The end

The 3rd year of medical school is OVER. Everyone says that it's the hardest year. Last year at this time, I refused to believe them. Now that it's over, I choose to believe them.

I spent the weekend celebrating the end of the hardest year. As soon as I've recovered from the celebration, I'll be back to post. Hopefully, tomorrow.

You wouldn't want to read anything I wrote right now anyway. Trust me. I can't really describe my heartburn, bloating, and headache in a way that will truly convey how fabulous my weekend was.

Let me just leave you with this...
If you're thinking about renting Margot at the Wedding, don't. It's not funny. Get Death at a Funeral instead.

Not that I'm counting

Today was my last day on the floor as a 3rd year med student.
In less than 48 hours, the exam will be over.
And I'll be a 4th year.

I don't want to throw around too much fancy medical jargon here, but 4th year is technically referred to as THE LAST YEAR OF MED SCHOOL.

Memories

I stole a dollop of someone else's shower gel tonight. Bath and Body Works Honeysuckle. It's the fragrance I wore in high school the year I dated my first real boyfriend, Steve. As scents have a way of evoking memories, this is taking me back to the days of groping each other in the front seat of a white Chevy Lumina while Steve panted in my ear, "Babe, you smell sooo good."

This convinced me that Honeysuckle shower gel was the nectar of the gods. It wasn't until years later that I realized I could have rolled in cat shit, and Steve would have made out with me in his car.

Because, to the heterosexual male, breasts always smell like honeysuckle.

Dirty, dirty squirrel

I decided to grab a little snack before call started tonight. I was walking through the hall of the desolate office building I now call home sweet home. I had my bookbag on my back, my white coat (complete with fresh coffee stains) over my arm, and a bowl of cereal in my hands. I was shoveling raisin bran crunch--you can actually live on that shit for weeks, by the way--into my mouth when the cleaning man nodded in my general direction and said hi.

I didn't want to be rude. But, my face stuffed with crunchy goodness (picture an emaciated squirrel in the middle of a nut famine at the moment the UN finally shows up with international acorn aid), I couldn't vocalize my, hi to you too, Mr. Clean. So, with my face hunched over my bowl, I sort of glanced at him over my glasses, licked some milk from my lips, and gave a little wave.

He recoiled a bit and made the oh that's just wrong face. You know, the face you make when you accidentally open up a spam email and find ugly people porn. That face. In fact, I think he may have thrown up in his mouth little.

As I walked away, I couldn't help but wonder what the hell had inspired his revulsion. And then, I realized what had happened there. A woman who hasn't showered in about 15 hours, a soggy piece of raisin bran crunch precariously perched on her chin and some milk on the end of her nose, just hit on him. Like a dirty squirrel.

Laughing

Today, I met a resident who, in a brief conversation, I learned is engaged to be married as soon as possible. That's what she said--as soon as possible. At first, I thought that maybe she was going to head to the altar after rounds. But, it turns out, as soon as possible actually means mid-July.

It also turns out that she has only known her until death do us partner for about 12 minutes. She reflexively started to defend her choice to enter into a lifelong commitment with someone she just met when I cut her off to reassure her.

"Look, you don't have to explain it to me," I said. "I dated a guy for years before I married him, and that turned out to be a complete and total disaster. You never know. It's all luck."

Shut up. It sounded reassuring in my head.

She replied, as though, with the voice of true love experience, she could somehow educate me, "I think that you just have to know what the deep cry of your soul is."

Okay, well, thank you for the tip. But, the thing is...my soul's not crying. My soul is laughing. Barefoot, spinning in circles on the beach with her arms flung out at her sides, singing along to this, laughing.

That said, I sincerely wish the engaged resident all the happiness and luck in the world. That her soul might laugh as well.

Travel log

This morning, there was no hot water in my bathroom. Braver women would have taken the ice cold shower. I, however, am not braver women. I was afraid my tiny tits were going to freeze off my chest.

Then, I could just imagine the call to maintenance...
I lost something in the shower drain and I was wondering if you could use that snake thingy to retrieve it.
What'd ya lose? A ring?
No. My nipples. Damn things froze right off.

And, you know, even if the maintenance guys were able to get them out of the drain, they would never really look right again.

So, paralyzed by fear and vanity, I didn't shower. I threw on some deodorant and called it clean enough. Sort of like camping. Without the s'mores and tent sex.

And what have we learned from this experience?
Camping without s'mores and tent sex is utterly pointless.
Don't bother.

New digs

It's a new month--a new rotation in a new town--and that was me you saw lugging groceries through the hospital tonight. I was headed to the second floor of an office building connected to the hospital. I've been assigned room #1 in a suite of five call rooms.

I get lost every time I go up there because it all looks exactly the same. Long, thin hallways. Beige walls, beige doors. No fake art or plastic fig trees with which to orient myself. The call suite is through the unmarked door across the hall from Quality Management. So...I'd be the chick wandering the halls of a medical office building after hours, dragging her granola bars, cereal, tea, and a gallon of milk, looking for Quality Management.

The other four call rooms aren't being used right now, so I've got the suite to myself. I can hear my mother now, WHAT? So you're staying all alone in some deserted office building? Is that even SAFE?

I don't know. I guess I'll find out.

My room is populated with leftover furniture. A chair that spent it's first twenty years in a waiting room--a Peds waiting room--it's coated with fruit juice stains and crushed up sugary bits; an end table that came with the chair; a ridiculously fancy, terribly outdated satin ottoman; the desk my friend Priscilla had in her bedroom when we were 12; and a twin bed with a plastic-lined mattress, in case I have an accident.

The worst thing about the place is the lighting. There are no lamps, just overhead fluorescent lights. And they buzz. Loudly. I may make a trip to Target tomorrow to buy a cheap desk lamp. Maybe I'll look for one with a ridiculous shade--something with sequins or feathers, perhaps--and then donate it to the room.

The suite doesn't get wireless, so right now I'm in the hospital cafeteria. The guy at the table next to me is reading this. Amazon says, "The author makes surrender to erotic romance suspense." Well, then. Good for you for having the balls to read that shit in public. Oh, and if I happen to see you wandering around my office building tonight, I'm going to mace your ass. No offense.