I survived India!

Namaste, friends and family. I just landed in Singapore and can now officially start wearing my "I Survived India" t-shirt. I've got a couple of days here to recover pool side with Justin and Nellie and some of the old Shanghai crew before I head back to China to grab my bags and my last paycheck and hop back on the United flight to Chicago on April 30th. Can't wait to catch up with everyone this summer!

Pledging India

That's the way Jeremy (another future Boston med student who, along with Bharat, is my traveling companion) described our first few days here... we've been roughing it and really getting the "India experience." As we've travelled the golden triangle of New Delhi, Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) and Jaipur (home of the pink city) this has meant riding in the lowest class sleeper cars with 8 people to a compartment, showering with a bucket full of hot water, taking rickshaws everywhere and generally having an amazing time.

The Taj Mahal absolutely blew me away. Every expectation I had of what it might be like to see the tomb in person fell so short it's almost embarrassing. The architecture is flawless, the history of its design and construction are awe-inspiring and its magnitude is beyond description.

Internet cafes are few and far between and after returning to Delhi by overnight train in a few hours, Bharat, Jeremy and I are heading north to the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas on Monday. The tentative plan then is to stay with one of Bharat's before continuing on to the famous Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve for an elephant safari and the chance to see tigers (as well as crocs, barking deer, monkeys and peacocks) in their natural jungle habitat. I'm off now to coat myself in another layer of Ben's 100 (98.2% DEET) mosquito repellent before grabbing a hot cup of Chai (milk based tea) and fighting my way to my berth on the train.)

Headed to India

Dear loyal readers,

I'm off in about 4 hours to the airport where I will be flying to India and most likely will not have internet access for about 3 weeks. Will write up some of my reflections on my experiences when I get back, can't wait to catch up with everyone in May and June when I'll be travelling around the country.

Best wishes,

Joel

Restricted Access

As I've recently found myself with some free time, I decided to be productive with my Internet surfing and check out a little more about the long path I'm about to start down towards becoming a physician. Easier said than done.

The two great sources of information on the web, Wikipedia and Web logs (or blogs, like the one you're reading now), are both inaccessible through Chinese Internet Service Providers (ISPs.) Which is frustrating when you want first-hand information on the "med-school experience." Also frustrating is the fact that (as I think I mentioned months ago when I first moved here) I can post to this blog, but cannot access the site to check the formatting or content... wow.

Anyway, I finally managed to find a decent proxy that lets me read medical blogs, but still doesn't give me access to Wikipedia, so I thought I would provide a list of links to a few of the more complete and interesting blogs put out by current medical students and recent medical school grads for those of you with a lot of free time on your hands, and enviable, unrestricted access to the Internet, to check out.

Ah Yes, Medical School - The rants and raves of a single, Jewish (a point he belabors) medical student on the West Coast.

Adventures in Medical School - A detailed look at the life of a med student at the Oregon Health Sciences University from moving to the area to getting into residency.

Over My Med Body! - A very popular blog by a Stanford medical student who happens to be significantly more proficient at using the web than most people. He also took it upon himself to create a web-based application for senior citizens who need help enrolling in the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit program and an interactive website for medical students and doctors to search and use every medical formula ever made. He also has really cool graphics. Yes, I am jealous.

Those are just three that I have happened to check out and enjoyed... if you're really interested in what I have to look forward to for the next four years, or have aspirations yourself of heading into the medical profession, go straight to the source, Blogs of Medical Students, which is described by its author as... wait for it... A Webring of Blogs by Medical Students & Professionals from all over the world. Seriously, it's pretty impressive.

Budget Approved!

Well, somehow my Fiscal Year 2008 Operating Budget made it through the review by the board of directors with flying colors and was approved without qualification last Friday!

Interestingly, the "big picture" of how the budget directly affects operations didn't become clear to me until we released the approved budgets for next year to each of the department heads. The speed and intensity with which people reacted took me completely by surprise; I literally felt like I was being assaulted by the number of emails in my inbox.

