It's early spring. During an otherwise ordinary day, I meet an elderly Korean woman at work. My coworkers turn to look at me, as if to say, "Go ahead."

I don't know how to say "inflamed gallbladder" in Korean. I can manage to say, "Does it hurt here?" which earns me more gratitude from her than I deserve. I've done nothing.

The next day I meet her family. I explain her condition, and again I hear thanks. They tell me about their son, who is an orthopedic surgeon. "You must be very proud," I say.

For a brief moment, I wonder how my grandmother is doing. She seems smaller and more frail every time I see her. Occasionally I hear from my parents about her being in the hospital. She always seems to recover from these bouts of ... old age? I don't know. I haven't seen her in months.

But it only takes a face, and a few words, and I'm back sitting in her home, bop and ban chan spread in front of me, and her hand squeezing mine with a $20 bill, keeping me from letting go.

It's hard to explain the feeling of walking out of Christ Hospital at the end of the Trauma rotation. For the first time in six weeks, I felt like a normal person.

During one of the many miserable days on the service, one of the med students said she had just put up her Christmas tree and it made her feel a little cheerier. I told her I was taking vitamin D tablets. She suggested that I should get myself a tree, too.

I brought this up during Joseph and Joanna's annual Thanksgiving dinner, and heard nothing but discouragement. Myung and Mike's recommendation: a Christmas tree screensaver. Scrooges.

Well, it didn't matter because at that point I was getting a tree no matter what. I stopped by at Target after work and strolled around the Christmas section. I ruled out the full-sized trees because of the lack of room in my place. I ruled out the mini desktop-sized trees because come on. I eventually found my Charlie Brown tree in the back. It's plastic, it's about a foot-and-a-half tall, and it's got little lights built in that light up the dark corner of my living room and heart.

The grind had gotten to me. Transplant, then Trauma. No days off in over a month. I was as miserable as I'd ever been during residency.

This morning as I was driving into work, I tried to remind myself that all of this was for a purpose. I tried to remind myself to see beyond the day-to-day, into eternity. I offered up a small prayer asking for encouragement.

When I was leaving the hospital tonight, late as usual, I turned on my phone and saw an email. Dan had written our old East Timor group, letting everyone know what he was up to. He said he saw a story online about Dr. Dan, whom we'd worked with briefly during our stay. He said it reminded him of us, and it made him want to go back.

Maybe it's not often that I pray purely from the heart, and maybe only because I am completely at a loss. And maybe it's not often that I receive an answer so directly, or maybe I often fail to notice it. But when grace begins to fall, I run into the downpour, arms open wide.

Highlight from long-call night on Trauma:

We got a page about a 17-year-old kid coming in with a gun shot wound. It said traumatic arrest, and Michelle told me to get ready for an ED thoracotomy.

"How do I do that?"

She made a slicing motion from the sternum to the side. Piece of cake.

So I opened up his chest in the Emergency Room as controlled chaos swirled around me - IV lines being placed, monitors being set up, noise and motion. I pumped his heart with my hands, as what little blood he still had leaked out around my fingers.

It was a long night. Two deaths, zero sleep, a few very sick people. Before I started the rotation, people told me that Trauma is fun, but tiring. I guess they left out the "sometimes" and the "very."

Trauma is traumatic. Or at least it was for the first few days. It's settling down a bit, but, like I warned everyone beforehand, I'll be even less available than usual for the next six weeks.

But life goes on. During my Transplant rotation, my sister told me that she was now wearing a new piece of jewelry, and that I should try to keep my schedule open for early next summer. My parents are understandably ecstatic.

You know what makes me happy these days? I put in a full tank of gas in my car this morning, and that made me happy. I finally found a pair of clogs I can wear around the hospital that fit my feet, and that made me happy. I tell you, it really doesn't take much.

I hope you're all well. Let me know if you have good news to share. I used to say that happiness is like peeing your pants (everyone can see it, but only you can feel it). Well, I'd like to join you in feeling the warmth.

Wherever I can get it, my friends.

Yesterday morning I walked into the transplant unit around 5:30 and glanced over at Mrs. K's room. She was still lying there, the ventilator moving her lungs, and the pressors holding her circulation.

I first met her last week when I was on call. She came to the emergency room because she was having bleeding with bowel movements. She was a small, elderly lady, with a quick smile and the most pleasant disposition. She'd been admitted to the hospital multiple times for the same issue, so she was used to sitting in the ER. I spoke to the Colorectal service and relayed to her that they will try to find the source of bleeding in the morning. Then I bid her goodnight as she waited to be admitted by the medicine team.

