Pie in the sky

I apologize for all the food-related posts recently, but I wanted to pass this along. (It's probably because when I study, I turn into a veritable food monster. Everything I want to do, look at, or read about, is related to food. But that's another story, and many inches to my waistline.)

Anyways, LOOK! It's a pizza vending machine! You can choose what toppings you want, and then the vending machine MAKES everything to order, and you have pizza three minutes later! Cheap, fast, fresh, and supposedly delicious.



I love pizza and I'm drooling right now, just thinking of it!

How sweet it is (part 2)

What: Iron Chef Streeterville
Where: Rachel's Kitchen Stadium

For appetizer, it was chocolate vs. coconut

Toast with chocolate and fleur de sel &
Tapa chorizo con chocolate
[Chef Martin]

Coconut a la shrimp with a hint of lemon
[Chef Ryan]

---

For the main course, it was basil vs. cheese vs. mushroom

Basil, cheese, apple, and chicken pizza on whole wheat dough paired with a refreshing Caprese salad
[Chef Amy]

Turkey bacon wrapped chicken breasts stuffed with garlic and herb goat cheese
[Chef Neil]

Mama's Mushroom Madness
Comfort food inspired twice-baked casserole with chicken, mushroom, and deliciousness
[Chef Rachel]

---

For dessert, it was mango vs. carrot

Thai sweet sticky rice infused with coconut milk and topped with fresh mango (Khao Neeo Mamuang) & Mango Lassi
[Chef Michelle]

Sweet carrot buttermilk pie with carrots, carrots, and more carrots
[Chef Betty]

Split personality

On Friday, I took the NMBE 's comprehensive basic sciences exam. Our school pays for each of us to take it, and thankfully, it doesn't count for anything. It's a practice exam of sorts, to let us know where we are and what we need to focus on for boards studying (read: everything).

It doesn't count for anything. That's the key phrase. Yet, I had trouble sleeping on Thursday night, and was as stressed out about it as I would be for any of my other regular does-count-for-something tests. Why? Because this NBME exam was going to predict my possible range of Step 1 scores, based on the performance of previous years' classes.

Holy crap.

I did not want to be the one random outlier (on the negative end of things). My biggest fear was that I would open up that envelope, and next to "Predicted Score" I'd see a 150. Or something. I was just so afraid to see a score that wouldn't qualify as passing.

So I was in my seat, waiting for the exam to start and trying to make the palpitations and sweating stop. Just breathe, Michelle. Just breathe. And as I sat there with my head down, trying to calmly collect my thoughts, I saw them.

Split ends galore. Not one, not ten, but five hundred million. It's like every single hair on my head had freaked out the night before and split (and not in a yummy delicious banana-like way). And then, before I knew it, the test had started, but all I could focus on were my split ends. And how gross they were. And how I would give anything for a pair of scissors at that moment.

The test sucked. Majorly. I was blatently guessing on 90% of the questions, and for the 10% that I had a vague idea about, I didn't know the second part of the answer that they were looking for. For instance, let's say that they described the Hokey Pokey. As I'm reading the question, my self-confidence would rise - "Yes! I know what they're referring to!" But then I would read the actual question, which might be something like, "What is the first body part that is involved in this group dance?" Then, I'd be like, "Oh crap! I know it's the Hokey Pokey...but what comes first? The head? No the hand. Right hand? Left hand? Oh god. B or C? B or C? Oh man, it's probably D, I haven't had a D answer in seven questions! Circle D, Michelle! Just do it!"

Take all that self-doubt and confusion and multiply it by a million, and you'll come a little close to feeling as I did.

The test took four very long agonizing hours. But it was good to experience "battle conditions." Now I know that I can't sit for four hours straight. And that having a muffin and orange juice beforehand really does matter. And that I should probably tie my hair back in a ponytail so that I won't obsess over split ends every five questions. Because I did.

So the moment it was over, I high-tailed it to the local salon and told the woman there to chop it all off.

