Back to Reality

My vacation officially ends this Sunday, but I'm heading back tomorrow to allow myself a little time to unpack and prepare for the week ahead. I also have a family medicine meeting in Philly I need to be at on Saturday. I can't believe a month has already passed. My month long rotations feel much longer than this!
In a previous post I mentioned some of the things I wanted to accomplish during this break. I did accomplish most of what I wanted to, some of the research and looking into residencies I did not do as much as I wanted to, but....

I did learn how to bind so I was able to finish my quilt!

Notice my nice hand stitching here around the edges!



I also finished 4 books and will likely finish another one on the plane ride tomorrow.



"The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead" - this was a book that looked at the life cycle from both a psychological and physiological perspective. It was ok - not quite as good as I had hoped for. I think I have a new fascination with the aging process and learning as one ages. This is partially due to seeing elderly patients, many of them very sick and me being more aware as I age. Even though I'm still young at 25 - I feel like I finally starting to have some real life experience behind me. I guess is this why the new book I'm reading is titled How to Live: A Search From Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth) - I'll let you know how it is.


Alive (which I also watched the movie) - this is the telling of a rugby team's plane crashing in the Andes mountains and what they had to go through to survive. I thought this book was great, but I almost always like true survival stories. Also, watched the movie based off of the book.


Mermaid Chair - written by Sue Monk Kidd who wrote The Secret Life of Bees (great book & great movie) - I also really enjoyed this book! I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed her first novel. I would also say that it's probably worth re-reading sometime later in my life.


Walking in Circles Before Lying Down - my dad got this for my birthday and it's a fun read about a lady whose can understand what dogs are saying to one another. It was an easy fun read, but not as good as I had hoped.

I had my fill of Mexican food and enjoyed a blackberry margarita with my cousins last night! Today I had a nice last full day in Chico with my Grandma and some other members of my family! And then my mother and I tried to play an April's Fools Joke on my dad.
We were at the bank and he drove by, we waved, but he didn't see us.
Jen-"Mom where's dad going? Isn't he supposed to be at work?"
Mom-"He's on a break, probably running to Longs to buy some Absolut on sale"
Jen-"Do you have keys to the civic?" (the car my dad was driving)
M- "yeah"
J- "Let's go get in his car & move it to a different spot and watch him as he looks for it" :)
M-"OK"
M&J - "giggle, giggle, giggle" as we run from where we are over to the Longs parking lot

We find the car get in and move it. Then we are sitting in the car watching and waiting for him to come out.
M-"We'll wait for him to walk by and then we'll get out of the car and to get a closer look as he tries to find the car"
J-"maybe he'll think someone stole it - haha" (trust me no one would want this car)
Then we hear Dad - "HEY!"

He walked out of the store while we were driving and then figured he forgot where he parked. In looking for his car he sees us sitting there. So we didn't get him as good as we had hoped, but mom and I sure had fun in the process!

vacation

I've disappeared to Tahoe for a couple of days with Marianne and then on a mini family road trip to Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. The vacation served both as a family trip like the ones we used to take during my spring breaks when I was in school and also a chance for me to see 2 of the cities I might be applying to residency in a handful of months. I was happily surprised to find Portland to be a very cool city.

They have a beautiful water front that runs right along a river. Our first night there we hit up the Portland City Grill which is found on the 30th floor of a US Bank building. We enjoyed some delicious happy hour food and marvelous mojitos with an amazing view. The place was packed, especially for a Sunday night and lots of young people!

The city kept getting better and better in my eyes. Free public transportation around the city with a tram/gondola to the top of a hill where the medical center is located. It is a very green city along with lots of outdoorsy things to do.

But...this is best part --> Portland is home to the country's largest independent bookstore - Powell's. It may not look like much from the picture, but trust me it's wonderful! This store takes up an entire block and has so many different rooms that they have to be color coded! Over the loudspeaker you will hear names of people being called to certain rooms to meet their parties! They sell both new & used books! I seriously could have spent an entire day in Powell's alone!
At the suggestion of my mother we had to make a stop at Voodoo donuts - which she has seen on food network or another one of those stations. This place does weird donuts.

This is the case of spinning donuts to help you make your decision. The neon colored donuts were dipped in TANG and if you look closely you should see a voodoo doll with 2 heads and a pretzel stake sticking out of it's heart.

Here's a picture of my mom's maple bar with bacon! She liked it - personally I'm not one to mix maple syrup and bacon, but hey to each his own...

This here is my donut - a chocolate ring dipped in rice krispies with a peanut butter drizzle - yummy!

More to come later - I'm off to take the dogs on their daily walk.

1 year

Yesterday was match day. The day the 4th year medical students find out where they will be for residency. I posted about this last year and I have a better understanding of how it all works, which I will not bore you with the process now, but shall save it until it is closer to my own date.

It is such an exciting time in the medical community. Even being miles away from my medical school, all it takes is a quick log-on to facebook to feel the excitement in the air. A few more clicks and I can find out just about where anyone matched too! The entire medical school class all gathered in the Hershey Country Club, each student going up to get "the envelope" and at the same moment opening them to find out where they will spend the next chapter of their lives. It seems surreal and I'm next. Wow. I can't wait. Even now I feel nervous and excited about the whole idea. It's been a rough road and I still have more to suffer through, but eventually there will be an end! Hooray!



