Heart strings.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

This. Pulling on them. Oh man, if you haven't watched it yet. Do. With tissues.

The heart of it.

I don't blog about medical school much, but I promise that is what I do with most of my time.

When I started the blog I wanted it to be an escape from all the hard science I was learning and to focus on the art of living.

Truth be told, I had trouble seeing myself in the science, in the medical field, so I wanted to make sure I was still being heard (somewhere in the ether) about things I connected with....fashion, design, food.

I still have trouble seeing myself in the medical field as it is, which is an awkward position to be in throughout these learning years when you're the low man on the totem pole and are just trying to stay afloat in this constant stream of knowledge in a system you didn't and would never design.

But there are occasional flashes of recognition that this is where I want to be. That there is an art to all this science after all.

This week we started learning about the heart. My friend Erica who blogs wonderfully about our medical school experience had talked about how dermatology is hard because we all know what healthy skin looks like, so when something goes wrong it looks really wrong to us.

Not many people get the chance to see or hold a human heart though, so it's not always apparent which ones are healthy or not. But this week we had a lab, where pathologist showed us different hearts . They were hypertrophic, had artificial valves, and had huge thrombi (blood clots) among other things.

One of the hearts though was from a child. The pathologist thought it was from an 8-year-old based on the size, but it was tiny, and let me tell you even if you don't know anything about the heart, it feels wrong to see such a tiny heart in your hand. A tiny heart that should be beating in a little boy playing baseball.

Unfortunately by this point, we've already become so desensitized that these visits to the pathology lab become just another stop in our 8-hour information overload days, something else we have to learn and be tested on, and the specimens are just interesting pathologies, not someone's heart that used to quicken at the sight of her handsome husband.

I am even guiltier than most of this. I've gone past desensitized and even started to resent how much we have to learn, how relentless the tide of information is, how imbalanced our lives our being forced to be.

But when I held that too small heart in my hand, I had one of those rare moments where I could see the full scope of this experience. That I was holding a human heart. That I was learning what had caused this and how it could be prevented. That ultimately this experience would lead me to a place where I could help people with this knowledge and hopefully practice the art of medicine.

And I could, for a second, see my place in all of this.

And that will keep me going until the next glimpse.

We are headed North.

Load the car and write the note.

Grab your bag and grab your coat.
Tell the ones that need to know.
We are headed north.
-The Avett Brothers
"I and Love and You"




(Belated) scenes from the drive from Atlanta to Vermont with my friend Michael...

Watched the sunrise over the lake with my sister to start the day off right
Morning faces! Also, you can't quite tell in this picture, but Kara's shirt has aliens on it. She also went to Space Camp. Twice. But she's really cool, I promise! Love you sissy!
Yes, we drove with a bed on top of our car.
Yes, I got judged.
By a woman in a van.
With a confederate flag license plate.
Klassssy!
We stopped for dinner in Burlington, VIRGINIA!
I know, I was confused too.
We stayed with a friend outside of Charlottesville, and awoke to this...
Hello morning swim! Nice to meet you. What are you doing for the rest of my life?
I know. Ridiculous. This place is getting its whole own post, don't worry. Suffice it to say, said friend lives in the caretakers cottage on a plantation on the James River and the owner is never there. Swoon.

Happy face.

Another happy face. One last Waffle House stop before we got too far north.

We got stuck in a huge downpour. With a bed on top of the car. Luckily Michael had a tarp! So we pulled over, covered up the beds, and read for a bit. Who travels with a tarp you might ask? But this man doesn't go anywhere without a tarp, a knife, and a lighter, because you know, you never know. He's also the guy who made the french onion soup AND did the dishes. I know, if I didn't have a picture of him, I would've believe he existed either.

Lately...

what i've been eating...

my friend michael's amazing beef french onion soup...
i would give you the recipe but i didn't even help AND he did the dishes...yes, he is real.

my blissful return to the City Market Co-op! arugula, mangetout, heirloom tomatoes, Doe's Leap Goat Cheese, sprouts, oil & balsamic

my med school favorite cooking activity...getting pizza dough from the local pizza place and gettin' creative. this round: onions, peppers, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese, and basil. yes, i ate the whole thing. no, not all at once.

tomato, onion, roasted red pepper, roasted chili, basil, and goat cheese omelette

which was even better because the tomatoes, chili, basil, and gorgeous sunflowers were from my friend Melissa's garden!

what i've been doing...

posing awkwardly.
[see below]
it comes so naturally!
i'm not sure what to do about it.

what i've been wearing...