"But why?! You have beautiful hair!"
"Oh, thank you. I have split ends though."
"Oh yes, I see that. But it's okay. That's normal for Chicago weather. You can't really do anything for it."
"Oh. Well I just want a trim, but take off as much as you need to."
"I won't take off that much. Don't worry."
"Haha, you can chop off as much as you want. I promise I won't cry about it."

She then started cutting my hair, and I smiled, glad that at least this one obsessive compulsion would be cured quickly.

She was done 10 minutes later. "Really, you have such beautiful hair, I didn't want to take off too much. Young girls should have long hair. Long beautiful hair so that men will fall in love with you."

Then she handed me a mirror, and I looked. And then I looked again. Because minus the blow-out job, I looked the exact same.

Yes, she had trimmed my hair. But just barely. It was a 1cm trim. On my longest layers. The shorter ones on top hadn't even been touched.

I didn't even know what to do, except pay the outrageous $50 fee and go home. Where I proceeded to find another five million split ends and started cutting them each individually by hand. Two hundred down, just a bazillion more to go.

I have half a mind to just shave my head, so that I can focus on studying, instead of what this terrible Chicago weather has done to my hair.

And I apologize, because I have no idea how a story about the NBME exam turned into a story about my ridiculously expensive and useless haircut. And I know that in the grand scheme of things, having a couple split ends here and there won't matter as much as my boards score will. But I can't help but obsess over them. Because I can fix those now. Quickly. In the moment. Without having to study for the next two months. Because I'm an instant gratification kind of person, but with boards, there's no reward until you get that score. And that's a long ways off.

But this is what I gotta do. I gotta study. And obsess over drugs and side effects. And not my split ends splitting.

I really ought to just shave my head and be done with it.

How sweet it is

Today, I planned for my IRON CHEF CHALLENGE instead of doing my stats homework.

Yes, I looked up rules and regulations, researched iron chef parties (see here - apparently my friends and I are not the first to do such a thing), and then videotaped the Boy selecting names and secret ingredients out of a hat, so that when I sent everyone their secret ingredient assignment, they would know that there was no trickery or shadiness going on. It was all randomized, people; I don't play favorites. (Also, I would link to the video here, but I'm appalled by my messy armchair that is featured quite prominently in the background throughout, so I'm going to pass. You'll just have to imagine it. Or coerce one of the "Iron Chef contestants" to tell you the Youtube link.)

Anyways, now it's 10:30pm, and I'm staring at my homework, realizing that I'd much rather figure out the perfect mango dessert, than determine the efficacy rate of anticoagulation in treating pulmonary embolism.

I can't wait for Friday. And if you know of any delicious desserts that prominently feature mango, send them my way. Because when it comes to mango, I really don't know anything. I don't even know how to peel and dice them.

Wild Thing

Amazing.



Childhood revisited! Can not wait.

Disturbia

Oh god. I thought I had left my awkwardly embarrassing days behind me.

Clearly I was mistaken.

Every year around this time, the M4s hold info sessions on the specialties that they've matched into to give us lemmings some guidance. I went to the pediatrics one this week, and it was good. Great, in fact. While it was definitely geared more towards the current third years - how to apply, how to interview, what to do after the interview, how to not freak out after the interview - it was good hearing everything anyways. Even if I'm more concerned about boards than anything right now. Oh god, that reminds me, I have to do laundry. Or buy more underwear.

But I digress.

So I know two of the pediatric M4s pretty well. One is my roommate (hi Lisa!), and the other is a friend from undergrad (hi, Ed!). Afterwards, Ed told me to send him an email if I had any specific M2 questions regarding peds. Which, of course I did - but I felt too self-conscious at the actual session to ask.

So I sat down the next morning and basically poured my heart out. How do I know if peds is right for me? Will I figure it out third year on the actual rotation, or will I know while working on other things? Is it a way of life? Does it depend on how you work? Is it more than that? Am I missing the big picture? What if it turns out that I don't want to go into peds?! Even though I've been talking about pediatrics since high school?! Oh god, I'm having a quarter-life crisis right now. GIVE ME THE ANSWER - WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE.

