Merry Christmas!

Has it already been a year? This has truly been on exciting year, and always getting better it seems like. Noelle and I recently returned from a Mexican Riviera cruise. It was my first cruise, and it was so much fun. It can be as busy or relaxing as you make it. You get pampered, with food everywhere and too much activities to do, despite the few days at sea. Check out the pictures! I got a new camera, Panasonic GF1, and it was so much fun to use, not to mention that the pictures turned out so much better than the point-and-shooters. Over the past few months, both my brothers bought houses. Jack got engaged and also expecting a little one. We have a new dog at home, and we're all getting married next year. So much changes, and the year has yet to come to a close. Looking forward to what next year has in store for us!

Blogging

Wow, has it been that long since I updated? I feel like it's been a whirlwind over the past month. Noelle and I decided to go around the different theme parks in the area. We hit SeaWorld, Disneyland, Raging Waters, and still have tickets to Legoland. Our cousins are came over from Taiwan and we'll once again be out and about on the weekends. We also went to LA County Fair over Labor Day weekend. Entrance fees were only 1 dollar, and we won a few stuffed animals along the way. Wrapping up to the month, we went to see Colbie Caillat at Anaheim House of Blues last night. It was a great show, but boy was it tiring standing for almost 5 hours straight. We've been listening to her songs all this time, and it was so much more fun to know all of the songs she sang! She even sang Lucky, which we heard in Jason Mraz's concert. Now if only they could come together...

Last year during the LA County Fair was when I officially got with Noelle, and I can't believe it's already one year (at least officially tomorrow)! Let's see what this weekend has in store for us... The following weekend will be her birthday, so there's no time to relax just yet. Sounds like it's going to be a big weekend with a lot of company. After all, it's going to be her 30th!

San Francisco

So I finally finished my 3rd call month in a row, and will be on outpatient rotations until March. It will be great to get weekends off, and I'm really looking forward to more sleep. I started off my weekend freedom by heading up to San Francisco and ran the SF Half Marathon. I finished at 2:12:27 with a pace of 10:07. This is significantly slower than the Surf City Half, where I went 1:58:47. However, there were a lot more hills than Huntington Beach, and I didn't even get a chance to train. Now that I have started running, I'm going to have to keep going! Here are the rest of the stats: 7.6 mile split time 1:17:24 with a pace of 10:12. I finished 1933 out of 3481 male runners, and 535 out of 859 in my age class of 25-29 y/o. I'm so proud of Noelle, who finished with a respectable 2:54:23, still under 3 hours without any training!

4th of July

The day started out early. I had to go into work, but Noelle got up even earlier and made chocolate chip pancakes! It was a surprise breakfast, and much better than my usual cereal. I managed to get out of work early, and we were off to lunch, and then Seaport Village. I've never been there before, and it was a really nice day. Lots of people probably arrived first thing in the morning to camp out for the prime locations. We ran into the face painter, and after Noelle mentioned it was my birthday, I got a free crab on my cheek! It turned out well, and stayed on for the rest of the day. We roamed the area until nearing dinner time, and that's when I knew something was up. Noelle kept getting text messages, and her excuse of wishing her mom happy 4th of July didn't fly. She kept stalling on going to the restaurant, and I realized that she planned to have dinner with other people. I kept running through my head who would be there. Turns out Noelle coordinated with Jack, Will, Ivy, my parents, and her mom to come down. I was so surprised, and happy that I was able to spend the evening with everyone. She even had a carrot cake for me! We stayed to watch fireworks, which are a lot more exciting with everyone. I have to say that this is the most memorable birthday ever, and I can't wait till next year!

3rd year

I'm officially a 3rd year resident now! Can't believe it's July already, and I'm sure this next year will go by pretty fast. Finished my last call night in the ICU last night. I'm back on wards, 3 more call months to go. This last year should be more relaxing with more weekends off. My first weekend off will be the SF half marathon at the end of the month. Gotta start running again! Noelle came back from her Northern Europe cruise. Sounds fun, but such a shame that I didn't get a chance to go. Maybe this next year, I'll finally make my way to Europe. And it's time to start planning for the big day!

