After hearing all the hype, we finally got our hands on The Beatles Rock Band this weekend. The game did not disappoint, with its psychedelic and beautiful display of the band’s historical rise to fame and musical genius. Between jamming to the tunes of the Fab Four, we also caught up with several old friends from out of town – which of course meant lots and lots of eating. This included pasta from La Morra, noodles from Ken Ramen, porridge from HK Eatery, and dim sum at Winsor Cafe. The highlight, however, was taking a morning trip to Clear Flour Bread for their sublime pain au chocolat, so fresh out of the oven that the chocolate chips were still warm and melty when we bit into them. After all the meals and expenditures, we’ll need to cut back on spending. Fortunately, Hulu’s free streaming has kept us entertained with a TV series we’ve discovered called Firefly. The space Western, which seems like a terrible idea at first, was surprisingly entertaining and refreshingly different. It reminded us of Cowboy Bebop with its exciting adventures and witty dialogues. Sadly, the show survived only 14 episodes before the geniuses at Fox decided to nix the show. It amazes me how shows like this get cut, while Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? is in its 3rd season.

Labor Day weekend involved plenty of labor for me this year, as I spent most of it working in the ED at the infirmary. It was especially tough since I had just finished another exhaustive week of night float last week. Fortunately, my new rotation has offered me plenty of opportunities in the OR – including two pterygium surgeries which I got to perform. Despite the dearth of time, we enjoyed the beautiful fall weather after my ED shift yesterday with a stroll around the neighborhood. We browsed used books at the local bookstore, solved the daily puzzle at the game store, then chowed on a nutella canoli crepe at the creperie. Today, we awoke early to drive down to Wrentham for some outlet shopping. The crowds were much tamer than the Black Friday bunch, but so were the sales. To console ourselves for the limited finds, we dined on Melody’s rendition of kalbi jim for dinner. The sweet, tender short ribs got us both singing (to the tune of the old Batman TV series) “na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na SHORT RIBS!”

Despite initial thoughts of going away to celebrate my first golden weekend in four weeks, we ultimately decided to spend our time relaxing at home. We awoke early Saturday morning to revisit Haymarket to pick out some fresh fruits and vegetables. For just $15, we scored two pounds of vine tomatoes, a pound of mushrooms, a napa cabbage, cilantro, two avocadoes, a pineapple, a cantalope, nine kiwis, a tub of strawberries, and two tubs of blueberries! From there, we drove to Chinatown for dim sum, followed by a stop at the Chinese supermarket and bakery. With the summer heat finally here, we also spent the afternoon basking in free air-conditioning while shopping at the local mall. Back at home, we spent the rest of the weekend doing the laundry and cooking up a storm – with a big pot of noodle soup and a cornucopia of fruits and smoothies – all while enjoying a few episodes of 24, the new Fallout 3 expansion packs, and even Guitar Hero. Although we were late in joining the bandwagon, I bought a used copy of the game mainly to try out the rhythm genre. The game was entertaining and addictive as we dressed up our rocker hero and took to the stage. With The Beatles Rock Band on the horizon, we’re eagerly looking forward to some rocking times ahead.

As I had expected, my week on night float did little to perturb my circadian cycle, as I’m already prone to the night owl lifestyle to begin with. Despite working more than 100 hours last week, I experienced a good variety of stuff – a ruptured globe from a BB gun, a trauma patient with orbital compartment syndrome, a ruptured medial rectus, a few retinal detachments, and a patient with both Leber Congenital Amaurosis and Coat’s disease (two things we usually just read about in textbooks). I also got to repair a few eyelid lacerations and perform a canthotomy/cantholysis in the ICU at Mass General. I had little idea of what I was doing, but my senior held my hand like a little kid. The nurses were surprised by my enthusiasm, but they also remarked that it was only my first week – and still had plenty of time to become bitter and disillusioned. After emerging from my vampiric existence on Saturday, we had dinner at a new Chinatown joint that was disappointingly lacking in wok hay, then pulled out our bamboo mat to watch the opening night of Shakespeare on the Commons. This year, the company did The Comedy of Errors. My exhaustion set in half-way, and I fell asleep amidst the multiple dance numbers and barrage of slapstick humor. Nevertheless, I’m just glad to be returning to the land of the living.

After bumbling along in my new white coat last week, I’ve managed to survive week one on the retina service unscathed. The rotation is an interesting mix of clinic, surgery, dictating images, and presenting cases for a weekly “macula” conference. Beside struggling to learn the use of lenses to visualize the fundus – one of the most challenging parts of the eye exam – it has also been an exercise in adapting to the different styles of attending doctors in the clinics and O.R.. Despite the long hours at work, I did manage to squeeze in time for a viewing of the new Harry Potter movie as well as two incredible meals over the golden weekend. On Friday night, we went to our local favorite La Morra, where we dined on linguine and clams in almond pesto and a fettucelle with lobster both cooked to a perfect al dente texture. On Saturday, we joined some friends at Eastern Standard where we shared the daily offal of delicate sweet breads, duck confit raviolis, tender Long Island duck breast, and a satisfying peach cobbler. Our friends were running late, so I couldn’t resist popping in to Popeye’s for their 3-piece special just before dinner. Hey, why eat just one meal, when you can have two for 3 bucks more?

