(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

OMG! I'm back!

2012-01-30T20:55:00.002-05:00

We'll see how long this lasts.

I haven't blogged in so very long. It's not that I don't have interesting things happening in my life. It's that most of the things I want to blog about, I don't feel comfortable blogging about. It's important to me to honor my patients' and coworkers' privacy, and I don't feel that de-identifying people when blogging about them is enough to protect them.

And so I don't blog about them.

What I need to do, though, is spend more time contemplating all the other things in my life. Mr.E (mystery!) and I have been married for OMG going on TWO YEARS and he makes me laugh like, all the time, and why don't I blog about that?? Or the movies we watched on our day off? Or the red lentil soup recipe I love so much?? Or the fact that I might have decided to become a pediatric intensivist? Did you know I want to be a pediatric intensivist??

And so, I'm back, and I'm pretty sure I have no audience left, but here we go: Hello, again.

Since my last post I put on like, 5 pounds, all in my midsection. Mystery and I are on yet another fitness kick. We're challenging each other, Biggest Loser style. To hold ourselves accountable, I'm going to record our progress here each week.

Monday, 1/30/12

Jess: 100% of starting weight
Eric: 100% of starting weight

Whoever wins each week gets some kind of prize. I really want it to be a pint of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch Ben & Jerry's ice cream, but that kind of defeats the purpose, so for now it shall be bragging rights. If you want to join our challenge, please do!!!

Me, the Bear

2011-04-07T22:12:00.004-04:00

Welcome back, me!!

I decided to start blogging again. I've been reading great doctor blogs and realized ... maybe I can do it, too! Maybe I can be introspective and witty and contemplative and interesting, all without sounding like a whiny little f*ck or compromising patient privacy!

So here we go!
-----------------

I have 2 months of intern year left, followed by over 3 weeks of VACATION (more on this later). This means I'm being propelled as fast as momentum can carry me, steeply inclined down, down, whoa-slow-down down! to the base of the other side of the VERY LARGE mountain called INTERN YEAR. Boy, what a slope! It feels great to be here, but I'm like the bear. You know, the bear. The one who climbed over the mountain, (who climbed over the mountain, the bear climbed over the mounta-in?)... to find another one in her way. Oi. Second year (and third, and whatever may come after), here we go.

It's a good thing I like hiking?

Especially since the end of my year is filled with the 2 hardest rotations. But one thing I've learned this year - or maybe I knew it already, maybe it was just reinforced - is that I actually don't like "easy" "boring" things. Which probably explains why, after all these months, I consider myself one of the happy ones. Of all the people I went to school with, of all the people I work with, I can honestly say it:

I can't imagine being happier doing anything else.

And isn't that what everyone's looking for?

A Book List

2010-11-18T21:51:00.002-05:00

Angie tagged me in this book list jobby on Facebook. I think it's pretty interesting that so many of the books are recent bestseller-type novels that aren't necessarily on their way to being classics, and also how many are simple childrens books. A lot of these are also on many high school summer reading/required reading lists, so it's surprising to me that most people will only have read 6... I've read 46, many more than once. It reminds me of the year I decided to read 52 books (I'm not sure how many I ended up reading, but it was definitely more than 30). It also makes me realize how much I miss reading, and how I should really try to pick up 4 more this year to get to 1/2 the list.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety. Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (although I did listen to the entire audiobook)

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (really?)

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (in my opinion the single most overrated book ever. boooooringgg)

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (loove that Ishiguro is on this list)

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Angie I know I should be ashamed)

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (I may have finished this but I can't remember what happens)

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Dienophile

2010-11-14T11:23:00.005-05:00

Eric & I have decided to shed our late summer/autumn weight and make a concerted effort at going to the gym on a regular basis. Yes, this happens every year. Yesterday we did our old leg workout and went out at night with legs o' Jell-O. Needless to say, this morning I awoke with maximal soreness and a complete inability to walk normally.

me, limping out the bedroom and finding Eric on the couch: I'm DYING.
Eric: I'm a dienophile. That means I love you.

:) He makes me laugh with his punniness, and I think he's the greatest person to pick giant noses with.

The end.

Happy Sunday!

I'm Alive!

2010-11-06T22:25:00.004-04:00

...just really, really sleepy!!!

Last month we, the intern class, got to go on a 3-day Intern Retreat near Gettysburg, PA. The senior residents covered all of our shifts as we listened to lectures on learning/teaching/being a resident. We also got to go on a ropes course and then climb a rock wall. It was blissful - since we cover each others' shifts on days off, it's hard to spend time with multiple co-interns on any given day. And we literally never get to hang out as a class.

It's weird how you can work 70-80 hours a week for 4 months straight and feel like that's okay... and then get a teeny tiny little glimpse of normal life and suddenly become extraordinarily tired. For the following 2 weeks I took the last part of my Boards (the 2-day Step 3) and then worked 8 ER shifts without a weekend, and had some serious dread going into each and every shift.

But in 2 months I get my first vacation block of the year (I'm the last intern to get a vacation block!) - it's off on a Kim Family Cruise to the Caribbean! And going into 2 months of more normal hours (6a-6p as opposed to 5p-6a) I'm feeling a tiny surge of re-energy (re-energization?). Bring it on!

Happy end of Daylight Savings!!

Babies!

2010-09-26T18:46:00.002-04:00

I spend all day with babies. They're really cute at the newborn stage; they're so new they look like little old men, full of wrinkles, their faces in an innocent scowl. They spontaneously burst into wailing shrieks of displeasure, but are easily consoled and fall back to sleep again. Their poop doesn't smell. They make little gasping sounds while they drink their milk, and blow bubbles from their tiny lips before they spit up. Sometimes they move their fists (with their tightly-clenched teeny tiny fingers) into their mouths, and they'll contentedly suck on their little fists until they unknowingly pull their hand out of their mouth - and then they're shrieking in displeasure again.

When you pick up a crying baby and hold it close to you, bounce it around a bit, and sing it a song -- and it stops crying, it's like magic. Then it opens its eyes and looks at you, and blows some bubbles or reaches its tiny little hand toward you, and suddenly you're in love.

And then it screams again, and you're pleased as punch that this baby is not yours, it's someone else's, and you can go home to the quiet of a childless home (for now).

So many of my friends are starting to have kids, and while there's a part of me (the part whose ovaries twinge a bit every time I examine a new baby) who can't wait to be a babymama, it's just a tiny sliver in the piechart of my attitude towards impending motherhood.

The rest of this pie says: no thanks for now!

(In case you were wondering)

Why It's Been Awhile

2010-09-19T12:08:00.003-04:00

It's been over 2 months since I last posted, and I know exactly why.

There are a lot of reasons, actually. The first reason is the obvious one: I've been busy, working 14 hour weekdays followed by a 30 hour weekend shift, then less than 24 hours off til it all starts again. I get a weekend off (2 whole days!) every 4 weeks, and when I do I usually have so much on my to-do list I don't have time to sit and collect my blogger's thoughts.

Then there's the fear of writing about things that are so far removed from everyone else's experience that I'm writing more for myself than for an audience. If I were to try to explain (complain about) the logistical horror of scheduling an MRI for a patient, it really wouldn't mean anything to anyone but myself, really. I'd probably just get myself all riled up about it again unnecessarily and earn myself a reputation of being a big ol' whiner (hmm that may already be true).

Then there's the fact that I don't want to have a blog full of sad stories. The experiences I have the biggest desire to write about are the sad ones - they're the ones that leave the most lasting impression on me. The truth of the matter is that the majority of the people I take care of are happy stories, or at least neutral stories. Kids get sick, we treat them, they get better, they go home with their supportive or at least moderately competent families. They've just had a serious life experience - illness requiring hospitalization - but to me they're a dime a dozen.

But then there's the baby girl whose dad was trying to play X-Box and got frustrated that she was prying the controller from his hands, and so he shook her so hard she bled not only into her brain but into her retinas, too, and had non-stop seizures for 5 days and will never be the same again.

There's the boy who has a mysterious illness that can be curtailed with a strict no-fat diet, whose parents, due to extremely frustrating cultural differences and lack of education cannot comprehend the nature of his disease, keep feeding him bacon and eggs and asking angrily why we can't fix him with surgery or medication.

And then there's the baby girl who fell between the bed and wall and asphyxiated as her parents lovingly painted her new bedroom next door, who was rushed in without detectable cardiac electrical activity, whose chest I compressed, whose eyelids I later pressed closed for the last time, and whose sobbing parents I listened to I sat on a gurney in the hallway, stunned at my own lack of tears.

And see? That was super depressing. That's what I'm afraid of doing. Because the truth is, I love my job, and I feel lucky to be paid for what I essentially paid to do as a medical student. I laugh on a regular basis, and I have amazing colleagues and friends to share these experiences with. I am happy. I'm afraid of sounding sad, because I'm actually very happy. I'm afraid of telling sad stories and making all of you sad, because then I'm causing sadness while I'm not too sad, myself.

And then I'm afraid of saying so, because what cold hearted demon is happy when her arm is sore from doing chest compressions for 20 minutes on a girl who is now dead?

So you see,

it's been awhile, and that's why.

Six Weeks Later

2010-07-29T18:12:00.002-04:00

Six weeks later, and I still like my job.

These past 2 weeks I've been working in the Childrens Health Clinic (CHC), which means seeing scheduled appointments and walk-ins from 8 to 5 each day. I have thoroughly enjoyed the 7+ hours of sleep and time to go to the gym (not that I went to the gym, but surely the option was there!).

But I don't really like the Health Clinic. It serves the children in DC who don't have the resources, parental motivation, insurance, etc. to see a private practice pediatrician; it turns no child away. So our kids come in for well-child visits (annual check-ups) on a walk-in basis. Now think about this: when have you ever gone for an annual check-up without making an appointment?

Normally, walk-ins have a 15-minute appointment slot. They're supposed to be for quick acute problems of known established patients - fever, sore throat, ear infection, rash - that kind of thing. Well-child visits are supposed to be, at minimum, 30-minute appointments - at a well-child visit, you have to go through growth and development, nutrition, school performance, behavior, exercise/activity, etc on top of the usual health stuff. And give shots, and do hearing and vision screens. Etc. That's 30 minutes, when the visit is straightforward.

Alas, the patient population at the CHC is not straightforward. Many of them come from complex families with difficult social situations; many are in and out of homeless shelters, a frighteningly large number have been abused, many have behavioral problems, most are not eating or exercising the way they should. Everyone has asthma. Nobody has their shots up to date.

It is, in short, a clusterfart. The visits take way too long because of the complexity of each child's situation. Often, multiple siblings are brought in for one visit in one walk-in time slot. So the patients pile up in the waiting room as your 30-min appointment turns into 2 hours of sheer frustration, their parents growing angrier by the second. And as much as you want to tell them they should make appointments if they don't want to wait for a next available doctor, you can't. You have to empathize with the lot they've been handed in life and apologize for the wait, and look somber and apologetic as you thank them for their patience.

And pray that their kids somehow break through the cycle, and that their kids' kids will someday be seen every year by the same doctor, by appointment, in some private peds office somewhere better than here.

In other news - we're in a bocce league, and we're pretty awful but who cares!?
And babies are cute,
and pediatricians really are the nicest of them all,
and tomorrow is my last day of CHC,
and then I have 2 weeks of nights,
and all is good.

XO!

Education

2010-07-05T20:46:00.002-04:00

There are things they never teach you in medical school.

They never teach you how not to look and sound like an idiot in the middle of the night when, foggy with sleepiness, your mouth is saying something other than what your brain is saying, and your glasses are slipping off your face but you can't use your hands to push them back up because your hands are sterile.

And they certainly never teach you how to write a death summary -

something that you don't really realize you need to know how to do until... well, suddenly, you do.

These things, you learn by doing. And, after everything is quiet and you're alone in your call room with the door closed, by reliving, and reflecting.

Bloggin' from a call room

2010-06-25T17:08:00.001-04:00

Today, a nurse asked me to come talk to a mom about a baby's rash because the mom wanted to talk to "a real doctor". My first instinct was to say: I'm not a real doctor! But instead, I examined the baby and reassured the mom. I introduced myself as "Dr. [Newlastname] and didn't let slip the fact that the nurse knows way more than I do about baby rashes.

Toto, we're not in medical school anymore!!

I'm on my second night on call, and it's blissfully slow right now (KNOCK ON WOOD). In medicine, there are people who are known to be "white clouds" - when they are on service, the patients are all well, there is minimal difficult work to be done, and there are few new admissions. For white clouds, call nights are full of sleep and fun.

And then there are "black clouds" or "dark clouds" - people who inevitably have a million admissions while being paged non-stop with emergencies and annoying tasks. Dark clouds don't sleep on clouds. I, my friends, am a dark cloud. I am the girl whose patient HAD A SEIZURE at the very moment she walked into his room on her first ever call night in medical school. I am the girl who admitted the record number of patients to my team overnight. When my co-intern and I went to a twin delivery, my twin was the one who decided not to breathe and got admitted to the NICU, while my co-interns was pink and screaming and went straight to the newborn nursery. Le sigh.

And so I shouldn't have been surprised, on Monday, when my first call night was full of very little sleep and very many babies. I'm crossing my fingers that tonight is a rare white-fluffy-cloud-filled day!

Babies are cute, but I hate when they're born blue and not breathing, and I'm the person who has to fix it! Repeatedly, all night! And fill out all the paperwork involved in such situations!

And so, a list of things I've decided over the past week as a "real doctor":

- I never, ever, ever want to have twins (knock on wood)

- I think the worst part of having a baby will be the inability to drink water during labor - it could be 24 hours!!

- Almond butter & jelly sandwiches only sustain me for 4 hours, max

- there are more, but I should probably stop emailing a blog post!

Happy scorching weekend!!

Who? Me?

2010-06-15T23:35:00.005-04:00

I'm having an identity crisis! My ID badge says "Jessica [New last name], MD", and the combination of "Dr." and the new last name are just not familiar to me. I'm like. Oh!! Me!! You're talking to me!! I wonder when I get used to all of it. And which will I get used to first, the Dr. part or the new last name part??

I am currently exhausted from being oriented to computers, rules, schedules, policies, security, saftey, etc. etc. for 12 hours a day. Ah, orientation. I shall blog more when I'm less tired (hee, yeah right) and have more time (haw). Or... when the major sporting events are over and I'm post-call or something. It turns out my month in the NICU was not in vain; I start in the NICU! And I'm overnight every 4 nights, which sucks but I'm kind of looking forward to it. But it means 80+ hour weeks, so we shall see how this goes.

Happy summer, yinz! Lakers in 7!! Gooo Gasol!

Aloha from Paradise!

2010-06-03T20:51:00.002-04:00

The subtitle to this blog post is:

HOLY MOLY!!!

We're married! We're in Kauai! We've been newlyweds for 4 days and in Hawai'i for 2.5 days!

Moreover, we're moved into our apartment in DC, Eric's done with finals and now an MS-2, Scope & Scalpel (the school play) is done x2, and I graduated and am an MD (this still hasn't set in yet)! (This all deserves like, a hundred exclamation points but I will spare you, you're welcome). The seemingly insurmountable mountain created by all the little (and big) tasks/events are behind us, and I really CANNOT believe it. There were times when I couldn't wait to be on the other side of it all, and there are definitely lots of aspects of the last few weeks that I am SO GLAD are behind us.

But the wedding itself flew by in flash, and Eric & I find ourselves poring over pictures people have posted to remind ourselves of all the moments that slipped us by. It was like the best dream I ever had. I've never felt surrounded by so much happiness, support, and love. And there's nothing better than hearing what a great time our guests had! I know I've said a million times that people should just elope, but I'm definitely in the have-a-wedding! camp now. Get married! Have a wedding! Please! You may not have the most generous and amazing family to fund the most amazing wedding ever, like we did, but really it's not about the venue or the flowers or the ridiculously nice rehearsal dinner(s) - it's about looking up and seeing all the best friends you ever had wipe tears away as you exchange your vows, and watching your parents dance with your friends as you ruin your wedding dress with all the fun you're having.

Thanks to everyone who came out. You added that much more to our happiness that day.

Ahhh happy!!!!!!!

No Cavities

2010-05-10T15:32:00.003-04:00

... and a goodie bag filled with a new toothbrush, travel-sized toothpaste, floss and mouthwash.

Last visit to the Pittsburgh dentist!

Now gotta get back to packing AHHHHHHHHH I've never said it but never has a moment been more deserving of an FML!

