Obviously.

A review from my small group leader:

"The next challenge would be to work on expanding both integration and analysis. Both are good at the current time, but given Mr. Khattar's obvious intellect and work ethic, I would encourage him to aim even a bit higher."

This guy obviously doesn't know me.

on-going

Boy, I've gotten kinda busy and have started to neglect this thing.

Currently in a class called CSF (no, not the California Scholarship Federation or even Cerebral Spinal Fluid, it's Cell Structure and Function). I was actually really looking forward to this class, and I enjoy the material, but the way they're testing us is not cool. I don't like the exam questions, but whatever, I'll need to learn to adjust to this like I'll need to learn how to adjust to everything else going on in life.

I've been told by many a people of and going into the medical field to read the book, "House of God," and now that I've read about 90% of it I don't know if it was a good idea. It bothers me, and it has disturbed my mood. It's too real, it's too unfortunate, but it's a well written book and contains a lot of comedy. If you're not in the medical field you should take a stab at it.

I've gone to a couple concerts since we last spoke -
Blind Pilot and the Nick Jaina band - cool bands, I'm in love with Blind Pilot.
Trampled by Turtles - a bluegrass concert that I don't remember much of because of the Portland Holiday Ale Fesitval
Thao and the Get Down Stay Down - Amazing as always
next week I'm going to see Blind Pilot again.

sometimes I feel like i'm neglecting my studies and not taking medical school very seriously, and it's actually slightly making me worried. I'm glad some of my classmates are really into medicine - they'll be very knowledgeable doctors! however I don't think that medicine can be my life - I would be very depressed.

Parties, Concerts, Neighbors

The end of anatomy was pretty epic - I got puke on my car (not in) to say the least.

Boy oh boy has it been a fun week, and it's not over yet!

Friday night friends and I watched the new 007 (not as good as the previous one, but still action packed and exciting!)
Then we got pumpkin milk-shakes from Burgerville (kind of the In&Out of Portland, but not nearly as good from what I hear).
- Hotel Cafe Tour 2008 - was awesome. Thao Nguyen and Emily Wells were my favorite that night, and Lenka, Meiko, Rachel Yamagata, and Catherine Feeny.

You should definitely check out the website, even though the tour is ending on Tuesday - www.thehotelcafetour.com

Saturday I got some frisbee, tennis, and sleep in. Followed by poker, food, drink, and partying. Met the neighbors for the first time and boy are they funny. They're undergraduates in Lewis and Clark and Portland State, and this morning when I woke up I saw a "Good Morning" note written to me on her window. I responded with a "Have a Great Day!" sign.

Sunday, the weather is amazing. I soaked in the Mt. Hood view for a good 20 minutes when I woke up this morning. The rest of the day will be for work/studying and climbing. Blind Pilot and Nick Jaina concert tonight!

NOV. 4th, 2008. A DAY IN HISTORY!

Today has been a great day.

It started off sort of slow, but escalated to greatness.

After Spanish class, we watched both candidates speeches (woo Obama!), and then proceeded to downtown to join the rally!

We luckily found a drum circle group who was walking up and down Broadway and joined them with our pots and pans, contributing to the music. After watching 10 or so blocks, we ended up at Pioneer Courthouse Square and my friends and I became the center of the party (after the drum circle left)!! I wish I had photos. I started a conga line, a jump, pot banging, etc. We got the crowd riled up!!! It was pretty darn amazing, and I was able to celebrate with some awesome friends. I can't imagine this sort of event happening anywhere else, but I'm sure it's happening everywhere in the USA!

- http://news.opb.org/article/3460-obama-supporters-celebrate-downtown-portland/

the link to our fiesta!! I'm on the bottom left.

here's a photo so you don't have to look it up if you don't want to read the article:

Saturday Night at the ER

I'm on my way home from an IAMA meeting (Indo-American Medical Association) and I get a call informing me that my good friend CD is stuck in the ER because of severe pain.

Man, what a bummer.

So the JAM house decides to bring the party to the ER! We brought a DVD player and Be Kind, Rewind, and some snacks to keep him entertained. I felt horrible though, because he looked miserable and it's tough to see CD miserable because it's just not natural - It's like seeing bears drinking tea out of teacups with their pinky's raised.

My favorites at OHSU!

Halloween 2008!

