It's been a while...
You know, I've sort of missed LJ. It's too late to try to post all my Xanga entries here (plus the pictures really make the entry, don't they? And I haven't been posting nearly enough pictures in my Xanga), but here's an attempt to catch everybody up on my life. I promised I'll frequent this more often (though it might take me a while to remember the HTML again). Update, after the jump....
Yo.
Meet my new best friend: stupidity. For some reason, the more I learn, the more stupid I get. For example, I'm reading the Chicago Redeye cover story for today (20-something women in Chicago make 7% more than their male counterparts!) and getting excited about my future profession because I'm actually a money-grubbing Chinese person, when I think to check my bank account and realize I've overdrawn my account and they charged me $20 for it. Damn. I've tangoed with the devil and the devil won. Yes, Bank of America = devil. Other examples of my recent stupidity? I couldn't remember the word "compliance" as I was leading the discussion in class today, so I said, "That concept that starts with the letter 'A'." No wonder my teacher was amazed I could speak English without an accent. I can barely speak English. (Though he asked if I spoke English in China, and maybe that's why I could speak English well, to which I had the brilliant reply, "No, I spoke Chinese in China.")
So yeah, it's been quite a while since I've sat down to write an update of my life, but I felt motivated to reflect on the last 6 months as I'm trying to put off making up the 4 hours of lecture I missed this morning (Yes, on 2x speed, that is indeed only 2 hours). My life has been surprisingly boring, in that I have my routine and meet very few new people outside of clinical settings, and let's face it, it's those crazy people on the street that make for the best stories because we can laugh at them. Well, I point, then laugh. Gotta show them who's boss. My med school friends say I'm going to be a mean mom but I think my kids will just be realistic. They might beat up your kids though.
Anyway. Summer was a complete and utter blur. I worked (well, work to me means showing up at 11, taking a 2 hour lunch, and leaving by 3, about 2-3 days a week) at the Asian Health Coalition of Illinois (AHCI). The Public Health program paid me for the summer, so to AHCI, I was really a volunteer. Matt, who I worked for, was really chill and told me they could best use me as an interviewer for the Chinatown Health Survey. Which meant I spent most of my time learning the Chinese in the survey, and then going to Chinatown for two weeks and knocking on every door on a block and talking to them in Chinese. You have NO idea how often I wanted to just work Harvard into the conversation so that they'd want to do the survey more. It's hard to convince people to trade an hour of their lives for $20. Me, I'd do it, no questions asked, but that's because I'm down $20 right now and also have no problems airing my entire health history to the world.
As for summer nights, I had me some fun. A couple of girl friends and I got into the habit of clubbing on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Well, mostly Thursday and Friday, as I went home every weekend, but those Thursdays and Fridays sure were fun. C and Am both visited, and I forced them to go to some open bars with me (see cheapness, noted above; also keep in mind that when I make the big money, I will be very generous. To the Help.) I met some people (mostly because these girl friends are all in longterm relationships that have lasted years), and perfected a game of "Judge that person", in which we try to guess what a person does for a living and then go find out (it started out "Guess that BMI", but my friends were really good at it, and they're very thin people, plus a nutritionist during my participation in an EKG summer study told me that I have 37% body fat. Which means I am obese! She didn't counsel me, just told me "Sometimes people look small but are actually fat" and walked out of the room. And no, I'm not fishing for compliments of my lack of obesity, but I thought you all should know, she wanted me to lose 15 lbs- no, that I should lose 15 lbs- and I gained 2 after hearing this).
D also came for a couple of weekends, and we hung out at the beach quite a bit. Chicago beaches are fantastic, and I am a total fan of chilling by the beach or walking along the Lakefront in an attempt to slave-drive my visitors into trying to lose those 15 lbs with me. I think I made a half-assed attempt to get D and Kev to go Angelina- and Brad- sighting (she was shooting Wanted here, and we ended up having drinks on the balcony across the street from their hotel, 3 blocks from my apartment), though we did wander onto the Batman set and took some pictures with the Bank of Gotham. Oh, and An was here at the beginning of summer, and we went to the Taste of Chicago where I kept telling her how good of a deal my 75 cent pastry from Chinatown was compared to the food there. Sorry about that, An! But at the Taste, I fell in love. With Tamarind sauce, or what I take to be its close approximate: Barbeque sauce. The love has continued ever since (I'm not kidding, ask C, Am, or D; I demonstrated some shameful BBQ sauce-hoarding in front of each of them).
