Sunday, December 23, 2012

Another reason why Anderson Cooper is awesome!

No Music today, an AC vid instead...
 
Ok, the video below was brought to my attention by another AnderFan whom I just recently met! It is Anderson Cooper's talk show and is just hilarious. I'm not even going to question why he throws someone off his show that he brought on in the first place, but it's AC and he can do things like that and get away with it. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psigRG_JJwA

Friday, December 21, 2012

This week's lessons learned continued

Ed Sheeran-Sunburn

(1) When we love we always strive to become better than we are. --The Alchemist
(2) Find a way to make your life work.
(3) Per Epictetus (famous Stoic) suck it up, move beyond misery, keep fighting.
(4) Resolve to be better everyday.
(5) I love and practice Stoicism because it pushes me to deprive myself and endure various internal and external stresses in life. Resilience makes you immortal in this realm.
(6) I personally invest myself in every relationship/friendship in my life fully. Despite coming off as self-absorbed, I genuinely care about other people and consider people. When you know me you know me for life (unless you criminally offend, then it's game over.)
(7) "We are only half awake"
(8) Greatness is a process.
(9) I choose to love all things and people greatly.
(10) PK is a wonderful friend and baker. Below is a photo of the cookie box she gave me. Isn't this cute? I like it when my food is in the shape of wild animals. These cookies were delicious, thank you PK!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Some musings

Birdy-Without A Word

(1) “It is not within our power to forget or gloss over circumstances which we believe to be evil…They tear at us, buffet us, goad us, scorch us, stifle us — and you tell us to forget about them?”
 -Cicero

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/a-crack-in-the-stoic-armor/#more-49485

While I love the theory and practice of Stoicism, the post above from The Stone adequately captures the inadequacies that I've encountered upon how to appropriately deal with certain life events through Stoic ideology. Refinement appears to be in due order.

(2) Here is picture what I hope to be my new doggie. I found this furry guy outside Whole Foods today and he seems to be eager to pose for my picture. I don't suspect I'll be able to get a doggie anytime soon since I found out I'm allergic to dogs and cats, but on the off chance I do get one I would like to name him Captain Furrgeson or Professor Snout.


(3) A picture of my gorgeous Christmas ornament! For some reason I find ships (or perhaps it's the concept of aquatic voyages) incredibly intriguing. Although I don't really celebrate Christmas I thought this was too pretty to pass up. Plus, the fact that I can look at a tiny ship in the ocean makes me feel like a giant.

(4) Here's an extremely interesting video clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live (it's short and I promise it will make you think) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HxlGI4OzeBk

(5) Lastly, another reason David Geffen is pure awesome. The problem of medical student debt

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

This Week's Lessons Learned (thus far)

Some more Ed Sheeran! This guy is awesome

OK, Despite being only Tuesday I've got some stuff to share:

(1) Examine your life always.
(2) Examine your life always.
(3) Collective Angst.
(4) Oxytocin can actually alleviate the impact of stress on the cardiovascular system (literature provided upon request.)
(5) Those poor Connecticut babies :o(
(6) No matter how cranky I am upon hanging up the phone on my dad...always, always, always just call back 10 mins later.
(7) Xtina Aguilera cannot view EVERYONE's facebook profile, you have to accept her as a friend first (ok I knew this, but I imparted this gem of wisdom onto my dad during my phone-call back.)
(8) I know absolutely nothing about managing finances and I desperately need to read some books.
(9) NEVER GIVE UP: http://www.limitless365.com/2012/11/30/never-give-up/

That's it for now!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Thursday, December 13, 2012

This week's lessons learned

I love the 90s! Collective Soul-The world I know!

(1) Happiness can come in unexpected places.
(2) Ignore the chatter. There are a million plus one people out there who will try to give you unsolicted advice. Most oftentimes it's inaccurate, uninformed, or unsuitable. IGNORE IT.
(3) If at first you don't succeed, try try again and again and again.
(4) Always always always be nice and kind.
(5) Obesity is a very serious health disorder that is extremely misunderstood.
(6) It's time...to pick it up
(7) my quest is to make the world better through medicine. Things I do on the side or during my fits of highs and lows are just that...appreciate talents for what they are and don't attempt to make everything a priority in life. Sometimes, some things are better left in the background to pull out or rely on in times of agony or even in times of glory. Not everything is meant to define you indefinitely.
(8) "Nothing worth having comes easy." Per the asian way of parenting, nothing is fun until you're good at it. Despite what's known as "innate talent" on this side of the world, in eastern countries it's believed that all individuals really have the ability to achieve anything as long as they try hard enough and are dedicated long enough (barring any serious physical disability.) I've experienced this and am experiencing this first-hand. People who believe otherwise have never actually pushed themselves to succeed in something they weren't good at naturally.
(9)  Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?
(10) Et, Où sont les neiges d'antan!
(11) "Don’t be put off from your past failures. Welcome them, and then destroy them."

Sunday, December 9, 2012

You Can't Amend Love/Happy Hannukah!

Once again (and appropriately so) Christina Aguilera-Let there be love



First off Happy Hannukah

I want to spend a minute and reflect on the importance of the Supreme Court's decision to hear two cases on the ban of same-sex marriage. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/opinion/next-civil-rights-landmark.html?ref=global-home) Regardless of whether people believe in marriage or not or believe in same-sex marriage or not I think the heart of these cases is about love and whether the State (and Federal) governement recognizes that love does not discriminate against the gay or straight or rich or poor or colored or non-colored or religious or non-religious. Love just is what it is.