We Did It!

2010-05-03T09:12:00.002-04:00

Half marathon - check!

Eric & I ran the Pittsburgh half marathon yesterday. We like to think that together, we ran a full marathon. Hee. We woke up at 5am and made our sleepy way downtown, where we ate breakfast in the car and putzed away the time until about 7:05, when we got in line to use the port-a-potties and nearly missed the start at 7:30. But no matter, we were way at the back of the start, so we didn't cross the start line until 7:45 anyway.

We ran and ran and ran. It was rainy, which I loved. We crossed over 5 bridges and all 3 rivers during a pleasant 13.1 mile run. I felt great - never really got tired or out of breath, and my upper body didn't get achy the way it sometimes does during long runs. At 13 miles I felt like I could easily run 5 more (but no full marathons for me, no thanks).

Our time? 129:07

Philly half marathon in November, anyone? I'd like to do it in less than 2 hours. Let's train!

Just Gotta Say It

2010-04-29T14:12:00.002-04:00

Dates totally look like cockroaches to me, and are therefore NOT TO BE EATEN.

Also, if one is in a hot stuffy crowded room sitting amongst 40 of his/her classmates, you would think he/she would excuse him/herself to go and pass gas rather than REPETITIVELY FART DEATHLY FARTS THROUGHOUT REHEARSAL.

This ends today's rant.

Guess what? I'm 27 and I'm getting married in a month! Aaaaaaahhhhhh!!!

Making Music

2010-04-20T13:29:00.002-04:00

...out of raindrops!

Back in Pittsburgh after a short impromptu trip to DC. It's fun coming back to RSVP cards!

Fed up!

2010-04-16T15:50:00.002-04:00

OMG can I just say right now:

I am SO sick of doing something in the apartment (e.g. cooking) and reaching for a requisite item (e.g. honey) and finding that the roommate has used all of it such that it is either a) not there, or b) completely empty (not thrown away, not replaced).

Other examples: salt, pepper, cumin, chili pepper, butter, frozen rice balls, ziploc bags, aluminum foil, the beer I specifically put in the fridge with happy anticipation of imbibing on a later date, fresh fruit from the grocery store, and toilet paper.

*end rant*

In other news, it's raining harder than I've ever seen it rain before.

Eeeeek!!!

2010-04-16T11:50:00.003-04:00

There are only 44 days left 'til the wedding!
That's like, not very many!

The RSVP postcards have been steadily coming in... I've gotten 2-4 every day. I LOVE getting these in the mail. Seriously! Every day, I wait for that tell-tale sound of the mail carrier dropping the mail through the door slot (sliiide...BANG!), and after I know he's gone (can't scare him can I now), I run downstairs and gather the mail. I go through the other mail before I let myself see who's responded. I haven't been this mail-responsive since April 2001, when college admissions started coming back!

I LOVE reading what people have written in the comment box. Some people have written a perfunctory note; I imagine these are the people who always follow instructions and therefore feel obligated to write something, anything, and so write "see you soon", or something to that effect. Then there are the people who draw pictures (e.g. An and Sarah), and people who write nice loving notes about marriage and love.

There are people who write funny things:

Eric, great job on the invitations, beautiful color scheme
- bridesmaid's boyfriend. I seriously laughed out loud when I read his note.

There are the international folk who have clearly painstakingly looked up words in the dictionary and write the most awesome things:

I want your fine wedding and happyness -uncle in Japan

And then there are the people who leave it blank (what's up with that, yo?).

I also find strange enjoyment in seeing what people are going to eat. For some people it's like, oh of course, they're totally health conscious so would choose fish/vegetarian. For others it's like, what? that meat-lover is eating eggplant crepe? (ahem, Sarah!). There are couples in which both individuals decided to eat the same thing. Wouldn't you rather choose 2 things and share? Spice up your life with a little variety?

But anyhow, I digress. These are the little golden moments of my days. :)

The tally so far, with 44 days left til the wedding, and 13 left until the "kindly reply by" date:

NO: 14 parties (28 people)
YES: 45 parties (76 people)
No response: 40 parties (83 people)

I'm so excited to see everyone!

YES!

2010-04-15T16:31:00.001-04:00

It IS iced coffee weather!
Hooray for 80 degrees in the burgh!

Things I Dig on the Blogosphere

2010-04-11T20:41:00.002-04:00

Yes, I b*tch and moan a lot about how much sh*t I have to do in the next 2 months. Yes, with all of that sh*t to do and senior musical rehearsals, I am pretty busy (and jaded, and I've turned into quite a potty mouth, yes, so whatofit whoyoulookin'at?).

But that doesn't keep me from exploring the blogosphere! And falling in love with the wit and funny everywhere!

For example: someone had the GENIUS idea of combining my TWO FAVORITE foods, sushi and rice krispie treats!
(But gotta admit, I'm notthe biggest fan of Peeps. Speaking of Peeps, having you ever tried roasting one over a campfire? I swear they're coated in polyurethane)

And HEE! with the hilarity that this was named the saddest book ever written (courtesy SF Weekly):

And HA! Gotta love when people use math to prove that religion can be hypocritical as all hell (source):

And a great source of fun (the one about the loud animals in the morning is just way too true).

I hope I've successfully distracted you with this post. Happy exploring the blogosphere!

Adventures in Pepper-slicing

2010-04-09T15:08:00.004-04:00

A couple months ago, I sliced my thumb open on my Henckel knife. It's nearly 4 years old and had never been sharpened. The dulled edge slid off of the slippery edge of a rascally red bell pepper, into the soft pad of my first little piggy.

It bled and bled, and took over a week to heal.

Since then, instead of sharpening my knife like a normal person, I just cut everything with extreme caution. Peppers especially. And I eat a lot of peppers; my favorite food right now is a sandwich of hummus, peppers and mixed greens (yummmm). I think my prep time for most foods increased by 10% or so, due to the cautious chopping and slicing.

Today, I finally busted out my knife sharpener (a birthday gift from last year). Forty slices through the sharpener and about 3 minutes later, my knife was good as nearly-new! I made paper-thin slices of my peppers, and I know it can't be true, but I swear they tasted better having been cut by my newly-sharpened knife!

Which leads me to ask:

Why do I put off doing those small easy tasks that take minimal time and effort and dramatically improve my quality of life?

Do you do it too?

Also, totally unrelated: I like these pieces. The first piece hits the nail on the head; I could have written that exact piece, if I could put the proper words together in an eloquent way. Not that it is an indication of how I feel in my current relationship, but it rings true for life in general.

I love this!

2010-04-08T18:34:00.000-04:00

Is it iced coffee weather?

Apparently no, for me. How bout for you?

Transformation

2010-04-07T16:28:00.002-04:00

I was gone for 10 days. The day I left, it was 43 degrees and rainy. At the rest stop on the way to DC, my friends and I ran from the car to the shelter to avoid the damp wind. My fleece jacket went everywhere with me; socks were requisite. The trees were hunched and bare, and the grass was deadish brown. It was a long, cold winter with entirely too much snow.

So imagine my delight to find, when I finally ventured outside this afternoon, spring had painted COLOR everywhere in Pittsburgh! I had forgotten that the trees lining the side of the house bloomed tiny sprays of yellow flowers, and that the lawn was full of lush green grass. There are tiny daffodils along the front porch with their orange mouths wide open, singing to the sun. There are purple hyacinths lining the sidewalk, and pink and white magnolias in the trees above.

Soon there will be lilacs and peonies, and dahlias. Oh, dahlias! I love dahlias.

It's really actually honestly truly SPRING, and I love it! May happy colorful flowers be all around you, too.

Firsts!

2010-04-01T10:52:00.002-04:00

It's APRIL FIRST!

Yesterday, we got our FIRST wedding gift!

Yesterday, I wore a SKIRT for the FIRST time in 2010!

We also went apartment hunting for our FIRST home!

...now I have to go the stationery store, so I can write our FIRST thank you cards. ;)

Happy glorious weather to everyone, everywhere. Whoever doesn't like spring is a bah, humbug.

Come A Long Way

2010-03-31T15:55:00.004-04:00

I've never really loved treadmill running, and I've always had to push myself to go 3o minutes at a 6.0-6.5mph pace. When the weather gets nice each year, I take the running outside. I generally don't have a good sense of my speed and endurance on a treadmill vs. outdoors, although I'm sure they're about equivalent.

I was running on the treadmill today and found that I felt most comfortable at a 6.7mph pace (just under 9min/mile) - not too fast, not too slow. I upped it to 7.0 for 10 minutes then slowed back down again, for a total of 50 minutes of running, and 5.3 miles. This was faster, for longer, than I've ever felt comfortable on a treadmill. And I realized: all this running has really been doing something for me. I've come a long way, and a half marathon seems like just another long weekend run.

In the next couple of days, Eric and I will look at about 10 apartments - the hunt has officially begun! In 2005, I moved into my very first real adult apartment in Center City, Philadelphia. My roommate and I went into it knowing it was just for the year; temporary housing for a temporary year. The apartment was a "bigbox" type place, big and bright and somewhat impersonal. ALL of my furniture was donated, and the majority of it was covered in cat and ferret fur. My bed smelled like animal pee (don't worry, I replaced it). A day or so after I moved in, I saw a GIANT cockroach scuttle across the living room floor and had an instant of cataplexy; I fell to the ground, out of breath and paralyzed by fear/disgust/hatred of roaches. I wanted to call my dad to have him kill it. That year, I got biweekly paychecks and roamed the city in my just-out-of-college naivete, unaware of just how young I was.

And here I am, five years later, apartment hunting again. This upcoming year, I'll roam a new city (or, more likely, the hospital), unaware of just how young I am. But this time I'll be married (in 60 days!), with less donated furniture, and when I see a giant cockroach I'll just scream for the husband to off it. But there'd better not be any cockroaches! I'll get biweekly paychecks again, but this time, work won't be a job but the start of a career, and this new place won't be an apartment but our first home.

It's been a long five years, and it's satisfying to see that they've been full of growth, and progress. Thanks for coming along on the ride.

Tah-Tah for now, Responsibility!

2010-03-26T10:54:00.002-04:00

Yesterday marked the last day I will ever have to wear my short white coat. Yippee!! I have no more clinical responsibilities until June 21, 2010, when I will don a long white coat with cloth buttons and my name embroidered on it, followed by the letters MD. Oi!

Until then my responsibilities include:

- sleeping an average of 8 hours per night
- finding an apartment in The District
- moving into said apartment
- getting married, and wedding-ed
- going on honeymoon
- preventing the stress-induced duodenal ulcer that will inevitably form as the first day of intern year approaches
- avoiding medical emergencies, as I will actually be expected to do something other than say "call 911!" as I run away,

and

- a whole boatload of other stressful crap that I don't really want to think about at the moment, thankyouverymuch.

Today I had the shortest "half day" ever (8:15-9:30 does not equal 4 hours), and now I'm off to get some of that other stressful crap done before I head off to DC.

Happy weekend, all! I hope everyone's receiving their invitations. Isn't my sister's calligraphy simply stunning? I can't believe I'm related to her! I'm looking forward to getting those RSVP's back from all y'all. Hooray!

Happy Spring!

Irrelephant

2010-03-26T10:53:00.002-04:00

Epic Travel FAIL

2010-03-23T00:24:00.002-04:00

My stomach sank as I listened to the voicemail my sister had left me during my 2.5-hour flight from Dallas to Pittsburgh:

"Hey Jess, I think you left your keys here."

Indeed, I had. Talk about a mood-killer! Realizing that I had to:
1. take a cab home and leave my car another day in the lot
2. take the bus back to the airport tomorrow to get my car
3. pay for the cab
4. pay for the extra day of parking
5. get my roommate to leave her key so I can make another spare (the fix-it guy has our spare) tomorrow
6. walk to the key place in the rain to get the key made tomorrow
7. pay for said key

= TOTAL BUMMER.

Could've been worse, I know. But it goes on!

In addition, I left my 16oz Nalgene on the plane. It's the second one I've lost in 2 years (although I think the other one is at Eric's parents' place in Kansas).

sigh.

I also got home today and found a nice thick packet of information from my new residency program. It's a bunch of paperwork. LOTS and LOTS of paperwork. The kind that makes you go back through your old boxes to find the name of the lender you used for your first college loan, the phone number of the leasing office of the first apartment you lived in, Line 34 of your 2004 W2, etc. I have to get fingerprinted and get a bunch of stuff notarized. Oi.

Which would be fine and dandy and almost kind of exciting, but the thing is : I have to do this all in order to get all my new-doctor stuff (authorizations, certifications, temporary licenses in DC, VA, and MD) in my current name. But then I'm getting married and changing my name. I have no idea how that's going to work. I have a headache just thinking about it. It's all very confusing and seems like the biggest hassle in the world.

I now understand why every resident I know who has gotten married since graduating medical school has not changed her name.

Le sigh.

I hope at the end of tomorrow I am much more optimistic about things. Stay tuned.

Say What?

2010-03-16T16:50:00.002-04:00

Yes, it's true: I'm starting another blog. In addition to this one. It's going to be my running-log blog, so that someday I can look back and marvel at the miles and miles I ran during the spring of 2010.

You can find this (runnin)glog blog here.

I don't expect anyone to read it. Except maybe An, and Eric, since they're running too. But I gotta announce it, cuz if a tree falls in a forest and nobody's there to hear it, it certainly didn't get heard.

Or something.

MATCHED!

2010-03-15T11:55:00.002-04:00

The email I received at 11:50AM (10 minutes early!) from the National Residency Match Program:

Congratulations! You have matched.

Check the Match Site on Thursday, March 18, 2010, at 1:00 PM eastern time to find out where you matched. Because you are matched, you will not have access to any information about unfilled programs.

To which I say: WOOT!

On Thursday - MATCH DAY! - I'll find out where. Hopefully there. Keep your fingers crossed!

Thank goodness for a weekend filled with distractions. Last night I got home and the thought of getting this email made my stomach do a million flips and somersaults. If it weren't for nonstop Philly food&fun over the weekend, I would've spent the last 72 hours in a tizzy. Thanks a bajillion to Sarah, Angie, Hoa & housemates for being amazing hosts! Can't wait for the next time!!!

I Spy...

2010-03-08T15:46:00.002-05:00

Spring! It's just around the corner!! The humongous piles of snow are turning into smallish piles of snow, and in the morning I wake up to the sound of birds chirping. Today, I ran outside and didn't have any life-flashing-before-my-eyes-as-I-slip-on-black-ice moments! Not only is the sunlight lasting longer these days, Daylight Savings is fast approaching - Sunday March 14 is in less than a week!

I LOVE SPRING!
I was a little shocked to see how long it had been since I'd last posted. The last 3 weeks were full of ... well, full. There was the crazy snowstorm, followed by several less-crazy (but still pretty crazy!) snowstorms. There were 2 weeks of not seeing my car due to the crazy snow. There was lots of shoveling (apparently 78 inches worth over 3 weeks). There was anxiety related my scholarly project - the writing of, and the delayed approval by mentor and committee of. There was anxiety related to the 29-week growth-restricted premie in the NICU who tried to die on me when both fellows, both senior residents, and both interns were either not in-house or were at a critical delivery... leaving me as the senior-most person on the floor. Bag-masking a tiny baby with a broken bag as she turns slate gray and her sats fall to 3% for nearly a minute? NOT. FUN. There was also a fair amount of anxiety related to wedding planning. And oh, my rank list was due. And Match Day is coming up. There's that, too.

There was also the Black Bag Ball ("Med School Prom") and nights full of cooking, eating & laughter with friends.

What's the saying?

In like a lion, out like a lamb.

Sounds 'bout right to me!

The Dangers of Costco

2010-02-17T18:58:00.001-05:00

I don't like the Almond Butter from Costco.

Now... what to with the other 2lbs in the jar?

Punxsutawney Phil Wasn't Lying!

2010-02-09T21:53:00.005-05:00

Twenty inches of snow, and an additional 10-20 tonight = 3 snow days in a row (possibly 4?)!!!!

This storm has been called: Snowpocalypse, Snowmaggedon, Snowverkill (hee), and - Eric's favorite and mine - SNOW-M-G! (haw!)

This has never ever happened before! I mean, Pittsburgh is no stranger to snow! I think we had 1 snow day during 1st year or something. Third and fourth year medical students are considered "emergency personnel" and are required to report to clinical activities regardless of weather conditions. But, as the dean has written day after day, "this has been an unusual storm", and so here I am! 5 day weekend!! = 2 day week, and that's IF we have to go in on Thursday and Friday.

