residency

“i just don’t have time” has already become the major theme of my life. conveniently it is also the reason i haven’t written on here. even as i write this now, my eyelids as are slowly drooping and my head has taken on its rightward tilt that is achieves when fatigue sets in. there is no word for it all besides exhaustion. i am sure that most nights i fall asleep within 30 seconds of hittting the bed.

i ended up going to bed after that paragraph. 

residency hasn’t been awful, though.  some days certainly have been, but as a whole i can’t help but realize how blessed i am once again.  i love my apartment, the city, the program and the hospital. 

i work usually right up to that 80 hours a week, some weeks more, some weeks a little less.   my first month was labor and delivery, and it was really fun in the end.  and one can’t complain when you have attendings throwing pool parties for the residents.  that occured yesterday, and it was incredible.  his house sits on the top of the mountain and his backyard drops off with a view of many more mountains.  meanwhile i am falling asleep on a raft in the pool.  rough life.

call schedule can be rough, but i had most of this weekend off.  i took call on friday, and actually got today off, which is a rarity. and what have i done with this time?  cleaned.  because my apartment was getting disgusting.  i also painted z one of his sharks.  my favorite is still the bull shark, but this guy is pretty okay too. i just think it’s a very generic looking booger. anyway, off to eat real food for dinner and go running shortly thereafter.

while i sit and eat lunch

besides not being in the mood to update this bad boy, i really haven’t had the time. going from wedding to wedding, from state to state, i am no exhausted, just in time for residency.

i recently deposited dede in atl, which was heart-breaking enough, seeing her whimper and look out the window as i drove away. mom says she is adjusting well, which soothes my sorrow, but hurts my pride. that’s my baby.

other than that, i have been doing all that i requires to move into a new city for four years.  next up is change of registration, but not before i make a pit-stop at goodwill to provide a very generous donation of four boxes worth of clothing, shoes and purses.

it’s been so wonderful living in my own apt too.  wow… it’s so quiet and clean (except my desk…some things never change).

free time

it’s been so long since i had any amount of free time, that i am having a little bit of trouble filling it. when i am not riding my [sister’s] bike, i am out walking dede, painting, or reading, but there days where i manage to do all of those things.  it’s amazing, that i run out of things to do, and end up turning to one of my favorite past-times:  sleeping. 

my days include highlights, like biting my tongue, something the dogs did, or how much i cleaned/packed.  these are the stories i subject z to, because i really don’t have much else happening, and it’s incredible.

the whirlwind is over

starting thursday, things have been complete and utter madness.  it commenced with going wedding dress shopping with rachel, which went well.  if not for her fiancee knowing about this site, i would consider posting photos.  i have no doubt she will look beautiful based on the preliminary search.  i rushed home to meet z where we did absolutely nothing (thankfully).

friday, i was up bright and early to go to my graduation rehearsal, and on to my “class day” which consists of the school giving us awards and money (yay!).  i won service to the class and college, which was an unbelieveable honor bestowed upon me by my classmates and some secret committee within the school.  i couldn’t believe i won one at all, let alone both.  z thinks this is ridiculous, but i remember last year han not winning it, so why shouldn’t i think ali or andy might win it.  anyhow, i couldn’t thank my class enough.  it was incredibly kind of them.  z and steve joined me at the function and it was a great time sitting at the table with erin and chad.   it was especially fun because z really likes them both so much (as do i, obviously).  we took pictures, hugged, blah blah, fun fun.  but the day did not end there… in painfully high heels i ran over to stan hywet and tadoro’s to look at the places with rach.  she ended up not choosing either one of those, but one she saw that evening for her wedding.  it will be just beautiful. 

we then went home, refreshed and headed back out to the school for a “commencement eve” dinner.  when i originally said i wouldn’t go to this dinner, it was before i knew that only a few students were invited.  i hadn’t realized i was invited for three reasons:  the student council and the two awards i won.

the dinner was mostly fun except when my parents starting arguing at the table only 5 feet from the professors and doctors and other administrative people who have watched me for four years.  sigh. it was nevertheless, an incredible dinner spent with my sister and dave, brother, aunt, grandma, parents and z. plus it was a free dinner.

the next day was graduation, with lots of people except me (and rachel) crying.  so here i am, an official md, which is just a little bit strange.  if someone gets sick suddenly out in the open, i can say, “i’m a doctor”, which did happen only 5 hours later to my friend sophie.  she didn’t have much idea of what she was doing, or as she put it “i asked him what questions i could remember from the mini mental status exam” and then she told him to go to er.  duh.  but still hilarious, and crazy that we can say that.

the graduation party was great to have all my family and friends around, and even better when we were all able to sing happy birthday to dave.  that cake was delicious, but prevented me from eating my delicious strawberry cake.  oh well. still cake.

otherwise, i have written all my thank yous, addressed the envelopes and stamped them.  tomorrow i will mail them, and only then will i deposit the gifts i was given.  i am a huge proponent of writing thank yous BEFORE you use a gift.  someday, when i manage to get married, i have promised myself ot do the same thing.  i don’t want them looming and i don’t want people to think i forgot.  and i dunno, i just think it seems tacky.  it doesn’t take that long to write a little card out thanking someone for sharing in your day.

and now for my very busy days painting, running, and reading, to which i must attend to now.