Friday night outfit!
Thrifted Metallica tshirt, cut-off thrifted Abercrombie(?!) baggy jeans, necklace bought from a woman named Dorothy in Brazil while traveling, earrings that were my older sister's when she was 10...

Garden Party!
[Ok, ok, this was post-garden party cleanup. Me + self-timer + tripod= a match made in time-wasting heaven.
Dangerous!]
Vintage dress from The Clothing Line thrift store in Burlington. Fits like a glove. As long as I don't eat. Or bend over. Or breathe. Totally worth it!

My friend Shetal's awesome canvas-painting birthday party.

Again with the awesome posing.
Scary life-size plastic doll! From the 80's! Yikes!
Seriously, I don't even know how to make the light make my legs look like plastic.
Apparently, post-champagne at the party I only managed to take one picture and thought this would be an appropriate/flattering angle, so...there you go.

Black tube dress from American Apparel, striped shirt from thrift store in Haight-Ashbury, my grandmother's belt, shoes from New Look, necklace from street vendor in NYC.

I am an emotional creature.

This is an excerpt from Eve Ensler's new book, I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World, and I'm pretty sure this message should be read by every girl and woman out there.
Good stuff. Do you know what your own needs are?!?


Dear Emotional Creature:

I believe in you. I believe in your authenticity, your uniqueness, your intensity, your wildness. I love the way you dye your hair purple, or hike up your short skirt, or blare your music while you lip-synch every single memorized lyric. I love your restlessness and your hunger. You possess the energy that, if unleashed, could transform, inspire and heal the world.

Everyone seems to have a certain way they want you to be - your mother, father, teachers, religious leaders, politicians, boyfriends, fashion gurus, celebrities, girlfriends. In reporting my new book, I learned a very disturbing statistic: 74 percent of young women say they are under pressure to please everyone.

I have done a lot of thinking about what it means to please; to be the wish or will of somebody other than yourself. To please the fashion setters, we starve ourselves. To please men, we push ourselves when we aren't ready. To please our parents, we become insane over-achievers. If you are trying to please, how do you take responsibility for your own needs? How do you even know what your own needs are? The act of pleasing makes everything murky. We lose track of ourselves. We stop uttering declaratory sentences. We stop directing our lives. We forget what we know.

I have had the good fortune to travel around the world. Everywhere I meet teenage girls and women giggling, laughing as they walk country roads or hang out on city streets. Electric girls. I see how their lives get hijacked, how their opinions and desires get denied and undone. So many of the women I have met are still struggling late into their lives to know their desires, to find their way.

Instead of trying to please, this is a challenge to provoke, to dare, to satisfy your own imagination and appetite. To take responsibility for who you are, to engage. Listen to the voice inside you that might want something different. It's a call to your original self, to move at your own speed, to walk with your step, to wear your color.

When I was your age, I didn't know how to live as an emotional creature. I felt like an alien. I still do a lot of the time. I am older now. I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be OK with being different, with being this alive, this intense. I just don't want you to have to wait that long.

Found on this lovely blog, which is written by someone who also went to St. Andrews: http://sheridanfrench.blogspot.com/
Image from: The C.A.R.E. campaign

Med school time.

Let me introduce you to the phenomenon that is "time in medical school". Somewhere between acceptance and orientation, time shifts, contorts and expands to accommodate more than you ever thought possible and it doesn't let up for 4 years as far as I can tell. Luckily, we pack a lot of fun things in this new expanded time thing...

Fun so far:

Swimming holes with cliff jumps. Yes please.

Berry picking deliciousness. Late blueberries and early fall raspberries.

Sunsets on Lake Champlain with wonderful people. Have I mentioned how much I love living here?? Le sigh...

Barn dance party with excellent women post-pig roast eating and yard games and pre-life size Jenga games and extreme campfire guitar playing. Epic.


A rainy day birthday garden party complete with floral dresses, balloons, tea, & decadent desserts.

And now...study time.

Shiny New Things!

New Things:

1) I have a new blog header! Or really a first real blog header at all! I think I've decided I might settle in, stay a while, and try this blogging thing for real. So, first step, blog header designed by my awesomely talented cousin, Nathan.

2) We started a new year of medical school. We're a week deep and have already covered Orthopedics!?! Where does the time go...

3) A fully refreshed self after an amazing summer full of hiking, bikinis, open roads, hot springs overlooking the ocean, a brown bear, stick shift driving, soul sisters, full moons, mountains (olympics! tetons! appalachian!), used book stores, dresses, photo shoots, wild stallions, dancing cowboys, jazz, rivers, climbing on rocks, armadillos, naps, and barefeet. Not sure what else a girl could ask for. If you haven't already, read all about it on Erica's blog!