Except I'm worried about how I'm going to make up these missed days. I'm praying that my attending is suuuuper chill and is like, "Jess you're fine, don't come in over the next 2 weekends!" Keepin' the fingers crossed, yep.

Thanks to the SNOW-M-G, I was able to get a nice chunk of work done on my Scholarly Project - 6 pages of manuscript writing, in addition to 4 pages of my summary paper. Hopefully I make use of tomorrow's miracle snow day to get even more done! Thank you, snow.

In other news.

I've been trying to maintain regular exercise, which has been a bit hard with all the interview traveling and early mornings/late afternoons in the NICU. But I've been doing it! Today I did both Bob and level 2 Jillian, and I thought I was going to fall over by the end. My thighs! They burn! I know I've worked out really hard when I move during my sleep, and it wakes me up because I'm that sore. I'm afraid that I'm going to be woken during sleep tonight....

The sad thing about exercise is, it done makes me hungry! I don't keep any candy in the house, but I DO have my childrens' Calcium/Vitamin D gummy bears... and lately I've been eating more than my daily value of 3 bears. Like, today, I ate 5. Oop! Groans, moans, bones, psych overtones - here I come! (I'm kidding - taking an extra 400mg of Ca/VitD is not nearly enough to give you hypercalcemia!)

Sorry for the boring blog post, y'all. I've been toying with the idea of closing this thing, since I don't really have interesting things to say any more. To reward you for getting this far, here's a picture from Groundhog Day '07, when we got up at 4am on Feb 2 and went with a group of my friends to Punxsutawney, PA to partake in the festivities. It wasn't worth it, but I'm glad we did it once in our lives!

Snowpocalypse!

2010-02-07T10:38:00.002-05:00

Seventeen inches of powder!

Pros: People snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing down the middle of the road. Kids sledding down Negley hill. Kids at Hopkins being snowed in, therefore completing my survey! Being snowed in = getting 5 pages of my senior report done yesterday!

Cons: Mass transit cancelled. 100,000 without power including the water purification plant - leading to requests to minimize water use. Cars buried in snow like giant white mushrooms lining the curbs. Shoveling. Being unable to go to a birthday party. Since I'm "emergency personnel", I have no excuse to miss work tomorrow. The next week is going to be a disgusting mess of blackened ice piled up everywhere.

It's Superbowl Sunday!

Things I'm proud of this week:

making dinner or eating leftovers every single day
bringing lunch all days but Friday (when I left my packed lunch on the kitchen table) thereby only spending $5 on food ALL WEEK (not including groceries)
exercising 4x despite working almost 60 hours and getting an average of 4 hours sleep per night
learning a LOT in the NICU.

Thoughts from the NICU this week:

There is more continuity of care than in any other specialty, since the 24-week premies essentially stay in the hospital for the 4 months they were supposed to remain in utero
People are resilient. People pick themselves up and go on with their lives after being told their baby is not going to live, or that their baby has severe neurologic deficits and will never be normal, or that their baby has a devastating genetic condition and will live no longer than x days/months/years. And they have the grace to smile and thank us. And somehow, we pick ourselves and go on, too.
People make ugly decisions. They request that every attempt be made to resuscitate and continue their child's life, then after the child is stable and they are faced with the reality of lifelong health needs and financial strain, decide they "didn't sign up for this", and abandon the child. It is hard to think that sometimes, it's better for all involved to let a life end.
Teeny tiny fingernails are a wonder.
The human body is amazing in its sheer motivation to adapt, grow stronger, and live
I do not want to be a neonatologist.

With a time-intensive and emotionally straining rotation, and a 15-page culmination of 4 years of hard work due in a week, it's ironic that the most stressful thing in my life, keeping me up at night and gnawing a pit in my stomach, has nothing to do with either.

Just gotta keep swimmin'. Just keep swimmin'.

Uh-Oh

2010-01-29T16:57:00.003-05:00

Today I went to the hospital to pick up some things I need for my NICU (neonatal ICU) rotation, which begins on Monday. The course director sent me an email recommending I borrow a particular textbook on neonatology. "You might want to start with the obvious chapters on care in the DR (delivery room), care of premature infants, respiratory disorders and hyperbilirubinemia", he wrote. I imagined it was a dumbed-down student text, and those "obvious chapters" were oh, 20 pages each? So imagine my horror when I walked into the library and found this monster:

That, my friends, is a 1600-page TOME. It weighs like, A LOT. Its pages are those really thin fax-paper type, and it's still this massive heavy thing. Those "obvious chapters?" Hundreds of pages of teeeeny tiiiiny font!

Gulp!

[And yep, it's lying under a pair of extra-small scrubs, which I'm praying to heaven still fit (my scrub card is set to give me extra small scrubs, and I've gained some weight of late). The scrubs are next to my grocery store receipt. After the hospital, I went to the grocery store and bought about 25lb of food. Neonatology brick book + 25lb groceries = uncomfortable walk home. ]

I am super nervous about this rotation.

You see, I've put my brain on the back burner for way too long. Yesterday, I flew back to (frigid!) Pittsburgh after spending some mindless leisure time at my parents' home in California - my sister and I beat the Super Mario Bros for Wii, with all the warp tunnels and secret exits and all. This was the largest accomplishment I made in 4 months. No, really. My last clinical rotation was Pediatric Dermatology, wayyy back in September. But even that wasn't really a "real" rotation. Acne and eczema do not sick patients make. October was a research month, November was my swine flu and Teach to Teach month, December was an interview month, and January was a big fat joke. Sure, I took my boards and talked about myself during interviews, but I haven't really seen a patient in over 4 months. So I haven't had to work very hard, or think very hard, for that matter, in ages.

But that all changes soon. On Monday I'll be jumping back into the waters of learning and doing. Imagine! Me, waking up at 5:30am and working 10 hours a day! Taking care of little tiny premature babies! Being a part of a team again! I know I have it in me, but I'm scared of how long it's going to take to dust off the cobwebs and get the creaks out.

By the looks of that book, there's going to be a steep learning curve. Yipes!

Wish me luck! I've got some reading to do!

Multiple Choice

2010-01-09T15:37:00.004-05:00

In the past 10 days, I have spent the most time doing which of the following?

(a) sitting in traffic
(b) reading
(c) shoveling snow
(d) exercising
(e) cooking

The answer is:

(c) shoveling snow. Seriously, it is so sad. It's snowed so much in the past week. Tuesday through Thursday I think I shoveled 2-3 times per day, with several inches of accumulation each time I went outside. I know I didn't *have* to shovel multiple times a day, but there really is nothing worse than going outside to find ice where people have walked and compacted the snow. And keeping it clean makes it easier to shovel later on.

Alas, I was gone for 2.5 days and another foot or so fell. And my landlord didn't come by, and my downstairs neighbor doesn't believe in sweeping the snow out of the way as he heads out. So I got home today and shoveled for over an hour. Living on a corner with an extremely long side-of-house sidewalk, and an uneven weedy driveway makes for tired arms, hands, and back. Oi.

I am le tired! I'm skippin' the gym today!

From Denver With Love

2010-01-08T19:56:00.002-05:00

Hola from Denver! Actually, I'm in Aurora, CO, relaxing in my hotel room as I recover from my second-to-last interview day of my quest for residency. I'm finding that I like Denver a lot less than I thought I would, although in the city's defense I didn't actually see the downtown... or any part of Denver, really (so really I still may luurve Denver and not know it). But the hospital was amazing and seemed like a great place to be.

I'm amazed I got here at all, considering the 13-15 inches that were forecast in Chicago... and all of my flights for this trip either terminating or beginning in Chicago. Somehow I managed to land and take off just as the snow was beginning to fall yesterday, and I made it to my interview okay. We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Two things I hate about flying (among MILLIONS of things):
- when people behind you put their legs up against your seat and stretch, pushing you and jostling you and etc for the whole flight
- when you can't get your small carry-on (I'm talking a gym-bag sized duffel) in the overhead because people put their freakin' purses and coats in and take up the whole damn compartment
- when people in seats behind you push past you during landing instead of letting each aisle go in turn... and then they hold up the process by spending forever getting their stuff down from the overhead
- dogs in the seat next to you. I love dogs, but I do not like sitting next to dogs on the plane. They fart, or belch, or something, and it smells! Stinky!

K, 'nuff complaining (haha I totally broke my resolution about not complaining)!

Seeya when I get back to the 'burgh! Home sweet 'burgh!

New Year, Same Me

2010-01-05T13:48:00.003-05:00

Currently I'm listening to my awesome favorite Pandora station (Glee cast + a bunch of my favorite artists) and eating an almond butter + jelly sandwich. AB&J. Having been allergic to peanut butter my whole life, I always missed out on the whole quick-PB&J-as-a-healthyish-snack thing. Ditto with bananas. I once tried cashew butter, but didn't like it and had a slight reaction to it. But then Eric discovered almond butter and opened the door to this magical world of quick delicious filling sandwiches! Hooray! So I'm sitting here finishing off my AB&J and pondering my New Year's Resolutions.

I know resolutions are rarely kept, but I like the concept of using the new year as an excuse to reflect on the various ways in which I'm living up to - or failing to succeed - in my aspirations to be a decent person who contributes to the world without harming it too much. I also like the concept of allowing myself to forgive my ill-doings and take pause to learn from those mistakes; to wipe the slate clean and move forward without years' worth of collective guilt on my shoulders. (I'm realizing this is totally what Rosh Hashanah is about)

So, without furthur adieu, some of the goals I have for the future (not necessarily just this year):

Run the Pittsburgh half marathon (May '10). I'm anti-marathon - I think I'll write a post about why sometime this week - but the half marathon has been on my plate for a long time. There's no better time to train than the lax months before graduation, and before our wedding!
Read a pediatric textbook, cover to cover. It will make me a better intern in the summer.
If I'm annoyed by something, wait awhile before complaining about it. I can get worked up and go on and on about something pretty minor, and it probably worsens the situation. This is pretty much a version of the good ol': think before I talk.
Use my reusable grocery bags EVERY TIME I make a PLANNED trip to the grocery store (it's crazy how often I forget them).
In the same vein, only use plastic produce bags when it's actually necessary (wet lettuce/leafy veggies, large bunches of small delicate things like mushrooms). The rest can just be weighed naked and be placed in the reusable grocery bag.
Don't eat chips/drink pop unless I really want to. I don't really like chips or pop, but if they're sitting in front of me I'll just nosh for no reason. In large quantities. This is just plain stupid, and I should make an effort to stop.
Keep my fingernails nice. I have horrible fingernails with thick nasty cuticles, which I pick at, causing hangnails (ew, I know). I've been buffing and putting on clear base coat stuff, which has been awesome. Hopefully this becomes a habit.

Do you have any goals for the year?

Oh, Ten!

2010-01-01T15:38:00.007-05:00

Happy New Year!!! It's 2010 - 10 years since we all freaked out about Y2K - can you believe it?

Eric and I rang in the new year... in a cab. Well, to be precise, we were in the cab until about 11:58, then paid the driver and hauled our suitcases up the steps and watched the 11:59 on the cable box turn to 12:00 as we entered my apartment. So I quickly turned on the tellie to see the ball dropping, and we hugged and kissed at the top of the entryway stairs in our coats, with our suitcases leaning against us. Ah, romance.

We woke up at 4AM on New Year's Eve with the intention of flying into Pittsburgh at 4:30PM... but a foggy morning in both Orange County and Houston spoiled our plans. We spent hours on tarmacs and in planes, and even more hours in the Houston airport:Eric & George H. W. Bush (namesake of the George Bush Intercontinental Airport).Eric & I with our alter-ego chips (Asian Sweet & Spicy = me / Cracked Pepper & Sea Salt = Eric). Yes, we were totally bored at the airport.

We got to Pittsburgh at about 11:10PM and found our bags waiting for us (our bags got on an earlier flight, but we weren't as lucky)... so we headed for the cab stand with plenty of time to get home before midnight. So exciting!!

To make things even more exciting, as we landed we found that our fantasterrific photographer had emailed us a link to a "sneak peak" of our engagement photos, which we weren't expecting to get for another week or so. We looked at them as we made our wait to baggage claim and were completely blown away at how amazing they were. Photographers should actually be called magicians, because Eric and I look like amazing versions of our daily selves in the pictures! We were super excited, and to top it off, we were going to get to ring in the new year with Dick Clark in the warmth of my apartment. Yay!

BUT. THEN. Our cab driver drove about 55 on the highway and then 20 on the side streets. What's usually at 25-minute trip home took about 45; it was a MADDENINGLY slow trip. We're pretty sure the driver was purposely stalling so he could ring in the new year with someone... which is a sad predicament to be in, but still! Holy moly, pedal to the metal, hombre!

But 2010 arrived - it wasn't going to wait for anyone, let alone a weird sloooow cabbie.

So far this year, we've slept in, had a cup of the best coffee in the world (the Nizza blend), shoveled ice/snow, and settled in for a cozy relaxing day at home. Gotta rest up for the new year - it's gonna be a doozy! Coming up in 2010: I match to a residency program, we turn 27, I (maybe) run a half marathon, I move to a new city, Eric becomes a 1/4 MD, I become an MD(!), we put on fancy clothes and get hitched. We honeymoon. We nest. I become an intern, Eric goes on his merry way to becoming a 1/2 MD. We cook, eat, laugh, (probably) fight, make up, hang out, eat some more, gossip, watch tv, watch movies, wish we could get a dog, cook and eat some more.

I hope we can do some of the above with you. Happy 2010!

OMG

2009-12-17T08:29:00.002-05:00

I totally had this idea as a joke, but it exists!
(I kinda want one haha!)

Badimore

2009-12-09T17:01:00.006-05:00

Or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Hate Baltimore

Okay, that was my pathetic attempt at movie-cum-blog post entry title merger thing. Onward, shall we? I apologize - this is a long post.

In the past week I've made 2 trips to Baltimore. On my first trip (to visit Program #1), I left DC/VA at 6am and spent a 70 minute door-to-door trip in which I made a wrong turn on a turnaround, had to park my car because of an accident, and watched the sun rise over faded white dotted lines of the 295 parkway. Beltway, highway, whatever. It was a fairly benign drive, but somehow it irritated me. Maybe it was a foreboding sense of irritation, because: I hated that trip. I hated the program. I felt like I was wasting my time; I wished I had canceled the interview. And at the end of the day, I drove 2 hours back to DC. It was reminiscent of LA traffic, but with yuppier people with poorer driving skills on idiotically designed roads.

However, that day, I got to learn a little about Baltimore - the cost of living, the neighborhoods, the overall happiness of the (richer) residents of the city. I got a little excited; it seemed pretty similar to Pittsburgh, but with a better food scene, and closer proximity to DC. Plenty of people live halfway between DC and Baltimore and do the two-city commute. It's "doable". After our interviews, a friend and I walked to the tourist-area Inner Harbor and had a nice afternoon. I decided to give The (prestigious) Baltimore Program #2 (at which I was interviewing in several days) some serious consideration.

And so I went back! (dun dun dunnn)

This time, I decided to spare myself the torture of the 5am wakeup and 6am drive, followed by an intense day in heels, followed by a 2-hour drive back. Instead, I took the train the night before the interview and booked a hotel room on Hotwire. When I got to the hotel, I called a friend who goes to Prestigious University Med School associated with Program #2, who kindly picked me up and showed me the sights. If I were to judge the city based on what I saw, I would think it was an adorably gentrified city of cute neighborhoods. We walked around a little cobblestoned neighborhood that had a nice strip of shops, restaurants, coffee houses, etc. We drove by some nice condos and row houses, and I spotted a Whole Foods.

But as I talked to my friend, I became increasingly disturbed by what he told me: he wasn't really happy in Baltimore, he wished he had gone to Yale instead, there was some good food but it was expensive restaurant food that wasn't daily far, and - most concerning - the city was extremely dangerous. He said:
"The residents will tell you they're careful and it's safe, but ask them how many times they've had their cars broken into."
"There are places that are fine to live, but if you move here I'll tell you where you definitely shouldn't live."
"I miss Philly and DC."

Later that night, I went to a dinner hosted by a resident, and asked her how she felt about safety. She said it was fine. I asked her if her car had been broken into. She became very uncomfortable and said yes, but wouldn't say how many times. I asked another resident about safety. She said:
"I mean, we don't do silly things. Like, I wouldn't go to the grocery store at 9pm."
"When I'm close to my apartment building, I just call the security guard and ask him to watch me on the cameras as I walk from my car to the building."

