I’m listening to every sappy song in my music collection. Including “I Know You by Heart” by Eva Cassidy and “The Merry Widow Waltz,” from my favoritest opera.

Why? Well, lean in closer and I’ll tell you a secret.

Chris just got back from Hong Kong and Japan. I’ve missed him so much–our schedules have been different for so long that I only see him once a week, if that, but not even being able to pick up the phone and call him when I was having an extremely bad day (and with my intern problems and the latest strings of disappointments, well, bad only begins to describe it), yeah that was tough.

He had a wonderful time–ate all kinds of exotic foods, saw the sights, and got engaged in front of a Buddhist temple outside of Hiroshima!

That’s right! My best friend proposed to his girlfriend of two years! No ring, but he did it because it just felt right. I’m unbelievably, fantabulously giddy about this. This is the guy, who two years ago, when he was just starting to date her (and just when we were starting to get to know each other) argued with me for a hour about how marriage was a ridiculous method that churches used to mess in the business of government, and that he couldn’t see himself wanting to be with the same person for 40 or 50 years. I’m so glad to see him change.

I had no idea he was planning on doing it (I don’t think that he knew it either!). I mean, I knew better than anybody how much he cared for her. The rest of my med school class might have thought he was dating me, but I was the one who saw how positively mushy he was with her. And he’s talked about waiting to do couples match for residency with her.. but you don’t have to be married for that.

But, now, I get to wheedle and beg to be the best man! How cool is that?

*giggle*

(BTW, this is exactly how he told me. I heard all about the different types of noodles he ate and the different japanese phrases he learned, before he slipped it in. I thought he was teasing me!)

Literati Fiction Exchange

To Include:
– some type of problem in Rory/Jess’s relationship either being resolved or being explored b/c it can’t be resolved.
– dialogue about some random detail of the setting they’re in…i.e. “that clock on the wall” “this carpeting” “how the sun reflects off the wall”…anything.
– a book reference that isn’t often mentioned.
Not to Include:
– Jess crying (almost is fine if it happens to work that way *shrug*)…(I’m sorry, it’s just…a thing…I have…about writing Jess. Now, at least, lol. =$)
Rating: anything is fine *nods* …not NC-17? =P

A/N: Special thanks to Becka for the application of the whip to make sure I finished this. She’s the bestest! Please review!

Sticks and Stones

For the past six, seven, eight months, I’ve had a little *something* for a guy at my church. I would love to think that at 26, I’m old enough to be beyond crushes, but apparently not. This has had all of those classic symptoms: hyperawareness of every person he’s talking to (especially anyone who’s of the female persuasion), non-stop blabbering with any conversation, waking up just a little bit earlier to make sure I put on contacts and mascara (yes, there is a girl buried deep inside!).

Yeah. I’m smitten. With yet another Matt. *shakes head*

Tonight, while working on my presentation for tomorrow and watching The Amazing Race, I flipped channels and watched an old, favorite episode of M*A*S*H, where Hawkeye and Trapper pull yet another prank on Frank. It’s an early episode, I think from the first season, and one that I’ve probably seen a dozen times.

And it hit me, just before they switched to commercials. When he smiles, Matt looks exactly like a (much much!) younger version of Alan Alda. Spitting image, down to the cocky brow raise.

Disturbing. I think I’ve even squished me out.

Sorry everybody else,

Ali, I’ve been unable to load http://www.stars-hollow.org for over a week now. At first I thought the site was down, but everybody else seems to have no problems. I get a error message, regardless of what browser I’m using, that the server does not exist. Did you change any settings last week? Anything that I am blatantly overlooking?

I’m going to call my internet people tomorrow, but could I get the IP address so I can try pinging it and see if that works? Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

TO everybody else: The virtual tea and chocolate did wonders. Feel much better!

Sick. Still sick.

It’s migrated from my throat to my ears and head now.

And it’s really really hard talking to patients and their families when you have no voice.

Pity me? Send me lemon tea and chocolate to make me feel better?

And Ellie, I just heard. I didn’t get the rotation in Kenya, so I won’t be within a thousand miles of you next January. Chris didn’t get it either, so we’re thinking about arranging something together, so hopefully, we can still somehow meet. (I still want a picture).

Becks, you are having way too much fun with match.com. Save me some of the action! Fill me in with your favorites, k? Hopefully, I’ll be back to my chipper self soon.

*crawls back into bed*

They do have chipper as a mood!

