Thursday, June 02, 2005

Playing Doctor

This is the link to my new blog about my residency years. Who knows how many times I'll post but as you can see, I didn't post much during the 4th year of med school anyway.

THis is definitely the last post here. Thanks for reading!
~me~ at 1:55 PM

Monday, May 30, 2005

Well, I've graduated from Tulane Medical School and I've been a doctor for 10 whole days and 3 hours. I don't feel any different. It was a fun event. I actually got an award on Ivy Day for having the highest GPA of all the family medicine future residents. I got $200 and a form to declare my award to the IRS. damn tulane. Oh well, it will pay for a tv or my couch I bought today (which I love!). I'm glad I went to Ivy day. Andy's dad accepted an award for the med student who overcame adversity to continue with medical training. Andy had died in November from his cancer. It was pretty sad and made me cry a bit just because Andy would have been such an incredible physician. I swear he could do anything! Graduation itself was fun. Instead of marching in to pomp and circumstance (the typical graduation theme), we marched to a fun song played by a local jazz band. David did a great job with his speech as did Debbie. The guest speaker was lame. I tuned him out after the first 5 minutes...he talked about his AIDS research and something about people being subsidized...my little crew (the J-K last names) were laughing softly and joking during most of it. Disrespectful perhaps but the guy was really boring. Then came the best part - the hooding ceremony. My only fear was passing out or tripping on stage. Instead my cap kept falling off. Dr. Crabtree did my hooding...she called me a spaz during her neuro lecture cause I couldn't sit still. Then we took the hippocratic oath. And finally we heard the school alma mater (didn't know we had one until that day) sung by Amber, Dan, Ed, and Ariane. They had to use words but Zia said he felt so unspirited when he noticed that the members of the 1955 class were all singing the song without difficulty. It's a nice song. And when we marched out, we marched to 2nd Line with our little umbrellas that say "Welcome to the Class of 2005"; they're from the alumni association, which I can join for a mere $1000. I owe $174322...the alumni assn will have to wait. We went to dinner at Drago's and heather came (jeff was on call). Then later that night Chris and I went out with my friends to Mimi's and then DBA. We got back at 4 am and had to get up at 8 am for the swamp tour at 10 am.
Sunday night we went to Harrah's for dinner at the buffet. It was alright. Then my mom gave me $20 to gamble so uncle george could get free parking. We had to play for 30 minutes. First I tried the quarter machine...lost $5. Then I moved to the nickel machine...an hour later, I had a net win of $2.45, $20 worth of parking, 2 cases of coke, and a free blockbuster rental (can't remember where that blockbuster thing is though).
Monday morning the movers came (see below for more about that). Then later that night, I met my friends for one last time at Donna's. Oddly enough, I wasn't as sad as I thought I would be. I guess it just hasn't hit that I won't be seeing them every week.
Tuesday morning we hit the road for Portland. We stopped at the Grand Canyon - very impressive but kind of got boring afterawhile (3 hours). I took pictures but they don't do the canyon justice. I'm reading a book called "How the Canyon Became Grand" Then we went to the Hoover Dam. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be but the river was massive at that point and very blue (it looked pea green at the canyon). We rolled into Portland friday evening and I got to see my beautiful niece Payton. She's now 4 months old and loves to smile and "talk" when she's happy. She was squealing very loudly at the restaurant. So cute! I got to spend some quality time with her. They're moving back to Hawaii in a week or 2. Good thing I didn't choose a sacramento program! So when I go home in august, I'll get to see her too!
As far as the moving thing. I called wednesday to find out when my stuff would get to portland and the lady told me the 27th but nobody showed up all day. So I called saturday and a better employee actually looked up my info and saw that the stuff didn't even leave louisiana until the 25th and that it wouldn't get over the oregon border until June 1st. She even made a note that delivery on the 8th was preferred and told me to call again tomorrow to see where the stuff was. I also left a message with my local agent to see if he knew anything...still waiting for that call back (probably tomorrow in the early morning with my luck!). Anyway, if they can wait until the 8th to deliver, then that would be the best.
The loan officer didn't get my bank statement I sent so I need to give him another copy of that. And I thought I told him I couldn't get a 3 year deferment but my realtor told me he's waiting for that document as well. Ugh! He told me that it wouldn't affect the loan but that I would be listed second instead of as the primary.
Today we bought a crapload of stuff for the house. My parents bought the washer, dryer, refrigerator, and microwave. I bought a fun couch. It has a chaise incorporated and it can be moved to the middle or either end of the couch. and it's modular so the arms come off to fit through tight spaces. I love it! Then I got a headache from not eating and felt like I was going to barf while we were at Fred Meyer looking for a tv cabinet. Got that and now to find the tv!

Okay, so this is going to be the last post at this blog...or maybe one more. I'm now going to create a new blog which will be linked to this one for my residency years. It's hard to believe that 4 years have come and gone and now I'm a doctor. It's still weird to be called Dr. I guess I'll get used to it.
~me~ at 9:32 PM