i've had enough of the big apple. i'm allergic

feet hurt. aggy. long day. working tomoro and the day after that and the day after that and continued. i'm over this commute in the foggy smoggy city. i'm over the sardine packed train rides, running to overcrowded buses, stalling trains, the sickness and filth. i miss my apartment. un-shared bathroom. 7 minute drive to and from work in suburban Illinois. currently bratty and apologetic (i should be grateful). seeking a plan away from Gotham.

and at some point you become enough.
you learn to accept your body and your face. you work with the hair you were given. you stop comparing. you go against the grain. you reject all need for approval. you crawl in your skin and love it. you breathe and live who you are and are to be and it's fine and it's okay and it's perfect. and from there on, you are enough.

TB: analysis, thinking out loud

This section's lecture is a case study on Tuberculosis which I'm excited about, having spent the past two months plus processing and reporting AFB cultures. Our first assignment is on an article about a Nepalese patient who was detained while attempting to illegally enter the U.S. He'd travelled extensively, including an eight-hour flight to Brazil carrying with him a very rare strain of TB called XDR. The XDR strain of TB arises from misuse or mismanagement of second-line antibiotics in treatment of MDR-TB, which is a result of misuse of first-line antibiotics for TB. 

This reminded me of a patient we had of Chinese descent. He presented with a mixed mycobacterium infection. One culture with MAC and the other with MTB. The physician called furiously stating his patient had no symptoms of TB. However, the patient was a previous positive TB patient. Subsequent cultures included pure isolated MAC and MTB as well as mixed cultures of MAC/MTB.

The DOH susceptibilities reported resistance to all first-line antibiotics. After delayed testing and months of pending results, the final report returned with Susceptible results to second-line antibiotics with a few resistant results. 

I remember wondering how could a seemingly asymptomatic patient present with MDR-TB. My hypothesis was of two: the susceptibility results were skewed because of the mixed cultures, and two, the patient's co-infection with MAC and MTB resulted in plasmid exchange in the DNA of each bacilli producing resistance. Neither hypothesis was tested or further evaluated. I pretty much resumed with life as usual.

Today's assignment however revisits my hypothesis and provides a valid explanation. This patient presented with a recurrent TB infection which indicates a latent infection or an active infection that was not fully treated. Misuse of first-line antibiotics led to his current MDR-TB infection.

wednesdays are for wonderful

my day started with Warm 60, a sixty minute hot yoga class at 7AM. Except it wasn't very hot (to my relief) and it wasn't as soul drenching, I mean reviving as it usually is. I think its because from the start of class I had my mind set that I'd exert as minimal energy as possible. And I did. Have you ever left Bikram dry? Well today was that day. I left hot yoga sweat-less almost as if I hadn't been at all. Apart from communal exercising, what I did benefit from attending yoga this morning was the meditation. I actually sat and attempted to meditate. I silenced my thoughts, the outside noise and dived into a sea of love and light. My thoughts, frustrations of the morning, and anxieties disappeared and I was left in a state of peace. Which is when my next thought came, go visit grandma. I'd been meaning to visit my grandma for months now. I'd seen her three times over the past seven months; mother's day, a wedding in the summer, and a wedding in the fall. I'd always wanted to go spend time with her but life was and is just zooming by and just when I think I have too much on my plate, I add a little more.

So, in the stillness of that moment at 7AM yoga I decided I would visit my grandma. I went to our favorite bakery and picked up some currant rolls and within no time I was at her door. We chatted for a bit, I showed her a picture of the ex-beau and then I painted her nails. It was such a simple task but it brought so much joy to her and me. She was so thankful for her manicure and excited about her new red nails. In less than a month, she'll be turning 97. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she answered, "love". One simple word with so much depth and texture. It reminded me how beautiful and giving my grandma is. Never seeking the material, only giving of herself, her time, the little she has, and lots of love. I hope to be like her now and in my old age--sweet, content, and always over-flowing with love.

Blogging from my phone since well, I'm at work. I spent the last hour lounging in Starbucks with the most soothing caramel brûlée latte and the usual bagel with cream cheese. Soft jazz serenading in the background, red cups and holiday decor warming the room. Christmas is coming and I can't help but feel warm inside. Mid-breakfast, as I sat absorbing the moment I began to reflect on life as my never resting brain loves to do. I realized that many times I live in fear. Fear of ideas, and places, and characters, and inanimate objects. So. I'm starting my resolutions a bit early for next year's and I'm giving worry a break and putting fearlessness to the test. Of course, exercising judgment and reason. Flinging arms wide open and embracing every single moment. Here's to life.

