OK, more SF updates.

Last night I went to Knockout (a bar) with The Ustins, Christina Green and her roommate. It was BINGO night and they give you one card per drink you buy. They also make a drink called a "Bro-sef" that consists of a shot of Citron dropped in a cup of Sparks. God.

I got a BINGO and won a free drink. Then I did terribly the rest of the night. We stopped by International Club (a Mexican bar full of Spanish-speakers) and chatted up the bartenders en Espanol for a beer's duration.

It's SO HOT in the city, I'm almost disappointed. Went to the beach with Justin yesterday then stopped by the Park Chalet, an awesome restaurant/bar right on the fringe of GG park across the street from the beach. What a fun time.

Other stuff Ive been doing:
Movie night in Dolores Park.
Greyhound to Sacramento.
Pub Quiz night (we did really, really badly).
Chillin' at Dustin's.
Lunch on the roof of a high-rise downtown.
Visiting both ER's where I'll be working.
Drinking coffee and using internet at Nervous Dog on Mission.
Looking forward to moving.
Anxiously awaiting the move.
Getting my intern year schedule.
Cringing at it.

Greetings from NorCal! I am writing from Sac-Toe where I took a brief sojourn to visit my friend Miya (Dr. Miya) and my former roommate and (current) buddy Jesse and his ladyfriend Flora. There was a shooting outside of their apt (where I'm staying).
I'll post more about my trip, including photos, soon.

So I am done with medical school. Living in a starnge limbo between finishing rotations early and graduating. Between taking care of patients and taking care of business. Let me back up. Here's a nutshell:

February: Rotated on Surgical ICU then Neurosurgery. Learned a ton, worked hard but not too hard, basked in the post-interview/being recruited goodness, and hung out with friends. Helped my student group put on a Drunk Driving Awareness project at a Santa Ana highschool where I narrated a full-scale car crash simulation complete with ire trucks, sirens, and cops. We made up some kids like trauma victims, sorta like "Every 15 Minutes." It went very well, I am proud of the students who organized it.

March: Awkward phonecalls from residency directors, med students harrassing me in the hallways about where I want to go for residency, finishing rotations with orthopedics (large waste of my time), class back in the lecture hall with my whole fourth year class, ACLS (CPR+Drugs+Defibrillating, running "Code Blue" situations). Talent Show (best one EVER at UCI Med, featuring THREE songs by the patient gown-clad Irvine Fever, complete with encore of "You Shook Me All Night Long" where a bunch of people rushed the stage to dance. Then we played a giant PreMatch Day party at Sutra in Newport, the show went amazingly well with a ton of UCI students, staff, residents and even some old friends! Then Match Day where I opened up my envelope that said "Emergency Medicine, University of California San Francisco-SF General Program" which was where I wanted to end up. Then my friends and I proceeded to drink the rest of the day away in the most fun manner. Rolled out to Morongo/Banning for some not-quite-Vegas action the weekend after Match, so that was awesome.

April: Finished med school a tad early, moved out of Anaheim apartment to parents' place in HB (working out decently all things considered). See below...

The first week "off" had been so anticipated that I managed to schedule meetings, lunch, going out, working on random extracurricular stuff pretty much everyday. That and completing 75 pages of forms for my new job. And trying to find an apartment in San Francisco.

I also saw NOFX play The Knitting Factory last night, it was the premier of their new TV show and they played a little set. It was a great show and a great day in LA with my buddy Warren. I slapped Stinky (drummer of NOFX) a big high five, so that was cool. Finished off the night with a hot dog from Pink's, my first visit.

Today was nice too, the weather cooled down to the breezy mid-70's I think I'll miss, and I hit Riverview for 9 holes and a few beers with three of my best ER doc friends from UCI. I bought this hybrid driver/iron club that I ended up not using that much since one of the guys had this gigantor $200 driver that for some reason I could LAUNCH the ball with. Lots of sand, lots of out-of-bounds, but I still beat them all. Good times.

Let's see, what else? Lots of drama in the Emergency Medicine Interest Group (EMIG), as I pass off control soon. We've built this group into something pretty overwhelming, with about a fourth of all UCI med students involved in some way, and with the size and notoriety come politics and bullshit I'd rather live without. But as I keep telling myself, only a few more weeks.

This is pretty big, me moving up north and all. I've never spent more than a month outside of Orange County at one time, so I look forward to four years. I keep worrying that I'll lose contact with people, but I lose contact with people that live down the street, so it'll be nothing new and I'll keep in contact with the people I love no matter what.

Enough self-reassurance, I'm going to be.

