Treponema pallidum
This spirochete causes syphilis. The pathogenesis is strange because although it is an obligate pathogen, it isn't intracellular and yet it causes granulomas called gummas.
First weekend of the semester
Well, we had to get out for a little bit of fun before the semester started! None of us are ready to study. In fact, we're a bit anxious to go out and party together since we never, ever have a chance. Now we're all rested up after break, feeling relaxed and super thrilled to have a night to let loose. And we had a blast!!
About a dozen of us gathered at Rita's for drinks and then we piled into cabs to head over to a new club in DC called Park. Except there were too many of us to get in. We ended up around the corner at Lotus Lounge. The place was pretty lame. Ehhh... whatevs! My friends were out with me having fun, so I'm not complaining. I was up until 5am and had a pretty lazy remainder of the weekend.
Monday was rough and all of us plodded into class, just to survive through another long day of heme onc!
Mmm... mango for dinner!
I couldn't wait to slice up that mango and drizzle balsamic vinegar all over top of my spinach salad. Pecorno cheese, walnuts, radishes and cranberries... this was a masterpiece dinner. Why is mango and balsamic vinegar such a brilliant combination? I LOVE IT!
And tomorrow I learn to perform pelvic and prostate exams.
Walking home from Corcoran Gallery
Tonight I had a date with myself to go see Annie Leibovitz's photography on exhibit at the Corcoran. Maybe it was just a long day for me, but I wasn't as struck by her work as I had hoped. Her images make me feel uneasy. I don't take a deep breath, and let it out feeling restored. Some people are really into that whole tension in art thing. Ehhh... I can pass. I feel the same about movies that stir up internal "yuck", such as the movie "pi". Different story.
Her work is not disturbing, 98% of the time. I'm not saying I don't appreciate her talent! She's very skilled and has a worderful portfolio. Her portrait of the White Striped duo is priceless. The photo of Johnny Depp and what's her name model, you know the naked model... uh... uh. Anyway, that one is brilliant as well. The George Bush, Cheney, Rice and crew... was just pure evil! I walked past it 3 or 4 times, contemplating the circumstance the photo was even taken under. Portraits of Queen Elizabeth II were interesting.
You see, the thing is that I'm not sure anyone would be thrilled with the portraits she's taken of people. Except the one of Demi Moore, pregnant or the one of Demi and Bruce. But usually the photos taken by Annie Leib are a little bit uncomfortable.
And then I took another quick stroll through the Ansel Adams exhibit, one last time. (It's about to close) I realize I have a bias to his outdoors places. Especially to the places I've actually been and recognize. I learned that art's gotta be personal to really sing to me. I've never paid much attention to famous people. Perhaps if I knew them in personal their portraits would be more interesting. Maybe that's way the Bush clan really struck me... because they look naturally evil in that photo!
Conclusion of my '07-08 Holiday Break!
My last day was marked by the most severe storm I think I've ever experienced in San Francisco. It was so unusual in fact that my East Coast friends and family asked me all about it. The irony is that a storm like that on the East Coast is easily forgotten and often goes unnoticed. San Francisco typically doesn't get much in the way of weather!
I took the red-eye back to DC on Friday night. My flight was empty! I had an entire row to myself and so stretched out for a few hours of sleep. My parents fetched me and brought me to their house for coffee, where I waited for the sun to rise before I went grocery shopping. The rest of the day was spent trying to stay awake! I think I lay in bed for two hours with my eyes closed-ish, without drifting off. It took crazy discipline. I didn't know such a feat was even possible.
Around 5:30pm I drove back to my parents' house for dinner and watched the Redskins game. I taught them how to pause the game using DVR and have actually started to watch a little bit of football in short intervals. Though I admit most of the time is spent blankly staring at the screen, not even "seeing" the players run across the screen. I don't think that classification of mental status is possible with anything other than watching football. I fell asleep by 7pm and didn't wake up for 13.5 hours!
