I'm over you.

"Letting go is the best revenge. It frees your heart for much more satisfying pursuits."

What a timely and appropriate quote.

Things my friends say...

i have three today...

quote number 1:
JRC: damn the cute boys
JRC: damn them to hell
JRC: and by hell i mean my bed
JRC: did he not get the memo? boys who come over to my house try things!

quote number 2:
Me: i really felt bad though, he didn't have to.
GMH: bastard should
GMH: he should be on his knees
GMH: throwing his jacket over puddles
GMH: if he does it again, I'll legally harass him. ;-)

quote number 3:
SEK: You know, bleach is quite the strong agent (shows streak where she left some bleach on the toilet seat for 10 minutes.) I think I'm feeling the fumes from it now. I definitely should've brought this for RAP training.


i love my friends. hehe.

TOW The New Year's Resolutions

I've never really been good with these, but I figured I should at least try and put up a few goals for 2008.

1) Run the Chicago Marathon - This is the big one. I know it seems quite the stretch, but running a marathon is something that I've always wanted to do. I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life, so why not? I already have two races lined up in March and May (an 8k and a 10k) and a possible half-marathon in August, so we'll see how I feel.

2) Re-take the MCAT... and do it well - Perhaps this is tied for#1 on my list of priorities. The more I've gone through this year, the more I feel like I would be more useful as a primary care physician. I still will do public health (health education!), but more and more I want to be able to treat also. I really need to get serious about this though, and re-taking the MCAT is the first step to this. I don't have organizations, classes and failing relationships on my plate so this should go much better.

3) Keep in better touch with friends - I've done a pretty good job keeping in touch with my inner core of friends, either through semi-monthly dinners in the city, G-Chat or phone conversations. However, I've been really bad at keeping in touch with a majority of people I went to school with. Other than an occasional facebook wall message, I haven't really done any good, real correspondence. In fact, I had made a long long list of people that I need to e-mail and/or call before my break. I should probably start with that soon.

4) Save money- This whole living from paycheck to paycheck thing sucks. I really need to put away a decent amount of money so that I can do something with it... namely pay for grad school.

I'm not sure if putting these up on here will do any good, but I feel like I have a bit more accountability to these if these are made public. I didn't want to overload myself with too many resolutions; I'd rather have done quality things for myself rather than a dozen half-assed attempts at grandiose projects. Let's see how this goes...

The Year in Review: 2007

(To see how my answers to this survey have changed since the start of college, here is this survey for 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003.)

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
graduate college, settle somewhere for more than two months that is not Michigan (and living in a place that wasn’t my parents house, a reshall room or a sublet), travel to Europe, work a 9-5 job, work as a camp counselor, be dependent on food stamps

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I really didn’t make any resolutions this year, but I’ve resolved be one of those “hot shirtless running boys” on Lakeshore Drive by June. I’m almost there!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
MEI had a baby in June and SRT had a baby a month ago.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thank heavens, no!

5. What countries did you visit?
Visited MJV in France for Spring Break and went to Windsor for hot pot with AXZ and company. Philippines next year, perhaps?!

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
I’d like to decide on a career path and stick to it. Americorps, contrary to what I was intending on doing, actually opened up even more career possibilities I may want to pursue (maternal/child health? Health advocacy? Health management? International missions? Ahhhhhhhhh!) Definitely a double-edged sword, but we’ll see how it goes. Of course, medical school is still on the table (even more so than in years’ past.)

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Three dates come to mind:
- September 5, 2007, the day I moved to Chicago and started my Americorps project.
- June 12, 2007, mine and Kristine’s huge birthday bash extravaganzapalooza.
- April 29, 2007, UMich graduation day (and subsequent night activities… if you haven’t seen the pictures, let me know.)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting my bachelor’s was pretty sweet. I now officially have the letters “B” and “S” attached to the end of my name.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Arguably not going to medical school after undergrad, but honestly it was the best decision I could have ever made.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just a few minor things, nothing major. Let’s keep this up.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Does paying off my credit card debt count?

