Author: Amanda Xi

Looking back

Amanda Xi

Today’s inane image of the day:

Thanks for a great 3 years, LBME!
Today will probably be the last time I visit the Lurie Biomedical Engineering Building (LBME) [weird to put the “the” in there before LBME, since we never call it “the” LBME…] — it’s amazing to think about just how much time we spent in this building stressing over assignments/exams/Senior Design projects, cursing the blue printer for being jammed yet again or chatting about how much work we have to do. During the school year, you could smell the stress lingering in the air; now that it’s summer, it’s incredible how peaceful and clean everything is. The air smells and feels really fresh.
Good news today, I made some headway on analyzing my lab data from yesterday! Woohoo for progress!

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On moving, serial contingency planning, and uncertainty

Amanda Xi

Today’s inane image of the day:

My lab notebook. I’ve never been a fan of these “Composition Books,” because they always seem to fall apart on me. 
 
It’s incredible how you accumulate so much stuff in such a short period of time. I moved to Ann Arbor in September 2008 and in only 3 years, I think I might have more stuff stored in my tiny studio than I can fit into my car. Then again, I could just be terrible at packing…

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Imposter phenomenon

Amanda Xi

Today’s inane [except not so inane to me] image of the day:

I was greeted with this thoughtful sticky when I came in this morning — thank you!
 

From my image above, you may have deduced that today was my last day working as an Engineering Intern at Terumo Cardiovascular Systems (CVS). It has been an enlightening, interesting, learning and relatively fun experience. While I’ve complained a few too many times to Mike about an uncomfortable chair or tired eyes, I would not have traded this opportunity for anything else the summer before starting medical school. In the end, I will be enter the medical profession with the knowledge that there are incredible people behind the development and production of some of our most relied-upon medical devices. As physicians, we depend on them to innovate often and consistently produce quality products to keep our patients safe.

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Art fair woes and quick update

Amanda Xi
Today’s inane image of the day:
Sadly, the Ann Arbor Art Fair has prevented me from getting my favorite Starbucks beverage this morning — so I have settled for Caribou K-Cup Iced Coffee…
 
  1. REALLY long Ann Arbor Food/Dessert/Coffee/Tea Bucket-ish List post coming soon!
  2. Can someone please get me one of these beautiful new Macbook Airs?
  3. Follow me on Twitter. SERIOUSLY — it will be worth it.

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Too many disheartening things in a day

Amanda Xi

Today’s inane image of the day:

A must for coffeeshop studying: iPod and noise-canceling headphones.
 
Yesterday I stumbled upon a couple of things that really irked me. First, was actually the comments section of a NYTimes Well Blog post that referred to the recent article discussing the newly implemented use of the MMI style [“New for aspiring doctors, the people skills test“] at a couple of schools. Not to suggest that you should try to read the 9 pages of comments [I only got through around 6 pages before the quality of the comments began to decrease exponentially], but if you read a couple pages, you begin to hear a chorus of dissatisfaction.

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Finding inspiration

Amanda Xi

I am pretty obsessed with mini-post-it notes… and leaving little surprises for people to start their day with [since I get to work way before anyone else]. Hence, today’s inane image of the day:

I like leaving little notes  with fun facts or quotes like the one shown above for my co-workers.
 
Everyone hits a wall of non-productivity every once in a while — sometimes it is just hard to find a reason to keep studying, working or doing menial tasks around the house. Admittedly, I find that this slump comes around a lot more often than I’d like — without deadlines or someone breathing down my back, I find that procrastination gets the better of me and I end up scrambling at the last minute to finish tasks.

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Another Sunday morning

Amanda Xi

Today’s inane image of the day:

This is generally how my Starbucks workspace looks like — coffee, phone and laptop [yes, I do really like the color pink…]. While I sometimes have a love-hate relationship with weekend mornings [generally because they aren’t truly mornings anymore when they start at 10 or 11am], today is slightly different because it will probably be the last time I spend a Sunday morning at the Starbucks on State and Liberty St — with moving out of my apartment next weekend, I don’t think I’ll have the opportunity to do this again. There is, of course, the possibility that I try to do my residency at the University of Michigan, but that is pretty unlikely.

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Saturday lounging and reasons to love OUWB

Amanda Xi

I am enjoying the fact that this blog is giving me an excuse to take pictures of the frivolous things of my daily life — this being said, here’s today’s inane image of the day:

This is my idea of Saturday lounging… mmm comfy chairs and a Sweetwaters iced latte [oh and that’s Mike’s super large iced coffee]. I am definitely obsessed with the coffeeshop scene… in fact, I have very fond memories of the hours upon hours of time spent “studying” at Caribou Coffee prior to starting college. I even got a job at a coffeeshop in Ann Arbor and while I have my reasons for never wanting to return to that particular establishment for coffee ever again, I have to admit that I met some interesting people while working there.

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Mornings, how I love you

Amanda Xi

If you couldn’t tell by the time that I generally post each day, I am a morning person. It took a number of years before I recognized and admitted to the fact, but now that I am in-touch with myself [or something like that], I now complete a number of tasks as the sun peeks above the horizon each day.

But hey, give me a weekend and I’ll sleep until 1PM. I just said I was a morning person, not that I could pop out of bed at 5:30AM without reservations!

If you’ve been following my Twitter, then you might have seen my tweet about breaking into a new paper planner with pretty pens… well, I wasn’t kidding about being “old fashioned”:

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