28. Washington D.C.

Where does the time go?

Spent a weekend in Texas. The weather was beautiful, and I spoiled the cat while I was there, which was very nice.

Today's B's birthday. After he picked me up at the airport, we grabbed lunch together then I took a quick nap. We then went into Manhattan to explore some guitar stores for his birthday present, finding a good fit at First Flight. He seems happy with it.

I have a lot of school work to catch up on, so we put his fancy birthday dinner off 'til Wednesday. Might as well make the celebrations a full five-day affair. :)

My next tests are March 10th and 13th, in exactly two weeks. Am I freaked out? A little. Add to that the Brown interviews on the 7th, mock interviews (which I have yet to schedule), the daunting task of buying a suit, and finishing my hours at the hospital...
Ack!

Luckily there's spring break to look forward to, and it looks like we might be spending it in Virginia with some grad school friends of B's.

For now though, I'd better get to work...

27. Colorado

V-day

Belated happy Valentine's day, by the way. What a controversial holiday.

First thing in the morning, B gave me a valentine he'd made out of hot pink poster board. A little clumsy. Incredibly cute.
Upon checking email, I had an e-card from my dad and an email from my mom. I sent a cute picture I found online to family and friends.

I got a text message from S, "Happy dumb not real holiday day :) hope you have a great one!"
And later in a conversation with my sister, she said, "It's just a marketing scheme, one of those Hallmark holidays, isn't it though?"

Why so much pessimism people? :-P
I prefer J's take on it:
"Just another day that people use to show love... When no other day should be any different... Happy V-Day anyways..."

Tired

Been an intense week. Overnight FedEx-ed the Brown application Wednesday. I really stressed over that essay, but it's finally done. Only one thing left in the process - the interview. In preparation for that, I'm planning to schedule some mock interviews with Career Services at Columbia.
First though is my first orgo exam next week. Yesterday was the first bio exam... I was feeling behind in class and hadn't spent much time on it (because of the application essay), but I think it went better than I expected.
Next week also some people from the ITO foundation will be in the city. There will be a reunion on Thursday, including a tour of an exhibit downtown followed by lunch. I'm a little nervous about it - using Japanese, explaining what I'm doing with my life, meeting new people... Ah well. I'll get through it. It should be fun.

What now?

Today in the ER a man came in who'd been electrocuted. For some reason I think I heard he had been working at a construciton site when it happened. 1000V. He didn't survive. I wasn't in the ER when he arrived or when he died, but I entered in time to see four men lifting his bereaved wife from the floor (where I suppose she had collapsed) onto a stretcher. For several minutes her cries filled one side of the ER.
"No no! I don't want to live anymore! I can't go on without you!"
Shortly thereafter more family members arrived - three grown men and a young woman. They peaked into the curtain and, for an instant, my heart stopped in anticipation. The woman jumped back, buried her face in the shoulder of one of the men. She cried louder than the widow, and all three men were red-faced and teary.

This was my first time seeing (to some extent) death in the ER... or ever.

As I packed up my things to leave, I felt guilty for not staying. But practically, what could I do? The grieving have to work things out for themselves, at least for a little while. I would have no right to intrude. Yet I felt so powerless. Imagine how the doctors and nurses who couldn't save him felt.

There's a dead pigeon on the tracks at 30th Ave. It's been there for a while. Unlucky once, and now his body is run over repeatedly by thousands of Manhattan-bound passengers. I stood staring at the disfigured body, like I always do, waiting for the train home. I thought about the babies my friends are expecting this year, the baby born last month - three months premature. The weddings, the graduations, the illness. Constantly in motion, constant change.

As miraculous and powerful and efficient as the body is, all the magic of science that makes us (and pigeons) tick... over like that. There's something greater, even if it's just time.

I was helping the ladies in the admitting office with paperwork today. They are constantly answering phones, and one of them said "You know, when I get home I just want to sit in silence, by myself. If the phone rings, even if it's my mother, I just let the machine get it. I can't listen to her every day, talk about what she did, who she saw, same thing all the time. If her message sounds important, then I pick it up."

The woman sitting across from me said, "It's always important when your mother calls. What if it was the last time you spoke to her."

Think about that.

Getting back on track

I am having such a hard time getting on the ball this term. Quantitatively, I don't have much more on my plate now than I had last term, but somehow I'm feeling overwhelmed. I think part of it is how fast everything seems to be going suddenly.
I found out about linkage on Jan 14th, submitted AMCAS the 25th, had a mock interview the 28th. My secondary app is due next Friday, and my interviews at Brown are Mar 7th. The essay-writing is hard, but I know the interview is going to be even more difficult. I am already psyching myself out about it.
Meanwhile class is going at a whirlwind pace. We've already finished two chapters in Orgo, just two weeks into the term. Bio is not sticking the way it did last term; there's a lot more memorization, a lot less fitting all the pieces together (which I'm much better at). Plus, the first Bio exam is next week.
I went back to the hospital yesterday after a two week break (during which I submitted AMCAS and made myself ill with unnecessary stress). I only have about 40 hrs left to do at the hospital, but to try and not freak out so much, I'm cutting down to twice a week for the rest of the month. I tried to be more "aggressive" yesterday in my role - followed one of the PAs around, looked at x-rays, asked questions. As a result I did less "go-for" work for the nurses, but I still did my duty as a patient advocate - chatting with patients and serving lunch etc.
Once I'm done at the hospital, I seriously have to find a part-time job. If the hospital doesn't have funding, I'll have to go somewhere else, as much as they love me there.
Anyway, I think I just need to slow down in my head. Last week when it was all getting to be too much, I just put everything down for a couple days. I bought a pair of shoes, had a couple fun outings with B and his bro-in-law (who was in town for a writers' conference). That "break" calmed me down a lot.
Now I just need to hang on to that while I struggle to finish my essay for Brown and prepare for the first round of exams.

One thing that's going well these days is the living situation. Y moved out in Jan with pretty short notice. Luckily, a former coworker from the Gyu was unhappy with the place she'd moved with her sister in the fall. Both of them have moved into the house. Though B and I share the smallest bedroom, things are working out well so far. We cleaned a lot and reorganized, and the room is suddenly much more livable for two people. B's parents also gave us some hand me down furniture for our living room, with lots of cabinets and stuff, so we're able to store our stuff elsewhere in the house. Best of all, it feels more like a home! Not like a random collection of furniture that people have brought and left here over the years (even though that's basically what it is). Now that it looks halfway decent, the thought of moving out makes me sadder than it did before.