Thursday Born

Ok, I’m kind of cheating here and not actually using any of the prompts because I didn’t like them. It was talking about a Memorable Gift vs talking about who I love and why (which I think I’ve already done quite a few times already). But I’ve decided that my main goal with this Reverb thing is just to get me posting and renewing my own interest in blogging, so I consider posting today at all meets my goals.

So anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you’ve all found or will find soon some time to rest and/or be merry for at least a few hours. I know many of you are working for at least part of the holiday season, and I’m well aware that it won’t be long till I will be too.

I leave you with photos of my niece proving just how difficult it can be to take a picture of a two year old:

(Extravagant background of presents is actually various gift hampers full of food items from businesses which always end up being donated).

Travel - Did you visit anywhere new this year?  Any plans to travel next year?

I think the only new place I went this year was Toronto, as a quick pre-Christmas in Ghana (where my family is from, where my parents still live, and where my brothers and my parents always meet-up once a year for the holidays) trip. My boyfriend, Ahmet, has family there (wonderful people & excellent hosts), and he hasn’t visited them in years, so we finally committed to going this year. He’s still there, and I’m in Ghana now.

I liked Toronto, but I’ll have to go back when it’s warm and I’m less burned out from school, because I’d like to explore a bit more. But all the food I ate there was excellent (best sushi I’ve had in years!), and it seemed like a really nice city, and a rapidly growing one (so much construction!) It was weird for me because it felt like I was still in the US, which I guess makes sense, because it’s still North America. People’s accents weren’t noticeably different either. So honestly, it barely felt like I’d traveled.

Next year I have no exotic travel plans, just the usuals: Seattle when it’s my turn to visit my boyfriend, DC when my parents are visiting the US (DC is their US home base), and Ghana again for Christmas. However, fingers crossed, I’ll be interviewing for Residency toward the end of next year, so that should be fun. I really enjoyed interviewing for Medical School, so I’m hoping Residency Interviews will be fun too, though far more expensive. I’m going to miss being on the East Coast and cheaply taking the train to the majority of my interviews.

Now 2013, the year I graduate, that should be a good travel year. No plans yet to go anywhere new, but I think the places I’ve been to/usually go to are sufficient for some exciting times (Turkey, Ghana, Ecuador, maybe Canada again? A classmate of mine from Toronto is planning to get married around then).

I’m done with Emergency Medicine and have moved onto Pediatrics! I also finally got my driver’s license, got a car (rather, my parents bought a car for me. Yes, I am aware of how amazingly awesome and wonderful that is and how lucky and blessed I am), and finally made some (deliciously tasty) soup after months of really meaning to.

There are many posts that have been brewing in my head, but I keep forgetting about my blog until I’m about to go to bed. It’s also December, which was the month I did Reverb10 last year (a post a day writing challenge thing) and I meant to find another one to do this year. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll remember in time and see what I can do about catching up to one.

So I leave you with the knowledge that my life has been busy lately, as usual, but in a good, happy way. And that the Children’s Hospital here is the best place ever for having XS scrubs in their scrub machines, because I swim in the S ones.

Goodnight!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all! I admit I think it’s a bit of an odd holiday, but I can’t complain about an excuse to get two days off from my rotation (we get Thursday & Friday off, but many of us are working Saturday or Sunday, if not both days), and to gather with people I’m fond of and love and cook a huge meal.  Also, online sales.

So I’m baking a Turkey, the neck and giblets are stewing as a base for gravy, and I’ve got stuffing and a sweet potato casserole ready in the fridge and waiting to be baked once the Turkey is done. Once the Turkey’s done, I’m heading over to a classmate’s apartment and celebrating with my boyfriend, Ahmet, who’s in town, and with a few other classmates+significant others.

I wanted to do a longer post, because I’ve got a lot to be thankful for in my life right now, but I’m a bit busy living that life and really should get back to it. =)

Sometimes, when you get out of the hospital at a decent hour, you just need to go on a bike ride on a beautiful Fall day, testing out the new baskets you finally installed on your bike. I biked to my old apartment, dropped off a birthday present for one of my friends, played with the adorable dog of another (and picked up some delicious baked goods!) then biked home. Yes, I had my Psychiatry Shelf exam in a few days, but when you can’t just take a random day off for your mental health, a couple of hours in the afternoon might do the trick.

Snow doesn’t photograph very well with a cellphone camera…

I was in DC over the pre-Halloween weekend and experienced my first snow of the season. Snow. In October. I very strongly disapprove of this! It was otherwise a lovely weekend; a very impromptu trip to see my parents and my three siblings, my older brothers. All six of us don’t get together all that often, so it’s a real treat when we manage to make it work. =)

But… snow? Already? At least it hasn’t snowed here in Missouri yet!

(Pictures are of my youngest older brother, Chiefy)

I did nothing for Halloween this year, and it’s the third year in a row that it’s been just another day. Halloween isn’t a holiday I grew up celebrating, and it’s not my favorite holiday, but I rather wish I’d done something. I think I’m starting to get actively frustrated with my lack of time to participate in, well, life, lately. Normally there isn’t much going on for Halloween that I’m interested in, but there were actually quite a few things I wanted to go to this year and it was really frustrating to have to stay at home and study. I found myself eager for October 31st to come and go and mark the end of all these events that I had no time for.

I’m a bit behind on writing blog posts (obviously), and when I’d originally planned this entry I was a lot more upset about this and had a much longer rant in mind. But I’ve just had a pleasantly social weekend after four weeks of being a recluse, and I’m not feeling quite as disgruntled right now. So I leave you with something that made me smile:

Someone on my floor in my apartment building carved a pumpkin and left it outside his/her door for a few days, and it was a very happy sight to see one random evening. Whoever this person is, they’re also the only other person in my hall who has a doormat.

  (This is my doormat =D )

I wonder how much more I would like surgery if the schedule was better. Now that I have a much better idea of my role as a medical student on the team, I’ve been enjoying my time on these rotations a lot more. But the schedule! Ugh, these hours aren’t conducive to really living.

Last weekend I finally got a glimpse of one of the other Farmer’s Marke’s in town. I can’t believe I’ve never been before! (except, of course I can believe it; I’ve been too busy) It’s so cute! We were at that park for the International Food Festival though, so we just took a quick look and then walked all the very long way to the other side of the park for the festival. I went with two of my friends, Joe and Amrita, and their ridiculously adorable dog Mila who got compliments the entire time we were there.

So pretty! She’s the sweetest, spazziest little puppy ever.

To further compensate for all the random little things I’m missing out on, I’ve been doing things like (semi) impulse buying a bike. There’s a wonderful charity of sorts here called Bicycle Works, and I almost bought a bike from them my first year, but I was a bit overwhelemed by how many people were there, and one of my friends gave me the impression that it was a bit expensive. Now I’m kicking myself because their bikes are really well priced and it’s a great cause to support. Unfortunately for me, now that I was really ready, they’d just moved locations and are closed for who knows how long (they said two weeks, but it’s already been two weeks and they’re still closed).

So after the festival, I ended up paying quite a bit more to buy a new bike, because I’d spent a few weeks watching craigslist and I kept missing out on the bikes I wanted (one which was just a slightly older model of the bike I ended up buying, plus it was red! I really wanted a red bike) and I was getting impatient.

It’s pink/purple, which I guess is close to red? and I’m becoming rapidly fond of it. Right after I bought it, I rode it 2.5 miles home, and it was rather exhilarating. I had a bike as a kid but nowhere except around my driveway to ride it, and the last time I’d ridden a bike was when I was ten or eleven and went on a long ride with a friend and her family while I was visiting them. Today I finally started riding it to the hospital, and it is such a nicer commute to ride than to walk! (Or even walking plus riding the metro). I plan to someday finish adding to it, so it can be properly practical. I love the look of a handlebar basket, so I plan to get one someday, but mostly I want baskets on the back for groceries and picking up my packages from my new leasing office, which is a bit too far to walk. Lights and a place for a water bottle would be nice too someday, and maybe a kickstand. I plan to move with this bike once I leave for residency, so I don’t mind putting a bit of money into it, and I’m going to be riding it almost every day.

I really hope I end up somewhere I can keep riding my bike as a useful thing for errands. I love living in areas with safe and convenient places to walk and bike to. Saint Louis was quite a change for me in that regard, though it does at least have some areas (like where I just moved to) that are a bit more my style. Maybe once I finish learning how to drive and get a car, I’ll feel less like having to drive around is a hassle, but I think at heart it will always be my preference to rely on greener ways to get around.

It is really hard to take a picture of yourself and your bike on your phone!

One of the next times my boyfriend Ahmet is in town, we’re borrowing an extra bike from a friend and riding back down to that park to properly check out that Farmer’s Market. Or maybe I’ll just go by myself some random weekend. I miss doing things like that, exploring on my own. It’s fun in a very peaceful and quietly exciting way. But enough lamenting my schedule. Surgery is almost over, and I have just a week left to study for my first shelf exam!

I was supposed to visit parents, who are in the US for two weeks or so, for Easter weekend. Unfortunately, while I was at the airport, it got hit by a tornado (no casualties, and no injuries at all on my part). So I shall have to wait till July to see my family again. I’m not very happy about this, but, well, tornado!

It was a rather eerie experience overall. The airport was really empty (I later found out that they had hurried out as many flights as they could), my flight wasn’t listed on the departures (but the Delta agents assured me it still existed) and the plane was delayed by over an hour (not related to the storm). I thought the security to my gate was closed but there just wasn’t any line and all the TSA people were toward the back.

There were 18 other people waiting for my flight. They moved us to another gate, and then the power went out. The lights in the airport just hiccuped, but the power outside was down which meant that our plane, which had finally arrived, couldn’t land yet.

At this point, I recognized that the night was going quite strangely but I still assumed I’d be making my flight, so I was just browsing on my phone while idly eavesdropping on the other passengers, two of whom were talking about abandoning this flight because they were worried about the stormy weather.

And then some TSA officials came running down the hall and yelling at us all to get into the bathroom. I think I’d already gotten up to move because I realized “Hey, I’m in front of a really big window during a storm. Maybe I should back up,” so I already had my bags in hand and ran into the bathroom with my stuff and everyone else. I wasn’t really scared at this point. I’m not one to panic much and the bathrooms are really solid and safe. Mostly I was still wondering whether I’d be flying that night. I also didn’t realize that the tornado had actually hit the airport itself. They weren’t very good about letting us know what was going on; they just kept us in the bathroom and then a windowless hall and then eventually told us we could go home and that maybe the airport would be running again in the morning. Up until I exited the airport and took the above pictures, I thought the main problems were the power being out, and lots of debris on the runway, but there was also rather extensive physical damage to the airport all around. The metro wasn’t running to the airport anymore, so one of my friends drove to pick me up, and it took us at least a good half hour to figure out how to get to each other because a lot of the roads were closed off.

I highly recommend researching the areas you’re moving to before you get there! My first tornado warning in Saint Louis took me by complete surprise last year.

I do have to say though, that I have seen the most amazingly beautiful lightning ever since I’ve moved here, and I do love a good thunder storm so long as there are no tornadoes involved. I really wish I had a proper camera to take pictures of the lightning (these photos are from my new phone! My Motorola Droid broke so I got an HTC thunderbolt, and I adore it so far, minus the battery life). I’m used to lightning being a brightening of the sky, but here, you see the actual bolts most of the time.

So yeah, that was my Easter weekend! I hope yours was less tornadoful.

February flew by in a series of exhausting events, some incredibly stressful, and others pure fun. It started off with exams, and it’s ending with the departures of both my boyfriend and my best friend, who were here for a weekend and ten days respectively.

So right now I’m mid-block, and I’m magically not all that far behind and I expect to be caught up by this weekend or so.

I’m rather far behind in blogging, but something had to be put on the back-burner for a while to make it through February, and blogging was one of the many. Only reason I’m posting now is because it occurred to me that if I didn’t, then I won’t have posted all month!

But I’ll be posting again soon, hopefully at least weekly.