Two Hundred and Seventeen, Two Thousand & Twelve!

It's the new year! And I'm not inebriated! Really, I'm not--likely I'm helping friends who might be inebriated!

Two Hundred and Sixteen, Carburetors

     Puttering along. No, that would imply I work in a factory or office setting. Unfortunately the profession I'm in is increasingly being run like a factory improving efficiency however the acceptable losses is still considered to be zero. Unlike carburetors–of which the worst case scenario is a flawed shipment costing $$$–people are not expendable. When a carburetor isn't functioning properly the usual treatment is to replace it.  Not so with human beings. There is no reason for a mechanic to be on call to fix a car emergently in a night.
     It is enjoyable though and satisfying. That little part that glorifies in fixing problems while interacting with people burns brightly every day for me. Although every now and then I fix a problem or two and then my patient happens to pass away from something else despite the improvement he or she had shown.
     But those thoughts are for another day.

Two Hundred and Fourteen, The Spark!

Often I'm reminded by a few friends why I need to stay in my college town. Why? They love me. And I do love them. So what pushes me to go away--far far away? My father went around the world for his education, then career, and brought me into the world here as well. Talking to him teaches me that none of it was preplanned. It just happened that way. With the sole exception of that first foray over here. What spurred him to it? That is what I wonder because I'm searching hard for that part of me that will send me off into the corners of the country. I need to know who I am and cut my own path through this world. I love my friends. At times I feel stifled by that love because I worry about meeting enough people to find some who think like me while hanging out in the same places. I need to get out and away--someplace where I can meet others in a similar boat and we can explore our new boundaries, such as we choose to set.

Another sun-soaked season fades away...

Two Hundred and Twelve, Wildfire

It's amazing how fast news can spread in today's day and age. If we go back simply two generations, news traveled as fast as the post did and even then not necessarily to everyone. First the immediate family would get notice and then they would inform close friends in their locations. Dire news such as deaths often had a travelling family member who would go around telling other family members of the death before everyone went to the town where the person used to live for the funeral and such. Friends of those folks would be brought in to take care of the farms/shops/plants while the family was gone.

Now, less then twenty-four hours after the fact, folks connected online have knowledge of deaths of people they might not have seen in years. Those folks tell their friends who are not online about it and then they end up calling others and so on and so forth. It amazes me the speed with which the news spreads, good or bad. Wildfire.

Two Hundred and Ten, Stagnation

It's not that life is stopping all around, it's just that my personal development has slowed down to a crawl. I see myself as the same person who entered medical school four long years ago. Have these years meant nothing to the personable side of me? Can that side really have remained unchanged as my professional side underwent immense challenges? I look around at people moving forward with their lives--their real ones that matter! and see that I will have to work just as hard at my life as I do for my future career. While I rarely assume things will fall in my lap in most things, I see that in this area I have remained quite naive. Things will work out as they usually do but I will have to help it along a lot. And that means I have to learn, and learn quick.

But what is it I need to learn?

Two Hundred and One, Time's Endless Progression

My world is static to me.  I wake up, go to school, come home, hang out with the same peeps, sleep.  Rinse.  Repeat.  Ever since high school, my life has consisted of this same pattern.  There were some derangements such as weddings or the birth of some new kids or the passing away of some folks but my immediate life has had no change.  At home people still argue a lot and do things the way they want instead of compromising.  At my friend's place, we still get together and play games.  In my college town, I still go out to dinner with people to have a good evening.  I still play computer games like crazy.  I still make mini road trips to see other friends in nearby towns.  

The doc I worked with on my away rotation went through medical school not expecting children since his wife had had extensive radiation for an early cancer and was deemed infertile.  To his surprise, a few years into his established family practice, he had a couple little girls.  He told me how before the girls, time for him was at a standstill.  Now with the little ones, he sees old mannerisms disappearing while new ones begin all the time.  To him time is running rampant and he cannot get it under control again.  He loves his daughters very much but still admits he misses things they used to do when they were younger.  