Please don’t ask me why I’m chipper. I’m sure if you asked me to analyze it, I would find out that I really am not so. My ankle hurts. My non-existant ab muscles hurt. I spent all afternoon hanging around a tiny office with 5 other doctors, so I could exam 2 patients. (So. Painfully. Boring.)

Yep, started a new rotation, pediatrics, which I have been excited for, but stuck in clinic has kinda sapped me of the glee. I was looking forward to doing well baby checks and looking into kid’s stuffy noses, but I can’t stand just sitting around in a too-small room and changing attendings every half day! Thankfully, this does not count towards evaluations. And it should get better. I hope it gets better.

Only three more rotations and I’ll be done with third year!

Only three more rotations and I’m done with third year. When you really think about it, it’s scary. I went to a med school party this weekend, where I mingled with so many of my classmates that I haven’t seem in months. And it hit me. In just a year and a bit, we’ll be separating and spreading across the country… These close friendships and associations will end. I can’t stop it, and even though it’s so far in the future, that black dread is taking over residence in my stomach.

Hey, come back here chipper feeling!

No, things are good. Really. I just won’t let myself think how miserable my life is going to be when Chris and I are on opposite coasts. 🙁

I am such a nerd. No, really, it’s true. How did I spend my evening? My wonderful evening free of responsibility? Not to mention Valentine’s Day?? Reading articles from the latest Grand Rounds. I discovered this a couple of weeks ago, and I have to admit, when I read these blogs, written by actual doctors talking about real patient encounters, or just the science behind our bodies (they’ve figured out the genetics of why people have different sleep habits??? how cool is that!) I get so excited. Medicine is definitely my calling. Marissa, you should check some of it out–it’s written for the layman, and might give you an idea of the field.

Is tomorrow a new episode of GG? I haven’t seen the previous two yet (oops), but I still plan to and would like to tape it if it is.

And speaking of GG, can I do a bit of shameless plugging? Of course, ff.net messed up half of my formating (they’re taking out commas before quotation marks now!) and I’m not in the mood to go back and change it by hand, so believe me, it really doesn’t have nearly the number of errors in RL.

I’ve had to go through and make all most of my journal friends only. I had been planning on it, but I got friended by a rather, um, unsuitable person. And I really don’t need stalkers. 😉 Unless, of course, you guys want to stalk me, and if that’s the excuse it takes you to come out and visit me, then by all means, I give you my blessing.
.

Geez, after this randomness, you’re going to be begging me not to keep my promises!

*hugs* to flist.

I’m the first one on my flist to do this!

User Picture collage

Am very bummed and am feeling like a very bad fan-girl.

Apparently, Elijah Wood was within mere miles of me, at a premiere that I could have attended, if I had of realized that he would be there. But the only celebrity news I had heard of Sundance was that Paris Hilton was going to be there, and I really have very little desire to meet her. Elijah and the other Hobbits are a different story.

*Pouts* And I just know that he was supposed to bump into me and fall instantly in love. That’s the only thing that’s been holding us back.

To top it off, I missed seeing the premiere of “Ringers: Lord of the Fans” because I was out of town when the tickets went on sale. I’m hoping that I can grab some same day tickets on Thursday, but I’m not holding my breath. However, Ellie, you’d better keep those toes crossed!

There’s pics on the slamdance website of my LOTR friends here in their costumes at the premiere. *sigh* I haven’t been able to go to a meeting in months. I miss the lembas bread. And raving about Tolkien.

In fact, I miss my Tolkien group online too, my LOTR Inklings. We started reading LOTR again and it just fizzled. I know I didn’t help matters by taking forever to get my chapter out and I’ve been a perfectly lousy list mommy. But I’ve been working on my webpage and hope that tomorrow, I will have all of Book 1 finished, and at least the index page looking nice. And since I’ve had to reformat all of the emails into a readable, pretty webpage, I’ve been reading all of our old discussions. I’m just amazed all over again of the insights we discovered together, the life lessons, the ties into mythology that left me astonished. I’m lost as to how to reactive the group to get that again. I’m hoping that the website will help – having all of the basic pages actually say something and actually have something to which you could navigate would probably be nice.

I suppose I could just let it die naturally, but I am really reluctant to do so. We really had something, something that I haven’t found in another group. But maybe, it’s just like everything else in my life and I don’t know how to say goodbye. Any ideas?

Enough pointless fretting about something that nobody wants to read anyway. It is definitely time for bed!

