A Certain Percent There

best laid plans

2010-08-11T17:26:00.000-07:00

i had great designs on regular posting as i began residency and i was off to a good start. but i ended up taking a huge emotional blow in my second week and i had to withdraw into myself simply to get up and go to work. so i quit writing. i also quit reading and watching tv or really interacting. i survived by text message and meaningful looks. i also lost weight, though i think lacking appetite isn't the recommended method.

i am improving. every day is better. i am still hurting. i will hurt a little for a very very long time. but i have not been taken down by anything yet and if you know me, that IS saying something.

on the up and up...ER was a good rotation. a great way to start - a chance to remember my basic skills. thank goodness. now if people would just stop coming to the ER for non-emergent problems. and if the ER staff would learn that abdominal pain is not a catch all and certainly does not include pelvic pain. those are different.

i am glad i didn't choose ER as a career though. and i wonder about the FM trained docs who end up doing ER. what was so unsatisfying about FM - where the idea is to follow the pts forever - that you have to go all the way to ER where you don't follow pts even as far as the door.

now i am on to OB which would be great if i weren't suffering for the sins of those who came before. long story. lets just say i am walking uphill both ways in the snow. but i get to catch babies, so that's fun.

right?

2010-07-06T18:03:00.000-07:00

so, i am a linguist deep down. always will be. was one before i was a doctor and don't plan to give it up...

linguistic tidbits of my first few weeks in milwaukee:

1. right? as a response, as a rhetorical end of sentence. i say 'yep' or 'hmmm' or nothing. i think this is used in the exact distribution of the ubiquitous canadian 'eh'

2. weed. in kentucky if you say 'weed' in reference to marijuana, i think you are over 50. here, i haven't heard anyone say 'pot', which is what i would say. well, that is, if i for some reason needed to.

3. vowels. i never want to hear anyone here refer to southerners and their vowels. they are just as f'd up here. oh, and i'm not a southerner, you just need to travel here.

4. barley soda. i blame peter for me knowing this one. i appreciate that he felt the need to define it. i got it but won't be adding this to my vocabulary.

5. i been doing that for a minute. in response to 'how long have you had this pain?'. ok, to be fair this isn't specific to milwaukee, or evn the midwest. but seriously. if it had been a minute, you wouldn't be in my er. do you want my help. then QUANTIFY!!

i will post more as i come across them!

my first complaint

2010-07-02T20:05:00.001-07:00

yep. it took one day. my very first patient of my career complained. she told the clinic director that i didn't listen to her and i rolled my eyes at her. i suppose the second is entirely possible, but i know i didn't mean anything by it. but believe that i listened - and i remember. anyone who knows me well knows that!

what she actually didn't like was that i didn't treat her problem the way she wanted me to. i wanted to investigate her problem and she wanted a quick fix. a quick fix that i thought would be dangerous. my attending stood by me. and so did the clinic director. i acknowledged what i might have done wrong. i accepted criticism on day 2.

did i forget to mention i stayed late on my very first day to fill out paperwork for this lovely lady??

new beginning

2010-07-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

today was the first official day of doctoring. i walked into a room, looked right at a patient and introduced myself as dr. m. without laughing. not a bad day overall.

it is a bit surreal to take over someone else's patient population. this led to unexpected and rather surprising paperwork and emails today that required answering. how on earth am i really supposed to know is mr. white should or should not have his benzo refilled. thank god for my marvelous nurse. who, in addition to knowing the computer system inside out, shows incredible guidance in helping stupid interns.

if the rest of this year is like today, even if far busier, i will be a happy happy dr. chica.

oh and i got to staple a head. :)

new percentages

2010-06-08T04:48:00.000-07:00

i started this to record, really for myself, how far along in medical school i was and now that is over. i reached 100%. now i find that a new discrete part of my life begs to be recorded. so we go back to 0% family physician - and in 3 years, i will hopefully be competent and even good at it.

i don't wish my life away by any means, but i like the discreteness of a three year block.

so here we are - looking forward to a year of 4 months of FM service, 2 months each of peds, surgery and OB, 1 month each of ER, NICU. a third licensure exam. meeting a whole new group of colleagues and patients. learning a new city, a new state.

a new life.

i'm ready.

