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kwithers
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Name: Kristen
Birthday: 11/24/1982
Gender: Female
Interests: steak, chocolate, the Clippers, Ace Ventura movies, smiling, Jesus, making smores, cowboys, country music, disproportionate stuffed animals
Expertise: skinning a polish sausage, taking 3 hour naps, random neuroanatomy, living in a lounge, climing up and down a bunk bed for 5 years and not dying, march madness predictions
Occupation: Other
Industry: Nonprofit
Message: message me
Member Since:
12/18/2005
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| I think I'm turning into a middle aged housewife. No I am not married or engaged. But some of my free time energy has been channeled into developing my inner domestic goddess. It all started with deciding to take care of the roses in Eric's front lawn while he was out to sea. They were infested with weeds and hadn't been cared for in quite a while and since I know a little bit about taking care of roses thanks to my dad and grandpa it seemed like a good fit. It's also incredibly therapeutic after an unsatisfying day in the lab were I feel like nothing gets done to just spend some time pulling weeds and see the difference instantly.
Anyhow, what started with a little gardening is blossoming into cooking, reading better homes and gardens, checking out other people's gardens on my runs (especially the rich folks' houses in Point Loma but they probably hire gardeners and don't do it themselves) and listening to Harry Connick Jr (well, I've always loved Harry but now I'm not ashamed for the world to know!). I've even thinking of affordable ways to change things up in my living room apartment. For years people have been telling me I'm mature for my age (they probably haven't heard me quote zoolander) but now I'm starting to see it coming out. I guess I shall embrace it for now especially since it's likely to disappear once I start up on clinical rotations.
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| Transitions can be exciting but at the same time frustrating and lonely. The past week and a half has had its ups and downs.
The ups:
1. Depth over breadth
Unlike med school where breadth of knowledge is emphasized over depth, research gives me the opportunity to study some really interesting topics in neuroimaging and pediatric neurology in depth.
2. Free time
Also, I have had more free time in the evenings and on the weekends than I've had for the past 2 years. Going to the Bay area with Eric was great and I was able to go home to spend the 4th with the family. I'll finally be able to get up to LA later this month to visit some friends I haven't seen in ages. And I get way more sleep--it's amazing!
The downs:
1. Free time
I don't know what to do with myself! I'm used to being highly productivity driven with a little extra time to work out, spend time with friends and family, and go to church. I don't want to just come home and watch tv everyday--it feels like such a waste of time. I purposefully made myself promise not to jump back into work with the homeless or taking on new roles at church this month so I could rest and transition, but I'm finding that I'm pretty awful at the resting part. I think I need a hobby
2. Depth over breadth
Starting research is fun but overwhelming when you realize how much you don't know about the subjects you want to study and how much reading you need to do. My temporary desk in the lab is stacked high with books and journal articles and the pile just keep growing because the more reading you do the more questions you have.
3. The loneliness thing
It's really isolating to be in the lab and doing you're own thing when you're used to spending 8 hrs a day with 100 other people all taking the same classes, studying for the same tests, etc. 3rd year is a very busy time for medical students and it's good but sad when everyone is off doing their own rotations, etc. It makes me really appreciate the great friendships I've made over the past 2 years with some of my classmates. The nice thing is that now I'll have more time to spend with folks not in med school.
It's been good to talk to God through this transition time and ask for his wisdom and guidance as well as pour out the excitements and frustrations of starting research. And though it may seem basic, it's been good to remember that God is present in the research process and He is there even during the mulling over data and reading journal articles. I hope this research work will be honoring to Him.
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| This is Kristen. It's been awhile but I have finally crawled out from the rock I was hiding under. In the past 2 years I have taken approximately 55 exams with the biggest one of all this past Friday--an 8 hour whopper. But now it's done and praise God He has gotten me through it all, that He has been my "refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble" (Psalm 46: 1).
