As the holidays approached, we were glad to have grandparents available nearby to watch the baby as we attended my department’s holiday party and my wife’s division gathering. Westley got to come with us to my mentor’s holiday party, and even enjoyed some of the Chinese food there. In fact, he seems to have a general preference for Asian foods like rice, noodles, and congee. We’ve also exposed him to more exotic foodstuffs, from cumin and coriander to tofu and liver pate. His culinary journey was stopped short on Thursday, however, when he sampled a bit of peanut butter on toast. Within minutes, he was red, swollen, and agitated. I rushed to Target for some baby Benadryl. But when my wife called to tell me it was getting worse, I told her to call 911. I got home and saw him surrounded by fire-fighters, but could hardly recognize his little swollen face. Fortunately, after getting Benadryl, epinephrine, and solumedrol at the Sutter Davis ER (where we had just been for Melody’s appendicitis), he was looking much better. We nevertheless kept him under observation overnight at UCDMC, where ironically I wasn’t even on call. On Saturday, we went for noodles and dumplings with the in-laws, and made sure to bring along our EpiPen Jr. We then celebrated Westley’s first Christmas with unwrapping of presents, followed by a trip down to Stockton for crabs with grandma and grandpa. We spent the rest of the 4-day weekend relaxing at home, finishing up Uncharted 4 and getting my mind blown by the WestWorld season one finale. I also binge-watched the third season of Black Mirror, where the episode “San Junipero” particularly resonated with us. The story of two women with disparate pasts who find love in a virtual world left us feeling warm and fuzzy to the tune of Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth.” Despite our four trips to the ER this year, we were reminded of how fortunate we are to find love with each other, and to have Westley in our lives.

We returned to the Vacaville outlets this year to brave Black Friday again. Fortunately, with most online merchants rolling out their deals way ahead of time, I was able to get most of my purchases done the night before. We ordered a Wi-Fi camera to serve as a baby monitor, a motorized deadbolt that can be unlocked remotely, a Capiz shell console table for the guest room, and a pair of W7 speakers from Definitive Technology’s BF BOGO deal. I also found a great deal on a new Google Pixel phone to replace my dying Samsung S5. By the time we got to the outlets, we were able to shop at a leisurely pace, with my wife feeding an intermittently-febrile little Westley while I trolled for a parking space. We ended the day with some work clothes for Melody, outfits for Westley, and gift baskets for my co-workers. I also supplemented my holiday shopping online with some AMEX gift cards and even a DSLR for my lab tech. We unwinded for the rest of the weekend, putting up the Christmas tree, visiting the neighborhood park, and enjoying Westley’s newfound skill in babbling. It was endearing to hear his first words of “da da,” though I’m sure his mom is jealous.

With the weather getting colder and Melody maxing out on her vacation day accrual, we decided to warm up with a few weekday lunch outings at our favorite noodle joints including ramen, pho, bun rieu, and beef noodles. We also tried out the new Boiling Pot in Davis, which offered a variety of steaming Taiwanese-style hot pots including one with stinky tofu and pickled veggies, complete with rice and milk tea. Melody had just finished the first session of her new Massage Envy membership, while I spent some quality time with Westley at the local Starbucks, so we were able to tolerate waiting with starving undergrads during their grand opening. At home, while Melody’s binge-watching the Gilmore Girls to prepare for the show’s reunion, I took a break from the Walking Dead to check out new episodes of Black Mirror and Westworld – a compelling new HBO Sci-Fi series about a Western-themed amusement park populated by android “hosts” where high-paying human “guests” can play out their wildest fantasies. We also tried unsuccessfully to push ahead with Uncharted, as Westley continues to drain what little free time we had. Despite being so busy, we still managed to roll out an impressive spread of Asian dishes for Thanksgiving day, including lotus root soup, tomato-egg stir fry, baby gai lan, a tofu skin salad, bean sprout salad, and scallion pancakes. My in-laws brought the roast duck and stick rice, our yearly tradition, and left the carcass for congee the next day. Since we decided to do lunch to accommodate Westley’s schedule, we were able to hang out in the afternoon over some garage ping pong doubles action, neighborhood tennis drills, and a round of Pandemic. Westley also joined in the fun, despite mounting yet another fever, but we’ll have to see how he handles the rest of the weekend.

