Animorphs

I found a random gummy otter in my 12-flavor gummy bears today...

Special Delivery

Midway through my run today, I found a small dirt trail that led into some nearby woods. I decided to take a detour and jog/explore this new terrain. About a mile or two into my run, a massive Great Horned Owl swooped right over my head and into the thicket of trees. I’ve never seen such a magnificent bird—it must’ve had at least a 4 or 5 foot wingspan—so naturally I left the trail and ran after it. (Duh, I’ve seen Harry Potter. My new fine-feathered friend was probably trying to show me something) I must’ve chased him through the woods for a good 10 minutes before he perched in the very top of the tallest tree. As I approached him, slowly and deliberately, I couldn’t believe it! To my utter disbelief, the owl turned and stared directly at me and then dropped something large and round and heavy onto the ground below. Then he just watched and waited. Was this real life? I half expected a centaur to pop out from the underbrush, or at least discover a secret message or my own magic wand half-hidden in the grass... but as I drew nearer to investigate the mysterious object, I turned it over with a stick and realized it was nothing more than a giant, slimy rat skull that the owl had just regurgitated. #TheMagicIsReal #OwlPranks
  

Cheese Please

This past year, I decided to pull out all the stops and begin living life to the fullest. While everyone else was making goals to improve health and fitness or save money, I went unapologetically against the grain and decided to do something that would make me fat and cost me a fortune. No more excuses, 2016 would be my year to shine:  I resolved to eat more cheese.

As a relatively health conscience and frugal medical student, I'd always let my wallet call the shots. Even though my love for cheese was exorbitant, my repertoire was beyond pathetic. It was time to put my foot down; this was a culinary revolution. I resolved that throughout the 52 weeks of 2016, I would try at least 52 varieties of cheese. This was a lofty goal, but I am proud to say that I absolutely blew it out of the water [insert fat joke here, but then cue the Rocky music] by single-handedly devouring a grand total of: 124 different types of cheese!  Now if I could just be this successful with all my other goals...

#LivingLarge #CheeseIsTheNewBlack #Revolution #SurvivalOfTheFattest #YouWontBelieveHowManyCrackersIWentThrough

Cattle Crossing

Cows are everywhere in Switzerland, even on the mountains. They kept to themselves most of the time, but for some reason the herd along the Mountain View trail wanted to get all up-close-and-personal when my hike cut through their pasture. I noticed several of the animals had stopped grazing and were staring at me intently, so I verbally reassured them that I was just passing through. As a friend to all cows, I implored them not to squash me with their massive beefiness. However, as I skirted cautiously around the herd, two of the hefty animals began meandering towards me. I veered off the trail and powerwalked directly up the mountain, hoping the incline would deter them; but these were no ordinary cows. To my surprise, not only were they following me, but they too had picked up the pace: first to a saunter, then a brisk trot, and then a full-fledged run... straight at me! By this point, I stopped pretending to play it cool and frantically dashed across the mountain, with the two cows still in hot pursuit. Never have I witnessed such bovine agility! Luckily, my years of trail running paid off, and I eventually made it safely over a fence. I don’t know what would have happened if these deranged heifers caught up with me, but I’m glad I didn’t have to find out!

Egg drop

I think birds like to aim for cars when they poop. We’ve all experienced this at some point in our lives, but as I was heading home from school the other day, I stopped my car under a tree and… splat! A small cream-colored EGG dropped from the sky and smashed onto my windshield! What the blazes? I was stunned! Was this some kind of pigeon prank? (Hey Polly, betcha can’t hit that gold Toyota—first shot!) Or maybe accidents happen and Momma bird just missed the nest? Regardless, there was now a slimy yellow goop almost obstructing my vision, so what did I do? I turned on my windshield wipers. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but within 0.3 seconds that egg was smeared all over the glass. And what’s even more bizarre is that by the time I got home, the hot Texas sun had cooked it partway through, so I literally had to scrape a layer of sticky scrambled eggs off my windshield. [I almost put it on some toast and gave it to my roommate, but the dead bugs sprinkled throughout would have been a giveaway.] Slightly frustrating, but I have to admit, that was a really nice shot.

Geriatric selfie

One of my new goals is to teach my cute little Grandma how to take a selfie. Wait, let’s be real: a more accurate statement would be “teach, and then try to convince my Grandma to take a selfie.” This is a fairly ambitious goal for a granny who hates getting her picture taken, does not get along well with technology, and has no interest in social media—but wouldn’t that be awesome? Man on a mission.

**Update: Several weeks later, Grams agreed to give it a try as long as I'd stand next to her. Fair enough. Little did she know, I'd put the camera on burst mode so it would take a bunch of pics. I figured one of them was bound to work out. Well... the first ~20 looked like this:

But then the planets aligned! Proud of this spunky little lady. There you have it, my very own Grandma in the perfect geriatric selfie:

[Just don't tell her I posted this...]

Attack of the leftovers

(This is what the internet
says germs look like.)

