Obama v. Tar Heels

Thought this article from the Raleigh News and Observer was cute:
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1053885.html

for my Dad

If you look closely, you can see that the wine is called "Juan Gil," which is the Spanish version of my Dad's name, John Gill. Dad, I'll bring you a bottle when I come to Alabama in May.

Indian Dance Competition

So, we went to an event called "Best of the Best" last night. There were nine teams from different colleges that performed Bhangra, Raas Garba and Bollywood fusion. We started off the evening agitated, because of one of the irritating parts of Indian culture, IST (Indian Standard Time). Indians have a well-deserved reputation of being hard-working and intelligent people. Somehow they have achieved incredible things as a minority in this country despite IST. What I mean is that Indian functions, as a rule, start late. Our tickets said 6pm. However, we were not let into the auditorium until 6:45 and the show did not start until 7:15pm. Grrr.
This picture shows the introduction of the nine teams. The team in the middle is from UC Davis. The costumes were incredible.
After the introduction, some children from a local Indian dance studio came out and performed. This little boy was adorable. He was flanked by seven little girls. He made all those cheeky Bollywood faces.
The dancing was pretty amazing. We both enjoyed the spectacle and athletism of the performers. Unfortunately, they ended the evening with a performer called Raghav. He is a pop star in the Indian community. He was lousy. He kept singing even though the production crew was asking him to wrap it up. He also had a backup guy named, "Iceberg Slim," who was hilarious. First, he was African American, which seems atypical. Second, he just paced in the background and occasionally made noises into the microphone. Overall, we had a good time, but I don't think we'll be back next year.

One fine Sunday

I mentioned in a previous post about going hiking. On Sunday, April 6, the weather was finally warm enough (in the 50's!) to go hiking. We drove up to a state park just over the Wisconsin border. We were so happy to be outside getting some fresh air. Unfortunately, warm temperature mean that the snow thaws and creates lots of mud. We found it difficult to find a path to walk on, so we gave up after only thirty minutes of walking. It was 10am.
We didn't want to waste the day. So we decided to see what Madison was like. Thanks to the wonderful GPS system we received from Mom and Dad, we were able to find our way with no problem. We wandered the pedestrian mall in downtown Madison. There were lots of fun shops, but since we had Kaya, we restrained ourselves to brief shopping. With lots of daylight left after exploring Madison, Sanjai got in touch with his college friends, Trent and Jenny, who live in Milwaukee. Again, relying on the trusty navigation system, we headed to Milwaukee. I had never met these two college friends. So, it was a real treat. I have now met all of Sanjai's Anatomy TA buddies. Trent and Jenny were so accommodating to us and our whiny, squirmy dog. We had a really nice evening of catching up and playing with kids and the dog. It was a very lovely way to spend a Sunday.

And the winner of the 1st Annual Rush University Medical Center Orthopedic Resident Facial Hair Contest is...

Was there ever any doubt?
Simple, yet hideous. 3 weeks in the making, it was gone the next morning.

Playing catch up

Jen here...


We have pictures to post and hopefully that will happen soon. Both of us have been swamped with work stuff. Sanjai is on call, again, tonight. My grades are due on Thursday and my quarter calendar is due on, um, yesterday. However, I explained to my principal that I've not yet received any training on the upcoming curriculum, so it would not be possible to produce. She was understanding. However, it means I have to crank it out in lightning speed after tomorrow. It just kind of feels like I can never get my head above water. I keep telling myself that the first year of anything is hard. I will get this curriculum figured out. Then it won't be so tough. Sanjai is on his last "primary" call of his second year. He rotates to Cook County next week. So, he will have in-house call, but he will get to go home the next morning and sleep. We are both looking forward to his third year when he will only have to take primary call once a month.


We had a glimpse of warm weather in the latter half of last week. We took the opportunity to walk around the Bucktown neighborhood. We've seen the funky shops from the car, but this time we got the opportunity to go inside. I had to laugh at the store that I thought was selling second-hand stuff that had price tags in the hundreds of dollars. Really? Plus, I could not believe the number of people a little bit younger than us who were smoking. I thought for sure that was out of vogue.

Later we watched UNC play Kansas. I had tears in my eyes and my lip was quivering five minutes into the game. I kept watching, cheering, hoping. The Heels came so close but fell so short. I guess my only consolation was that Kansas would go on to win it. I was pretty bummed.


We got up the next morning to go for hike. That is where I will end, because our hiking day extended into an event-filled day that I'd like to go into more detail about later. Hope all are well.