"Let's fight with ballots, not bullets..."

T.R. Reid's latest article on health care reform, in the Washington Post:

Universal health care tends to cut the abortion rate

Finishing from scratch.

Somewhere between not posting, attempting to keep up with grad school and work, and completely forgetting about the existence of this blog, I've gained 21 followers - how awesome.

Two months, two never-before taken whirlwind trips - to Calcutta and NYC - and way too many updates to summarize in one post. In an effort to blog smarter and not harder, here's a very brief recap of choice memories from 2010 thus far:

1) Favorite street side snapshots from abroad:

Missionaries in a foreign field

Trying to change the city's infrastructure is like Chasing Pirates.

2) Favorite places/eats in NYC:
- Westville, between Bleecker and West 4th. Try the veggie burger with bacon on a Portuguese muffin... the best contradiction you'll ever consume.

Red Velvet Cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery

- Mamoun's falafel in Greenwich Village
- And, of course, no NYC trip would be complete without a visit to... the NY Public Library!

3) Noteworthy developments & accomplishments:

Finished with PhD apps... in pre-interview, post-interview, & post-acceptance stages for various schools now.

- Checked a couple things off the iconic "should've done this in college (or just earlier in life)" list: ice skating for the first time, brunch at Rise & Dine with an amazing group of Emory students (see above photo), and dinner at Mary Mac's in Atlanta (the closest I'll get to real Southern food until I visit home again in a few months)

- Last, but not least...

The adorable bridesmaid dress for Nick & Emily's wedding!

So what will your legacy be?*

On the day before the presidential inauguration, I saved a quote from an article by Tony Rhodin, an editor for a local Pennsylvania newspaper (The Express-Times Daily). What he wrote was surprisingly simple, but true:

Obama's early legacy will be based on his actions, not his rhetoric. He has a huge majority in Congress and has huge public support. He is positioned to do great good. The real question is if he can.**

I think it was Gandhi who said that action expresses priorities. If the Senate is ultimately successful in passing the health care reform bill this week, then we'll not only have concrete proof of our government's political priorities, but also a poignant preview of the presidential legacy that Obama is poised to leave behind.***

*Lyrics from Wakey Wakey's "War Sweater".
**Rhodin, Tony. "Barack Obama's legacy will be one of action -- or lack thereof." LeHigh Valley Express-Times. 19 Jan 2009.
***Read more about the current developments & some of the basic reforms included in the health care bill here, on the NY Times: "Health Bill Passes Key Test in the Senate with 60 Votes".

"...I just want to say that I believe there are options out there! A take a number option, like they have in a deli."*

From The Wall Street Journal | Health

The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery
In India, a Factory Model for Hospitals Is Cutting Costs and Yielding Profits

One of the best quotes?

"What health care needs is process innovation, not product innovation."
- Dr. Devi Shetty

Also, Holy Taco (in East Atlanta) is my new favorite restaurant option for Mexican food. Much better than standing in a deli line for a chicken quesadilla...

*Quote from the latest episode of The Office. Don't know how many options there will be for health insurance if the vote for the recent bill doesn't go through, though...

H.R. 3962, in the House.

Recent weekend developments worth mentioning

In Atlanta:

Crystal Method

Via @ Buckhead

And in health care reform:
- Obama Calls Health Care Bill's Passage 'Courageous' (NY Times)
- Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing? (Huffington Post)
- House health care bill has nowhere to go in Senate (Yahoo News)

Let the health care debates begin... again. Try to formulate your own opinions after actually reading the bill.

The Common "Wealth" of Massachusetts: Health Reform

Massachusetts was the first state to provide "affordable, quality, accountable health care" to all its citizens (1). Provided that a similar bill (one that hopefully does a better job at cost-control) eventually passes at the national-level, there's an infinitesimal chance that a majority of Americans will actually be satisfied with their health care options.

The American economist Tsung-Mei Cheng formulated three "Universal Laws of Health Care Systems" (2):
1) No matter how good the health care in a particular country, people will complain about it.
2) No matter how much money is spent on health care, the doctors and hospitals will argue that it is not enough.
3) The last reform always failed.

