Un buen fin de semana

We’ve been having a lot of fun since my last post here! On Saturday, the school ran an excursion to Dolores Hildalgo, Atotonilco and San Miguel de Allende. Lots of history in these towns, too: Dolores Hildalgo was the small town to which Miguel Hildalgo, revolutionary priest, was banished after he began preaching against the church and against Spain. Instead of quietly living out his life in this tiny mountain town, however, on September 16, 1810, Padre Hildalgo famously delivered his grito (I’m unclear on the etymology, but it was a speech calling for Mexico’s independence from Spain) from the town’s main church and then led his army of farmers and ranchers through the mountains and into Guanajuato, where they fought the first battle of Mexico’s independence. The emancipation from Spain took another ten years, and Hildalgo was killed in the first year of fighting, but he and Ignacio Allende are revered here as the fathers of Mexican independence.

Here’s the inside of the church where Hildalgo preached and delivered el grito (my exterior shots are kind of boring):


Nowadays, Dolores Hildago is perhaps equally well-known for its beautiful pottery (which was started as an industry by Miguel Hildalgo himself):

Gifts may have been purchased. (Sadly, we decided that what we really wanted to buy [the unbelievably beautiful sinks] were just a little too bulky to take back to the States. Also neither of us have a home in which to install an intricately painted sink.)

Locally, the town is also famous for producing bizarre flavors of ice cream. Unfortunately, both Kristen and I were so engrossed in trying different flavors that we forgot to take a picture of the carts, but the ice creams are sold from carts off to the side of the main jardin (literally “garden” but here its meaning is closer to “town square”). We sampled many different flavors, among them avocado, pine nut (that was just me), cajeta and coffee; I ended up getting mole and strawberry and Kristen opted for cheese and chocolate.

Then we climbed back in our van (driven by Michael, from Texas) and traveled onward to Atotonilco, a very small town whose main claim to fame seems to be an 18th century church where the priests still practice self-flagellation. (There were souvenir whips for sale at the booths outside. It was a little odd, to say the least.) The church, while in need of restoration, was lovely inside, with numerous frescos and statues of the saints and the Virgin Mary.

We enjoyed a lunch of pork tacos (grilled pork served family-style by the kilo, with a stack of tortillas on the side) at an outdoor restaurant right down the street from the church, and then continued on to San Miguel de Allende, the birthplace of Mexico’s other father of the revolution, Ignacio Allende.

San Miguel was beautiful, if a little dusty, and is home to a thriving artists’ community. The institute de Belles Artes is located in a former monastery and contains the most beautifully tropical monastery garden I’ve ever seen:

Mexican artist and revolutionary political activist David Siqueiros painted here, and upon his death left a mural unfinished in a ground floor room in the institute, which is preserved today:




We also visited the city's main church:

(where I really liked the floor):


(and the ceiling, judging from my pictures, but here's a picture of the whole church, more or less):


We wandered through el jardin:

And around some of the streets:

But, truth be told, we spent a fair part of the afternoon perusing the stalls at the extensive artists’ markets.

We drove back to Guanajuato just in time to see the sun set over the city as we returned.

Yesterday was spent mostly lazily, reading, knitting and catching up on our neglected notes. We did have brunch out, where we tried molletas (refried beans and chorizo on toast, a popular breakfast item); afterwards we heard Mass at the city’s main church. (We may have heard Mass, but unfortunately I’m not sure we understood any of it: the priest spoke very fast.)

Today was the second week of classes, and we also had our first cooking class, but more on that tomorrow. ¡Hasta luego!

P.S. As if this post weren’t long enough, I have one last story to share. Friday night, we wandered around town, got some dinner, drank some margaritas, and watched the university singers, but the highlight of the evening was Kristen asking a gentleman leading several burros (a common method of transporting goods around Guanajuato) if we could take pictures of his burros. Very gravely, he shook his head, then burst out laughing and told us that of course we could. We took our photos and as we were walking away, we realized that our request was probably equivalent to asking a gardener in the United States if we could photograph his wheelbarrow. We enjoyed the laugh at our own expense all evening. And truthfully, we enjoyed the pictures, too:

Mañana, vamos a San Miguel

Guanajuato continues to be charming. Kristen and I have started to adopt the local meal schedule, as my classes end at 3 pm and we're usually at school from 9 am until then. According to my grammar teacher, Mexicans traditionally eat five meals a day, with the largest being la comida at 3 or 4 pm. Therefore all the local restaurants serve their largest meals around 3 in the afternoon. Yesterday, we tried the prix-fixe menu at one of the restaurants on the main square, which was delicious: green beans criollos (which translates, supposedly, as "creole" but was green beans and scrambled eggs), mushroom and chili soup, grilled chicken and sugared plaintains with rum sauce and ice cream. Muy rico. (We didn't eat again until breakfast this morning!)