I lived in WEST PHILLY and WALKED to the grocery store after 9pm. I was horrified. I met another applicant at the dinner who had gone to Prestigious University of Program #2 for college. She didn't even APPLY to Prestigious University Med School Associated with Program #2 because of safety concerns.

And despite all this, I went back to the hotel to rest up and get excited about my day at Program #2. When I got back to my room, I noticed a HUGE sign on my nightstand labeled "SAFETY TIPS". It had about 12 tips but I only remember a couple. For example:

If someone knocks on your door and claims to be hotel staff, immediately call the front desk to confirm that someone from the hotel has been sent to your room
Do not wear jewelry or show cash in public
Do not allow strangers to see your hotel room key or hotel room number
Do not invite anyone to your room'

I know that those are standard safety tips, but I've never actually seen this displayed so pointedly at any hotel I've ever been to. And this was a pretty nice hotel in the safe touristy part of town!

So then I turned on the TV, and the story of the night was about a SHOOTING at the hotel the Program #2 had recommended (and negotiated discounted rates) for applicants. No sh*ttin' you. Earlier in the day, a group of people in adjoining rooms were having a birthday party. A few people got in a fight. A man shot another man in the face. The shot man's friends then beat the shooter to a pulp. Shooter and shootee were in critical care at Program #1's hospital. We're talking about a SHERATON, in the nice "safe" downtown area by the hospitals. And I could've been staying at that hotel, if I weren't too cheap to spend $99 (I got my room for $59) - in fact, a lot of the people I'd met at the applicant dinner were staying at that hotel! I thought: This Sh*t Is Bananas.

But I tried to sleep and stay excited about Program #2.

So the following day, I went. And was miserably disappointed. I had no idea why it was so hyped. I can only conclude that it's prestige is what makes it prestigious. I didn't see anything or meet anyone who struck me as phenomenal; I felt very... anticappointed. My 2nd interviewer essentially told me to go to DC, and spent some time telling me what a great program DC is. He said there really isn't any Asian food in Baltimore. He said the 1/2-way DC/Baltimore commute is "doable" but that "doable" is more a euphemism for: so aggravating it makes you want to crawl into the fetal position and cry.

And so I left Baltimore. Goodbye, Baltimore!! Home of the Jimmy McNulty and Stringer Bell (may he rest in peace), Bubbles and Omar Little, the Ravens (may they lose every remaining game in the series), and Cal Ripken Jr (or someone equally baseballerific), and the mayor who spent a bunch of donated gift cards on herself. Setting of Hairspray, and heroine capitol of the nation: goodbye.

Things I Do When I'm Bored And It's Snowing Outside

2009-12-05T11:31:00.003-05:00

Things you have done during your lifetime:

(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school (It's called: college)
( ) Shot a gun
(X) Watched someone die - I had to close his chest cavity. It was extremely sad, and made me realize I didn't want to do either trauma surgery or ER
(X) Been to Canada - Toronto. The Szechuan food was awesome!
(X) Been to Mexico - Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, TJ, Ensenada
( ) Been to Florida
(X) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
(X) Been on a helicopter - in Kauai, got to see all these cliffs and waterfalls. A couple years ago one of those helicopters crashed. Yipes.
(X) Been lost - I hate DC roads. Even with GPS it's ridiculously un-navigable
(X) Gone to Washington, DC - I'm here now! Hatin' on the roads!
(X) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers (I only assume I have, but I admit I have no specific memories of this)
( ) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Traveled to Europe
( ) Traveled to Africa
(X ) Traveled to Asia
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch -I was just telling a friend from STL that I should visit to do this
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(X) Made prank phone calls - I don't think I ever had the guts to do it myself, but definitely partook and giggled while others did
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone -after high school graduation, my girlfriends and I went to Hawaii. We would stay up allll night on a hotel (not ours)'s private beach talking until the sun rose, then we would go back to our dingy motel and sleep
(X) Watched the sunset with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
( ) Driven 100mph or higher - no thank you
(X) Gone ice-skating - going around in circles until your ankles start to hurt and your nose falls off = not really my idea of fun. Although I think I could've been a damn good figure sater
(X) Gone to the movies (really?)
( ) Been deep sea fishing - I have a vague recollection of going on a boat and fishing with my family when I was young, but I think deep sea fishing involves a very large ship?
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
( ) Gone spelunking
( ) Gone repelling
( ) Lived in more than one country -not unless you count living for several summer months in Japan x several years
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(X) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty -sadly, I've been to NY a bajillion times but never took the effort to see Lady Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle -planning on X-ing this one off in January woot!
( ) Gone to dinner and a movie alone
( ) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
( ) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
(X) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(X) Been to Disneyland OR Disney World
(X) Truly believe in the power of prayer (even if you don't believe in God; having faith)
(X) Been in a rain forest -I'm pretty sure I was in a rain forest in Peru
(X) Seen whales in the ocean
(X) Been to Niagara Falls ...more like, drove through while Eric and Lid stuck their heads out the windows and took pictures.
(X) Ridden on an elephant
(X) Ridden a horse
( ) Swam with dolphins
(X) Jumped off of a cliff or bridge into water
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf--what?
( ) Been spinnaker flying....what?
(X) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(X) Been to a Major League Baseball game -Angels, Dodgers, Mariners, Pirates!
( ) Been to a National Football League game -AAHHH I WISH I COULD SEE A STEELER GAME it'd be amazing
(X) Flown a kite
(X) Gone camping
(X) Gone skinny dipping
(X) Gone gambling in a casino
( ) Been to the Miss America pageant (or other beauty pageant)
( ) Been to Central America
(X) Been to South America
( ) Been to Australia
(X) Danced with a stranger
(X) Laughed until your face hurt -I did this just last night, haha.
( ) Sang in a rock band
(X) Played a musical instrument -several
(X) Joined a gym
( ) Flown a plane
(X) Learn a foreign language well enough to have a conversation -yo hablo espanol
( ) Bowled a strike
( ) Had a dog
( ) Had a cat
(X) Had a fish -who wants a dog? *raises hand*
( ) Had a hamster

Day Off

2009-11-16T17:36:00.002-05:00

Don'tcha wish?

(Image from here)

Swine Flu

2009-11-12T10:49:00.002-05:00

Yep. I was a victim of that rascally H1N1. Except, I'm not certain of the diagnosis, since I never got swabbed. I was prettty sick though. I had a fever for several days, rigors, severe body aches, severe headaches, abdominal pain/nausea, diarrhea, deep dry cough, runny nose, and overwhelming fatigue.

It. was. not. fun.

The worst part was being stuck at home. Seriously, I don't do boredom very well. Come Monday, I was super excited to be going back to school, except my rotation this month is really chill and so I find myself bored and healthy, which is an even worse combination than bored and sick... at least when I was sick I could just sleep some more. Now I just sit around wishing I was busy. (I realize how stupid this complaint is, since the last 3 years have been spent wishing for gloriously full nights of sleep and days full of idleness).

Anyway.

So the worst part about getting sick is the loss of all exercise capacity. I remember getting the flu during Christmas over my senior year of high school, and then going back to cheer practice in early January and not being able to get up off the mat after a routine because it was soooooo exhausting. I actually have a vivid memory of seeing greenish halos and blue stars as I gasped for breath on the mats at gymnastics. Until I got sick, I'd been running and doing dvd's pretty regularly, but now it's like my lungs have never exercised before. I tried to ease myself back into exercise by walking the 2.5 miles to school every day, but to no avail... This morning I tried to go for a run, but about a block away from the house I started wheezing, and I knew I had to turn around. Sad.

But overall I have to say: life is pretty good! I had my first interview, finished the last big exam of med school, will be visiting Lid this weekend at Notre Dame, and have a bunch of travel upcoming! Hope all's well with everyone else, too.

Swine Flu?

2009-11-01T09:43:00.002-05:00

Maybe I have it, maybe I don't.

Two nights ago, after returning home from the annual Pitt Med Halloween Party (went as Olive Oyl), I went to bed and commenced to have a terrible night - I had a really high fever (102 when I measured it, after 3 Advil and 2 Tylenol) and had such convulsive rigors that the toilet jangled when I sat to pee. I was so cold I couldn't sleep, and even when I tried to relax, I could feel the muscles along my spine twitching away.

Now I've got respiratory symptoms and I've felt pretty awful for the last 2 days.

Maybe it's swine flu?

The truth is, I don't want to know. I have to take my boards on Friday, and I'm teaching 1st year med students starting Monday. I don't have a fever anymore and am good about covering coughs and washing my hands, so I'm going to push forward and get stuff done.

The most annoying thing is that I wasn't able to get my flu vaccine this year because they only offered it during work hours, and I was working in the 'burbs so I couldn't make it to the hospital. Then the swine flu vaccine was lacking and they've given it to "real" doctors but not to us lowly med students. Ironically, my roommate (neither doctor nor med student) got both of her vaccines on time and is healthy as a horse right now.

Oh well. Fluids and rest, and boards on Friday!

Pittsburgh Left

2009-10-22T23:08:00.002-04:00

Today, I was driving down Negley - a narrow road with one lane of traffic in each direction. The traffic was decently heavy each way, but moving well. The problem with the narrow streets in Pittsburgh is that, when a car in front of you needs to turn left, you're usually stuck waiting for them to turn before you (and everyone behind you) gets moving again. It can be incredibly frustrating when you're trying to get somewhere on time.

Like I was tonight. I was driving to my first pre-interview residents' dinner (a casual get-to-know-the-people hosted by residency programs) and found myself behind none other than a driver-in-training. You know the kind. A 90's model Japanese compact sedan with a big sticker and magnet that says "Learning Driver" on it. The kind that goes 20mph in the 25mph zones and takes reeeallly slow turns.

So I was behind this driver-in-training, and he/she turned her left turn blinker on (like 4 blocks before the turn). And then the light turned red. There were way too many cars stopped at the oncoming lane's red light, and I knew it would be 1 or 2 light changes before the training car would be able to turn left safely. I figured it would set me back several minutes.

BUT THEN. The light turned green, and the driver-in-training....

wait for it...

made a Pittsburgh left!

I was astounded. It was awesome but horrifying, all at the same time. But I was not late, and therefore it was more awesome than horrifying. Hooray for perpetuation of Pittsburgh's ridiculous driving to the future generation of drivers!

(or not)

Inexplicably:

2009-10-20T16:54:00.006-04:00

I'm in Phoenix, laying-over until my next flight - back to Pittsburgh. Over the past week, I spent a lot of time chillin' with the mom and reconnecting with my best friend. I tried on my wedding dress and am about 95% certain which florist and hotel we'll be using.

Things is movin' right 'long, I say.

But now onto the title of this entry. All week long I'd see/hear things that were strange. And I kept making a mental list to blog about them, but then kept forgetting. Now I'm sitting in an airport with time to mull, so I'm going to try to make a list of inexplicable things:

People are crazy. Scene:
I walk toward my mom's car, headed to the passenger's side door. A lady several feet behind me is walking toward her car, immediately to the right of my mom's. As I go to open the door, she walks up right by me, opening her door as wide as she possibly can, thereby effectively sweeping me out of the way, and gets into her car. AND THEN. We figure she must be in a rush or something? so we wait to turn the engine on to let her back out before us. But then she just sits there!
Birds that live inside the Phoenix airport
Balloon boy ('nuff said)
Mexican restaurants arbitrarily named things like "El Bravo"
Oversided shoulder pads in suits
The Dodgers losing in the bottom of the 9th

Okay, now I'm realizing that this list was boring. Sorry. See below for my post on not remembering things and being dumb.

And in regards to that post, it is "capital city", but the building is "capitol buildling", and "A" is a capital letter. Which, to be honest, should be #7 on the list above. Double-u Tee Eff, mate.

East of Eden

2009-10-19T03:06:00.006-04:00

I used to read East of Eden every summer; it was my favorite novel for like 10 years. I don't know if it still is.

You see, I used to be a lot of things.

I used to be smart*. No, really. Like, quick as a whip - like, I could do math in my head so fast that my AP calculus teacher once called me a freak, and I could read a complex novel and write a really well-synthesized analysis in a few days, for fun. My vocabulary was excellent. I could memorize things after hearing them once. I often made analogies to literary references, and was able to explain these references in a way that was concise and elucidating. I could sing whole songs after hearing them a couple times, as well as play a moderately nuanced version on the piano - with left-hand accompaniment and harmonies. I taught myself how to play the guitar in about a week, back when my left hand still had full function. I read prolifically. All this while participating in competitive sports and being an active member of the community.

I can't do any of those things anymore. My vocabulary sucks; when I hear an "SAT word", I often say: "I used to know what that meant". I was gonna write about how I used to know all the capitol cities of the 50 states, but I didn't, because I don't know if that version of "capitol" is spelled "capitol" or "capital". I have no clue**. I have a hard time remembering things now, and I don't even bother singing along to music unless I look up the lyrics on the internets. When I have to do mental math, I usually ask Eric to do it for me. After all, he was the 7th grade math teacher. Even when I putz around at the guitar, I don't remember the chords - and that's not something I can blame on my busted left hand.

I haven't read East of Eden since the summer after I graduated from college. I rarely read novels anymore. Medical school has changed me, in lots of ways, but the most surprising has been: it's made me a lot dumber. Even though I've gained all this knowledge about the medicine, not only do I often feel like a useless almost-doctor "tween"-ager, I often feel like I've lost my ability to think, to remember, and to synthesize. I've turned into an uncultured robot.

This makes me sad.

So I pulled East of Eden off my bookshelf today. I'm going to read it again. And I'm going to try to read a good number of novels by the end of this calendar year. I'm going to try to get some of my old self back. Maybe I'll even start posting book reviews on my blog, like I used to on my old blog - the one written by cultured, smart me.

We'll see.

*I don't mean to be / I hope I don't come off as being obnoxious or cocky. Really, it's pathetic how un-smart I am, which is the point I'm trying to make.
**I looked it up and I think it's capitol with an "O" but still not sure. See? Dumber. Can't even make sense of the dictionary.

Pacific Timezone Perks

2009-10-18T13:10:00.003-04:00

One of the fantastic things about being in California is the fact that Sunday football starts at 10am and ends relatively early - all day fun without the bleary-eyed workday on Monday!

Sadly, the Steelers/Browns game is not on TV here. Blahh. *frowny face*
So, for the first (and possible last) time, I'm watching the EPSN "gamecast", which is sooo much less fun.

But GO STILLERS anyhow! And go Chiefs! Eric is at the game today!

Happy football funday!

Mischief Managed

2009-10-15T01:30:00.003-04:00

Stick a fork in me!

I'm done!! With my clinical boards!! HOORAY!

How'd it go? Wellll....

As I texted to my best friend from high school:
*Splat* <--the sound of me vomiting because I did so bad. But ahhh! I'm done!

I think it went really poorly. I forgot to wash my hands for the first patient (because I had just washed them outside the room). I kept doing things whilst my inner voice was screaming "STOP DOING THAT!" Funny how that happens, eh? I'm just hoping I did well enough to pass. Ain't no way I'm gonna pay another $2K to re-take this sh*t. (It's bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!)

So on with my life.

Other mischief managed includes:

Trying on my dress, which might be the tightest bit snug in the ribcage area... which is an area that I can't really shrink via exercise as it's probably as small as it's gonna get. But it fits, which is what matters! And it was so cheap! And I love it! Hooray! And at least I know it won't be falling down.

And also,
Angie & I channeling our inner Beyonces, on some random stage on the Mall.
(although neither of us are "Single Ladies", wink wink WINK)

Now for a good night's rest, may I wake up tomorrow morning amnestic to today's exam!

Good night!

California, Here I Come!

2009-10-12T12:38:00.003-04:00

In 10 minutes I'll head to the bus stop, to get on a bus (and then another bus) to go to the airport... off to California! Although I'm planning for a little bit of fun during this trip home, I'm going for work: I'm taking my National Boards Step 2 Clinical Skills exam on Wednesday. Then I'm meeting with florists, checking out hotels, and trying on my dress (finally). Also: studying.

This trip kicks off a busy 3 months of travel... In November I'm off to South Bend, Indiana to visit Lid at Notre Dame, then to Philly for my 2nd residency interview, then to Kansas City for Thanksgiving. From Kansas I'll go straight to DC for back-to-back interviews in Baltimore and DC.

