January, You Are Over

Oh my gosh, time does go by faster as an adult than as a kid.  While this thought is neither profound nor original, it is still pretty amazing to actually experience.  Fortunately, there's an element of "the days are long but the years are short" so I do feel that I've gotten a lot done and experienced new things.

A few January highlights...
* SMS and I spent 3/4 of the month together.  While we both can't wait to be together for reals, we had so much fun together.  We went to Singapore, explored Japan, took Japanese lessons, played a new "sport" (Park Golf), ate good food and just had the best time together.  Hooray!

* I read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  The writing was incredibly lush and the way she put the emotion of grief into words was amazingly gifted.  I even learned a few words...my favorite?  Elide.  But that's only because I can't remember any others off the top of my head.  I also really, really want to see the painting now.  But in terms of an overall reading experience, I was moved but mostly in an unpleasant way.  The story is really sad and there's just so much wasted human life because of an endless loop of misperceptions, undealt-with emotions and fear.  There are a lot of really vivid descriptions of what it's like to be on drugs, which makes total sense once I realized that the author went to Bennington College.  (Cheap shot alert!)  So, overall, I would recommend it but only if you have a strong resolve to not be affected and filled with malaise while reading.  Hmmm, maybe reading on a bright Summer day would be helpful?  Her writing is so amazing though that I think I'll read The Secret History at some point.

* Currently, I'm reading This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, one of my favorite authors.  It's good b/c it's a collection of essays so I don't get horribly sucked in and neglect sleep, studies and work.

* Hmmmm, no new bands really.  I would like to listen to more Band of Horses and I started listening to some new playlists on Songza to try and be cool.  I looked over the Coachella 2014 line-up and I am pretty out of it.

* I started watching Breaking Bad with SMS but then we went on hiatus b/c it was depressing.  Between that and The Goldfinch I wasn't doing too well for a couple of days, ha ha.  He's currently on a watching spree though.

* I got serious about studying for boards.  That's good because that sort of needed to happen.

*In other work-related news, I signed up for the San Francisco match, which is the application processing center used for neurotology applications.  There is, in fact, no neurotology program in San Francisco.  It's just the name of the match (which is used for lots of other residency and fellowship programs too).

* Future vacation with SMS?  Start budgeting for said vacation now since I also want to include the Shanghai, Terracota Warriors and Great Wall of China excursion.  Oh my tastes...so expensive.