Today was, I think, one of the worst days on record. Oyyyyyyyy.....
But, fortunately, I had dinner with friends, and that helped a LOT. It's amazing what can be healed with chips and salsa and raucous laughter.
It reminds me how grateful I am to have the kind of people in my life that I have in such abundance.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Super Sunday
Wow! What a game!
Yeah, I gave in and watched the Super Bowl. (And flipped between that, SVU, and the Puppy Bowl. Which was equally awesome)
It still wasn't as good as this one:
Yeah, I gave in and watched the Super Bowl. (And flipped between that, SVU, and the Puppy Bowl. Which was equally awesome)
It still wasn't as good as this one:
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Rainy Saturday
Today was not super productive...I'm cool with that.
This is our Second Look weekend. Now, see, in the cluster of ridiculousness that is the Match, you interview at a program, and you get the interview day experience, so often people go back for a second look to get a more informal view of what the program is like. We here at Baby Blue started my intern year trying to consolidate that experience, so that the kids that did come back could get the best bang for their buck. So we have this weekend when we try to get everyone to come back at the same time, and try to organize things like tours of the state hospital, a real estate tour, case conference, and lots of face time with the residents and faculty. This year, it started Thursday night with a dessert for the applicants and some members of the PGY1-3 classes (not including me, because I have class on Thursday nights now).
Yesterday was, like, holy cow. I started the day...well, I started the day by realizing it was 57 degrees in the apartment and that the heat was out. It took some fussing, but I figured out it was the circuit breaker and fixed it, but needless to say between the getting home ridiculously late Thursday and the cold apartment, I didn't sleep so well. So there was a triple-shot mocha involved in my morning as well. I co-led one of the small groups ("small" being something of a relative term here, I'm noticing. They're, like, 30 students. Mine were 10. But there were still pterodactyls around when I went to med school, so...) for the second year medical students, ran back to the unit, got to rounds late (which was planned), did a discharge, scarfed some lunch, saw my therapy kid, and then went and was part of the panel discussion for the applicants. I had another patient at 3 who took until about 4:30 (I anticipate this about her), then I tried to get as much of my shit together and paperwork done, etc, as I could tolerate before heading off to the dinner party at the chair's house.
At which point it was a monsoon. I mean, really, the standing water was amazing. And of course the chair lives out in a more rural area where "only part of our road is paved" (we estimated about 10 feet of it). So Scott rode over with me, preferring to let me and Joe the Jeep traverse the rivers of mud instead of his decidedly non-4WD car with bald tires. Shortly after we got there, Annie's husband showed up and got his car very stuck in the mud in front of the house. I offered to make an attempt, but, no, no, we've got it, burly men, blah blah blah. So, okay. I wandered off, talked to people, schmoozed a bit. And when they came back in, having failed with all of their manly brute force, I offered again. You know, before they called AAA.
I? Am from Chicago. Where we get stuck in the snow all the time. I got behind the wheel and had their car out in under two minutes.
The party itself was a very good time. I had a lot of fun, both with some of the applicants as well as with my friends. It was a nice excuse for us to hang out in a fairly informal way on the department's dime. Scott and I cut out around 10, which was of course some 16 hours or so after I'd left my house that morning.
Today was much more laid back. We had a brunch for the applicants at one of the fancy hotels near the hospital (so, you know, 30 miles from where I live) and it was really quite lovely. After that I ran a couple of errands and wandered over to Starbucks, where I met up with Matt and we were so very productive that I'm not sure he ever opened the textbook he brought with him. I did manage to get a little bit of work done after he left to go hang out with another friend of his, but decided my table by the door of the 'Bucks was too cold and I left and wandered back to my house.
After that...hmm...I know Maggie and I must've done *something*...in fact, I did accomplish a couple of things, although not as much as I would've liked and nothing work related, but got some important stuff done nonetheless.
Tomorrow is all mine. I have no particular Super Bowl plans (I'm not much of a football fan, but, I do sometimes go to these things and socialize). I'm foreseeing some grocery shopping, a little note writing at Starbucks, and some reading for my class....
...probably along with a nap and some catching up on my DVR, because next week's going to be chaos again.