The next time I saw her, she was brought into the transplant/surgical unit after a subtotal colectomy. They weren't able to localize the source of bleeding, so they ended up removing most of her colon. She was still in good spirits and didn't complain of any pain.

She stayed in the unit for the next few days, so I ended up managing her care as the de facto unit resident. Her heart rate was always high, which might mean a lot of things, including poorly controlled pain and fluid loss. It was difficult to say, partly because she absolutely refused to complain about any pain at all. To some degree, we had to practice veterinary medicine, treating the more common, but less serious causes, while keeping in mind that she may have something much worse developing.

Different members of her family were always around, and it was obvious that she was loved dearly. They never demanded, never accused, never blamed, even when it became clear that her postoperative course was not improving.

She had severe respiratory distress one morning and ended up being intubated. Later that day, her blood pressure began to drop precipitously. She was started on pressors. She had blood cultures come back positive for infection. A CT scan showed nothing specific. She stayed in the unit that night, basically kept alive by modern technology.

A few minutes after talking to the overnight resident we glanced over at the telemetry monitor and saw Mrs. K's rhythm go into asytole - flatline. A code was called and continued for 20 minutes. As I was standing over her, giving chest compressions to keep her blood flowing, I looked up and saw her daughter watching from the hallway, tears running down her face. We stopped not long after.

The day went on. There's not much time for mourning the dead while the sick are calling. But now I'm home, and I happened to be looking at something I wrote years ago about a girl that I knew who passed away at a young age, and I can't help but think of Mrs. K.

Let me hold my breath and let this pass
And promise to savor each second
That follows the crash and anguished sobs
And the doctors who are beckoned.

Let me hold tightly to your promise
Of future glory, now near.
Yet risking a life as a pillar of salt
I look back from the pier.

Charon bids me climb aboard
And I cannot help but yield,
But my heart is left with those on shore,
Though I walk in Elysian fields.

"A stay-cation?" my coworkers chided, "That's no fun!"

So I looked up places I could go. Florida seemed liked a good idea; I could sink slowly into the sandy beaches for a few days. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was not cooperative. It was likely that I would be sinking slowly into muddy beaches as the rain pelted my face into a permanent frown.

I texted Tom. "Can I stay at your place for a few days?"

"Stay as long as you want," he said, "My studio is tiny, though."

Good enough for me.

Then I IMed Bekah. "Are you and Jon free next week?"

"Are you serious? Yeah."

Again, good enough for me.

Before I left, I got a text from one of my coworkers. "Rochester!"

I wrote back, "The sunny beaches of Rochester!"

"Have a good vacation."

I got to Tom's place just before he came back from work, so I saw him riding in on his scooter, as if he was back in college, except he was dressed up in shirt and tie. He is in his second and final year of orthodontics residency in Rochester, and apparently he is required to dress up everyday in a shirt and tie. He said it's disgusting because his tie will always end up with pieces of gunk or food or something by the end of the day. Recently he'd taken to wearing a bow tie in protest.

Tom drove me around Rochester and said we should try to get a Garbage Plate for dinner. Apparently, it's a famous local dish that resembles nothing so much as what I'd end up making with a fridge full of leftovers. We skipped it, though, because, well...

"I don't think we should go there. There are a lot of prostitutes around."

"..."

"And someone got shot near there recently."

The next day I drove an hour or so to Syracuse to visit Jon and Bekah. Now considering that I generally find college kids patience-trying, this could have been bad idea jeans, but the Lees are probably two of the least affected kids that I know. They bought me dinner and gave me a little tour of the campus.

By chance they happen to be taking the same math course, and though not in the same section, they sometimes work on their homework together. They were having some trouble with it last week, so they went over to get help from some upperclassmen friends. They sat down to get started when the upperclassmen guys asked Jon if he wanted to go work out. "Yeah," he said. So they all left to go work out, and Bekah was sitting there working by herself. When the guys came back later, they were sans Jon. When Bekah asked where he was, they said they dropped him off on their way back.

And the thing is, as they were telling me this story, there wasn't any annoyance or guilt. Bekah, the older sister - generous, self-giving - and Jon, the younger brother - carefree, sister-loving - were both highly amused by it, as was I.

They thanked me for coming and wished me a safe trip back. Bekah asked me to text her when I got back to Rochester, ever the ahjummah.

Now I'm waiting at the airport for my flight back. I've no tan to speak of, nor any sand in between my toes, but it turns out that the beaches of Rochester were even sunnier than I had hoped.

I have 6 days of vacation coming up next week, and after the usual should-I-travel-somewhere-but-where-oh-forget-it, I decided that I'll just bum around and try to find a thing.

