The Distance to Here

Well, so much for regular updates. Life has been a little complex lately. AG (Army Guy) and I have been married just short of four months now. We had about a month together after the wedding, but the last three months we have been apart. I suppose that it is not the most conventional arrangement, but we are making it work.


Basically, AG is at a point in his military career where he had to attend a six-month long officer course. AG was able to transfer out of the infantry and into an intelligence position upon redeploying from Afghanistan. We had talked about it a lot, and with his unit already slated to go back to Afghanistan in April, it just seemed like too much. The plan is for him to transition to his new base after completing the career course. I was still under contract with my EM group when he started the course. It also didn't make sense for me to apply for a state license and a position for six months or less, so I have just stayed on with my group.


Unlike his time at remote bases in Afghanistan, we have been able to communicate regularly by email, daily phone calls, and Skype. We made a road trip of driving him out West, and set him up with enough linens, kitchen supplies, and clothing to live comfortably with. My group at the hospital has been really supportive, and I have been working a compressed schedule. I still do full-time hours, but squeeze a month's worth of shifts into a 2.5-3 week period to accommodate me visiting AG for a week at a time, once a month. I won't say that it isn't tiring. I have been trying to revamp my exercise habits, but most of the time, I am just too tired after work. It has also been an expensive arrangement, between paying for rent and utilities in two locations, and monthly flights. In the end though, we have both decided that it is worth the expense to keep our marriage strong.


Currently, I am out visiting. I have been trying to be productive: doing job searches, applying for a medical license in a new state, but to be honest-- there's also been a lot of daytime TV watching and lounging around. Things were hectic for a bit when we were thinking he was going to start at the new base in January, but now it looks like nothing will happen until next spring.


This time around, I am taking my job search a lot more seriously. My current job I pretty much just walked into, but this time there are recruiters and job postings to try and decipher. It is also more serious as we are looking at spending the next 15 years or so in this next location, so I need to find a job that's a good match. I think that we both have a lot of exciting changes to look forward to, but it does kind of seem like we are currently in limbo.

Two Weeks of Normalcy, Sort of

AG was recently home on leave. The two weeks flew by faster than I think either of us would have liked. It felt almost like he had never left, right up until I had to take him back to the airport. He seemed to re-adjust to life back home well--razzing me about my driving, "Slow down, I can't find IED's at 75 mph!"

We did a few wedding things-- cake testing at a bakery, and menu tasting at our reception venue. It was his first time seeing the church and reception site, and he seemed pretty pleased with my choices. Initially, when we got engaged, he said I could just tell him what to wear and when to show up. However, over the past 11 months he has been interested in every detail of the planning. I think that it has been a nice distraction from war talk.

We also squeezed in some car shopping because about this time last year, AG's car decided to throw a piston through one of its cylinders and it had to be sold to an auto recycling company. Several days were also spent at his parents' home, and we were able to see a stand-up comic that came into town.

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One of the most memorable parts of his visit was a trip to his old college campus. We went into the Telecommunications building and ran into one of his professors. It was amazing to me to see how easily AG makes an impression on others around him. We walked into the professor's office and there was a blue FBI hat sitting on top of his computer. The hat was from AG when he did an internship with them over ten years ago! Apparently, it was quite memorable as several agents had come in person to interview the professor and to do AG's background check.

That is probably a big difference between the two of us. AG doesn't really know any strangers. Although I am a friendly person, I am slow to warm up to people, and especially tend to stay under the radar when it comes to authority figures. I don't think very many of my college or med school professors could pick me out of a police lineup, let alone would they keep something that reminded them of me in their office.

As it turns out, despite being an infantryman by Army training, and a more recent stint with law enforcement, AG has been thrown back into his old telecommunications realm. With his last promotion, he was transferred to a different province in Afghanistan and now has a much more political position. His job mainly involved promoting the recent Afghan elections, and he set up several remote radio stations and was in charge of their programming. When he got there, the higher-ups were pleased to suddenly have someone with broadcasting training amongst them. They were so impressed with him, that they wanted to promote and transfer him yet again, but he turned it down because it would have meant another 6-8 months in Afghanistan. Apparently, everything fell apart while he was gone, but now that the re-elections have been canceled, they are now focusing on influenza prevention.

