book it!

Today, GD and I headed to the loop to check out the Printer's Row Lit Fest, the largest book fair in the midwest this summer. (GD standing for human Garbage Disposal, since at any given meal, he consumes most of my food food & leftovers).

Although the book fair is any grad student's dream come true, GD and I are trying to practice fiscal restraint, since he's recently unemployed and we're both heading into loads of debt this fall. So, we walked around and gazed at all the pretty books and posters, but collected free bookmarks instead of books:

Plus, for me, shopping in used bookstores is a skill and an art, requiring shelves upon shelves of deliciously musty books, as well as ample space to sit and to sort tales of loves lost from cookbooks and poetry so I can figure out which of my newfound friends are keepers. At the bookfair, people crowded around the tables like pigs at a trough, making it difficult to fully enjoy a good browse.

Heading out of the fair, though, I discovered a tent filled with a book-lover's dream come true: books of all types for $1 apeice!

I was even more delighted to discover that this magical station was being run by a local non-profit organization, Open Books, which uses all profits from its sales to fund its various literacy programs around Chicago. Who could pass up such a win-win?

Sadly, however, I had a couple of beauties picked out, but only 4 quarters to spare...until this kindly gentleman came along to the rescue

Thanks to GD, I purchased Cider House Rules by one of my favorite authors, John Irving, as well as classic The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. I don't personally consider myself a feminist, but I do think it's important to understand the remarkable women, sociological context, and movement that enabled me to do things I take for granted, like go to grad school and have a career.

(You can't see it, but the original pricetag on Feminine Mystique is only $1.50...this book is truly an American classic!)

Also, hopefully, in addition to volunteering for the annual Newberry Library Booksale, I will get a chance to volunteer for Open Books...what an incredible organization!

http://www.open-books.org/programs.php

how sweet it is

Well, today was a wonderful way to end the week, to say the least. Today my hospital celebrated all its patients who have survived cancer for five years. The majority of these patients came to our hospital with stage III and stage IV disease and, for the most part, had been told by previous care providers that they should go home and prepare to die.

Instead, they said "no." They chose hope instead of dispair. They took matters into their own hands and decided to fight the ugly, protracted, and downright scary disease that is cancer. And although they faced the slimmest of odds, these patients are here, five years later, to tell their tales and inspire others.




Today, watching these courageous patients and their families proudly display pictures of their kids, their gardens, and their lives, I was reminded of why I got into the healthcare business. At the end of the day, it's not about the government, or the insurance companies, or the hospitals: it's about making people well. About giving them their lives back. Days like these renew my faith that a patient-centric model can work: give people control over their health, support them in making their decisions, and let the free market go to work.

draggin'

I’m really dragging today, to the point where I am feeling a little bit hopeless about slogging through my remaining month here.

One thing I’ve learned about myself in the past two years is that I’m often enchanted by new ideas, but that my enthusiasm is ephemeral and easily lost. I really like the concepts behind big projects, but I hate the tediousness of executing the details and will pretty much find any excuse to wiggle my way out of them. I’ve learned this the hard way at work. I’m rapidly drawn into new projects, get excited about them, and love to bounce around strategy and concepts. But, since I’m more often than not the lowest man on the totem pole, the mundane work of execution primarily falls to me.

And I hate it. Which is why I employ an army of procrastination techniques meant to ward off the inevitable boredom: news, med blogs, fashion blogs, facebook, gossip websites. It’s junk food for the brain. Honestly, if my gluttonous consumption of random websites actually did entail calories, I’d be catastrophically obese right now.

In no way do I think I’m above the kind of entry-level work I’m expected to do. I understand you spend years in the trenches in order to get to the top. It’s just that I’m alternately bored and lethargic…and so have serious difficulty forcing myself to execute.

This is a major reason why I decided to go back to graduate school. I’ve missed the challenge and stimulating debate of the academic environment, where intellect is the most valuable commodity, rather than my ability to book a meeting or write a memo.

Yet, I’ve got to steer clear of thinking of grad school as an intellectual playground of sorts, where I can just gleefully leap around a rhetorical jungle gym. I will have to write a thesis, and then someday (hopefully) a dissertation.

And while there will be plenty of the interesting discussion and research, the only way I’ll motor through is to shut off the web and wade through the tedious tasks, one at a time. It's true: I've got to grow up and actually do stuff I don't like.

So here’s to checking things off the to-do-list! But in the meantime, let me check Facebook just...once....more….


Oh, and just for kicks, here's a picture of the most handsomeof my three male roommates:

(Victor "Victorious" Hugo)

According to this recent article, http://neuroanthropology.net/2009/05/28/caught-in-the-net-the-internet-compulsion/ , my internet addiction may be soon recognized as a legitimate mental illness-guess I am crazy, after all!