When I started my blog, I knew it would be hard to make updates on a regular basis. Now I know it is nearly impossible to make updates while working as a resident with a family. Life happens! Since my last blog entry, I now have a new addition to the family, graduated from medical school, moved from Virginia to New York, and embarked on my new career as a combined internal medicine and pediatrics resident. Intern year is hard. It is not an issue of time, but an issue of time management—something that I was not exposed to as a medical student. Do I still think I made the right decision entering residency instead of pursuing an academic career in research? Absolutely. However, it is hard to balance my time with family, friends, and normal activities like grocery shopping. I have made only minimal progress on research that I want to complete for myself and in collaboration with others. I find that there is something exhilarating when learning something new; however, my progress in learning Clojure has stalled. I have not implemented one line of Clojure in a meaningful project. I have moved the site to a new hosting service. Hopefully, everything will work out well, but I do not expect to update this blog regularly.

I spent the day oblivious to any news as I walked a few miles shopping to replenish my spent supplies on the interview trail. In the meantime the tragedy unfolded in Tucson. We know little information about the presumed shooter. The accused has a recent history of disruptive behavior in both the classroom and the library requiring campus police on at least one occasion. The NY Times reports that the community college had suspended him. He later withdrew from the college. His writings as posted on YouTube seem for the most part to be nonsensical. It seems like his friends did notice these changes and began to avoid him and this probably increased his isolation. One can only imagine what his parents are going through now. The political debate is focused on whether the political climate has become too confrontational. The debate really should be focused on what we can do to enable people to seek out mental health resources. Sadly, the tragedy seems so similar to the shootings at Virginia Tech.

The holiday season flew by this year for me. It is amazing to me how life allows one to relive aspects from a different viewpoint. Some of my least favorite memories when sick as a child were due to the dreaded "stomach flu." I can remember a few Christmases that were rescheduled due to everyone being sick. Well, I can now say that gastroenteritis is even more painful when experienced as a parent with a sick child than as a child with the illness. Luckily, this holiday season only one child was ill. Ironically, after staying up most of the night with the sick child I was later blessed with experiencing the illness first hand, again. It seems that I was unable to escape the bug even with diligent hand washing and many applications of bleach. This year we were still able to celebrate Christmas on time. I was a little less enthusiastic about food, but happy about returning to normal life. We celebrated the new year with friends — no easy feat given 2 young kids. Happy Belated New Year!