The unfortunate thing about Medical School is that summer ended on August 21st. I was too spoiled by summer lasting a month longer. So while it remained 80 and beautiful, I trudged back to school for 4 hour lectures (yeah, 4 hours) in a lecture hall that doesn't even fit everyone. Talk about a subtle hint to skip class. I did a forest/camp day with the incoming M1s, and our group bonded instantly and now they are the most popular in their year. K (who went to Yale) and I were the M2 leaders, and on the bus ride back, as the M1s planned a beer pong party, we studied our bacteria flashcards in between trading insults about each others' schools. This gives you a pretty good idea of how much time I spend studying this year. M2 year is devoted to what can go wrong with the human body (a lot of Pathology). Don't get me started on Pathologists though. Their lifestyles make me sad- one told me she had a lot of patients to see, and pointed to her desk, until I realized she wasn't pointing to charts but a stack of slides. In her 8x5 office at the end of a small hidden hallway on the 7th floor of the Hospital. Plus our unit director is a pathologist, and when we complained to him about how he didn't proofread the test so that 20 questions that should have been on there weren't, and 20 questions from things we hadn't learned yet were, he told us that we shouldn't be outraged. "Outrage is what you should feel if you see a baby delivered with AIDS that was preventable." Well, Doctor, can we be upset that 20% of our test was completely unfair because you didn't do your job? It's not like we studied for 200+ hours and devoted 2 weeks of our lives to it, only to be forever psychologically damaged by the feeling of utter stupidity during a test. Talk about your people skills. Not that I'm upset, of course.
This is the year when med students get their reputation for self-diagnosis. The first things we learned about were bacteria, parasites, and worms. Worms are funny creatures (this might be because with my sense of humor, I think the word "poop" is funny), parasites are SCARY SHIT (seriously, Google "Naegleria fowleri" and you'll understand what I mean), and bacteria are numerous and frustrating. Of course, I have partaken in this self-diagnosis. For instance, I accidentally cut my leg trying to shave because I was also falling asleep at the same time (it was like I was burning my candle at both ends and instead of lasting the night, it burned into my leg; yet another demonstration of my stupidity). Instead of actually getting to shave, I scraped a nasty gash into my leg, and it's actually been my main concern for the last 2 weeks. Plus I'm embarrassed to tell people how I acquired the gash. Ha, just kidding, like I have any sense of inhibition. I thought of all the nasty bacteria that must have been on my skin, especially since I was at the gym and had just been working out. And I had been at the hospital earlier that day, and everything lands on your skin there, including MRSA, which is antiobiotic resistant. I began imagining gangrene, and walking around the rest of my life with only one leg. So I desperately searched the gym locker room for some antiseptic (recall that this is my fantastic gym in which all amenities are provided). I decided to forgo the cotton balls to stop my bleeding (hey, if part of the cotton is left in my wound, it could act as a hapten and cross-react with my immune cells and I could go into shock), choosing instead a paper towel. But how to sterilize? Only cleaning solution, hair gel, and deodorant were in sight. Suddenly, a lightbulb turned on in my head and I realized that MOUTHWASH was the key to my problems. So there I was, taking mouthwash in a tiny plastic cupule, dabbing my paper towel in there, and then gingerly pressing on my leg (which was bleeding like no other, by the way). I know everyone walking by me in this pristine locker room thinks I'm that crazy lady in a towel who stares at you as you try to change, and picks at herself in front of the mirror when it really should be done in private, but I figured, my gym reputation was worth sacrificing in order to preserve my leg. Of course, I run into a medical school friend at this point, and feel the need to explain myself. Though she was on her phone in the locker room, which is not allowed, and so I feel much better about myself and the fact that I'm leaving a red streak of blood behind me. Anyway, I am now OK (picking at the scab as I write this, and hoping it won't scar, though the people I've showed my leg to today seemed more disgusted than of the opinion that it would scar). There were some intense days when my wound was oozing yellow pus. I saw the pus and thought, "Hurray! Exudate! White Blood Cells go get those bacteria!", but according to WebMD (still a top source for me, I don't care what they say) it was infected. But after a week the pus went away and I celebrated by studying for my test. And, today, going to the gym again for the first time in two weeks. I've missed my workout, my precious workout. In the last 2 weeks, I've managed to regain the 5 lbs I lost, so I guess I'm at 12 up again. Somewhere, a nutritionist is shrugging.