At Michigan I participated in a protest after Proposal 8 was overturned (Prop 8 had formerly allowed same-sex marriage in California, but after the Prop 8 ballot initiative was overturned it denied many same-sex couples the right to marry.) This is one of the cases being heard by the Supreme Court (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/us/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-two-cases-on-gay-marriage.html). The photo above is a picture of my poster for the protest.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Conquering pain and being limitless

Once again, Wiz Khalifa "Work Hard Play Hard"

(1) "Today we have conquered pain"

At lunch we took a nice walk through the Ether Dome exhibit (http://www.massgeneral.org/history/exhibits/etherdome/). I've been on this plan to become more tough (I'll explain later) but on one of the plaques I read the awesome quote above that exemplifies my major goal in life right now: to conquer pain (in essence, to conquer myself--read on.)

This week has proved to be extremely informative about how one small decision can have a significant impact on a number of different areas. I've joined a new gym and I've decided to go to bed earlier and I'm a much better person in a number of ways for both of those reasons. 

(2) Whilst settling into my new routine/toughness plan I feel indestructible. I really do feel like I can climb a mountain (well...work towards climbing a mountain and make it to med school and publish my book and finish my other writing projects and master the piano.) Perhaps it's because I can now climb 10 flights of stairs with relative ease or stand for 6-8 hours and not feel it. Excruciating effort feels amazing. I found this quote a while back from the abstract of the book Aquarium by Victor Suvorov about Soviet military intelligence. I feel it really captures my current attitude on life:

Man is capable of performing miracles. A man can swim
the English Channel three times, drink a hundred mugs of
beer, walk barefoot on burning coals; he can learn thirty
languages, become an Olympic champion at boxing, invent
the television or the bicycle, become a general in the GRU
or make himself a millionaire. It's all in our own hands. 
If you want it you can get it...
Success comes only when the training, of
whatever kind (memory, muscles, mind, willpower,
stamina), takes a man to the limit of his capacity. When
the end of the training becomes torture. When a man cries
out from pain and exhaustion. Training is effective only
when it takes a man to the very limit of his capacity and
he knows exactly where the limit is...
That's the road to glory. That's the path to
success. To work only at the very limit of your capacity.
To work at the brink of collapse. You can become a
champion only if you are the sort of person who, knowing
that the bar is about to fall and crush him, nevertheless
heaves it upwards. The only ones who have conquered
themselves, who have defeated their own fear, their own
laziness and their own lack of confidence

 I have a lot on my plate left to conquer. By no means have I conquered even a fraction of what I want to do, but that's what helps me stay on track. That's what helps me get up at 430 every morning. That's what helps fix what I need to fix in health and in my life.  That's what helps me eliminate things and people that are just toxic. That's what will help me eventually conquer pain. That's what will help me conquer myself.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Musings

L. Gaga-Monster

So I'm posting some musings from this week since these items don't really fall under lessons learned or 5 things to know about me. Moderately uneventful week though, but extremely productive nonetheless.

(1) Something's amiss today: I not only admired a tiny dog shoved down someone's coat on T and I also just now helped a small child who was playing in between the elevator doors while his dad left him and his little sister unattended. Children and small dogs...it seems I'm on my way towards some progress in life.

(2) On that note, I found out from my allergy test yesterday that I'm allergic to Oak trees, ragweed, all types of mold, cats and dogs, and some other stuff I can't remember. This makes sense now and hopefully I'm on my way to better health!

(3) I'm glad to hear that Anderson Cooper is doing well after his stint with temporary blindness due to UV rays reflecting off the water and causing retinal sunburn:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/health/time-eyeburn/

Now I have an alternate purpose besides fashion for wearing my shades even in the winter.

(4) In interesting/sad news here's a story of a man who was pushed off a subway platform in NYC and ultimately killed: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/05/us/new-york-subway-death/index.html

Obviously the photos taken are despicable when the man should've been helped, but I also can't help but consider my T experiences. First off I am incredibly thankful for the MBTA and that because of the T I don't have to drive and I'm a much better person not driving. I don't like that I'm almost always shoved out of the way at park street and I do get concerned sometimes that I might get thrown off the stairs since people are always in such a rush. It's really mainly park street where this is a huge problem since the other redline stops are not so terribly crowded in comparison, but I wish sometimes people would be a little more considerate since we do have to share the T/T station.

(5) While I'm no fan of cats, for some reason this picture of Colonel Meow just gets me cracking up:


(6) Lastly, much to my dismay and due to my ignorance of bird migratory patterns I have recently been informed that those pigeons that I'm terrified of will not be leaving for winter so I will have to somehow learn how to deal with them. Sigh...

Sunday, December 2, 2012

5 more things

Calvin Harris/Nicky Romero-Iron

(1) I really do LOVE the tinsel during the holiday season. Festive decorations put me in a better mood. Here are some I took last night of the lights of the Commons/State House!  Stupid iphone camera is so blurry at night.

State House and Holiday Lights

Boston Common lighted Christmas Tree (as seen from a distance)

Boston Common Lights as seen from my roof!

(2) My week was filled with impulsive decisions which now make me excited about stuff again.

(3)  I read 4 books during thanksgiving. I'm quite proud of that :o)

(4) I really do love hot chocolate. Even if I don't make it right and it turns out in 3 different phases:

Mexican Hot Choco from the MGH gift shop...3 phases and yet still scrumptious

(5)  I have to force myself to go to bed everyday. Life is just so invigorating for me that I never seem to want to turn off the lights or the mind. gruff!