Laws 1 and 2 are unfortunate pillars of reality: the patient complaints may never cease and the funds allocated towards health care may never meet the standards of medical practitioners and management. But, for the common wealth and health of the nation, here's to doing more and doing better - after reform passes - so that Law 3 no longer holds true (3).

"Get your scrubs ready... It's about to go down!"

Facts in news articles & books speak louder than facts on blogs:
1. NPR: Massachusetts Makes Health Insurance Mandatory
2. T.R. Reid: The Healing of America
3. Paul Krugman: "After Reform Passes." NY Times.

An island made of mud (and med students).

Better late than never: An Update from Fall Break

Memphis (a.k.a., my escape from the monotony that ATL has morphed into as of late) - was exactly what I needed: a chance to get away, relax, and recuperate with good food and an even better friend. Not to mention, I was unusually productive during the four days that I spent there.

UT Memphis Medical School

Aside from spending quality time on Mud Island with my friend on the week of her birthday, a few other highlights from my fall beak trip include visiting the UT Health Sciences Center and Medical School (and sitting in on a 2-hour anatomy GI lecture!), meeting some genuinely engaging UT med students, having an amazing meal at Papa Pia's downtown, and dining out at Pei Wei for my first time.

The "Cinderella" carriage

True, I didn't partake in the usual "tourist" activities, aside from my drive-by tour of St. Jude Children's Hospital, my brief encounters with the Memphis trolley line, and a couple glimpses of the Cinderella-like horse-drawn carriages downtown. But I'd trade the comfortable company of an old college friend for all that Memphis jazz any day.

(Techincally, Memphis is the birthplace of rock 'n roll and the "home of the Blues", but I was just using a euphemism to prove a slightly belabored point.)

Oh, and something cool to amaze your friends with your current political and pop knowledge: If you haven't heard, Kalpen Modi (a.k.a. the "Kal Penn" of Harold & Kumar, The Namesake, and the TV Show "House") recently started working at the White House as an associate director in the Office of Public Engagement, formerly known as the Office of Liaison.
And Penn Masala even performed at President Obama's Diwali celebration this week! If you've never heard them sing live or listened to a recording of them, prepare to be blown away by their unique synthesis of Eastern and Western musical elements.

Lemons can make more than lemonade.

A quick update since it's been so long:

I've been unusually busy with grad school and the work-study position I recently started, but somehow, I've found a way to strike a balance between academics, work, and a semi-existent social life (at least when my schedule permits). Currently, I'm also reading T.R. Reid's newest book, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, which is a perfect complement to the Frontline documentary that PBS featured a little over a year ago. You can watch the full program, Sick Around the World, on their website.

Points of note during the past week or so include going to hear my grad school department chair, Kenneth Thorpe, present a brief in which he discussed the most latest amendments to the health care reform bill (click here for a pdf of the briefing); and partaking in a few Emory Homecoming activities during the past week (e.g., the entertaining styling of comedian, and now actor, Aziz Ansari).

Given some recent discussions I've had with colleagues and my desire to further develop my ongoing interests in public health, health care, and research, I've begun to seriously consider the merits of a future in science writing. I think handling unforeseen changes in professional aspirations and overcoming never-before encountered adversity is part of growing up, whether you actually have a handle on any of it or not. It's part of recognizing that adulthood, despite its much sought-after privileges and supposedly lessened limitations, also comes with the rude awakenings of reality: that pursuing what you love calls not only for a resilient resolve but commitment, responsibility, and practicality.

As the saying goes, "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade." But if lemons are opportunities in disguise, who's to say you can't set your sights on the best of the best? I'd rather shoot for something that might bring more fulfillment in the long run, and my experiences this year are starting to show me that you can do a lot more with the lemons you're dealt if you're willing to think outside the box (or the cutting board, in the case of this analogy).
Correction appended (10/3/2009): When I first made this post a few days ago, I incorrectly stated that I was interested in science journalism and not science writing. While the two professions are similar, there is a distinction: all journalists are writers, but all writers are not journalists. To quote Michael Kenward, a previous editor of New Scientist, "Science writing is about explaining complex ideas that nobody wants to keep secret; science journalism is about explaining things that everyone can understand but that some might prefer to keep buried."

*Information on science writing from "So You Want To Be A Science Writer?" by Natasha Loder, Science and Technology Correspondent for The Economist (Spring 2002). You can download the full text (pdf) on the Association of British Science Writers' website.

