So today I went to Easter services with Ivy, James and their family at their Taiwanese church in Maryland. It was a nice surprise bumping into friends from the past, Connie & Angela. I also recognized Walter & Eric's parents, so now I have their numbers again... Walter is supposed to be in town tonight, so hopefully I'll get in touch with him. Eric, it turns out, is doing Plastic Surgery at Stanford, so maybe I'll see him when I actually move out there. After church, we drove to D.C., saw a few of the cherry blossoms at the Mall, and took a few pics. Then I hopped onto a train and now I'm in Baltimore! I got to see Tim & Val before before they left for the weekend, and now I'll be hanging with Rolla, Frantz, and the kids before heading back to D.C. tomorrow. I love having these super-duper packed weekends filled with the people I appreciate most...

Connie! Cheers, Dr. Pop! (reminiscent of my Orangina experience)

Tim & Val, Frantz & Rolla at their Taekwondo studio

Sitting here with Ivy in her home. Saw Jay & Susan today, and all of us went to some swampy forest place. Pretty neat. Also briefly saw Esther. Watching Moulin Rouge right now. It's a good movie. Why didn't someone tell me this?? More blogs and pics to come. Stay tuned.

Over Chicago & Lake Michigan. Me & Ives, National Geographic team.

My TAC gurlz: Ives & Esta! Old friends: Susan and Jay.

Dinner with the Chow family. Wine courtesy of smuggler James.

Off to DC... stay tuned for blogs from the road...

OMG! When it comes to stale Peeps, it seems I am not alone... I think I've discovered Peep Recipe heaven! Peeps will rule the world! Here they come...

I've been sitting here most of the day eating these stale blue Bunnies along with some stale dark chocolates. You must believe me when I say how great this combination is... Heavenly. OK, I admit that after the Easter weekend, I usually go and stock up on all the clearance Peeps & Bunnies because they're cheap and one step closer to staleness... And I make them last as long as I can... Anyways, I am finally packed for my DC trip! I'm excited about seeing everyone!

I am in love with Marshmallow Peeps & Bunnies! I'm sitting here and enjoying blue Bunnies today. So good... the key is, they need to be slightly stale... yummy yummy! Soon, my peeps and I will be in Paris...

But of course, my luck always turns out for the worst... That overnight call was by far the most painful I've had in months. It was totally non-stop from the moment I stepped into the hospital til 4:30 am. I came home at 6 am and passed out til 11 this morning. I am hurting. HUR-TING!

I'm on call tonight as a last minute substitute. I could use a little rest now...

Plane tickets are booked! Going to France, Italy, & Spain in May...

I had alot of time on my hands today... so I decided to go on a little walking tour of UIC to take some pictures. I was hoping to make UIC look prettier than it really is, which, as all UIC people know, is quite a challenge. Anyways, I started walking around and snapped a few photos before bumping into Charlie outside of our Union. He decided to join me on my walk... So we walked through our medical school lounge where I took a few more photos. Then we headed back outside and into the courtyard so I could get a picture of Aesculapius, the god of Medicine, aka Charlie. I also took a pic of this statue.

I found a couple of nice perspective shots of the Sears Tower from UIC. And here's a view of our hospital within the medical center. Can you see me??

Well, we kept on walking with the intention to head down Taylor St. for a quick bite to eat and coincidentally bumped into Becky, just getting out of her rotation! So she decided to join us (since we're such fun guys, of course), and we found a nice little Italian eatery/shop to chill in for a little while...

Becky and I picked up this drink that Charlie was having - "an authentic European drink," he said. And we also decided to work on a box of these Italian Pizza-flavored breadsticks... that turned out to be a little bit weak on the Pizza taste. But they were fun to play with though. Becky is awesome! She smiles and laughs at everything! I amuse Becky... or she kindly humors me. I dunno.

So, Becky and I were sitting there thinking that these "authentic" drinks tasted like Orange Crush... when I finally noticed that our drinks weren't the same as Charlie's! He had the "truly authentic" San Pellegrino, while we, the silly fools, had picked up the similar-looking knock-offs by accident! Some Orangina brand, not even European, canned in Florida... So cultured we seemed. That was a nice laugh. Expensive Orange Crush.

Anyways, it turned out to be a much nicer walk than I anticipated. It was cool hanging out with those guys for awhile. And I got my pictures... Yay!