At the end of December I'll head back to Cali for the holidays and more wedding-ish stuff. But I'm hoping to schedule even more interview before then... here's for hoping for consecutive weekends away 'til the New Year!

F-f-f-freezing

2009-10-08T16:10:00.004-04:00

I wish I was in Cabo right now. This picture is from a boat ride my sister and I took during our winter break mini-vacay to Cabo a few years ago. There are these rock formations that I think are called the "arches", but I'm too lazy to look it up. We took this trip in December, and it was a glorious 85ish degrees in Mexico.

But this is Pittsburgh, and it's October, and it's cold. *sad face*

I'm sitting in my dining room, trying to warm my hands over a cup of hot tea. The thing about this scenario is, the mug is so friggin' hot, I can only keep my hands on the mug for like 1 second (2 at most) before my brain kicks in and makes me stop. Too hot! But then my hands are cold again, and etc. Also, warming my hands around a hot cup of tea only really only helps my palms; the dorsal surface of my hands gets no warm lovin'.

Today is a blah, blue, poopy-face day (as in, I can't imagine smiling). I got up early but then did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I mean, if I was dead and buried I would have been more productive. Well, maybe that's a bit of hyperbole - I did do my laundry - but only just a tiny bit of hyperbole!! Really, around 11am I think I decided I was taking the day off. From life, apparently. And I've been sitting on this chair doing everything but studying. Like, for instance, I read more of this blog than I care to admit, and shed some sappy tears over the miracle and joy of babies. Sigh, babies.

Why is it so hard to study? And go to the gym? And be a productive member of society?

Why why why why whywhywhywhywhy??

Okay, now my tea is lukewarm (but my hands feel much better). Time to go to the gym and snap out of this nonsense. Sorry for the pathetic post!

I Don't Do Idle

2009-10-05T20:15:00.002-04:00

I've come to realize, slowly and surely, that I hate being bored. I hate having long stretches of days with no structure and nothing to do. When I do, I get in funky moods and feel disgustingly fat/lazy/unproductive; I come to hate myself.

I'm on a research month right now, which means I have no actual obligations to anybody except myself (must. get. project. done). I spent the first several days watching some television, lounging around, and doing a slight bit of studying. I got some wedding-related planning done. And I wallowed in self-loathing. Then I went to DC, where I enjoyed myself more but still felt like a worthless turd, and so:

I moved my Step 2 (boards) test date up, from November 24 to October 31. Which means I'm taking my boards in like, 3 weeks, which is ca-raaazzzyyyy!!!

So now I'm studying for hours a day, with newly found motivation. Go me! I love it! Today, I drove back from DC, studied for hours, went to the gym, cooked a delicious healthy dinner with enough leftovers to feed myself lunch for several days, studied some more, and look! Here I am, blogging!

Anyway,
Things I rediscovered in DC:
1. I wish I could just live in Anthropologie, stock my kitchen with their wares, and wear all their clothes all the time. *le sigh*
2. I love tart yogurt a la Pinkberry
3. Acorn squash isn't so bad
4. Angie + Disney music = fun :)
5. The South is warmer than Pitts-brrrrr-gh!

Rainy Day Run

2009-09-27T13:33:00.007-04:00

This is the map of the race I ran this morning. The Great Race is Pittsburgh's annual fall 10K (6.2 mile) race, and I'm super proud to have finished in under an hour. Earlier this month I was doing a great job of training, and would have liked to aim for about 52 minutes. But ever since I fell victim to that not-swine-flu not-mono illness, my lungs just haven't liked running. So I went into this race cold, and was thrilled to find that I didn't have to stop to walk.

Eric and I ran the same race 2 years ago, and I was much worse off then: I had to stop to pee at the halfway point, and the uphill 5th mile forced me into a walk. The sun was beating on us pretty hard, and an older man collapsed in front of us and had a heavily-bleeding gash on his head. Needless to say, today's rain was welcome.

It's good to know I haven't gotten less fit over med school. It gives me hope that I'll keep it up through residency (ha). But it was bittersweet, in a way: I missed Eric running beside me.

Red As A Beet

2009-09-25T19:38:00.002-04:00

These are the beets I made for dinner tonight. They were fiilllthy! when they arrived from the farm. I scrubbed them with the green side of a (new) Scotch Brite sponge, just as hard (if not harder) than I've lately been scrubbing the tea/coffee stains out of my mugs. Which is to say: pretty hard. Once the dirt came off, they were a gorgeous red color - bordering on fuschia.

Before tonight, I'd never made beets before. I've eaten beets, but usually pickled from a can and buried in a salad. Before tonight, I wasn't sure how much I really liked beets, or if I even liked them at all.

Turns out, I like them alright, but I don't love 'em. What I do like are the greens, with the spiky stems removed (who knew beets had spiky stems?), sauteed with garlic, spinach, and onions in a bit of olive oil and salt. Deeelicious! The subtle crunch of the perfectly browned onions and greens, combined with the soft juiciness of roasted beets and potatoes - a lovely meal.

One that I forgot to take a picture of. Sorry!

On the deck: Radishes. A whole bunch of 'em, dirty as hell, came in this week's CSA. Perhaps a soup is in the forecast?

A Secret

2009-09-24T20:46:00.002-04:00

Before Eric & I got engaged, I, Jess, one of the less girly of the girls I know, would occasionally slip into Barnes & Noble on a day off and flip through...

wedding magazines.

(hangs head in embarrassment)

The irony is, since we've been engaged, I've hated wedding magazines. I HATE THEM. They're filled with the up-and-coming trends for materialistic over-spending brides. Today, due to G20 madness, our clinic was closed (no such thing as a dermatologic emergency, folks) so I did some much-needed cleaning and then strolled to Barnes & Noble. And tried to browse through wedding magazines. Glossy picture after glossy picture of over-priced flowers, dresses, paper products, etc etc etc. I couldn't even get through 10 pages.

Seriously, at the pace I'm working, it's a wonder we'll ever be wedding-ed.

Speaking of G20: the Obamas and Sarkozys are 1 mile away from me right now. Kinda cool, but the helicopters and street closings are kinda annoying. Can't wait til the protesters have cleared out the city and I can go to Starbucks in peace.

Past tense of "have"?

2009-09-23T22:46:00.003-04:00

...why, it's "had", of course!

As in: this morning, I had a mole on my chest. But this evening, I do not have a mole on my chest.

I said goodbye to my m-m-m-mole today (remember that Fred Savage character on Austin Powers?).

Yes, the mole right there. At the bottom of the picture. ^there. (Not the greatest picture of myself, I know)

My dermatology attending (supervising doc) offered to shave it off for me, and I jumped at the opportunity. It wasn't so much for cosmetic reasons as for the peace of mind of knowing it's not there anymore. It was fairly atypical-looking, with ragged edges and a dark pigment, and a slight halo. And it got itchy every now and then. Everyone is always telling me to "get it looked at". When I wore a V-neck shirt to work one day, the dermatologist caught a peek and told me she didn't like the way it looked, so she examined it with her special dermatoscope. It didn't look troublesome, but she offered to remove it, and I jumped at the opportunity to be rid of it.

It doesn't hurt that now I'll be able to wear more severe V-necks and halters without feeling like my shirt is framing my mole.

It's kinda weird, knowing it's not there anymore. When the bandage comes off, I'm sure I'll look in the mirror and feel like my reflection is the slightest bit wrong, because something is missing.

I wonder how long it takes until I forget I ever had it?

Hasta la Pasta, Summer!

2009-09-22T21:35:00.002-04:00

It was a good summer.

This summer, I learned that I love zucchini - especially on pizza, sliced really thin, with fresh buffalo mozzarella. Also this summer, the fireflies were sparse. It could have been that I just wasn't out as much to enjoy their presence... but it felt to me that the fireflies took this summer off. It also didn't get very hot - only for about a week; I never made it to the outdoor water park. But I did go to a baseball game, and I went to Michigan for the first time ever (not much to write home about). My mom and sister visited, and we went to DC and watched Eric walk across a stage and become an MS-1.

Maybe I put on some weight. Maybe I lost a little muscle in my arms and shoulders. Maybe I caught not-mono, not-swine flu. Maybe I made some kids cry in clinic.

But it was a good full summer. Now it's onto autumn, with its crisp mornings and pumpkin curries. The days will get shorter but no less full, and I'm looking forward to it.

Hello, Autumn.

Toto, I don't think we're in... wait... we ARE in Kansas!

2009-09-19T14:04:00.003-04:00

Eric & I flew to Kansas last night to celebrate in yet another wedding of Eric's high school friend(s). At first, it seemed that all my friends were getting married in droves, but these days it's Eric's friends who are tying the knot left and right.

We'll get there, too. We're just taking our time. :)

Today we ran (okay, I had to walk the last bit) to Starbucks, which had closed down and so... you could technically say we ran to nowhere. We settled for Panera, where we sat by the window and enjoyed our coffee and bagels. As we watched, a couple in the parking lot proceeded to stand immediately outside their car and brush their dog in the grassy parking lot divider. They then pulled a massive tuft of dog fur/dander out of the brush and dumped it on the grass, got in their mid-sized sedan, and drove away.

We watched the hair gently blow in the grassy median like a furball tumbleweed.

It. Was. Disgusting.

Welcome to Kansas!

...no but really, Kansas is quite lovely, with its big sky and the grasshoppers that jump out of your way, as if to clear a path for your royalty self as you stroll home. Happy weekend!

Things I Wonder

2009-09-14T22:47:00.002-04:00

Why do Pittsburgh drivers GO instead of STOP and take their turn at stop-signs? Does the Pittsburgh DMV not teach the first-person-goes rule?
Why are we more inclined to eat healthful foods in practical portions when we are exercising? And why, when we are being sedentary and lazy, do we crave fried and fatty foods?
Why do people use all but the last 5 squares of toilet paper, and leave the practically-empty roll for you to change? Is it so hard to just use it all and replace the roll? (This applies to anything that runs out, that is shared, for example salad dressing, the water in the Brita, etc).
How is it that I can't see for sh*t without my glasses, and other people have 20/20 vision? Not fair!
Why are babies so damn cute? Like, all babies, even the ugly ones?
Ditto, but for puppies and baby animals in general? (shout-out to baby pandas and polar bears)
What the heck is up with middle-aged women and fibromyalgia?
Am I allergic to gummi bears? Please God No!
Why is it so easy for me to read Slate and the Daily Beast and the Times and the and the LATimes and the WSJ and... and... and BLOG!, but so hard to write one letter of recommendation for myself?
Why are weddings the way they are? Why? Why why why why why?

Not Swine Flu

2009-09-09T07:36:00.002-04:00

I've been sick for a week, and after feeling miserable for 5 days I decided to go to the doctor to rule out the dreaded swine flu. Except it's not dreaded, I really want to catch it to "get it over with", if you will. Because who wants to catch the mutated winter version and die, a la Spanish flu of 1918? Not me, no sir, no thanks. I want to catch the relatively mild version and live to help take care of the sick young people with mutated swine flu! But alas, that would've meant a 2-week quarantine, which is admittedly not ideal for someone who is graded based on 4-week blocks. Missing half a rotation would be somewhat difficult to undo, swine flu or not.

So I went to the doctor and the combination of lymph nodes, upper respiratory stuff, and extreme fatigue led to the working diagnosis of: mono. Not swine flu. Mono. Which I think I had in college, although I recall making it to gymnastics practice at the time and having enough energy to actually practice, so who knows if I actually had it. *shrugs*

Anyway. Today I'm back to work with my uninfectious mononucleosed self, Tylenol Cold and tissues in hand. Thank goodness. Being home all day is incredibly boring, and sleeping all day makes my bum and lower back sore. Can't wait to see patients!

Turns out, I love what I do!

Feels Like Fall

2009-08-31T07:24:00.003-04:00

It's cold out - 50 degrees! - and my throat was painful and dry this morning. I had the urge to put on my robe as I brushed the chompers and washed the face.

To which I say: No! Not ready yet!

Tomorrow is the first day of residency application submission, and I've come to the conclusion that residency applications are like med school and college apps: sure, I know 5 or 6 programs that I really like, but the rest of the programs I apply to will just be totally random, and I'm sure I'll end up missing some programs that are awesome that I didn't happen to randomly find out about...

And today is the first day of my pediatric dermatology rotation, which will consist predominantly of babies with eczema, and teenagers with acne. I am so excited! Not even being sarcastic!

Happy summer to all (I refuse to acknowledge the imminence of fall)

xo

Excuses, Excuses

2009-08-26T17:22:00.003-04:00

My reasons for not studying for my Neurology exam, which is on Friday:
- too hot
- too tired
- too sleepy (sleepiness and tiredness are not exactly the same, you know)
- too full
- too apathetic
- too little time before the next thing I have to do
- too stressed about residency apps
- too many other things to do
- mom and sister are here, gotta play with them
- grade won't really matter because residency apps won't include it

But really, I'm: too lazy.

Happy Hump Day!

Big Changes

2009-08-11T22:07:00.002-04:00

I was at the grocery store today and a lady totally hit me with her cart, banging the corner into my ankle and running over my foot. It hurt, yo. Right after it happened I turned with a surprised/pained look on my face, and she said all nonchalantly: "Oh did I hit you? I'm sorry" but totally not sincerely! I was totally pissed at her insincerity so I said "yes" and I really wanted to give her an earful about how she not only hit me, she also ran over my foot. But I sucked it up and let it go. I didn't even give her a really dirty look.

Calm "High Road" Jess: 1
Spiteful Immature Jess: 0

I guess I's growin' up, y'all.

It's been awhile since I last posted. I don't really know where the time goes, to tell you the truth. It feels like just yesterday I was living in Philly ordering Minar Palace and watching ALIAS with the gals on a regular basis, and then BAM! here I am, almost done with med school, dealing with a terrible case of senioritis (seriously, I am sooo lazy. And don't get me started on the hookie I've played). Have you ever felt that life moves by in this really weird fast-forward-yet-slow-motion, where time feels like it's dragging but at the same time you're watching your life just whiz past you? And then, every now and then, you hit a transition period, and suddenly you become acutely aware of it all - what you've accomplished, and what lies ahead. I'm in a transition period right now, with tons going on:

Eric is leaving me! His stuff is already moved to his new apartment in DC, and he's headed there on Sunday to start school. Yay for him! But sad for me. But yay overall! DC is a great city and we had a blast exploring last weekend. I'm super excited about living there after I graduate. So yay overall!
I got a new roommate! Her name is the same as mine, which is going to make for an interesting year... She is super nice, and I know her through a friend. I'm optimistic about this roommate experience...
This will be my last roommate experience, as this time next year I will be - wait for it - MARRIED!
There's a wedding to plan! I'm finally starting to gain some momentum with this planning stuff. You can even check out the beta stage of our wedding website (sign the guest book!)
Residency applications are due at the end of this month. Icky!

I'm pretty optimistic about life right now. When I applied for med school I was an anxious, insecure mess, and I definitely procrastinated because of it. This year I'm motivated to stay on top of things and really try to match at the program I want to go to. So here goes, I guess!

Big Step Forward!

2009-07-30T17:18:00.000-04:00

I bought a wedding dress, y'all! I succeeded in achieving my goals of buying a dress that was:
1. Simple and elegant
2. Preowned/second-hand (aka "used")
3. Under $800 (significantly!)

Yay! I can't believe it. Buying something as important as a wedding dress used and on the internet seems slightly risky, but my gut sense tells me I done good.

In case all that's going through your mind since starting this post has been: WTF!?!? $800!?!? - I would like to inform the naïve public (to which I once belonged) that wedding dresses are EXPENSIVE. Like, my dream dress is over $5000 plus the added cost of alterations. Most decent dresses run at least a grand, and slightly nicer, name-brand gowns run well into the $3000's. I know, seriously, WTF.

One of the many reasons I've been detesting wedding planning.

One biggie down, a bunch more to go!

I'm Outta Control!

2009-07-26T23:08:00.003-04:00

I try to be good about what I eat, and then every now and then I go to a party and eat like... everything. Yesterday I had about a quarter pan of rice krispie treats (yummmmm), a large slice of chocolate cream pie, and a piece of double chocolate ice cream cake. On top of the potluck food that was served. Ay. And I wonder why I can't take off this extra couple pounds I've gained in the last couple years?