100% there

2010-06-05T04:02:00.000-07:00

a lot has gone on since last i posted.

1. Finished fourth year - after that family med month, there was inpatient psych (which i really should have blogged about), anatomy, research, university health (a wonderful rotation - no, really!!), pharmacology, trauma surgery, and family medicine offsite. then, that which i thought had become impossible happened...

2. i graduated. yep. i'm 100% there. that's me STM, MD. you know, if we put my other letters i'm, STM MD MA - which I think makes me a hallucinogen.

3. so those interviews...i ended up doing seven - Cincinnati, St. Joe's/MCW, Smiley's/Univ. of Minn., St. Joe's/Univ of Minn, North Memorial/Univ. of Minn, Tufts, Palmetto Health. i cancelled two - one in milwaukee and one at UofL. don't think i could be a cardinal anyway. was hard enough to be a tarheel.

aaaanyway, ranked five. matched at #1!! starting residency at St. Joe's/MCW in just a few weeks. yippee!!

4. moved to milwaukee. obviously necessary considering the job thing. that's more or less where i am right now. surrounded by the smell of cardboard. slowly the boxes are getting unpacked and our fabulous duplex is looking like home. i have never lived somewhere that i could just throw the windows open and cool my home. it's lovely. yesterday, we drove downtown and j hadn't seen the lake yet (um, that would be lake michigan). when i said, hey there's the lake (like you could miss it), he said no it's not, we are going the wrong way. um, seriously dude? i know i have no sense i direction, but there is only one gigantor body of water around here.

so far i love it here. i suppose we shall see what happened with odd hours and little sleep. j is still looking for a job or basking in the glow of being the doctor's husband. he is officially the househusband until he finds a job, once i go to work. he desperately needs to learn to cook.

i won't lie. this isn't the easiest thing i have ever done. i'm scared and underconfident. i'm worried that my patients won't get good care if i am the one providing it. i keep reminding myself that residency is an apprenticeship - right now i know a very little about a lot of things but my knowledge base will change. i start on ER, the OB, then NICU....NICU?!?!? i have assurances from a good friend that i can make it.

Travel and training

2009-10-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

A few days from finishing the first rotation of my fourth year, I feel I should pause and consider. I am finishing a month of family medicine clinic - which was really a lot of reading time and a little clinic - a schedule for which I am amazingly thankful. Because they allowed me some free days I have been able to study for boards, sleep, and go back to having a normal life.

I have also had the privilege of remembering why I really do love family medicine - the variety of ages, genders, family structures, pathologies. I can't get bored, which is good since I tend toward it anyway.

I continue to plan residency interviews - truly surprised at how many I have been offered. I admit to overwhelming underconfidence where this is concerned, but I didn't expect to hear so quickly. The first programs didn't wait for grades or all my letters of rec. I have scheduled at University of Minnesota (x3), Medical College of Wisconsin, University of Cincinnati, University of Pittsburgh, Tufts, Palmetto Health in SC and am waiting for dates at University of Louisville and Aurora Healthcare in Milwaukee.

Step 2 CK on Thursday and then I am free of exams until February (I think). One weeks until psychiatry AI. Looking forward to it.

And so it begins

2009-10-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

I am now officially one week into fourth year which means, for anyone keeping track, that I am 75% doctor. What else does this mean? - Well, that I have eight rotations to finish in seven months, two boards exams to take in the next three weeks, residency to apply for, interview for, and try not to freak out about among other things in my non-medical school life.

First, third year. It's over. 'Nuff said. I am not going back to that, ever. I truly hated five months of it, the rest was actually fine. If I had to specialize in what I did those five months, I'd quit. Without regard for debt or self-worth. I would quit medicine. Without regret.

