So...
I have to give my Grand Rounds presentation tomorrow.
It's kind of a big deal. But only kind of. I.e., it's required that we DO it, but there is no requirement that it be GOOD. But... you're up there in front of the whole dept- would rather not look like an ass.
I've know about it for like a year. Of course, I started it.... saturday? Supposed to be an hour long powerpoint. Or 45 min with questions.

But my topic sucks.
My topic is "fecal occult blood- assessment and management"

Yeah.
Hot.

So, I thought I was done. Had a spiffy powerpoint... did a practice run- 19 min. CRAP.

So now i'm working on padding it with garbage.

God I can't wait for this to be over!

And my work xmas party is tonight, and I'll have to miss it.

Bummer.

My niece is so freaking cute. I love the fuzzy hair!






















And the best of all...

This one is kind of cute...

So I was working with a medical student on the vascular surgery service, and she was scheduled to help out with an amputation the next day. It was a BKA, or Below Knee Amputation. We suggested that she go home that night and read about the procedure, so that in the OR she could really shine.

Well so the day of surgery comes along, and the poor thing is scared to death...

She said "I tried to read about it last night... I looked and looked but I couldn't find it ANY of the books! I even went to the library! I couldn't find "Baloney Amputation" ANYWHERE! How do you spell it??"

Haha poor girl.

I'm such a sports retard. haha. And I totally don't care.

First of all, I saw a pic of a friend with some guy. I didn't recognize the guy, but it totally looked like a "pose with the celebrity" pic. I figured it was like when I met Ryan Miller and didn't know who he was. So I asked a friend "hey, who's that?" and she said "Jim Kelly". (I guess it's a crime to not recognize Jim Kelly.) But even worse than that, I had to say "Who's Jim Kelly?"

I was also teased for not knowing about 'wide right'.

Beh, whatever, I really don't care if people make fun of me for not knowing football.

But then on sunday I went to the game... that rain was miserable. I think snow would have been preferable. At least this time I thought to bring a blanket to sit on. That helped a lot.

But here's a prime example of my sports idiocy.

the sentence was "JP Losman's pass complete to Fred Jackson."

But what I heard was "JP Losman's pass completes a French Accent".
So I asked "what's a French Accent?" thinking it was some play or something. And everyone just looked at me like "french accent?? wtf are you talking about?"

heh.

Oh and I went to the disco sat... it was really fun! I went last year, and it was kind of blah... maybe b/c my feet hurt. But this year was a blast. Yay!

now back to work... was on call last night. It was the busiest I've even been at BGH. Yuck. But apparently people talk, b/c this morning someone stopped me to say "I heard you did a great job last night."

Huh? I don't think I did a great job... I was so cranky and tired I was about to kill someone.

But what the hell, I'll take the compliment! In fact, it kind of makes my day...

Now it's off to sleep, and to wait for the cable guy, who will show up "any time" today. I tried asking "ok, any time before when? 5? 8? midnight?" and they said 'any time. not midnight.'

whatever. a bunch of my HD channels have disappeared, so he needs to come fix it.

oh- and random aside.

so one guy at work is a rabbi. he's a great guy. but he was all sad on monday- turns out the rabbi killed in Mumbai was like his sister's husband's brother's wife... something like that... they were all close friends. :( How sad.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

In response to Paul-

Here is a pic my dad just sent me, of the dinner I was not home for. (not sure what's up with the lemons).

My dinner was great, too, though.

So I was on call yesterday/last night. Just got home. And by some amazing stroke of luck, I don't think I have to go in to work at all tomorrow. I don't have to be back til 7a on friday. Then I'll get off at 9a on saturday, and have the rest of saturday (disco!!), and sunday, off.

I feel like it's a month of vacation or something. I am so looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.... Until I was asked to come to the turkey trot tomorrow. At 8am.

Hmmmmm, sleep in for the first time in weeks in my nice cozy bed, or...... stand outside in the snow and wait for a race to be over? yeah, I don't think so.

Until I talk to normal people who have thurs-sun OFF, and maybe even wed-sun.

So jealous. Sometimes I really wish I had a 'normal' job.

So... obviously I'm not going home.

This new boy invited me to his family thanksgiving. Hope they're not scandalized by what a heathen I am. ;)

So last night a friend of mine was in town from Roch, so I went to meet her and some other mutual girlfriends out for a bit. And I took this new boy. First time he's met any of my friends. Now, I don't really know what our 'label' is. It's been a couple weeks, we've hung out 4 or 5 times... Things are good and all- but it's early...

But so one friend came up to us, and pointed at him and asked me "so, is this your significant other?" I totally didn't know what to say- don't know where he stands on it all, so I just sort of stammered "ummmmmmm........ yeah, sure" He was like "haha, thanks babe."
So he was called my insignificant other for the rest of the night. Ooops...

What else is going on in my life...
Well I was supposed to have this big oral exam this morning. But then yesterday it got rescheduled. (so, rather than last minute cramming last night, I went out for a bit.) Then show up at work this morning... am in the OR... get paged "you're late". 'oh, no sir- didn't you hear? i've been rescheduled. I'm on call now, and in the OR."

"No excuses. Get down here."

fuuuuuuuuck.

So I had to go take this exam completely cold. Walk out of the OR and just leave the case. I show up for the exam... everyone else is in a suit (it's an oral exam), and I'm a slob, in scrubs, etc.

I felt like it went awfully. Just terrible. I thought 'wow, that sucked, I totally failed. But.... at least it's out of the way."