So yeah, this past unit (the one I was tested on Monday) was drugs (antibiotics, etc), cancer, and genetic or autoimmune disorders. Random subject mix, but the disorders were totally fascinating. On our test, a question asked what we should tell a pregnant woman who had an X-Ray done during her 2nd week of pregnancy (deformities usually occur in weeks 2-8, and before that, if anything bad happens, the fetus just aborts or gets over it). One of the choices was, "Tell her that she will probably have a miscarriage anyway, and not to worry about it." OK, so obviously that's wrong, on many levels, but a part of me wanted to say it just for kicks. I've been working with a preceptor every week, where I go in and help him see patients, so I've had plenty of chances to say awkward things. I have the really cool preceptor, who is our mentor's little brother, and he just lets me go in and take the clinical history all by myself! I know that this sounds incredibly lame, but for a person who loves to talk to new people and gets a power trip from actually doing stuff, it's pretty great. Of course, I inadvertently asked a 70-something woman about her sexual activity, when I was only supposed to get a history of her presenting illness (HPI for those of you in the know), but luckily the preceptor didn't come in the room with me because he was so busy. So we'll just pretend that awkwardness didn't happen. Can't wait to start those actual physical exams though. Remember the pelvic test of last year? It's for real this time around, and I'll bet Awkward Turtle will be plenty busy when the time comes.
Oh, while looking up some of the disorders of prenatal malformation in Wikipedia (my absolute #1 source, and what taught me that Anna Nicole Smith had Hasimoto's Disease of the Thyroid), I came across Treacher-Collins syndrome ( see an extreme case here) and realized that it's what KA from Garfield had! While it's unfortunate for him and all, I wanted to show the friend I was studying with a picture of him (since remembering people with certain disorders make the disorders easier to remember), so I log into Facebook, only to realize that KA and I are not friends on Facebook! So, of course, I add him and excitedly told my friend about how he was totally cool and definitely of normal/high intelligence (a lot of malformations come with mental retardation, unfortunately), and it's very cool that I am post-diagnosing him (For example, Treacher-Collins often have malformed ear tubes, and I remembered that KA had a hearing aid!). So yeah, medical fun. Please do not send this to him. And obviously, I did not show my friend his picture. But this is how I learn.
I'd like to say that I've had exciting nocturnal outings since school started, but the only time I went out (a Monday night for our post-test party), a British marine in town for one night tried to "walk" me home and I had to go to some ridiculous dodging and hiding behind posts (stalkers are a form of excitement Angeline Jolie can keep). One exciting, non-academic thing to happen (during the daytime) was my college friend Ad's wedding over Labor Day weekend (Sept 1st), where the college crew all had a fun reunion (well, except the Cali girls and Athi). I also got to see Queens for the first time, and I LOVED it (not so much Manhattan, but wow, who knew I'd love Queens so much?). I'm still waiting for pictures from that weekend as well as the wedding video, which undoubtedly shows some hogging of the dance floor by us. Although I have the excuse that I was drinking a lot (champagne, pineapple-Malibu, and 5 non-alcoholic drinks).
The next big trip is in only three weeks, when our very own S is getting married! I can't wait to be there and celebrate with her, and all the Groupies, though I have to admit, I'm totally tempted to send S this card from someecards.com (best site ever). Kind of like I wanted to send Ad one (calm down, I mean the "Travel Expenses" card, not the mean ones!). I already have my dressed picked out, and the gift, and my plane ticket, so I guess the only thing that stands in my way are 3 weeks of 4-hour lectures. Hmm. Speaking of which, I managed to put off for tonight, which I guess means I'll be getting up at 6am tomorrow to do this. Luckily my dad dropped off some food from home today (I realized how much I love my parents as I was cracking into the Pineapple Chicken, and how easy it is to win my love) so at least I'll have plenty of energy!
Well, congratulations on making it to the end. I could be sappy right now and tell you it's only the beginning. But I won't, because, as far as this update is concerned, this is the end. Though it is the beginning of an exciting year (well, middle). I know a lot of you are also starting school again this year, or new jobs, or both, so if we haven't talked for a while (or even if we have), I want an update! Please include information on professional, personal, and love lives. Links also appreciated.