- Technorati claim:
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What's mine is yours, and what's past is present.

Yosemite National Park (the first title image for A Lifetime in a Fist*)

I won't have time to update for the next week or two. But, since a couple new friends have started reading my blog recently (a fact that I absolutely adore!), I thought that I'd share links to my six all-time favorite entries - primarily for their benefit, but also out of personal nostalgia.

So, enjoy reading and click away (I tend to overload my entries with hyperlinks to interesting sites/sources). Hopefully you'll be well-entertained, or, at the very least, well-informed!

Atlanta Skyline (the previous title image for my once colorless blog)

Descriptions & Links to (Re)commendable Favorites [in chronological order]:

1. Humble beginnings (food, photos, and musical talent)

2. Pure debauchery in the form of personal commentary

3. 5 things that make me happy (more music, food, and artistry)

4. One entry, among many, from my travels in Paris

5. Money, savings, and more (tips, a movie rec, and a book rec)

6. Latest but not last or least (music rec, food fav, and health care)


*Original Yosemite National Park photo taken by my dad; click the photo to view it in its optimal quality.

Getting used to [my] Entourage.

In my meticulous quest to be fully prepared at all times, I often find myself drowning in a deluge of organizational applications and items - handwritten assignments and meetings in my planner, reminders and notes on the "stickies" on my laptop screen, and color-coded to-do lists and events on my beloved iCal.

A screenshot of my iCal for the month of September

While the advent of increased technology offers a number of brilliant benefits for those who in need of tools to balance their student or professional life (or, in my case, both), having too many different resources to check can become a bit unnerving and even counterproductive. You're bound to miss something important in the process of trying to simultaneously keep up with so much - it's inevitable. If only there were a way to streamline everything and have just one source for all your appointments and obligations - without walking around with a CrackBerry glued to your fingertips at all times.

For e-mail, a simplifier of sorts already exists: a few months ago, having three e-mail accounts became so much that I started using POP mail filters to have all my e-mail forwarded to one account. (If you're a Gmail user - or if you have almost any account - you can use this feature to simplify the number of e-mail accounts you have to keep up with on a regular basis.)

Unfortunately, a fourth, Microsoft Exchange-based graduate e-mail account - one that requires my daily attention, has extremely limited features on a Mac OS, and doesn't support the use of POP filters - was recently added to the technological mix. My new solution? Microsoft Entourage for Macs. It provides me the option to import e-mail accounts and organize practically every facet of my life.

It might take some time to get used to my Entourage, and I'd still like to find a way to import all the events and to-do lists tasks from my iCal so everything would be in one perfectly color-coded place; but the mere existence of a Microsoft-based program that has so many great organizational and e-mail features and runs so smoothly on Mac is enough to completely make my day (literally). I'm not a spokesperson for the company and I haven't even begun to learn all the odds and ends of the program, but it definitely has the potential to transform my general downpour of daily details and tasks into a more manageable trickle.

A pleasant update since the last post: With the help of my mom, I discovered the existence of soy nut butter, in its original, honey, and chocolate glory, and, more importantly, its lack of allergic-reaction inducing qualities (no peanuts, nuts, dairy, or gluten).

It's simple, really.

With grad school classes currently in full-swing and work starting soon, I haven't had many free moments to really "live" in my apartment - to cook a "real" meal (one that doesn't just entail microwaving or heating a package) or to properly entertain friends (unless it involves just sitting around on a random assortment of furniture & talking until the boredom becomes too much).

But now, I finally have cookware and grown-up, dishwasher-safe dishes (as opposed to the flimsy, brightly-colored dorm dishes I used to eat on) and more reasons to shed the college-student habits of my former life. And that's where my fascination with RealSimple.com comes in. (Admittedly, I bummed these cooking supplies and dishes from my older brother's house - with his permission, of course - but that's besides the point.)

My favorite source for handfuls of deliciousness & life finesse.

Some of my top picks from the site:

• 24 Great Snacks
• 28 Uses for Everyday Items
• What's the Worst that Could Happen?
  

And the best part is, you don't need to have boatloads of free time or the culinary skill of Martha Stewart to successfully implement most of the showcased ideas.

