This day hasn’t been the most pleasant, I must say.

I’m interviewing the New York this coming week. In fact, for the past few weeks, I’ve had three interviews scheduled on Friday. One in Buffalo for a Med/Neuro position–but I wasn’t sure how much I liked their program, one in Rochester in Medicine in hopes to convince them to create a combination program just for me (I am so optimistic). And the last, for Medicine in Stony Brook, NY. I also have an interview schedule in Neuro on Monday in Stony Brook (from now on, SB)–they have a combination program, and they are the ones who are the cause of all of my problems. A couple of weeks ago, I scheduled the SB medicine interview, and then called the neuro program to confirm with them that I was scheduled. The program coordinator seemed surprised when I told her that I had scheduled the medicine interview–because she had apparently arranged for me to meet with the medicine people on Monday. Perfect!

Rochester wrote me and told me that they couldn’t do a combination program. Fine. I canceled the interviews with both Neuro (I was supposed to be there today) and Medicine there, did a little more research on the Buffalo program, decided that it wouldn’t hurt if I interviewed there, confirmed my interview, and bought tickets Saturday night. (Follow the story so far?)

Today, of course, I get an email from the Neuro person at Stony Brook saying that I needed to interview with the Medicine program separately after all. And of course, the medicine department no longer has ANY available dates to interview. And my tickets are nonrefundable/nontransferable. Lovely.

I hate it when things just fall apart. HATE IT.

It’s put me in a mild despondent mood today, where I’ve had little motivation for anything.

There. There’s my gripe for today. I’m done now.

I’m getting ready to teach first years the physical exam. We had a review today and someof it has definitely become routine–but there’s parts to the physical exam that I haven’t done in ages and still find difficult. The thyroid exam. Percussing the lungs, etc. You start to rely on lab values and chest xrays, it’s sad. Hopefully, I won’t look like too much of an idiot. I remember being a first year and absolutely in awe of how much the fourth years knew… Perspective.

I’ve been locating my Christmas music collection–I removed it from my computer because I had sooo much. It’s making me teary–there is some gorgeous music out there that never fails to make me emotional. I get very irritated listening to Christmas music on the radio–mostly because it’s that pop crap or worse, oversentimental (does The Christmas Shoes play on your radio stations? If not, you’re lucky! There’s not another song on the planet that can get me out of the Christmas mood faster), but there’s so much that’s good. Expect a Christmas music sharing post from me in the future!