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My friends out there, yes… ALL of you! ;-) We survived graduation and the transition into the real world, and we’re all still relatively in one piece (even though we all go to bed REALLY early and can hardly hold our liquor anymore. LOL!) Let’s keep this up!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled?
See #13 from 2006.

14. Where did most of your money go?
rent/utilities, gas, books, booze… and the worst part about it all is I’m an Americorps member that’s basically living below the poverty line.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Sooooooooo many things… graduation, Americorps, moving to Chicago, spending my summer in California, having a kickass time with my family and friends before moving, meeting new boys, playing with my Wii… it was all amazing!

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Check out the playlists “2007 = sexy” or “Chicago Newbie” on my iTunes. There’s too many to list for too many memories.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? MUCH much happier. Then again, I’m not depressed and borderline suicidal. The changes of scenery (both California and Chicago) definitely helped a ton.
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner: at least 15 pounds thinner. Lesson learned from last year: NEVER eat your feelings away.
iii. richer or poorer? I guess a little richer; I earn about the same as I did in college, but I’m on food stamps now.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
studying, figuring out my future, meeting new boys

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Giving my time away to people who really didn’t deserve it. I’ll leave it at that.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Like last year, it was extremely low-key. My siblings didn’t come home at all, so it was just my parents, my brother and me. We opened up presents and went to midnight mass. I also hung out with ARB for a bit before he went on his cross-country road trip.

apparently there is no 21

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
I fell in love with Tom Brady, does that count?

23. How many one-night stands?
Haha!!! I don’t kiss and tell. ;-)

24. What was your favorite TV program?
I stopped watching TV after September (we don’t have cable at our house.)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Nope… I haven’t added any new people to the “Triflin’ Man List” this year, surprisingly.

26. What was the best book you read?
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. If you haven’t read it, READ it! Such an absolutely amazing novel from an absolutely amazing writer. This replaced “On the Road” as my favorite book of all time.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don’t know about “musical discovery”, but my favorite band of the year was Shiny Toy Guns. “You Are the One” is a great song.

28. What did you want and get?
A Nintendo Wii, the opportunity to travel and move around, a peace of mind, regained confidence and self-esteem.

29. What did you want and not get?
An apple iPhone? LOL! I am quite content with everything I’ve gotten this year.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
"Once." Possibly the best film you didn’t see this year. You would think that a musical love story would be stupid, but somehow this one was crafted beautifully and tactfully.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
22! Actual birthday was spent at my cousin’s wedding rehearsal and dinner; brought KGM with me, and she was immediately christened as my new wife by the family. Birthday celebration came four days later; absolutely drunken time with 30-40 of my favorite people in the world at my favorite bar in Ann Arbor (Circus), doing one of my favorite activities (drunken karaoke!!)

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A trip to the Philippines would have been AMAZING!

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Pretty much the same from 2006… basically look at any GAP or Banana Republic ad, and you had my wardrobe for 2007. If I wanted to look scrubby, you’d find me in some sort of shirt/sweatshirt that had “Michigan” emblazoned on it.

34. What kept you sane?
Going out with friends, working out, rollerblading/driving Lakeshore Drive, putting at least a one-time-zone distance between us.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Oh… I didn’t mention that I’m Tom Brady’s new gay lover? ;-)

36. What political issue stirred you?
Health care advocacy, especially in the fields of maternal and child health. Then again, I work for a non-profit that deals specifically with these issues.

37. Who did you miss?
I miss my college friends. Can I please ship them all here to Chicago?

38. Who was the best new person you met?
My roommates, SEJ and SEK. They’re the most amazing people, if only because they can tolerate living with me. :-D

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
I should NEVER sell myself short because I'm smart, charismatic, friendly and pretty-damn good-looking. I'll never let myself think otherwise ever again.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I have two:
1) Ten, nine, eight, and I'm breaking away. I'm all dressed up and I'm ready to play. Seven, six, five, four, and I'm over you. Counting three, two, one, and I'm having fun.
2) A little voice inside my head said, “Don’t look back, you can never look back.”