After la comida, we somehow found the energy to wander over to the Museo de Alhondiga de Granaditas, where we foundered our way through the mostly-Spanish-language plaques describing the history of Guanajuato. The building used to be the seat of Spanish government back in the 19th century, and was the site of the first battle of the Mexican Revolution. It's amazing how little world history I've learned - I had no idea, for example, that Guanajuato was kind of like Boston during the American Revolution: they had lots of money and resources here, from the silver trade, and when the Spanish started taxing their silver exhorbitantly, they revolted. The museum also had examples of pre-colonization artwork, which was beautiful - and clearly still a popular style, as we saw an 800 year old vase that was painted almost identically to the lamp in our hostel, which we found amusing.

Since I don't have any new pictures to share today, here's a written bit of local color: there's an old man who sits on the street just down from our hostel, playing his guitar and singing, seemingly all day long - he's there when we walk to school and he's there when we've passed by in the evenings. He seems to prefer American/English-language songs; so far we've heard him singing Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles, show tunes and once, I think, a Britney Spears song. But it's pretty clear that he doesn't actually speak English: all the syllables run together into this mix of sound that sort of resembles English. It's a bit of a challenge every morning to identify the song he's singing. I don't usually give money to street performers, but I think before I leave I'll have to send at least a few pesos his way - so far, he's been a good diversion in the mornings.

Tomorrow (if more people sign up to meet the minimun group size), the school will running an excursion to San Miguel de Allende, a neighboring town about an hour away known for its artistic community and, I hear, some truly beautiful hot springs. We'll also be visiting Dolores Hilalgo, which ostensibly has some sort of historical significance but, by the comments of our teachers and other students, is mainly memorable for the odd flavors of ice cream produced there, such as avocado, tequila, cactus and pork-skin. I'm not sure I'm adventurous enough to brave the pork-skin ice cream, but if the trip happens, I'm sure I'll manage to bring back a report about one of the other flavors.

La ciudad es muy divertida

Just wanted to share a few pictures of some buildings around Guanajuato - last night's post was getting a little long! This is the street our school is on (it's the yellow building on the right):

This is one of the many plazas in Guanajuato, Plaza de la Paz:


The basilica of Guanajuato is on this square:

As is the little place we ate lunch on Monday:

We're going out tonight to watch the Mexico vs USA football game at a restaurant with some other people from the school, which should be a lot of fun. (We had to promise to cheer for Mexico, but since I don't even know who plays for the US, I felt okay about that.)

The main adventure this morning was the yogurt I had bought last night for breakfast: piña-apio-nopal. I knew "piña" was pineapple, and thought, "How bad could the rest be?" After tasting the bright-green yogurt, the dictionary came out, and I discovered that my breakfast was pineapple-celery-cactus yogurt. Not quite as bad as it sounds, as it turns out, but certainly a unique flavor, to say the least.

We're also getting used to the sound of roosters crowing every morning, and all the dogs in the city (and there seem to be lots of them!) barking every night.

¡Hasta manaña!

¡Hola! Me llamo Christina y soy de Estados Unidos

So, I'm not going to even attempt to catch up in any meaningful way from the last time I posted here (residency interviews: done; NaNoWriMo: epic fail, but I'm okay with that; knitted: two sweaters, a shawl, most of a pair of socks; holidays: amazing; current educational state: ready to graduate; wedding: mostly planned). However, I do want to start posting again, in order to chronicle this next month.

I'm currently in Guanajuato, Mexico, studying Spanish with my friend Kristen (from med school) at Escuela Mexicana. We arrived on Sunday, and have already gotten a feel for the city. There are about 150,000 residents, and the city is full of plazas, churches and open-air restaurants. There's actually no car traffic in the historic center of the city; instead, all car traffic is diverted to underground tunnels that run beneath the city.