I don't cuddle up with my dad anymore.  I also don't fall asleep on my grandmother's lap while we watch an evening movie.  I also don't cutely offer to help with cleanup after dinner and instead make sure I do the heavier cleanup so no one else must.  I do still run over to my friends' home but stay much later than I used to.

Tomorrow I go to take another test in a multitude of tests I have taken and that I have yet to take.  After it is over, I will celebrate by either running around outside a bit, paying bills, or playing Warcraft.  Then Saturday I'll drive home for a night.  All of it has happened before and will happen again.

But one day it won't!

Two Hundred, Another List of Memories

• First season of Cylons with a friend
  
• Hearing the tuba again
  
• Spontaneous late-night table discussions with new people and old people
  
• Couch-crashing
  
• Baseball games
  
• Guacamole and taco salad
  
• Brownies
  
• Baking a cake
• Jesus loves this guy!
• A cave
  
• A museum and a shut-down factory
  
• Local eats
  
• Southern drawls
  
• A splinter in a little girl's hand
  
• Extremely thankful patients
  
• Gangrene
  
• Exploration of an old but new town
  
• One skittish dog
  
• One wonderful vegetarian restaurant
  
• Being reminded that time doesn't stop
• Writing that reminds me of my friend
  

One Hundred and Ninety-six, Hiss

I stare out a window, old enough to warp the light coming in so the tree in the distance looks spooky in the gloaming.  The house across the way has some vines growing up the sides and I've never seen a light or person there.  Maybe it's abandoned.  People tonight are dyeing eggs and celebrating birthdays and eating good food.  I sit here in the dark listening to the gas from the heater behind me hissing out.  

One Hundred and Ninety-five, Whoa

I haven't read a blog or webcomic in three or four months...

The thought just floored me. It's not that it's freedom; it's not good or bad; it just is. I do realize I've missed reading some close friends' blogs which I would enjoy. But things are as they are right now and I won't fight it currently. Maybe upon residency and possibly moving to Land's End, USA, I might drag myself more to there to catch a glimpse of what my peeps are encountering and doing.

One Hundred and Ninety-three, Insurance

Ah vacation! Here I am in Texas with nine other people to celebrate the New Years! And I'm working on an overcharge problem with my health insurance company. Sometimes Life can be too much of a blur to see the little things piling up at your feet.

One Hundred and Ninety-two, Death of 'Ole Blue

Around eight years ago the four of them came into our lives as brothers of the same factory.  The gentle blue with a glowing insignia were soothing to our sense, the ergonomic shape eased into our palms.  We four had found our mice.  Lord Chaos, the Beatnik, the Engineer, and myself revelled in our gameplay for many years with these mice.  Switching to each other's computers was simple with the same peripherals.  Orcs, dwarves, trolls, gnomes, terrorists, scientists, Gordon Freemans, robots, Soviets, Allies, GDI, NOD, pyros, engineers, Psilons, Silicoids, roller coasters, trains, Civilization(s), Tribes vehicles, mutalisks, carriers, seige tanks, Jedi, Sith, smugglers, bounty hunters, augmented UNATCO operatives, Ylloj - my frost sorceress, a red Boba Fett-lokalike named Silencer, fantasy warriors, X-COM operatives, cities, evil minions and mistresses who you could slap, Kabuto, and Meccs are but a few of the creatures and races under the sway of our mice at one time or another.  

'Ole Blue has travelled a lot too between three different cities and almost 10 houses/apartments.  He provided my thumb a gentle gel-filled pad on which to rest.  He outlived two of his three brothers in regular usage.  One got lost to the annals of "old equipment" while another hemorrhaged out gel fluid.  One sibling remains who still feels the love of a human daily.  The Beatnik has just built himself a new computer and his mouse will hopefully get to experience it for many years to come.  Mine decided six months was what it could last on my new PC.  Today the years of rough use and the cord's weight to the ground finally pulled some connection loose inside the mouse.  I tried a splint with tape but it can't hold with the pressure needed.