And even though it seems as though I'm exaggerating about the one-sided email freak-out session, I'm totally not. I then went on to tell him about all the flaws I saw in my resume, and asked a whole bunch of questions about what I could do to become a stronger applicant.

Because my application is weak sauce right now. For reals. Not for fakes. And as you can tell, I'm kinda freaking out about it.

And then I pressed send. Without proofreading anything. Not caring about the multitude of tangents and run-on sentences that were everywhere in my email. The way I saw it, Ed's a friend. He'll understand. He'll read through it and know what I'm asking for. And then he'll tell me that everything is going to be okay.

A couple hours passed. No reply.

Another couple hours passed. And then it popped up in my gmail. I opened it excitedly.

"Hey Michelle! Um, sorry, but I think you emailed the wrong Edward! This is Eddie, your fellow M2 classmate. Uh, I wish I could help you, but I don't know any more than you do. We'll be okay though.................. anyways, hope you can get in contact with the other Edward that you're trying to find!"

Oh my god.

Seriously, oh my god.

Turns out the Ed I was trying to email and the Eddie I ended up emailing share a last name that is different by only one letter. And I just let gmail fill in the email address for me and didn't even look at it twice.

But oh my god.

At least I now know that no one can truly die from embarassment, because if one could, I would have.

And no, I don't know Eddie well at all. But now he knows a whole heck of a lot about me and my insecurities. And my resume. And transcript. And exam scores.

Thank goodness it's spring break and I won't see Eddie in class for at least another three days. Although I'm hoping that when I do see him, the Earth will open up and swallow me whole. Is that too much to ask?

Picture to burn

You can always tell how depressed I am by the music I'm playing. When things are normal, I'll all about the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. You know I'm happy when I'm playing my wholesome teenybopper chart-toppers. When things start going a little south for me and I'm starting to feel a little doom and gloom, I start playing my favorite female singer-songwriters. Sara Bareilles, Marie Digby, Lenka. They just get me and my mood. Sing it out, ladies.

When things are really bad, I revert back to country.

Now, in undergrad, I was big on country. After all, I did go to a Brad Paisley concert, knew about Taylor Swift long before she blew up the Billboard charts, rooted for Josh Gracin on American Idol, and watched the CMA awards religiously. But even though I have 250+ country songs on my hard drive alone, I've rarely listened to my country songs since June 2006.

Until now.

You see, studying for boards is demoralizing, to say the least.

This whole year, I've been studying for my classes. Drugs. Nerves. Kidney function. Heart murmurs. So on and so forth. And while others started studying for boards over winter break, I didn't have that luxury - because I'm not smart enough to not devote all of my time to my classes, if I want to have an ice cube's chance in hell to pass.

So now I'm playing the whole catch-up game. Finally signed up for a question bank. Cracked open that FirstAid that's been sitting uselessly on my desk for a while now. Wrote up a schedule.

But holy cow, it's depressing.

Going through these test questions sure is great for my self-esteem, as I realize that I'm getting more questions wrong than right...even though I'm doing topics that I was tested on less than a month ago. But the real kick-you-while-you're-down thing are the stats for each question. I mean, how am I supposed to feel about my intelligence level, when I find out that the question I just got wrong was answered correctly by 92% of the other people using the same testing service? And that the answer I chose was only picked 2% of the time? They might as well write in big bold letters: Congratulations Michelle! You're stupider than dirt! By the way, that's really dumb, in case you were wondering.

Yeah, my self-esteem is getting a thorough beating.

So now I've got country music blaring from my dinky laptop speakers, because hey, misery loves company. And country stars sing about their deadbeat dads and alcoholic girlfriends and lost dogs. If that's not misery, I don't know what is.

And somewhere, somehow - in my dumber than dirt, stupider than mud, unintelligent brain - that makes me feel a little better.