“Ten years? Thats alot..”
“Not really…its not like I’m skipping those ten years of my life or anything..”

Thats how the conversation with my parents started out a few nights ago, as I declared my final college choice and ‘career path’ to them, and yes it was medicine and yep so far it is to become a surgeon (69.8424% sure), which does take, I’m estimating a little over 10 years. I remember when I was around 7 or 8 year old I always told everyone I would be a doctor similar to what I see a lot of little kids doing right now, and like most parents mine would always agree with my statement. Well things began to change, around the age of 12 I met my cousin, a computer fanatic. He did everything from program to hack and soon enough he became a kind of role model to me. And since the day I met him to now I have expanded my knowledge in design, coding, and IT in general. From designing whole stationary systems for companies to coding simple scripts it all became part of my life, but what most people didn’t know was my inside fascination for a career in medicine. The fact that I can help people, change lives, and at the same time have an intense, exciting job always intrigued me.  Also another part little issue I have is that I always want to learn more about every field I can.  Personally I think (no offense to any computer science majors) that programming, SEO, business management, design, etc etc can be self taught to a certain extent, much like my cousin did, and careers in medicine I believe can certainly NOT be self taught.

Anyway getting a bit off topic.  The conversation with my parents a few nights ago was much different from many others we have had in the forgotten past.  This time they wanted to make sure I was ready for the long hours, and years it would take to accomplish my goal.  Another issue was how it would be financed, for which I have my own plans.  This summer I plan to shadow a few surgeons and find out how their lifestyle is like.

Ah this was a pretty random post, but yea, just wanted to say I’ve finalized Medicine as my career

Snow in March!?? Whats happening, global warming or climate changes or is it that theory from 10 years ago.. El Nino? Okay, so for some people this may not be the most amazing phenomenon but the region of the of the country I currently reside in has not seen snow for years and to see it in March is simply amazing. I remember back around Christmas time how news reporters were constantly blabbing on about a white Christmas which never happened, and then the 15 minutes of snow that hit about two months ago wasn’t much either but last night was good enough to keep my content. About 2:45 on Friday, as I stood outside school talking to a few friends, hail began to fail. Around 8 hours later snow began to fall. The first thing I did was grab a camera, call a few friends, and run outside. We sat around outside a while and then drove around the city…yea I know its a bit ‘lame’ but it was exciting! After about a hour or two I returned home with a snowball..hit my dad on the stomach with it, and must say had a pretty content day.

And oh yea, I never thought that ever individual flake of snow was actually shaped like a nice star snowflake. The above is a picture of my jacket..not so great but you can see the little star shaped snow.

Everyday I walk outside and see people. People mowing their lawn, taking their children to school, officers protecting those people from other people, and all of these people are physically present, they can be touched, heard, felt, smelled, whatever. They are the people that make up the world around me, and it is their actions that at many times determine the outcome of my day, mood, and philosophy. Or is it so? Sometimes, no most of the time, these people have no impact on me. Their feelings and needs I understand, or at least I think I understand, but the inevitable truth is that the importance of their feelings are at many times nothing to me. And for this reason maybe they bring their life, relationship, financial, etc, problems towards me, because I believe when one has no true connection with another the advice that is given is most often unbiased, to the point, and in the end usually helpful. But when the individual coming towards you is one with which you are connected beyond just that of just a physical presence, the mind wanders. You think of what to say, and how to say it..when to say it, and before saying it you want the words coming out to be of higher importance then anyone else’s. But what if this person does not even hold a physical presence with you, and what if they haven’t ever occupied the space around you, but yet they are the prime motive behind your thoughts, mood, and actions. The person’s every word and thought holds such vital importance that to keep your own thoughts and actions focused you must keep that person…’content?’. And when the person isn’t at his or her home I feel an emptiness inside of me. My humor, mood, and willingness to work decline, and the only thing I can think of, or imagine, is of what that person is doing at the moment, and when he or she will return, and what is weird is that they have never been physically present in the first place, so their displacement from point A to B shouldn’t make a difference in my mindset because it has not affected me in any known way, but it still does. The person’s mental presence holds a greater presence that any physical one ever has upon me. The connection is so strong that all others are kept at a distance.

