Adventures of Med Student in Pomona

So I thought it would be a good idea to keep a blog for people out there to keep up with my amazing experiences in Pomona.

My goal is to update my blog at least once a week about life, school, living, and such....so we'll see how this goes!

Saturday 25 August 2007

Final Day in Amsterdam...!

Well, tomorrow is my last day but I'm leaving for the airport at 8:45am so I don't think that counts. I'm so looking forward to about 22 hours of travel time..yes!!!!

So today, I tried to make the most of it as possible.
10:00am I sold my bike..it was a sad moment, but it was necessary. I'm sure Rebecca will take good care of it.
12:30pm I wandered over to the Uitmarkt festival. It's like an opening weekend with different performances of the arts throughout the weekend and along a good chunk of land. By the way, it's free....gratis in Dutch. The kid section was primarily situated next to the NEMO. I found that a band called Brown vs. Brown was playing so I headed over the the Bimhuis.

It turned out to be this awesome group that plays jazz fusion, funk, it's hard to say, but it was awesome for many reasons. I loved the doubling of the sax and bass or sax and guitar. Sometimes it would be the same melody or syncopation. Sometimes there would be some dissonance. I liked the alto sax because of the growlling. The drummer was on fire. In the last song, the drummer used chains to drum on the set....wow.


After the performance, I wandered around the information market outside. There were endless rows of organizations for the arts. I really, really liked this logo....and this booth had some hard bread spread with some candy coated seeds...I forgot the name but licorice is made from it.

I went back to the Bimhuis to see this band...I think they are called the Suzanne Alt Quartet. It was more jazz standard sort of music. I like the alto's energy, but her breath support really bugged me. She, the pianist, the drummer, and the bassist were amazing.


Now here's a clip of them performing. The recording is not so hot...I couldn't even hear the awesome bass....sad, but it still gives a good idea of it.



Heading back to the city center..I passed the NEMO. These were really cool performers. She's on a huge sphere and wearing what looks like a really uncomfortable skirt.

I headed off to Koningplein to the bookstore. Here are some bikes by Centraal Station. I'm going to miss it all.
This was close to the bookstore. I ended up going down some path and ending up in this triangular courtyard type of deal. There was lots of grass with religious figures standing on it. When I emerged through a different pathway, I ended up coming out of this door. I would have never guessed that what I experienced was beyond this door.
After the bookstore, I headed back to the dorms. Here's a coffeeshop. I'm sad that I don't have a bike, but walking around is interesting because there's so much you miss going fast.
At the flower market they had these fly traps. They are so scary looking, yet beautiful at the same time.

I just thought these signs were interesting.
So, I got to the dorms, then I headed down to the final group dinner on Overtoom near OT301. I got there early so Haley and I decided to go to Vondelpark for a bit. Here's an awesome picture I found on the side of a building.
Dinner was amazing as usual. I think it was Pakistani....I don't really know.
Afterward, Julie presented us with some certificates and took time to recognize each one of us.
We had our own space in the back room. It was really comfy. I had a pillow.

This was on the menu....interesting.

During the walk back with Shirley and Ray, I wanted to jump into this fountain. Alas, Ray didn't want to join me...so we just kept walking.
In the night, some of us went to an Irish Pub that is Jenny and Jana's Irish Pub.
I just thought it was funny how they had wrestling on the tv. This is for Jory.
There are some weird characters in the group. Mark, Sathi, Irina. The Pub was called Molly Mallone. They had some live music..a guy on a guitar..it was pretty good.
We have to say goodbye to our numbers that some people picked up from Brussels.....I think some people wanted to try to check them in for their flights. I don't know how well that will be.

I still need to pack...nnnooooo!

Friday 24 August 2007

Friday....

First we had a lecture on Islam in the morning.
Then we had one last sandwich session with chef Alexi for lunch. I good combo is cucumber, dill, and cream cheese OR chicken and mozerella.
I needed to return some library books so I went to the Bungehuis. This is in one of the elevators. I just really liked the phone.

Here's some stained glass in the building.
I tried to go recruitment clothes shopping for the sorority, but it didn't work out so well...It's okay I still have a week.

H & M is a really big chain here. I guess there are two stores in the US too.

Not all these were from me. I just thought it looked cool in the changing room. I was looking for a dark brown top...and...apparently other people were too.
I came home, made some spaghetti, then we headed out to the Streets concert at the Melkweg. There were seven of us in total....the venue was great. I love the lighting. There was a DJ before and after the show. You can just go right up to the stage.
During the concert, Mike asked everyone to take out their camera phones and record a new song and to put it on youtube. Almost everyone obeyed.

There was just so much energy. Mike told the audience to get down on the ground. And then we all jumped up and just danced. Jack and I went and danced our way to the front....awesome.
Green energy.
There was a guy from the crowd that was only in his underwear. He got onstage and Mike wanted to keep him there. Then they jumped off the stage together. It happened really quickly so it's all blurry.
After the concert we went through the red light district. There was a scary fish in a case in one of the residencial windows. Jack really wanted a picture of it.

23 August 2007

I can't really fall asleep yet..it's already 4:20am, so I guess I'll blog.

It was conference day, and what better way to start the day than to go to the Anne Frank Museum with Sunil.

It got there pretty smoothly by bike, and it only took us 15 minutes standing in line to get in.

I was so excited to take pictures especially of the bookshelve that was a hidden pathway...until I saw this sign. So sad. No camera at all? Wow.
Overall the museum was pretty good. The best part by far was the bookcase!

When we got back to the dorms, I needed to finish preparing for the presentation and then meet with Alex. Lunch was good as always, and then the conference began......
There were a lot of people in this room. We had enough chairs, just not enough table.

Here's the program....with Alex and my abstracts....so official.
The new media program conducts 1 to 2 week long research projects. They found that "methane-emitting cow" was the most frequent image that came up in Google News. Watch out for those cows.
Through pictures, Alex and I had a debate about the polar bear versus the cow. It was pretty complex.
Here's the wayfinding group's presentation. They were all very snazzy.
Many program advisors looking at the slides with a lot of concentration. We have Paul Wouters of VKS, Clifford and Jessica from UW, and Mirjam from the summer institute of UvA
Alex got soooo hungry that he started eating his project! Well, he brought the sugar in to demonstrate the different levels of packaging. I caught him eating straight sugar!

I think we did very well in presenting. I can't really remember because I sort of space out afterward. Tomorrow we have a ....later this morning we have a lecture about Islam. Well in 5 hours we have a lecture about Islam. We were going to go to a Mosque, but apparently someone broke into it last night. I basically have only two more days to spend in A'dam. I don't count Sunday because we probably need to be at the airport at 10:20am so we have to leave all packed by 9:30 from the dorms. Hmm...I'm going to try to sleep.