On a somewhat-related but completely personal note, I recently discovered that I am (and probably have been, for some time) allergic to peanuts, which is disappointing on a number of levels. I've known the fact that allergies can develop later in adulthood for years, especially since I developed a tree nut allergy in college. But, in part due to my false sense of invincibility and mostly due to my unfaltering love for eating anything and everything with peanut butter, I always hoped, that when it came to peanuts, I would be an outlier (<-- read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell if you ever get a chance - it's filled with inspirational take-home points about success and society, but it's written in a refreshingly non-traditional way).

It's so much harder to let go of things when you know exactly what you're missing out on. The same goes from people. Tonight, I'll make sure to take 5 for everyone and everything that I miss about them.*

*The links in the last sentence will probably only make sense to a select few readers.

Econ 101, with a musical twist.

We might be in an economic recession of monumental precendent (check out Paul Krugman's NY Times article - it's been on the "Most Popular" list for the past 5 days), but some high school kids are still willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a concert ticket to hear their favorite electronica/pop band.

It's all about supply and demand.

Case in point: Tickets for the Owl City concert in Atlanta were sold out about a week ago. In other words, supply was limited. And, as common sense (and Graph 1 below) might tell you, when the quantity of a product goes down, the price goes up because people are willing to pay more to get what they want. In fact, it wasn't long before tickets started selling on $30 or $40 on Craigslist - even though the original cost of the ticket was only $12. In financial terms, that's called a price mark-up (though, in this case, it didn't really cost the seller anything to "produce" the ticket, so a profit was made without expending any services).

Graph 1: Relationship Between Supply & Price

By 8 pm on the night of the concert, demand had shifted to an all-time high (see Graph 2 below). Desperate, antsy teenagers were huddled in small groups outside the entrance to the venue, willing to pay upwards of $50 for a ticket. One kid actually offered my friend $70 (that's about 580% more than the original price of the ticket!), though my friend was nice enough to sell it to him for $40 - still a solid profit of $28. I'll omit the pseudo-verboten details, but a few of us (myself included) ended up selling our own tickets at a similarly substantial profit and we managed to make it into the concert.

Graph 2: An Upward Shift in Demand

Owl City's overall performance - and, in particular, Adam Young's unfiltered/unedited vocal performance - wasn't nearly as amazing as the ritzy recordings. By purely musical standards and substance, then, my first live U.S. concert wasn't quite what I'd hoped it would be. But the night itself was made memorable by virtue of my friends - the financially-loaded, ticket-seeking "friends" I temporarily made on the corner, as well as the more permanent, financially-savvy friends that I went to the concert with in the first place.

I'm beginning to see how my (currently limited) knowledge of financial accounting and health economics might actually be beneficial when combined with some street smarts; and with friends like these, well, who needs enemies?*

*"The Bird and The Worm", Owl City.

"The time for games has passed."*

May God bless sushi, and God bless the United States of America.

"The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now's the time to deliver on health care."

President Obama made a markedly dramatic speech on health care reform tonight, one that drew cheers of both praise and disapproval. He promised that any plan wouldn't add a dime to our budget deficit and that spending cuts would be made in other areas to counteract the costs of the health care bill*. He promised to reduce "the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid... [to] pay for most of this plan."* But, most of all, he promised to follow through.

Now the question remains, is Congress willing to do the same? Because all the speeches to constituents and all the promises in the world mean absolutely nothing if no one takes concrete steps towards action and change. For the health of each individual American and the health of America as a whole, let's hope for the best.

*Quotes taken from President Obama's Congressional Address on Health Care Reform, Sept. 9, 2009. Watch it here on MSNBC or read the transcript on CBS news.

A club worth joining.

I don't know who came up with this idea, but the fact that a site like this can be informative and entertaining is pure genius. Check it out here*.

My favorite is fancy parking method no. 4. I'm willing to bet that most drivers secretly (and, sometimes, openly) relish the opportunity to use this parking method, if and when the stars (/cars) properly align themselves.
Definitely much more fun than obsessing over "generally accepted accounting principles" in financial and managerial accounting class or understanding PPCs (product possibility curves) in health care economics any day. Though, don't try any of the fancy parking methods at too high of a speed, especially if you don't have health insurance.

Some additional entertaining (/entertainment) news - I'm going to hear Owl City perform live in concert tomorrow night!


