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.

"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"

Get busy.

I've been doing so much lately that I haven't had a chance to post a quality blog update. So, here's something - it's not optimal, but, it's better than nothing.

My 21st birthday (June 20):

Le Bon Marché/La Grande Epicerie de Paris
(how I spent my birthday morning)

Spent the first part of my day at the amazing Bon Marché and La Grande Epicerie (the French equivalent of Whole Foods, with a huge selection of gourmet French pastries, desserts, and chocolates in addition), and met up with two people from my study abroad group for a low-key lunch at a nearby café. Afterwards, I explored yet another breath-taking French church (Chappelle Notre Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse) and visited the Rodin Museum nearby (for free, of course, because students between the ages of 18-25 get free admission to museums in France). Between escaping the intermittent rain showers and making friends with two American college students to take my photo in front of "Le Penseur" (The Thinker) because my camera died on my way to Musée Rodin, it was a pretty decent day...

A picture of me in front of Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker"
(I'm wearing the birthday dress I bought in Paris!)

... but the evening and night were the crème-de-la-crème of my 21st. After stopping by Palais de Tokyo (again, to see the exhibits for free), I met up with a few others at Centre Pompidou to go to Le Soufflé for dinner. For dessert, I had the most amazing, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate soufflé with hot melted chocolate sauce on top. So much better than a regular old birthday cake with sticky frosting.

Earlier during the day, I read in a Parisian newspaper (the Direct Matin, given out daily and free-of-charge to everyone at and outside of métro stations) that there was a free, live concert to reign in the Fête de la Musique; so, without really knowing the exact location of the park where the performance was, my roommate and I headed out, hoping to stumble upon the concert by pure luck... The concert was supposed to start at 10 pm, and we didn't make it out till after 11, so we were pretty sure we would miss the best performances (e.g., Sean Paul and Kelly Rowland). But, fate must have been on our side, because after walking on mostly empty streets rather aimlessly for over almost half an hour, crossing a dimly lit bridge through a park, and transversing a rocky gravel path, we heard the first beats of "Get Busy" in the near distance. I won't go into the minute details, but minus hilariously heart-attack-inducing run-ins with two different French police officers, the concert and the sketchy walk back were the most fun I've ever had on a birthday.

La Fête de la Musique (June 21):

Short and sweet, I rather serendipitously stumbled upon some really great musical talents and amateur performers throughout the course of the day (like Versión Originale and beat-boxer/rappers outside of Eglise Saint-Eustache), and then hit up the massively popular venue of Denfert-Rochereau to hear more popular French musicians like Alexis HK. It was really great discovering new local artists and just being part of such a huge, collective music event. Then had a late dinner with my roommate at Rouge Pomme, a restaurant near my dorm at Cité Universitaire, where the food was as delectable as the adorable French waiter.

The flyer for the Denfert-Rochereau concert

My cadeau/present to all you faithful readers: the link to the new Girl Talk album, for a pay-what-you-can price! Thought I'd share, since I'm a maven and not a connector (read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and you'll understand)... and since I'm going to hear them perform tomorrow night in Paris, as part of the Solidays concert series (for AIDS awareness) this weekend!

Updates on week 5/the last week in Paris are soon to come... expect copious amounts of description on purchases for the annual Soldes d'été (when stores all over Paris offer amazing sales for shoppers) and summaries of the must-see/must-do things that I finished off of my Parisian wishlist.

Et si s'aimer ce n'était pas regarder dans la même direction...

... mais fermer les yeux et voir la même chose.
- Quote in one of the ads posted in a métro car on the RER B

Belated updates from Week 4:

Monet's Gardens in Giverny

Sorry, I've been a bit M.I.A. lately. Here are a few brief and noteworthy recaps from this past week (a.k.a., the week of my 21st birthday & the amazing Fête de la Musique!)