TOW Drew Talks About Chicago: Part 2

Onto Part Two of this entry…

I don’t know if it is the adjustment to post-graduation life or having to adjust to new territory, but I definitely have exhibited some very “Un-Drew-like” behaviors since moving to the city. Let me list a few:

1) I have a real sleeping pattern now. I realize this probably comes with working a 9 to 5 job, but I definitely have been getting eight or more hours of sleep a day. Also, I don’t find myself taking naps ever anymore. However, this also means that I regularly go to bed around 11, never later than 12AM. Also, I’ve been known to go to sleep as early as 9PM to wake up at 6AM to work out (This tends to screw me up on the weekends, especially when I want to go out. I can’t seem to get myself to go out longer than 1-1:30AM; often I end up falling asleep at friends’ couches when I’m hanging out.

2) I work out… almost religiously. I got a membership to the Y back in October, but I didn’t really start utilizing it until November when I started actually lifting weights. I used to lift minimally in college, but I didn’t actually make a concerted effort to tone up/bulk up until now. It’s only been two months, but already I’m starting to look better than ever and I’m at a weight that I haven’t seen since the end of high school. Along with this, I’ve started to get into running; I plan on doing a 10K with my sister in Traverse City and perhaps doing the half-marathon for the Chicago Marathon in September (if I am still in Chicago by then).

3) I’ve turned into a general health-nut. This change sort of makes sense, especially since I am a newly-trained nutrition educator. However, the extent to which I’ve changed my diet is quite frightening. Especially during my senior year, my diet was downright atrocious (think Slim-Fasts during much of the week, supplemented with bar food throughout the weekend.) Now, I find myself eating only brown rice and whole grains, cutting all trans fat out of my diet, and supplementing most of my meals with vegetables. Even my roommates, who were quite healthy to begin with, are amazed at my sudden change in diet. Along with this, there’s 3a) I rarely go out/drink anymore. I tend to spend my weekends reading (especially reading… I’ve finished about 7-8 books since moving to the city), watching TV or exploring the city. However, the few times I have gone out, I’ve definitely knocked myself out with the alcohol.

4) I started dating again. Well, perhaps this isn’t necessarily a “Un-Drew-like” behavior, but I definitely have gotten my footing back in the relationship department. I don’t know if it’s being a whole time zone away from JDM or if Chicago men are just more attracted to me in general, but I haven’t had that hard of a time finding dates As soon as I got to the city, I met a Filipino guy, but that turned out to be a total bust. Immediately after that, I went on a date or two with a Chicago police officer; he was an attractive and sweet guy, but by seeing him I quickly reaffirmed that I cannot be with guys more than five years older than me (I have to be with someone who’s on the same wavelength as me, lifewise.) A few weeks after that, I started dating a guy I met through a mutual friend of my roommate’s. At face value, he seemed like a guy that I could see myself dating: light-haired, tall, masculine-faced, nice frame. However, we didn’t really share that much in common (his main interests included writing his fantasy novel and playing Dungeons and Dragons.) Everything from conversation to intimacy seemed quite labored on both our ends and we mutually ended it after the 4^th-5^th date. Despite not finding anyone yet, I must say it’s done a helluva lot for my confidence in that realm. I’m in no real hurry to find anyone right now, but I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to developing a relationship again if the opportunity presented itself.

While “Un-Drew-like”, I’d have to say these changes in my behavior has done me quite well. I haven’t been this happy and confident since sophomore year of college and I’m definitely in the best shape of my life. I guess taking some time off after school was the best thing I could’ve done for myself, although I’m starting to stress a little bit about what lies ahead after July…

…but that’s for another entry. ;-)

TOW Drew Talks About Chicago: Part 1

It’s been a helluva long time, hasn’t it? I honestly have no idea where to begin. SOOOO much has happened between May/June until now, and I doubt that a single entry is going to give these past six months any justice. We’ll see where this goes…

By the time I left Ann Arbor for good, I still had no idea where I was going to be come September. Honestly, I didn’t even start making a serious effort in figuring out my plans until late July (then again, NSLC took up literally my whole being from July to August.) After sending out my applications and resume, I ended up getting two serious project offers: a Red Cross development project in Seattle and a conference organizer/clinic volunteer position in Chicago. The decision was absolutely tough for me; as many of you know, I’ve wanted to go West since the beginning of college. However, the job position in Chicago seemed to be exactly what I was looking for; it seemed more in line with my background and offered more of a compatible job experience. It literally took me going to Mass with my Father one night to help me decide that I would move to Chicago.

