Uno Mas!

Got through another round of block exams this week. Woot. That leaves only finals until I'm done with class. Forever. Double woot. It might be because I'm so close to that, but I don't know if I could do anymore class stuff beyond this. I think I may actually be approaching max indifference. And half of the classes are stuff I actually like. I used to think tell myself patients are some of the reason I'm learning this stuff. That and some of it is kinda cool. Realistically, I'm not going to remember a lot of it. Read: biochem. Enter indifference. For example, I went out for a charity happy hour last Saturday and only planned on staying a few hours. Not surprisingly (and a testament to my willpower), it ended up turning into a late night affair - and I couldn't have cared less. Though, I was annoyed at having my jacket stolen :( Either way, last year I wouldn't have been out right before exams - it's prime cramming time in our world. That aside, less than six weeks until my last round of finals! Ever! And about three months until boards are done with. There's talk stirring of a south Caribbean cruise even. It'd be a damn nice way to top off classes.

On a totally unrelated note, this clip is pretty funny. At least imo. And it's educational. Had my first run in with CPD a few weeks ago for those wondering. Nothing major, but still semi-relevant.

Procrastination Devices

Over the past few months, I've occasionally brought my laptop along to reference some online videos. Naturally, this'll result in burning time to jackass on the internet.

Civic Pride
No, not of the Honda variety, but of the city kind. It's fair to say I'm a big fan of Chicago. I stumbled upon a site (galleries 1, 2) with some unique views of the city. Specifically, from the Trump Tower while it was under construction. It's apparently the second tallest building in America, which is kind of odd because it doesn't seem that tall in the skyline. Anyway, the pics are from a sweet vantage point and they're pretty cool, imo. You can see my neighborhood in the default pic for the second gallery. It's around the green area in the middle right part of the pic - left of the collection of red buildings. Props to the photographer for the pix, and bigger ups for sharing them.

I don't know much about the Olympic site selection process, and I'm guessing that most people don't either. Chicago's in the final running for the 2016 games, so I've naturally taken an interest in the process over the past year. More accurately though, it's interesting to see what the plans are for the city. In terms of venues, you've got obvious places like Soldier Field and the United Center. But they're also talking about a downtown marina and two of the city's biggest parks, in addition to building new venues and an Olympic Village. I think it'd be cool to check out events at places that are local to me. Plus it'd be sweet to host the games. Here's the site that finally went live detailing the IOC bid.

Totally Unrelated
Odds are someone's already found this site. Still funny though.

For the past few months I've been considering getting a smartphone. Mostly for the sake of M3 year and putting medical reference software on it. Of course, there are other obvious perks to having a smartphone. Having it for rotations was seriously the main impetus though. I personally don't like having a big phone in my pocket. That said, I ended up getting a Samsung Omnia about a month ago. I didn't really like the interface of the Storm and the HTC was too expensive.

After a month of usage, I pretty much love the phone. (Admittedly though, I've no real baseline for smartphone comparison.) It's got pretty much everything I would really need/want on it: pretty good 5MP camera, wifi, FM radio, media player, MS office, Opera browser. I do have three gripes with the phone though. There aren't that many extra apps or games available. Maybe there are, but I haven't been able to find them yet. A Verizon version of the Apple store would be nice. Of course, that's not really VZW's m.o. On that note, in true VZW style, they disabled the onboard GPS and force you to use their interface. Boo - no google maps or latitude for me. Finally, using all aforementioned features throughout the day, mainly internet and media player, kills the battery. I've pretty much gotta charge it every night. Guess I can't really complain about that, since it's supposedly got one of the better battery lives out there.

As for my initial concerns, the phone feels a lot smaller in my pocket vs. my old phone. And yes, I have put on some medical reference programs. I snapped the stitched picture below with my phone from a conference room that my group studies in. We're a fan of the view. And I'm a fan of the pic quality. Pretty much delegates my real camera to shelf duty.

A Nice Little Run In

The other day I was walking downtown, between studying and birthday shopping. Cliche as it is, I was minding my own business - just crossing the street. As I close in on the curb, I start to check the crossing pedestrian flow for a break to walk through. While doing this, I notice some weird character in the stream eye me and then beeline directly for me. Weird, I'll move. Wrong, he matches me and then legitimately lowers his shoulder and elbow into me. WTF dude?! Definitely intentional, no accident about it.

Not many things actually anger me. In that split second, this would qualify as one of them. My gut reaction was to respond in kind and yell something semi-articulate. Keyword: gut reaction. I mentioned the guy was an off character and so I thought better of it. I've got more to lose than he does, figuratively and literally. On that note, even though I didn't feel anything I checked for all my shit: wallet, phone, mp3 player. Present. I look around, and the people behind me have puzzled looks on their faces too. By their expressions, I didn't do anything wrong. I watch the jackass walk away and it's like nothing happened. Weird. I guess I'll stop standing in the middle of the street.

All that, from noticing him to moving on, took less than three seconds. I shrugged it off and was actually in a pretty cheery mood for the rest of the night. And in retelling the story to some friends, it was actually pretty funny. Dunno what that guy's problem was, but it didn't become mine. I've always found Chicago folk to be pretty friendly for a big city, especially compared to NYC and LA. Guess there are always a few bad apples - and he was definitely a questionable character. Either he was messing with me or was going for my wallet. Who knows. Either way it's kinda funny in hindsight.

Spanglish

Living in a big city offers a decent number of opportunities to interact with different cultures. In this town, some of the bigger populations would include Pols, Irish, and Hispanics. Regarding the latter, I live about a mile from one the city's bigger Mexican neighborhoods.

That said, I haven't really been down to Pilsen many times. After somehow talking about sweetbreads in study group, it got me thinking about churros...on account of them being sweet and bready. At that point, I decided churros were by far the best appetizer to bring to a superbowl party. After some googling, I found a place down in Pilsen and made my way over. After asking for a dozen churros, I got a silenced, quizzical look in response. This was followed by, "Churros? Si!" At this point I'm thinking, "Oh. It's like that."

Luckily, I've had a...quality Spanish education. It was kinda cool to bust out some Spanish and have it be understood. Being Asian in a Mexican neighborhood, I think they figured out I wasn't a native speaker. Regardless, I ended up leaving with a dozen churros, half of which were stuffed with chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry...didn't know stuffing was even an option. Even better, they were a hit at the party.