Signed,

Loved and content.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb

I've got the travel bug! I'm ready for some adventure. Like a 17 hour flight with a side of jet lag adventure. Dreams won't work unless we do. With that in mind I think for Christmas I'm going to get a quality camera. I've wanted to for about seven years now. I think it's time. I'm also going to make a list of places I want to go and I'm going to make it happen. First stop: South Africa. Next up: Italia.

Putting it in print so I know it's real.

i wish i was

superwoman
so i'd never get tired

mind blown

undress 
my
mind
remove the layers of my intellect
transmit like synapses
through my brain
get in my nerves
stroke my curiosity
penetrate my thoughts
release my inhibition
arouse my ideas
woo me with your knowledge
undress my mind.

drowning in coffee. just keep swimming

it's pelvis thrust day. or "hump" day, i guess. so here I am, cup in hand slaying any inkling of fatigue with my treasured coffee bean brews. I stayed up until 2 AM trying to remember why an O- cord blood would agglutinate in forward and reverse typing. I sought CAP and fell in a world of blood bank antibody panels until the last of my strength gave in and I fell asleep. I just want to learn it all.

Signed,

Coffee wired pensive and hungry

patience is a virtue.

Coldplay - Fix You

absolutely beautiful.

in my dreams i would...

quit my job
revoke my resignation
just so i can quit it again
keep my coworkers or bring them with me
switch to full-time in school (for free)
spend a year in Collonges-sous-saleve
learn French at the French Embassy
eat pain au chocolate tous le jours
get serenaded by an Italian lover
marry a Trinidadian man
become an Infectious Disease fellow
spend time doing research in South Africa for a few months
finally make it to Italy
and eat everything I see
cancel today's workout date
just so I can curl up in a ball
bathrobe on
and live
in my dreams.

de-stress

Sea salt body soap, treat of the week as tonight's de-stressor. maximum food. minimal clothes. dismissed thoughts, anxieties, and frustration. welcoming light, positivity, and peace.

here's to

terrible hair on a thursday night
faux natural
getting over the past
smiling inside
still unsure of where i'll be sleeping in foreign country A
studying that never happened
homework that didn't get done
no makeup
beautiful bags under these eyes
hot showers before bedtime
not caring
about things
anymore.
here's to finally starting to live.

this is the first time

that I'll be in another country. alone. for one night. not knowing anyone. at all. i did this to myself, and now i must say i  am pretty nervous.

i should be studying but

i'm sipping mint tea with Corinne playing in the background and having a pretty fantastic moment of clarity.

a moment

I'm taking a moment to thank God. Inside this head of mine is a world of doubt and comparisons, and recollection of past failures and many times I feel like I haven't progressed, but I stop and look and realize God is working in my life. It may not be at my timing but He's busily working and tweaking and opening doors. Just as I was going to wallow in another pit of sadness I remembered, I made it into grad school.

Undergrad had put such a dampening on my spirit and academia and I were now strangers. I was no longer the straight A scholar. C's were common on my sciences and B's were shout-worthy. So here I was working part time in Illinois in a never ending love affair where my deepest concerns were as such, Chipotle or Panera? Yellowtail or Barefoot? I was in a world of absolute bliss. Weekend visits to and from the beau. Working a few days a week provided just enough for some rent, a trip home every so often and lots of fancy groceries. I carried on this way for a year or so and then reality hit me. My lease was up, it'd be time to make some real decisions. No full time jobs were coming in and I couldn't waltz in this fantasy world for much longer. I had bills and I couldn't survive as a tech forever.

Fast forward and I've moved back home. I'm now working full-time in a job that I prayed and prayed for. But oh so often we pray and we fast and we praise then we complain. I was only a few months in and I realized the not-so-sweet community that existed in the rather contrasting NYC hospital systems. It was politics, it was money, many times conflicting legalities, it was ugly. It was my new job. I worked like a horse-literally and raked in dollars and also got slapped with heavy taxes. I thought I was doing pretty okay and then the questions came again trickling in like water that broke away from a dam.

So, what's next? You're not going to med school anymore? Why don't you try and be a nurse? You need to go back to school.

Oh, no pressure. I had started preparing for my GRE months before while still dancing in Illinois. But somehow the books got lost, tucked away in some neat corner, became door holders. It suddenly dawned on me that all around me were moving to, and some had already completed their next levels of academia. All of a sudden I was surrounded by doctors and masters candidates and I was here, a med tech trying to find myself, contemplating running away to France, maybe Italy.