Am back. Am tired. And cranky. Don’t like airports. Will write more later after blessed sleep.

Love. Peace. Happiness

AM CURRENTLY ON VACATION IN ILLINOIS STOP IN GOOD HEALTH AND SPIRITS STOP HAVE SEEN MANY STATUES OF LINCOLN STOP INDIANA IS CENTER OF UNIVERSE STOP AMISH COUNTRY NOT PARTICULARLY INTERESTING IN JANUARY STOP HUGS TO ALL INTERNET FRIENDS STOP MISS YOU STOP WILL WRITE MORE IN FUTURE STOP

LOVE ALWAYS JULIA STOP

🙂 *hugs*

Dear Santa,

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, that I’m pretty greedy, asking for presents right after Christmas (thanks for the iPod, btw, it was just perfect), Or that I’m too old to still believe in you. Or both. But hear me out, will ya?

This is a letter for next year. I’m giving you a whole year to work on it, because I want a really special gift, and I don’t think that even with your or your elves superior skills in the workshop, that you can get this custom-made job done overnight.

Next Christmas, Santa, I want a boyfriend. I’ve been really good, for a really long time. You’ve gone and given every other girl a boyfriend, financé, husband, and I think I’ve been patient long enough. I deserve one. And more importantly–he deserves me. I know that I’m a really good catch – I’ve got brains and can crack a joke and am redheaded to boot! I’d make an excellent girlfriend. I know that wasn’t the case in the past–I was much too insecure and socially awkward. Yeah, I would have been pretty lousy about it. But you’ve seen how I’ve changed and I think it’s time.

So, I hate to admit this, Santa, especially since you’re going to be so nice and give him to me, but he can’t just be any boyfriend. He has to be special, and made for me. I mean, I know my grandma told me to stop being picky and just marry anybody as long as he was a good man, but I just don’t think I’m quite that desperate yet. I’m attaching the list of what I want, so you can get him to the right specifications, but I’ll allow you some leeway in the color of the eyes–I do want to be surprised!

See, I told you, it wasn’t too hard. And believe me, I want to make it easy for you. So if creating him all at once is too difficult, I’m more than willing to take him as a work-in-progress.

And Santa? I’m all for celebrating Christmas in July. 😉

Julia

CC: Big Man of the Universe

I’ve been planning a trip out to visit my best friend in the first weeks of January. I have a little bit of a break and I haven’t seen her in a year…

After two weeks of trying to buy the tickets, having them magically disappear when I pressed the “purchase” button–then the price going up, and my other friend deciding that I had to come and visit her too–I bought the tickets yesterday–

–Only to have my friend write me today and tell me that the day I had picked to fly out was the one day she couldn’t pick me up.

Screwed.

I called and cancelled the tickets. They’ll apply them to future travel, and since I’ll be applying to residencies next year, I’ll be sure to use them. But they’re charging me a $100 dollars for the change.

I’m positively sick to my stomach right now.

I bought new tickets, will be flying out a day earlier, for about the same price as original (huh, that wasn’t there yesterday!). It messes up plans with the other friend a little bit, but I’m resilient and I’ll figure something out.

I hope.

It’s ironic. I’m a medical student, have worked for six months in the wards. I talk to patients and their families every day, am present for the discussions with the family about “Do Not Resuscitate” orders and quality of life. One day, I will be the one who signs the death certificate.

But I have never seen death, except in an anatomy lab where we didn’t talk about bodies, but cadavers, as if there was something different about lying on a cold table with chemicals infused in the tissue than resting underground. My patients who have passed on did so late at night or in a care facility and I was not involved. By the time I found out, the sheets had been changed and another person had taken over the room–the hospital is never lacking in the ill.

I’ve never had a person close to me die. My mom’s dad died when she was 15. She doesn’t talk about him much, just a little bit about how he worked hard but still would laugh with his family at night. But he worried all the time, about how the world was going to pieces, and according to the family, that’s what killed him at 49. My other grandparents are getting older, but are still in relatively good health, and it’s hard to imagine them not being around for several more years.

One of my friend’s father died on Friday, an unexpected heart attack. Sam’s grandfather died Sunday morning–he had been in the ICU for a week, but he had just been sent home with health care, expected to live a few more years, so he could go to Sam’s wedding in a year, or at the very least, be around for the Christmas party in a week.