But thankfully I'm back to exercising on a pretty regular basis. My muscles had missed it while I was on my AI! Here's a 3-week fitness update:

Week of 7/5:
Mon 7/6 - Bob week 3-4 (20min Bob + 10min Jillian + warm up and cool down). KILLER! The lunge-jumps were sooo hard that day. I was sore for like, 2 weeks
Wed 7/8 - 15min row + 15min treadmill + abs
Thurs 7/9 - arms #1 + 15min Expresso bike
(this weekend we got sick and laid around)

Week of 7/12:
Mon 7/14 - 20min Pilates, 25min Bob
Tue 7/15 - arms #2, 15min Expresso bike
Wed 7/16 - bike, run (I don't remember exactly what we did but that's what I wrote)
(this weekend we went to Philly for Hizzle Pizzle fun)

Week of 7/19:
Sun 7/19 - 20min cardio, 100 pushups workout (week 4 day 3 for me = 130 pushups, week 5 day 1 for E = ~140)
Mon 7/20 - 50min pilates
Wed 7/22 - 30min Expresso bike
Fri 7/23 - Jillian levels 1&2, stretch

Now, if only I could just limit myself to 1 (or even just 2) desserts per day!

Health Care Reform

2009-07-22T20:15:00.002-04:00

The topic makes me feel like my head's gonna explode. It also makes me sad to realize I'm just not smart enough to really think about it or understand all aspects of what's needed, what should be done, etc etc. But I think the system is most definitely broken, and a step in any direction is better than no step at all; so therefore I support this new proposed plan. I realize that's a really stupid reason to support a plan, but I'll get back to you when I've really thought about it more (unless I've died from aforementioned explosion of the head).

To Eat, Or Not To Eat?

2009-07-21T18:40:00.002-04:00

I ate.

I was sooo hungry! I didn't think a small snack would hold me over until dinner, especially if I was going to work out this evening. So I decided to skip the workout altogether and eat a big snack.

Turns out, microwaving corn is quick & easy. Two ears of corn - gone (well, chewed up and digestin' in my bell-ay)! Delicious when spread with a mix of mayo, chili powder, and parmesan cheese. Which may sound gross but trust me, delicious. I also had half a red bean bun and a green onion bun. Equally delicious.

Now I just have to decide whether to re-add the workout back to my evening.... HA! As if.

Happy Bastille Day!

2009-07-14T07:27:00.002-04:00

I must shamefully admit that I am far from being a history buff. I wish I had studied more history. If I had, I probably wouldn't have turned to Eric yesterday to ask,

What is Bastille Day about? Is it like the French Independence Day? From the Revolution?

And both of us didn't really know (except Eric sang me the French national anthem--quite gory if I may say so). So I looked it up on Wikipedia, and learned a lot.

For instance:
-The French government has changed like a bunch of times since Bastille day (they originally celebrated a constitutional monarchy, which was only short-lived).
-Some poor governer dude got decapitated and his head was paraded around on a spike to celebrate the successful storming of Bastille
-They only freed 7 prisoners from the Bastille prison
-A year later they held a big party on the Champ Mars, future site of Eiffel Tower--which had been cleaned up by a bunch of volunteers on a day called Wheelbarrow Day (hee!)
-Contrary to popular belief (or... well, my belief), Marie Antoinette did not make her declaration about bread, nor did she get decapitated on Bastille Day.

Summer Fun

2009-07-12T15:38:00.007-04:00

Now that I'm on a rotation that I hate, I'm living for the weekend again. All week, all I do is wish it was Friday, or at least Thursday. And then when the weekend arrives, I wish it would never end... a feeling that's strengthened by the fun that can be had now that it's summer.

Yesterday, I went berry picking with some gals. We went expecting black raspberries, but instead came home with pounds of red raspberries... soo delicious!

And then we made tacos & sangria and had people over for a potluck. Sadly, the above berries were gone within the first hour of gaiety. But such is the price of fun.

This morning I finally got around to taking pictures of my ring--something I've been meaning to do for quite some time. I'm excited about how they came out! Maybe this'll be the kick in the pants I need to get on with the W-word planning. Le sigh.

Pretty good, eh? It's all about lighting and the "macro" setting on the camera. And some editing.

Next week, E's dad comes to visit, then we're off to Philly for some magical Muggle fun. That's enough to get me through a week of psych consults. Hoorah for summer fun!

Freakin' Bob!

2009-07-08T22:54:00.002-04:00

Where to start? It's been so long since I posted.

Well. Let's see: I got through my Acting Internship! All done! There were about 4 really tough days where I made mistakes and felt like crawling into a hole for a year. There were 2 really tough call nights (the first of which included a patient who had a complex seizure as I walked into his room, the second of which involved 6 admissions, 18 patients, new interns, and zero sleep). But the rest of it was pretty awesome. I worked my tush off, and I feel really great about both my career choice as well as my ability to perform as a resident in the years to come.

Highlight: babies, of course. And the card I got from a 5-yr-old patient, which he dictated to his grandma (but wrote my and his names himself): "Dr. Jess, Thank you for letting me go home. I want to come back and visit sometimes. [adorable patient's name]".

It was interesting to be on service when the new interns started--as in, yesterday they were med students, today they're MD's. It made for a LOT more work and stress on my part, since I'm familiar with the hospital, the system, etc., so I was (ironically) the "veteran" intern of the group. It was flattering. But exhausting.

Needless to say, I did not work out for the last 2.5 weeks of my AI. Seriously, there wasn't enough time (e.g., I worked a >90 hour week for the first time ever!). So on Monday I popped Bob into the machine, and worked through Jillian. I wanted to die. This used to be easy for me!? What!? And today,... O M G.. The pain. But since I am disgusted by the spare tire of flab in the midsection (why does it have to be at the exact place where my pants hit?), I must get back on track. Stay tuned for fitness updates!

Oddly Reminiscent

2009-06-11T21:34:00.002-04:00

I'm tucked under the covers, scolding myself for not getting to bed earlier.

Yes, it's 9:37. It's true: I go to sleep between 9 and 10pm. Or, at least, I try to. Because, you see, when one wakes up at 4:15 each morning to work a full day's mentally taxing/emotionally draining work, one just needs those 7 hours of sleep. Especially when one is going to work a 30 hour shift the following day. And is no longer a young sprightly thing in her early twenties.

So.

I had a thought as I was brushing my teeth at 9:10 to prepare for my 9:30 bedtime:

This lifestyle is like living a long-distance relationship, only we actually live in the same house. When I lived in Philly and Eric lived in LA, we would talk for awhile before my bedtime (Eastern midnight/1am), and after I went to sleep Eric would hang out and do nighttime things until his bedtime (3 hours later at Pacific midnight/1am). I would wake up several hours later and go to work, thinking fondly of my boyfriend who was fast asleep, yet to wake up for work.

Our life now:
We work out/exercise/hang out/watch TV/putz around for a couple of hours after work, then I go to bed at my bedtime (Eastern 9pm), and after I go to sleep Eric hangs out/does nighttime things until his bedtime (3 hours later at Eastern Pacific midnight/1am). I wake up at 4:15 and stealthily (erm, clumsily) get dressed in the dark, attempting not to wake my boyfriend who is fast asleep, yet to wake up for work.

It's like, the same!! Isn't that a cool/terrible/interesting/ironic twist of fate?

In other news, our CSA is totally freakin' awesome. It's a good thing I love onions. This week will be Adventures With Scapes week at Chez Kim-Signoff.
In other other news, the Shred has gotten substantially easier, but I still hate Jillian.

(To be completely honest, I would actually prefer 8 hour of sleep, but an 8pm bedtime is just not realistic. I would have to eat in my sleep.)

Mischief

2009-06-08T20:55:00.002-04:00

A memory:

I was at some airport somewhere... I think it was in Texas. And the airport had, for better or worse, created a paging system that was open to the public. There were these computerized kiosks where you could type in a person's name, and the kiosk would then page that person over the entire airport's PA system, requesting them to call the phone at the kiosk at which the name was entered. I remember walking by a kiosk and thinking, whoever started this system was naive, or had great trust in the public, or something...

Among the variety of mischievous pages I heard during my short layover, my favorite was:

"Will passenger Salinger report to ____, will passenger J. D. Salinger please report to ____."

It was like the Mel in the Simpsons, but so much better cuz it was real life in the airport!
Hee :)

June Already!

2009-06-07T21:08:00.002-04:00

Time's flown by, my oh my!

Since the last time I posted, Eric & I went to California to do some very rushed wedding planning, I had a crazy week of work, and we drove to Michigan for a wedding...

...and here we are. June already, phew!

Tomorrow I start my Acting Internship (AI), which is not a month in which I study how to be an actress, but rather is an "audition" month in which I act as a pediatric intern, such that (a) I get a feel for what it's like and have a chance to change my mind if I hate it, and (b) I can get evaluated by higher-ups who can then write my letters of recommendation. Have I mentioned I hate applications and interviews? Life's just an endless cycle of tryouts, really. Gahh.

The wedding this weekend was lots and lots of fun. It made me happy that we're having a more "traditional" wedding in which people can drink and dance and just enjoy merriment in general.

Which brings me to... the whole getting married thing-- It's actually happening, for real! Like, as in: we have a date, and a place, and we're signing a contract and paying a deposit! I know, right? Crazy!

Who: me and E, but of course. And you, and a bunch of other people. Yay!
What: Our wedding!
When: Sunday, May 30, 2010 (Memorial Day Weekend)
Where: Summit House restaurant in Fullerton, CA, evening
Why: We've caught the monogamy bug and want to announce it to each other and our closest friends + family, and then have a fun crazy party where we get to hang out with people we love
How: somehow, some. how.

We have nothing else done yet, but there will be save-the-dates and invitations and etc. to come.

So with all the insanity that's been going on this past month, we've sorta just been trying to hold steady in the fitness realm:
Sun 5/24 - 30min Expresso bike, some abs
Tue 5/26 - 4mi run (partly walked) thru the park
Thur 5/28 - Level 2 Shred
Fri 5/29-Sun 5/31 - we were in California, failed to exercise :(
Mon 6/1 - Eric ran, I napped
Tue 6/2 - 30min Expresso bike, 100 pushups Week 3 Day 1 Column 3
Thur 6/4 - Level 3 Shred
Sat 6/5 - 30 min bike/run (E), elliptical (J) --we were at the hotel in MI

Early bird

2009-05-28T06:17:00.000-04:00

Blogging from Starbucks, drinkin' a much-needed soy misto as I wait for 6:30 to roll around so I can walk to the bus stop of my 2nd bus... This new Children's Hospital is really a nuisance to get to, what with all the transfering of modes of transportation and whatnot.

Anyway. I was walking to the (1st) bus stop at 5:50 this morning. It was dawn-ish, with the sun getting brighter each second. From down the street way ahead of me I could see a car weaving along the street, crossing into the opposite lane, idling, weaving back and forth--driving recklessly, in short. Before I knew it, it was driving toward me, and then started driving directly at me (on the sidewalk on the other side of the road). I could see that the window was open, and there was a man driving. I got nervous. I prepared to run away from this potentially drunk ill-intentioned man.

He then proceeded to throw a newspaper onto the lawn of the house I had just passed, weaved back to the other side of the road, and drove away.

Eric sometimes says I get up with the donut-makers and paperboys of the world. Unfortunately (well, fortunately), Pittsburgh actually isn't a donut town. But everyone has paperboys. And yep, this morning I was up with one of 'em.

The Yay List

2009-05-25T10:14:00.002-04:00

Things I'm excited about right now:
1. I have today off, hoooooraaayyyy!!!!
2. We're getting married (a year from yesterday! -sorta)
3. I'm going to be a pediatrician!
4. Eric's starting school
5. We'll get to explore a new city over the next couple of years
6. Our CSA starts 6/4
7. Angie's coming home soon / Harry Potter!

Last week's fitness update:
Sun 5/17: 30min Expresso, abs
Mon 5/18: 5K in the park
Tue 5/19: 50min pilates
Sat 5/23: ~4mi hike

Jesserka and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

2009-05-21T18:58:00.002-04:00

Today being Thursday, the children's hospital held Grand Rounds at 8am. I wanted to get to the hospital before 7AM to see my 3 patients and write their notes. Which meant I had to catch the 6:30AM shuttle to the new hospital, which meant leaving the apartment at 6:10 to catch the bus to take me to the shuttle. (We lowly med students don't get real parking at the hospital. If we drive, we have to park in a lot that's far away, then take a 20min shuttle to the hospital... so I take the bus to the old hospital, then take a shuttle to the new hospital.)

Anyway. I woke up ass-early and got ready. I decided to wear a floral patterned red skirt to commemorate the warmth and the fact that it's almost Friday. I ate my yogurt and ran out the door. I caught a bus and got to the shuttle stop at just about 6:29...... and it wasn't there. I figured I must've missed it. So I made the best of the situation and went to Starbucks and had myself a soy misto while I waited for the 7AM shuttle. I figured being 30min late wasn't going to cramp my style too bad. But then... the 7AM shuttle never showed. 7:05 came and went, 7:10 came and went. At this point I didn't know if the shuttles weren't running at all, so I decided to take the ridiculously roundabout bus route to the hospital. By the time I got there, it was nearly 8 and I had to miss Grand Rounds so that I could see my patients. It was a full hour and a half since I'd left home. To think: I could have slept that much longer!

[The work day was fine, fun times on Infectious Diseases. Lots of sick kids getting better, and grateful parents. Being a pediatrician is going to rock my socks.]

Fast forward to 5:30, which is the departure time for the last shuttle going back to the old hospital. We weren't done with rounds yet, so I knew I wasn't going to make it home on the shuttle; I was going to have to call poor Eric to pick me up. Which he generously agreed to do (insert my grateful rambling about how great he is whereas I'm a terrible lazy whiney wifey)--but he was just on his way home, so it would be at least a half hour before he could get me. Great, I thought, I'll get a snack and sit outside in the beautiful new outdoor picnic space, reading the Times on the Blackberry. So I got myself a piece of carrot cake and sat at a shaded table on the terrace. I put my legs up on the ledge beside me and read about Obama's Guantanamo speech. As I sat there, there was a bee that was obsessed with my skirt. It thought I was a flower, which, I mean, who can blame it?

I've never been the girl who screams and waves her arms around as she runs around in circles all because of a damn bee.

So I sat there and let the bee buzz around as I read, and it went away--must've figured out my skirt isn't yummy and pollenacious. Then, a couple minutes later, I looked up and saw a big spider crawling around on my bag, so I leaned forward and brushed it away. As I leaned forward I felt something tickling my back, just under the waist of my skirt. I scratched at it... and felt something sharp. A sting, to be exact. It kinda hurt but not really, and I was like. Did I just get stung by that bee? So I rubbed my back and realized there was definitely something foreign back there! I was totally revolted by the idea that the bee had flown up my skirt. I flapped the bottom of my skirt around, and looked down. A dead bee plopped onto the ground below the chair I was sitting in. Gross.

I felt funny, then glad that I was at a hospital in case I had an anaphylactic reaction. I took a few deep breaths and monitored myself for symptoms. None. I went to the bathroom and examined the wound for a stinger. None (but there was a nice red wheal & flare, just like in the textbooks). I called Eric to whine and laugh at myself about how sorry I felt for myself.

And then he came to pick me up, and we came home. I've given myself an excuse not to exercise today. We ordered pizza. :) Hooray.

So really it wasn't such a terrible horrible nogood verybad day, but it could have been a lot better! I'm driving, from now on. And from now on, picnic = pants. Yessireebob.

Pesky Fly!

2009-05-20T22:17:00.002-04:00

It's warm out and it hasn't rained in like 3 days (knock on wood)... which means the buzzin' flies are back! They get caught between the blinds and window and, due to their pathetically short memory span, buzz buzz buzz as they bump into blind-window-blind-blind-window, etc. This can be really irritating as one tries to fall asleep.

It's funny how you forget about flies during the winter.

But I still prefer spring and summer :) Especially since Rico kills the flies for me. Summer is just infinitely better, no?

And now since we're officially over the Hump, I'm allowed to talk about the weekend that approacheth: it promises to be pretty damn glorious, indeed!: Lid is visiting from the Big Apple, the weather appears to be behaving for now, and it's a holiday weekend! I smell a hike and some delicious food. Wootdeedoot! Deedoot deedoot!

Fallen Off the Wagon

2009-05-16T21:32:00.002-04:00

No fitness update this week because, my friends: I DID NOT EXERCISE THIS WEEK.