Boy oh boy, what a halloween. I usually don't do anything spectacular, but this year I was convinced to be the Indian of the village people.





that was a great friday night, with lots of laughs. we also won 2nd place at the costume contest! yea we're awesome.

seattle!

this past weekend I took a trip up to Seattle with some of my classmates to visit a friend and also explore a new city.

Overall it was a fun trip, some highlights:

- having some brownies and then playing in the park swings, and falling off.
- chilling at some bar/lounges
- walking around aimlessly in the freezing cold
- 2:30 am nachos
- World-record breaking Thriller dance party at 11 a.m. in the morning (we were only there for 10 minutes, but it was an awesome choreographed dance)
- Pike Place
- Fantastic Brie sandwich
- Throwing around nerf football
- Seattle City Center Fountain blasting in conjunction to Beethoven's 9th symphony
- Wandering around the city by myself for hours
- Pool (not swimming)
- 2:00 am nachos, brownies, and cards
- "You know what's cool? Spaceships."

new blog

hi folks,

i think i'm going to start a new blog - i don't want this one to always revolve around food.

the website is: pudgyfreeanudgy.blogspot.com


in other news, i went through all my old music today and it brought back a lot of great memories.

It's so easy to forget the past when living in the present, so I'm glad I have little reminders like music, photos, postcards, tidbits, etc. of good times.

Groundworks Organics CSA

today was our first pick-up of our fall CSA program (Community Supported Agriculture).

For 22 bucks, I think we got a great selection and deal of organic vegetables.

So for dinner I became inspired and made:

- roasted rainbow beet salad with herb goat cheese and a raspberry basil vinaigrette
- roasted acorn squash stuffed with curried pumpkin cous-cous, potatoes, and almonds
- roasted broccoli and carrots
- pumpkin chocolate chip bread

I guess I was just in a roasting mood.

I need to hurry up and finish medical school so I can open a restaurant.

concert goings and whatnot

I don't think I blogged about the MusicFest NorthWest concert series when it was happening, but it was pretty dang awesome. Many of the venues in Portland got together and hosted a bunch of local and non-local famous bands to play - fun times.

This past wednesday I went to see Stars! That was great, their new cd is pretty dang pleasant to listen to. I really need to start limiting myself though, or I may get carried away.

Oh! I also went to this independently (for lack of better description) written and produced play at some small theater in SE Portland called Vladamir Vladamir. It was about a Ukrainian magician and parallel universes - that was funny too, and free! because one of my classmates is in the stage crew. Yay for free activities.

Other happenings that have began are Thursday night dinners and poker - both which I look forward to every week. I missed cooking so regularly when I was traveling and it's nice to get together with the guys and play some poker, drink some beers, and chat about nonsense.

I'm trying hard.

med school = fun?

i don't think I would have imagined med school being so much fun last year, but it hasn't been destroying my life (yet.)

i've been keeping up with my exercise, cooking, exploring, etc. I don't feel like my life has changed to much, except that I smell like cadaver almost every day.

last night I went to this pretty amazing restaurant, Navarre (why i'm posting the blog... I think more of these places should exist). They're a locally supported restaurant which has its food delivered from local farms. The only things that are not local there are the delicious, fruity olive oil, the plethora of wines, and some of the proteins.

the best thing about this place is how you can order dinner. Essentially I told our waitress to please bring out food for us, a nice bottle of wine for us to share, and to surprise us with dessert.

the meal was fantastic! and an outline follows:

- fresh baked french loaf with really crusty outsides (served with the fruity olive oil)
- pickled vegetables
- green salad with tomatoes and a simple vinaigrette
- octopus and potato salad
- crab cakes (with real crab! amazing.)
- tomato and dill salad
- 1st glass of red wine
- halibut with tomatillo sauce
- steamed trout with what tasted like chinese 5 spice, but was sicilian spices
- broccoli and lentils
- sauteed peppers and chanterelle mushrooms
- mixed beans with lobster mushrooms (not lobsters and mushrooms, but lobster mushrooms)
- 2nd glass of red wine
- plums poached in red wine
- chocolate mousse

the serving sizes were such as those of tapas. i was thrilled by the fresh food, because it was prepared in front of us and each thing was made every time it was ordered.

also, the meal went by at a nice eating pace and I did not feel rushed. It was a wonderful Saturday night meal to end the week and chat with friends.

back to studying for exam 2.

The sacrifices we make for medicine

Yesterday I willingly gave up my $90 pair of adidas hiking shoes to learn how to put an IV in.


