this latte is from too early on a sunday morning

 I think the best thing about medical school is how a man can ask you, "How was your presentation on..." and you can finish the sentence, "... female genitalia?" And he answers, "Yeah, that one" without skipping a beat. "It was pretty good." And it's normal. Because I think that kind of thing is hard to come by in the real world when the man isn't your chief resident, who went to medical school in Tehran and was an ER doc and then did medical school again in the U.S. and is now an internal medicine doctor who tells you stories about a man who tried to pay for a car in cash and crashed into the car dealership with the car he was test driving. People. Are. Amazing.

Note to self: be more like that. Because right now things are looking a little like this (but less funny):

this will be me.

[image from bigBANG studio]

One of my summer goals is to make a quilt-style duvet cover for my bed. Right now, my comforter (I think that's what it is?) doesn't match anything in my room or even come remotely close. The fact that it doesn't come remotely close is the part that bothers me. I have this image in my mind of a few quilts I want to do. I love this yellow and was thinking about doing some sort of gold-yellow with black triangle kind of a thing. I had a reason to try to get it done for early July, but now that that has kind of changed, I think I will just try to finish it by late July, probably.

personality test

Don't laugh. Yesterday, I took this Myers-Briggs personality test. And following a hunch, I made my brother take it. During October, it was one of my goals to engage better with the people around me. I found the difficulty to be nice to my brother rather alarming and throughout the past few weeks, I began to wonder whether there was a reason that I could absolutely not understand most of his motives and general way of going about life. It turns out that our personality types were quite the polar opposite.

I found out that my "personality type" is ENTJ- Extraverted, Intuition, Thinking, Judging. It's kind of interesting, and I will admit, oddly accurate.

According to the ENTJ Wikipedia Page:
"ENTJs focus on the most efficient and organized means of performing a task. This quality, along with their goal orientation, often makes ENTJs superior leaders, both realistic and visionary in implementing a long-term plan. ENTJs tend to be fiercely independent in their decision making, having a strong will that insulates them against external influence. Generally highly competent, ENTJs analyze and structure the world around them in a logical and rational way. Due to this straightforward way of thinking, ENTJs tend to have the greatest difficulty of all the types in applying subjective considerations and emotional values into the decision-making process."

My brother, on the other hand, was an ISTP Personality Type. For now, I'm just going to put it out there and think about the ramifications and ways that our personalities can be used to our advantages to achieve or connect/work with others.

famous before she was notorious

I recently realized that I don't spend enough time thinking about important things. Not things that involve school, science, work, what I'm going to eat for dinner, am I drinking enough water, how angry would my mom be if I got a cat, how much angrier my mom would be if I got a cat and then a tattoo, can I leave the country without my mom noticing, if I drink any more coffee than I am currently, will I explode, why did that group of guys tell me that I'm pretty and ask if I wanted to go smoke with them while I was waiting at the bus stop, etc.

But what about dreams? Somehow, the concept of dreaming has become so associated with being spacey and flaky, even cliche (Dream Big, blah, blah), but I'm beginning to wonder about the power of just big, insane ideas and really working them feasibly into my life. After all, insanity is a purely theoretical concept, I think. There was a point this summer when I was thinking of new ideas on a daily and weekly basis; I was surrounded by good-intentioned naysayers, but at the end of the day, those people wondering why you would want to do something or, more terrifying, telling you that you shouldn't will fade into the background and you remember. You remember yourself, somehow.

One of my favorite summer memories is from a concert when Glen Hasard of The Swell Season was talking about insane dreams and he dedicated the next song to the insane dreamers of the world. My friend Cherita looked at me and smiled. And one of my favorite quotes came from a book I read this summer, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder regarding the project to bring healthcare to Haiti, "They think we're unrealistic. They don't know we're crazy."

My main goal for the last few weeks of November is to give myself time to come up with big ideas. I just wanted to share this picture that I took last year in Taiwan. I love how the body of the fish curls. And the picture reminds me of beautiful memories abroad and that I need to begin planning more!

on the edge of a moment, on a land that we love, in a time that our best has to be good enough

[Lovely dreamcatchers here]

Okay, new plan (I need a new plan pretty much every week): Never avoid doing something just because you're scared. Because one day you won't be scared and you will have not done something that you really wanted to do. But first, identify why the fear is there; then ignore if necessary or feasible.

Everything I do from now on is going to be incredibly funny.

"Jocelyn, I'm going to be about 20 minutes late."
"That's fine.... I'm going to blog now. And it's going to be about you being late."

But that's not what I'm really doing. Here are my random "fun" goals I hope to achieve by the end of 2010.

1. Furnish and decorate my apartment. I mean, honestly? I've been here since June. It's fully furnished, as of two weeks ago, and the addition of a dresser last week made it seem even more furnished, but here's the thing... there is nothing on the walls. Except for a few random things I hung up just to see on nails that were already in the walls. I have several prints/postcards/miscellany that are ready to go on walls, but I need frames. I'm always looking for frames. Last week I went to a rummage sale and got some awesome things, but not many frames.

2. Sign up for a cooking class and "other" class. I am looking for a cooking class in Chicago that is more than one (expensive) session. You know, something that meets once a week for several weeks. I so far have only been able to find classes that are one day. I also am planning on taking a class, possibly pottery or screenprinting, two skills that I don't have yet. I was talking to my friends last night and I think it bothers me when I don't know how to do something... even if it's something like screenprinting.

3. Compile a booklist. This year, I am reading. A lot. I thought it might be fun to gain more perspective from friends, teachers, and advisers by asking what books have changed their ways of thinking, their lives, or just meant a lot to them. I specified that they could give me as little or as much reasoning as to why they chose certain books. I so far have e-mailed many of my friends (some of whom I know every book that they've read in the past 5 years anyway) and have just the hardest part left to do, naturally--which is to e-mail the teachers and advisers whom I've respected.

4. Send packages to friends. I have these boxes and packaging I want to reuse. I like sending mail. I know many of my friends who would really appreciate getting mail. I want them to know I am thinking about them. It seems to make sense.