When I look back upon the past 24 hours, I can still feel the trauma and despair that came with the unraveling of the presidential election results – the unanimous claims of a certain Clinton victory by pollsters at the beginning, the violent flip of the needle on NYT’s live forecast model, the narrowing paths for Clinton as battleground states fell to the GOP, and the ominous, quiet atmosphere at Javits Center when John Podesta asked supporters to go home. By the time Donald Trump came on stage to start his victory speech, I knew our country will never be the same again. I could almost imagine him saying, “So, Hillary, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb,” from the annals of Spaceball quotes. The result reenforced my disillusionment with our country. With society. With human nature. That people can be so easily brainwashed by fear and hate. That bullying and bullshitting outplayed dedication and hard work. And that sexism and misogyny remains so ingrained even in a country like ours that prides itself on equality. Melody went to sleep early, saddened by the cold new world in which we’ll raise our baby. Even my parents, who were first-time registered voters, became disillusioned by the results. They had been staying with us for almost 2 months now, helping with the baby, weeding our yards, and even assisting with candy duty on Halloween. Westley wasn’t really down with his penguin costume, although we did a pretty good job shifting his sleep schedule to adjust for DST while Melody was attending a conference in Denver. Now with both of us getting sick again and my parents getting ready to return home tomorrow, we prepare for uncertain, busier times ahead.

Despite being still drugged up on cough syrup and cough drops, I was determined to keep our plan to see Pentatonix live in concert for their one-night-only show in Sacramento. Since my parents were still in town, we were able to enjoy a dinner date at Grange before heading to the brand new Golden 1 Center for the concert. This was our first live-band concert in many years, so we decided to splurge for third-row seats, just behind the mosh pit. The show opened with a lackluster set by Abi, a Nashville-based country/pop band with a Letters to Cleo vibe; followed by a more impressive American folk pop duo called Us the Duo, featuring husband-and-wife Michael and Carissa Alvarado who showcased a variety of hits including one they premiered as their wedding vows. Of course, the headliners stole the show, as the team of a capella all-stars showed off popular covers like their Michael Jackson and Daft Punk medleys, and originals like Can’t Sleep Love. Our breaths were also taken away by Mitch’s vocal range and Kevin’s beat-boxing to Bach’s Cello Suite. The late event made it hard for me to wake up Friday morning for more meetings about the new Eye Center building. I went home for a quick lunch with the family at our new local Chinese place Hong Kong Cafe, then was off again to the Allergan campus in Irvine for the “FIRST” immersion program. There, I got to catch up with other “innovative retina stars of tomorrow”, in addition to learning much about the expansive research facilities at Allergan. My cough was much better by the time I got back, and we had both sets of grandparents over to enjoy some hot pot with Westley. After five nearly consecutive trips over the past month, I was relieved to be finally home again to spend time with the family.