To put this more into perspective, I left California and NSLC, 08/10/2007. I accepted my offer in Chicago 08/17/2007, and I started looking for apartments around 08/28/2007. Needless to say, August was an extremely whirlwind month for me. I didn’t have much time to really think about anything else except moving my things from one box to another and shuttling myself to Chicago.

I moved to Chicago on 09/04/2007. Because I didn’t have much time between accepting the project offer and my start date, I lived with two of my dad’s distant relatives in Evanston for two weeks. The search for a permanent place to stay did not last long though as these said relatives helped me secure a cheap 3-bedroom apartment in the Northwest of the city. Immediately after, I found two other people from Americorps to take the other two bedrooms.

Here's a picture of my place:

This is the front porch. My two roommates and I are at the top of the steps.

I should probably explain what I do. To do that, I’m going to do this in bullet form, with the bullets being the different agencies to whom I answer:

- Chicago Health Corps: This is the agency that is linked with Americorps and affiliates itself with many different health organizations throughout the city. The members work for these said organizations, and in turn we organize city-wide health service projects in addition to our work.

- IMCHC = Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition: This is the non-profit organization I work for. Like the name suggests, the org’s focus is advocating for health issues concerning women, children and the family. There are four projects within IMCHC, two of which I’m currently working for: the Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers (my official Americorps project) and Covering Kids and Families (a project I picked up on the side in a smaller context.)

- ICSHC = Illinois Coalition for School Health Centers: This is the project within the agency that I’m involved with. Specifically, IMCHC does advocacy work for the maintenance and expansion of school health centers throughout Illinois. My main project for the year is to help organize an annual conference dedicated to this advocacy in Springfield. This involves a lot of letter-writing, excel-sheet operating, mail-merging and labeling, committee meeting and countless other things I’m probably forgetting.

- Orr Health Center: This is the school health center I work at for three days of the week. Part of my Americorps job description requires me to get field experience in the health center. Here, I have two main purposes: 1) I act as the front desk guy, putting together charts and scheduling appointments for the students, and 2) I do nutrition education programming for the kids every week or two.

Yeah… seems confusing, eh? Trust me. It took me a helluva long time to figure it out myself.

All in all though, I’m generally enjoying Chicago. While it isn’t exactly the West Coast, I feel like Chicago’s definitely giving me everything that I need right now. I’m definitely enjoying work so far, and there’s a lot to do so far. I’m also really liking my roommates so far and it’s really nice to have a bunch of UMich people at arms length too. However, I’m gonna cut it off here right now; otherwise this entry is going to get way too long. Stay tuned until I go into the fun, non-work related stuff. And yes, that does mean I’ll talk about my love life (or lack thereof.) That’ll have you coming back, no? ;-)

I'm not dead!

From this...




and this...




and a little bit of a touristy detour to this...




I took a little bit of time back in the hinterlands of Michigan in order to prepare myself for this...


surprisingly this...


and, most delectably, this...



Yep, folks. I found myself in the Windy City taking on an Americorps project with the Chicago Health Corps. Never in a million years did I think I would be in Chicago (up until August I was still talking San Francisco or Seattle), but I'm loving it here. I'll definitely be updating this more often than I have the past few months, but I just wanted to let you know that I haven't died (for the two-three of you who actually read this.) More to come, I promise!

VideoBlog #4: 2 Become 1

Circa Birthday-time, waiting for KRT to go out to the bar. Do KGM and I have a future as bar/lounge musicians?

VideoBlog #3 (Blast from the Past): Walkin'

Best friends realize North Campus is too big.

Note: Entry rated R for strong language (i.e., not kid-friendly.)

VideoBlog #2: Update from S. Forest.

It's early and I tend to say "um" a lot.