I was talking to Myung about trying to find a hobby, or at least something that I can really get into and have it be my thing. For instance, Harry's into comic books, which, in today's nerdly cool world, is kind of nerdly cool. Myung always watches comic book movies with Harry, who can give expert commentary on everything from the faithfulness of the translation to why that thing is sticking out of that guy like that. On the other hand, I don't think I really want to be the Comic Book Guy. We'll see.

Myung's thing, apparently, is youth group. Considering that he's either been in it, teaching it, or leading it for a decade or so, I'd tend to agree. And when he says Che's thing is dinosaurs, even if she vehemently denies it, I have to believe him because, you know, it's his thing.

Speaking of youth group, a handful of us went to see (500) Days of Summer, a non-rated R movie for once. It was ok, but kind of depressing, and I think it almost made Myung try to wash the dishes the next day. That's a euphemism for, well, washing the dishes. There was a lady in the back of the theater who may have been Joseph Gordon-Levitt's mom, she was over-laughing so much.

Christine: YeahshewassoannoyingandloudandIlookedbackatherwhenshewaslaughingbecauseIthoughtthatmightmakeherstopbutitdidn'tohmahguhhhh...

And on Sunday Sharon forced invited us to her new place downtown.

Che: I love open house!

So dinosaurs and open house for Che.

Myung and I made the girls go get us food while we sat around. Sharon had some art supplies and half-finished pencil sketches on her desk. Ok, so art for Sharon.

And for me? Well, I don't know yet, but I'll find something. Maybe speed skating? I'd be following in Myung and Christine's footsteps, it would be good exercise, and I'd wear one of those ohmahguhhhh...

During some of my call nights on Burn, I also cover the Surgical ICU. It's been a little bit stressful. My first night, I realized that some of these people are actually pretty sick and that I'm kind of there by myself. So when the nurse calls me to tell me that someone's tachycardic to the 140s or has stopped making urine, things can go downhill rather quickly. Let's just say that sleep has been rare and rest even more so.

We had one patient in the burn unit last week who was slowly fading away before the family decided to stop ventilatory support. We have a couple more now who aren't doing so well. One of them came in with 55% total body surface area burns and started developing some respiratory problems last night during my call. We were fighting with his vent settings and low blood pressures all night. He had stabilized a bit by the morning, although he still didn't look all that great. When I looked in on him one last time this morning, I noticed a balloon that his family had left in his room. It was one of those mylar balloons, and it was floating by the window. In bright, colorful letters it read, "Get well, Dad."

Soon after, I stumbled home, ate, and fell asleep. And in my dreams, peace, like a river, attended my way.

Myung said there was a girl counselor at the youth group retreat who was cool and funny and artsy and I should totally go for her. To which Christine responded, "That's a friend type." And Myung objected in vain.

After softball on Sunday, Myung and I took Anna out to eat for her birthday. After stuffing ourselves, we decided to go for some ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. When we walked in, I noticed a couple of girls at the counter that seemed like they were dressed for a night of clubbing. Myung gasped something like, "Dios mio," and went over to talk to one of the girls. Anna and I went and got our ice cream, and when Myung came back over, he said, "It's fate. That's her. That's Blue Child."

So we finished our ice cream and left. We left without Myung even introducing me to her, and with me thinking she dressed a little hoochie. Well done, Myung.

When I mentioned it to Maria later, she said, "That's just how single girls that age dress for church. See? It got your attention." Yeah, but that's not fair. I just happen to like hoochie.

As for work, I've now left the world of behinds behind, and started on Burn. It's a little intimidating because it's my first ICU experience and the chances of me actually killing someone has increased exponentially. One thing that makes it a little easier is that Faaiza, the Rush 2nd-year from the last rotation is also doing Burn now. After a 2-day schedule discrepancy, we're doing a reunion tour. She's got an easy-going and occasionally slightly obnoxious personality that works really well with me, so it makes going to work a little nicer. Alas, she's married.

I will admit, though, that there's a girl at Stroger that I kind of have a crush on. Great, right? Well, I'm pretty sure she's got a boyfriend, and she's got a mouth like a sailor, and I barely know her, but it's nice to walk by in the hallway and exchange smiles. Another little something to brighten my day.

I'm trying to enjoy the light before the shadow of winter. It's an early Indian summer.

Most of my days have been spent doing colonoscopies and EGDs. It's usually just me scoping and a nurse giving sedation and monitoring vitals. Yesterday I worked with Dora, who has been playing all Michael Jackson all the time in her room, and vows to continue until the end of the month. "I'm in mourning," she said. Apparently, Dora liked the way I handled the scope (that sounds ... gaily suggestive) and thought that I should go into Colorectal surgery. Butt surgeon? Maybe?