Somehow I managed to simmer down just a little to creep a few minutes (literally) of GRE prep in a day. I would open my book on my 30 minute train ride. I'd flirt with it during lunch. Before I could develop any real study pattern, the big day had approached. Three hours later I came back with a score. It was average. Nothing to make the Ivy's flock and nothing to make the sub Ivy's flinch. It was then that I chose the flight response. Well, I don't want to do grad school anyway. I'll just put all my effort into med school. I left my GRE scores in the dark like a dirty secret and moved on to my new lover, the MCAT. It was only a few weeks in the game that I just knew this wasn't gonna work. Frantic now with no plan, I started to consider grad school again.

It was March 2013 when I began my search to my dismay; many schools had already met their application deadlines. I battled with myself; the times I should've been applying I was somewhere parading around in Trinidad or perhaps Jamaica. I was sad, I was angry, I felt hopeless. And then like a glimmer of light,  in April, I found a SUNY school (I was particularly looking for SUNY/CUNY programs, because those would be fully paid for by my job) and I started to apply frantically. I did the most hated part of the process and asked for recommendation letters, of which I got one of two responses. So here I was, swimming in a pool of self-pity with one of two recommendation letters.

While good efforts don't go unnoticed, procrastination somehow always trumps. It was April 15, 2013 and my application was incomplete. The deadline was here and all I had was a pile of incomplete papers, no admission essay and no recommendation letters. At that point, I gave up. Running away to Europe seemed more plausible. I continued with life as usual, living purely in the moment.

As a killer revisits the murder scene, somehow I would continue to prowl over the school's website, looking and hoping for some change. It came. In May 2013 the school announced that deadline had now been extended to July 2013. I threw up my hands in ecstasy and felt like this could be it, there is hope.

Fast forward to June and I'm sitting in a hotel in Panama with a school acquaintance pouring out my academic failures. She'd finished her Masters a year before in Israel and she gave me hope, this could be done. So on our first day in Panama she helped me revamp my emails requesting recommendation letters and just like that we pushed SEND and prayed for something good. I got my first response only a few moments later. It was a teacher she suggested I ask. He was Trinidadian, distinguished chemistry professor, and he would talk to me in the hallways. PLUS, he had added my on Facebook. This was gold. He had to say yes, I knew he'd say yes. Why not see young people achieve? His response hit me like a cold piece of meat from the freezer. In the most cordial way, he said No. I was crushed, I wasn't used to this term "No". It was the beginning of a road that I knew I'd have to fight for and work harder for.

I rolled it off, fought back the tears, and sought other options. It wasn't until I returned home from my trip, broken about school and the rejection of a teacher that I lay in bed and I told God very wildly and boldly that I needed a recommendation letter. The next morning, it wasn't even 7 am and a light bulb went off. Ask your microbiology professor! At this point I had nothing to lose. I sent my generic email and waited. Around 8 am she responded with a willing yes. I was ecstatic and starting to see the light.

July 1, 2013 comes and somehow I've managed to fumble and compile papers and transcripts and recommendation letters and GRE scores into a yellow envelope and submit it on the exact deadline date. Now, just wait. It was only after I submitted the documents that I realized I didn't have a plan B. What if I didn't get accepted? I'd made the mistake of only applying to one school. So I sat, and I waited and called and approximately one month later I got the exciting news I'd longed for--I'd been accepted!

God was still working with me and on me.

It's now October, and I look back on the whole ordeal like wow, did that really happen. I'm loving my professors and class is going great and I've now built up enough academic confidence to perhaps revisit my estranged lover, the MCAT. Still, taking baby steps and trying to be present; not dying in the past and not getting strangled by the future. But, facing each day with tons of inner reflection and conversations with God.

Signed,

Learning slowly about myself each day.

transparent

with eyes partially closed, i write this post.
so much has changed. so much remains the same.

24.

the year i face--me. this is the first time the ball is not in my court.
i've been cast into an abyss of self-reflection and "know yourselfs" and "be secures"
no warm hand to hold
or voice of encouragement echoing in the distance
the first of purely delving within
unadulterated soul searches
inner light, creating peace
involuntarily
but necessarily

this one is for you

it feels as if we always pick back up where we left. the days, the months, the years may pass but somehow the conversation flows as if not a moment was spent apart.

i would make this really sweet, but you're a catfish. :)

good night

did you hear about the rose

by Tupac Shakur