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.

what he said

America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for this country that we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.


- Barack Obama's speech on June 4, 2008, St. Paul, MN (excerpted from transcript here, video available here.) If you're so moved, click to donate to Obama's campaign or to MoveOn.

I have nothing relevant to put here today

Belatedly, the answers to a meme that Sarah tagged me for (and then Ellen tagged me, too, with a slightly different variant, and so I really had to get my act together):

What were you doing ten years ago?

Finishing my freshman year of high school. So... getting ready to go to Girl Scout astronomy camp - correctly termed a Wider Opportunity (I kid you not) - for three weeks (the first time I flew on an airplane without my parents!) and reading unholy amounts of classic SF - that was pretty much The Summer of Asimov. Just starting to think about being an adult. Crushing on increasingly nerdy boys. Starting to question how much of the Nicene Creed I really believed. (And re-reading Contact over and over. These were not entirely unrelated activities.) Probably talking on the telephone a lot - which was maybe by that point cordless. No cell phones! I used my dad's email address! Uphill both ways!

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

Um, the day is mostly over, so getting to bed at a reasonable hour is the only one on the list, really (and I'm here blogging, so.... that should tell you how well that's going). Things that were on the agenda today were attending my respirator training and fit-testing, which was about as exciting as it sounds. Spending some money at the Union Square Greenmarket because I like supporting these kinds of things - but the rhubarb lady from Monday was not there today, so I only bought a few apples. Registering (finally!) for Step 2 CS and CK, which I did. And, you know, getting up on time, which I did not accomplish, as my cell phone alarm entirely failed to go off. Luckily, Fran woke me up, but, man, I haven't moved that fast in the morning in a while: it was literally ten minutes from bed to subway, people. (I've been showering at night, so that helped.)

What are three of your bad habits?

Oh, my. Just three? Procrastination, although I like to think of it as relaxation time management. Talking before I think (mostly evidenced by me asking you over and over what you're doing this weekend, etc). And my perennial messiness, which I think may count as at least two bad habits - the making of piles (papers, clothes, whatever) and the real lack of attention I give tub, toilet, etc.

What are five places where you have lived?

Um. I totally fail this one. Ridgefield, Connecticut. Cleveland, Ohio. Aix-en-Provence, France. And I guess you could count Queens, New York, although I only lived there until I was two and the only thing I remember is the dog from next door. I've visited D.C. a lot? And, oh, I guess you can count Manhattan now, too, although I've only been here three days. But I'll be here for two months out of the next six, so that's something.

What are five jobs you have had?

Jobs I worked for monetary compensation, in temporal order: Cashier. Biophysics research assistant. College tour guide. Protein crystallography research assistant. Undergraduate admissions interviewer. And that's it, really, unless you count my med school research. Oh, and babysitting, I guess. (Let me tell you about the time I applied for a job at the mall and all I could put on my resume was biophysics research jobs, etc. No, really. I failed to land a job selling cheap jewelry to fourteen-year-olds - it was right around that point that I realized I had better stay in academia until I had enough letters after my name to be employable, because I had absolutely no real-life skills.)

Snacks I enjoy:

Cheese, oil-cured olives, apples, dried fruit and nuts, hummus, chocolate and coffee. And almost any baked good known to humankind.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Probably I'd buy lots of yarn, let's be honest. When I got that out of my system: fund some research into women's and reproductive health issues, because Lord knows the government's not paying to study women's reproductive health choices. Set up one of those Millenium-type prizes for working out a practical method of clean energy production. Maybe fund development of private space travel, mostly because it would be awesome. In terms of philantropy, I'd probably do something like Kiva, to fund microloans (and maybe macroloans, I'm no economist) to entrepreneurs in the developing world, because I think it's really the best solution we've found yet for effectively getting money from the developed into the developing world. And I'd give Greg Mortenson a substantial budget to work with. (I think I'm imagining myself as a multibillionaire, here with this list.)