With my wife just discharged from the hospital and myself suffering from both laryngitis and bronchitis, my arrival in Chicago for this year’s AAO annual meeting began rather inauspiciously. Since the Academy is primarily a social gathering, my inability to carry a conversation without hacking up a lung severely limited what socializing I was able to do. It also didn’t help that I was featured on the cover of the meeting program this year, which led to a lot of congratulatory text messages and even more social calls than usual. On Friday, after checking into my hotel, I joined our residents and fellows at the Cornea Society party, which as in prior years has become bigger, louder, and darker – I could barely see or hear anyone there. Next morning, I was glad my booth talk at Zeiss was sparsely attended, and I enjoyed a private preview of upcoming features for their intraoperative OCT system. After grabbing lunch with a collaborator from UCSF, I attended a few final sessions from Subspecialty Day, which again taught me nothing new and reinforced my decision not to register for this event again. I rested at the hotel until the evening, then stopped by the Harvard alumni reception before dinner with the Allergan team including their CEO. My voice had not recovered much by Sunday, which made for a rough morning teaching two Skills Transfer courses. I was consoled, however, by a participant who came up after my talk to commend my teaching style and confirm that I was the author of the 300-slide board review powerpoint which had apparently gone viral and passed between trainees across the country. For lunch, I had some chicken pho with a fellow clinician-scientist at UW to soothe my throat, then returned to the conference to see my resident’s poster win best-in-category. By the time I returned to ORD for my flight out, I felt like I had spent more time conversing with Uber drivers than with actual friends at the meeting. Despite lamenting my bad luck for getting sick, I was nevertheless glad that I have no clinical or call duties when I get back next week.

Nothing could have prepared America for this election season, as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns continue to bring new drama and new surprises into the final weeks before the election. It had only been days after NY Times released Trump’s tax returns and Wikileaks unveiled hacked emails from Clinton’s private server, when another scandal surfaced – this time a video of Donald bragging about groping women, which all culminated in a very intense and uneasy debate between the candidates last week. As more and more Republicans distance themselves from Trump, I find it ironic that their candidate has done more to fracture the party than any Democrat opponent had in this country’s history. And while the political scene continues to spiral into chaos, my own household’s health was also falling apart. On Tuesday, I left work early with a sore throat and fever of 101, only to find my wife acutely hunched over with 10/10 right lower quadrant pain. After idiotically trying to tough it out for an hour, we finally drove to our local ER, where she was promptly diagnosed with a ruptured appendicitis and taken to surgery. Luckily, my parents had been visiting and were just getting used to caring for the baby. So while Melody was recovering in the hospital and I was juggling my remaining clinical duties, they were able to step in and watch Westley. It will be rough flying out tomorrow, especially since she just got discharged from the hospital today. Fortunately, it’ll be a short itinerary, and I’m looking forward to coming home soon for some much needed rest.

I was in Tokyo this week for the 2016 ISER biennial meeting. It has been 8 years since my last visit there, and I was determined to try something new having already done the touristy stuff. Making reservations was no easy task, however, with language barriers and opposite time zones that necessitated multiple email exchanges with my hotel and an online concierge. I left Sunday morning, and after a muggy layover in Honolulu with bland ramen, landed in Narita Monday afternoon. The hotel was tiny, but perfectly located a block from the meeting venue and a quick walk to Shinjuku station. For dinner, I waited in line at Udon Shin to squeeze in for a hearty bowl with parmesan, butter, and tempura ham, then checked out the bustling scene in Shibuya. Jet-lagged, I got little sleep before attending the conference next morning. For lunch, I had reservations at Sushi-ya in Ginza, but the place was so hidden in an alleyway that it took 30 minutes of getting lost before I enlisted a nearby coffee shop hostess to help me find it. The meal was worth the trouble, however, as Chef Ishiyama, who trained at Michelin-starred Sushi Saito and Kanesaka, prepared an amazing 14-piece lunch set with hamachi, chutoro, otoro, bonito, ika, botan ebi, kohada, ikura, kinmedai, shiro ebi, kanpyou, Hokkaido uni, hamaguri, unagi, and tamago. Every piece was meticulously assembled by the chef himself, despite my belated arrival and off-set preparation of my pieces. After presenting my poster, I went for dinner at Sumibiyakiniku Nakahara. Here, I sat at the counter as the chefs grilled each slice of meat individually before me, with 3 divine cuts of the “legendary” wagyu tongue, followed by the 7-piece omakase course including sirloin, outside skirt, misuji, zabuton, rump, katahana, and kata-sankaku. The size and sequence of each cut were perfectly calibrated, and they even comped a few extra pieces at the end. I returned to the hotel afterwards to bask in utter ecstasy. On Wednesday, I met my old PI for a massive breakfast buffet prior to the meeting. Lunch was at Le Sputnik, but I again got lost from my outdated map app requiring more assistance, this time from the Ritz-Carlton concierge. When I finally arrived, I learned that my reservation was not until the next day. So I spent the next hour wandering Roppongi to locate a ramen shop that I had researched, which again was mislabeled on the app and nowhere to be found. Sweaty, hungry, and frustrated, I returned to Shinjuku where a bowl of tsukemen from Fuunji made me feel better. Exhausted, I napped all afternoon and awoke feeling reinvigorated. A late-night bowl of yummy fish-based ramen at Nagi Golden Gai helped fuel me as I walked through Kabukicho and squeezed past Chinese shoppers at Don Quixote. I stayed up all night but could not keep my eyes open back at the meeting on Thursday. Instead, I checked out and dragged my luggage back to Le Sputnik. Here, Chef Yujiro Takahashi’s 9-course tasting lunch menu certainly earned its Michelin-starred status, with highlights like a divine mushroom sorbet with poached egg yolk, a seared foie gras with orange compote and espresso jelly, and a juicy Hokkaido venison with red wine jus reduction that transcends the game meat genre. Before I left, I inquired about their fine glassware, and was directed to a glass shop in Ebisu which unfortunately did not stock the Kimura tumblers I wanted. I got to Narita early to take advantage of my new Priority Pass membership and enjoyed the amenities at the KAL lounge before my flight home. My visit to Tokyo showed me a different side of the city, and left me with a sense of longing for the beauty, energy, and unique culture of the city.

