September 2021 - Post-Hurricane Ida post

     Hurricane Ida was not my first experience with a hurricane, having had to deal with the fallout of Sandy hitting the northeast back in 2012. As such, I went into Ida weekend with a nonchalant attitude of overconfidence - "If I had no issues with 5th worst hurricane in US history," I thought, "I'll probably walk out of this one like it's no big deal."

    Ida taught me the strange feeling of being aware of what I've come to refer to as my "altitude privilege." Edison, NJ is, all things considered, a weather haven. We're situated on a hill for the most part, meaning we're too high above sea level to have to deal with the strongest of winds or the worst of the flooding from the tropical storms that, from time to time, meander our way, but we're not high enough to be effected by things like the jet stream or the extreme snow and cold that gets thrown the way of mountains. Sure, we used to get some pretty bad blizzards and nor'easters, but it seems like global warming's taking care of those. Heck, even if all the ice caps and glaciers melt, Edison is placed firmly on dry land. While the world is burning in my adulthood, I'll at least get to kick back and relax in my suburban-home-turned-seaside-property.

    But New Orleans afforded me none of these comforts. As I weathered the storm on Sunday the 29th, I felt genuine fear - I had never been in the path of a storm so severe that I was afraid for my house and my safety, and I suppose I had the rookie jitters. The aftermath was just as surreal - the worst I had to deal with after Sandy was my powerline being cut and a few twigs and rocks being strewn about. Stepping out to see trees with substantial trunks having been snapped like twigs on the same block as my house was a harrowing and humbling experience. It instilled a feeling of both gratitude and awe (in the biblical sense of the word) to know that the only reason I got off much lighter than others in NOLA was just pure luck.

    On the other hand, it was nice to reaffirmation of my ability to take situations, good or bad, at their face value, and dig in and do what needed to be done. Taking cold showers with days-old water out of a bucket or forcing myself to ration my disaster food isn't something that I've had to do since living in India in a house without modern plumbing or reliable electricity, but I was able to suck it up and do what needed to be done. Boarding up my windows isn't something I've never had to do before, but I was able to suck it up and do what needed to be done. I was excited to finally be free from the clutches of Zoom learning, but when classes moved back online thanks to the storm, I was able to suck it up and do what needed to be done. That sense of quiet resilience in times of distress is something I've always prided myself on, and it was nice to know I've still got what it takes to at least try and persevere through life's challenges with my best effort.

    Ida also gave me a newfound appreciation of the breadth of the opportunity I've been afforded to be able to study Pharm at Tulane. In my short time in New Orleans, I've fallen a little in love with the city, and am excited to return to a school with professors and administrators that I know will go above and beyond to ensure the safety and success of their students. During my evacuation and short stay in Houston with my fellow students, the first thought I had was "Wow, Emory probably would have told me to suck it up and figure out my own way home." Tulane went above and beyond in their effort to return my life to normalcy, and I want to return the favor by going above and beyond in my effort to succeed at this school academically.

- Sanjay

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

April Blogpost

      April was the last month of the program, and I met it with a mix of apprehension and excitement. In many ways, it was the most difficult - having to simultaneously study for a cumulative final exam while making plans to pack up the last year of my life in just a couple of weeks was definitely a headache. But I was appreciative of the NBME exam, even for all the stress it caused me, as it was a chance to reflect on the growth that I've made both as a pharmacologist and as a student over the course of the program.       With a very poor showing in my undergrad years due to a mix of depression, procrastination, and a severe lack of discipline, even when given a second chance to prove myself as a student of medicine via the program, I was doubtful that I would be able to stack up to others attending, who were all clearly highly motivated and intelligent students. As I reviewed topics from last semester like antibiotics and cancer treatments, to more recent ones like psychopharm,
Read more

January Blog Post

     This month has been a flurry of activity, as I get adjusted to the new format and new classes of the Spring curriculum. While the ol' reliables of Principles and MedPharm fit like a glove thanks to them being repeats from last semester, the addition of a number of new classes that are lead more by independent research by the students instead of a strict curriculum set by the professors has been interesting to get used to, to say the least. I'm sure this is the point of these classes, but not having the luxury of blindly following a set guideline of study material, and instead having to go out into the "world," so to speak, and research on my own, in order determine what the rest of my classmates will learn in this course, has been a daunting task to come to terms with. This week, fellow classmate Magda and I have been working on our presentation for Neuropharmacology regarding novel treatments to rescue Schizophrenia-like cognitive deficits, and having to teach o
Read more

March Blogpost

 COMMUNITY SERVICE HOURS: 4 Hours, soup kitchen      This month was, despite being super stressful thanks to all of my presentations aligning on nearly back to back weeks, was one of my favorite of the program, thanks to the material we were being lectured on. Dr. Clarkson mentioned during our orientation that the psychopharm module was one of the best, and I can see why he was tooting its horn - I haven't been so invested in a module before, as the topics presented were just fascinating. The fact of the matter is, a lot of the illnesses discussed during the modules, like schizophrenia and Alzheimer's, are unsolved medical mysteries; at least, even more so than usual. The lectures felt like being presented a challenge, as the next generation of medical practitioners and researchers, as these awful ailments beckon towards me and my class members to add our own contribution to the fight against them. I have a personal connection to the epilepsy lectures, as a close friend of mine
Read more