Granted, Owl City consists of just one guy (Adam Young) on vocals and, well, everything else (though he occasionally features a female singer, Breanne Duren, on a few of his tracks); and most of the songs have super-artsy lyrics that deal with seemingly nonsensical topics that are generally unheard of in most mainstream music (like dental care) and/or rather conventional topics that are described in unconventional ways ("Cheer up and dry your damp eyes and tell me when it rains/ And I'll blend up that rainbow above you and shoot it through your veins").

But, surprisingly, that's part of what makes his songs so fresh and oddly compelling to listen to.

The real inventiveness in Owl City's music, though, is in its instrumental arrangements - the way that they have the ace ability to envelope you in an amazingly idyllic atmosphere wherever you are and transport you away from the commonplace. And, especially when you've been cooped up in your car during a painfully long commute or you've self-sequestered yourself in the stuffy stacks to study for hours upon hours, isn't that exactly what you want in the music you listen to? Feel free to let your own ears make the choice.

*Props go to the guy who commented on the most recent post in Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You How To Be Rich blog.

A flu, by any other name, would make us retreat.

H1N1, a.k.a. the "swine" flu, is really nothing to freak out about. Just wash your hands, quit picking your nose so much, and keep your distance from others, especially if they're sick. And if you do have a fever or start feeling ill, skip the crazy Labor Day raves this weekend and stay at home instead, because the surest way to recovery is resting more and drinking lots of fluids. Seriously, what's new?



(And if, for some reason, you don't agree with my advice, hopefully you'll at least believe the CDC's credible health information.)

Whether you're staying in because a) you're already sick, b) you don't want to get sick, or c) you're somewhat of a social recluse and you actually read my blog, here are a few of my most-recent favorite things and a couple reading recs that might keep you occupied for the time being:

Boyce Avenue
I've been listening to their covers (and original songs) for almost two years, but I'm sure there are still tons of people who have never heard of them before. They're pretty mainstream as far as music goes, but that doesn't mean they're any less talented or entertaining than most popular artists on the charts right now.

• My favorite cover/acoustic medley of theirs (doesn't have the most views on YouTube, but I like it best, nonetheless)
  
• An original of theirs, Change Your Mind.
  

Chipotle Hummus with Sundried Tomatoes
Unless you're allergic to chickpeas (sorry, friend), there's something terribly wrong with your taste buds if you don't appreciate the amazing flavors in this recipe.

2 lengthy but insightful and well-written articles on patient care in the American health care system:


One lazy autumn afternoon, when you're semi-stealthily siphoning free Wi-Fi from a local coffee establishment and you happen to have some free time on your hands, start reading one of these articles. You'll not only be able to maintain a semblance of intellect & academic superiority, but you might also learn something that's new, interesting, and useful - a critical reader's trifecta.

• "How American Health Care Killed My Father" (David Goldhill, The Atlantic, Sept. 2009)

• "The Checklist" (Atul Gawande, The New Yorker, December 2007 - not as recent, but still worth the read)

... or, if you really don't have the time, and you still want to feign being knowledgeable about current health care issues in casual conversation, just read David Brooks' recent article in the NY Times, "Let's Get Fundamental".

In other, more personal news, I officially received my college degree about a week ago. I walked across campus in the sticky summer heat and picked up my diploma from the cramped registrar's office. Sadly, it was anti-climactic - no enthusiastic applause, cheering crowds, or pomp and circumstance of any sort, for that matter. At least my name was spelled correctly, though, and the lady behind the desk gave me a 3-second smile and a lukewarm "Congratulations on graduating." Not like it cost me $120,000 and 4 years of my life or anything...

Post-script/Update: If reading pages upon pages isn't your cup of tea, here's a documentary that Bill Moyers recently featured, based on Maggie Mahar's book, Money Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much. Granted, one of my grad school professors showed a clip from it in class so it's not nearly as edge-y or controversial as Michael Moore's Sick-O, but it still does the trick and manages to hold a viewer's attention.

"It twists people like pretzels."*

Though my classes don't start till Monday, I was reading an assigned article on healthcare reform earlier last week and it got me thinking about two things. 1) How, fortunately - for my parents and professors - and unfortunately - for me - I still do most of my homework ahead of time; and 2) how, contrary to popular belief, there's no single silver bullet to solve all the healthcare woes in America.