So now what? Well, first a few days of vacation. So far this has included:
1. Eating my feelings Friday night with a 12 oz steak and a gigantic piece of chocolate cake
2. Going to church on Sunday for the first time in 3 weeks (I had to email my pastor to tell him I couldn't do announcements because seeing people who weren't studying 10-12 hrs a day quite honestly made me stressed out and depressed)
3. Celebrating father's day and my little brother's graduation from UCLA with a backyard pool party
4. Staying in my pjs all day Monday and watching chick flicks with Diesel (our dog) for 6 hours
5. Getting pedicures and chinese food on a date with my mom
6. Making more steak for dinner tonight and going out to the movies with my parents
7. Getting to hang out with my best friend since 2nd grade Diana multiple times in one week!
8. Talking to my 90 year old great aunt on the phone back in good ol' Michigan
In the near future it will include:
1. Making cupcakes
2. Going up to the Bay area for the weekend with my boyfriend Eric to visit his family
3. Starting a one-year research fellowship next Monday
About #3: I am taking a one-year research fellowship because I'm considering research as part of how God can use me in the medical field. This gives me a chance to be in the lab full-time and to be able to completely immerse myself in the experience and my own project. I'll be working on a brain imaging study (diffusion tensor imaging of cortical white matter along with volumetric MRI analysis) in school aged children who had suffered strokes either in utero or with in the first 30 days after birth. Despite the tragedy of a childhood stroke, the infant brain has amazing plasticity and is often able to anatomically and functionally reorganize in such a way to potentially compensate for large lesions with far less disability than an adult who suffered a stroke. I'll be combining the imaging with behavioral and IQ testing on our 40 stroke kids and age-matched controls. I will be focusing on the effect of damage to the white matter of the brain (ie the bundles of axons that connect one area of the brain with another) to assess for associations between cognitive and behavioral outcomes with severity of damage to the white matter. I'm really looking forward to getting to dive into research. Officially, I'm taking a yearlong leave of absence from medical school and will be starting up with full-time clinical rotations June 2010.
About #2: Eric and I began dating in December. We met through a mutual friend and we later discovered we attend the same church in San Diego. We became friends but I really got to know him and his character better as we kept in touch over email throughout his deployment last year until last December (he's in the navy). There's a lot I could say but I'll keep it short--I'm incredibly lucky to have found such a great friend and boyfriend. I thank God for him every day.
This is us this past spring at this year's submarine birthday bash
I hope to catch up with many of you over the next couple of months! There will be more to come soon!
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For halloween my roommate Kimi and I dressed up as robots. Last year we were hershey's kisses and had bought way too much aluminum foil so a requirement for this year's costume was for it also to be made with aluminum foil. Our materials included: 4 cardboard boxes, 1.5 boxes aluminum foil, 1 hot pink plastic folder (eyes and mouth), dryer vent for arms. We were the hit of the med school halloween party and we had so much fun being robots! There are some drawbacks including lack of peripheral vision, difficulty making way through crowds, and difficulty aiming straws into our mouth holes with short arms so we could drink our tasty beverages. Overall it was fun because we had a great time building our costumes and putting a smile on people's faces at the party. We are considering throwing a costume party in the future at our apartment just so we can wear our costumes again!
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| This entry is a little overdue! Some of you may know (or may not know) that I have the privilege of going to Thailand in the end of August to visit one of my best friends, the awesome and amazing Christy Johnson, who is serving in Bangkok with servant partners. I'm so thankful to have had the experience because it was a trip of a lifetime and it was so wonderful to get to spend two weeks with Christy and get to taste and see her life over there and how God is at work amongst his people. Thailand is a vibrant and beautiful country and Bangkok itself is a serious sensory-overload experience of crowds, deafening noise, smells (aromas of awesome street cuisine and the not so pleasant smells of the canals that everything gets thrown into!). The people are just as full of life and enthusiasm as the city--they are fun-loving, hospital, generous people. I was amazed at how welcoming so many of Christy's neighbors were and you could tell by the hospitality they extended to me how much they really love her. I could go on, but since pictures are worth a thousand words, I'll just post a few:
Playing with the kids in Christy's neighborhood--they taught me to word for hug (ohm--although that's probably not how you spell it)
Christy and our humorous tourguide at Wat Phrao Kao and the Grand Palace--both are wearing yellow shirts because yellow is the king's color and Thais wear yellow shirts on Monday to proclaim their love for their king
At the beach on Koh Samet
The food was amazing!
Christy, Gop (Christy's language partner/neighbor) and Gop's son singing karoke
I'm probably going to post some more pictures on facebook (I'm currently avoiding studying the female pelvis for anatomy) and if you want to hear more, just shoot me an email or give me a call because I'd love to share more in person (and I'd love to hear how you all are doing too!)
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