Cruise

I'm in the midst of my ICU rotation, the Lakers won the NBA Finals, and Noelle has left for the Northern Europe cruise. The next several weeks will hopefully be uneventful as I finish my ICU month and wait for Noelle's return. I only have 1 more day off for the month, so it'll be fairly busy as well. In other news, Noelle started looking at wedding planners as well as locations for the wedding. It'll be somewhere in OC or LA. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to check out some places after my ward rotation next month. We went to Hollie's wedding June 12. It was a really pretty wedding, and I think it gave Noelle a lot to think about. We danced for the first time together, and it was so much fun! She tolerates all of my silliness.

Picnic

Today we had the housestaff picnic. It was great to be outdoors under the sun in the middle of the day! Got to play some basketball too. I finally started playing tennis again this past week, and boy am I out of shape. I'm sore all over, and it's only been a few weeks since I left for Japan. It good to be back in the swing of things though, even though that means work. It's going to be a busy next few weeks as I prepare for my presentation, then MICU and one more month of wards. By August, I should have a lot more free time to spend with Noelle. She's started looking at wedding sites, so it'll be fun to do that with her. Hopefully things go smoothly!

Cinco de Mayo

It's been a busy month since I've updated. The biggest news, Noelle and I are engaged! We went to Japan for a family trip and I was waiting for the perfect place and time to do it. It just so happened that on 4/20 we stayed at Atami overlooking the ocean. They had a beautiful garden and luckily had a couch right underneath a spotlight. It was really nerve-wracking talking to Noelle knowing what I was planning on doing. My brother, Jack, and my mom stayed in the background pretending to be taking pictures. Everything happened so fast, and before I knew it, Jack was snapping away with his camera and Noelle was in disbelief and in shock with a ring on her finger. I don't think she officially said yes though. The rest of the trip went smoothly, and we stopped by Taiwan to visit family before heading back home. I am still in shock at everything that has transpired, and it is time to start planning! Of course, this means that Noelle will be super busy, while I just hang out and hope Noelle doesn't need me.

As for me, I just started the first of 3 months of call. I'm on wards at Hillcrest now, then MICU in June, and I'll start off my 3rd year back on wards at Hillcrest. My 3rd year schedule looks to be pretty good. My busy months will be in July, then 2 weeks in December, and finally a month in March and a month in May. I should have most of my weekends off during the rest of the year. I'm looking forward to all the free time I'll have, but gotta get through this next stretch first. Noelle and I will probably have to start taking some classes too...

My brother put up a bunch of pictures on his picasa website at http://picasaweb.google.com/foggyglasses. I'll have to sort through my pictures when I have a bit of time. I am also planning on putting the videos together as well.

Cedars-Sinai

So it's finally set! I have decided to accept the offer to join Cedars-Sinai's nephrology division to start in 2010. It's been over a month since they initially offered the spot, and after much deliberation, going back and forth between UCLA and Cedars-Sinai, I decided that Cedars offers the program best suited for me. It's an exciting time, and I'm looking forward to making my move back to LA in a year. This move might become the most interesting time of my life, but more to come on that. It's great to know that I'm set for the next 3 years. In other news, I'm finally in an outpatient rotation for the next 2 weeks. I'll be on wards for 2 weeks after that, and then finally our trip to Japan and Taiwan! It'll be a busy time as I wrap up the year with a month of wards and a month of ICU. Hopefully, next year's schedule will provide more free time.

My phone!

So I've been using the android phone for a while now, and I think Noelle is starting to like it as well, given that I can look up fun facts. If only she knew...

One more call!