In any case, I have been enjoying this rotation, due to a combination of not being an intern anymore, having a very chill co-resident and fellow, and a very light call schedule. And it's kind of nice being away from the usual hospitals for a bit, even if I am at Cook County.

I had a brief IM conversation with Jon last weekend, and it went like this:

liljon031891: not excited much eh?
chasekoo: hahaha
chasekoo: not too much to get excited about
liljon031891: ... i believe u do
liljon031891: just wait a bit mroe
liljon031891: haha
liljon031891: wife.. .family.. and all that stuff will overwhlem
liljon031891: u
chasekoo: i think maybe i'll just not get married
chasekoo: i think maybe i don't really want to
liljon031891: ... really>?
liljon031891: or u just saying that for now
liljon031891: ?
chasekoo: i don't know...maybe?
liljon031891: well i guess time will tell..
liljon031891: but haha then wat are your goals
liljon031891: since ur already a do
liljon031891: c
chasekoo: good question
chasekoo: i have no idea

liljon031891: i hope u find that path of urs
liljon031891: take care.. ill ttyl
chasekoo: you too
chasekoo: bye
liljon031891: if u need any korean music holler

Two things to note: 1. I'm getting life advice from a recent high school grad. 2. I think I should holler.

Myung's mom would like to see him find a girlfriend. But despite having only one son, she now worries about three. So when she found out about an eligible girl at her church, she presented the opportunity to Myung, John Choi, and me. For whatever reason John and Myung both declined, and as I am easily the oldest and most desperate of the three, after some initial convincing, I accepted.

When I brought this up during Will/Maria's Fourth of July get-together, people seemed pretty excited about it - looking her up without success on iPhone Facebook, telling me what to do and how to act. They were actually a little more interested than I was, I think, but it was nice to know that people cared a bit. Or they've been watching too many Korean dramas.

Yes, I did call her. Yes, we did meet. And while it might not qualify as a complete disaster, let's just say that the highlight of the afternoon was reconnecting with Dennis, my married-with-two-kids college buddy. Yes, during my "date."

I was a little annoyed afterward, and wasn't planning on calling her again. People thought I should give it another chance, which was reasonable, considering we barely got to know each other the first time. So I called. And left a message. And then, nothing. Seems about right.

When I was at Paul/Seung's house on Sunday, Will and Seung were trying to play matchmaker between their respective friends. Will would say, "Oh, he is like this, and he likes girls like this." And Seung would say, "Well, how about her? She's like this." And they would pull up profiles on Facebook.

I was all, "Hey! Help a brother out!" And they both laughed, and went back to matching up the matchable.

Myung and I travelled back to 1996 and found ourselves surrounded by a lot of empty seats.

With small groups cancelled for the summer, and the church softball game not worth the drive, Myung and I decided to go over to the Taste of Chicago. Neither us of were all that excited about the typically overpriced food and oversized crowds, but there are free daily concerts, and we still had fond memories of John Mayer from a few years ago.

The weather was spectacular, so we walked the mile or so from my place. We stopped by and ate at a Subway along the way to try to minimize the prodigality of the outing. Once we got to the Taste, we headed directly for the Petrillo Music Shell, and to my surprise, we were able to find a pretty good spot in the actual seating area.

Lovehammer - or as Myung called them, The Lovehammers - was playing, and we just sat and enjoyed the sun for a while. And even though the time for the main act was nearing and the promoters were encouraging people on the lawn to move up to the seating area, the place was maybe half full. Then to lukewarm cheers came The Wallflowers.

I'm sure not too many Tasters remembered, and probably even fewer cared, but The Wallflowers were kind of a big deal back in the day, even if only for a year or two. They won Grammys, they had a song on a big movie soundtrack, they were hip. Then Britney and the boy bands happened, and mainstream hip-hop happened, and all of a sudden, The Wallflowers become the wallflowers.

They played a bunch of songs, with only a couple of recognizable ones in the mix. People were bored. I was bored. I didn't know whether these were old songs or new songs, but they all sounded the same, like a bunch of b-sides from my freshman year of college. Everyone was getting antsy, and there were even a few calls from the crowd for "One Headlight." They didn't fight it, and played the song, probably for the millionth time, to the most enthusiastic response of the night.

And I couldn't help but feel a little sad, like I could almost identify with them, that there was a point in the past when things had been really, really good, and part of us was stuck there while the world had moved on.

Myung and I left immediately afterward. We bought a couple of things to munch on, and walked back to my place. We were walking in a crowd as we left the Taste, but little by little, we shed everyone until we neared my building alone, a couple of wallflowers down by the water, telling riddles in the dark.