This month’s travel has been very hectic. Shortly after the DC trip, I flew to La Jolla for a day to present my work at Scripps for the Alcon Research Institute Young Investigator Award symposium. Luckily, the flight was short, and my Global Entry membership arrived just in time to facilitate airport security. The company also helped make things easy by arranging for airport transfers to the hotel complete with black Mercedes and black-tie drivers. Dinner was generic fare, although I did enjoy rubbing elbows with leaders in the field. I returned home for less than 24 hours to spend time with my family and get some dim sum, baked goods, and groceries, before hitting the road again for my flight to Japan. We also broke out our new copy of Uncharted 4, where Nathan Drake’s newest adventure continues to wow us with action-packed cinematography and impressive voice-acting. While my hectic travel schedule will not be as exciting, I look forward to some novel dining experiences in the days ahead.

I headed to Washington DC this week for my first experience in lobbying congress. I was selected by NAEVR as one of 22 “Emerging Vision Scientists” from around the country to represent early-career researchers to present our research on Capitol Hill and promote funding for the NIH. I had forgotten how much farther IAD was than DCA, so I didn’t get to my hotel until past midnight, after a $50 Uber ride. On Thursday, I took advantage of free time in the morning to do my Global Entry interview at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The 5-minute interview was a breeze, and I had enough time to join some friends for the overpriced hotel breakfast buffet. In the afternoon, we attended a presentation as part of AMD awareness week, then joined the organizers of the event for a preparatory luncheon. In the evening, we presented our research posters at a congressional reception, where we interfaced with representatives from congress, the NEI, and RPB. I stayed up late catching up with an old lab-mate over takeout at his house, which made for a rough early morning on Thursday. I was first scheduled with Doris Matsui herself, but only got to meet with her aide when the Congresswoman was stuck on the house floor. In between my House and Senate visits, I navigated the underground tunnels, checked out the cafeteria, and got a souvenir coin from the Capitol gift shop. I also passed the Supreme Court, and checked my email at the Library of Congress. I joined the UCSD delegation to meet staffers from Senator Boxer’s office, but had to leave to catch my flight before Senator Feinstein’s office meetings. Although visiting these three offices was like preaching to the choir, I was nevertheless deeply inspired by the democratic process and the ability as a constituent to visit our representatives’ offices to voice our opinion.