Good things: I was on call last night and never got called. There were muffins left this morning in the call kitchen. I am going home at 8 this morning because there are no ORs. The weekend is here.

Bad Things: I haven't studied enough for my surgery, anesthesia and ER exams. I can't remember the things I need to remember for technical skills OSCE. I am burned out.

Sorry for taking a little hiatus from the blogging. I started plastics this week and it's not too busy but long hours and early mornings (groan) and I'm studying for 2 exams and an OSCE that I have next week. The grandrounds went well and really stimulated some discussion but I"m putting working on the associated paper on hold until I get my life back. Match day is March 9 and I'm pretty nervous. The next two years will be decided for me in one minute. Eek.

I feel very fatigued today. This will be my third 4 to midnight shift this week plus 1 day shift on Monday (I didn't get a stat holiday, boo!). I have a really hard time winding down when I get home from an emerg shift. You use your adrenaline to keep you going in the evening and through those last cases on the table at the end of the night so when you get home you're pretty wired. I try to have some herbal tea, watch some tv or read a book then get to bed. This morning I had to be at the hospital for grandrounds at 8:30 and it was a tough sell. At least I stayed awake through the whole thing! I'm giving a grandrounds presentation at another hospital tomorrow, wish me luck!

Back to work

I can't say that i'm exactly sad to be going back to work in the ER on Monday. I can't exactly say I'm happy to be leaving Ben either. It's a giant catch 22. I have 3 more weeks of rotations at my med school's home hospital left. Then I have 6 weeks of family medicine in the city where my sister lives. I'm going to be their 6 week houseguest, I don't think her husband is very excited about it but I totally am. I have lots of fun every time I stay with Erin and her fam. We have good sister bonding moments. Unfortunately, this time there is also some manditory studying for the LMCC that's going to have to happen. I've been slacking lately because I really needed a bit of a break. Back to the grindstone!

On another note: I have a new obsession with eating cottage cheese and broccoli with pepper on them. Don't ask me why I think it's soooo good. Mmmm.

This week has been a flurry of activity so far for Ben and I. We did two things this week and are going to do a third tomorrow that we always talk about doing but never do. Monday we went to lane swim at our local pool. Tuesday we went skating at the local skating rink - which would have been more fun if there were less children (is there such a thing as adult skate?) and tomorrow we're taking a spinning class at our local bike shop. I spin already but at my gym that Ben isn't a member of, so I'm excited to take him to his first class. It could go well or horribly wrong, since Ben doesn't really like people telling him to push himself harder and make himself hurt. I'll have to pass on the secret of putting your hand on the spin resistance wheel but not turning it up when you're just too maxxed out to go any further. I feel that it's up to you to take control of your workout and often I push too hard at the beginning and have nothing left - it's all I can do to keep up the resistance I have, that being said, I still put my hand on the wheel to fake it. It must be my fear of disappointing the instructor!

It's been fun to do so many things together but expensive! The gym is essentially free for me because I pay one lump sum at the beginning of the year and then forget about it until the next September. We get a corporate rate at Goo*Lif* through my med school which is very reasonable. Hopefully there will be some deal through residency next year too. I'm too cheap to pay the full thing. I really like group exercise classes so it works really well for me. If we were going to swim a lot, I'd probably get a membership to the pool because shelling out 6 bucks each time feels steep. Skating was cheaper but still 3 bucks each or something. I wish you could just get a rec membership for the city that let you into everything. Hey, maybe you can and I just don't know about it. Since I don't actually live here, it wouldn't be worth it for me this year, but next year when Ben and I are in the same place we should look into things like this. It's nice to do things together.

Sleeping sickness

Every few months I get a few days to a week where I have a really hard time not sleeping every hour that I'm not at work. I get these feelings of overwhelming fatigue and the minute I sit down to study or do anything where I don't have to talk to people, I fall asleep. Fast asleep. This past week that's been happening to me. I got up at 9 this morning and was napping by 11:30 and could easily fall asleep again now. What the heck is wrong with me! I guess maybe I should have had caf instead of decaf this morning.

Edit: the antenna on my car also got crunched in the carwash that Ben forced me to go into today. Boo that.

CaRMS rank order submission starts today, eek! I've got my first two choices set but after that the waters are a bit muddied. I can't decide what to do with third spot. I have two contenders - one is the known and one is the unknown.

Just for fun Ben and I have been looking at the MLS listings for the places we're putting 1 and 2 and trying to see if we could afford to buy a house - a fixer upper perhaps. Things look good in one place and a bit expensive in the other. We'll see what happens!

Sometimes I look at my Clustrmap and get really intrigued by who is reading my blog. Especially the person who is reading it from Manitoba somewhere in the region of Wapusk national park or perhaps Thompson. I am not spying on you whoever that is and have no idea hwo you are - I just find it fascinating that someone from there is reading this blog. Likewise that there are people from all over Europe, Africa, India, Australia and Southern and Central America who have at least taken a gander.

This morning they turned the water off in my apartment. I showered beforehand but now I have to go to the bathroom... I'm torn about what to do!

Save the dates

I finally finished the 'save the date' cards for our Scottish wedding. Since this version I did change around a few of the birds on the tree so they looked more random but this is the gist. I originally wanted to use a photo of us, but it was getting really hard to get good contrast with the text so I went for this instead. I'm thinking of using the two birds at the top of the wedding invitation and on the reply cards.

It's even harder to decide where you want to go for the rest of your life when your partner can't make up their mind about where they want to go! Ben told me last week that he wanted to stay at is current job and then told me yesterday that he thought we were ranking one of the programs outside of his workable radius #1. Talk about confusion. It's so hard to try and plan a new life when things are so uncertain with the economy and the fact that even if I rank a program #1 there's no guarantee that I'll get in there.

In good news, I was talking to a bunch of people who interviewed at my current medical school's family medicine program last week and it sounds like their interview days were a complete success and they've really sold the program to the interviewees. That's amazing news! I didn't apply there because of the Ben job situation (the prospects weren't great) but I really hope they get an awesome group of residents this year!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today my wonderful father turned 58. My Dad, who answers his blackberry while on the podium waiting for his turn to speak at a conference when one of his kids calls. My Dad who helped me in grade 6 make an awesome project about the social contract that included a pair of new shoes for the finance minister to wear on his first day (Ken's shoes from the Barbie family). My Dad who came to punk concerts and waited for his mohawked daughter to come for her ride home. My Dad who forgot to pick me up from skating practice but makes a mean beans on toast. My Dad. Happy Birthday!