Thursday, December 11, 2008

Know what's really fun?



What's really fun is coming home to a river flowing down your alleyway and a big digging machine with flashing lights hard at work less than a foot away from your bedroom window. Trust me, it happened to me a few days ago. Then we tried to turn on the water and all that came out was air. I had to boyscout some water so that I wouldn't have to brush my teeth with beer (don't ask... it makes too much sense to explain it right now) and drug myself with benadryl to be able to sleep (which I generally hate doing because it makes it so hard to get up unless you have ten hours to sleep in a row!)
The next day I went to look at the damage and saw the above image out of my kitchen window.

But in all seriousness, here's what really IS fun: Christmas vacation. It is the best single thing (besides spring break) about staying in school into my mid-20's. Tor those counting, I'll finish school when I'm 26, then get to start working at jobs that pay approximately minimum wage, possibly less depending on whether your institution actually follows the 80 hour work week recommendation. I will do this for five or six years. Then I get to start paying down my debt, which is going to be somewhere in the ballpark of $150,000. maybe more--and that's TEXAS, where our tuition is nearly the cheapest in the country. All during the time of my life when big events (kids, buying a house, etc) will also be wanting my love, attention, and money. I go into this non-seqitur to point out that:
1) Despite popular belief, physicians are not overpaid. We lose years of potential income by deciding to instead take out loans and continue going to school. And after 16 years of combined education, we make less money at the beginning of our careers than many people without a bachelor's. And once we do start making decent money, we have a huge burden of debt to pay off, which is larger than the annual salary of many physicians. This is also why your family practice doctor can only spend ten minutes every time s/he sees you. They make less money seeing you than your vet does when you take your cat in.
2) no one should go into Medicine unless they absolutely must; seriously. If there is any other thing that you can do with your life that will satisfy you and make you happy, do it instead. This is hard. And it's not that I'm stupid. Before I started medical school, I was vain and naive enough to think that it was only hard for other people because they weren't as smart as me. Do not think that. I am in the middle of a group of incredibly intelligent people working their @$$es off and I'm happy if I end up being mediocre. The first class I took when I got to school was biochemistry, where I worked harder than I ever had before and scraped by with a pass. I recently got a review that said "Displays eagerness and common sense... no glaring weaknesses noted" and I was thrilled.

But anyhow, the point was that I'm excited about Christmas break. E and I are going skiing in Utah--we're staying in SLC and then taking buses out to the different mountains (by the bye, got a wicked deal on a hotel on hotwire.com. As I am not a big skier (have only gone once, but loved it) I had to go buy some clothes. I got a great deal on this beautiful jacket (notice the quilted zip-out portion inside and the embroidery. rawr!) at Doug and Lyndas in Mckinney. So I will at least look the part, even if I spend much of the trip on my behind. I can still fall in style.





lastly, I'm doing a shout-out to E, who got me these gorgeous roses which are my new favorite. I love yellow roses because they are what my Dad always got my Mom, And I like that these pay homage to that but they're more ours because there's that tinge of reddish pink on the edges. be-yoo-ti-ful. And for the record, I haven't not had flowers in my house since E and I started dating. Yet another reason why I'm one of the luckiest people on Earth.



Oh and PS I know I've been slacking on here and have been reprimanded already by my mother for not updating often enough; I've been busy with school (test on Friday) and every moment that one of us isn't at school or work is spent with E, which doesn't lend itself to spending time thinking of and then writing clever blog posts.

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