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Putting him on the plane was easier this time, particularly now that he re-deploys in just two months. I found myself being more emotional when people would come up to him randomly out of a crowd and thank him for his service. It is nice to see soldiers being treated with respect. Apparently, on one of his flights in, random passengers gave up their first class seats to all of the soldiers. Other than some security stupidity in Atlanta (They made him throw out a pair of tennis shoes and a sleeping bag because they had foreign soil on them, despite all the dirt on his boots and uniform!), he did not run into any problems.

Before he left, he gave me a boyish grin and said, "Come on, what can happen in six weeks?"

I keep cringing because I do not want to find out.

Gone Country

Having been raised in a very small town, I figured that I would have no problems fitting in here. After all, here there is an actual mall, a Starbucks, a hospital, and several chain restaurants. I guess I have become accostomed to all of the creature comforts that come with living in a city with a large University- theatre, museums, sports, active downtown life. Most of that I don't miss, especially as I have yet to make any social contacts here.

My mail is delivered by a man in a minivan with a flashing light on the roof. When I go to my actual post office, there is an Amish roadside vegetable stand, and several times I have seen a horse and buggy on the side roads.

Several of the gas stations here do not have pay-at-the-pump. When you go inside to pay, they try to force locally made ice cream on you. As if I didn't have enough bad eating habits without having $2 hand-packed pints shoved at me whenever I buy gas!

There is no branch of my bank here, or even an affiliated ATM. There's only one major bank here, and otherwise it's all city banks and bizarre credit unions not affiliated with anywhere else. I don't really understand this since there is such a large military contingent here, with people moving and relocating from all over the country. Most of my banking is done online anyway, so it doesn't make a huge difference, except I try to time getting cash with visits to the city to avoid ATM fees.

I guess I just need to slow down a little. Everyone here is extremely friendly, with strangers saying hello to you on the street, but the drawback to that is that it seems to take just a bit longer to get anything done. Lines are slower because cashiers inevitably have side conversations with their patrons about how so-and-so is doing or whatever, but I can't complain because it does seem like customer service is better.

Things might get a little more desolate around here in a few months based on the Army's activity. Three brigades are stationed here. Usually one brigade is deployed, one is preparing to deploy, and one has recently returned from deployment. AG's brigade is scheduled to return the beginning of next year.

According to news reports, the other two brigades are going to be sent to Afghanistan before the end of the year. Unless there's a fourth brigade being formed that I'm not aware of, that means it will be pretty empty around here for a month or two. To me, sending two brigades out at once seems kind of strange, because they won't be able to keep up with that schedule unless a big expansion is made, or they have more brigades somewhere else that they can pull from. Typically the brigades are deployed for 12 months and then home for about 15 months. Not only will it not be time for AG's brigade to go out again, but they won't have any other brigades left to deploy from here to replace them at the end of 2010.

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.

Halfway

Today marks the 6-month point in AG's deployment. For some reason, his "mid-leave" two-week break doesn't happen until October. So, I will just have to be patient, and since he was in a small group that left early to set things up for their unit, we don't know yet if he'll be coming back exactly 12 months from when he left, or if he gets stuck in Afghanistan until January. When I think about all the times that we have been able to talk over the phone, no matter how short, or via email, I am grateful. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be stuck waiting for letters to arrive.

I like this photo, and it doesn't reveal any top-secret identifying information. The mountains in the background remind me of Arizona, although it looks like they have a lot more green plants than back home.

12-Month Countdown

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear.

525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.

In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?

How about love? How about love? How about love?

Measure in love. Seasons of love.

"Seasons of Love" - RENT

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I hate goodbyes. Yesterday, when we left to take AG to the base it was still dark outside. The moon was full, and it was frigid, with the thermometer reading below zero. This was the moment I had been dreading for several months. I hate getting emotional, and worse than that, I hate being emotional in front of people.

The past week, his parents and I helped him pack, and clean out his apartment. I now have an attic with a great big pile of army duffel bags and Rubbermaid storage containers. Being on an elective block, I was fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with him this past week, but somehow it is never enough. His parents were a huge help, if they hadn't been there I would probably still be cleaning and packing today.

Family and friends no longer say their goodbyes at the airport, so we dropped him off and watched him pile into a van. He still had several hours of waiting to go before his flight. When we drove away, the sun was rising, and because of the weather, there was a strangely bright beacon of light that appeared to be shooting up from the sun.

