Portfolioso.com Blog

It’s Official

I am officially allowed to be in EVAC now. I got my CPR certification Friday, along with a uniform and ID card. So now I can go there whenever I want. There was a call right as I was sitting down to watch the Yankees there (I can’t go into details because of patient privacy laws, but the person was okay in the end). Much more interesting than watching the Yankees lose.

Started College Applications

Yay, I started one but still have the majority of the essay to do. I am extremely busy and have no time for anything anymore – between clubs, activities, schoolwork, more applications and everything else.

So if you don’t see many updates on this site, then understand that I’m busy. After November or December when things lighten up, I’ll be back to normal.

I’m Back

Yes, I’m finally back from Europe. Get ready for a giant post about everything.

First we flew into Paris and got on a bus and drove to Antwerp, Belgium. Then we checked into the hotel which was very scary. The lights in the halls went out to save electricity and it was old, dark and would be an excellent place for a horror movie. We were exploring the hotel and found a random door with a bathtub in it that reminded me of the movie Saw. The I got off the elevator and it was dark and I was trying to find my room, but a wall appeared out of nowhere. When I pushed on it, it opened like those Scooby Doo secret passages. Very weird. And the room was strange also. The windows were wide open so anyone could walk in (even though we were on the second floor, there was a landing out the window where you can get out and walk into other people’s windows.) Then I was angry because my camera was on all plane ride and the battery died, and the power converter I had wouldn’t fit because the outlets were recessed. Luckily they gave me a circular thingy to get the outlet even with the surface, then I had to plug in the converter. The only good thing about thew hotel was the free internet, but the European keyboard was very weird and it took me forever to type on it. Please explain why the A and Q are switched? Anyway, we had free time after dinner and the next day we toured Antwerp. I bought delicious Belgian Chocolate, ate in some crowded restaurant and our group had some free time to walk around and do whatever. The area by our hotel was a dump but the center of Antwerp was nice. It was your typical old fashioned European city.

We left before dinner for Germany, which was MUCH nicer. At a rest stop I had the best yaegerschnitzel ever. Mmmm I love German food. We got to the hotel and there wasn’t much around there except for a gas station that sold everything…

The next day we went to the Bay Arena (a huge soccer stadium) for a World Youth Day event. We watched the Pope arrive in Germany and had a good time over there. After that our bus driver took us to the Rhine river to see the Pope’s boat. We waited there for a few hours. In the meantime, people were wading in the water and having a good time. Some people (including me) were a little dehydrated and needed water, so we filled up our water bottles in a public bathroom (sounds gross but the water was tasteless and I could have bottled it and sold it). I was afraid I was going to get sick, but Germany is über clean, and the water from a public restroom is much better than the polluted chlorine tasting wasser we have here. The Pope’s boat finally showed up, but he was facing the other side of the river and we didn’t see him to well (the boat also turned around slightly before it reached us). Patrick has this crazy zoom camera and managed to get a good picture. We were supposed to see a boat show or something but we couldn’t find it, so our bus driver drove us over to Cologne where we had some free time to walk around. The crowds were insane and a few people from my group ended up playing crazy games with some Italians.

The next day we went back to the Cologne area and waited on line to see the Cathedral. After that some people went to Düseldorf to see some performance and the rest stayed behind to see Cologne. I bought a few souvenirs for people and then ate in McDonald’s with a small part of our group (and almost went crazy because the line was driving me insane). I ended up getting a Köln T-shirt, a Weltjugendtag T-shirt, some pins and other little things for people. Then it started pouring and I had no umbrella so I pulled out a foil rescue blanket (which was supposed to be for the camp out) and went under that. it was all rainy and we had to walk across the bridge to find our bus. The group that went to Düseldorf was late and the bus driver had to go track them down. Finally, we went back to the hotel and ordered some pizza.

