door. I am highly considering getting a bento box and filling it with pictures of the sushi I had to leave in front of his office door, but am wondering if that would make him hate me forever. :x

I met up with Becca & Whitney, who are the only two people from the group I hung out with in high school that I still keep in contact with. We have a reunion every break we have and usually do some kind of crafting (e.g. I learned to knit last winter and made a billion scarves). This winter was somewhat truncated because my break was so short, so I made a pompom out of yarn for my beloved cat, Ninja.

She definitely enjoyed batting the crap out of it. :O

Before I left for Napa, I went to visit one of my favorite people in the world, aka my second mom: Bel! :D We talked for a couple hours and I was hella sad that I had to leave, so she said to come by to her SWEAT class at ClubSport on Monday so I could hang out some more. :D This is us showing off my month in the Twirly Girls calendar! (Somehow, I always end up with January, haha.) I’m hella sad that I couldn’t really take any classes this break, but mark my words, I will be living there again this summer, if all goes well. *-*

I also have a reunion every winter break with several of my Davis friends. Usually, we go to Walnut Creek, but we deviated from it this year to head over to Napa to stay with one of her friends. This is us at the Napa River Trail. Since it’s such a small picture, you hopefully can’t tell that we’re all squinting and/or crying because the sun is so bright. Sun, how I miss you [already].

They set up beds for us (I love the monkey-bear pillow, haha) and let us know where the spare key was so we wouldn’t have to worry about waking them up, or having to come home while they were still awake.
Us: Thanks, Mom and Dad! :D
Emily/Aaron: We’re like the cool parents!

Indeed they are! They even made us dinner! :O We had three different kinds of pizza (taco pizza, pizza with goat cheese/caramelized onions/pears, Hawaiian pizza [not pictured]), salad, and apple pie + ice cream. :D (We brought the apple pie back for them since they wouldn’t let us treat them to dinner.) I’m definitely going to try to recreate the pizzas sometime because they were glorious. (I usually don’t even like goat cheese, but it takes on a much more mild flavor when it’s baked. :O ) If I’m successful, the recipes will, of course, be shared here. :O

I actually snuck up to Davis for a couple hours too since I couldn’t be there for the actual music reunion this year (it’s tomorrow and class started today :'( ). I figured seeing a couple of them would be better than nothing! :O Curse my brother for saying that it only took 15 minutes to get from Napa to Davis though. It’s a good 50-60 miles away. In what universe would that take 15 minutes by car? >:O We chilled at Burgers & Brew for a couple hours and then I finally made it home. I miss Davis and being able to get everywhere without having to drive. ;_;

The next morning, I went for a hike with my family and several family friends over in Coyote Hills. :]

Our plans to make steak fell through because the friend who found the awesome butcher was no longer free. Without her, we were rather lost and thus decided to wander around Trader Joe’s and pick up whatever looked good for dinner. When Sam saw the stuff we came back with (cereal, mozzarella, coconut milk, cheese, baby carrots, cucumbers), he was rather mystified as to what we would be making. :x

On my last day, I met up with Bel at 12 and took her boot camp class, which left my legs super sore all through my plane rides the next day. I’ve never actually been in ClubSport because it’s for rich people and we are not rich (nor can I even convince my parents to go work out even when there are 2 free gym memberships waiting there for them :[ ). I legitimately got lost in the locker room (sad, I know). I’ve gotten kinda used to paying next to nothing (<$7/month) for a bare-bones type of gym ever since I lost my ARC membership (oh, how I miss you :[ ), and now, I basically pay nothing because it’s been included into my monstrous tuition.

I also tried to get in one last Bikram yoga class but somehow didn’t remember the time correctly (thought it was 4:30 p.m. instead of 4 p.m.). There was a woman sitting there who’d gotten there 10 minutes late, so I started talking to her and managed to do some completely unintentional networking. She apparently works at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and said that when I was out, I should definitely look them up because they were always looking for people, especially those who wanted to go into primary care. ( :D! ) She also said my personality was bubbly and friendly enough that patients would definitely love me  in primary care. Hells yes. <3 Her name is actually really familiar-sounding, so I’m half-wondering if she was the physician I was going to have, had it not been for the fact that I had to switch over to Kaiser. :x

Yep, that’s all I have. I also managed to catch the plague for a bit because I wasn’t sleeping very much (or at all) due to my want/need of seeing all my friends/family as much as humanly possible before running off to the mountains again, but I’m alive and well again. Ready or not, here comes the second semester of med school! I’m missing a fat chunk of change because I just paid off half the year’s rent as well as half the year’s auto insurance. Hooray hooray?