Fireworks. There have been significant innovations in the field of fireworks! Prior to earlier this week, I last watched fireworks about six years ago through the murky fog enveloping San Francisco Bay. I didn’t witness any explosions of color during that occasion; I merely observed a muted haze of color through the thick air heavy with moisture.

The fireworks over Lake Union in Seattle, though, were remarkable! Instead of the usual spherical explosions of sparks, some of the fireworks exploded into smiley faces, cubes, hearts, Saturn-esque shapes, and floating rockets.

It was truly spectacular!

Video games. My friend, who lives practically on Lake Union, invited me to join him for oven-cooked BBQ ribs (a worthy deviation from my usual vegetarian diet) prior to the display of fireworks. We first met in college and, in addition to becoming my friend, he quickly became my technology consultant (the primary reason why I own a Mac now is because of him). I spied his rack of X-box games and asked if we could play video games after dinner.

We ended up using his GameCube for about two hours, where I tried my hand at Mario Kart (I didn’t finish last every time—that counts as success!) and Mario Party (I never directly captured a star, but I ended up acquiring two or three at the conclusion of the game). The last time I played video games was on a Nintendo 16 machine, so you could imagine my frank shock upon interacting with the console. There are so many more buttons now. And when the controller vibrates, it’s kinda scary. The graphics are unbelievable and the complexity of the games are astounding!

I was also highly impressed with the “mini-games” of Mario Party. Who comes up with these ideas? Who can mow the most grass? Who can clean the windows the fastest? Who can hit the “A” button the most in a circumscribed period of time?

And who dreamed up the idea of a sneezing tree? Whose nose you have to tickle with an unusually long feather???

Residency rotations. I generally enjoy all of my clinical rotations (required or otherwise), though, occasionally, a rotation will deeply resonate with me. I am reluctant to express any further excitement about it—after all, the academic year just turned over and my opinion may change as I learn more—but, thus far, I am eagerly looking forward to working with/serving the chronically mentally ill homeless population. The program emphasizes compassion instead of coercion, the latter which occurs more frequently with patients than is appropriate, and the system employs more liberal (and, I think, more humane) practices than I have thus far encountered in my training.

Sometimes we think that no one else shares our perspectives on social issues; it’s a wonderful relief to stumble upon people who are more enthusiastic than you are about service.

Music. I recently purchased Ulrich Schnauss’s Far Away Trains Passing By—what a fantastic album! The last album that brought me this much joy was Imogen Heap’s Speak for Yourself, which I actually purchased after reading Ezra Klein’s positive review. (I also finally bought Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation—I’ve been meaning to buy it for over five years—though her music doesn’t create the dreamy moods of the former two albums.) I’d like to expand my ambient electronica collection (I got an iTunes gift certificate for my birthday…); if you have any recommendations for albums similar in quality and texture to Far Away Trains Passing By, please let me know.