Adding to this feeling of entrapment, I got to school today, and found out that one of the medical students had died in an avalanche on Saturday. He was the boyfriend of Chris’s old roommate. I met him several times, he had a nice laugh and we all ate dinner together once. I know his girlfriend very well. She’s a fourth year, with a bright smile and full of advice on how to survive my clerkships and drove Chris nuts because she is too messy as a roommate. But there’s a picture of her in the news paper, sobbing.

I’m not writing this begging for sympathy. All of these people were just acquaintances, people who floated in and out of the periphery of my life… except their deaths affect people close to me. And I am at a lose for words of comfort over a telephone, a gesture beyond a silent hug, which I hope conveys all of the pain that I feel for them.

I’m not exactly scared of death… I believe in an afterlife and I have seen enough in the past month to realize that there are many things worse than death. Lying in a bed, a tube breathing for you, your mind shut down and unable to respond, just waiting for an infection or another stroke to kill you. But it’s a different thing when it’s a blink of an eye, unexpected and unfair… Now, my mind is filled with worries and what-ifs. It’s been creeping closer to me, and sooner or later, it will touch me personally. All of a sudden, I’m confronted with m own mortality and worse, that of my family and friends. It happens to everyone and soon, this protection of distance and impersonality will fail…

Article about Melvin’s death: http://www.sltrib.com/search/ci_2487012

I browsed all over the internet looking for icons of Eva Cassidy and came up short.

So, I decided to make them myself and sat down with a tutorial and some brushes (thanks crushedviolet!) and learned how. Layers are a pain, I don’t know how you people do it. These three have just about sapped me of my creativity!

1. 2. 3.

(It’s so cool to say this!) Anybody is welcome to use them. I’d certainly love feedback on what works, what doesn’t, etc.

To bed. I’m sleepy.

Because I haven’t updated on my life forever, I owe a catch-up journal.

Since we last (truly) saw Julia, she was in the midst of her neurosurgery block, wondering what in the world she had gotten herself into. The hours were long, she limped home every night, and nary a resident acknowledged her existence. I fear many night, she cried herself to sleep, as the sleep-deprivation added to the stress. But, luckily that rotation only last two weeks, and by the end, she had made friends with two residents (one, very very cute, but rather too crass for her taste) and had impressed the attendings with random knowledge about a genetic disease that she knows all too well from personal experience. In fact, she had so much fun, that she almost convinced herself that maybe she could do surgery for the rest of her life, and never seen the sun for the next 8 years and have no personal life. Well maybe not quite. However, time goes by (…you’re older than you ever were and now you’re even older, and now you’re even older… and even two long 5-hours-of-sleep-per-night weeks end, and we all must move on.

Our heroine, as you remember, managed to wheedle/cry/whine her way into neurology rotation. She had had inklings since the previous year, when none of her classes had intrigued her quite as much as the study of the brain did (I hear that she actually spent 6 hours a day studying–even when there wasn’t a test the next day!), that perhaps a career in neurology might be nice, and while she was determined to keep an open mind when approaching her rotations, that little niggle of a thought was always there. Radiology was boring–except when she studied brain MRIs. Surgery, dreadful on the feet–but the cases were cool.

So needless to say, she approached the neurology clerkship with more than a hint of excitement.

Two days into it, she had found her calling. She tells me that she loves being with the patients and her neuro exam, while still jerky (and yes, she still forgets to check eye movements), is improving and she can’t wait for clinic each morning, and, yes, the rumor is true, she stayed late on her birthday because she *wanted* to learn more about multiple sclerosis.

Of course, it still is too early to call–she has been known to be mighty fickle at the last moment, but you may be talking to a future neurologist here!

A big thanks and snuggles to my flist for their birthday greetings! *hugs* You are all fabulous, and every day I am thankful for the chance of knowing you and claiming you as friends.

…Try breaking down and crying!

Remember this post

Apparently sobbing about how your life is ruined works better than calm, rational explanations.

I got my Neurology rotation!! And I start tomorrow! I am sooo excited.

And yes, I survived neurosurgery and am much looking forward to sleeping in until 6.

Ta for now!

I had four lovely hours off today, four hours that I spent on the couch, unable to move, because my feet and back hurt so.

Oh, and I took a bath. I’m more of a shower person but oh, that bath was nice.

My current rotation I’ve been putting in 17 hours a days, more than 12 of them on my feet in surgery. The first night, I came home crying because I had exactly 15 minutes to eat before going to bed, in order to get 5 1/2 hours of sleep.

And now, it’s off to bed with me. A whole hour extra.

See you in 11 days (they’re slowly counting down).