Finally... The Foundation for Asian American Independent Media has put up their film schedule for the Asian American Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Fim Center down in the Loop. I love this festival! I've been there every year since the beginning! It starts April 5, and I plan to be at 1 or 2 shows every night... so if anyone wants to join me... let me know! Don't miss: Better Luck Tomorrow, Green Dragon, and Lunch With Charles!

I received my monthy UIC bill yesterday. Total due = $0.44. Let me say that again... 44 friggin' cents. If I don't pay it, there will be a late fee of $2.00 and an annual percentage rate of 18% charged... How messed up is that? Plus I gotta fork out a, what are we at now, 34 cent stamp to mail this check... The thought of this boggles my mind.

Wow! Cool website for the 2002 Midwest ITASA Conference at UIUC.

Just booked a flight to Washington DC this weekend... Tentative agenda: Visit Ivy & Esther in Virginia, then head to Baltimore to see Rolla, Frantz and the kids, and finally back to DC to see Anna. Hopefully I have time to catch up with Susan & Jay and then do some touristy things too... Do I know anybody else near the DC area? I forget...

It's nice having relatively nothing to do... Had a quick lunch with Dave today. Organized some medical textbooks that I need to sell. Stopped by my old research lab to drop off a gift for my Bioengineering advisor / principal investigator. Now, I'm off to see a movie with the regular Tuesday night crew - can't beat $5 Tuesdays. I have a total of $1 in my wallet. Hmmm...

I've retired my short white coat... no more rotations, nothing left to do. Graduation is May 3rd.

Winter wonderland. Yucky.

Marge's buddy, Karen, looks especially cute on webcam pics. Just another pointless and superficial comment.

I see new postings by Marianne, Celia, and Ivy. Although I know they are "occasional" bloggers, I still can't help but check their pages every day. To all my faithful readers out there - aren't you glad I post every day, no matter how meaningless it is? Just so you have something new to read on this page. I understand the addiction, my friend... And so does Frank who seems to have an extraordinary amount of time on his hands lately... revamping his 3 month old website.

Photographer Phil has put up a UIC 2002 dotPhoto Album with pics from Match Day and other recent events.

Dim sum and bubble tea this morning. Enough said.

Congrats again to our dear friends Raj and Anita and their recent engagement! I'm so happy for you guys! And thanks Jackie for hosting a nice little party in their honor. Her condo was just amazing! Definitely my kind of style. I'm so jealous! Check out the view from her deck... you can see the Barnes & Nobles bookstore where I spent much of my time studying... That place never looked better than tonight. Wow. The rest of the photos are here.

It's a beautiful day today... I need to get out and do something different. In the coming weeks, I want to go to St Louis, New York, and out to Cali to find a place to live... I'll also be heading to Champaign for the ITASA conference early in April and looking forward to a trip to Europe in May. So many places to be, so little time...

Children's Hospital Oakland Pediatric Residency Training Program

I'm out early today. And this is officially my last day as a medical student on a clinical rotation... I'm free! Let's play!

And I'm excited to tell you all that I will be spending at least the next 3 years at Children's Hospital of Oakland in the San Francisco bay area! Today has been an exciting day of celebration with all my dear friends from medical school. We started out at the Top of the Plaza in downtown Chicago where all the Match Day envelopes were passed out. Afterwards, we headed to the Rock Bottom Brewery for some celebratory drinks. Dinner was at a tapas place called Twist with several of the old Indigo gang. And finally, our party ended at Lithium, a cozy little bar... I am super pooped out, especially because I'm post-call. Here are several pics from today's events... The rest are here.

Fellow future pediatricians, Dave & Nicole. My buddies Steve & Dave.

Some of our M3 friends sharing the moment. Thanks guys!

Chris, me, Mike, Norma, Claudia, Estella, & Sara

Sol, Jenny, Rong, Viv, Agnes
aka The Hot Asian Women of the Class of 2002. Lucky me!

Nadine & Gopal started med school with me. Lacking the enzyme...

Phil and the original Indigo gang: Hsin-yi, Julia, me & Kev.

More Indigo gang: Gauri, John, Warren & Moy!

And of course Anita & Raj, our recently engaged friends...

Off to the party to find out my fate...

Match Day is here...

Margaret is just really cool. I like her alot. In fact, I like her just as much as Lana Lang. Anyways, I got out early today. There is sunlight this season. I knew it! Too bad I'm on call again tonight... and I'll be post-call on Match Day. Maybe I'll fall asleep when they hand me the envelope that tells me where I'm going...