Yo.
Meet my new best friend: stupidity. For some reason, the more I learn, the more stupid I get. For example, I'm reading the Chicago Redeye cover story for today (20-something women in Chicago make 7% more than their male counterparts!) and getting excited about my future profession because I'm actually a money-grubbing Chinese person, when I think to check my bank account and realize I've overdrawn my account and they charged me $20 for it. Damn. I've tangoed with the devil and the devil won. Yes, Bank of America = devil. Other examples of my recent stupidity? I couldn't remember the word "compliance" as I was leading the discussion in class today, so I said, "That concept that starts with the letter 'A'." No wonder my teacher was amazed I could speak English without an accent. I can barely speak English. (Though he asked if I spoke English in China, and maybe that's why I could speak English well, to which I had the brilliant reply, "No, I spoke Chinese in China.")
So yeah, it's been quite a while since I've sat down to write an update of my life, but I felt motivated to reflect on the last 6 months as I'm trying to put off making up the 4 hours of lecture I missed this morning (Yes, on 2x speed, that is indeed only 2 hours). My life has been surprisingly boring, in that I have my routine and meet very few new people outside of clinical settings, and let's face it, it's those crazy people on the street that make for the best stories because we can laugh at them. Well, I point, then laugh. Gotta show them who's boss. My med school friends say I'm going to be a mean mom but I think my kids will just be realistic. They might beat up your kids though.
Anyway. Summer was a complete and utter blur. I worked (well, work to me means showing up at 11, taking a 2 hour lunch, and leaving by 3, about 2-3 days a week) at the Asian Health Coalition of Illinois (AHCI). The Public Health program paid me for the summer, so to AHCI, I was really a volunteer. Matt, who I worked for, was really chill and told me they could best use me as an interviewer for the Chinatown Health Survey. Which meant I spent most of my time learning the Chinese in the survey, and then going to Chinatown for two weeks and knocking on every door on a block and talking to them in Chinese. You have NO idea how often I wanted to just work Harvard into the conversation so that they'd want to do the survey more. It's hard to convince people to trade an hour of their lives for $20. Me, I'd do it, no questions asked, but that's because I'm down $20 right now and also have no problems airing my entire health history to the world.
As for summer nights, I had me some fun. A couple of girl friends and I got into the habit of clubbing on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Well, mostly Thursday and Friday, as I went home every weekend, but those Thursdays and Fridays sure were fun. C and Am both visited, and I forced them to go to some open bars with me (see cheapness, noted above; also keep in mind that when I make the big money, I will be very generous. To the Help.) I met some people (mostly because these girl friends are all in longterm relationships that have lasted years), and perfected a game of "Judge that person", in which we try to guess what a person does for a living and then go find out (it started out "Guess that BMI", but my friends were really good at it, and they're very thin people, plus a nutritionist during my participation in an EKG summer study told me that I have 37% body fat. Which means I am obese! She didn't counsel me, just told me "Sometimes people look small but are actually fat" and walked out of the room. And no, I'm not fishing for compliments of my lack of obesity, but I thought you all should know, she wanted me to lose 15 lbs- no, that I should lose 15 lbs- and I gained 2 after hearing this).
D also came for a couple of weekends, and we hung out at the beach quite a bit. Chicago beaches are fantastic, and I am a total fan of chilling by the beach or walking along the Lakefront in an attempt to slave-drive my visitors into trying to lose those 15 lbs with me. I think I made a half-assed attempt to get D and Kev to go Angelina- and Brad- sighting (she was shooting Wanted here, and we ended up having drinks on the balcony across the street from their hotel, 3 blocks from my apartment), though we did wander onto the Batman set and took some pictures with the Bank of Gotham. Oh, and An was here at the beginning of summer, and we went to the Taste of Chicago where I kept telling her how good of a deal my 75 cent pastry from Chinatown was compared to the food there. Sorry about that, An! But at the Taste, I fell in love. With Tamarind sauce, or what I take to be its close approximate: Barbeque sauce. The love has continued ever since (I'm not kidding, ask C, Am, or D; I demonstrated some shameful BBQ sauce-hoarding in front of each of them).
The unfortunate thing about Medical School is that summer ended on August 21st. I was too spoiled by summer lasting a month longer. So while it remained 80 and beautiful, I trudged back to school for 4 hour lectures (yeah, 4 hours) in a lecture hall that doesn't even fit everyone. Talk about a subtle hint to skip class. I did a forest/camp day with the incoming M1s, and our group bonded instantly and now they are the most popular in their year. K (who went to Yale) and I were the M2 leaders, and on the bus ride back, as the M1s planned a beer pong party, we studied our bacteria flashcards in between trading insults about each others' schools. This gives you a pretty good idea of how much time I spend studying this year. M2 year is devoted to what can go wrong with the human body (a lot of Pathology). Don't get me started on Pathologists though. Their lifestyles make me sad- one told me she had a lot of patients to see, and pointed to her desk, until I realized she wasn't pointing to charts but a stack of slides. In her 8x5 office at the end of a small hidden hallway on the 7th floor of the Hospital. Plus our unit director is a pathologist, and when we complained to him about how he didn't proofread the test so that 20 questions that should have been on there weren't, and 20 questions from things we hadn't learned yet were, he told us that we shouldn't be outraged. "Outrage is what you should feel if you see a baby delivered with AIDS that was preventable." Well, Doctor, can we be upset that 20% of our test was completely unfair because you didn't do your job? It's not like we studied for 200+ hours and devoted 2 weeks of our lives to it, only to be forever psychologically damaged by the feeling of utter stupidity during a test. Talk about your people skills. Not that I'm upset, of course.
This is the year when med students get their reputation for self-diagnosis. The first things we learned about were bacteria, parasites, and worms. Worms are funny creatures (this might be because with my sense of humor, I think the word "poop" is funny), parasites are SCARY SHIT (seriously, Google "Naegleria fowleri" and you'll understand what I mean), and bacteria are numerous and frustrating. Of course, I have partaken in this self-diagnosis. For instance, I accidentally cut my leg trying to shave because I was also falling asleep at the same time (it was like I was burning my candle at both ends and instead of lasting the night, it burned into my leg; yet another demonstration of my stupidity). Instead of actually getting to shave, I scraped a nasty gash into my leg, and it's actually been my main concern for the last 2 weeks. Plus I'm embarrassed to tell people how I acquired the gash. Ha, just kidding, like I have any sense of inhibition. I thought of all the nasty bacteria that must have been on my skin, especially since I was at the gym and had just been working out. And I had been at the hospital earlier that day, and everything lands on your skin there, including MRSA, which is antiobiotic resistant. I began imagining gangrene, and walking around the rest of my life with only one leg. So I desperately searched the gym locker room for some antiseptic (recall that this is my fantastic gym in which all amenities are provided). I decided to forgo the cotton balls to stop my bleeding (hey, if part of the cotton is left in my wound, it could act as a hapten and cross-react with my immune cells and I could go into shock), choosing instead a paper towel. But how to sterilize? Only cleaning solution, hair gel, and deodorant were in sight. Suddenly, a lightbulb turned on in my head and I realized that MOUTHWASH was the key to my problems. So there I was, taking mouthwash in a tiny plastic cupule, dabbing my paper towel in there, and then gingerly pressing on my leg (which was bleeding like no other, by the way). I know everyone walking by me in this pristine locker room thinks I'm that crazy lady in a towel who stares at you as you try to change, and picks at herself in front of the mirror when it really should be done in private, but I figured, my gym reputation was worth sacrificing in order to preserve my leg. Of course, I run into a medical school friend at this point, and feel the need to explain myself. Though she was on her phone in the locker room, which is not allowed, and so I feel much better about myself and the fact that I'm leaving a red streak of blood behind me. Anyway, I am now OK (picking at the scab as I write this, and hoping it won't scar, though the people I've showed my leg to today seemed more disgusted than of the opinion that it would scar). There were some intense days when my wound was oozing yellow pus. I saw the pus and thought, "Hurray! Exudate! White Blood Cells go get those bacteria!", but according to WebMD (still a top source for me, I don't care what they say) it was infected. But after a week the pus went away and I celebrated by studying for my test. And, today, going to the gym again for the first time in two weeks. I've missed my workout, my precious workout. In the last 2 weeks, I've managed to regain the 5 lbs I lost, so I guess I'm at 12 up again. Somewhere, a nutritionist is shrugging.