Beneath those tunnels, our tour guide told us yesterday, are drainage tunnels, as Guanajuato is built in a valley. The surrounding homes and businesses tower over the central city, which is gorgeous, but apparently the city had quite the problems with flooding until around the 1920s, when the drainage tunnels were constructed.

But so far we have mostly seen our hostel (Casa Mexicana) and the school. The school is a large building off a small side street open to pedestrian travel only, and there are several stories of classrooms. It's really a beautiful building - here's the foyer:

Just off to the right of the foyer is a large room with tables, chairs and (all importantly) wireless internet access; this will be where most of my posts are made from.

The best part of the school, however, is the roof:

The buildings here are neither heated nor cooled, but constructed to hold heat in winter and keep cool in summer. They are certainly good at keeping cool, at least, and this morning I very much appreciated being able to duck up onto the roof between classes to warm up in the sun!

We're staying at a hostel run by the school, so all the people staying there are also taking classes. The women who run the hostel are very lovely, but they speak no English, and, between the two of us, Kristen and I speak very little Spanish, so we've been mostly miming our interactions. It's been working out so far.

Our room is actually very lovely (if also a bit chilly):
We have a beautiful window overlooking the interior courtyard of the hostel:

And our bathroom, while spartan with regards to light fixtures, is large and equipped with running water that is (so far) consistently warm, so overall, I'm very happy with our accommodations. As for classes, I've already learned the alphabet, how to order in a restaurant, some words for food, some regular verbs and how to tell time, so we're keeping pretty busy "academically." And speaking of classes, I do have some tarea to complete tonight, so I will just say ¡buenas noches y hasta manana!

don't be shy, don't shut your eyes

Got distracted by the HISTORIC, AMAZING ELECTION (ahem), but did manage to write over 1700 words today, so I'm just barely under pace, even with two days of no writing at all. A huge shout-out to Ben for very sweetly nudging me to get back to it.

I've "finished" an essay on why primary care is still important in our sub-sub-specialist era of medicine, and started one reflecting on the challenges and the crystalline moments in palliative care. ("Finished" in quotations because it's terribly rough and needs tons of editing, but I have to keep reminding myself that that's what December is for.)

Also, I cast off both the Luna Moth shawl and the Adamas shawl today, so ... good day all around, I think. (And I got that second widget working in the sidebar, finally. Plea to web designers: Please don't post sample code with a punctuation error in it. Thanks.) Tomorrow's goals: block at least one of the shawls and write 2500 words. But first, a cozy nap. :)

title from "Be Like Water," by Sarah Fimm.

YES WE CAN

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

- Barack Obama, presidential acceptance speech, November 4, 2008.

half accidental, half painful instrumental

The NaNo website and associated widgets are not behaving, but ... 5,039 words. I'm almost done with my first essay. That ... was easier than I thought it was be.

title from "Half-Jack" by the Dresden Dolls. Because somehow goth-grunge-trip-hop-punk is what my writing music turns out to be.

i wish i was a writer who sees what's yet unseen

So when the only elective I could register for was another two weeks of radiology, I decided that I didn't have any more excuses, so I'm going to try and do NaNo. Ten essays, 5,000 words apiece, 30 days - piece of cake, right? I am going to try and write more than the average word count I'd need in these first two weeks, because the end of November will be interviews and Thanksgiving and less free time, probably, even though I'll technically be taking two weeks of vacation.

So, there's a new widget on my sidebar so you can see how I'm going, word-count-wise, and I'll try and post here with updates - public failure to finish might help motivate me. I decided to post my notes, thus far - my scribbled thoughts may not make much sense, but I have a few ideas for topics, at least. Anything not on the list that you'd like to see me write about?


- primary care and how it will save the world. (ha. not really.) Radiologist wanted ENT to look at his infected ear, woman d/c from hospital not on warfarin --> in ED two months later c PE. People need to expect more from their doctors. The trap of the specialist perspective. Common sense.

- On bodies, body modesty, viewing people (self included) as bodies, too, not just brains. Looking at their insides, "eww, gross." Body "modesty" as contributing factor to sedentary lifestyle, obesity.

- palliative care, pain control, end-of-life. the guy I'll never forget from research experience. why doctors hate it and why I don't, really. how is this influenced by my own life experiences (or lack thereof). grief. psychiatrist who couldn't treat grieving pt.

- obstetrics in the inner city. frustration, difficulties, "i just keep getting pregnant and i don't know why." troubles with contraception: "i don't want anything up there." delaying own child-bearing.