Unedited. Unrevised writing.

Hmm.. I know the above sounds weird and probably makes no sense at all but their is great signficance behind it, and I just had to let out a flow of thought onto the blog.

I’m still sane.

About two weeks ago I decided I should update the theme on Medilogy and add a few more plugins.  I tried out a new FTP program and began to upload files to update Wordpress, and the transfer stopped in the middle, and thats when I knew I was in for a problem.  Half of the files were now from the older Wordpress and the other half from the latest version.  Well the FTP program kept disconnecting, and me being the impatient person I am, kept hitting the reconnect button faster than Bush wasting money in Iraq.  The end result was that my host banned me from all his servers and for the last two weeks I have not been able to access Medilogy.  The one article I was able to write was from what little free time I had at school.  Two days ago I switched to a new host, got the transfer done with the help of a friend, and YAY can finally access Medilogy again.  Sorry once again for updating slowly, but ah senior year, its pretty hectic.

Recently a team led by MIT Professor Robert Langer and Jeff Karp, created an adhesive tape that could become an important tool for surgeons in the near future.  The tape could serve as a replacement for staples or sutures in surgical processes as it is both biodegradable and can stick in wet environments without to much trouble.  Problems previous tapes had involved their ability to to expand and contract with the muscles or organs they were applied or their inability to stick in wet environments.  Another important aspect of this tape is that it does not produce dangerous toxins as it slowly dissolves while the wound or incisions heal.  The tape could be used to patch holes, or even wrap around intestines in gastric bypass procedures.

Now where do the geckos come in? Well the tape uses Gecko skin to…JK. Actually the team followed the princile behind those of the Gecko’s paws. The surface of the tape has microscale bumps that give the tape a few advantages, and over this is a layer of glue that allows it to stick in wet environments. The product has been tried on pig intestines and proved to work very efficiently. This product could be a great tool in the future for surgeons as it will allow them to insert this tape on small incisions where suture could be extremely difficult.

Around the starting of the school year I joined TSA, where students from around the nation compete in various technology oriented projects. The competitions start at regionals, and individuals who place there make way to state level competition and then finally enter nationals. Well like always I joined the as many competitions as I could, and also like always started work the last minute..literally. For regionals I had to compete in Medical Technology, Biotechnology & Agriculture, and Promotional Design and phone calls from my group members and the school adviser started to roll in. It was Sunday afternoon and the event was to take place on that Thursday. The next five or so days were probably the busiest days of my life. The first two days I sat up all night researching and designing presentations for our Medical Technology competition. Our topic was Obesity, and I decided to throw together a few nice boards in photoshop. Designing the boards turned out to be the easier part of the project, finding someone that did oversize printing with understandable rates became the problem. Fedex Kinkos were charging around $50 per board and almost every other place I drove to wouldn’t print over 11×17.  Well in the end I finally found a small place in the corner of downtown that got the job done.  The next day and a half I spent throwing together another design for promotional graphics, and I really want to say thanks to my partner for doing most of the work for Agriculture & Biotechnology.

Even with our last minute efforts all the projects placed.  Medical technology won first, while the other two hit 3rd place, allowing me to go to state competitions for all three.

Here are the medical technology boards I threw together, most likely I am going to redesign and redo the entire project for state competitions.

How can the first two months of 2008 be described, well with one word - BUSY. Before I even get started describing them I wanted to say sorry for my disappearance, and I also have no intention of closing down my blog. Next I really wanted to thank newfbrand and eggmag for writing the reviews on Medilogy. Even though the reviews are quite short they gave me enough inspiration to come back and start round 2 of Medilogy as the next phase of my education (College) is about to begin. Now on to the tales of the last two months.

