January 11, 2025

by Dr. Plastic Picker

I’m sitting here its 9:06am and last night I worked the late staggered shift, happily wandered over to to the office party and lived my dream of making an Instagram Reel to the current in kpop song apata by Rose and Bruno Mars. It was so much fun! Our son helped me edit the reel so that it was in sync with the song.

And this morning, I just forwarded an email to some climate friends in San Diego. It’s from a good college friend who I was technically her premedical advisor. We are friends from the Harvard Vietnamese Association. I had explained to my good friend how simple and impactful the heat summit idea was. That it was really to get folks together in a neutral place to discuss hyper-local projects that need to be done to address extreme heat and health, in particular wildfire risks. And she is talented and connected and she’s done it. She sent the email that likely took a while to mentally prepare and process, and it’s succinct and well composed. And then all I did was loop in 3 premedical students from UC Berkeley (including my son) who participated in our H3SD summit in San Diego, and they will help her.

It’s funny now when things are truly dire and something you love dearly is threatened, you run toward those you trust the most. That we are true friends and linked through our heritage, training and world view – is not surprising.

But it’s actually happening. Their team is on their way. I’ll be popping in during their meetings as well. But I’m grateful today to have a good friend like Dr. Quyen-Tuyen Nguyen. She has children too. My daughter has a yellow blanket that she dearly loves and that blanket, was gifted to our family almost 20 years ago by Dr. Quyen-Tuyen Nguyen. It’s funny how life works out.