Just got back from my second to last call. One more go to at Thornton! Has it been a busy month! I'll be heading out to UCLA for a 2nd look and to round with the consult team next week, and I think after that I'll be finally done with the interview process (well, almost... still have UCSD to go to, but unlikely to rank it above #3). I finally finished my poster for the research project I was doing, and presented it at the CRRT meeting at Hotel del Coronado. However, given my schedule, I was basically going there after work, so didn't get a chance to check out the place. I think that's it for now, pretty status quo on everything else. Looking forward to finally having a weekend day off in a month!

Friday the 13th

It's Friday the 13th! Hope everyone's day has been uneventful. I am now on Thornton wards. A lot has changed, and it's much better than last year when I rotated through. However, it's still busy. And I got used to not being on call so often... I'll be going to UCLA next week for my nephrology interview. There is very high likelihood that I might end up going to Cedars-Sinai, but I feel that I should at least see what UCLA has to offer. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. It's been one crazy month (or last few), and this kind of arrived a lot sooner than expected. Noelle is coming down to SD and we're going to the Gaslap district to get some steak. Hopefully she won't be disappointed!

Our trip to Japan is more or less finalized, we'll be leaving April 17 for a 9 day tour of Japan and then a few days in Taiwan. I'm really looking forward to going. I wonder if the flowers will still be in bloom.

Surf City Half Marathon

It's the first of the month, and we finished our first race together! Today, Noelle and I ran the Surf City Half Marathon. It was an early and cold day, but the weather turned out to be fantastic for a race. The weather stayed in the 50's, yet be both got sunburned. I ran with Noelle for the first mile or so, and then she let me run free like the wind. We started out at the very end, so I ended up having to weave about to pass the walkers. The hardest part of the race was when I saw all the runners already on the home stretch, and I'm just not sure when the turnabout is at. However, after circling around, I hit my stride, my "runner's high," and had a comfortable run from mile 9 onwards. It was a fairly flat course, so I was better able to maintain a good pace. I have never ran more than 10 miles at one time, and given all the interviews this past month, not much time to train either. Well, the results are in: I accomplished my goal of finishing in less than 2 hours! My final time came out to 1:58:47, with an average pace of 9:04 per mile, or 6.7 mph. I finished 1708 out of 4230 male runners, and 287 out of 638 in my age class of 25-29 y/o, so still in the top 50%!

Noelle clocked in at 2:46:03, with an average pace of 12:40 per mile. She finished 4570 out of 6513 of the female runners. I'm so proud of her; this is her second half marathon, and she beat her Disneyland time by almost 7 minutes! Our goals weren't very ambitious, but we didn't have much opportunity to run together. We'll probably enter the Disneyland Half Marathon in September, and maybe this time, we'll actually be prepared.

Happy Lunar New Year!

It's the lunar new year, year of the ox. I recently went Las Vegas with Noelle and finally got a chance to take her to watch Jersey Boys. We also went up to San Francisco for the weekend. Noelle was able to get the Hilton for free! I was up there for a total of 4 nights. The weather actually wasn't too cold, and didn't rain at all. We went on the Alcatraz night tour, which gave a slightly longer audio tour and other talks by the staff. We also ate brunch at Dottie's, which had really yummy pancakes and french toasts. I went to UCSF and Stanford for interviews, and they have really good programs. However, I'm still undecided whether I want to make the move up to Northern California. I'm almost done with interviews; still have UCLA and UCSD scheduled. It's going to be an exciting next few months as I get ready to rank the programs. Next weekend is the half marathon that we'll be running. I think coming up to this event, I've been running a lot less than I normally do. Does this mean that I'm ready?? Anyway, I already know that this year is shaping up to be an exciting year. I can't wait!

Winner

I can't believe it's the new year already! I had to work through the weekend, but Noelle came down for parts of it. Yao got married on Friday! It was the first time I went out to the dance floor during a wedding and tried to bust out my moves. Noelle made salmon for Elan and me while we watched the Chargers game. Although I normally do not watch football, it was fun to cheer given that it was an exciting finish. And today I came home with a note on my desk. I know I picked a winner, despite her not having her keys, or my keys, no phone, and no way of finding me. So cheers, that must be better than our New Year's toast.