Unless you count the 9000+ steps per day I've walked the halls at the new hospital (including going up and down as many as 6 flights of steps at a time, thank you very much). But once you start counting daily activity in exercise, you lose. So it doesn't count.

I have no real excuse for my miserable failure except that I was both jet lagged and tired. I fell into the rotten nap trap, which is the reason I am very anti-napping. The Rotten Nap Trap is a cycle that plays out as follows:

Come home exhausted -> Fall asleep -> Wake up too late to do anything productive but eat dinner -> Try to go to sleep -> Can't fall asleep -> Try -> Can't (repeat a few times) -> Feel awful about having napped -> Keep trying and can'ting -> Finally fall asleep in the wee hours -> Wake up feeling awful -> Go to work with sleep debt

So this weekend I'm wearing myself out, no naps allowed, in hopes of breaking the vicious cycle. This morning I was very productive: I swapped out my winter and summer clothes, did laundry, put clean sofa cushion covers on the sofa cushions, and dusted the bedrooms, went to the bank, saw the 4th year's annual end-of-med-school musical production. I am le tired. But alas, no napping allowed!

Tomorrow: back on the wagon.

Last Day of Vacay Blues

2009-05-10T22:00:00.002-04:00

Maaaaaaaan. I have to go to work tomorrow morning. Boooooooooooooooo.

I'm in the final hours of a 10-day vacation, which was preceded by a week of class (not really work), which itself was preceded by a pretty chill month and a research month before that. Meaning: I have not really worked for like, 2.5 months. I'm nervous to go back.

Eric & I went to LA/OC last week to (attempt to) get some wedding planning stuff done. We met with a few awesome photographers and visited a combination of awesome and not-so-awesome ceremony/reception venues. What I've learned about wedding planning is: I hate it even more than I thought. And my parents say they're happy with whatever we decide, but they don't actually mean it. It really is all about the parents, in the end. It's so frustrating to be doing this long-distance with all sorts of stressful things looming: my acting internship, Step 2 of the boards (both the clinical and written portions), residency applications and interviews. I was really hoping to leave California having booked a venue... but things as they stand are actually less settled than when we got there. It was a frustrating week, and I can't wait until this is all behind us so I can have relaxing weeks at home again, instead of angry argumentative frustrating weeks of poor communication.

Anyway.

We also went to Disneyland--the first time I've gone in like 10 years or something. It was pretty fun, and I finally visited the California Adventures park, which was definitely more my speed--fewer rides, wine tasting, and a cooking show. Good times.

Eric left on Wednesday to visit his own family, and I got to spend some more time with my own family and friends. Spending time with my friends from home makes me yearn to move back. One of my best friends just moved with her boyfriend into an apartment that is literally on Seal Beach, a block over from the Main St area with cute coffee shops and restaurants. On Friday night a bunch of us went over for a semi-girls' night, semi-house warming party. When we got there, her boyfriend had just gone surfing and strolled in with his wet suit half-zipped and set his surfboard down on their balcony and fired up their new grill. And they pay less rent for a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment than I did in Philly. I was so incredibly jealous. We had a relaxed night full of wine, barbeque, laughter, and reminiscing. In one night, I got more support and suggestions for wedding-related stuff than I have in the almost-year we've been engaged. There's really nothing in the world that can substitute your girlfriends.

In terms of working out, it was sort of a joke. The week before we left for Cali, I think we worked out 3 times... once we did Pilates then level 3 of the 30-day Shred, another day we went to the gym and rode the Expresso bikes and did arms. I think we did another day but I can't remember.

Last week's fitness update:
Mon 5/4 - walked around Disneyland (hey, it counts!)
Tues 5/5 - ran ~3 mi circuit at my old high school track with bleacher steps and ramps, hard core abs
Thur 5/7 - 40min pilates, 25 min 30 day shred level 1
Sat 5/9 - 25 min 30 day shred level 3 with 4lb weights, which was sooo crazy (usually we do 2.5lb)

Eric's workout schedule was different than mine after Wednesday bc he was in Kansas. I think he did a lot of biking.

Gotta get back on track with eating and working out! Wish me luck :)

movin' groovin'

2009-04-25T13:59:00.003-04:00

The "Cool Kids" radio on Pandora is like, the greatest thing ever!

This week's fitness update:
Sun 4/19 - 25min pilates, 25min 30 Day Shred Level 3
Tue 4/21 - 30min Espresso bike
Wed 4/22 - Arm workout #2, 30min elliptical (J)/stairmaster (E)
Fri 4/24 - 30min elliptical (J)
Sat 4/25 - ~2.5mi run, ~1.5mi walk (it was hot and I was tired, yo)

For anyone who wants a good workout that's short but intense, I highly recommend Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred. It's really good. Every time we do it, I'm blown away at how intense and effective it is. It's split into 3 cycles, each with 3 minutes strength, 2 minutes cardio, and 1 minute abs (18 minutes + warm up/cool down)--this makes it feel like it goes by really quickly. Jillian is a good trainer in that she counts things down so you know when it's almost over, and she's encouraging without being tacky. It's also really cheap, it has 3 levels of difficulty so you can have variety, and it's only 25 minutes for a total body workout. Plus you can do it in your living room--perfect for rainy days or otherwise lazy days where you can't force yourself to get to the gym. All you need is a pair of light handweights (we use 2.5lbs), but you could start off without.

Why I need to head back West

2009-04-18T18:46:00.002-04:00

Sunny, beautiful weather makes me so ridiculously happy. If it's nice out, I run outside, go hiking, leisurely walk from errand to errand, etc. Eric & I went for a nice evening run yesterday, and today we drove up to McConnell's Mill State Park to go on a 3+ hour hike. Springtime is glorious. Being active outdoors is the key to feeling energized and happy.

It's nearly May, and it stops being nice in October-ish, which means we have maybe 5 months where I'm at maximal health and happiness--that's less than half the year! Inclusive of the months where it's actually way too muggy and hot to do anything of use outside. Also inclusive of the many days of rain (we have the same # of days of rain as Portland). Sometimes I think, gee, it's a good thing we have a miserable winter and a ridiculous mid-summer, because I've come to appreciate seasons and especially fall and spring. But I think I'd be appreciative plenty if I had more warmth and less slippery frigid cold. Give me 65 degrees with sun/cloud/rain and plentiful outdoor activities yearlong, thank you very much!

Which brings me to: Golly, do I want to move to the Pacific Northwest. I really hope we end up there someday...

Anyway, this week's fitness update:
Sun 4/12 - 50min Pilates
Wed 4/15 - 25min Biggest Loser Cardio Max, 25min Jillian's 30-day shred (this was sooo intense)
Fri 4/16 - 4mi run
Sat 4/17 - approx 6mi hike, moderate intensity

Pretty Pictures

2009-04-15T22:55:00.004-04:00

1. It's a long-known "fact" that engagement rings should cost somewhere in the neighborhood of two months' salary (of the groom-to-be). I have no idea where this tradition comes from, but I do have an idea of how I feel about it--which is: I feel that it's completely ridiculous. But in any case, I found this artist's collection pretty interesting. If anything, it's eye candy.

2. This is less a pretty picture and more a graphic illustration of why we should all be vegetarians. Or flexitarians, for those of us who believe that humans are supposed to have some meat in our diets. And also locovores with expensive energy-efficient housewares. Someday I'll have the means, but for now I'll join my local CSA, take short showers, and maybe even throw a jug into the toilet tank. Green is the new black, after all.

(But you won't get me to give up coffee for tea, I'll tell you that right now)

200! (just a little belated)

2009-04-12T23:08:00.004-04:00

This is post #202 on my little ol' bloggo! I was going to celebrate post #200, but I overlooked it. Sorta like when you know your friend's birthday is on May 1 and you make a mental note to call her on May 1, but on May 3 you realize you forgot to call because you didn't realize on May 1 that it was May 1. (Come on, I know you know what I'm talkin'bout.)

Anyway. I wasn't sure where to post about this really cool new font from the Dutch. But since the link isn't technically to an article, I decided to post here rather than the Article Recs site--which most of the people who read this are collaboraters of, so it's not that it matters. Anyway, the font is called Ecofont and uses 20% less ink when printed, is free for download at the site, and is kinda ugly-cute with little white dots throughout each letter. So go forth and save our darling Mother Earth with yet another questionably impactful way of being green!

In other news, I'm done with my ED shifts and will be working at the VA ENT clinic this week. Old men are such a hoot. But the 20+ min climb up about 1 mile of steep hills & stairs to get to the damn VA is decidedly not a hoot. I shall be happy to see Saturday roll around again--it'll be my first weekend off since March.

In other non-news, I am always hungry. The current moment is no exception. Pass the ice cream, please!

etadpU ssentiF

2009-04-11T22:27:00.004-04:00

I spelled it backwards because I wanted a fun title but my brain is too tired to be clever.

I realize nobody cares about how much E&I work out, but it really is nice to keep a record of our gymming, and also it's motivating to keep it publicized. So HA! too bad! I'm gonna keep posting these updates.

AND. When I weighed myself at the gym last week, I was BELOW my pre-8lb-weight-gain weight!! I think I've finally turned the corner and am burning off the fat. So much for the teratoma theory...

Since the last time I posted a fitness update:
Sun 3/29 - 50min Pilates
Mon 3/30 - arm workout #2 (pushups/pullups and more, whoopee) + 20min Espresso bike (this awesome realistic bike at the gym that totally kicks ass)
Tue 3/31 - 4mi run
Wed 4/01 - 4mi run + legs
Thur 4/02 - Eric ran 4mi (I didn't work out Thur - Sun bc I had back-to-back ED shifts over the weekend)
Sat 4/04 - Eric ran a 10K race (I was really sad I couldn't run this race - no sarcasm I swear!)
Sun 4/05 - we played whiffle ball in the park with friends (our arms got totally sore!)'
Mon 4/06 - 30min stairmaster (J), Espresso bike (E)
Tue 4/07 - arm workout #2 (free weights on the balance ball), 20min treadmill
Thur 4/09 - 4mi run (J), 6mi run (E) (I ran before my night shift, Eric ran after he got home)
Sat 4/11 - 6mi run

Musings on Med Student Hyponchondriasis

2009-04-11T22:03:00.003-04:00

So maybe I'm a hypochondriac, sometimes. Like, during my outpatient pediatric month I saw a baby who had contracted shigella in Peru [in fact, I scooped his naaasty-smelling diarrhea using a little wooden spoon (not unlike the spoon with which one eats ice cream out of a wax-covered paper cup) out of 3 separate diapers into 3 separate sample cups, trying to talk and hold my breath at the same time] and then when I had diarrhea was convinced I also had shigella. And everyone knows about my whole Hantavirus experience (hangs head in shame). A month ago when I was sick and vomiting with a GI bug, I thought I might have an obstruction and seriously considered going to the ED; I had visions of being wheeled to the OR by one of the GI surgeons I worked with. When I gained 8 pounds in 6 months and could not lose any weight despite being a health-nut gym-bo, I half-joked that I must have some kind of teratoma, or some other kind of tumor making my innards heavier and bigger (heaven forbid I actually just gain weight in the form of fat, right?).

But honestly a lot of the hyponchondriacism is sort of just for self-entertainment. I never actually believe I have any of this stuff. In fact, I think that being a med student has made it a lot less likely that I'll react to things that might actually warrant some attention.

Take for example: I have this rash on my lower abdomen/flank that is starting to creep onto my upper anterior thighs, and has also appeared on my inner elbows and upper arms. I think it's probably just some viral rash. I've had other symptoms that are probably TMI so I won't write about them. Anyway, the point is: I think most people would have gone to the doctor about this by now--I've absolutely seen enough of this type of thing in the ED this month. But I'm just going to wait it out. I think of most things as being not a big deal, and that the likelihood that I have something serious is wayyyy tiny. I'll just wait to see if I'm a statistical anomaly. I know for certain of a million conditions for which I will never, ever take my kids to the ED. And I think I'll underreact, if anything, if my kids ever have a fever or vomiting/diarrhea for a few days. This, not hypochondriasis, is what med school has done to me.

(But being a hypochondriac is so much fun!)

The ED

2009-04-09T14:14:00.003-04:00

The ED is the Emergency Department, which to most people is known as the "ER", probably largely due to the TV show (which ironically aired its final episode on the night of my first ED shift). "ED" also happens to be the much-publicized acronym for erectile dysfunction. All of this leads to a very confusing month of ED shifts where you talk about "I'm so tired from working the ED all day", and your fiance sorta giggles each time you open your mouth.

On Saturday I was in the ED when the shootout happened in Pittsburgh. I saw a lot, did a lot, and I think I'll always be affected by it all. Even though Emergency Medicine wasn't on my short list of career choices, on Saturday it got ruled out all together. My psyche cannot handle belligerent drunks, nice people in severe pain, and heroes who die on the same cold metal tables that their shooters are later saved on--not on any regular basis. For me, the excitement doesn't make it worthwhile. Plus I totally hate shift work. Give me a 5am start time every day over 5 random 10-hour shifts any day.

Anyway, that ended up being totally somber. On a happy note: I got my new camera in the mail yesterday, hoorah!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2009-04-02T21:34:00.002-04:00

Let's go in reverse order, to end on a happy note:

1. The Ugly: Yesterday, I fell asleep on the couch around oh, 5ish. When Eric got home and we got ready to go on our run, I was still extremely lethargic; my body was still asleep. So I made the brilliant decision to have Eric brew me some espresso... which I never drink, let alone at 7pm. The run was great, and dinner was great, and putzing around on the internets was great.... but then when I tried to go to sleep at 11pm so I could wake up refreshed at 5:30 for my early ER shift this morning... I couldn't. I tried, and tried, and then it was 12:22am. I tried some more, and then it was 2:40am. I tried even harder, and it was 4:02am. I think I got about an hour of sleep. It was sorta awful. But not as awful as insomnia can be: I told myself not to freak out because at least if I was laying down and relaxing, I would feel more rested than if I panicked all night. Plus, I rarely have trouble sleeping, so it was a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. And I re-learned the lesson about abstaining from caffeine past mid-afternoon. Luckily, I made it through the day okay (pretty well, actually)!

2. The Bad. I went to the dentist yesterday. I had a cavity. *Sob*. And I have to go get a filling the day after my birthday. *Sob* ...It's actually not the biggest deal, but seriously? A cavity? Me? Honestly, I know no other human being who takes better care of his/her teeth than I do. So Not Fair!

3. The GOOD. Today, my resident was telling me about a patient who needed an LP.
"Have you ever done one?" she asked.
"No," I replied.
"Have you seen one done?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"Do you want to do it?" she asked.
Me: ..... blink ..... "okay!"
And so I did my first LP! After waffling only once about being scared! And I got it on the first try, so the guy only got stuck twice (once for lidocaine to numb, and once to actually puncture)!! It was seriously the most awesome thing ever... aside from delivering babies. So cool. I also got to stitch the inside of a guy's lip, which had busted open when he got punched in the face in a drunken altercation. Totally awesome. I love this rotation, yo! (But fear not, I am not changing career path yet again, to Emergency Medicine.)

Silly Confessions

2009-03-30T22:17:00.003-04:00

Silly confession #1: I want to see the Hannah Montana movie.

Silly confession #2: Sometimes I read the comments to Times articles because they make me feel good about myself (i.e., I'm not so low as to argue with complete strangers using really bad grammar and poor logic in response to some minor article)

In Like a Lion...

2009-03-30T00:49:00.004-04:00

Out like a... lion. It's sleety and cold out! Eric's high school had to cancel their senior prom last night due to this huge storm, which is now entering the 'burgh. Brrr.

We had a fun dinner get-together last night. I made a burfday cake out of Funfetti cake, chocolate cake batter ice cream from Cold Stone, homemade chocolate buttercream frosting, and sprinkles (yes, that is an actual flavor of Cold Stone ice cream. And yes, it was an intensely caketastic cake). Why the cake? Because the end of March means Eric's birthday!! Yay!! Plus the end of March marks birthday season bc like, anybody who is anybody was born in late March or April. Fo' shizzle!

Tonight we started a loaf o' bread in Eric's new bread machine, which was my totally domestic and practical gift to him this year. And for Eric's birthday I also bought myself a new camera, hee! It's like when kids get presents on their siblings' birthdays. Except I'm not a kid, nor am I a sibling, and I bought the gift for myself. But who cares? My camera broke and needed replacin' (see picture with explanation in "Photo Parade", to the right--there's a bear in the picture!). Without a functional camera, who is going to take pictures of all the bread Eric's going to make, and also of the tulips that are sitting in a vase on the dining room table?