My intern year is coming to a close. It's kind of like the end of freshman year. I now know where the rooms are, I sit at the right table in the cafeteria, and soon there will be a new batch of kids coming to take my place at the bottom of the totem pole. I'll have my pennies ready.

I suppose I should be thankful that I survived the year without directly killing anyone, as far as I know. Hmm, there's a lot of hedging going on in that last sentence. In fact, there's still two days left. Let's not jinx it now. Forget I even mentioned it.

I'm currently on the Colorectal service at the U, which means it's all feces all the time. My first rotation of second year is Colorectal at County because I apparently could not get enough. My advice to you? Fiber.

And today I had Father's Day dinner with the family. The dinner was fine, everyone is doing well, and, for the first time in a long time, no one was stressed, mostly because my sister had a good deep tendon reflex. But there I go again, speaking of things better left alone for now.

All in good time, says the wise fool.

I'm in the middle of a three-week stretch without a day off and I'm tired. The weekdays blur into weekends and I've been trying to squeeze in a personal life when I can. We've had multiple work-related social outings the past few weeks, which are a nice change of pace, but it hasn't helped with the perpetually-at-work feeling, or with the perpetually-sleep-deprived feeling, for that matter. I met up with Bekah and the other ex-BYGers for Jon's graduation lunch and extended it into a movie, where I got carded - a ridiculous combination of hanging out with kids and white people's inability to judge Asian aging.

I keep missing things. Richie is getting married on Saturday, which I have to miss because I'm on call. I haven't been to church in a month or so. I think I missed Joyce's baby shower. I'm sure I'm missing things that I don't even know I'm missing.

Bekah was talking about how she went through a tough time this past year, when she was struggling with balancing classes and working and her Christian group. She's wanted to be a doctor forever, but she started thinking that maybe she would have to give up her dream. She still hasn't, but she's comfortable with the thought that God will lead her where He wants. I hope that she will persevere through the moments of doubt and the testing of her spirit, and find herself purified by the fire.

Phyllis was telling me about how crazy her last rotation was, and she kept calling Frank, her intern on the rotation, "Wheels." I finally asked what that was about.

"You don't know?"

Apparently, Frank went out drinking one night and decided to add some dancing into the festivities. Long story short, Frank broke his right ankle. Of course, as an intern, he still had to come to work, and he didn't want to get crutches because he wanted to leave his hands free. So he got a scooter.

It was like one of those Razor scooters, except the base was built up to where he could rest his right knee. Apparently it worked out okay, except for all the times when it didn't. Its turning radius was fairly large, so after he went into a patient's room, he had to do multiple back-and-forths to get out. He had to wait for the elevator to go anywhere. Once, when he was waiting for the elevator going up, some other resident waiting for a down elevator made the one thousandth joke about the whereabouts of Frank's helmet and kneepads. When his elevator came first, Frank backed into it, staring down the other resident until the doors closed. When Frank was forced to go to the OR for a case, he scrubbed his hands and arms, and had his medical student wheel him in, where the nurse placed a C-arm cover over the scooter to keep it sterile. Finally, just days before he was healed enough to walk, the scooter got caught on a patient's bed, flipped over, and hit a nurse, who ended up filing for worker's compensation.

Now, if I had seen this on a sitcom, I probably would have thought, well, now that's just a little too silly. In real life? If I had known about this, I would have visited the hospital during my vacation just to see it with my own eyes.

And in other news, Bekah said she's going to work some magic and find me a girl. Myung said that the girl she's targeting has some sort of drug problem or something, and I - I have a prescription pad. That sounds like a match made in heaven, although, again, I would like to see it with my own eyes.

Days like this make me wish for other days. Getting criticized is no fun, and getting criticized by people that you're lukewarm towards is negative fun. Now I'm tired and need to sleep because tomorrow will be another long day. Already my vacation seems like forever ago.

Maybe I'll buy some more things online. That always seems to bring some temporary distraction from the misery. What should I buy? A Russian bride? Some lottery tickets? Ecstacy? An ecstatic Russian bride lottery ticket? Would there be a consolation prize if I don't win? A vaguely disinterested Latvian concubine? Well, sure, why not? And if she comes complete with a disapproving look, I'll wish for days like this.

My four weeks are up. My to-do list is largely unmarked and I spent more time eating and sleeping than anything else, so everything went pretty much according to expectations. I think it is about time I went back to work.

