choices

oh hey there.  yup, I know I've been away from my blog a while.  (It's been a pretty busy summer!)  But while studying at the beach, hiking around Yosemite, and spending 15 hour days at the hospital on my cardiology rotation (more on those soon) - I've been thinking about the goals of my blog.  It has and will always be a space where I record down the most interesting thoughts that have come up in the conversations all around me.  However, clearly (hopefully!) there are just way too many fascinating questions and thoughts to record them all down - I'd be sitting at my computer typing all day, instead of having interesting discussions!  So I'm going to try to commit to a goal of putting up at least one blogpost a week, and if that feels good, I may expand to 2.  Then I can at least keep track of some of the interesting thoughts that have come up in the past week.  I'd like to do this in a way that lets you know when to expect a new post and also keeps me honest - so I'm planning on a "by Monday evening" weekly posting.  Except for this week ofcourse, because Monday was really second Sunday :)

Maybe because I'm creating my residency application list (due in less than a month!) but I've been thinking a lot about CHOICES lately, as in - how do we make them? Are we even good at making them?  What makes a good choice?  What are the hardest choices we have to make?  What should be the easiest?  So while I construct a post or two about my crazy fascinating month of Cardiology, hopefully these thoughts will get you thinking too:

*An Amazing Book About Choice (called Choice: True Stories) recommended by a dear friend.  It's a collection of essays by women about their choices surrounding reproduction.  Everything from adoption to what it meant to finally be a mother to abortion to miscarriage to raising a daughter.  The authors are lots of famous writers too, so it's beautifully written, and most of all, a great reminder of the impact of these choices, and that how they are made can change the experience entirely.

*I also read a fascinating article (called "The Two-Minus One Pregnancy") about twin reduction (if you're intrigued and/or confused, you should read the article) in the NYT sent to me by another friend.  This friend is going to do a presentation on this to our journal club and I'm really intrigued.  It's definitely a topic that makes me really uncomfortable, as it challenges where the edge of my morals lies.

*I also watched a TedTalk by Sheena Iyengar, who is a researcher at Columbia whose interest is in Choices, how we make them, if we are good at them, etc.  One my favorite examples is when she talks about some of her experiments - including one where she interviews people from post-communist Eastern European countries and offers them an option of seven different sodas.  They all say, this is only really two options: soda or no soda.  Despite the fact that in the US, some of us get angry if we are given a Coke instead of a Pepsi or vice versa.  I'm excited to read more about her.

That's all for now!   But I'm back and more is coming (check back on Monday evening or Tuesday mornings)!

e

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"It is our choices that show who we really are...far more than our abilities"

- Dumbledore

(in JK Rowlings Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)