As I started to deal with the inquiries, which ranged from dumbfounded to downright abusive, I immediately began noticing some rather glaring errors that I had made, mostly related to staffing and Salary, Wages and Benefits (SWB) figures... so naturally, the one section people absolutely cannot miss and understandably get the most upset about.

Fortunately, the accounting department, which wasn't too sharp to begin with, is about to start a massive system overhaul of their software from the current "shortbus" iFinancial to the new "more expensive but at least US standard shortbus" E-1 Financial. How does this translate into a windfall for me? Well, I'll tell you. Basically, all the old account mapping, the system that assigns revenue and expenses to each department, is being updated to meet US standards, which over the course of the next year, means it will be virtually impossible for anyone to tell whether the figures that are being generated and spit out by the computer have anything even remotely in common with the figures I budgeted.

As my good friend Jason Link likes to say, "Bango!" (It's kind of like "Jackpot!" but more dramatic... it makes a lot more sense after a few non-kiddie cocktails.)

In the home stretch...

This past Saturday, besides being St. Patrick's Day, marked the eight month anniversary of my arrival in Shanghai. Looking back, the time here has alternated between flying by and inching along at an unimaginably slow pace (although nothing before or since has come even close to the three agonizing weeks between my Tufts interview and receiving my acceptance email.) Sitting at work today, I flipped open my calendar and realized that I have a mere two weeks of work left!

I could work that first week in April, but Robert and his wife, Cortney, will be here, along with a surprise guest, Amy Snyder, an old friend from my early days at Wisconsin. Realizing how little time I have left in China, and that I have seen most of the sights to see in Shanghai, I booked a ticket on the overnight train to Beijing for this Thursday. I plan to spend this weekend making amends for my tourist faux pas of my first trip up with my mom when I missed seeing both the Summer Palace and the famous Pearl Market (which ironically is home to tons of great deals on most consumables, yet only has moderately good deals on the shiny things that come in oysters.)

It's an interesting feeling, coming to the end of my time here, and reminds me of my last few months in college... but in the same way that I never really did the "this is the last time I'll ever _____" when I was getting ready to leave Wisconsin, I'm not too hung up on any sentimental attachments here... to be honest, I'm really ready to do a little more fun travelling and then get back to the good old US of A.

Back in Shanghai...

And really glad I didn't major in Accounting.

After an awesome trip to Tokyo, which I will outline in my next post, I returned to find the finance department entering the arduous process known as "Year End Close." During this time, all financial documents must be produced or updated and for yours truly it means the end of the budget process. Sounds great, right? Would be, if the last step in the budget didn't happen to be the creation of the Cash Flow Budget.

So far, my work with the budget has been challenging, but hasn't involved any really heavy lifting from an accounting standpoint, mostly it was just tracking down information about each department and figuring out what they would need from a staffing and financial standpoint to meet the service demand figures I estimated for them for next year. The Cash Flow statement on the other hand, is pretty much pure Accounting 100, a course I took my almost 4 years ago, and remember virtually nothing useful from.

So that was the long way to say that work is really busy right now, but time seems to be flying by regardless as I find myself with just over a month left in Shanghai before I pack up and leave for the states (with a 3 week layover in India and Singapore!)

Made it to Tokyo

After a wonderful flight, bumped into business class, I made it through immigration and to Kim`s apartment without much trouble. Tokyo is, so far, everything that the Chinese government would like China to be, but can`t manage to pull off... that is, orderly, clean(er), respectful of lines, service oriented... which comes at a ridiculously steep price. My late night, sushi and beer dinner that I grabbed with Kim was 4,480 Yen, roughly $40!! While Kim teaches English today, I`m off to try my hand at the world`s most complicated metro system in an attempt to get to the beautiful shrines and skyscrapers in the heart of Tokyo. I did cave though, and am currently armed with her Lonely Planet - Best of Tokyo guide book, what can I say, the place is a little intense and a little intimidating...