In a way, it is easier now that he is gone, in that now it is just a year-long wait before he comes back. The dreaded goodbye is over, and the waiting is out of my control. Due to his position, he should have occasional Internet access and phone usage, and compared to the places that the other battalions are going, he's going to probably one of the safest areas. I am fortunate in that I have a supportive family, friends, and a busy work schedule to distract me.

New Vocabulary

Well, it's official: AG and I are engaged. We exchanged Christmas gifts early as he is leaving for Afghanistan later this week. I thought we were done when he suddenly pulled a ring box out of his pocket, dropped to one knee, and asked me to marry him.

Of course I said, "Yes!"

We have talked a lot about the future over the past few months, and although we had talked about marriage, I didn't think that he was going to propose before he left because there's been just too much other stuff going on. Being a traditionalist, he made what must have been a very anxiety-provoking phone call to my father to ask for his permission.

Now I just have to get used to saying the word fiance.

Stuffing

My holiday weekend got off to an unusual start last Wednesday. AG and I had planned for an early start, however at the last minute, I found out that the meeting I had been waiting for the past week to occur was going to happen at last that morning.

My rat study is finally becoming an actuality. However, to make it happen we had to have one more day of animal training. Bits of white fur went flying as we learned to do saphenous vein draws, gavage feedings and how to sedate the little beasties. At one point it was somewhat festive as the lab expert showed us how to deftly guide a rat into a cylindrical bag with an opening at the end to make the feedings easier. As she guided the rat into the bag further, with it scurrying towards the opening and tail hanging out, I couldn't help but think of how this was similar to squeezing frosting out of a tube when cake decorating! Our test subjects gave the ultimate sacrifice in the interest of training us for autopsies, and I wondered if there was anyone else on the planet thankful at that moment that rat dissections are relatively straightforward.

Meetings when you are in a rush never seem to end, and I quickly raced home to help load up the cooler with snacks and AG and I were off, an hour and a half later than planned. It was a long drive, prolonged by Lake Effect snow that hurled at the windshield and increased the weight of our eyelids. We were on our way to his aunt's house out in West Virginia. Along the way, signs read "Buckle up for next one million miles" and I knew I was far from home when an Amish buggy, complete with horse, crossed over an overpass.

Finally, we made it. His parents soon joined us, and we all settled in for the night. The next morning, visitors progressively arrived, until we had 30+ people situated at three different tables. (AG's family is like mine in that neither of us will ever make it to the adult table.) I don't know how his aunt did it all, but she was able to orchestrate plenty of room for everyone, and somehow managed to have the dinner dishes washed and stacked while the rest of us nibbled at an incredible selection of pies.

Thanksgiving morning, AG and I went for a bit of a ride four-wheeling, followed by target shooting out in the backyard. I had never fired a gun before (I always refused to go out with my father and brothers, being the petulant teenager that I was), and took turns at two different rifles and two different handguns. I actually did pretty well with an older bolt-action style rifle than with the other ones which had fancy magnification scopes and laser-sites. Something about just lining up the iron sites and watching casings flip out of the rifle each time I cocked it amused me. I did alright with the 0.22's, but when I switched to a 0.40 caliber handgun, is when I took a beating. For the next two days my arms were sore, just from lifting the weapons, and bracing myself when I fired them.

After Thanksgiving, we drove back to AG's parents' home. Over the weekend, we met up with several of his friends and family, and did an early Christmas gift exchange. I think that you can tell a lot about a person by their friends and relatives, and it's neat to see him in that kind of environment. The weekend went by all too fast, with lots of hurried goodbyes before he leaves for deployment, but I was happy to see that he has such a strong, supportive network.

Dinner and a Movie

"Don't worry, about dinner tonight, I'm bringing it down." he said.

"Are you sure? I was just going to heat up some leftovers."

"We can have the leftovers if you don't like what I bring." he countered.

At this point, I was baffled. AG can make a mean pork chop, so I don't doubt that he can cook, and to keep the leftovers handy didn't sound too promising. I had no idea what he could be talking about.

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An hour later, we stood in my kitchen. I watched expectantly as steam hissed out of a small, cardboard box. AG had brought down MRE's (Meal Ready to Eat) for the both of us. Mine was BBQ pork, with clam chowder and a piece of lemon poppyseed pound cake.