Luckily, I don't have to do either of them. Which brings us to residency applications. ERAS - the bane of fourth year existence. That which keeps fourth year from being quite the mythical promised land that classes before us have waved as taunts. I dutifully took time away from surgery studying to work through the application, find letter writers, write personal statements. Last weekend, I completed the mad dash through finishing it, so I could get the application posted. On Monday I submitted the application and on Wednesday morning I posted my personal statement (thanks to family and friends who obediently read not one, but two, drafts). Then I sat back to enjoy my family medicine clinic rotation and await November when my Dean's letter is submitted and the interview offers trickle in.

How laughably delusional and naive I apparently am. After submitting my personal statement at 10 am on Wednesday, I received an email about noon from one of my programs. I thought, how mice off them to let me know they got my stuff. WRONG! I mean, they did let me know, but then, THEY OFFERED ME AN INTERVIEW. Got that? Within three hours of finishing my application I had an offer. From a program I like. That has, by the way, been followed by five more since. I am stunned and completely excited. I have heard from three of my favorite programs. I can't believe it. Within four days of putting my application up. Wow.

The list so far (all categorical FM right now - I won't hear from the combined for a bit):

University of Cincinnati/Christ Hospital
Tufts University
Medical College of Wisconsin - St. Joseph's Hospital
University of Pittsburgh - St. Margaret's Hospital
Aurora Health - Milwaukee (I'm turning this one down - it's a funny subject for a later post)
University of Minnesota - I don't know which program yet

Neurosurgery

2009-09-12T12:03:00.000-07:00

So, I just finished two weeks on neurosurgery. It was fun. Not nearly as much fun as general surgery, but I found something to like in it.I could have used a bit more guidance from the people in charge as to what to do and where to be, ah well.

Yesterday, during my last surgery on this rotation, the chief resident and the surgeon decided to actually be chatty. The surgeon wanted to make sure I understood that family medicine and psychiatry are both pointless because you have to talk to people and that patients are always failures at taking care of themselves so you needlessly ask the same questions over and over (are you taking your meds? etc.). Also, that there are two kinds of people in the world - those who want to be neurosurgeons and those who haven't realized it yet.

I told him, quite frankly, that I do not want to be a neurosurgeon and that he most certainly does not want me to be a neurosurgeon. Caught him completely off guard and he started laughing in the middle of surgery. So did the chief. Which led to a continued conversation in which we learned that the chief and I went to school together and know many of the same people. It got really pretty hilariously out of hand after that with the surgeon laughing at us both and the chief and I shooting the shit about everyone we knew in common from high school and where they are now.

I, also, got an evaluation this week that, among other things described me as "refreshingly candid and appropriately assertive." I have never heard such a good description of me.

Off to two weeks of ENT. Then finished with surgery and finally off to fourth year!!!

Worst fear....almost

2009-08-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

The first choice that any medical student makes is usually medicine or surgery. And we joke that particular temperaments go with that choice. I knew when I started school that I would be medicine; I just don't see myself as a surgeon. I really do see myself as the doc who treats your chronic high blood pressure and heart disease and knows when your granddaughter graduates from kindergarten or the doc who delivers your baby, then takes care of mom, baby and dad besides. I never saw myself as wielding weaponry for the hack and slash of guts.

Here's the revelation. I love surgery. Who's surprised? Well, I was afraid of that - that I would find that I really like the OR, the cutting, the guts. I love the immediacy of patient relief after having a gallbladder out or the feeling of accomplishment when a patient's biopsy comes back showing you got their whole tumor out. It's a rush.

Now no worries. I am not changing my mind. I stand by family medicine/psychiatry. But if I were 25 or if I were single, I might change my mind right now. However, I took the time a couple years ago to really consider the type of life I want to lead and surgery isn't it. I can't stand the idea of five years or more of this schedule.