A couple classmates and I went climbing out in Portland (wonderful rock by the way!) and there my classmate who is in Search and Rescue for the army volunteered to teach me how to do an IV... in the wilderness. It was awesome and absolutely not sterile. I succeeded in my second poke, but my friend gave up 20 cc's of blood for the cause. Hey, you can't always get it right the first time. Those 20 cc's ended up running down my leg and pooling to my shoe because his arm was resting on my leg.

You live and you learn!!

first exam + life

i got results from my first exam, which I used to gauge how much effort I will have to put into the school year, and the good news is that I can still do well and enjoy my life!

two weekends ago the Physician's Assistants (PAs) held a kick-ball tournament to raise money for some sort of thing that they do, and I participated. I am proud to have caught one ball out, but my kicking abilities are rough. I was really happy to see how well our classmates got along though!

The weather in Portland for the last three weeks has been amazing... and I've gone to the park so many times. I really wish I could somehow transfer my old life into Portland because it's such a great city (just wait for a couple months until I start complaining about the rain).

anatomy + beer

yesterday a couple friends and I got together to watch an upper limb anatomy dissection on DVD and drink PBR every time the presenter would say selected word(s). I believe the first segment's selected words were "acromion" and "muscle." We moved from there to "branch" and then "tendon." In the end it got pretty crazy. I think the whole event lasted two hours, and I feel like I surprisingly learned more than I expected to.

Med school is awesome.

School

I've been meaning to write for the last couple days, but I haven't had time to get around to it.

Life has gotten hectic again, and I remember how much I loved this lifestyle in LA. There are a lot of activities I'm interested in, and I'm slowly finding my niche in terms of things to do/volunteer work/socializing/friends.

the pace is ridiculous but it's pretty amazing stuff we're learning, so I can't complain. I feel like I'm getting my money's worth.

done!

I finished! It was a tough 28 hours, but definitely worth it. I'm even considering doing it again next year.

All it took was:

- 3 bananas
- 2 apples
- 1/2 bottle of powerade
- 10 bottles of water
- 1 emergen-C
- 5 cliff bars
- 3 cliff shots (that gooey carb stuff)
- 1 PB&J sandwich
- 1 1/2 hours of sleep
- 1 bloody toe
- 2 blisters on my feet


Looking back, that isn't bad at all! My legs aren't too sore at the moment (I just biked to Powell's bookstore to use the internet since the neighbors haven't been home for a couple days and they seriously need to reset their router), but my foot got hurt somehow I need to rest it. So no more running for a couple days! I just have to start swimming again.

Orientation Week

Boy, this week was just a waste of time.

The school taught us how to check our e-mail, use the library, and we discussed professionalism and our hopes and fears of going into medicine. I can see how this provides support for us, but did it really need to take 4 days?! At least they gave us pretty decent food for lunch. I would have said good, but it was always really salty.

This week everybody has been going out at night, since I suppose this is the time for socialization. I, on the other hand, have not had a single drink and therefore not gone out. I've actually gotten comments during orientation about how I'm being antisocial. One girl thought I snapped at her while "defending" myself, when I simply stated that I didn't think I needed to provide them with a reason. Anyway, I don't particularly care if these people don't like me - friends will be made eventually.

Instead of partying I've been mentally and physically preparing for this:

http://www.hoodtocoast.com/

I'll be running legs 4, 14, and 27 - a total of 19 miles. They're all labeled moderate in difficulty. Once I finish this, I will be ready to party. The descriptions of these can be seen at:

http://www.hoodtocoast.com/map.php

I wish classes would just start already so I'd actually have a reason not to go out instead of saying, "I don't want to." Oh! I discovered that PSU has a badminton club, so I went on Tuesday to play with them. I think it'll be reinstated into my life as a weekly activity, which I'm very excited about.

Last weekend of freedom!

I woke up to my sunrise clock today:











I bought it from www.biobrite.com (but not really, I got it on sale from amazon)

I must say, this is quite the invention! The person who thought of this much be from somewhere in the north where there isn't very much sun because without this I don't know if I'll be able to wake up during winter.

it felt refreshing to not be woken up by an obnoxious alarm (granted I went back to sleep afterwards... I was just testing it to see if would wake me up).



