Our Hobbies

When people learn that I make time every weekend to prep meals for my fiancé and I, they think I must be terribly organized. That is so not the case! I’m a mess, and I can’t ever make time in the evenings after school to cook. A big block of time on the weekend, combined with the threat of having nothing to eat but freezer pizza and leftover lunch talk food (plus maybe some wine), is what it takes for me to get the cooking done. Although it is necessary, I’ve come to enjoy the time I carve out for cooking each week. It’s an opportunity to step back from intellectual pursuits and get in touch with my senses — to taste, smell, and feel the food I’m making. Making this time and using it to create good food that will sustain my fiancé and I all week feels like a true investment in self care. I have a lot of fun researching recipes and deciding what to make. Random moments when I’m sitting around at school and feeling hungry are prime time for searching out new recipes. My fiancé and I moved to St. Louis from the Southwest, so I’ve been figuring out how to create some of our favorite Southwestern inspired recipes for us here. I’ve done okay finding ingredients such as spicy chiles. Sometimes, not being able to find just the right ingredients has pushed me to learn how to make my own. I started making my own Harissa paste and it is so, so good, I’m never going back to store bought. I also recently bought the book Salt Fat Acid Heat and have really enjoyed challenging myself to take some recipes to the next level by incorporating new techniques.

Dance has always been a part of my life. Between supporting my sisters during competitions or performing myself, dance is basically ingrained in my DNA at this point. During undergrad, I tried a belly dance class and completely fell in love. While the moves are relatively simple individually, I enjoy the physical and mental challenge that comes with layering movements on top of each other and connecting them seamlessly. You truly have to clear your mind of distractions in order to master a move, and when I finally overcome the “ugly duckling” phase that comes with layering correctly or getting down a finger cymbal combination, it is such a rewarding feeling.

When I chose to come to WashU, I was a bit concerned about finding a studio, but with some help from my previous instructor and the internet, I discovered that St. Louis has so many options for belly dancing: traditional Egyptian, Salimpour style, and tribal fusion. I started out with the Egyptian format, and in block two, I’m going back to my belly dance roots and adding on Salimpour style. Maybe, if I’m crazy enough and can find the coin, I’ll eventually tack on tribal fusion because I really want to balance a sword on my head. So basically, don’t worry if your hobby is niche because St. Louis will have it, and I apologize in advance when (not if) you catch me practicing my undulations in public.

A few years ago, I became obsessed with Irish fiddle. Don’t ask me why, because I can’t tell you, I just did. I ended up buying myself a fiddle on Amazon (don’t do this), had it restrung and started teaching myself to play (badly) using online tutorials. I let this lapse while applying to med school, because well, you know how that goes, and I wondered if I’d ever recommit to my interest. Fast-forward to med school orientation, when I discovered our POM course director, Dr. Yau, is an Irish fiddler. I reached out to him about my interest and he happily put me in touch with an instructor friend of his; I started taking lessons in September. My lessons are weekly for an hour, and I practice anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour each day. Taking up a new hobby first semester of M1 might sound crazy, but I am so glad I did. When I fiddle, I have to be completely focused on what I’m playing, otherwise I’d make even more mistakes. This forces me to truly tune out from my med school studies, if only for 10 minutes. It has been rewarding and confidence boosting to put my energies into something challenging other than school and witness myself improve.

Coming into med school, I was convinced all of my gains from undergrad would vanish, but boy was I wrong. I’m hitting personal bests on all lifts (except squats) thanks to my M1 gym bros keeping me accountable. The gym at the Core is super convenient; you can get a great pump right after class and look jacked when you head back to Becker/carrels/your favorite study spot to procrastinate and pretend to study for the rest of the day. The gym at the Core has all the essentials for lifting/cardio and is only really busy around 5 p.m. It is shared with other professional students, which I find nice because a workout environment with only people you know is kind of strange. If you want to see more people in undersized tanks covered in chalk, you can head to the Danforth Campus gym, which has been recently built and contains more racks, platforms, and machines. I recommend the Danforth Campus gym for deadlifting since the Core gym does not have the best platform. Most days, though, you can find me in the Core gym, making underwhelming jokes connecting our physiology course to lifting.