Like most everyone else, I've known for a long time that the American healthcare system is confusing, inefficient, and expensive for both physicians and patients alike; actually, that's one of the main reasons I decided to go to public health school before applying to med school. But, what I didn't understand until now is how most of the current healthcare "plans" that various groups have been proposing also have the potential to be just as confusing, inefficient, and expensive if a) there's too much opposition/resistance from the public, and b) if there's too much opposition/resistance from the private (health insurance) sector.

It's been said before, and it's worth saying again: if it's broken and it needs fixing, stop arguing about what needs to be done and start working together to repair it. Yes, it's important to analyze the deficiencies and pitfalls of the American medical system, but it means nothing if no one is willing to compromise on solutions for those problems. It's one thing to say "we can change" but it's another to actually change.

Sometimes I get bored and make semi-creative t-shirt designs for health care competitions sponsored by Rock The Vote. And then, I post one of those said designs on my blog so people will vote for it if/when it gets chosen as a Top 5 t-shirt design on Sept. 1.

*Quote from Nicholas Kristof's latest NY Times Op-Ed on healthcare, "Until Medical Bills Do Us Part"

Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy a lot of other cool stuff.

(See update at the end.)

Between bi-monthly recaps of the Daily Show, daily readings of the most popular articles in the NY Times, and keeping up with random blog updates on a week-to-week basis, I've actually managed to be relatively productive these past few days, and not just at my desk (although, it is nice and I did assemble it all by myself).

My $24.99 desk from Wal-Mart

It's not just my time that I've learned to budget more carefully, though - I've begun to find better ways to budget my money, too. And I feel the least I can do is pass the insight onto everyone else.

It all started a few weeks ago, when I started reading up on all the Money-Saving Tips that U.S. World & News Report compiled months, if not years, ago. Now that I have more expenses, less disposable income, and more reasons to save, I figured it wouldn't hurt to do some financial research.

Then came a brilliant encounter with P&G eSaver, an amazingly sustainable way to download coupons onto your grocery store card. I've always pictured coupon-clippers as frugal, stay-at-home supermoms or retired elderly couples who spend their days gardening and playing bridge, but now I've found a way to maintain my street cred and save a few bucks every time I go shopping, simply by the click of my mouse.

P&G eSaver (a.k.a., my new favorite financial find)

Tonight, though, was the icing on the money cake. I ended up reading an old article in the NY Times - partly by happenstance and partly by my conscious decision to read articles in the "Your Money" column - "Financial Advice for Recent Graduates". What caught my attention was not so much the words of wisdom that the advice-givers spewed in response to the specific questions about financial planning, but the fact that one of the advisors, 26-year-old Ramit Sethi, had a blog called I Will Teach You To Be Rich. I mean, what kind of person would not want to read a blog with that kind of name?

Apparently, his blog gets about 250,000 unique readers a month, so there's a pretty good possibility that I'm one of the last twenty-somethings in America to find out about it - but that doesn't mean I'm any less excited to stock up on all the financial tips that the site has to offer (even if I am about a year or so late). It's definitely earned a permanent spot on my Blogger Reading List.

Best quote of the NY Times article? Ramit Sethi's one-liner: Rich people plan for things before they need them, while others are caught treading water when something bad happens. Not sure if that's exactly true, given that I know a lot of rich people who don't know the first thing about financial planning (or life-planning, in general) - but it got me thinking that maybe, those who plan properly simply have a much better chance at becoming rich. Perhaps, careful planning begets financial success, and that, in turn, is the positive reinforcement that propels an individual to continue their conscientious behaviors.

Time to turn my thermostat up three degrees and save $10 this month! (Check out the "Power fiction & facts" list by clicking on the thermostat link - who knew a gas and electric company could be simultaneously informative and witty?)

Update: To be completely honest, the two aforementioned tips in this post (using P&G eSaver once every month or so and turning my thermostat/AC up a few degrees) are actually the only two changes I'm making to be more prudent with my money. Not that this is anything novel, but I'd like to think that small changes make big differences (kind of like with this UK public health program I read about after seeing the Michael Moore documentary, SiCKO). Not to mention, Malcolm Gladwell completely agrees with me, so that has to mean something. (The Tipping Point is what enlightened me during countless rides on the métro and solo meals in cafés when I was in Paris this summer - I highly recommend reading it, if you haven't already).