Later in the day I'm in the OR and get a page... "Call Dr. X when you're out of the OR". Ohhhhhhhh crap. I was totally expecting it to be the "we're really disappointed in your performance this morning, why were you so unprepared, blah blah blah."

But instead it was "hey doc.... just wanted to let you know you did a good job this morning."

Huh??

I what?

GOOD job?

I did an AWFUL job!

But.... so that's a pleasant little upturn to this crazy day.

I also realized after the fact that today was the Harvard-Yale game. (aka The Game). So I googled it to try to find the score. [harvard won, 10-0, and apparently it was an awful game.] But all google brought up was all these articles about how it's the 40th anniversary of the legendary "Game of 1968". Which my parents went to.

They went to the game, and with like two minutes left, Yale was winning 29-13, so they decided to leave and beat the traffic.

Only to find out when they got home that Harvard had gone on the score 16 points in the last 42 seconds of the game, ending in a tie.

But the best part- the next day they newspaper headline was "Harvard beats Yale, 29-29."

Bastards. ;)

Ok.... back to work.....

later peeps.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

So, I got an email this morning that the application period for the MINI E (100% electric, zero-emission MINI) field trial is open.

They are putting a fleet of 500 on the road, as sort of a beta-test. You have to live near metro LA or NYC. I'm just not sure how they define "near". Is Hartford CT close enough? It's like 100 miles... I think the point is so that you are close enough to a dealer that you can get there without the battery dying. (they say the range is 157 miles/charge under ideal conditions, 100-120 realistically.)

This thing sounds awesome- check it out:


I think it would be super cool to try one.

So, what the hell, I filled out an application. I doubt I qualify, but what's the harm in trying.

They asked a bunch of interesting questions, like "who's your favorite pioneer/inventor/explorer?". And "do you own an iPhone? Original, or 3G?" ("both" was not a choice) "What three inventions could you not live without?" "What three historical figures would you like to have on a road trip?" "How do you see the state of transportation in 50 years?" "What do you do to reduce your impact on the environment?" "Why are you the perfect candidate to have a MINI E?" "do you maintain a profile on: myspace, facebook, twitter, yelp [etc etc etc they listed about 30]?"

And then...

"Do you have a blog? If so, what is the URL? And if so, would you be willing to contribute to a blog about your experience with the MINI E"

Crap. I wasn't really sure what to put there. I mean, yes, I have a blog. But do I want the head honchos at BMW/MINI reading it? Will my nonstop obsessive boy-drama and talk of brazilians automatically disqualify me? But at the same time, I think being like 'yes but you can't read it' would be frowned upon.

So... I gave them a link.

(And so Paul, if you start getting hits from BMW- keep me posted. ha!)

I doubt I'll qualify based on pure geography alone, but.... I guess you never know.

So...
Have been on a few dates with a new boy. Am taking it slow, will see how things go. But so far he seems like a sweetheart.

But so last week he asked if I was going to the game on monday. I had to admit that I didn't know there was a game, and that I had in fact never been to a Bills game. So, he invited me to come with him and his friends to remedy that travesty.

Then later asked "so, did you get a ticket?"

Oh, oops, I sort of thought the invite included a ticket. Didn't realize I was supposed to supply my own.

But so I had so many reasons not to go-
1: don't care about football
2: really cold out
3: will not get home before 1am, and have to work at 6
4: no ticket

But, everyone I mentioned it to told me rational thought had to go out the window, and that given the opportunity, I simply MUST go, no bones about it. Had a few false alarms about tickets becoming available, but by the time it was time to head to OP for tailgating, I had nothing.

But I decided to go anyway. Figured if worst came to worst, I would hang out with them and tailgate, and then they'd go in to the game, and I'd go home and get some sleep like a reasonable person. I was in fact almost excited about that idea.

Kickoff was at 830. I left at 4 to go tailgate. Even then traffic was insane. Met up with the dude, and met his brother and some of his friends (who all loved me, (of course!!) (ha)). A friend ended up having a random ticket for $50, so I went for it. And rather than make me sit alone with my random ticket, his bro sat alone and let us sit together.

At first I was tired, and I was freezing my tush off. (literally. Whose brilliant idea was it to make bleachers metal?) I was starting to think skipping the 4th quarter and beating the traffic home was a fine idea. But, we kept staying... then it got all exciting...

I'm the first to admit I'm not much of a sports fan, but even I was pretty excited for those last two minutes...

So, we went back to the car, and had to sit and wait for traffic to clear out. Figured that rather than sit in traffic for an hour, we could sit around the fire and/or make out in the car like teenagers for an hour. So, even though the fact that it was already 1am and I had to be up in 4 hours was making me a little anxious, we stayed.

And then it started snowing. Good thing he lives in OP and I didn't have to drive all the way home. ;)

But in order to maximize sleep, there was no time for a shower this morning. Didn't realize that was such an issue... I mean I showered right before I went out, and could shower as soon as I got home from work. I mean I look like shit at work anyway... scrubs and a ponytail every day, it's not like I'm trying to impress anyone. (and besides, I have noticed some weird phenomenon: it seems the overly primped/made-up female doctors are taken LESS seriously than the 'no-nonsense' "who has time for makeup? I have more important things to do!" ones. Fortunately my laziness puts me in the latter category.)

But anyway, I did not anticipate the side effect of no shower until I was picking my clothes up off the floor and realized I REEKED of smoke. My hair stunk all day. Oops.

hahaha...

but anyway, I'm glad I went. Good times.

And then today I randomly saw (e:enknot)! woohoo, it's a twofer!!

:)