As an aside, the youth group kids, instigated by Myung and led by Che, have been chiding me for being shallow. I like it. I think I'm going to try to cultivate the image. So, Iris, yes, if Chase can't go to California, California must come to Chase in completely indulgent heated/cooled seats. And, Maria, mayhaps I will start dressing like Zac Efron doing a Justin Timberlake impression during a Tom Ford show or something. Eh, whatever, just stop posting porn in your comments, thanks.

Anyway, back to the grind, bright and early. Being shallow ain't cheap, you know.

I remember hearing a sermon when I was younger that talked about the importance of being free from the pull of materialism and the need for the nice things of this world. The preacher mentioned that he found it discomfiting to walk through the church parking lot and be reminded of a luxury car dealership. And I decided that I will never drive anything more expensive than I need.

I've been driving a Honda Accord for the past nine years. I bought it partly because it has a reputation for reliability, but I would say that my car has had more problems than I would have liked. It was getting to the age when major problems start popping up, so my parents insisted that I start thinking about buying a new car.

My initial response was, "How about a Civic?" No way. A bigger car is safer, they said. And in the typical Korean parent way, they'd already called around to local Acura/Infiniti/Lexus dealerships. A Lexus is the most reliable car you can buy, they said. I didn't argue. It would be a huge pain to have to take a car in for repairs during residency, especially during a busy rotation. And, well, a safe car is safe.

I spent a day driving around to Lexus dealerships and bought the cheapest model at a reasonable price. I told Myung about it and he kept saying that I bought a Yah-Tah car. He said guys would drive around Korea in a nice car and yell out to random women, "Yah! Tah!" Great.

I have to admit, the car is nice. As long as it doesn't cause me any trouble for the next 4-5 years, I'll be happy. But I still feel a little guilty driving it around. When I drove some BYG kids around on Sunday, I twice made a little speech explaining why I got the car and how nice cars and nice things should not be the goal in life. I probably sounded too defensive.

On Good Friday, I went to a multi-church joint worship service. It was okay. Maria berated me because I was dressed in a hoodie and jeans - "like a college kid," she said - while pretty much everyone else, including the girls that I should have been trying to impress, were all dressed in fashionable dark/wool/Express/casual affluence. I told her the old line about how we were at a church, not a fashion show. She thinks I may end up dying alone.

I suppose ideals don't last forever. At some point, they mix with reality and compromises are made. You just try to grab hold of the heart of it and hang on for dear life. And if someone wants to hang on with you, then, yah, tah.

Myung began his college life in East Lansing many years ago. He still has fond memories of bonding with his dorm floormates over Counter-Strike, awkward-yet-wonderful Christian group meetings, and possibly something related to higher education. He ended up transferring to Trinity, where he was closer to home and to Bethel, but his true allegiance was never in doubt. He loved Tom Izzo, he bled green, and he never stopped cheering for the Spartans.

Last year, Myung started telling me about the University of Pittsburgh basketball team - DeJuan Blair's penchant for collecting offensive rebounds and the persuasiveness of Sam Young's shot fake. He cheered for them all throughout the season and into the NCAA Tournament, where fate led him to a decision. The Panthers were scheduled to play Michigan State in the second round, and Myung had to make a choice. Does he go with his semi-alma mater or his favorite team of the moment? He chose to root for Pittsburgh.

I yelled at him for his lack of loyalty. I yelled at him some more when MSU won. "You can't cheer for Michigan State anymore," I told him, "You betrayed them."

This year, both Pitt and MSU had very good seasons, although Pitt's was a bit more impressive and earned them a #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament, while MSU settled for a #2 seed.

Before the tournament began Myung IMed me and told me that he had finished filling out his brackets. His final game had Pitt beating MSU for the championship.

I IMed him back about fifteen minutes later and told him that I, too, had finished filling out my brackets. For the sake of all the unjustly scorned of the world, my final game had MSU beating Pitt.

As it turned out, Pitt didn't even make the Final Four, losing in the Regional Final to Villanova. Michigan State, on the other hand, upset two #1 seeds on their way to the championship game. The press is all in a tizzy about the psychological effect that MSU's run may have on the downtrodden state of Michigan, especially with the last games being contested in Detroit. The oddsmakers have made MSU an underdog to mighty North Carolina, which easily won a preview contest earlier in the season at the same venue. The last time I cheered for a team in the final against UNC, I was left so unsatisfied. But this time, I hope it will be different. Play hard, you Spartans, and win back hope for the hopeless, win back redemption for the beaten, and win back your Gomer.

Go State.

Epilogue:

Rhea told me that there are times when Sam will choose to do something, and even though she knows he's making the wrong choice, she will let him. He once ordered a mojito at a neighborhood bar, and even though she knew that a bar like that probably wasn't the type of place to ask for a mojito, she let him order it. When the waitress came back and told him that they didn't even have the ingredients on hand to make a mojito, Sam ordered a Long Island Iced Tea instead. And even though a Long Island Iced Tea was way too strong for someone like Sam, who barely has any tolerance at all for alcohol, she let him have it. She said it's better to choose her battles.