Besides, family practitioners get to cut! and deliver babies! and have long term relationships with their patients!

Whew - saved by the skin of my teeth!

Decision making capacity

2009-08-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

Don't worryl I have not lost capacity. Nor have I lost sanity. Yet. But the big decision is looming. What to do with my life. Really the decision is made. Combined family medicine-psychiatry. I want to do both, hands down. I can't make up my mind.

Making that decision apparently causes everyone else in the whole friggin world to question my capacity. Not just "why do you want to do that?", NOOOOOOoooooo.

More like -

Why do you want to do family medicine?
Why do you want to do psychiatry?
Why do you want to do both?
Why not do internal medicine, med/peds, triple board....insert specialty here?
You don't need to study psychiatry - have my patients are head cases.

So here's the answers...

Why do you want to family medicine?

Because this, above all else, feels like the model of medicine that not only treats the whole person, but also considers the greater community outside. This is preventative medicine, acute care, peds, OBGYN, geriatrics, epidemiology, ongoing patient relationships. Because I adore children and old men and reproductive age women and teenagers and where else would I get to see all of those populations but in family medicine. Where else can I cut, counsel, prescribe, advise, recommend, befriend.

Why do you want to do psychiatry?

Admittedly, most doctors deal in some capacity with psychiatric issues. Some even spend time with med management. A lot fo pediatricians find themselves in the position of needing to be the main go to person for their patients psych issues. And I could do a lot of work with psychiatry as a family practitioner. But my desire to do psych is two fold. First, I love therapy and I think that people are reticent to try it when there is the possibility of a quick pharmaceutical fix. Who can blame them? Getting patients to do the work, find the introspection, change their lives to cope would be wonderfully fulfilling. Allowing patients the option to medicate appeals to me. Second, being able to treat my patients bodies and minds is highly appealing. A truly holistic approach to medicine.

Why do you want to do both?
Simply? I can't decide between them and I have the amazing opportunity to do both. More than that? Ultimately in addition to practice, I want to teach. I can think of nothing that would make me a better teacher than the combination of these two disciplines of medicine coupled with my experience as a teacher.

Why not do (insert specialty here)?

This is always a fair question. Only it never happens as an innocent query. Instead it is about pummeling me into choosing something else. Suck it up....

Internal Medicine - no kids
Med-Peds - no gyn
Triple Board - no adults, except in the psych part and three specialties in five years, scary
OBGYN - too much surgery for me
Neuro - um...you need to ask? we haven't spoken in more than a year
Surgery - it's awesome and I would if I were younger

I won't lie. Making this decision was difficult. Every time I eliminated something, I made pros and cons. Then I mourned it's loss (except neuro). Then I moved on.

Now there's applications, personal statements, letters of rec, work, school, interviews to be done. And life to be lived. Let's go!!

Internal Medicine

2009-05-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

So one of my non-medical friends pointed out that all medicine is essentially internal medicine and wanted to know how Internal Medicine can be its own specialty. I know it is word parsing, but it is a good point. After four weeks of IM wards and a couple weeks of miscellaneous nonsense I have to wonder the same thing. Why do people choose Internal Medicine?

Perhaps for some it epitomizes the essence of doctoring. General care, chronic and scute illness. Perhaps for others it is the gateway to sub-specialization and more money. To me it is about disease focus instead of people focus. I don't get it.

For this reason, I am not loving that I have another eight weeks of it. I have only really disliked one rotation - and if I had to do that one for a living I would leave medicine. IM is coming close.

Maybe it's just senioritis.

Alive...

2009-03-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

I am alive. I am busy! And I am not living at home. All of these combine to keep me from writing regularly. I have a lot to say. Hopefully, I will find some time this week to get in on paper (figuratively).

Death and Taxes

2009-02-10T13:49:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, J's brother texted (?!?!) to let us know that one of their friends was dying. A shock to be sure. We knew that things were amiss so to speak, but this was stunning. So we waited for the news which came on Sunday morning. J heads home tonight with another friend for the funeral.