--------------------------

I have lots to say about NYC, but it's getting late so... suffice it to say that so far it's been great and I'm getting very excited about graduating.

always getting curious and leaving town

So here I am, posting from New York City! (Thank you, ELWIN, whoever you are, for your unsecured wireless network.) The drive out from Cleveland yesterday was surprisingly enjoyable - I turned on an audiobook and settled in for eight glorious hours where no one's BP meds needed to be held, nobody needed a little something to help them sleep, and no one needed a gold form or a social work consult or a dressing change. I'm not sure what it says when driving aross the boring part of Pennsylvania is a pleasant change of pace, but there was no traffic, no bad weather, no speeding tickets and I got to listen to the entirety of a scifi novel plus a few mix albums of new-to-me music I had downloaded from somewhere or other, and it was really quite a lovely time.

Of course, the down side was that I had to leave town on Ben's birthday yesterday, which really couldn't have worked out worse in terms of timing. I did get to celebrate a little in the morning with some birthday French toast (which I completely forgot to garnish with the birthday candles I had bought and then hid so well I didn't see them, so Ben, imagine there were birthday candles. I'm sorry, hon).

So, now I'm here in New York and I've got orientation at Beth Israel tomorrow at 8:15. I'm going to try and post much more frequently this month, since I know I won't be able to keep up nearly the correspondance I'd like with everyone while I'm gone, so... I'll let you know how things go. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

title from "La Familia" by Mirah, which I've already used but whatever, a little more peppy pop music can never hurt

it's back to sleep to re-dream me

I actually have a couple of hours free tonight, and I am too tired to knit. Even surfing Ravelry is making me feel exhausted. Send help. Or possibly caffeine.

Recent happy-making things have been:

- Attending my sister Katherine's college graduation this weekend! Spent less than 24 hours in Rhode Island, but I was able to celebrate with her and my family the night before and see her all dressed up in cap and gown. (Sadly, I had to drive back to catch my plane before she walked, but I was able to wave at her during the procession.) (I'm not sure she reads this at all, but if you're reading, Katherine, congratulations again!)

- Less life-changing, but Ben and I have excavated the office closet and set up a workable desk situation for me. No more laptop at the dining room table! And I got to page through all my old college notes before recycling them, and let me tell you, not only was my handwriting neater and my notes far more carefully taken, I was a lot smarter four years ago. At the very least, I knew far more calculus. (However, I also apparently thought jokes about safer math through parenthesis usage were funny enough to scrawl in the margins of my notes. So it maybe evens out.)

- We also made a lot of pesto and I managed to document the process before returning Jen's camera. (Incidentally ... expect a lot of text here until I find someone who can fix a digital camera for less than $200.) But for now, pictures!

This is just under half of the basil we went through - the other half is already stripped off the stems and soaking in the other sink.

One finished batch with more basil leaves and cheese waiting behind it. (I think I minced something like 20 cloves of garlic that day as well. Our pesto is not particularly subtle.)

The fruits of our labors. As we manage to do every time, we vastly under-oiled it, so the effective volume of this batch is far greater, since we're adding oil to it as we use it. (We've finally figured out it's because the pesto heats up in the processor and we go by texture - which is obviously much firmer once it sits in the fridge for a while. We're learning.)

- Also, we went to see "Prince Caspian" last night and, people, it was excellent! I didn't love the first Narnia movie, actually - I thought the effects were simultaneously overdone and not very good, and the pacing was a bit off, but this one is fantastic. (Also, I am completely envious of Susan's badass-ness and amazing outfits, although where I'd be able to wear a cut-on-the-bias chain mail shirt and leather bustier is ... probably no place I'd want to be, come to think of it. She looked great, though, and I am completely smitten by her archery skills.) The rest of the cast was very good, too, although Caspian's accent was a bit irritating at times (mostly the times it faded in and out during the same scene). It was good enough that I broke out our omnibus edition of The Chronicles of Narnia last night and re-read a bit of The Lion... last night before bed. (I seem to recall Prince Caspian being not that good, and I didn't want to spoil the movie experience.) At any rate, I'm excited that the summer movies are starting to come out, although I'm not even sure what else is on the horizon.

- And it's off to bed with me - when I left tonight, we were four patients over our cap. I don't think tomorrow's going to be any better - we've already got a number of patients waiting in the internal medicine wings for as soon as we discharge our current patients. Wish me luck.

title from "Wake Up Exhausted" by Tegan and Sara. Yes, it's a link to a Grey's Anatomy fan vid. I can't help where these girls got their big break. (Have liked them for years! Since they toured with Ben Folds! God, I'm so curmudgeonly some days.)