On Monday, after classes, I saw my first movie (Sunshine Cleaning, with Amy Adams) in a French movie theater. Even though the film was in English, it was definitely a different experience because the French viewers in the audience didn't always react as expected to moments of irony or particularly comedic scenes. Wouldn't really recommend the film to anyone, though...

On Tuesday, I was thanked for the creation and subsequent success of Slumdog Millionaire. While I was getting dinner at the cafeteria on Cité Universitaire's campus, a jovial, middle-aged French man came up to me in the dessert aisle and struck up a hilarious conversation, in French, of course. After announcing his disappointment because "il n'y a pas de mousse chocolat!"/there wasn't any chocolate mousse left, he asked me if I was Indian. I responded a bit hesitantly, because I didn't understand why he was talking to me - and then, in rapid-fire French (i.e., what sounded like gibberish to me) he exclaimed something about "Slumdog". At first, I started blankly at him, with a confused look on my face, and then he asked, more slowly, "Tu n'as pas vu cette film?" (Haven't you seen that movie?). I realized he was talking about Slumdog Millionaire, so I said, "Oh, oui, Slumdog Millionaire." And, then he said that it was a fantastic and moving film, and he thanked me for the movie. Great end to an otherwise uneventful day.

What I do when I'm bored in class (which happens often... click on it for the best view)

On Wednesday, I bought a cute new dress from a boutique near our classroom location. The place, called MiM, is apparently a UK chain that recently expanded to international markets in Belgium, France, and Ireland.

Thursday afternoon was spent muddling around Palais de la Découverte with the rest of my study abroad group and then buying some cool artsy postcards (a new collection that was just released in Paris) from a newstand near a métro stop on the way back to my dorm. I'll try and post pictures soon, if I can get my camera to come alive again...

A bee in a flower in Monet's garden in Giverny

On Friday, our group took a trip to Giverny, where Monet's gardens (the classic water gardens with lily ponds and amazing floral scenery) and home are located. The entire area was incredibly picturesque, so much so that every photo I took looked as though I used Photoshop to enhance the graphics. We had a huge lunch at a really nice restaurant (Les Nympheas/The Lilies), and then I had my first pain aux raisins (instead of my usual pain au chocolat) from the boulangerie near my dorm. The best part, though, was ending up at the Seine after dinner that same night and celebrating my 21st birthday precisely at midnight. We met a few French business students who had studied abroad in the U.S. - all the people we met were genuinely interesting, witty, and charming, and we had a great time with them - and, exactly when the clock struck minuit, they all sang "Happy Birthday" to me in French and English. Everyone decided I should try something new and fun on my birthday, so one of the guys in the French group playfully pulled me over to the part of the river bank where musicians were performing and Parisians were dancing. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), he was gay and a really good dancer. Those two facts may or may not be inter-connected...

Dancing by the Seine on my 21st

... recaps of the rest of the weekend (complete with entertaining stories about birthday escapades and Fête de la Musique events) are to come...

In the meantime, here's a fantastic and classy music video to keep you entertained! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1_CLW-NNwc

Post-script: It's been brought to my attention that the link probably won't work if you're not in France... so just YouTube "Ok Go A Million Ways" and watch the first music video that comes up in the search results!

The Joy of Less.*

Street painter outside of Centre Pompidou... The French love President Oh-bah-ma.

My weekends officially start on Thursday nights, since we don't have classes on Fridays. Last Friday, our study abroad group had a planned excursion to Versailles, preceded by an incredibly filling and delicious lunch (on Emory's dime) at the Bouillon Racine - salad, canard (duck), creamy mashed potatoes, amazing French bread, and a gigantic crème brûlée. I asked the waiter for chocolat chaud (hot chocolate), and he almost had a heart attack, because it's an extreme faux-pas to request hot chocolate during lunch time, especially at a fancy restaurant like the Racine. Then, he interrogated me to make absolutely sure that I knew what I was getting myself into - "Chocolat chaud? You are sure?!?! You want chocolat chaud now? At this time of day?!?!" When he finally brought me the deliciously sweet concoction, he emphasized how it was especially made for me and that I would have to enjoy every last sip of it. I drank it down to the very last drop. Janet Folger would have been proud.