financial woes

what would life be like if your parents were doctors, and you didn’t have to pay for school up through graduate school? and what if you lived in a country where education was actually a priority? 

well, i can tell you, you wouldn’t be in debt with interest totaling almost a cool quarter million (this includes college).  you wouldn’t have standard government loans with interest rates of 6.8%. i find it fascinating that when i was an m1, the interest rate on my loans was 3.61%, and that is where they sit now, but after my m1 year, the rates sky-rocketted. 

it’s laughable to hear obama talk about having credit card companies lower their apr’s, but i don’t hear anything about the horrific rates our own government has.  it’s especially fascinating in a culture where people think it’s absurd that doctors make money.  well crap, at this rate, i will be lucky to ever be out of debt.  and even more fascinating when we are short on primary care doctors, and doctors period!  yet we have no incentive for students to go into medicine.  primary care docs have the lowest paycheck.

it’s amazing because i also was never the student taking out the full amount of loans.  i was always trying to find ways to cut corners and save money. oh well.  hopefully by the time i am out of residency, we won’t have a system of socialized medicine so i don’t get screwed twice. sigh. time to grow up, i guess.

proactive police-ing

that’s the reason the cops stopped by today, in their neverending quest to give me an anxiety attack.

i got ’em back this time though. i walked out with a big ol’ splotch of neosporin on my foreheard (my quick cure for unruly zits), my glasses on, and my hair up in a raggedty mess.

i think they were uncomfortable about my appearance, but it’s possible that they just hadn’t expected me to be around (as in they were ready to be tough and mean to chewkie). i like to think it was the former. i can look pretty scary when i’m feeling like it.

time for a run, and then a splendid evening of toenail painting, eyebrow plucking and florida packing!

hopefully back to it for realz this time

3 miles today…and a brutal 3 it was, and always is at the start of my running season, which extends from may until about november/december.

by the end, i will be up to a steady 4/5 miles 4 days a week, depending on the injury i get this year.

scrabble is ruining my life.

you know what happens when you play scrabble a lot and you  play with your boyfriend who is also very competitive?

i will tell you.  i will be talking to people in conversation or writing in this blog, counting the letters in words and thinking about their individual value.  right there, so many good ones – value, blog, think, divide…

you get 50 points if you use all your letters.

wedding bells and airplane tickets

this monday, my aunt asked me to send her my itinerary for when z and i come to visit.  shortly after sending it, she calls me and starts the conversation with something along the lines of “do you have something to tell me?”  i’m initially bewildered and she skips the crypticism by telling me the plane ticket says “p duncan”  oops.  i immediately reassure her that an elopement is not in my stars, that is something more likely to be performed by my more romantic sister if it were not for her very practical fiancee.  she will vehemently deny this, but if she were born in the english 1800’s she would be in heaven.

actually, now that i think about it, if rachel were to be any jane austen character it would probably be the crazy one from sense and sensibility – you know who i am talking about…marianne.  yes, rachel is all passion and romance.  don’t let her fool you.  i like to think of rachel like jane too, because she is so beautiful, but i don’t think she has anything even close to resembling that nice, quiet demeanor.  haha, oh no.  rachel would probably vote for elizabeth – and who wouldn’t.  i think any girl with half a brain sees some of herself in elizabeth.  it is probably why we all love that book so much.

anyhow, the plane ticket had to be changed, and thank goodness ac caught it, or that would be quite a shock when z and i went in on that early thursday morning.  i called united, and they refuse to change it.  i sobbingly tell them that everything else is the same and that it isn’t changing who is flying.  so that ended horribly.  i call z at work, and he is clearly not going to be able to fix this debacle in any way from work.  so what does any 24 year old girl do?  she calls her mom.

and what does her mom do?  well if she’s the nance – she calls united and guilts them into changing the name on the ticket.  so in her usual fashion, she works wonders for me.  thanks as always mom. 🙂

as to what jane austen character i would be, i’m not sure.  i suppose maybe a mixture of elizabeth (as discussed above) and emma – a little bit proud, and a little bit of a snob, a little bit bored with other people, and a little bit nosy, fiercely loyal to my older sister, etc.

i should be productive

but i will have years to be productive.  i only want to sit outside and read right now.  i would still be out there, but this fair skin of mine can only take so much at a time.

i could be taking care of financial aid, writing the neverending speeches i have to give or converting an old ob/gyn notebook into a word format for residency.  i could do all of these things, but i will have time for them.  instead, i choose to sit outside on a one of those classy fabric lawn chairs in the front yard of z’s house and read the picture of dorian gray.

i have a word document on my computer at home of every literary classic, and it is my life goal to read them all.  it is another life goal to own my favorites.  since startng my campaign of laziness, i have read 1984 and slaughterhouse five.  1984 was pretty good, but i suppose after reading ayn rand’s novels, it is tough to love it. slaughterhouse five was a very enjoyable book.  it was a quick and interesting read that was witty in it’s humor, but sad at the heart of it i think.  anyway, after the picture of dorian gray, i will read where the red fern grows and to kill a mockingbird.  those two i am saving for last and am looking forward to the most.  i don’t know how i managed to skip them in my reading craze during my younger years, but i have time for them now.

after those?  who knows, but my word document has thousands and thousands, and i plan to visit my local borders tomorrow.  (i have a 40% off coupon – worth joining their rewards programs for that if nothing else).