Oh wow. What a great couple of months. I took 2 months off school (had some extra weeks to burn), traveled up and down the West Coast interviewing for Emergency Medicine Residency, drank beers in SF with Christina, Mat, Dustin, Justin, and Shannon, hung in Portland, retreated to central Oregon to visit my brother and family, road dirt bikes, innertubed Mt. Bachelor, drove a lot, and had a generally good time. Chilled in OC not working but drinking lots of coffee and finishing up various projects until this past weekend when I loaded up the parents and flew to Vegas for my good friend Matt's wedding. Drank some, ate much, gave a toast, saw Mario Batali and Nick Lachey (separately, and Mario was cooler but Nick had 3 models in tow), danced on a boat, spent some cash, and came home the night before I finally go back to school. Start Surgical ICU tomorrow and am relatively stressed out about it.

Exciting things in the near future: Irvine Fever shows (Talent Show 3/14, Sutra Party 3/19)
Match List due 2/27, Match Day 3/20, Graduation 5/31!!!

Helloooooo from Portland! This is stop #4 on the Silman residency interview tour 2007. It's like a rock band tour except no rock, slightly less booze, and more free dinners. That and I have to interview twice a week or so. Been to LA (big trip, potentially horrible traffic averted by arriving in LA at 6:00 am and hitting coffee shops for 2 hours before interview), Loma Linda (surprisingly awesome residency, surprisingly isolated), Stanford (gotta love the name...), UCSF (brand new residency, could be landmark), UC Davis (again, great program, not-so-great town), Highland (in Oakland, already been there), and now in 36 degree weather in Portland (lotsa beer here, maybe cuz no liquor in the markets?), interview at OHSU tomorrow.
Been off school, was lazy, drinking, jamming, driving, flying, eating, hanging with awesome norcal friends, and lacking patient care responisabilities. Good times. Can't wait to get back into it though. Interview tomorrow then Bend to visit bro/family, then drive to LA, interview at USC and Harbor-UCLA back-to-back days, then DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahh, senior year. It's just like high school. Not so much like senior year of college since I was busting my ass to get into medical school, quitting my band, and fighting with my ex-girlfriend.
But back to 4th year of med school. Finished a month of pediatrics. My last week, I swear to God I had the cutest 6 patients in the entire hospital. Seriously. One of the moms took a cellphone pic of me with her son, who had Kawasaki's Disease. Good stuff. My team was cool, my senior resident was a micromanaging stresscase, but very sweet and a pleasure to work with. When she finally stopped duplicating my work I felt good, that meant she trusted me. My teo interns were from an osteopathic family practice residency in Downey, and man were they incompetant. They'd elbow me in rounds to ask questions and I'd mouth them the answers. Awesome, they made me look great as a Sub-I ("subintern," the month or two during your senior year where you have more responsibility and act as an intern, reporting directly to the attending or senior). Only got to do one lumbar puncture. No intubations, not even an IV...
Last weekend Ross and I hung out a bunch, ate our asses off, went to see Nightmare Before Xmas in 3D, and drank a bunch of beer. Fun times.
Tuesday, the day before my first residency interview (at UCI), I played WII for 4 hours. WEdnesday, my shoulder was REALLY sore. I am out of shape. Damned WII ping pong, reminding me how out of shape I am... Interview was unremarkable, they're recruiting me hadcore, so it's nice to feel wanted.
Now I'm on anesthesiology. On the surface it sounds great, patients asleep, manipulating people's physiology, using the best drugs, intubating like crazy, and getting weekends off. At UCI the anesthesiologists are a little lame, antisocial, and in it for the money or because they don';t really want to be doctors and can retire early. Cool, as long as they let me intubate. I am 3 for 3 so far, although the first one was lame. And I get off at 3 or before everyday.
Saw The Good Robot Us's at a coffee shop, they were very good. The Fever is trying to set something up with them.
Anyway, all is well. Feeling a little lonely, Jesse is in Oakland and I have the place to myself, although I could get used to it....

shitballs, deleted my long post encompassing the last month...

stuff i like about my new apartment in anaheim/orange:
1. walk to the stadium, 3 bars, the hospital, the block, coffee shop
2. within earshot of disneyland fireworks (9:30 pm sharp) and crystal cathedral bells
3. cheaper than vdc
4. next to cemetery (quiet)
5. 5 min drive to old town orange with good bars/restaurants/COFFEE
6. literally 20 seconds from turning the key in the ignition to being on the 5 fwy

stuff i hate about my new apartment:
1. no washer/dryer in unit
2. within earshot of disneyland fireworks (9:30 pm sharp) and crystal cathedral bells
3. not a lot of friends nearby
4. far from the ARC

that is all. all is well, 3 more days of pediatrics subinternship, then nice weekend off with the fever and frisbee golf, then anesthesia for 2 weeks. interviews coming soon, watch for me in YOUR neighborhood!!! if your neighborhood is sf, oakland, stanford, sac-town, "the 'no," boston, l.a., or SD.