I first learned about Versailles (and all the French royalty, the French Revolution, etc.) in my 8th grade French class, and was really looking forward to the trip to the estate... but it didn't quite live up to my expectations. Perhaps it was because the tour guide (a nice old lady) took forever to explain every little thing down to each minute detail, or maybe because I came in with so much prior knowledge about French history that the castle itself didn't tell me any more than I already knew from class and the books I had read.

View from the escalator of the museum (President Obama and his wife went through this exact corridor the next day!)

On Saturday, I spent the day at Centre Pompidou, explored the area and the Paris Museum of Modern Art, and finally learned how to use a camera. My favorite pictures from the day are interspersed, somewhat arbitrarily, amongst the paragraphs of this entry. Centre Pompidou wasn't on the official itinerary for the trip, as my friend Sam and I decided to check it out on our own, but it was most definitely a great (and free) way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.

The side view of Centre Pompidou (The exposed colored pipes are not only decorative, but also functional, apparently.)

It turns out that tourist attractions aren't always exactly what they're cut out to be in guidebooks, especially when you're visiting a foreign place for something more than superficiality and sight-seeing, but moreso to actually experience the culture first-hand. More often than not, the best part of being abroad is truly spending time like a local - sitting on the crowded metro as your personal space is invaded by countless strangers, walking around the streets of Paris with a huge baguette sticking out of your purse, and spending entire weekend afternoons at small cafés, with a book in one hand and a steaming cup of chocolat chaud in the other, watching as city-goers pass by on the sidewalk. I don't have a cell phone, a car, or a TV here, but sometimes, less is so much more.

*Title deliberately taken from Pico Iyer's latest post in the NY Times' Happy Days blog - a definite must-read.

Art, religion, and disbelief.

Day 5, finally, as promised. A little lengthy, again, but definitely worth the read.


Day 5: "A blessing in disguise."*

First Friday in Paris - no classes. Instead, a trip to the Louvre (picked up pain chocolat on the way at a croissanterie), which was intriguing and overwhelming and tiring. Had lunch at a sandwich shop on the street near the Louvre (Rue de Rivoli, also the location of the famous Chez Angelina/Angelina's Place, a restaurant that serves the best hot chocolate in Paris, according to countless guidebooks and the Parisian man who gave us recommendations when we were in a café near the Seine, sipping our hot chocolate a few days before). The picture above was taken at one of the exhibits in the Louvre.

Lunch was interesting. Not the food, but the ordering. While ordering and waiting for my sandwich to be grilled, the Indian guy at the counter kept hitting on me (with his French words, his English questions, his creepy eyes...) At first, I made a cardinal "American" mistake and answered his question - in Paris, actually turning, making eye contact, and responding to the question of a man who is interested in you is code for, "Oh, I'm in love with you, too," - even if the question is something as simple as, "Where are you from?" Then, he asked me more questions in English and gave me more compliments in French (while my friends were all standing there, waiting, half-laughing inside because of the awkward predicament I was in, and half-concerned that I wouldn't be able to get myself out of this awkwardness) - "So, what part of India are you from? You speak French well. You're very pretty. What's your name?"

To all of that, I gave a resounding, "It's okay, I would just like my sandwich please."

SCORE. On my first Friday in France, I mastered the Parisian art of ignoring a man who hits on you in a public place.

Part 2 - the second half of the day.