Men their age are simply not supposed to die, especially suddenly and unexpectedly. He leaves a wife and daughter. I am so sad for them and for his parents and brother. We know them all. Ick.

My plans for Saturday had included filing my taxes, which I went ahead and did. Albeit, I tried to file with my SSN typed incorrectly, so they were rejected. I felt like a moron.

They say the only things in life that are inevitable are death and taxes. They shouldn't come in the same day. Ever.

Kids DO Say the Darndest Things

2009-02-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

I would rather poke red, hot needles in my eyes than pay attention to anything but the commercials during the Super Bowl. So here I am.

Tomorrow I start my family medicine month. Apparently, I volunteered to serve my month at a local practice, so I am going to be out on the other side of town. This means I will not be back at UK until April. Three months of being away from my school!! Yippee!

I learned a few things about myself during my peds months. First, kids rule. I haven't spent much time with small children since I ended my neighborhood babysitting monopoly in college. Kids are great! They are generally healthy, so it isn't super depressing (even on inpatient). But mostly they say hilarious stuff. For instance -

9 yo Pt: I heard that there are hospitals where, if you have a third ball, they can take it off.
Dr. Q: Do you mean testicle?
Pt: You know, balls, like down there.
Dr. Q: I have never seen a patient who has that.
Pt: My uncle does.

At this point, rather than bust a gut laughing I look at pt's mom who confesses that it is HER uncle who has the rather prolific reproductive anatomy. The doctor assured the pt that problems like that can be corrected. Then I left the room to laugh. I couldn't help it. The kid knew what he was doing. His mom didn't say anything about it. Hahahahahahahaha.

I have also learned that the biological clock is a real thing. Ugh. I know too many pregnant people and have seen far too many cute babies in the last two months. Save me.

Mostly, I have learned that I will not be practicing medicine that doesn't include children.

Couchbound

2009-01-22T18:04:00.000-08:00

Calling in to work for me is like raising the white flag. Admitting defeat and the inability to simultaneously handle the eight million things I attempt to do (badly) on a daily basis. However, I realized I had become sicker than my patients and retreated. I found myself hoping that I had strep throat so that a quick, antibiotic solution could be found and I could be back to it ASAP.

No such luck. As I secretly suspected, I have a viral URI. The second one in three weeks. This is the only downside to working peds. Otherwise, I adore peds. In the end, I had to call in. I can't learn or treat patients when all I can physically do is cough.

This means that I had to slow way down. This drives me bananas. For all but five hours of the last two days, I have been in my house, alternately blowing my nose and coughing. Tonight, I am finally going more than 10 minutes between coughs. Quite the triumph. I am so ready to go back to work.

On the upside, my looking forward to work remids me that the time in coming to decide what I am going to do with my life. Ugh - another day.

Keeping reappearances

2009-01-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

So I have not, historically, had great success with friends. I could not describe anyone I went to high school with as a friend at the time, though I had a few from church. College was less of a struggle, but I still didn't feel like I had the social grace of so many people I knew. Or perhaps I am more choosy in how I differentiate between friends and acquaintances.

I think social networking in some ways undermines the concept of a friend. Because everyone we choose to associate ourselves with is a "friend", the word is broadened considerably. I don't mind that my fb friends have access to the information I post. Otherwise, I wouldn't post it. But, I definitely don't share everything on my facebook wall.

I can use fb to keep up with friends who are across the country and across the street. See pics of their lives, their kids (not sure how I feel about the ultrasound pics though).

This all being said, my favorite part is finding people on facebook who I thought I might never see again. A year and a half ago, I found a friend whose absence had created a huge void in my life - a void that I was in the process of learning to accept and has instead been filled by his presence. Ours has been a long, wonderful rediscovery.

Yesterday, I lucked into a good guess and found a friend from my very small college major. Hadn't talked to him in a little over ten years. Chatted like it was ten years ago. The fact life recap and then on to shared interests.

Many things about the last year and a half, for me, have been supremely lousy. Different post, different day. But reacquainting with old friends is marvelous.

Clean Slate

2009-01-15T13:29:00.000-08:00

I am a certain percent there. We are all always a certain percent there - just depends on what you are looking at.

Today, I restart blogging with a clean slate. I am about 60% doctor, which was the original motivation for the title - to trace my progress in becoming a physician. This process is so all-encompassing that we seem to be required to become 110% physician at the expense of friends, family and previous lives.

I refuse.

Because I refuse to become a slave to my medical education and my desire to practice good medicine, I still have my friends from before medical school, I still have my marriage, I have found new friends. I am also not a straight A medical student, a gunner, a competitor.

The first time I tried to blog, I had nothing to say. Or I thought I had nothing to say. Now, I have a lot to say. Even if no one ever reads it. I hope someone does.

Dreaming away

2008-04-15T17:07:00.000-07:00

I do nothing the easy way. I probably cause that for myself. But nothing ever goes according to plan for me.

Before high school I wanted to be a singer. I did have the mostly mistaken opinion that I could make a decent living singing sacred music. HA!! But I wanted to. When I discovered musicals I wanted to sing on stage. Wearing too much make-up, singing beautiful, sometimes goofy songs. I have evidence that I even got to do some of this (oh yeah - VHS evidence of me singing in musicals - one of the Backstreet Boys is in the same video - much good it did me!).

When I was about 12 I decided that my life's goal was really to be a doctor. I came to this profound (albeit badly researched) decision based on a PBS show called "So, You Want to Be a Doctor?". or something like that. I loved the relationship that the students had with their cadavers.

Then I went to college and realized that going to class seemed to be optional and attempted to screw up my ability to go to med school. After a rocky semester at home, I returned to school in search of a new major. I ended up in English and then, at the sage advice of a friend, in Linguistics. I loved it! I changed my goal and went to grad school. Three months in I changed back - finished the MA and returned home to go to med school.

I have since then taught college, gone to half of medical school, sung in a couple of local groups, reacquainted myself with linguistics, made new friends in all my activities.

So what is the problem? I still want to sing. and I still want to do linguistics. and I still want to teach. and I still want to be a doctor. and I still want to do a lot of other things. and I can't give anything up. I am afraid to lose one dream in favor of another.

Evidence of Existence

2008-04-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

So I haven't blogged in over a month. Mostly because I believe that I have no readers and therefore post only to purge to the ether.

Apparently, I am wrong as I found a link to my blog on a friend's blog.

Crap. Now I have to find meaningful things to say again. Or really, completely not meaningful, banal and wonderful updates of my life.

I can do that....sure.

My candle has more than two ends

2008-01-29T08:40:00.000-08:00

Ok, so on Friday I am going to Washington DC for a whirlwind three day tour. It is great: singing at Washington National Cathedral, nighttime walking tour of the monuments.

So what is the problem? That there are 24 other people going and I planned the trip. Apparently, people don't understand that a group trip means that the plans apply to everyone and creating your own outside plans messes up things for EVERYONE ELSE. The reservations, the cost, the cars, everything is arranged to make it happen for everyone.

I am not suggesting that anyone needs to take one for the team (except apparently me who is not really having fun with this anymore). Instead I am suggesting that people need to learnt o think like a group sometimes. This trip is so that a group of us can go sing. Not so that people can find gaps in the schedule during which they can escape to do things that were not planned.

I don't want to worry that someone is going to take his/her car and we suddenly won't have enough seats to transport people around because he/she decided to go see something in a museum.

I am sure it will be fine. I am trying to find a mindset in which I get to have some fun.

Second day

2008-01-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

I now sit in my deserted office because it is after 2:30 and the academic day goes from about 10-2. Except for me.

I am waiting to teach at 3:30 and then again at 5. Let me be clear. I am thrilled, THRILLED, with my teaching schedule. 4 classes (so full-time woot woot) and they are all the same (so one prep woot woot). Unfortunately everyone I know is done by 12, so they run like bats out of hell.

I would normally plan, but I taught this class twice yesterday and it went well. WHy mess with it?

I have read a one million page article called "Global Transformations and Intimate Relations in the 21st Century: Social Science Research on Sexuality and the Emergence of Sexual Health and Sexual Rights Frameworks". A decent, if slightly long explanation of the current state of research on sexuality and the negative and positive use of rights in efforts toward freedom in sexuality. Why am I reading this?? Well, first because I am sitting in on a "Language and Sexuality" class and second because it is cool. It also reminds me of graduate school. Later tonight I must also conquer "Sociolinguistic Horizons: Language and Sexuality".

Ok, now I will go study anatomy some more.

The Revolution

2008-01-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

I am taking a break to blog while watching J and C play our newly acquired DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION!!! This is the first video game where I can beat J - not a status that will last without practice.

Christmas was wonderful - post URI. I finally pursued the advice of a licensed MD who momentarily marveled at my understanding of my own symptoms. I was sorely tempted to actually say "coryza" but I resisted. I told her I wanted an antibiotic after 8 days - and she THANKED ME for waiting and not contributing to drug resistance. Funny.

Anyway, I was thankfully in about 3/4 voice for Christmas, which was enough. Did Christmas Eve at my house. I made cheese fondue which was marvelous. I will be emperimenting with other sorts of fondue for sure!! Christmas morning was at Mom's - stockings from Santa and all. Christmas dinner at the grandparents' house as per usual. Mom gave us stuff for our new chest freezer - YIPPEE!!

Then three days with the in-laws. Very quiet. Mostly waiting on other people to show up or make decisions. I have, many years ago, learned to take a lot to do when venturing to Henderson.

Now I am back. Playing DDR. I should be writing a syllabus and calendar and possibly reacquainting myself with English phonetics. Oh and studying for boards. End of February. GAK!!

Sometime I will be philosophical again. Right now I must DANCE!!

Ready for bed

2007-11-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

today was a good day. no. really. meaningful interaction with my students (I think). got some work done. didn't study (ok that isn't actually good). sang for a couple hours. really pretty good.

when i walked out of rehearsal tonight i went to my mother's car to get a book out. one of the neighborhood hooligans was apparently hiding in the nearby bushes because we started to hear "jesus doesn't love you, he only loves me" coming from the dark foliage.

all i could think was - pretty lame taunt dude

of course this was after the serenade on campus this afternoon by the fundies - the lyrics to the song?? "it's not ok to be gay, it's not okay to be a homo"!!! and all I could think was - pretty lame taunt dude

maybe i need to talk about taunting as a rhetorical device to help my students argue better. whatever, obviously time to go to bed when rhetoric creeps in to blogging

Does this surprise anyone at all?

2007-07-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

Your results:
You are Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)

Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)		95%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)		85%
Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)		70%
Wash (Ship Pilot)		70%
Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)		65%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)		65%
Inara Serra (Companion)		55%
River (Stowaway)		55%
Alliance		40%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)		35%
A Reaver (Cannibal)		25%

Medicine and physical healing are your game,
but wooing women isn't a strong suit.

Almost 50%

2007-05-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

I will be half a doctor on Friday. Don't know if it is the M or the D, I'll let you know.

I decided to join blogspot because:

1. I bow to peer pressure at every oppotunity and the plethora of blogs I now read makes me want my own.
2. I wanna write about something besides children. I love that I get to keep up with my friends and their families through their websites. I just wanna do this before I get to the baby picture posting stage, if I ever do.
3. I take my Step 1 boards in 34 days and this seems a wonderful way to discuss that.
4. I have a lot to say. Because that is truly news.

Will continue to procrastinate another day.

Riz