John

I'm a sometimes medical student sometimes graduate student, a predicament bred partly by multiple interests, but mostly by indecision. I think your surroundings define you- I spent two years at a liberal arts school as a token science nerd, and then two years at a science school feeling like a solitary humanities junkie. Research, once you aren't learning things that were discovered hundreds of years ago by people much smarter than you, is surprisingly difficult and even scary at times- a venture into the unknown. I feel older than my age, and it occurs to me that may not be as wonderful as I once thought it would be. I love to run in Central Park; I find that when I don't, I go on tree withdrawal. One of my goals is to run the New York City Marathon before I leave. I want to take three months and backpack the length of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. New York is a wonderful place to live, but I miss California, and still identify it as home. I'm probably eating an orange as you read this, preferably a valencia or a tangelo or a blood orange. I like to put nutmeg in everything I cook. I detest green bell peppers, and I can't eat anything that has been touched by them (not so red and yellow ones- go figure). I have a niece and a nephew whom I have come to adore, although I don't really know how to be a male role model. I've always wanted to play violin in a rock band, but for now, I'm thrilled about being in the Greenwich Village Orchestra. I think technology opens the world up to us, but closes us off from ourselves, and I think that working to protect the earth we inhabit is the most valuable thing that anyone can do... ..