- how medicine changed me, how I thought it might and how it did. Decisiveness, callousness, comfort level with people not my own.

- how people view their doctors. trust. responsibility. "are you in high school?" how doctors don't have the doctor-patient relationship any more. "who thinks their doctor is above average?" fraternity of mutual silence, united front. self-policing. double standards: our own drug use, etc, vs our patients' drug use.

- why abortion, what people do and don't get about abortion, looking at it from the inside vs looking at it from the outside. S. L. MSFC. Bunker mentality.

- difficult patients. what makes a patient difficult. M. J. why difficult patients get better and worse care.

- pediatrics vs adult medicine: EMLA, murals, art therapy, etc. why do we care for children differently? their fault vs someone else's. pressure (self-imposed) to get it right; disability matters less to us at fifty than at five. integrating consideration for life and life factors into care: teachers, unlimited visiting hours, mental health care.

- CPR, resuscitation, "saving lives," what actually saves lives and what medicine looks like on TV. how TV medicine shapes patients' expectations. how it shapes doctors' expectations.

title from "Wish (Komm Zu Mir)" by Franka Potente, from the movie "Run Lola Run." My favorite techno-German song. Mostly because I don't know any others, but if you've got some to share, I'd be interested for sure. I'm still trying to figure out what the song was that played on German MTV incessantly in 2004, with the video of creepy monster-kids' birthday party - one of those artistic endeavors that was just so bizarre you had to love it.

that time of year when we push ourselves ahead

*deep breath*

So, it's been, um, a while since I was here. Things that happened/were accomplished since July:
- I've applied for residencies (in family medicine, of course) and scheduled my interviews. So that feels good. I'm really looking forward to the interview thing, actually, even though it's going to be tiring and all that, but I'm excited to meet the people I'll be working with for the next 3-4 years, whomever they are. (For the record, in case anyone is interested, I applied to UH here in Cleveland; Montefiore, Beth Israel and Columbia in NYC' Tufts, Boston Univ Medical Center and Lawrence in the greater Boston area; Brown in Rhode Island; and Middlesex and UCONN in Connecticut.)
- Did rotations in emergency medicine and geriatrics, did my acting internship in pediatrics, and am now chilling in musculoskeletal radiology. And kind of scrambling to figure out what rotation I'm doing for the next two weeks, but that's another story.
- Took Step 2 CS! Our clinical skills exam, part of our licensing boards, is a big pain in the butt (expensive, offered in only 5 cities, long and tiring) but I took it in Houston on Monday and now I am done with standardized testing! Until Step 3 in, like, a year or two, but whatever.
- Attended some lovely weddings of family (my cousin Lisa) and friends (my childhood friend Christine). Discovered that yes, it is possible to drive to Connecticut and back to Ohio for a weekend. Thanked God and good fortune that I have a life partner willing to actually do all that driving, so all I had to do was sit and knit and be conversational and not get a DVT.
- I've also been knitting a ton, although, as Ben is quick to point out, I haven't actually finished a project since, like, May or something. However, I believe firmly in the utility of parallel knitting projects and many of them are nearing completion, so stay tuned. I've been working on:

- a shawl of my own design (ran out of (discontinued) yarn on the edging, need to devote some time to emailing Ravelers to see if they'll part with a skein)
- a scarf for my mom's birthday (in May) that I, um, still haven't finished. (There's beading. It's driving me crazy. It will be done by the time I go home in November.)
- a Pi shawl that may or may not be wedding material (halfway through the edging, it started to get not-fun; I'll be picking it up again soon when I'm ready for more finicky knitting)
- a pair of socks that exist solely for portable knitting, which I started during the AAFP conference in August. They'll get finished while I'm interviewing.
- the Luna Moth shawl (ran out of yarn doing the bind-off. This was even more annoying as I purchased three skeins of this yarn, but could not find the third skein anywhere in the house. Since it's only $2.99 a skein, KnitPicks got an emergency order from me.)
- another shawl (noticing a trend?) that may be a gift so I'm not going to say more about it. But I got a lot done while I flew to Houston and back earlier this week, with connections both ways.

