Vidya’s Newsletter

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Oh no, I just realized I have to title these

titles are the worst

Vidya B. Viswanathan
Feb 8, 2022
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Welcome to my newsletter!

I’ve slowly realized that I just haven’t been reading and writing as much as I really want to, and I’m trying to do more of both. It’s kind of fun to have a new informal medium to do that, that doesn’t then leave me scrolling on other content for hours, so I figured I’d try this out. Starting this does make me feel nostalgic for that new platform feeling, like when xanga came out (shockingly, I never had one!), AIM (lol), facebook (we had no idea), medium (feels kind of ephemeral now), making my first wordpress blog (of many!), or finally downloading tiktok to watch hot takes about Encanto. But this might fizzle. Who knows! Journey with me.

✍🏾Writing roundup:

  • My latest piece

  • The piece that has been in editing purgatory: an article I wrote in a fury on my flight back from Mexico in 2018, where I had gone for a week with N & friends after taking the infamously tough Step 1 board exam. (The fact that I was hand-writing this on the flight back, instead of just watching tv and wiping Biscoff crumbs off my fingers, proved how much I needed to get my thoughts down on paper even after a week of vacation that should have made me forget my frustration with the exam). But then I just sat on the piece, coming back to it once in a while to take a stab at editing, but never quite feeling it was perfect. Now Step 1 is Pass/Fail, so some of my rant essay is irrelevant, but a lot of it is still relevant. Any ideas for pushing forward an inert piece?

  • What I’m trying to work on: a novel about the idiosyncrasies of modern American medicine and the experiences of female physicians of color as they navigate it.

📚Book corner

  • Recently enjoyed: Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson

  • Thinking about rereading: What I Talk About When I Talk about Running, by Haruki Murakami

  • On my list: The School for Good Mothers, by Jessamine Chan

💊Medicine stuff:

  • Best tweet

  • A frustrating but important longform about the experience of one minority trainee in residency

  • Anecdotally: It amuses me how sometimes I pick up parenting tips from my patients’ parents in clinic, and not the other way around

👦🏾S&L👧🏾 (my twin toddlers) moments of zen:

  • New favorite song is “Mia Mia” (that’s Mamma Mia)

  • S has started taking the food out of my mouth as I’m about to chew on it. Persistence!

  • L imitated me doing crunches the other day and it was just perfect. All head movement, minimal core movement. She’s too perceptive!

Apparently, all my thoughts come in threes.

Leaving you with just one ask though: Send me your podcast recommendations- what’s a show you love that features entertaining, light-hearted host banter? I’m looking for more soundtracks to playroom/kitchen cleanup.

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