This is our Second Look weekend. Now, see, in the cluster of ridiculousness that is the Match, you interview at a program, and you get the interview day experience, so often people go back for a second look to get a more informal view of what the program is like. We here at Baby Blue started my intern year trying to consolidate that experience, so that the kids that did come back could get the best bang for their buck. So we have this weekend when we try to get everyone to come back at the same time, and try to organize things like tours of the state hospital, a real estate tour, case conference, and lots of face time with the residents and faculty. This year, it started Thursday night with a dessert for the applicants and some members of the PGY1-3 classes (not including me, because I have class on Thursday nights now).
Yesterday was, like, holy cow. I started the day...well, I started the day by realizing it was 57 degrees in the apartment and that the heat was out. It took some fussing, but I figured out it was the circuit breaker and fixed it, but needless to say between the getting home ridiculously late Thursday and the cold apartment, I didn't sleep so well. So there was a triple-shot mocha involved in my morning as well. I co-led one of the small groups ("small" being something of a relative term here, I'm noticing. They're, like, 30 students. Mine were 10. But there were still pterodactyls around when I went to med school, so...) for the second year medical students, ran back to the unit, got to rounds late (which was planned), did a discharge, scarfed some lunch, saw my therapy kid, and then went and was part of the panel discussion for the applicants. I had another patient at 3 who took until about 4:30 (I anticipate this about her), then I tried to get as much of my shit together and paperwork done, etc, as I could tolerate before heading off to the dinner party at the chair's house.
At which point it was a monsoon. I mean, really, the standing water was amazing. And of course the chair lives out in a more rural area where "only part of our road is paved" (we estimated about 10 feet of it). So Scott rode over with me, preferring to let me and Joe the Jeep traverse the rivers of mud instead of his decidedly non-4WD car with bald tires. Shortly after we got there, Annie's husband showed up and got his car very stuck in the mud in front of the house. I offered to make an attempt, but, no, no, we've got it, burly men, blah blah blah. So, okay. I wandered off, talked to people, schmoozed a bit. And when they came back in, having failed with all of their manly brute force, I offered again. You know, before they called AAA.
I? Am from Chicago. Where we get stuck in the snow all the time. I got behind the wheel and had their car out in under two minutes.
The party itself was a very good time. I had a lot of fun, both with some of the applicants as well as with my friends. It was a nice excuse for us to hang out in a fairly informal way on the department's dime. Scott and I cut out around 10, which was of course some 16 hours or so after I'd left my house that morning.
Today was much more laid back. We had a brunch for the applicants at one of the fancy hotels near the hospital (so, you know, 30 miles from where I live) and it was really quite lovely. After that I ran a couple of errands and wandered over to Starbucks, where I met up with Matt and we were so very productive that I'm not sure he ever opened the textbook he brought with him. I did manage to get a little bit of work done after he left to go hang out with another friend of his, but decided my table by the door of the 'Bucks was too cold and I left and wandered back to my house.
After that...hmm...I know Maggie and I must've done *something*...in fact, I did accomplish a couple of things, although not as much as I would've liked and nothing work related, but got some important stuff done nonetheless.
Tomorrow is all mine. I have no particular Super Bowl plans (I'm not much of a football fan, but, I do sometimes go to these things and socialize). I'm foreseeing some grocery shopping, a little note writing at Starbucks, and some reading for my class....
...probably along with a nap and some catching up on my DVR, because next week's going to be chaos again.
Friday, February 05, 2010
Quirky
Okay...so....included in this video are (I think):
1. My old roommate
2. A handful of my childhood friends
3. Several of my old teachers.
Oy....
1. My old roommate
2. A handful of my childhood friends
3. Several of my old teachers.
Oy....
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Brr
It's been a long ass day. But not a bad one.
Work was long. And chaotic. But I only have six more days on the crisis unit.
We went out for dinner after work - it was Mikaela's birthday today, so she and I and Scott and Wren (the small but motley crew we could cobble together at the last minute) went out, and Peng joined us later. It was lovely. There was a lot of laughing. Then I had class #2 of my mindfulness course, which was...I dunno. I'm finding it to be kind of disappointing, but I'm sure it will perk up soon. And one of my previous classmates has joined our group, which is pleasant. After class, though, in a remarkable joint display of poor judgment, I ended up standing in the parking lot talking with a classmate of mine for two hours in the 38 degree weather. At one point he looks down and says, "My toes are frozen." I said, "Yeah, we should go." So we walked ten feet down the parking lot and then talked for probably another 45 minutes.
Y'all, I'm cold.
And I need to go to bed. Because morning does come awfully early around these parts....
Work was long. And chaotic. But I only have six more days on the crisis unit.
We went out for dinner after work - it was Mikaela's birthday today, so she and I and Scott and Wren (the small but motley crew we could cobble together at the last minute) went out, and Peng joined us later. It was lovely. There was a lot of laughing. Then I had class #2 of my mindfulness course, which was...I dunno. I'm finding it to be kind of disappointing, but I'm sure it will perk up soon. And one of my previous classmates has joined our group, which is pleasant. After class, though, in a remarkable joint display of poor judgment, I ended up standing in the parking lot talking with a classmate of mine for two hours in the 38 degree weather. At one point he looks down and says, "My toes are frozen." I said, "Yeah, we should go." So we walked ten feet down the parking lot and then talked for probably another 45 minutes.
Y'all, I'm cold.
And I need to go to bed. Because morning does come awfully early around these parts....
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Please turn the crazy down.
So I'm at work today, and I'm at the nurses station, amidst the cacophony of the unit, simultaneously on the phone with an outside therapist, text paging my attending, trying to keep one of my freakinawesomeintern's more irritating patients at bay, and trying to keep my black-belted freakinawesomeintern from slugging said patient...when one of freakinawesomeintern's other more annoying patients jumps up so he is leaning onto the counter, pushed up on his forearms, feet off the ground, and leaning so far forward he's about six inches from freakinawesomeintern's face. He said something to her, and I didn't hear what, but I quickly interrupted Outside Therapist with a, "hang on." And I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and I gave him what my friend Robin would describe as a "teacher look." You know - the very pointed, you know you're not supposed to be doing that, you'd better stop it now or there's going to be hell to pay, every schoolchild fears this look, that teacher look.
And I said - again, very directly - "You need to get down off that counter. Right. Now."
He backs about halfway off (this is when I knew I was going to win), and says, "Why?" I said, "Do you want to go into seclusion?" And then he was like, yeah, seclusion would be fun, blah, blah, blah.
That was a gaffe. What I should've said was something more along the lines of, "If you don't get down, we will put you in seclusion." Or, even better, said nothing. But I recovered with my best alpha dog staredown (in which you look fixedly and directly into one eye - normally we look back and forth between someone's eyes. Only looking into one produces a much more unwavering stare and thus confers much more dominance). He mouthed off to me a bit, but backed off, and walked away.
Later, I walked on to the unit, and he gives me this shadowboxing bob-and-weave kind of maneuver. I gave him the teacher look again, and pulled out my best Dog Whisperer calm assertive energy. He backed down immediately.
It never fails to amaze me how much people are like dogs.
And how unlike dogs they are. Because dogs let go of things, run back and play, tails wagging.
And that was just one of our patients.
People are crazy.
My head hurts.
And I said - again, very directly - "You need to get down off that counter. Right. Now."
He backs about halfway off (this is when I knew I was going to win), and says, "Why?" I said, "Do you want to go into seclusion?" And then he was like, yeah, seclusion would be fun, blah, blah, blah.
That was a gaffe. What I should've said was something more along the lines of, "If you don't get down, we will put you in seclusion." Or, even better, said nothing. But I recovered with my best alpha dog staredown (in which you look fixedly and directly into one eye - normally we look back and forth between someone's eyes. Only looking into one produces a much more unwavering stare and thus confers much more dominance). He mouthed off to me a bit, but backed off, and walked away.
Later, I walked on to the unit, and he gives me this shadowboxing bob-and-weave kind of maneuver. I gave him the teacher look again, and pulled out my best Dog Whisperer calm assertive energy. He backed down immediately.
It never fails to amaze me how much people are like dogs.
And how unlike dogs they are. Because dogs let go of things, run back and play, tails wagging.
And that was just one of our patients.
People are crazy.
My head hurts.
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