So sometimes you let it be.

Rhea told me about Shawn, a friend of hers, who had been using Match.com about as much as it could be used. He had gone on multiple dates every weekend with anyone who was presented as potentially compatible and even remotely attractive. As examples, she mentioned that he had one date with a physically-handicapped bisexual woman at a LGBT poetry slam, and another at a rock-climbing event. Admittedly, the details escape me at the moment, but I have to believe it wasn't the same woman, as I can't - as much as I want to - imagine this woman pulling herself up the side of a cliff with her wheelchair in tow.

Anyway, her point was that he'd been on all these dates, but hasn't had much success in finding Ms. Right because on Match.com if this one has a hair out of place, or wears jean shorts, or has any one silly, superficial thing that isn't perfect, well, there are a hundred potential dates waiting in his queue who wouldn't dare think of wearing jorts. And so every good thing gets passed up because just around the bend, there exists the possibility of something better.

Is that what I'm doing? I don't know. But I have noticed that as I get older, my tastes have become just a little more discriminating. I suppose I should be careful that I don't fall in love with some nonexistent ideal. Ideals won't give me the Heimlich when I'm choking alone in my condo. And they definitely will not haul mobility devices up to the mountaintop.

Day 5 of 28: This in the air:


This on the ground:


And this in the ground:

Day 4 of 28: These:

Day 3 of 28: This:


This:


And a lot of this:

Day 2 of 28: I am now on pace to watch 28 movies before I return to work. That may drop off ever so slightly. Asobi Seksu says hi.

Day 1 of 28: Minimal productivity, slept and ate at my leisure. An auspicious start. If I have 27 more days like this, I think I will be perfectly content.

During my general surgery rotation at the VA, I had two other interns on the service. One was anesthesia and the other was family medicine, but both were girls, so they liked talking about girly things. They both offered to set me up with their friends and asked me what I liked. Somehow the final description ended up being a large, middle-aged black woman with an attitude problem, which coincidentally describes half the nurses at the VA. I don't know how I controlled myself for a whole month.

I'll be leaving tomorrow for a little trip. I'm taking whatever I can fit into my backpack. Sleep and food will meet me there.

The good news? I "passed" the ABSITE. So I am guaranteed another year of a little too much work and not quite enough sleep. Hooray?

The bad news? Grumby is blowing me off, so I have nowhere to go for my vacay. What's an interesting place I can go by myself for a few days? No answers that rhyme with Bincolnshire will be accepted.

During small group yesterday, Anson asked us to recount the last notable sacrifice that we made for the sake of the gospel. It made me realize that we were, for the most part, a generation of Christians that have sought discipleship without cost. Someone in the group mentioned a few weeks ago that there is an epidemic of spritual malaise among Christians in their twenties and thirties. We are too busy trying to establish ourselves in our careers, as husbands/wives/fathers/mothers, even simply as normal members of society, who spend their free time shopping at IKEA or going to plays or any number of things that are not sinful in and of themselves. But when God slides in at four or five on our list of things to do, why are we so surprised by the lack of revival?

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Good news and bad news, indeed.

I've been helping to fill in as BYG praise leader for Edmund whenever I know that I can make it to church on Sundays. Ideally, I would practice the songs at home during the week, especially the newer ones that I've never played before. This was made difficult by the fact that I had no instrumental accompaniment. I had to resort to plinking away on an online virtual piano just to hear the chord changes.

When I was a sophomore in high school I started learning how to play the guitar at church. My parents decided that, though it wasn't for the piano or the violin, any musical interest was better than none, and bought me a guitar. The label said it was made in Korea and it came in one of those cardboard cases. The action was so high that I could only play it for fifteen minutes before the grooves in my finger callouses made pressing down on the strings an exercise in futility. And I would still play for hours.

I never actually got very good at the guitar. I can play chords well enough to get by, but all the fancy stuff is beyond me. And this old dog is okay with sitting and staying and occasionally rolling over.

But my old guitar is buried somewhere at my parents' house and I felt like it was time to upgrade after all these years, so I bought myself a new one. It was one of the cheaper ones I could find, and it's definitely not gold-plated, but it sounds fine and it plays pretty painlessly.

It's been great. I've brought out old praise song sheets and probably annoyed my neighbors. I had forgotten what it feels like when your voice and the strings are singing and harmonizing and building on top of each other and every breath you draw is Hallelujah.

