New Beginnings

In just a couple of days, I start my new job. I pretty much took the whole month of July off, which was good because there was so much junk that needed to get done. I moved, the house got sold, I went home to AZ for a week, and I went to a family reunion in the Midwest.

The new place still needs a lot of unpacking and organizing, however I have been dawdling. It is kind of strange being up here because right now I don't know a single person in the area. I have spent a lot of time doing mundane things like resetting the router so that I can have a wireless Internet signal downstairs, and reviewing and reorganizing the file cabinet. I try to remind myself that boredom is a good thing.

AG is about to be promoted and relocated to a different part of Afghanistan. After the deployment, he'll be switching out of the infantry into a different area, and so there's a whole bunch of training to be done when he gets back. We are over seven months into the deployment now, and I am really looking forward to his mid-leave break in a couple of months.

Slaying the Trinitron

My largest television appears to be a casualty from the move. I cannot directly blame the movers because when it was unloaded from the truck, I hooked it up immediately and it worked. However, the very next day it would not turn on. I tried unplugging it. I tried resetting the fuse box. I tried a different outlet. I even tried to turn it on and off with its original remote. And nothing-- the little power light simply gave up. The movers didn't pack the TV, they just put a furniture pad over it and set other things on top of it in the truck.

I can't really be too upset about the whole thing, as this was the TV I got from the neighbor of a friend who was going to put it out on the sidewalk with his trash three years ago when he upgraded to a flatscreen. I guess it had served its purpose.

However, my new dilemma was what to do with the thing now that it wasn't working. My 13" television looked kind of goofy perched on top of it, and AG's 24" TV works just great, although I have it stashed upstairs. I tried to pick it up to haul it out to the car, but it was just too awkward, and too heavy. It was an old Sony Trinitron 32" television, and from what I've seen listed on old websites, the thing weighed 140 lbs. Even with lifting it from a squatting position, I couldn't hold it for more than a second or two, let alone walk with it in my arms.

So, I did what any stubborn woman would do: I dismantled it.

The dismantling wasn't so tough. Just six screws and the heavy front of the television was free from its awkwardly-shaped back.

Most of the back of the TV was just empty space. Several wires snaked back and forth between the two halves. I ripped off what I could, and the resistant wires I snipped with my wire cutters. I am sure somewhere a TV repairman just screamed. (And yes, I had the TV unplugged when I was doing all this. Recently, I had a patient who shocked himself pretty good working on a microwave that was still plugged in.)

Unfortunately, removing the back half only saved me about 20 lbs, but at least the concentrated weight was reduced to a size I could wrap my arms around. So, I was able to stagger the screen out to the trunk of my car and hauled the two pieces out to the dumpster. The back half I easily tossed inside, but the front half I couldn't lift up to get it into the dumpster, so I just left it in front. Today when I went to drop off another pile of trash (Moving is fun!), I noticed that someone had taken the television from it's resting place. Hopefully they're using the thing for parts or modern art sculpture, as I can't imagine they'll be able to replace the wires I snipped or figure out where they went! So I guess the saying is true-- One man's trash is another man's treasure. And now that TV set is being turned from my trash into someone else's treasure yet again!

All Done!

The past two weeks have been a blur. I graduated from my residency program. My parents were here for a week-long visit. An aunt, uncle, and cousin came out for the occasion, along with my older brother and his wife. My classmates and I were roasted in appropriate fashion by the second- and first-year residents. It was a good sendoff. My last two shifts in the department were crazy-busy with very sick patients. My last shift was with my closest friend here, and after staying three hours late to finish up all of our charts, we went out to Denny's to celebrate. As I was getting home from my "4pm - midnight" shift, the sun was coming up.

Some of my classmates I was more than ready to be done working with, and some I was sad to see go. The past three years have flown by so fast that it is sometimes hard to believe how much learning and activity was crammed into them. Despite moonlighting for the past year, I am still nervous about starting my new job, learning and new system, and trying to do my best for my patients without harming them in the process. When I matched here, I wasn't certain what to expect, however I couldn't have been happier with my program. I think that the teaching has been excellent, and I couldn't have asked for better people to work with every day.

I have received my first schedule for my new job, and I am almost flabbergasted by how few hours I will be working compared to what I have been juggling lately. My written board exam is coming up in just a few months, but after that is out of the way, it looks like I might be able to have some semblance of a normal life in the very near future. After four frantic med-school years followed by three years of residency, I am not sure that I'm going to know what to do with myself!

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In regards to the house, it is pretty much sold. I met with my lawyer on Thusday and signed my end of the paperwork with the actual closing scheduled to happen sometime next week.

On Tuesday, the movers packed up the house, and loaded up the truck. Wednesday was unloading day, and the number of boxes crammed into the new place was almost overwhelming. I have been steadily unwrapping and sorting through stuff for the past three days, and only now is starting to look like an actual liveable space rather than a storage room around here.

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Happy 4th of July!