I heart flowers, even though I sorta don't. Also, I'm hungry. I'm always hungry. Anyway, I'm rambling now.

Happy birthday season!

Long Overdue Fitness Update

2009-03-29T22:39:00.002-04:00

I haven't posted a fitness update since 2/28. Sadly, I don't remember what we did from 3/1-3/14 because we erased it off our whiteboard (yeah, we have a whiteboard on which we keep track of workouts & also dinners). But I'll try. We (well, I) sorta fell off the exercise wagon this month... It's always hard when you go somewhere/have visitors over weekends bc you end up losing your 2 good leisurely days of exercise. And then during the weekdays you end up catching up on stuff you didn't do over the weekend, and work out less.

BUT. All this exercise & the healthy eating are FINALLY starting to pay off! My pants are way looser, and on Friday I totally wore these gray pants I've never worn bc they've been too tight! Hooray for results!!

So without further adieu, this month's fitness update:
Week of 3/1-3/7: I'm pretty sure we ran outside at least twice, did Pilates once, and maybe went to the gym once and did arms or something. Probably worked out about 4 times.

Week of 3/8-3/14: This was the week when I got that really awful GI sickness. I was sick as a dawg. I didn't do any regimented workouts at all, but I wasn't sedentary--I walked to school 3 times, and that weekend, we went to DC and walked probably 4-5 miles a day. Eric was really good and ran outside like 4 times. I also didn't eat for like 5 days.

For the next 2 weeks, I walked to school every day (~3/wk) in addition to exercising. We also counted the zoo & the outlets as exercise bc seriously, it's a lot of walking!
Sun 3/15: Walked ~3 miles in DC
Tues 3/17: Ran 4mi, Arm workout #2
Wed 3/18: Ran 4mi, insane legs
Mon 3/24: Ran 4mi, Arm workout #1
Wed 3/25: E-30min bike, J-30min elliptical, insane legs
Thur3/26: walked around the outlet mall
Fri 3/27: went to the zoo!
Sat 3/28: Ran 4mi
Sun 3/29: 50min Pilates

25 going on 40: let us count the ways

2009-03-23T23:06:00.004-04:00

Our good friend from college visited this weekend, and a fantastic time was had by all. But the weekend drove home the fact that I. AM. SO. OLD. Seriously. I'm 25-going-on-middle-aged.

Case in point: I never go out to bars, and when I do, I consume less than one beer. One night out per week is plenty; four nights out per week sounds like a little too much for the liver. I know none of the "in" musicians--and I haven't even heard their songs. Concerts have lost their appeal; ear-drum-bustingly loud music and rowdy fans sounds just too tiring. I go to sleep at or before midnight on most nights, and during early-rounds rotations, I aim for a 9:30 bedtime (hey, you try regularly waking up at 4:30am with less than 7 hours of sleep!). There was a time when I could eat consecutive meals out without guilt (for the $ and the extra calories) or without getting a fryer-oil-induced stomachache. But now I'm so accustomed to cooking that 2 restaurant dinners and a trip to the ice cream stand feels like a big-time splurge. High heels scare me. I enjoy cleaning the bathroom. I can't wait to live in a house with a yard so that I can compost and grow my own produce. I've been known to peruse Petfinder.com for entertainment, in search for my future new old adopted dog. I enjoy talking about things that most people find boring. I refer to journalists' articles as "pieces". I get seriously annoyed at undergrad students. An old man called me an "upright citizen" on the bus today. I've gotten used to hearing "ma'am".

The scariest part is, I don't think there's any turning back! This is what I've become, and this is what I'll be!

I'm having a mid-life crisis and I'm only 25!

Pain in my FAFSA

2009-03-19T12:45:00.003-04:00

Seriously? Taxes and financial aid are soooo confusing. I consider myself a fairly bright individual with perhaps above-average powers of deduction and reasoning. But darnit if, year after year, I submit my taxes and financial aid with a niggling feeling that I have (unintentionally) committed some kind of tax error that could land me in some kind of trouble (not that people who have no income and pay no taxes could really be in big trouble).

Every year, my parents give me a little cash to help with the day-to-day--to help keep my loans from soaring into the >quartermillionbygraduation range. But I am not their dependent. The money comes from their taxed income. It's already taxed--it's not really wages, nor is it "untaxed income" like social security or what-not. It's a "gift", which they can put on their taxes as such, but where do I put it? And on FAFSA there's no section for that. There are sections for "money paid or received on your behalf", but that's not really what a cash gift is. So now I've ended up with a bunch of "$0"s everywhere on my financial aid forms without really knowing what I'm doing.

This is why docs need financial advisors, I guess.

*le sigh*

The Internets Are So Amazing

2009-03-17T22:28:00.002-04:00

I found fun stuff on the internets today! This is evidenced by the quizzes I've posted earlier this evening. Do I have 50 pages of ethics readings to do? Perhaps. Did I read about composting instead? Plus read design/DIY blogs and download a bunch of awesome desktop backgrounds? Maybe. And did I then run 3.5 miles outside and go ape-sh*t on my arms at the JCC, then co-cook a dinner of salmon, kale, 'sparagus, and roasted potatoes? Uh-huh.

Still haven't started the readings. But I do have a story to tell:

This morning I had a little trouble deciding what to wear in celebration of St Patrick's Day; my choices were a nice green turtleneck vs. a bright green shirt that has "smartypants" screen-printed across the chest (the shirt was a gift. I don't really enjoy having the word "smartypants" emblazoned across my body). Since the forecast called for a gorgeous warm day, and the neck of the turtleneck tends to be excessively tight, I settled for the T-shirt, but put on a white cardigan buttoned such that the "smartypants" was covered.

So I walked to school (as I've taken up doing), picking up a cup of coffee along the way. As I reached campus, a huuuge droplet of coffee flew out the sippy hole on the cup lid and splattered across my white cardigan. Yeesh!

And thus I found myself in a dilemma: Do I (a) walk around with an embarrassing brown stain down my front, or do I (b) remove the cardigan, and instead walk into the ethics course with declaring myself to be a "smartypants"?

I chose (a). I managed to blot the offensive stain such that it was maybe humming rather than singing (like that Superbowl Tide marker commercial, hee!, I love that commercial). Would you have done differently?

To Smile, or Not to Smile

2009-03-17T22:20:00.001-04:00

Can you spot a fake smile?

Benevolent Leader

2009-03-17T21:55:00.002-04:00

This is an interesting personality quiz thing. It takes about 20 minutes to complete, but it's kinda fun. I am apparently a Benevolent Leader.

two thumbs straight down

2009-03-10T15:46:00.002-04:00

Yesterday my hard drive died. My computer had been acting kinda wishywashy for awhile, but yesterday it just died. I tried to restart it a bunch of times, and at first, the start-up screen was an alternating image of the apple logo and a circle with a dash through it. Then it turned into a blinking folder icon with a question mark in it. Dooooommmm! So Eric took my computer to the Apple store, where they deemed it doomed and replaced the hard drive. Because the last time I backed up my schtuff was 4/08 (and this disc is for some reason not being recognized), I pretty much lost a lot of important schtuff. Aaaarrrrggghhh.

And why did Eric have to take my computer, rather than Jess taking her own damn doomed computer to get fixin'? Well, that would be because I was laying in bed writhing in pain because I caught some nasty bug yesterday. It came on very suddenly--nausea, vomiting, myalgias, arthralgias, fevers, chills, pounding headache, dizziness, neck pain. It was awful. I wanted to die. I started making differential diagnoses for myself. The list included: gastroenterovirus, influenza, viral enteritis + meningitis, food poisoning, bowel obstruction. I kept complaining to poor Eric, "I don't feel good. I feel bad. I feel terrible", and then laughing at the stupid self-pitying I was doing. And repeat.

Double trouble, friends.

Anyway. I also have two thumbs down for this Slate article written by 2 ER docs about doctors going to work sick. This is a really poorly written article. In the introduction to their article, the authors imply that hospital-acquired infections are largely due to the spreading of germs from sick doctors. This isn't true at all; most nosocomial infections are from bacteria that are ubiquitous on our bodies and on hospital equipment such as catheters and lines (see CDC stats). For example, when a Foley catheter (a plastic tube that collects urine from your bladder) sits in your urethra for >48 hours, there is a damn good chance that some of the bacteria that naturally exist on the plastic tubing will make their way into your body. Then you get a urinary tract infection. With your body's defenses down (due to the illness that landed you in the hospital), the infection can then spread to your bloodstream. Similar stories for IV tubing, for ventilator tubing--bacteria from the enviroment getting into your weakened system, causing a bloodstream infection, or pneumonia.

Most illnesses that strike us--us being you, me, and healthy doctors--are viral. None of the leading nosocomial infections are viral; they are all bacterial. It is not true that sick doctors are causing patients to catch "new" illnesses in the hospital. That being said, it is true that a stronger hand-washing policy needs to be enforced, for all types of infection control--patient-to-doctor, doctor-to-patient, and doctor-to-equipment-to-patient, etc. But keeping doctors with a viral upper respiratory infections from working will not have a significant impact on nosocomial infections and subsequent deaths in hospital patients.

Now. Onto the rest of the article. The authors make a decent point about changing the culture of medicine such that doctors can skip work when they're too ill to properly work. But this is a statement of the obvious. "Building redundancy" is much easier said than done. What hospital is going to pay for many additional salaries per year so that there is always someone around in the case someone gets sick? None. And the logistics of scheduling x residents plus y "redundant" staff is pretty much impossible. A stronger article would have brought up a reasonable proposal to fix the "toxic culture" that keeps docs from calling in sick. A stronger article would have done a bunch of things differently, though, so I'm just going to stop there.

I also have two thumbs down for some of the criticisms of the Obama administration's rhetoric regarding the stem cell ban lift. But I'm tired of being all worked up, so I'll hold it for later.

BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVES, people!! And wash your hands, obsessively!

In Celebration

2009-03-08T16:39:00.003-04:00

...of Daylight Savings (eeee!!), and Spring-ing forward:

there are so many tictoc
clocks everywhere telling people
what toctic time it is for
tictic instance five toc minutes toc
past six tic

Spring is not regulated and does
not get out of order nor do
its hands a little jerking move
over numbers slowly

............................. we do not
wind it up it has no weights
springs wheels inside of
its slender self no indeed dear
nothing of the kind.

(So,when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks toc don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me)

-ee cummings

Sixty five degrees!

2009-03-06T13:13:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting at Starbucks getting some work done for my scholarly project. Starbucks has this $3.95 special where you get a tall latte and either a cinnamon coffee cake or an oatmeal. If you use your registered Starbucks card, you can get a frou-frou latte (soy with 1pump sugar-free vanilla, if you're me) for no extra charge. And if you haven't had it, I will tell you first hand that Starbucks "perfect oatmeal" is really, truly, deliciously perfect.

God, it's beautiful out. It's 65F and sunny out, and so damn gorgeous. I love spring, especially when it comes a bit early (even if it is just a flirty tease). In college this would be the day that all the girls in the high-rise dorms would put on some skanky outfits with high heels so that you could look up their skirt as they walked over the 38th street bridge. Then after classes they'd lay out on the lawn in their bikinis and pasty white skin... naaasttyy. Ah, college.

Soon it'll be like this all the time (can you imagine!?), and winter will be a thing of the past. And with good weather comes green leaves and pretty flowers, and birthdays!, and just good times in general. Less time spent indoors wishing the sun would stay out longer. This morning, I went for my first outdoor run of 2009 under a cloudy sky threatening rain. It was warm enough that I regretted wearing long sleeves. The run kicked my ass but it felt so lovely nonetheless. Somehow good weather just makes everything better.

Happy early spring to all :)

Research Month = Oodles of Downtime

2009-03-03T16:21:00.002-05:00

I apologize in advance for this post. I know these things are lame and cheesy, and totally self-indulgently egocentric (that's why they're called memes I guess). But I have a month of semi-vacation and by golly, I am going to do stupid sh*t for the next 28 days, so help me.

This meme is about my relationship with Eric. Again, I apologize. You can stop reading now, I won't mind, I swear, I even recommend it. I sorta want to vomit just thinking of writing it. So seriously, just close the window and have a fantastic day :) Happy March to you!

How long have you been together?
3 years and 7 months and a handful of days.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
About 8 months? Or something. We were in a group of friends that cooked (and drank) together during the last semester of college. It was one of those times where you socialize a lot, but try really hard not to start a relationship because of the huge scary void of post-graduation that looms ahead.

Who asked whom out?
I have no idea, honestly, I don't really know if we ever really went out the 2 of us. I did, however, invite him to hang out at my new apartment--which might have been the first time we were ever alone together. So maybe I asked him out? I dunno.

How old are each of you?
He is 27 days short of being 26, and I am another 27 days behind him :)

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Probably his. His family is more "let's get together and be a family" than mine is.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
Being long-distance. We're pretty chill and stuff but the distance was really tough.

Did you go to the same school?
Penn! Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah for the red and the blue!

Are you from the same home town?
Nope! We're from totally different home towns and had totally different experiences growing up.

Who is smarter?
Hmm. This is a stupid question, because there are so many different kinds of intelligence. Like, he's much better at doing math in his head than I am, whereas I'm smarter at medical/biochem kind of stuff solely because of my education. He has much better street-smarts and outdoorsy sense than I do and could probably survive getting lost in the snowy woods, whereas I would probably sit down and feel sorry for myself and cry until I froze to death or something. Our SAT scores were probably similar. So I would say: we're equally smart but our smarts complement each other nicely :)

Who is the most sensitive?
I definitely am, but he has the perfect amount of sensitivity.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Chez Kim-Signoff! Last night I made chicken biryani, yo! And two nights ago I made this totally awesome cornbread with okra/pepper topping, and aloo gobi. Woot. But no seriously, we eat out at Rose Tea Cafe, to the point where we've become buddies with the staff, and don't need a menu to order...

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Hmm. From Pittsburgh/Philly, the farthest is Big Sur maybe? We drove from Kansas to Pittsburgh, which is a pretty long distance to cover by car. Man I'm realizing we haven't really gone many places together.

Who has the craziest exes?
I think him. My exes are totally boring, yo.

Who has the worst temper?
Oh, totally me, it's a recurring thing in my dad's side of the family. But I've mollified a bit since childhood. I think we're both fairly chill & even-keeled people overall.

Who does the cooking?
We're even-steven with cooking. We're pretty evenly matched in skills and repertoire, too. It's like smarts: our abilities complement each other well. I do the Indian/Asian and some staples, and he does the Mediterranean and adventurous stuff. He also bakes bread and muffins. I know. I'm lucky as hell.

Who is the neat-freak?
Me. Except I have the awful habit of keeping clothes piled in the Yaffa in the bedroom, and also the even more awful habit of leaving paperwork scattered all over the dining room table. But clutter and stuff on the carpet really gets under my skin. Luckily Eric's pretty clean.

Who hogs the bed?
Hmm. Neither. We have a habit of migrating away from each other to the edges of the bed. But sometimes I get cold and roll all the way to his side, and then I guess I'm pretty much hogging the bed. I dunno. That's kinda a weird question. I feel awkwardly embarrassed. I'll stop typing now.

Who wakes up earlier?
Usually me, by 1-3 hours, depending on what rotation I'm on. But THIS MONTH I AM SLEEPING IN TIL 8AM EVERY DAY WOOOOOT!!

Where was your first date?
Hmm. I would say Sushi Roku, but this is probably not technically true. Meh. Whatever.

Who is more jealous?
I have no clue. Neither of us is too jealous? I would say we're equally unjealous.

How long did it take to get serious?
This is a stupid question. I have no idea what "serious" means. Maybe a few months?

Who eats more?
We eat about the same amount at meals but Eric snacks more I think. But I'm like 2/3 his size so technically I should eat 2/3 of what he eats. So relatively speaking I eat more, but speaking per volume, he does. This is another stupid question. I'm sorry if you got this far. I warned you!

Who does the laundry?
We each do our own laundry separately, sometimes we do each others stuff too. I usually do the combined stuff like linens and towels and stuff.

Who's better with the computer?
Him.

Who drives when you are together?
Him, me, I dunno. Before he got insurance on my car, I definitely drove more. But now I get lazy and want him to drive. Probably him.