Hopkins cancelled classes after noon today, and the entire school is shut down tomorrow. The due date for my Medicare paper was moved to Tuesday. That's good news for me -- there was no was I was going to finish my the paper on time.
I'm planning to go to NYC this weekend as long as Isabel doesn't make the roads impassable.
Friday, September 19, 2003
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
I made real progress today...
-- first big workout (3 hrs!) at the new JHU gym
-- completed a huge problem set, which included learning a huge new statistics management program named Stata
-- finally organized all of the furniture and ethernet cables in our living room
-- cleaned my desk
-- picked a paper topic for my policy analysis paper: the Medicare prescription drug benefit for seniors and the major differences b/t the House and Senate bills
-- and found out that Hurricane Isabel is heading right toward me
Tomorrow ought to be a good catch-up day, too. Only two classes -- Management and Biostatistics -- then home by lunch!
Sleep.
-- first big workout (3 hrs!) at the new JHU gym
-- completed a huge problem set, which included learning a huge new statistics management program named Stata
-- finally organized all of the furniture and ethernet cables in our living room
-- cleaned my desk
-- picked a paper topic for my policy analysis paper: the Medicare prescription drug benefit for seniors and the major differences b/t the House and Senate bills
-- and found out that Hurricane Isabel is heading right toward me
Tomorrow ought to be a good catch-up day, too. Only two classes -- Management and Biostatistics -- then home by lunch!
Sleep.
What a difference a month makes. The present aspects of my life are nothing like what it was just four week ago. I'm not complaining -- I love school so far, it is fun to explore a new city, and I am excited about the next two years -- but in retrospect it's tough to remember all the emtional changes I've been through this summer. One month ago, I was in a completely different world in that regard.
The summer session was enlightening. I think that's the best word for it. I don't know if it was the timing (right before the MCAT and my departure from California) or the environment (the unique dorm lifestyle of having many of your friends just steps away) or something else entirely...but it made me especially contemplative. I spent a lot of time reflecting on important issues that are usually overlooked in the hustle of day-to-day life.
It was an experience I only shared with a few people, and it's hard for me to understand it without any of them here. It sort of feels like waking suddenly in the middle of the night with a dream's emotional remnants lingering in your mind. You're not really aware of what the dream was about until days or weeks later when something you see or hear suddenly brings it back to the forefront of your mind.
Or something like that.
It's amazing how quickly one can forget certain lessons. In high school I had to learn to appreciate the moment -- to stop worrying about the small stuff, to enjoy and experience the situations that I would never have again. I had to realize that something's always wrong, big or small, and that my inability to let go of the little problems would make it tough to enjoy the big moments. When I organized events, I had to come to terms with the fact that things never went exactly as planned, and that I needed to take them in in stride -- or not deal with them at all -- so I didn't get distacted from the larger picture. If I was in a relationship that wasn't perfect, I had to realize that relationships are inherently difficult and that I certainly wouldn't make things any better by always being distracted from the present by the potential future problems.
I think I forgot that things in life are rarely that clean-cut.
(pause)
Time for bed. Enough thinking for now.
The summer session was enlightening. I think that's the best word for it. I don't know if it was the timing (right before the MCAT and my departure from California) or the environment (the unique dorm lifestyle of having many of your friends just steps away) or something else entirely...but it made me especially contemplative. I spent a lot of time reflecting on important issues that are usually overlooked in the hustle of day-to-day life.
It was an experience I only shared with a few people, and it's hard for me to understand it without any of them here. It sort of feels like waking suddenly in the middle of the night with a dream's emotional remnants lingering in your mind. You're not really aware of what the dream was about until days or weeks later when something you see or hear suddenly brings it back to the forefront of your mind.
Or something like that.
It's amazing how quickly one can forget certain lessons. In high school I had to learn to appreciate the moment -- to stop worrying about the small stuff, to enjoy and experience the situations that I would never have again. I had to realize that something's always wrong, big or small, and that my inability to let go of the little problems would make it tough to enjoy the big moments. When I organized events, I had to come to terms with the fact that things never went exactly as planned, and that I needed to take them in in stride -- or not deal with them at all -- so I didn't get distacted from the larger picture. If I was in a relationship that wasn't perfect, I had to realize that relationships are inherently difficult and that I certainly wouldn't make things any better by always being distracted from the present by the potential future problems.
I think I forgot that things in life are rarely that clean-cut.
(pause)
Time for bed. Enough thinking for now.
Saturday, September 13, 2003
Done with week two. Two problem sets, two labs, one paper, and about 400 pages of reading done.
I'm going to New York next weekend! We're having a mini-reunion of sorts.
My car is parked at a parking meter that has been stuck at "3hr45min" for nearly three weeks. :-)
Time for sleep. Will write this weekend.
I'm going to New York next weekend! We're having a mini-reunion of sorts.
My car is parked at a parking meter that has been stuck at "3hr45min" for nearly three weeks. :-)
Time for sleep. Will write this weekend.
Friday, September 12, 2003
It's so sad to lose touch with people. In many cases it's inevitable, and I've learned to adjust to that. But it really sucks when you're trying hard to keep up with someone else and you realize that they just don't care as much. Or at all. And then you start wondering how long that has been the case, and whether you've just been blind to it...
Part of me wonders if I'll ever get back in touch with the "inevitable" crowd. There were lots of people I knew of at Stanford who seemed like cool people, but they had different interests/friends/schedules and we never got to know each other. Or what about the middle group -- those people who you knew well for a while, and you'd still talk with them for a while if you ran into them on the street -- but otherwise it might seem weird if you contact them....do you ever wonder if those people ask the same thing about you?
A moment of clarity this is not.
Part of me wonders if I'll ever get back in touch with the "inevitable" crowd. There were lots of people I knew of at Stanford who seemed like cool people, but they had different interests/friends/schedules and we never got to know each other. Or what about the middle group -- those people who you knew well for a while, and you'd still talk with them for a while if you ran into them on the street -- but otherwise it might seem weird if you contact them....do you ever wonder if those people ask the same thing about you?
A moment of clarity this is not.
Finally -- I'm back. Wow, what a crazy three weeks it has been.
My courses for this term (note that a term at the JHSPH is only eight weeks...so I'll be starting a new set of classes in November):
Biostatistics
Intro to Epidemiology
Intro to Health Policy
Seminar in Health Policy
Managing Health Services Organizations
Sounds like a whole bunch of fun, no? :-)
My courses for this term (note that a term at the JHSPH is only eight weeks...so I'll be starting a new set of classes in November):
Biostatistics
Intro to Epidemiology
Intro to Health Policy
Seminar in Health Policy
Managing Health Services Organizations
Sounds like a whole bunch of fun, no? :-)
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