wooooo

I survived my first week of sub-i, and two 30 hour calls. I do not yet have the amazing ability of residents to think of and do 30 different things at once. But I can see now that I am desperately going to need that ability to survive! (Or at least, to make sure my patients survive....)

The hardest things to deal with on crutches are the little things. Like putting on contact precautions before going into more than half of the rooms. It's annoying with two normal feet. On crutches, it is utterly ridiculous. My residents actually open up the yellow gowns and "dress" me. I can't wait to end THAT. Or the way I hold up the ENTIRE TEAM when we go from floor to floor on rounds. Stairs are an essential part of rounds. Elevators are unheard of. I can go about one floor, but more than that I need the elevator.

Anyway, I am exhausted, so I am going to go nap. Or buy a ticket to VEGAS! That too.

i am tired of not being able to walk.

Look at the color differential between my two feet. Gross. I guess this is why they tell you to always compare the injured side to the normal side.

spring break

Day 3 of our cruise, and this is what my foot looks like. The doctor had told me I could start to partially weight-bear by then? HA. I remained on crutches for all 9 days.
So all of these pictures are from my iphone, using an app called hipstamatic. Of all of the apps I've ever bought, I've gotten the most use out of this one (and angry birds). Totally worth buying all the extra filters, too. So my pictures can look all hipster as hell.

Okay well this one is just black and white.

Crutchin' on the beachhhhh woohoo. When we got off the boat and into a taxi at the end of the cruise, the taximan turned my crutches horizontal to fit them in the cab and loads of sand fell out. It was lolz. It was less lolz a few days later in Houston when the same thing happened in my dad's brand new car. I thought all the sand had been shaken out!

The following two filters/films are probably my favorite. I love the brightness of the colors with the Pistil "film". I just like the old timey look of the float film with a blue "flash."


So gimpy ...
Brandon finds a spot to relax. Lifeboat can be seen out the window. They played Titanic on the TVs while we were on the cruise, which was hilarious.

All dressed up for fancy dinnertimes.

Obviously I don't have many pictures on my phone; Brandon has real pictures on his camera. But it was about as good of a vacation that it could possibly be, having just broken my foot 3 days beforehand. The weather was beautiful, I got sunburned, I read 3 books in 9 days, and I got to spend 9 days with Brandon, which might be a new record for us.

Now I'm in Texas enjoying life here, but worried about going back to work on Monday with a broken foot. Just getting back and forth from the hospital is going to be the worst part. I want more spring break!! more more more

oops

I broke my foot. I win the ridiculous award for doing so during the final game of the dodgeball season, when I was the final person on the court. I jumped to dodge and landed very badly. FAIL


It got even worse looking later. Boo. It's not a bad break, just the 5th metatarsal, nondisplaced, but such horrible timing I can't even believe. Now I get to hobble around the cruise ship. BLAH. I think we're still gonna go though. At this point, I can't imagine not going. Still, boo hiss.

character building

I was reading an article in the NYtimes article that didn't really speak to me except for these lines:

"When we raise our kids, we focus on the traits measured by grades and SAT scores. But when it comes to the most important things like character and how to build relationships, we often have nothing to say. Many of our public policies are proposed by experts who are comfortable only with correlations that can be measured, appropriated and quantified, and ignore everything else. "

It's so true. I'm pretty sure, with a basic level of intelligence, good grades can be tiger-mom'd out of just about anyone. Test scores maybe a little less so, but still, practice helps. I think you can train just about anybody to be hardworking. But how do you raise a kid so that they are kind, honest, generous, loving and loyal? It's a much more difficult thing. And how much of it is dependent on the child's innate personality, and how much on the parenting?

Is it really all about going on horrible camping trips, a la Calvin and Hobbes?



I was just thinking about this the other day because I have started to identify traits in other (unnamed!) people that I want my kids to have. The other day I was thinking, if I have a son, I want him to be just like _____. What a scary thought, first of all. No babies are on the horizon for me, don't worry. Secondly, how on earth do I go about instilling virtues in my children?

Oh, I know it's not impossible. And now that I think about it, Dad had a very large book called "The Book of Virtues" that we used to read out of. (Haha! It can't be that simple.) I'm sure leading by example is a large part of it. I certainly admire my parents for oh, one million reasons.

No doubt I will be calling them for advice when it's my turn to be an example. All joking aside, I think they did a pretty good job. Not that Amanda and I are perfect by any means, but I think we try hard to be good? After all, that's what Dad tells me to do when I leave again after being home for a while - Be good.

it's not the chase that i love, it's me following you.

one last study weekend before intercession and spring break! woooooo i will be getting on a cruise ship exactly one week from today!

i want to go shopping before we leave. and i need to clean. i thought doing a thorough clean before medicine would last me not only through medicine but through my next two sub-i's. that was some wishful thinking. the place is a disaster again.

as far as news, i've been getting a bunch of the bad type lately. didn't get a fogarty interview, got waitlisted for the CDC program. i guess they legitimately do not care that i've been looking forward to joining their programs for years and years. so whatever, i guess. i only have one non-MPH program left to hear back from, and i've been hearing about budget cuts, so i'm not too optimistic. i'm pretty disappointed, to tell the truth.

i can't stop listening to the avett brothers. i can enjoy pop music's ridiculousness when i'm in a ridiculous place (bars/clubs) but it's so nice to hear music that is just a voice and a few instruments. so beautiful.

today is the texas independence day party thrown by the texas exes in baltimore! i am hoping to win a bar tab by riding a mechanical bull to victory. WISH ME LUCK