underrepresented underrepresented miniorty

so today i went to the 'visiting student elective program for underrepresented miniorities' luncheon to meet the program director and the other students in the program. there were 4 african amerian women, 1 puerto rican woman, 1 puerto rican guy and myself. the director is puerto rican himself, the administrator is african american. i felt like both the whitest and the most asian/pacific islander person there. i guess i've never really truly felt like a miniority, because everwhere i've been has been pretty diverse. or maybe it's just that i'm adaptable and can kinda make myself a niche no matter where i am. the program director was gregarious and personable, offered his help in anything we needed,...and made suggestions of good home-style puerto rican restaurants to eat at! mmm. i'm so excited! i really want to eat all kinds of ethnic food while i'm here. there's a falafal joint right down the street and pizza places everywhere.

anyway, one thing i learned about the program was about this county hospital in Queen's, called Elmhurst. It's where all the trauma comes in. Apparently it's so diverse that at any one point, there are more than 40 different languages being spoken there. people go straight from the airport to Elmhurst. The pathology (disease) that is seen there is supposedly incredible to- tropical diseases like malaria to urban disease like asthma (as an internal med doc). plus i can only imagine what kind of penetrating trauma they get (aka gun shot and stab wounds). anyway.

i also learned that i'm actually staying in east harlem, not the upper east side. the main mount sinai hospital is at a cross roads of the wealthiest white people in the world, on one side of 96th ave, and the poorest of the poor on the other side. i'm on the latter side of 96th, at 101. the director of the program grew up 2 blocks from mt sinai, went to mt sinai for med school and residency. and is now working there. very very cool.

....so today i got to sleep in an extra hour, went to a lecture on parathyroid surgery at the main mt sinai campus (literally 2 blocks from my place), then caught the shuttle to englewood. i only had time to scrub into one case, a laparascopic gastric banding, which i had never seen, so was pretty cool. the surgeon was a young greek woman, from the bronx, and she used the words 'shit' and 'fuck' more liberally than i would expect. the assistant surgeon was one of the older surgeons i had met yesterday. cool surgery. it took literally 30 minutes. the idea is that you put essentially a rubber band around the stomach and create a stomach pouch the size of an egg, so you can't eat that much, then you can adjust the size /tightness of the band as the patient needs to. cool, huh?

i caught the noon bus back to manhattan to make the 1 pm luncheon. that ended at 2:30 and i was so excited to have the afternoon off! what to do! i caught up with my ex-boyfriend, bill, who's in law school at NYU and we made plans to meet up next week. i was so excited to explore, i got ready, and just as i put my coat on, packed my bags and got ready to head out the door, i got really really tired. i dropped everything and laid down to take a nap. it's amazing what a 20 minute nap will do. i felt so much better...i headed out the door to the metropolitan museum of art, called the met. i took the subway, walked a few blocks to the museum, which is an impressive buliding. i took lots of pictures, but forgot my camera and connection at home;( i'll post them tomrrow. i wandered through the nineteenth century european art section, the modern photography, the spanish collection, with my headphones on, listening to the killers/the wicker park soundtrack and the garden state soundtrack. i spaced out, felt like i was high or something. i found the matisse paintings- waterlillies and dandelions. other than that, i kinda wandered aimlessly, not really sure what i was looking at and definitely not cultured enough to know the power of what i was looking at, but it was pleasnt nevertheless...

made it back to my apartment, ate leftover panini, chatted on the phone a bit and here i am.

tomorrow's friday. i suppose i'll get out at 5 pm. it's a friend from guam's birthday tomorrow night. he's been living in the city for years now. he's having a little pre-party then we're going out. yay! nightlife in nyc. not sure exactly where we're going, but i'm excited.

i have the weekend off! not sure how to spend the day(s) but i'd love to eat italian food in the bronx, see the financial district, go shopping at h&m, hit chinatown, browse soho, amongst the many many millino things to do in this city that never sleeps. my friend wendy is in boston till monday, my ex-boyfriend bill has a big law project due on monday so won't be able to hang out till after than, my friend chan comes into town sometime on sunday or monday, and chris comes into town in a couple weeks. definitely lots of playmates after monday. will explore on my own till then!

oh yeah! i got one more interview! the most important one: Hawaii:)