Tomorrow we're having an incoming class BBQ at our house.. I hope that not everybody decides to show up or else it will be mayhem. I'll try to start taking photos, I'm sure you are all aching to see what my room looks like and the view from my apartment.

the end of shadowing week

man, this past week was brutal but I'm glad I stayed awake through the whole thing.

After a 4 month long summer vacation, going to 10-11 hour work days was just a bit hectic. I learned a lot though, and I'm looking forward to my medical education much more now.

The doctor gave me a lot to digest and think about, but my frustration about primary care became reignited after this week and something has to be seriously done in that respect.

well, here's to embarking on new journeys!

My first Surgery

Yesterday evening, after already working in the clinic for 10 hours, I began my first surgery with the help of my doctor.

It was a basic surgery to move skin tags and keratoacanthomas from some guy's upper body. I learned how to inject numbing liquid, cut off the skin growths, and also suture the wounds (stitches) to stop the bleeding. It was so awesome and so much fun. I thought I might have some sort of fainting spell because I don't like the sight of blood, but it was a rush.

other things have happened too, but I don't have much time to write.

peace

My first day in a Family Practice Clinic

Yes, I have been in clinical environments before but they had been very focused on one sub-population (the uninsured). Today was my first day working with folks who had insurance. Boy was it a long day. My Dr. has also been opening my eyes up to the reality of it all - not just for his patients but for what toll it takes on his life.

Today I mostly shadowed the doctor (with my white coat and stethoscope) and just talked to the patients. I got to do some physical exams, such as looking in people's ears and mouths, feeling for lymph nodes, feeling for arthritis, dermal problems, etc. but most of it was just talking to the patients and understanding where they were coming from.

Out of the 29 patients that I met with the Dr., at least 5 had some sort of cancer and it really looked like their outcome was not so good. Luckily each of them was positive about the life that he or she had lived and was doing whatever they could why still possible.

Some things I did not expect to see/hear/experience today:
- pulling out a folley cathader from a 78 year old male with severe lung cancer.
- looking into the bloody vagina of an obese 20 something year old woman.
- a male physical.
- listening to the heart of a woman who didn't have a pulmonary valve
- a little girl with Hep. A
- I removed a wart from some guy's hand, and also saw photos of his colon.
- cleaning up some old lady's abscess wound (btw, Silver Sulfadiazine is amazing)
- pink eye
- people addicted to opiates, in the clinic just trying to get a high
- people with chronic pain, it sucks.
- a lady who was losing the ability to move her limbs because the nerves between the L2L3, and L3L4 region were being pinched, and even though the doctor knew how to resolve the issue, he couldn't get the right procedures done because the lady didn't have a good enough insurance plan.


man, there was so much more too, but I think I just overloaded my brain.

I get to look forward to Monday's clinic because then I will removing about 15 warts of some super-obese guy's back and underarms. go medicine!!

My first (real) hangover

uuugh.

Eastside

Portland is split into quadrants with Burnside Ave splitting the city into North and South, and the Willamette river splitting the city into East and West.

I finally made it out to the east-side today and it's a pretty quaint area. I went to visit my friend living in NE Portland, and there's a street there called NE Flanders. Apparently somebody got the brilliant idea to sharpie a D into the street sign and renamed the street NED Flanders.

Mt. Tabor Park is there too, where you get a view of Portland valley from the East. Lots of people hiking up and down, biking around - theme of the city.

I had to take the freeway to get to my friend's house, and I averaged about 40 mph, even though there wasn't much traffic. Everybody was moving smoothly at this lower speed, in fact I do not even remember seeing any speed limit signs and I usually do because they're much larger than the ones in CA.

I didn't get directions for the way home in homes of getting lost and having to learn the streets better, and I succeeded in doing that. I don't think I took the most efficient route back to my house, but it definitely worked. I just kept looking up towards Marquam Hill so I could determine how close I am to home.

I need to go out and get lost more often.

Blackberrys!

No, not the hand-held device, the berry!

Blackberries is an invasive plant species that has begin to take over parts of Portland, and though it sucks ecologically - I get free blackberries!

When I went running today, I saw a couple people with bags and bowls picking them along the road, and I must say that the scent of Portland when running is pretty delicious.

I picked some on the way back home from OHSU yesterday and I haven't gotten any sort of poisoning yet, so they're tasty and safe!

Family Medicine Orientation

Today I took a crash course on how to be a doctor.

