Proximity is solid

So I went to Santa Monica last night with Yen, a girl from my rotation lab, and some of her friends. We first did Power Yoga-- a super-intense, liberating workout--followed by a clean up in Westwood, a quick turnaround, and a debaucherous evening along Santa Monica's Main Street. Yoga and alcohol together at last. Total time to-and-from Santa Monica was about 10 minutes.

Unlike Westwood, where there are basically 3 bars (Maloney's, "BrewCo," and "W"), the Main Street of Santa Monica has a wide assortment of clubs and bars. And although I almost got in a fight with a drunkard at one of the places we visited (Apparently, gently grazing someone's arm on the way back from the toilet constitutes unchecked aggression.), the ambiance was overall excellent. And, like all areas in greater L.A., you are always a moment away from fake breasts, foreigners, displaced coke-heads, and 50-something men who roll up to clubs in mid-life crisis mobiles. It's a perverse sort-of eye candy. I love this city.

So this is what a blog is...

I've been at UCLA for the last two weeks getting settled and doing one of these research rotation things. I'm fresh from a six week stint in Europe and graduating from Wash U. It's nice to be back in Southern California; it's not that i didnt enjoy St. Louis, i'm just glad to be close to the ocean and my family. I'm really excited about UCLA MSTP, living in LA, meeting a lot of new people and all the experiences we will have in the next 7-8 years. Well I hope this blog is useful and I'll try to post relatively often.

In Westwood, on rotation

That (above) was me a year ago. Thanks to Matt and Lucas (two fellow Pomona Alums), I dislocated my knee right before the Beckman Conference. Anyway, in this second post, I would like to comment on the first "required" rotation for the UCLA MSTP. While everyone can agree that traveling in Europe for all the days leading up to medical school is ideal, I have to say that this rotation thing isn't bad at all. For one, I'm becoming acclimated with UCLA and Westwood in general. It's somewhat bizarre to live in a city where you're a short jog from the pool, where Owen Wilson frequently swims laps, while on the same jog you might run into one of O.W.'s friends at the premiere of Miami Vice (True, all of it...By the way, movie premieres are stupid and pointless and just another excuse for L.A. people to point at each other and say, "We're kind of a big deal; I mean, we have stars here.") Another reason I love this summer rotation thing is that I'm getting to appreciate the pace of research before launching into the sure-to-be frenetic world of medical school. In other words, I'm appreciating the fact that I'll have PhD years in addition to pre-clinical and clinical years (the MD components of my training). Anyway, where was I? Oh ya, UCLA is great. There's a bit of everything here, which, at first, is a little overwhelming. Where do you begin, how do you wade through the endless possibilities, each easily within your grasp? I guess I still am figuring this out, but I'm really "getting into it."

So it begins...

This is a test post on the new blog, the MSTP life at UCLA, a blog devoted to the MSTP experience. This is a place for friends, family, and anyone interested in reading about (and seeing) the eight (or so) years that comprise the path toward earning and dual MD/PhD.