The prospect of starting residency has been both exciting and daunting at the same time. I feel that I knew a lot more medicine at the start of internship than I do ophthalmology going into residency. Our orientation week, if anything, has reinforced my realization that I know nothing about the eye. Compounded with a slew of scheduling issues and administrative snafus, the week has been exceptionally anxiety-provoking. We did have a 3-day weekend for Independence Day, which gave us a chance to enjoy dim sum with my new co-residents and even mooch from our friends’ holiday barbeques. Meanwhile, I’m also trying to read up on basic exam skills in ophtho. I expect my first shift in the ED this weekend to be a harrowing experience.

Months after hearing about Melody’s dining experience at Momofuku Ko, I just had to try the experience myself. Meaning “child,” Ko is the smallest of David Chang’s restaurants in NYC, and features an online-only reservation system. We waited at my computer at 9:59am exactly 7 days before our planned reservation, and crossing our fingers that my DSL connection is stable, successfully scored 2 spots for dinner last night. Our spectacular meal began with an amuse trio with tiny sweet corn raviolis, crispy Mirin-soaked black pepper buttermilk biscuits that oozed oil from below, and airy chicharron with Togarashi salt. This was followed by a refreshing diver scallop sashimi with pineapple vinegar, fresh water chesnut and crispy ham. The cold dashi soup was accompanied by raw sugar snap pea pods (with the peas shelled and replaced!), pea pod stems, cucumber, Santa Barbara uni – one of few rare instances where urchin does NOT taste like sewage. Next was a warm, richly-flavored concoction of lightly-smoked egg with Hackleback caviar, onion soubise, fingerling potato chips and purple sweet potato vinegrette. This was followed by a satisfying suped-up congee – a saffron Korean jook with Louisiana crawfish, chinese sausage, fresh chopped fennel, dill, and lime zest. We also witnessed the impressive live preparation of a soft-shell crab, coated with flour and pan-fried, and served on a bed of curly celery ribbons (raw but soaked in ice water to curl them) and hearts of palm pickled in lemon juice with an old bay brown butter sauce. Then, the famed shaved frozen foie gras over lychee, Riesling gelee, and pine nut brittle, which Melody said at first glance looked like saw dust, then when stirred looked like a hot mess, but when ingested was an amazing blend of flavors and textures that’s like “a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited!” The main meat was a beef short rib (cooked sous vide for a few days and then quickly deep fried for a crust, producing a texture of tenderness with epic proportions) with “spring allium” (a.k.a. onions) – grilled scallions, leeks puree, raw sweet onions, and sliced pickled mini red onions topped with a red wine sauce. Our desserts were a cantalope sorbet on lemon verbena ice, and rhubarb with olive oil creme fraiche sorbet, black pepper crunchies, and black pepper ganache (which tasted like a paste version of the buttermilk biscuit). The overall atmosphere was a pure celebration of food and its creation – bar seating with 12 stools around an open kitchen with no fancy decor, three chefs taking turns to describe each dish, and a mixture of music from country to rock to Beach Boys. We walked away, happy and smiling.

Last night seemed like any other nights on call – 5 admissions, 2 event notes for acute chest pain and a BP of 60/D, checking blood gases for someone desatting, and the usual “need Tylenol STAT” page. Except this was not just any call night – it was my last night as a medicine intern. We celebrated our swan song, so to speak, with cake, pastries, and sparkling cider in the house officer’s lounge at midnight. This morning, our residency director put a discharge sticker on my white coat before I signed out my list for the last time, passing the torch to the next poor bastard taking over the service. There was a great sense of relief as I joined the post-call crew for brunch this afternoon. Our evening concluded with Melody’s graduation from fellowship at ye olde Harvard Club, marking the end of another chapter in our academic careers. Now before residency starts on July 1st, we’ve decided to spend our week off recuperating – with food, sleep, and relaxation.

Last weekend, we drove out to Braintree for some BBQ ribs and discovered along the way the huge Asian grocery store Kam Man in nearby Quincy. We’ve been looking for an alternative ever since our old staple for Asian goods began slipping into the dumps in terms of selection. It was a relief to find that this place had all five kinds of soy sauce we use, Shao Hsing rice wine, Neoguri noodles, soba/udon tsuyu, and even vegetarian chicken. We bought nearly a hundred bucks worth of groceries, including a 2-pound striped bass for steaming. Among the goodies were also ingredients for banh mi. In case you haven’t already discovered the awesomeness of this Vietnamese sandwich, check out this NY Times article. Our version included cha lua, Canadian liver pate, pickled carrots, cucumbers, cilantro, and crispy baguettes with mayo and Maggi sauce to round out the flavors. Yum!

We’re still a week away from the end of internship, but year-end festivities are already abound. Today was our graduation ceremony, which I almost missed as we were back in extreme census and the cardiology service continued to bulge at the seams. The ceremony was nice, though the oversized diploma did not do justice to the guts and glory that went into surviving this year. We also got a framed print of the old hospital building, as well as a reproduction of the resident guidebook from 1940, perhaps to remind us how lucky we are nowadays to not actually reside in the hospital as residents. Yesterday evening was the department dinner, highlights of which included our poet laureate (i.e. the resident with the most outstanding discharge summaries), the senior slideshow, and year-end videos. Our class did not disappoint with our share of funny skits including a guy with his ringtone set to the Code Blue alarm and a patient code status discussion with an Applebee’s-styled menu (our favorite being an option for chest compressions but no shocks, “which is great for relieving guilt”). Our other accomplishments this week included finally completing our bobblehead collection from Fallout 3, as well as our 300-page Japan album from Blurb. Hopefully, our Vietnam/Cambodia album will be substantially slimmer.