After the Louvre, we were supposed to celebrate the birthday of a girl in our study abroad group, but three of us got separated from the group. We ended up at Montmatre, though, just as planned, and ate a dinner of four-cheese pasta at a quaint little restaurant at the top of a steep hill, after climbing a number of steps (it wasn't until later that we realized the hill was leading up to Sacre-Coeur, of all places). We kept climbing up the stairs after dinner and stumbled upon the church - they were having services when we entered, and it was absolutely breath-taking. There's no way to describe how intensely different it was from everything outside of it, how unbelievable it was to enter such a beautiful, peaceful, and pristine place after having trampsed around from one metro station to another and rushing through traffic-filled city streets.

The three of us outside of Sacre-Coeur

But the night was just beginning... on the hill outside of Sacre-Coeur, overlooking the entire arrondisement of Paris, were at least a hundred Parisians and tourists, picnicking, drinking wine and beer and everything in between, eating ice cream, listening to the live musicians perform - a complete contrast to what was going on inside the church. We walked around the area for awhile, bought a bottle of red wine (I tried the very last sip, since, according to the two friends I was with - "the last sip is the best"), and then explored the Red Light District of Montmatre, discovered hilariously entertaining musicians performing American songs (and tourists drunkenly singing every word of those songs) at Le Chat Noir and stopped by the Moulin Rouge - all part of our original plan with the group that we had split up from. Then, we picked up some mango ice cream and went back home, hanging out, talking, and listening to music till 5 am. We never did find the rest of our group, but getting separated from them was definitely a blessing in disguise, because we stumbled upon better things and ended up having a great time, all things considered.

*Quote from a friend after three of us were split from the group and went exploring on our own instead.

Tonight's the night the world begins again.*

A graduation update, complete with nostalgic descriptions of college memories and photographs of friends and family, is coming soon...

But, in the meantime, here's a preview of how I'll be spending the first half of my summer - in PARIS. Although it's probably obvious, dates are in bold and semi-elaborate explanations and/or descriptions of events and places are italicized.

A sample of what's already on the itinerary:

May 26 (The day after we arrive in Paris)
Afternoon boat ride down the Seine

May 28
Cimetière du Père-Lachaise/Père Lachaise Cemetery
Chopin, Jim Morrison, Jean-Dominique Bauby (see my blog post from Feb. 26th: "Three months of winter and wealth"), and Oscar Wilde (recall the short film on the XXe arrondisement in Paris, Je t'aime) are just four famous individuals who are buried there.

June 2
Cité des Sciences et d'Industrie/The Science Museum of Paris
Exhibitions and interactives that highlight absolutely amazing scientific discoveries; my favorite as of now is the "current" science exhibit that has all things scientifically relevant to our lives today, "Science Actualités".

June 5
VERSAILLES

June 9
Musée Fragonard/Fragonard Museum
A museum within the National Veterinarian School in the Maisons-Alfort suburb of Paris

June 16
Musée d’histoire de la médecine/The museum for the history of medicine

June 18
Palais de la découverte
An extraordinary science museum in the 8th arrondisement, with exhibits on physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and everything and anything in between.

Other must-see sights/excursions for the weekends:

TBA
Le musée Rodin (Museum that houses the works of Rodin)
Two words: The Thinker.

TBA
Le château de Fontainebleau/The Fontainebleau Castle.
EIGHT centuries of royal history.

June 21st (a.k.a., the day after my birthday/the summer solstice!):
World Music Day/Fête de la Musique
It's almost as if the city of Paris knew all about my trip and decided to reward me for living 21 amazing years by further propagating my love of music, as well as my rarely realized desire to attend (free) live concerts.

Oh, and sometime in between all the sight-seeing and cultural excursions, I'll be taking (and occasionally studying for) two upper-level neuroscience classes - one on primary research literature in French neuroscience (with special topics like the impact of nationalized healthcare on basic science research) and a second class on the molecular mechanisms of neurological disorders (e.g., Alzheimer's and ALS).

Hands down, the most memorable way to celebrate the end of my undergraduate career and my subsequent (legal) entrance into adulthood. Freshly-baked croissants, heavenly pastries, and made-to-order crêpes with fruit filling await...

*Title quote from "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls.