It me, Vi.

So here I am revisiting some passions of mine — improv cooking, modifying tried and true recipes, and recording some thoughts and ideas before they disappear to the back of my brain as I study for my next exam…

I am happily settled in the enchanting city of New Orleans, LA. I first visited in 2016 (the first of many visits); NOLA was an intermediate destination between my original home (D.C.) and my next home (Honolulu). I reunited with a group of my closest college friends and was immediately spellbound by the city’s fascinating culture, history, food, and people. From there, I worked a series of odd jobs and finally landed my first big girl job in 2017 (big girl job = job with benefits = 401K + health insurance + salary) at a notable D.C. academic institution (rhymes with shmeorgetown) where I learned to do some big girl things like how to manage schedules besides my own, organize national conferences, understand budgets with lots of money, complain about curriculum and administrative stuff in a room of deans and academic program directors, learn what the heck marketing even is, review student papers and projects, create lesson plans, create websites, create logos and brands, manage people and students, and more! It was a time when I was initially a fish out of the water — but this whole experience eventually evolved into a charming time in my life where I learned some big girl skillzzzzzzz.

Fast forward to today and I can now say that I am no longer a passing tourist of NOLA but a full-time resident — I am currently a third-year medical student at Tulane School of Medicine.

So why Miss Vietnom, again?

Medical school is challenging and this site may be the outlet I need to release some stress. Big girl or not, this med school thing is hard af. Recipe ideas often rattle in my brain before they’re displaced by med-school anxiety (the urgency to study this or that, the threat of failure or not knowing anything, the diminishing thoughts of not doing enough for xyz...)

And so here we are, stretching out my legs, INHALING air (it’s so trendy to breathe nowadays), and resurrecting that dormant part of my brain — the part that reads and writes — a diversion for the nervous brain :)

And here we are!

I hope to share what I learn with you, the reader, and whoever you may be (if anyone is reading this at all).

Living with wild abandon,

Vi