I fall asleep in hospital parking lots.*

*Lyrics from "Hello Seattle" by Owl City (my new favorite music addiction).

For the next two weeks or so, I'll be floating on the virtual corner of health care reform and health care debates, and physically residing near the corner of the public health school and the health sciences library.

Also, I'll most likely be using the word "health" at least once in every written sentence.

A snapshot of my daily "commute" (i.e., my walk across the street).

Lastly, just for clarification's sake, I don't actually fall asleep in hospital parking lots - but a lot of med students and residents do fall asleep on the exceedingly comfortable leather couches in the health sciences library.

Looking forward to health-related raucousness, pedestrian travel, and, if I'm lucky, well-deserved naps on the library couches in the near future. Read me on the flip side.

Expect the unexpected.

Andrew Card, the former Bush White House chief of staff, said, "August is a challenging time to be president. I think you have to expect the unexpected."*

Hypothetically, if I were to intentionally spin that quote to better fit my own situation, say, in a blog entry, I'd note that August is also a pretty challenging time to be a recent college graduate, move into your own apartment with minimal help from others, and start an accelerated graduate program. Not only do you have to expect the unexpected, but you also have to learn to handle it reasonably well.

A rose from our garden at home (Mobile, AL)

Photograph taken by Dr. Sailen Barik

Today was definitely a case in point.

After spending about five days at home in Alabama, I departed for my five-hour drive back to Atlanta. One unexpected power outage, two four-way intersections without functional traffic lights, and over a dozen torrential downpours later, I arrived in Atlanta.

Unfortunately, more unexpectedness was still to come.

Granted, you can't really hope for the royal treatment when you're paying nearly nothing for an old, starter apartment within 5 minutes of an unbelievably expensive university - but after moving in loads of items in the summer heat and unpacking for an hour or two, there's a basal standard of living that you do expect: running water, functional air conditioning, and, perhaps, a general level of cleanliness (i.e., no mold, unfriendly rodents, or pesky pests with wings or antennae).

There's certainly running water and no mold, but so far, I've killed two small spiders, one creepy roach, and two unidentifiable six-legged (or maybe eight-legged?) arthropod-like creatures... and there are probably more that either got away or couldn't be caught in the sweltering 88 degree heat of my apartment interior - because the air conditioning, according to my "interesting" roommate (for lack of a better adjective), apparently "works sometimes if you don't keep it on for too long, but the temperature usually doesn't change".

For the time being, I've borrowed a sizeable floor fan from my roommate, but it's safe to say I'll be stopping by the leasing office first thing tomorrow morning. Paris might not have had central air, but at least the outdoor temperature was cool enough at nights to open the windows and breathe in chilly, fresh gusts of oxygen...

Andrew Card might have gotten it wrong in his TV interview last week - I'm pretty sure that every month is a challenging time to be president. And I'm pretty sure that September will also be a trying time to be a new graduate student in a starter apartment.

At least I know to "expect the unexpected" now.

*Quote from Frank Rich's August 8th Op-Ed article in the NY Times, "Is Obama Punking Us?"

Knew you, new me.

Today is the first day of a new month, and the last day of an old era - I'll soon be moving out of my last-ever dorm room and settling into my first-ever apartment. My past four years in college have been, in many ways, much more than I could have ever expected, despite the occasional youthful indiscretions and the sometimes unpredictable ups-and-downs. All things considered (not to be confused with the amazing news coverage by NPR every weekday), I made it through without any major injuries, barring one badly-broken toe and a few memorable bruises during a recent game of frisbee in Lullwater Park. To keep the post concise, I'll leave out all the rest of the sappy and/or overly emotional events.

A snapshot of my brand new digs

It's about time I shed the safety nets that undergrad has so graciously provided (for a mere $46,000/year, give or take a few thousand dollars...) and learn to become my own guide to gaining grad school success. Goodbye to dorms (err, "residence halls"), outrageously expensive on-campus parking, and my undergraduate past; and hello to a freshly-furnished apartment, free resident parking, and my grand graduate future. Been there, done that, know the old version of who I used to be - and now it's time for the new me.