However, as it gets colder (and these projects get finished), I think I'm going to transitioning to winter knitting. I appreciate a lapful of wool in November in a way that's just not possible in August. I have yarn and patterns for the Urban Aran, cardigan version (Cascade Ecological Wool in beige) and the Sayuri sweater (Rowan RYC Soft Lux in amethyst or green - I lost it a little when I found it for $1.99/skein, so I bought two sweaters' worth. This is how that excessive stash thing starts, isn't it?), so those will probably be my next projects.

In other news, I'm thinking very seriously about doing NaNoWriMo. (Since their site has been very slow, the short version: November, National Novel Writing Month, write 50,000 words in 30 days. Go.) Except I think I'm going to skip the "novel" business and just try to write 50,000 words of more-or-less non-fictional essays. I've had a few medically-related essays percolating for a while, and this might be a good way to actually get them down on paper. And interview season might be just the right time to reflect on the practice of medicine. And writing ten 5,000 word essays seems a lot more possible at this point than 50,000 words of plot. So we'll see.

Tangentially, I'm loving Genius, iTunes' version of Pandora: you pick a song, and it builds a playlist from your library based on that song. I've been actually listening to music again, and enjoying a lot of the stuff I'd forgotten I had. (If I end up doing the NaNoWriMo thing, I have a feeling it will come in handy.)


title from "The End of Summer" by Dar Williams. Because it's snowing here today.

drive-by posting

Hi! I know, it's been forever. And I'm not even really here (because how do I get caught up on two months?!) except for how I didn't want July to go by (like June almost did) without posting so... hi! How's it going? Here's what's been occupying me lately:

Things that Are Awesome:
- Manhattan. Seriously. I had my doubts about living in NYC but I had a great month when I was there at a fantastic hospital that is basically exactly what I want out of a residency, and I'm getting pretty excited about this next-stage-of-our-careers business.
- The beach. Specifically the beach in Westerly, RI, where Ben and I passed a lovely week with my family and Anna earlier this month. Speaking of...
- Family and friends. A lot of this online silence has been because I've been visiting and hanging out with all the people I love in person, which has been delightful.
- Weddings, other people's. Specified as such because of how you just get to buy presents and show up looking pretty and eat cake and enjoy how much they're enjoying their day. And also because of how we've been to a few lovely ones recently. Planning ours is lots of fun, too, but... see below.
- Being done with Step 2. I think this is self-explanatory.
- Knitting!
- (and, similarly) Reading! (I have actual books to talk about soon!)

Things that Are Hilarious:
- How the Cleveland Clinic starches the scrubs. I always forget this, and then I pull on a weirdly-crisp set of scrubs, and I think about how much better my real clothes would look if someone else tended to them.
- That was actually it, really. Starch! On what are essentially pajamas! I don't even know how (or to be perfectly honest, why) to starch real clothes!
- (The back half of season 3 of Entourage was pretty fantastically hilarious, though, now that I think about it. Highly recommended.)

Things that Will Never Be Done, OMG (even though they totally will be, of course):
- Ordering wedding invitations. Seriously, people: April 25th, 2009. Come hang out. It'll be fun. (I have to think about cardstock weights and ink colors for this?)
- Importing my CV into ERAS* one line at a time. Bah.
- Laundry. Bah again.
- Getting my car to e-check. Mostly because it is so low on my internal list of priorities, I keep forgetting it's, you know, something I have to do.
- Wading through my back-logged email.

Things I'm Looking Forward to:
- AAFP** conference: on Wednesday! (If anyone knows of some crazy-cool hotspots in Kansas City, let me know.) (I'm serious.)
- International Blog Against Racism Week: I talked about this briefly last year, but this is a really interesting (and, for me, a knock-me-out-of-my-comfort-zone) event, and I'll probably be linking around to different posts that I find intriguing. If I manage to blog more regularly.
- Emergency med rotation: So this technically started today, but I enjoyed it a lot and I'm looking forward to the rest of this month. (Which you should all remind me about when I'm cranky from having my circadian rhythms completely disrupted.)
- Being done with ERAS: which is a long way off (see above) but I've got my eyes on the prize, people. Or something.

So, that's ... wow, about all I've done for the last two months. I've been so computer-shy recently that not only have I not been blogging, I haven't been reading at all. So... how've you been?

* ... Electronic Residency Application System? Too lazy to look it up, but you get the gist.
**American Academy of Family Physicians (i.e. my future tribe) (!)

Edited to add: I can't believe it's been 19 days since I've listened to music on this computer! That's... really sad.