Today I went out and found the great-great-great-great grandson of my Mouseman Wheel, the G5 Laser Mouse.  

It's been hard with it because it is unruly and different.  My thumb sits slightly differently, there are a few extra buttons, and the slide is smoother than I'm used to.  I'm sure I'll get used to it though.  Already today I've gotten to like the slide and messed around with the extra buttons.

But I'll still miss that blue glowing symbol on my first real mouse.

One Hundred and Eighty-nine, Passion

I had a surgeon tell me about a procedure he was going to help perform back when I was on surgery.  The procedure was the one mentioned briefly in this entry.  And while to you or I it might seem like a long, amazing, and possibly tedious surgery, to him it was why he lived.  The excitement on his face was a beacon for me.  As I go through pediatrics and look back on Ob/Gyn and Surgery, I realized that I want what he has.  I want to experience the same glowing feeling, the same Drive for a particular line of work.  Doctors are in their profession for life.  I want to do something that I will thoroughly enjoy for the rest of mine.  

One Hundred and Seventy-eight, Bills

At times it's easy to get caught in the whirlwind that is Third year and forget to pay the bills.  I didn't this time, but this is one of two times this school year I've been close to missing deadlines not through forgetfulness as much as no-time-to-devote-to-it-ness between being at the hospital most of the time and playing hard when I'm home.  Is my balance perfect?  Hardly, but I hope I'm learning my place and what I can do to maintain myself decently.  This weekend was good between kite-flying, practicing taking histories and physical exams, and hanging out with some good friends.  

One Hundred and Seventy-seven, Day 7/8

HUZZAH!  Power returned sometime between 9:30 PM and 12:30 AM!

One Hundred and Seventy-six, Day 6

Still no power...[sigh]

One Hundred and Sixty-seven, Deliveries and Home

My days this past week included two Cesarean sections, one normal delivery, and one ectopic pregnancy. I've managed to find many babies' heartbeats while they're inside mommy using Doppler devices. I've met a woman who is pregnant for the third time after having lost her first pregnancy because the baby developed no brain and lost the second in a miscarriage. She and the doctor are ecstatic that this third pregnancy is going well and she's getting really close to term with a healthy baby growing inside her.
This past weekend I saw the Engineer and some other friends. I came to realize that while I had become slightly desensitized to bar smoke in the past, my year or so of abstinence from smoke-ridden air caused my throat to heal up and feel Friday night stronger than usual. My grandmother's birthday was on Saturday. And Valiben showed up just before I ate dinner and then drove off to my schooltown. Sunday I managed to get laundry done and I had some good chats with a couple friends.

One Hundred and Sixty-six, Humanity's Progress

I had a family member who witnessed a terrorist's bombing. I will work with my family to make sure she gets the psychological help (from family and professionals) she needs to work through it in her mind. I do not wish for revenge on the ones that did that and killed others. I just wish for proper justice based on the transgressed laws of that land.

Evolutionary fight between physical might and the ability to protect/kill versus moral understanding and the ability to understand/forgive?

One Hundred and Sixty-five, The Bat Man

Day Um

One Hundred and Sixty-four, Wrinkles

It's both amazing and freaky to watch a baby come out of a woman's uterus. More to come later this week!

One Hundred and Fifty-five, Long Commutes

There are people for whom an hour commute is perfectly normal. I am not one of those people. Today I drove from home home to my school town for a day meeting and then headed back home home. Doing that on a daily basis would make me very introspective and likely to get into a wreck. Roommate commuted for an hour at one point and so a 45 minute or 30 minute commute is no biggie for him. Even those would be pushing it for me since time to be introspective is not necessarily what I care to have at the moment. As it stands, I don't have to drive on my own for a bit, thankfully, and so I'll enjoy the rest of this brief break I have before I start up my OB/GYN rotation in a couple weeks!