I'm living proof that not all med students are germ-a-phobes. I’m a big believer in letting kids eat a little dirt, I view the "10 second rule" as merely a suggestion, and I'm not afraid to touch door handles with my bare hands. “It’s good for your immune system,” I always say. And it is. That being said, we had exam week at med school and then a short break for summer, so I was studying my brains out. I didn’t have a lot of time to cook, plus I wanted to eat all the stuff in my fridge so it wouldn’t go bad while I was gone. Great plan, except I ran out of real food the last couple days, and decided to just eat some leftovers I found in the depths of my fridge. I figured I’d just microwave them for a few extra minutes to kill off any lurking microbes. So I did… and got to spend the first two days of my vacation sick. But my immune system is relentless and eventually won the battle. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger—right? [Translation: the same thing will probably happen again next finals week, but this time my body will be ready.]

Autocorrect fitness feat

I sent a seemingly ordinary text the other day, only to find out afterwards that autocorrect struck again. Twice in the same message I meant to say "just visited" but my phone changed it to “deadlifted.” (They’re not even close on the keyboard?) Result: "It was a great weekend, I deadlifted an old roommate. I hear you deadlifted your family?" Total bewilderment.

Reminded me of a few days ago when autocorrect changed the name of my friend to "Rostropovich." Apparently my phone thinks I hang out with late Russian composers on a regular basis.
  

Just drink, don't think

Anyone else get a little uneasy when using a drinking fountain outside a public restroom, and suddenly the stream of water goes down whenever you hear a toilet flush? Probably a perfectly sound (and sanitary) explanation for this, but it still seems questionable to me…

Where’d that come from?

Sometimes my dreams cause me to reevaluate my sanity. Bizarre storylines and sudden plot twists are relatively normal, but the other day I woke up and was so amused with the random interplay that had just taken place in my head that I had to write it down: I was an employee at a local ice cream shop and was just getting the hang of “scooping” the cones when my boss informed me that we would now be selling airplanes in addition to ice cream. The next day I sold several double chocolate ripples with a B47-bomber on the side. It was a hit! But as I drove home from work that night, my car decided to turn into a cow, so naturally I had to tie it to the neighbor’s fence or it would wander off. Well my neighbor wasn’t so keen on having a heifer in his yard, so he came out yelling and screaming. Luckily, my friend’s mom drove by and asked if I wanted to go to the mall. I try to avoid hanging out with my friends' moms, and I hate the mall, but I like them both better than angry neighbors, so I jumped in. However, when we got there, she decided to try her hand at karaoke but was so awful that I left. Of course, I didn't make it very far before being kidnapped by a band of ancient mummies who honestly believed they were abominable snowmen. They took me to their secret hide-out (classic) and then dumped me onto a table and told me they wanted me to join their group. I was confused by 1) their existence, and 2) their identity crisis, so I told them I didn’t want to be a mummy or a snowman. However, we could still be friends. They thought this was a splendid compromise, so we all went merrily on our way home. Moral of the story: hmmm... no idea.

Yeah, I got milk.

Whenever I drink chocolate milk I am reminded of the hilariously-unfortunate incident that occurred several years ago in the middle of my school cafeteria. You remember those refrigerated drink dispensers? Well on this particularly fateful day when I returned for a refill, I lifted up on the nozzle and the dispenser ripped clean-off. It had just been refilled, so all five gallons of chocolaty-goodness came rushing out in one sticky tidal wave that decimated both my attire and my reputation. (But who needs those anyways?) Nobody said a word. Nobody dared to move. It seemed like time had stopped, and I could feel the eyes of the entire cafeteria on my back as I stood there, dripping with dairy and laughing at the absurdity of what had just happened. Lets just say I needed a lot of paper towels.

Couldn't help it

North Pole, Alaska

5-year-old words of wisdom

   While camping recently with a church group, we decided to roast s’mores and Starbursts around the fire. (Duh, isn't that mandatory?) One of the guys brought his kids along, and I couldn’t help but notice little 4-year-old Eli struggling to get his Starbursts onto the skewer. I offered him my expert advice and we immediately became friends. Over the next two days Eli taught me many valuable lessons that I just had to share—for the sake of humanity:

1) Dolphins use echolocation, like this: "ee-ee-ee" to find things in the water. But it won't work for people if you lose your flashlight...

2) When you’re four years old you’re too little to go fishing, but not when you’re five. Sometimes you don’t catch any fish though, you only catch something green and slimy. I think it's called “mosst.” You have to put it back.

3) Medium fires are the best ones for camping. Large fires are way too big—they go all the way around the whole earth! (Complete with dramatic arm demonstration of their vast size)

4) It’s not good to eat rocks because people are allergic to them. If you eat them, you’ll get sick and die. But don’t worry, there’s no rocks in burritos.

Insect assault

Bees seem to have this dreadful mentality of ‘sting first, ask questions later.’ Part way through my run, one of these little buggers flew directly into my open mouth and stung me in the kisser. Talk about audacity. Here I am miles away from my apartment, tired, sweaty, and dehydrated with a lip that’s ballooning to epic proportions. There was a sprinkler on in the front yard of a house across the street, so I did the only thing I could think to do—I crouched down and stuck my head in the stream. Hopefully they weren't looking out the window... Whenever I heard the sound of a car approaching, I’d pull away and pretended like I was inspecting the grass until they’d turned the corner. (It was nice grass.) Believe you me, there’s nothing quite like trying to suck on a sprinkler in the middle of a stranger’s front yard with a big-ol’ fatty lip.