TEDMED

What a trip. Last week I was in DC for the TEDMED conference, which I won a $5000 scholarship to attend. If you don't know what TEDMED is than click on TED. They are these amazing free lectures on innovation, imagination, entertainment, and design. I am an avid fan of this so winning the scholarship was the highlight of my quarter. The conference was held at the Kennedy Center in DC and was filled with healthcare big wigs such as the director of the FDA, NIH, National Cancer Foundation, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, Katie Couric, Billy Jean King, and many others. TEDMED was recently acquired by the billionaire owner of Priceline and in my opinion he did not do a sufficient job of having the right lectures/topics. There was a lot of hand waving (ie "diabetes is a pandemic.") and very little innovative material. Though there were a few fantastic lectures. The highlight of the event was the social interrelation hub and dinners at the library of congress and the national buildings museum. A quick story, while we were thoroughly enjoying the library of congress I happened to get a little tipsy and noticed a bunch of people wearing TEDMED t-shirts under their jackets. I approach one of them and inquired about the shirts to which he replied "its a secret". I then figured they were going to do a flash mob! What I didn't realize was that it was the DC gay man's choir and some of the men I was talking to were flagrantly flurting with me but I had no clue. Then they all bust out in song and I started to dance. Little did I know that I was the only one at the entire event who was dancing. They conference media camera then spotlighted me and the whole room got a show. Laila videoed part of it. I even got to hangout with Ben for a little bit. went with this girl from my class named Laila who I have been seeing. She is a riot. She took me to the Palestinian embassy to get her Iranian passport, needless-to-say I felt out of place. But she had a family friend the named Nick and his wife who took us out to dinner on our last night. All in all it was a fun trip but I didn't get any studying done and now I am stressed trying to catch up. Big pharmacology test coming up, not happy. On a brighter note I have started to run (once) so that makes me very happy. Until again!