Today I unpacked my suitcase, went for a run around Iowa Jima, talked on the phone and worked on my Doris Duke application. It's nearly finished, at the expense of not doing my pre-reading for tomorrows lectures. Classes start again at 9am. At least they weren't completely evil by forcing us to show up for 8am lectures! I've been corresponding with a current Doris Duke fellow at UCSF. I'm hopeful to get the award, but still not 100% sure about taking next year off. My letters of rec have all been outstanding. If nothing else, it's nice to enjoy the ego boost from reading nice things about me written by people I respect a great deal. An excerpt from my favorite one:
Audra immediately immersed herself in the ongoing research projects in the laboratory, and I had the pleasure of working together with her as we refined our protocol for intraocular injections of bioluminescent retinoblastoma cells into newborn rat eyes to generate a xenographic model to test novel anti-cancer agents for the treatment of this ocular malignancy. Audra quickly mastered the microsurgical skills necessary to perform consistent intravitreal injections. She also showed initiative and insight in her ability to design experiments aimed at improving our protocol, permitting us to generate models more efficiently for our animal-model drug trials. Her skills were a tremendous asset to the laboratory and she is missed now that she has returned to her graduate medical studies at George Washington University.
In addition to her outstanding work with us in cancer research, Audra took an active interest in learning from the activities of our clinical service. She joined us in the operating room, clinic, and at our multidisciplinary tumor board conference. Audra showed a natural ease with patients, who appreciated her kind demeanor and empathy. In addition, Audra used to great advantage her past clinical experiences as a certified ophthalmic angiographer and a visual services assistant. As a result, she has ophthalmic skills and knowledge far exceeding her medical student peers. Audra has the natural sensitivity of an excellent clinician and obvious talent as a researcher. Without a doubt, she has the makings of an outstanding clinician-scientist.
Swan
Just looking at this photo makes me hungry again for the delectable seafood experience. I dragged my friend to Polk Street, insisting we go explore a part of SF that none of us seem to know much about. My friend had a sudden oyster craving! I'm always game for a plate of Blue Points. We checked out this hole-in-the-wall place on Polk Street. It was everything you would ever expect from a first rate hole-in-the-wall. The food was divine and the people were just as big a treat. They didn't even take credit card. The only problem was that the prices were high enough to fill up the holes with gold. They even charged for bread and butter!
Christmas tree in McLean
Here's my family tree. We had a lovely gathering at my parents' house, on Christmas Eve and then spent Christmas Day at my Oma's. At night I went on a long drive through Virginia, DC and Maryland to check out the Christmas lights. The finale was the Mormon Temple! My Oma kept us out until past 11pm. She's the life of the party!
My Christmas Tree
While I studied for finals I yearned like crazy for the Holidays to finally arrive. This is my tree. We're not allowed to have live trees in my building and this seemed like the best solution! She's a happy little tree with a giant Haitian dragonfly underneath.
Paragonimus-westermani drawing
today, dr hotez (our chief parasite celebrity) told a story of his trip to china where he was working with a bunch of other parasite specialists. he was the honorary guest and they brought out a huge plate of raw crab for everyone to eat. as the guest, he of course was expected to dive in first. unfortunately, raw crabs sometimes carry a flatworm larvae called Paragonimus westermani, known to cause lung inflammation and secondary infection (aka. Chinese lung fluke) and was going to teach them all about it during seminar the next day. he was momentarily petrified! he didn't know what to do. this was one of the critters he had traveled to china to teach them about! the irony.
then one of the hosts announced to him (upon seeing his hesitation) that the crabs came from a lake (?) that was known to not be contaminated with Paragonimus.
Caduceus symbol
Did you know.... the symbol for medicine (cadeucus) which depicts a "snake" wrapped around a stick is a heroic version of how Dracunculus medinensis worms (aka. Guinea worms) are extracted from a person's body?
The female worm, that's inside the host, forms a blister on the skin to squirt the eggs out of the host's body. To get her out of the host you have to wrap the worm around a stick and twist out a mm each day. And we're talking like 10cm worms! (That's a lot of worm) If you do it too quickly and break the worm, your body releases cytokines causing mass inflammation and ulceration. This has been the means of getting out the worms since biblical times!
Crazy! I'll never look at that symbol the same way...
Scott Speedster
I love my new bike! After a week of determination and shopping, I found the perfect bike. And then I checked craigslist and found the same exact bike (only a year older) being sold for half the price. Lucky day!! I was thrilled and glad to have the extra cash to buy all the other important things... like clip-in shoes. That will be an exciting day, learning to use those babies!
