Category: Star Trek/ Philosophical Tangents

May 23, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m not sure how you have been dealing with the COVID-19 quarantine, but I have been watching Star Trek. I mean A LOT of Star Trek. I grew up watching reruns of the original Star Trek. Spock, the Vulcan Science Officer, spoke to me. Even then, the action scenes were corny and the alien world settings unrealistic – but the storylines and the pseudophilosophical delvings into space and time and logic, touched something in my teenage heart. Then Star Trek the Next Generation ran 1987-1994, right during my middle school and high school years, I watched that too. I became a big fan of Captain Jean Luc Picard and his Shakepearan take on a Starship Captain. But there was not a great Vulcan on the show, so I have always been more of an Original Star Trek fan and of course Spock.

(more…)

May 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Today is a big day for our family. Our oldest is in ninth grade and taking his AP Computer Science exam today. The picture above is a silly collage of screenshots I took last night, while he was relaxing downstairs in his room. I was playing with our puppy but more to distract myself from worrying about our son. His exam is at 1pm today, and Mr. Plastic Picker is working from home to make sure our son logs in on time and everything goes as planned despite the abbreviated exam due to COVID-19 quarantine. The exam is an hour long and online, which is different than other AP exams in years past. But despite the abbreviated nature of the exam, it is a big day for our family.

Mr. Plastic Picker and I met in collage and proceeded to live an idyllic life of students in love. We were always very frugal and were raised with similar values, so we would go out once a week to the same Korean restaurant for over 10 years at the same table with the same waitress and ordering the same dish. Otherwise we mostly just ate simple dinners in the University Dining Hall and would take walks around Boston. We watched a lot of movies. And then at some point, it was time to have kids and we had our oldest when I was in between Intern and Junior year of pediatric residency also still in Boston. I remember sitting with the Chief of Pediatrics, this lauded figure in academic medicine who had published many front-page articles in Nature, and he asked me to be Chief Resident – and I was honored and accepted but also told him I was pregnant.

(more…)

May 2, 2020

by drplasticpicker

The days are running into each other during this Covid-19 shelter-in-place. Many of us are working from home. Our homes have become schools. Last night was a Friday evening, but on Thursday our daughter thought it was Tuesday when I asked her what she wanted to do Friday night. I had requested a vacation day months ago, as the children originally had one of those school Professional Development Days. Due to concerns for budget, our upper echelon management has not allowed people to “give back” their vacation as the pediatric outpatient clinics are busy. So yesterday was Friday and I was home on vacation but still doing work, which is the nature of middle management. I don’t mind as I am grateful for my job.

In November, Mr. Plastic Picker and I went to a regional meeting to celebrate our 10 years with our health organization. https://drplasticpicker.com/dr-plastic-picker-agitates-for-the-ocean-at-a-regional-meeting/ It was like a free date, as we stayed in a fancier hotel than we would ever had paid for. During that meeting, one of the speakers addressed the Science of Happiness and Power of Gratitude. It’s funny how work and life are intertwined, because our Girl Scout Troop was earning our Science of Happiness badge recently. I did a short presentation for the girls reusing those slide contents from that regional meeting. What struck me is that 50% of happiness is genetic. I believe it because I am generally a happy person. Dr. Dear Friend is too, which is why we get along well. I should really interview her for this blog soon.

(more…)

January 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It’s difficult to be a child especially a teenager right now. I am trying to do everything we need to do as parents to ensure our kids’ future, and bring this decade’s work of rewilding the world with joy. Parents especially mothers have been mobilized because our children became activist. I have always been environmentally aware, but seeing the young including my own children strike for the climate – awoke me. But as they have been awoken, they are anxious. We actually don’t talk about the climate too much but they know why we are making the changes that we are making, and the donations Mr. Plastic Picker and I do for their sakes.

Our high-school son told me about the above figure EarthChan who is an anime-style anthropomorphic representation of planet Earth. She is a young girl and when you look at her from above, her hair is blue and green and covered with clouds and resembles the planet Earth. Initially when our son told us about Earth Chan and that many youngsters were being activated to help the earth due to her, I was dismissive. But then, I began to realize that just like the ancient Inca civilization and the present day Quechuan speak of the Pachamama – Earth Chan may be the current generation’s planet Earth – their Pachamama.

(more…)

January 1, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I was having too much fun on Instagram. I was up to almost 200 followers and then my account was deactivated because I violated some rules. I’m pretty sure it was because the word I was trying to write for Korean New Year’s soup is maybe a bad word to someone. I don’t know. I haven’t learned how to type in Korean and Vietnamese on the internet yet. It’s on my to-do list for 2020, along with saving the earth. I’m just a middle-aged pediatrician trying to pick up trash! Anyway, I’ve emailed back the Instagram team and we’ll see what happens.

(more…)

December 26, 2019

by drplasticpicker.com

I have been a middle manager now for 2.5 years. In our organization my position is a 6-year-term, so I am 41% of the way through this term. For about 2 years, I had tension headaches (80% of the time as a middle manager). I had never had many headaches before I became a middle manager, and since becoming drplasticpicker about 4 months ago – my tension headaches are gone (0% of the time as drplasticpicker).

I want to emphasize that before going into middle management, I had gone through the gauntlet of medical training with children and had never had any headaches. Sometimes the stress of moving up the professional ladder can be too much.

(more…)

December 12, 2019

by drplasticpicker

It seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes our family chooses “to do nothing” in order to do something. Last spring, I was lucky to accompany our hospital’s residency program on a trip to the Andes Mountains in Peru. I was able to fulfill one of my dreams as the attending pediatrician and helped >400 children of the indigenous Quechuan people. It was a trip and 2 weeks that I will never forget.

(more…)

December 6, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I had great fun being interviewed by our local paper the PB Monthly. Savannah Duffy, the journalist, phone interviewed me twice and we exchanged several emails. I got to tell our nursing staff and my clinic friends in great fun, “I can’t go to lunch because I have an interivew this afternoon.” She even asked to record the interivew and I was so intrigued that she asked my permission! But in this whole plastic picking and blogging adventure, this PB Monthly interview was a high point and will give me energy to keep on going!

(more…)

November 24, 2019

by drplasticpicker

It has been well documented in the social sciences literature that many health outcomes are due to habits. And it is also been well documented in the scientific and lay literature that behaviors (good and bad) can spread within social circles. We become like the people we associate with especially is there is mutual admiration and affection.

(more…)