Starting Saturday, I will be seeing my own patients - meaning I will take their medical histories and do the physical examination - and presenting them to my doctor/mentor. I'm really scared, but also really excited.

So my housemates (who are cool) and I hiked to campus today (it took 25 minutes for less than a mile distance) to meet the group of individuals who are going to be participating in this family medicine program. We heard some lectures about being a physician, and then learned how to interview (which isn't too bad thanks to all the experience from Mobile Clinic) and do diagnostic physical exam procedures. I learned how to take a physical from head to toe, although I don't know what bad symptoms mean yet. I know what normal is, so therefore I can tell if something is abnormal.

I'll end with this quote from Dr. Robert B. Taylor:

"When you hear hoof beats, look for horses, not zebras."

Day 3 (for lack of better titles...)

So today I discovered that an actual Palomino's restaurant exists, so I can no longer call PCG the substitute Palomino's, it's just another cool place to hang out.

Woke up pretty late (around 9) and decided I wanted wonton soup for lunch so I set about making that. My absence from the kitchen for over 4 months is really showing - gotta get back into Chef mode.

I've really found replacements for everything I needed in L.A. (except my awesome friends of course), such as Trader Joe's, Target, random restaurants that serve diverse food, yep. Pretty much everything. And still, everybody is so ridiculously nice. I wish the rest of America was like this.

I have more to write about later, but it's getting late and i'm getting sleepy.

Peace.

Day 2

Mark and I had the brilliant idea of starting the day off with a run to OHSU and around town. Little did I know that it was ALL steep uphill. I knew it was uphill, but I didn't realize I could have died from a heart attack. People must be in ridiculous shape here.

After that whole fiasco, we went to Target, Fred Meyer (pretty cool everything store - groceries and more! kind of like super wal-mart or k-mart), and some asian store I can't pronounce the name of.

Weird thing of the day: I've been trying to avoid filling my gas tank because I'm afraid of letting other people do it. But today I gave in and got regular gas for 3.93!!! So much cheaper than CA. And when your tank is being filled they clean your windshields! You cannot go wrong. Also, when I was exiting the gas station some random car stopped and waved for me to leave. Why is everybody so nice? Is there connection to how much green is visible? CA, you better start planting more trees.

Had dinner at Portland City Grill, which I will call "The Substitute Palamino's" because it's pretty much the same thing, except food is much cheaper (2-4 bucks!!!! except the burger that's 5) I had cold soba noodles with a peanut sauce and teriyaki chicken spring rolls (more like asian salad spring rolls, there wasn't any chicken in it) and a glass of Stella for 10 bucks. I think I can get used to this.

I'm really excited about school starting. Who are my classmates?

First day

Well. Here goes nothing?

The drive to Portland was pretty rough, I left at 4:45 am from San Jose and reached Portland around 6 pm. I stopped twice, once at some random gas station in CA to take a nap, and the second time in Eugene, OR to have lunch with Jeanne Perry. It was a good two hours of chatting to get me back into the spirits of driving.

I reached Portland around 6 p.m. and unpacked. The house I'll be living in is amazing! 3 stories, bottom story is a garage, second is the living room, dining room, and kitchen, and the top floor has the 3 bedrooms AND a launderer and dryer. Finally, no more quarter collecting - though I've been told that dollar coins are becoming popular (just like all those foreign countries... I'm glad Portland is progressive).

For dinner we went to Chinatown and 3 people ate for 16.58 plus a two dollar tip. NO TAX!!!

Went to Powell's bookstore, apparently the largest bookstore in the world. It was pretty damn amazing. I would love to spend the next 4 years of my life in there, unfortunately they will be spent in a hospital. I suppose I'll learn more in the hospital.

And now the kicker... Voodoo's doughnuts. Possibly the weirdest store I have been to. It's a punk-doughnut shop, with the strangest doughnuts. I got a raised doughnut with chocolate, peanut butter, and rice krispies - appropriately called the dirty doughnut because it looks pretty unappetizing. The strangest thing was the bacon doughnut. Now I can't imagine what this would taste like - they had run out before we got there and I do not eat bacon. It could be real bacon, or gummi bacon, it hasn't been clarified for me. I understand if it's sweet, but holy crap if it isn't.

{EDIT} It is real bacon that they put on it... all the fatty and crispy goodness.

Walked around downtown and saw strange people... Looks like I'll be getting a pretty diverse clientèle as a health worker in Portland.