Here's a picture stolen from a friend on facebook of the cake they had at the match day celebration and yes... it is a Charm City Cake (from Ace of Cakes on Food Network!)

quilting

I'll quickly admit that maybe my crafting - crocheting and quilting make me like a little old lady, but I love it! I have been working on this quilt for over a year now. Once completed this will be my 2nd quilt - all for me.
What I love about quilting is that it truly is a unique form of art. The cutting and measuring and aligning the pieces actually takes a lot of mathematics. I can't tell you the number of times I probably calculated the amount of fabric needed and how many rectangles to make sure I had the right number. There are little tricks to the trade too. In making the quilt below I took 3 pieces of fabric and made long strips and sewed them together. Then I cut these groups of 3 into smaller pieces, so rather than sewing each individual rectangle - I had blocks of 3 - if that makes any sense.

What I find to be the most fun is trying to choose the colors. I feel like a painter with a blank canvas. The goals is to match, but with a quilt individual patterns are not important. It is the overall look and feel of the quilt. You have to get past matching every little color and realize that overall it fits well. Yesterday my mom and I went on the hunt for my background color. Originally, I intended for it to be a dark color - black with a dark pattern on it. Well, after searching I happened upon a beautiful color purple (no surprise) with pink undertones that was absolutely perfect. The colors flow together so nicely and make my quilt much brighter than originally expected. Pictured below is the fabric that will make the back of the quilt.

I went to Willows today and had my Grandma and a friend of her's help me put the top piece of the quilt together. I do not trust myself when it comes to cutting large pieces of expensive fabric by myself. Pictured below is the almost finished product. Tomorrow it gets sent off to be quilted (the pattern of stitching that will go over the top and hold the front, middle (batting), and back together)

Ta-Da

vacation

Today is the 2nd official day of my month long vacation. This past weekend, I spent Friday night celebrating my b-day and being finished with medicine. Saturday, I relaxed, recovered, and ate a slice of my favorite pizza.

Sunday I took a trip to Washington DC and visited a few of the Smithsonian’s museums with Sief. We enjoyed wonderful weather – walking outside and eating ninja turtle ice cream! :) Monday I spent packing and cleaning my house. Tuesday – I flew home!

Now I’m here ready to relax and enjoy this month off. Even, though I consider this more of a month “on.” Time to enjoy life to the fullest and catch up on all I lose out on during my hours of work and study.

Here’s my list to be accomplished over the next month! Wish me luck…

- Eat as much Mexican food as possible and not gain any weight
- Read at least 4 books
- Finish a quilt I have been working on for over 2 years
- Work on my personal statement for residency
- Exercise
- Look into away rotations for 4th year
- Research family medicine residencies on the west coast
- Take tons of pictures
- Catch up with old friends
- Girls trip with a few high school buddies (not sure of the destination yet)
- Family vacation up the coast - visiting Portland and Seattle
- Dim Sum in San Francisco
- Sleep & relax

Speaking of sleep I'm off to bed - it was a long day of travel! zzz....

Happy Birthday Part II

Above is pictured the best thing I've found to come out of Pennsylvania. It may be an East Coast thing, I'm not sure, but I've never seen this on the West Coast. Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Icing. Another random East coast thing I've found is an unusual fascination with pretzels. There always seem to be tons of pretzels, with a million gajillion varities and...pretzel sandwiches. Anyways...


pictured above = Me = 25 yrs old. Do I look any older?



Below, is my new friend/enemy "coughy." That's what I named him. The BF (boyfriend) bought me a giant microbe for my b-day - it is the common cold. This is a rhinovirus blown-up 1,000,000 times. Yes I know we are nerdy (Sief doesn't believe he is, but to be in medical school - it's a requirement). I am lucky that it is just the common cold and not the other options of scum, scabies, or flesh eating strep pyogenes.



Thank you all for your Happy B-day wishes, the phone calls, text messages, and ecards! All were greatly appreciated.

Much Love,

Jen

Happy Birthday!

I'm 25 - a 1/4 of a century. Do I feel older? Nah
Wiser? Maybe a little. Or maybe what I mean to say is I feel I am old enough now to look back on my life and see patterns. I can see how I approach different problems or face new situations, etc. In theory, I am supposed to learn from these things so as not to make the same mistake twice. Which I can say I have done a time or two, but I am starting to recognize some trends. This feeling of finally having enough time behind me to be able to reflect on my past and learn from it has given me greater respect for those older than myself. Even more time has accumulated for them from which to learn.
Am I where I expected myself to be at 25. Nope. I figured by now, I'd be married with a kid. haha But I think where I'm at is just fine for now. The other part, I'll just keep my fingers crossed and give it a little more time.
For some reason to me 25 seems like it should be a big birthday, but it's not really. The only new thing I think I can do now that I couldn't before - is rent a car at the normal rate. woo hoo

Since I am not at home to celebrate my birthday - how will I be spending my day?
The morning will consist of cereal for breakfast, a little studying, and then a date with Harvey. Who is Harvey you ask? Well, Harvey is a young man who has no clothes, except for a sheet, no legs or male parts, and abnormally long arms. He live upstairs in the library locked away in a small room. Harvey is a simulation mannequin that we can listen to heart sounds on, feel pulses, feel the PMI (point of maximal impact) where you can feel your heart on your rib cage. He can breath. So tomorrow morning I have an exam with Harvey to test my cardiac exam skills.
After my date with Harvey, I will spend the remainder of my day in outpatient clinic (which I don't really mind). Then I have to find time to head to Hershey Pantry and buy myself a huge slice of birthday cake. I'm not sure what kind I'm going to get yet - possibly chocolate with peanut butter frosting, we'll see. Then I get to study for the remainder of the evening for my test on Friday.

For those of you who know me, I will spread my b-day out as long as possible. Friday night I'm having a party/game night at my house. Then I'll be having a family party at some point once I'm back home in March. So even though I don't really get to celebrate on my actual day - there will be plenty of celebrating later!