Anson signed Myung up for an eHarmony account. He showed me his profile, which had a handful of messages from interested women. Unfortunately, he couldn't respond to them because that required paying for the privilege, and that wasn't happening. Yet.

After small group on Sunday, Julie mentioned setting me up with someone from her old church in Virginia.

Me: Is she cute?

She: Oh yeah. Leonard, you've met her before.

Me: Is she cute?

He: ...She's ok.

So that was the end of that.

I've been feeling pretty uninspired recently. There's no exam to worry about, nothing particularly interesting going on otherwise. I think my ennui is coloring my work, my writing, and life in general. Some focus would be good.

I just got an email from Dan, who is headed to Zambia for a month as his residency elective. He sent his support letter to our old East Timor group, most of whom I haven't talked to in years. I vaguely remember a sense of inspiration back then.

Lent started about an hour ago. The last time I gave anything up for Lent was back in college, although I can't seem to remember what it was. (For Lent the year after, I sarcastically gave up hope, but I don't think I'm going to count that) Maybe this would be a good time to abstain from certain things. Some things are worth the cost.

As an aside, Grace (Grotch? Grum? Grattimom?), I have every intention of taking you up on your offer. I am looking forward to farm animals, swing sets, sudden bursts of song and/or dance, and ok, I don't know anything about Connecticut. Anyway, please prepare Atticus accordingly. And if he asks, yes, I am exceedingly cute.

I've been sick for a little over two weeks now, and I've had delirious dreams of lost loves. I wonder where they are now, and if they ever think of me. Maybe they do in their own delirium.

When I'm sick, I tend to stop caring about things and only focus on when I can next pop my DayQuil, so my first two weeks of this private hospital rotation have consisted of me wandering the hallways in a drug-induced haze. And when I come home, I no longer have to worry about studying, so I fall asleep on the couch to whichever college basketball game is on that night.

The one thing that I am looking forward to now is my vacation time in a little over a month. I'd like to spend at least some of it traveling somewhere, getting away. Maybe I could visit one of my friends. Friends, what say you?

The ABSITE is over and I just have to hope that 30% of those taking the test did just a bit worse than I did. It's a low bar, I know, but that's how I roll.

The good thing is that now I don't feel compelled to study during my limited free time. On Sunday, I went to a Super Bowl party at Paul and Seung's place, you know, like a normal person.

There was a lot of food, a few babies, and a bunch of dogs. Arturo and I decided to bring Che, Christine, and Youngjoo, even though their response was something like, "A super... bowl?" They sat in the den and worked on homework/wasted time during the entire game.

Leonard, Will/Maria, and Joey all brought their dogs, so it was something of a zoo. They were all pretty rowdy, but Joey's bulldog was the only one tied up in the corner. Che kept saying that it was only because it was ugly, which was probably true since every time people walked into the den and saw it, they would inevitably mention how ugly it was. I mean, one of Will/Maria's dogs pooped all over the foyer and it was still free to run around afterwards.

I told Che that the bulldog may be beautiful on the inside. She said that it was constantly squealing, begging for any attention, basically desperate and needy. Well, then. By the end of the night, they'd moved it to the garage, and we could occasionally hear a whimper through the door, which we ignored without much trouble. Tragically ugly.

Before the party, we were killing time and Che decided to draw a picture of the book that she is reading for school. Here are Desdemona, Othello, and Iago. Tragically adorable.

Peds Surgery is busy. It's probably as busy as I've been in months. The kids are kind of cute, although most of them are little bundled-up thingamaboppers that I can't seem to tell apart, except for where their beds are located. And then there are the endless circumcisions. I'm going to have to side with the Apostle Paul regarding that. Forget theological reasons, I'd just like to lighten my workload a little bit.

And my big annual in-service exam is coming up in a few weeks. I really should be studying more. It would be nice if I didn't fail it.

A sad personal record to note: I brushed my teeth very early Thursday morning before work, stayed overnight and had a brutal call night which basically lasted into the next morning, and had a very busy Friday morning before coming home early Friday afternoon, at which point I still hadn't brushed my teeth again. I fell asleep when I got home and slept through the rest of the day and night, woke up Saturday morning, and bummed around the house because it was snowing too much to bother going anywhere. Bumming around included not brushing my teeth. So by the time I dusted off my toothbrush Saturday night, it had been something like 66ish hours in between brushings. At that rate, my tube of toothpaste may last me the remainder of my residency, but my enamel surely won't. Sorry, teeth, I'll do better.

Speaking of disgusting things of the os, Che and Christine went and bought marshmallows and we spotted a herd of full-figured hares.



Happy New Year.