The next day, we packed all our things on the bus and left for the Marienfeld (the place we would be camping out at night). The bus driver got us as close as we could and we walked through little dirt paths through the woods, through open fields of crops and through a little village where all the German peoples were waving. I had shorts and a T-shirt on but it was freezing so I put pants over my shorts and a sweatshirt. The walk wasn’t too bad and we finally got to B22 and set up. I had a shower curtain and that foil blanket to sleep on for the night. Some people walked to get food for everyone and then we had free time. Some of us walked around and traded American items for things from other countries. At night the Pope arrived and we had a candlelight thing and then we tried to sleep, but it was impossible because it was really damp and I had a little sheet which wasn’t working. Someone gave me a blanket (how nice) and it helped a little bit, but it was still really cold. I work up around 6 the next morning and ate some slop. Mass with the Pope started at 10 and we left right after that. It took 8 hours to leave!!! First we packed our stuff and walked for 2 hours in a crazy crowd. Then, our group was separated so we had to find them. After some more time, we had to walk to busses which would drop us off by our bus. We had to stop for an hour or so because the line for the busses were two long and a few people needed to go to the medical tent. We finally got on a bus which was severely overcrowded and went in circles 3 times (about 20 minutes each) an hour later we realized the bus was in the wrong place and the Driver was being a stubborn German and wouldn’t drive us to where we thought we were going (because some polizei was like “this bus goes here” but apparently the driver didn’t think so.) Finally, another bus showed up and took us to the right place, we got on our bus and went to Luxembourg (by 2AM) everyone was dead.

We left at 9:30 and toured Luxembourg which was nice and then drove off to France. We checked into another hotel and then some people were tired and another group went on the subway to Notre Dame. When everyone returned (late of course) we had dinner and then went to the Eiffel Tower and on a boat ride explaining the interesting points in Paris (while it rained and everyone froze). After that Derek our bus driver drove us around on his own (how nice) and showed us some other interesting places.

The next morning we had breakfast and left for CDG and went home. (I wrote so much already so I’m being very brief about this)

NSLC Gallery Completed

I’ve added some more of my pictures I forgot about and also borrowed a few pics from Angela, Ari and Maylene. I also renamed some of them so similar events are grouped together (some pictures were not in order because I either misspelled them, or named them wrong). So now the gallery is complete.

Check it out over here: (Edit – link is now dead due to website upgrades)

NSLC Experience

NSLC is over 🙁 It went by really quickly but I had the best time ever. Thursday was the last day of scheduled activities and yesterday was checkout day. We ate breakfast at 7:30 with the remnants of our TA group and slowly people dwindled off and left.

NSLC people can skip this part – I’ll be explaining the basics to all our non NSLC friends. There were about 300 people that attended the conference on Medicine and Healthcare. The group was split into two teams – Med A and Med B each with about 150 people. The groups were further divided into smaller groups led by a TA (team adviser). Our TA was Michelle and she was awesome. The program included many activities. There were leadership lectures, medical lectures, Dr. Marfuggi was great with clinical rounds and his lectures, Casino night, the Pizza social (lol Pledge), Ropes Challenge Course, Washington trips, the Baltimore trip, National Library of Medicine, and the Walter Reed Museum of Health. On the first day we all met in our TA groups and everyone was quiet and shy. Michelle warned us that we would all be upset when we left, but no one believed her because most people thought others were not going to be friendly. But after a few days, we all knew each other really well and bonded nicely. Our team name was the “Fuzzy Duck Dippers.” We came up with an awesome cheer/ skit which we performed at the College Life Panel.

You can register for this site (look for it on the left menu panel) and leave comments on my posts if you want. Don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you have.

Thanks to everyone for sharing all your crazy jokes and cool games (dibby dibby dip, Egyptian Rat Screw, the triangle game, the animal game, the color game, etc. ) Everyone is unique and special in your own way and this was the experience of a lifetime. Hopefully, I can use this to become a better person.

Click for shoutouts: Read More »