Thursday, February 13, 2003

ATTENTION--feedback!

unfortunately i'm not web savvy and rich enough to have my own website so that people can easily add comments to my ramblings and this site doesn't even have that capability (as far as i know of), BUT i think i may have bypassed that. if you want to add comments, go to www.blogger.com. use "guest" as the userid and password. click on "stranger in a strange world" and it will take you to my site. type, click on "post and publish" and there you have it. of course, please identify yourself in your comment. peace out. let's see if if works...
i'm sitting here waiting for the stinkin' hotmail to not be busy.

i'm off today. woohoo! i'm on wards this month, general inpatient stuff, that is. we only get a day off per week on average.

i'm watching sportscenter while i'm doing this. kobe scored 51 points last night. he's 24 years old. unbelievable. i'm 30, making 35k per year, my room's a mess, i'm drinking coffee out of a tweety bird coffee mug and i don't want to think about how much kobe's making. so yeah, that's 35k per year for 80+ hours a week, no holidays. you know, if korean parents cared more about sports, i would be playing centerfield in the majors with a few championship rings on my fingers. they would be retired, rollin' in their fancy cars, the envy of korean parents everywhere. well, i wouldn't get them anything too fancy, you know, the whole getting attached to this world idea. but, they've sacrificed a lot and worked like crazy over the years. i guess they deserve some perks from their ungrateful kids.

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

relationships...

although i grew up in america, i was still raised in a korean family with more and more western influence by the year. it's been a life of kimchi and big macs. my mom came to america first and lived here by herself for a year before the rest of the fam moved here. she didn't speak a lick of english yet somehow, a hospital that was involved in an exchange program with one of the hospitals in korea hired her as a nurse. crazy, huh?

my dad is semi-retired. he was a typical korean small businessman--first grocery store, then dry cleaners. years ago in our city, there were 700 dry cleaners and half were owned by koreans. most of the other half were owned by indians. i guess stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason. he plays golf 3 days a week and watches korean videos and plays go/baduk on the internet. that's his life.

my mom goes to work at night (on the night shift that is, not as a prostitute or anything) and basically watches korean videos all day. but she watches them upstairs and not with my dad. it's hard to coordinate which video you're on to watch them together, you know, with the different schedules and all. it's very complex. like all old people, they keep the house freakin' freezing in the winter and hot as a mother in the summer. it saves money. they walk around with jackets in the winter and in the summer...well, for some medical mystery, old people don't seem to get hot so they actually feel comfortable when the temperature is 100 inside (remember that seinfeld episode?).

my sister was probably the least academically inclined one of the kids but she probably is the one who turned out most normal. she works in film/tv, doing alright for herself. she has one kid, madison (quite possibly the cutest 2 year old on the planet), with another on the way. my brother is also married. he and his wife had a kid 4 months after my sister. now they're also trying for #2. he's also a doctor (anesthesiologist). he drinks too much (not all the time, just a lot when he does). kinda typical for doctors, i guess.

that leaves me the only non-married, childless member of the family. at least i don't think i have any kids anywhere. i'm also the only one in a "cross-cultural" relationship. (how p.c. is that?) she's white. (if you're reading this karen, i love you!) i like people of all backgrounds but i guess just by statistics, since i grew up around more whites, i've dated more white girls than others. as you can imagine, that was a huge issue for the iron fist of my dad. initially he threatened to kick me out of the family but over the years he's mellowed out some. karen and i are actually going out to dinner with my folks this weekend. that will be an interesting evening. my dad actually wanted this because he wanted to get to know her--what her parents do, where she went to school, if she's healthy. koreans are really into family and money and health. karen joked that she would bring her resume for them. hilarious. well, tacos are calling so until next time.
where do i live? for fear of legal ramifications, i can't tell you (i'm in the witness protection program). just kidding. since i want to share a lot of hospital stories, we'll leave my place of residence blank. however, i do live with a surgery intern and medicine intern. i myself am a medicine (internal medicine) intern. we are the real-life "scrubs." except we don't have hot parties all the time or sleep around with nurses or other colleagues ... at least i don't think we do.
what do i do? i am a physician
how glamorous! hell no
why not? because i am an intern
what is that? here is some medical inside info: general chronology of things, unless you're some super smart nerdy geek who like skips grades and stuff ... which one does often find in the world of medicine ... but not as much as in the world of engineering ... to which i once belonged ... and what's up with all the ... ???

anyway: college, 4 years of med school, 3+ years of residency, pass your state board exams, then become an official i-can-practice-on-my-own physician. in contrast, internists are already board-certified physicians in the field of internal medicine, which is general medicine for adults. pediatricians treat kids, family practice physicians treat all age groups, including babies. got that? questions? comments? dedications? circumcisions?
vitals:
who am i? just call me tan the man (although some dude already took that name for the blog title). i was born in korea (south ... i'm not no commie) and moved to the good ol' usa when i was two. i became a christian i guess when i was 12 or so.