So yeah, this past unit (the one I was tested on Monday) was drugs (antibiotics, etc), cancer, and genetic or autoimmune disorders. Random subject mix, but the disorders were totally fascinating. On our test, a question asked what we should tell a pregnant woman who had an X-Ray done during her 2nd week of pregnancy (deformities usually occur in weeks 2-8, and before that, if anything bad happens, the fetus just aborts or gets over it). One of the choices was, "Tell her that she will probably have a miscarriage anyway, and not to worry about it." OK, so obviously that's wrong, on many levels, but a part of me wanted to say it just for kicks. I've been working with a preceptor every week, where I go in and help him see patients, so I've had plenty of chances to say awkward things. I have the really cool preceptor, who is our mentor's little brother, and he just lets me go in and take the clinical history all by myself! I know that this sounds incredibly lame, but for a person who loves to talk to new people and gets a power trip from actually doing stuff, it's pretty great. Of course, I inadvertently asked a 70-something woman about her sexual activity, when I was only supposed to get a history of her presenting illness (HPI for those of you in the know), but luckily the preceptor didn't come in the room with me because he was so busy. So we'll just pretend that awkwardness didn't happen. Can't wait to start those actual physical exams though. Remember the pelvic test of last year? It's for real this time around, and I'll bet Awkward Turtle will be plenty busy when the time comes.
Oh, while looking up some of the disorders of prenatal malformation in Wikipedia (my absolute #1 source, and what taught me that Anna Nicole Smith had Hasimoto's Disease of the Thyroid), I came across Treacher-Collins syndrome ( see an extreme case here) and realized that it's what KA from Garfield had! While it's unfortunate for him and all, I wanted to show the friend I was studying with a picture of him (since remembering people with certain disorders make the disorders easier to remember), so I log into Facebook, only to realize that KA and I are not friends on Facebook! So, of course, I add him and excitedly told my friend about how he was totally cool and definitely of normal/high intelligence (a lot of malformations come with mental retardation, unfortunately), and it's very cool that I am post-diagnosing him (For example, Treacher-Collins often have malformed ear tubes, and I remembered that KA had a hearing aid!). So yeah, medical fun. Please do not send this to him. And obviously, I did not show my friend his picture. But this is how I learn.
I'd like to say that I've had exciting nocturnal outings since school started, but the only time I went out (a Monday night for our post-test party), a British marine in town for one night tried to "walk" me home and I had to go to some ridiculous dodging and hiding behind posts (stalkers are a form of excitement Angeline Jolie can keep). One exciting, non-academic thing to happen (during the daytime) was my college friend Ad's wedding over Labor Day weekend (Sept 1st), where the college crew all had a fun reunion (well, except the Cali girls and Athi). I also got to see Queens for the first time, and I LOVED it (not so much Manhattan, but wow, who knew I'd love Queens so much?). I'm still waiting for pictures from that weekend as well as the wedding video, which undoubtedly shows some hogging of the dance floor by us. Although I have the excuse that I was drinking a lot (champagne, pineapple-Malibu, and 5 non-alcoholic drinks).
The next big trip is in only three weeks, when our very own S is getting married! I can't wait to be there and celebrate with her, and all the Groupies, though I have to admit, I'm totally tempted to send S this card from someecards.com (best site ever). Kind of like I wanted to send Ad one (calm down, I mean the "Travel Expenses" card, not the mean ones!). I already have my dressed picked out, and the gift, and my plane ticket, so I guess the only thing that stands in my way are 3 weeks of 4-hour lectures. Hmm. Speaking of which, I managed to put off for tonight, which I guess means I'll be getting up at 6am tomorrow to do this. Luckily my dad dropped off some food from home today (I realized how much I love my parents as I was cracking into the Pineapple Chicken, and how easy it is to win my love) so at least I'll have plenty of energy!
Well, congratulations on making it to the end. I could be sappy right now and tell you it's only the beginning. But I won't, because, as far as this update is concerned, this is the end. Though it is the beginning of an exciting year (well, middle). I know a lot of you are also starting school again this year, or new jobs, or both, so if we haven't talked for a while (or even if we have), I want an update! Please include information on professional, personal, and love lives. Links also appreciated.