The olive green packets didn't look very impressive. Neither did the clear green bag with a white piece of styrofoam in it. The instructions were to add some water and prop the bag "on a rock or something" and showed a handy illustration with the bag tipped, supported at an angle by a "something". I also had a plastic flask which I dumped water and powder into to make my lime green energy drink. Both packets also came with a single serving of coffee, matches, salt, sugar, creamer packets, AG had a mini-tabasco sauce, and napkins that double as toilet paper.

I was pleasantly surprised.

The BBQ pork came with two compressed pieces of wheat bread, cheese spread, and BBQ sauce. The flattened bread and cake products were kind of weird texture-wise, but they didn't taste bad. And the sandwich was filling, I couldn't even finish my meal. (This was probably a good thing because AG says that 1 MRE has a full day's calories packed into it.)

I got a little impatient waiting for the soup to heat up, so it was kind of lukewarm, but it was really hearty, with big chunks of meat. AG's meal was chicken noodle soup that scalded my tongue (guess he's not the impatient one of the two of us!), an energy bar, chocolate shake, and a full package of peanut M&M's.

Apparently, there are about 30 different flavors, and I'm told the Vegetarian Omlet option is the absolute worst. When the guys eat together, there's a great deal of bartering cheese spread for peanut butter, and that sort of thing. It's also not cool to dig through the supply box and pick the meal of your choice.

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As for the movie, we sat down to watch "High Fidelity" and I was promptly asleep in 20 minutes curled up next to AG on the couch. Not a bad date.

All the Pretty Horses

Last weekend AG and I went to Washington DC. I had never been there before. He did a summer internship during college at the FBI, so he was a great tour guide and helpful at navigating the Metro and figuring out where to stay inexpensively. We spent two full days cramming in every museum and memorial we could find. I quickly noticed that Washington DC seems to be a city in love with horses. AG was laughing at me as I went on a quest to capture every horse statue that I could find.

We found these while walking around town:

This one was at Arlington National Cemetary:


Behind the Lincoln Memorial:

Gremlins

AG came back last week. It is nice to be able to talk to him regularly on the phone, not to mention being able to put my arms around him! For once, we both had a three-day weekend off in common, so we seized the opportunity to jump in the car and make a break for it. Our trip was almost ruined before we even got to our destination. After stopping for dinner about 2 hours into the drive, we went back out to my car and it wouldn't start.

In fact, the key wouldn't even turn in the ignition.

I couldn't imagine what the problem could be as I had never had any problem with the key sticking before. We were in a small highway town in the middle of nowhere. There was no Saturn dealership for miles, and it was after-hours on a Friday night. Even if we could get into a dealer early on Saturday morning, our weekend would be wasted.

I was just about to throw up my hands in disgust and call a tow truck. However, tucked inside my wallet I had a roadside emergency key that came with the car in addition to the two sets of keys and remotes. My memory was that it was just a key to be used in the event that I locked my keys in the car, and it would only work in the doors, but not the ignition.

AG suggested we try it anyway, and wouldn't you know it: it worked! It was kind of clumsy to slip the key far enough out of its plastic sleeve to turn in the ignition, but it served us well the whole weekend.

When I got home on Monday, I tried my spare key, but it wouldn't turn in the ignition either. Tired and frustrated, I went in to work my evening shift-- which turned out to be crazy-- 3 GSW's and a bizarre ICU case.

On Tuesday, I got up early to take the car into the dealership. They checked the lock cylinder and said it was ok, that both keys had just gotten too worn down to work any more. The "spare" key was the one that I used almost exclusively for the first few years I had my car, until the remote battery died and I switched over to the second set. However, it worked perfectly fine the last time I used it.

It seems pretty odd to me that both keys would be worn down to an inoperable condition! However, I'll just blame it on Car Gremlins and be thankful that it wasn't a more expensive problem and that our weekend wasn't ruined (pictures later). Just the other day, I had considered removing the roadside key from my wallet because in the 6+ years I'd been carrying it around, I had never needed it. I guess now I will always keep a backup key around.

Treinta

Yesterday I turned the big 3-0. I think it is safe to say that a sure sign that one is getting on in years is the feeling of being younger than your actual age.

Sigh.

The morning I spent sleeping in (there were snow flurries!). Although I had the day off, I went in to work in the afternoon because we were having pig lab. Pig lab, like cadaver lab, involves performing as many surgical procedures as possible in order to help residents gain hands-on experience on rare procedures, so that in the event we do have to perform them on patients, we will at least have some exposure to the procedure rather than learning on a live patient.

