Sinai, Chills, and Gotham

Hey, everyone!!

Happy Halloween!

It's been a chilly end to the week, and I can finally feel hints of winter nipping at my heels. As much as the cold can be bitter and make it hard to go out, I also find myself liking it every once in awhile. It wakes me up and helps me clear my head. But ask me again in 2 months, and I'll probably be complaining about how cold it is and how I want to see sunshine and pretty spring flowers again. haha.

In my last post, I promised that I would tell you about the event that I went to last Saturday. I spent a majority of that day at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai's annual open house. I'm glad that I went because I learned some good information through the Sinai admissions officers as well as through current medical students. Everyone there was warm, welcoming, and honest about the medical school applications process and the medical school lifestyle. The big takeaway for me was that I need to continue putting in hard work so that I can be at a school as great as Sinai one day. After all, dreams don't become reality just by wishing for them to come true but by putting yourself, fully and truly, into achieving them.

On Tuesday, I found out that I got an A on my Jewish history midterm (the one that I mentioned last week)! Getting that exam back was definitely a good way to start the week. Now here's to killing the rest of my assignments during the semester.

Tuesday night was the first round of presentations in my gene regulation bio seminar. My professor gave critiques to the presenters right on the spot so that the entire class could learn what we should all do better in our own presentations. The great thing is that he's not grading these presentations (at least not at first). He's giving us the opportunity to revise the presentations, and he'll grade those revised versions. Super nice of him. He understands that this is a difficult class so he's trying to make it manageable for us. I'll be presenting on the 11th. Wish me luck!

So let's talk about non-school related things like TV!

I've talked about Grimm a number of times on this blog because I just love the stories that are shown every week. It's fun to see what kinds of "creatures" the writers will come up with next. Last week, they featured a guy with an octopus head who was able to steal people's memories. Yikes.

I've been following this show since the beginning of my freshman year, and I can't believe it's already in its fourth season. How quickly time goes by.

So if you have time over Thanksgiving or winter break, catch a few episodes from the first season. You might get hooked. ;)

A new show that I've been following lately is Gotham. It tells the back story of the city that a young Bruce Wayne will eventually grow up to protect. But the show doesn't focus so much on Bruce as it does on Jim Gordon, who will eventually become police commissioner. In Gotham, he is a young idealistic detective who is determined to help restore order in a corrupt and decaying city. Ben McKenzie is perfect for this role! He knows how to portray the young Gordon's idealism along with his struggle to keep that idealism in such a difficult environment.

Photo courtesy of Flickr

The show has been fantastic so far. The writers have introduced several characters that will eventually become important in the Batman storyline. It's fun to see how the writers re-imagine some of the origin stories of characters like the Riddler, the Penguin, and Poison Ivy. Gotham is also great at talking about issues within the criminal justice world as well as the various issues that come up in dense urban environments.

It's also beautiful to watch because it depicts characters and settings that have a 1940's feel even though the audience knows that the show takes place during modern times (there are cell phones). Some of the clothes are typical of the war period, and others seem to have come straight from our own closets. The police station looks like it could be from the 40's, but the apartments look like fancy modern-day ones. I think this interplay between two time periods adds a layer of complexity that makes the show aesthetically rich.

If you have time on Monday nights, check it out.

A photo of the rose that I got last week. Stunning, right?

S.

Quote of the Week

“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.” 

~ Confucius