We saw Ice Age. That was one funny movie. Much better than I expected it to be. Bumped into fellow M4s Chris and Sara there. So they joined us at BW3 afterwards too. Those were some hot wings... I only made it up to "medium." That hurt. Alot. Several made it past "hot" and into "blazin' hot" territory. But they paid dearly... They've earned my eternal respect...

Oh. I have reason to believe I matched in one of my top 4 programs... I'll find out Thursday morning for sure...

Margaret is coming to ITASA. So is Davef. And Harm too... How exciting! I'm covering $50 of Margaret's plane ticket... See, this is what you get when you visit me... Take note.

Ahhh... nice mid-day break. Tonight, movie with the Indigo Gang and maybe some hot wings afterwards...

Kevin, Phil, Warren, Han, Chris, Sara, Aileen, "medium wimp", John

I have a new TV show: The American Embassy. It has an Ally McBeal type of flavor, though a little more serious and thoughtful. The first couple of episodes really reflected on the challenges of life at the personal level and at a level beyond our control... like an Embassy bombing. It seems very poignant especially during this period post-9-11. That reminds me. Today was the first time I heard about that Tribute In Light Memorial...

Thanks for the pic Frank!

It seems Ingrid has had a blog page going for a while now too... OK, I must get my butt out now and go do some reading... This time is for real.

Time to go out and read. This is officially my last week of being a student... Dinner with Dave and Brenton later...

"Suffering Under a Great Injustice" Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar.
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An image from the collection... or is it Juliana?

Ouch Ouch. I'm paying for a late night out... The original plan was to end the evening early and catch up on some post-call sleep. Didn't happen. After dinner at Sherry's, I went over to Vida's restaurant where some of the U of I gang had gotten together because Rebecca was in town for a Women of Color Conference. I always feel great after sitting with them just because they're so like-minded and such activists. They "care" - and that is something I respect and admire so much. Rebecca's friends Betty and Stephanie were there too, which was cool because I recognized Stephanie from my last year (her first year) in college. That was so long ago - but that brought back some nice memories. She's also had some interesting experiences living in Japan in recent years. Well, after some catching up and goofing off with the whole gang, we decided to relocate to a Bucktown bar. Parking was a pain, standing in line was a pain, but we finally just settled in at a little bar and chatted for awhile. A couple of Rebecca's friends from LA joined us too, and they were just completely cool - as her friends always are. After hanging out with so many Asian American activists yesterday night - it's starting to stir up some of the inner fire that I've managed to suppress during all these years in med school... Now that med school is coming to a close for me, I'm psyched about the upcoming ITASA conference, the Chicago AA film festival, possibly another APAMSA conference in New York, and even stuff I might be able to do while in residency... so psyched! Some of the people I know and meet are just too amazing.

old skoolers: Guia, Me, Vida, Rebecca, NaYoung, Oliver, Gordon

Off to Sherry's...

The Something About Mary dog. Spring rolls! Mine is bigger than yours!

Agenda today: Meet Frank & Vic today in Chinatown. Bubble tea, then lunch. Maybe a movie in afternoon with the roomie. Dinner at Sherry's. Hang out after dinner with the ol' U of I gang - Rebecca, Vida, Nayoung, Oliver, Gordon, etc... busy busy... but looking forward to it!

Man-tou madness! Three wise old men. The shorter, the wiser...

So where are these girl scouts when one gets a craving for Mint Thins? Tis the season, isn't it?

OMG! Celia blogged!

And it was an easy night...

I got out fairly early today... so I went over to Chinatown for... you guessed it... a nice little bubble tea. Could not resist. I'm on call tonight again... so this is a nice little refresher before heading back to the hospital. Should be a good day tomorrow though. Lunch with Vic and Frank. Then I'm headed over to Sherry's party at her new house. I think one of the first pieces of furniture she bought was a pool table... good thinking... Friday feels so good. I hope it's an easy night.

Raindog80. Ranee. In London. Believe it. I'm gonna visit.

Blogged = as good as a contract
HoChie71: man, u make me hungry
HoChie71: every time i talk to you
nuprin13: hehehehe
nuprin13: it's a talent
nuprin13: maybe i always talk to you when i'm hungry
nuprin13: or maybe i'm always hungry :-)
HoChie71: or maybe that means you need to cook me a dinner
nuprin13: move out here and i will :-)
HoChie71: every week? aw gee thanks.
HoChie71: ;-)
nuprin13: hehehe. you buy it and i'll bake it
nuprin13: or make it
HoChie71: haha
HoChie71: i might have to print this out as a contract.
nuprin13: doh

A picture for Violeta:

A picture for me:

A picture for best city in the world: