The Bad Haircut

I hear that for many women, getting a hair cut can be very stressful because there is that fear of getting "The Bad Haircut". I think for some of the most vain women, the specter of a bad hair cut looms over them in their dreams. For me, not so much. I was pretty much a tomboy growing up (except for the sad fact that I was no good at sports so I was sorta a tomboy without any skills) so didn't care about my hair. This persisted as an adult. Maybe this is in part because I'm very bad at doing my hair- I really haven't mastered the round brush blow dry, have a very limited ability of using clips and barrettes and certainly am terrible at curling my hair. But, regardless, hair does not stress me out.

A good example of this is the picture to the right. Circa 2001, when I was volunteering in Ghana, West Africa, I got my head shaved. Shaved clean. Slap-bald headed. If you stood too close to my white head, your eyes would burn from the glare of the sun. That kind of shaved. How did this occur? It was sort-of half misunderstanding, half me thinking that it would be cool to have no hair in the hot African climate. My hair was pretty short to start, and when I went to get a cut in the small town I worked in there was only 1 place and it was a male barbershop (the women apparently cut their own hair at home). Despite English being a pretty wide-spread language in Ghana, this particular gentleman didn't speak and I sure didn't speak whatever language he was throwing at me so b/t a combination of some words, charades, and him pointing to a painted picture on the wall of a man with a buzz cut, I gave him the nod to approach my head. He looked scared. Who is this random white girl waltzing into my shop to get her head shaved? I imaged he was thinking.

But I loved it. Once I got a little tan on my head, I really thought it was great. I'm so sad that I don't have any pictures from immediately after the deed. This picture is from about 2 weeks later. I can't objectively tell if I look goofy or not because I just loved my (lack of hair) so much. So easy to shower, no maintenance, such an absolute joy! I still miss it!

What made me dig through all my old photos (pre-digital, truly "back in the day")? Well, on Wednesday, I finally got a "bad haircut". The left side of my hair definitely was longer than the right. I agonized over this for 1/2 hour thinking- am I crazy, is it really longer? I tried looking at my hair wet, dry, in a half-ponytail, with a headband, with a little barrette holding up the long side only--> any way I looked at it, the left side hung down further than the right. Poor Adam dealing with this. He's a trouper!

But no worries, I went back to stylist who fixed it at no charge, so don't bother looking hard at my hair next time you see me. It's even. I promise.

List Day- My Fate in the Hands of a Computer Algorithm

Today I finalized my rank list for fellowship on the NRMP webpage, one step in the marathon journey of applying for a Hematology/Oncology fellowship program. (If fellowship application is a marathon, then going through all of medical education from med school on is definitely an ultramarathon: long, painful, and one constantly questions "Why am I doing this?") For those less familiar with the absurdities of the job application process for medicine residencies and fellowships, let me briefly explain.

During the last year of medical school, students start to apply for residency programs in the specialty in which they are interested (Internal Medicine, Surgery, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, etc). This long, drawn out process involves writing an application including essays, letters of recommendations, outlining EVERY SINGLE activity/extracurricular since the beginning of college, and providing a sample finger-painting from our kindergarten days (okay, okay, not the last one, but it sure feels that way!). When the application is uploaded to a special website, the med student can specify which programs can "see" the application. Depending on the competitiveness of the specialty, students specify anywhere from 5-30 programs, I think I did 10 because after 10 you have to pay extra, so that seemed like a good stopping point. Then, students get interview invitations and travel the country (on their own dime) to interview at programs. After 5 months of interviews, students input a list on the NRMP website of the programs they would like to attend in the order they liked them (#1 is top choice, etc.). At the same time, the programs enter the students' names in the order they liked them to the same website. Then 2-3 weeks later, there is Match Day. The 'matches' are chosen by some computer algorithm that puts together students and programs based on their mutual preferences.

Ah, Match Day. Match Day for residency is probably the most important/dramatic/stressful day of a doctor's career. Match Day is the day when all the graduating medical students in the country get together with their classmates and find out where they will be spending the next 3-6 years of their lives. We all find out at exactly 12 noon EST. Of course there is a lot of hubbubaloo before hand, in which the med school deans tell us how great we are (we know!) and how hard we've worked (we definitely know!) and that we'll all do great in the match (we sure hope so!). Then the envelopes containing our match results are dramatically handed out. Mine is below.




Then, exactly at noon we all open the envelopes. This day is stressful because our results are legally binding. We have to commit ahead of time to EVERY SINGLE program on our list so there's no turning back if you don't like your match. Some folks are elated, some are devastated, some are relieved. Then we celebrate the rest of the day, then scurry home because, at that point, we have to move to this new place and be ready for residency within a few short weeks.

Some of my friends and I waiting for noon in our Match Day t-shirts:





Pre-Match emotions range from, well, fishy (?), to excitedly nervous, to annoyed and tired, to blank stares to 'hey, I'm always up for a chance to make funny faces at the camera':







So the above process explains residency match. The process is essentially the same for fellowship, with a few exceptions. Here's the fellowship match timeline that I've been dealing with all year:

August-December 2009:
Complete application including yet another personal statement, letters of recommendation, etc

December 2009-April 2010:
Interview invitations come rolling in. I only interviewed at 5 places since I know I want to stay in the Midwest and Heme/Onc is only moderately competitive. I have friends matching in Cardiology who flew all over the country to interview at 30 places. Remember we have to foot the bill for all this! It's not uncommon to spend $10,000 on this process.

1/6/10: On-line Match officially begins

4/7/10: Rank order list opens

6/2/10: Rank order list closes

6/16/10: Match day


So, now, on 6/2, my list is in. Now I wait until 6/16 to find out where I match. There's no big party for fellowship match, I hear it's all very anti-climatic (exactly the opposite of resident match) but, to be honest, I really hope that I match where I want/expect to so anti-climatic is exactly what I want! Wish me luck!

The Best Day of the Year: Bike the Drive

BIKE

THE

DRIVE!!

Happy Folks Biking the Drive!

See our building in the background?

Now many of you may be under the impression that Christmas or Thanksgiving or your birthday is the best day of the year. Well, if you are a Chicagoan, I must inform you that, in my humble opinion, you are wrong. Bike the Drive is by far the best day of the year in Chicago. Bike the Drive is this miraculous Sunday morning at the end of May where the entire Lake Shore Drive (LSD) is shut down to car traffic and only bikes are allowed on the drive from 5-10am. What is so special about this? Why, EVERYTHING!

• You can hear the birds chirping in the morning.
• The air is fresh, without any car exhaust.
• Chicago prioritizes exercise so much that it irritates a large number of its more lazy, car-using brethren by shutting down a main thoroughfare of the city!
• Views of the Chicago Skyline are unhindered by the usual LSD traffic.
• It is early enough in the year that there are no downtown festivals with tourists crowding our neighborhood.
  

Some of you might ask why I don't just move to a more natural, less urban setting if birds, fresh air, exercise and great views are what I'm looking for. (Some of you might also ask why the first paragraph of this post is underlined- I myself don't know, I really tried to get rid of the underlining to no avail.) My answer is that a lot of the reason Chicago is so great with great jobs, restaurants, movies, music is because of all the people! If Chicago had less traffic on LSD, that would mean fewer people with a vested interest in this city I now call home. So I know we need the traffic on LSD every other day of the year, and that only increases my love for Bike the Drive day!

Adam and I spent the day this year walking to Fox and Obel (a Chicago staple high-end grocery store, think Whole Foods for the even-more-foodie foodies) to get a lox platter (to-go) then enjoyed it along the lake with birds, trees, grass and NO TRAFFIC. It was great! Then we just walked along the lake and enjoyed our city!

Adam and the Skyline. Notice the lack of cars on LSD behind him! Beautiful!

The Art Institute with the lions decked out in Blackhawksgear (see the helmet?).
Gotta love Chicago sports! Go Hawks! All in all, a good Chicago day!

Ode to (Addiction to) Peanut Butter

So, this post is dedicated to peanut butter. I've been eating a LOT of peanut butter lately. And by lately, I mean for the past year. I'm not entirely sure how I made it over 3 decades without a peanut butter obsession because, gosh, it's so darn good! I think my mistake was thinking of peanut butter as a partner to jelly when in reality peanut butter is so much better without jelly- good with toast, apples, chocolate ice cream or just on a spoon solo, peanut butter is GREAT.

Over the past few weeks, I've started to worry that my peanut butter consumption might be unhealthy. So you can imagine my happy surprise when I found an article in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal titled "Nut Consumption and Blood Lipid Levels". The article summarized 25 different trials with the subjects eating different amounts and different kinds of nuts. The conclusion was that the people who ate more nuts (of virtually any kind including peanuts!) had lower cholesterol (specifically LDL, the "bad" cholesterol). This was particularly true for people with lower BMI (body mass index, low=thin, high=fat). Perfect! I'll just tell myself that peanut butter has enough peanuts in it to help me keep my cholesterol low. Right now both my LDL and HDL are in the 60s so that's pretty good, but hey lower is better for the LDL! (Let's just hope I don't eat so much peanut butter to make me no longer in the lower BMI category! I better keep running marathons!)

Acceptance From Mom

Today I got an email from Facebook saying that Mom has accepted my request to be a member of her family. Interesting. I guess Facebook pretty much has taken over the world when I need its blessing to become part of my own mother's family. ;)

Waterfall Glen

Today I went for a run at Waterfall Glen in Darien, Illinois. It's one of my favorite paths in Chicagoland. The path is a 9.6 mile loop of crushed gravel though forest, past streams and marshlands. Also goes along train tracks which are still in use and a model plane field where a bunch of retired guys are usually flying their planes +/- a grandson or two. Hilly, which is not always easy to find around here. Lots of birds and squirrels and I usually see deer and foxes if I get there early enough. Lots of shade to help keep cool but today even the shade didn't keep me cool enough, so I'll admit, I did a bit of a walk/run thing. But it was good to get outside for a bit in the fresh air and the drive with the top down in Elly is always a nice start and finish to the run!

Summer Opener

Last night was the first concert for the summer at Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. It was a perfect night for it, 76 degrees with a nice lake breeze. For those who aren't familiar, Millennium Park has free concerts almost every night from the end of May until mid-September. The music is mostly classical and some international, but this year there is a new program called "New Music Mondays" which are local rock bands sponsored by Goose Island. Adam grabbed some sandwiches from Pastoral which is an artisan cheese, bread and wine store downtown. I had a delicious duck and brie sandwich. I also cooked some purple asparagus w/ Parmesan cheese, olive oil, and orange zest--> my first time cooking asparagus and I think it turned out pretty well! To drink, we had a large selection (6 bottles!) of Cooper Hawk wines because Goose had a business meeting with them earlier in the day. (Cooper Hawk is a relatively new Illinois winery. They get their grapes from California but blend them here. They have 4 restaurants in the Chicago area. We've been to the one in Orland Park many times and it is delicious! By far the best restaurant in the South Suburbs.) Despite enlisting the help of 3 of Adam's co-workers who joined us on the lawn we didn't even get close to finishing them off (probably a good thing!) so we have leftovers for the week;) As if listening to a FREE concert outside with delicious sandwiches, good company and FREE wine, we have the added bonus of having an only 2 block walk home. All in all, a good night!