January and the new year started off pretty exciting, but the quickly came to an end. Around January 2nd I remember one of my close friends telling me how doctors suspected his mother may have cancer, and reports would come in two days. Well it turned out she didn’t have cancer and we are all thankful for that. A day or two after that my uncle passed away in New York after being in a coma for almost 10 years. His condition had been critical for the past 2-3 days and we received no notifications of this from the hospital’s staff. My father flew out to NYC the next morning and I don’t remember much from those days.

After that the two C’s began to dominate once more - College & Calculus. I sat online most of my nights filling out as many college scholarships as I could, the biggest reason being that one of my college choices was one of the most expensive colleges in the area. I’ve been accepted to one of the colleges of my choice and currently awaiting acceptance from another Honors College. excitement

Alright so all in all those are some of the biggest reason’s I haven’t had time for the blog lately, but once again I’ve got another boost of energy to keep it going. It should pick up more as I begin shadowing a few local surgeons and enter college which is only months away!

And just want to thank anyone who reads my blog, as you guys are much of my reason to keep going.

Sometimes there is not much to say and feelings can’t be described in a million words. About 45 seconds in photoshop and three images cropped together is the best way I can explain those feelings right now.

It’s Christmas Eve and many families around the world are celebrating with extravagant dinners, parties, family get- togethers and etc, but many times I believe people forget what it is all about, not just Christmas time but what the real values of life are about. Today’s world lives in an information age where technology has made the exchange of information faster then ever. Within seconds we find out about new advances in science, natural disasters, or even whether or not Elizabeth and Johnny are still dating through the internet and wireless devices. I believe that in all this exchange some people at times forget that there are values in life that can’t be seen such as love, compassion, hope, faith, and friendship. People fall in and out ‘love’, have a new best-friend-forever, and have had sex 5 times with 3 different people all in a week. With all this how can anything ever be special. How can a first kiss be special? How can love at first site be possible? Is there even a such thing as true friendship? I beleive that sometimes we should all take time to ourselves and think about all that. I know that buying the newest most expensive in-style clothing helps boost our self-image and I do the same thing, but I’ve seen that so many people lose themselves in this world of materialism and do forget those real values that make them what they are. Anyway this issue can be taken very deeply and I’m sure other people have different opinions from me. For now I just want to share the below letter with all the viewers. It was written by a young 8 year old girl named Virginia to the Editor of The New York Sun in 1897. The editor sums up so many deep thoughts into a simple letter to a girl. I believe it is a masterpiece.

- I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

—————————————————–

Dear Editor—

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O’Hanlon

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
-Francis P. Church

It connects the masses, it connects individuals who would never get to meet or even know of the others existence. A pharmacist in the States can read about the miseries and joys of a Junior Doctor in the United Kingdom. An artist can portray his life in words to us, and an everyday user can just rant on about his or her problems knowing that out of the billion people surfing the web atleast someone has read and sympathized with him. Some use blogs as an online journal, others use them as a source to output useful information, either way once the blog is online with articles ready to go it is part of “The Blog World”, an intricate online network of users and communities that go beyond just a website. It is like a Yahoo! chatroom only with a slower pacer, and instead of just chatting to the other users you know of a part of there everyday life. A part that even those who have physically know this person may not know of. When I first began to blog, around two months ago, it seemed like a pretty simple little idea to me and pretty pointless. Open a site and rant on and on about your everyday life that no one is going to read about unless you just found the cure for cancer, however, it is much more then that. A few weeks after blogging I noticed how well many bloggers knew each other. They could relate with each other on many issues and it was a virtual community. In most instances there was no online portal or forums connecting one blogger to another and unlike a website these bloggers did not compete with one another. I noticed that they would constantly link and refer to other blog throughout their posts. “The Blog World” is a online virtual world of everday people — doctors, soldiers, artists, designers, walmart clerks, and who knows whom else. Medilogy is just another new citizen of this large and complex world and I hope it can become a larger and more well-known part of “The Blog World”

And as a new blogger I must say it is pretty addicting. I don’t know if anyone even reads my posts and I’m certainly not getting any kind of capital from it, however, for some reason I still come to my blog everyday to see if there is a new comment or to think of new articles to post, and I don’t think anyone but another blogger knows of this feeling.