The pigs are heavily anesthetized and then euthanized towards the end of the lab. We only do the lab a couple of times a year, and there are only a few animals available for the resident class to work on together, so it was too important of an opportunity to miss.

I am certain that some people would be horrified by this type of learning. However, doing a thoracotomy on a living animal is completely different than on a cadaver. There's no substitute for working with real blood vessels and beating hearts. At our program, we utilize mannequins and simulate different scenarios, but again, it's nothing like the visceral experience of a real patient.

Yesterday was our second session at the pig lab. As luck would have it, just a few days prior, a cricothyrotomy was performed in the department on a difficult airway patient. While I am sure that the situation was very stressful, I can't imagine the resident having had to perform it without having had the lab training first. And I am certain that the patient and their family are glad that they weren't on-the-job training! Although animal labs can certainly make you squeamish, I think that our program does a good job about being as humane as possible and maximizing the learning opportunities from each lab animal, while minimizing the number of deaths.

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After lab, I met Army Guy for a nice dinner. Throughout the day, I caught up with friends and family via email/phone. It was maybe not the most traditional of birthdays, but still a good one.

Checks and Balances

"So this was part of a check-off thing tonight, right?" he said, with the last word said with a hopeful lilt.

"Yeah, they've been wanting to meet you for several months now, and I had been blowing them off. But now it's done," I answered.

"Good."

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Army Guy and I were leaving from a dinner with some co-workers and friends. I am still really impressed with AG. He's willing to try new things, and puts up with meeting my friends and co-workers... even the annoying ones. And he shows a lot more restraint in annoying situations than I would if I had training in hand-to-hand combat!

I have told him that he doesn't have to hang out with my friends or even like them, but so far he's been really good in social situations. Even better, is that everyone seems to like him! Maybe I have just dated socially-inept people in the past, but typically I either couldn't even get ex-boyfriends to go out socially with my friends or the few encounters we had were always awkward.

While I pride myself on being pretty independent, it is nice having someone to do things with, talk to at the end of the day, and who pretty much instantly makes you happy just to be around them.

Mini Break

Tomorrow I am off to a winter conference with my fellow residents. It is a bit of a drive from here, and we're stocking our hotel room with plenty of party "must-haves". The conference involves a mountain, some snow (hopefully no broken legs!), and reportedly some educational lectures here and there. I am hoping that I will also get in a chance to see Ru for a bit. The other day I was mildly depressed at hearing a local ski shop offering a mid-winter sale. This can't be mid-winter, I am sick of it already!

Army Guy is currently on a mini-deployment in Kentucky. His battalian goes to Iraq in November... I am trying not to worry about it too much at this point, as this is the third set of orders he's had in the less than a year that I have known him. Apparently, they go to two different bases and run simulation missions before being deployed. He's a little stressed out because as a platoon leader there's a whole bunch of pressure on him for his squads to perform well. This one's just for a couple weeks.

Date Night

So Army Guy blew me away again with surprises. The night started with greeting me with red roses at the door. Then we went out to a very nice restaurant downtown, and later we went to a local production of "Arabian Nights". The play was awesome, with several of the actors really hamming up their parts and quite a bit of acrobatics. We ended up being right in the front row with the stage literally ending 6 inches in front of our feet. It was great!

I countered with homemade sugar cookies, a card, and some warm mittens that fold back into gloves to keep his trigger fingers warm, but I think he clearly outdid me once again.

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day, I gave Army Guy laryngitis... just kidding. He's out "in the field", whatever that means. You would think the Army would let their people sleep indoors when it's below zero outside, but I guess they are literal believers in "what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."

We have plans for a big date later this weekend. I have mixed feelings about Valentine's Day: while it's fun to do something extra special for your significant other, it's also annoying when you're single.

The Dress

Last week I drove a couple of hours away from here to catch up with Ru. Her boyfriend proposed over the holiday and we were now on a mission, a mission to find her dress. She already had some ideas about what style she wanted, so that made things easier.

I enjoyed the drive out to meet her. It had been a while since I had driven anywhere far enough away to actually enjoy the drive. It was kind of foggy out, with a mist that was just slightly too warm for snowflakes. Bare trees lined the road, and snow still covered the ground. Between the poor visibility and the somberness of winter, it was almost like I was driving in a monochromatic world. The trees are in that completely state of dead right now, with no promises of spring. It's almost like looking at their roots, and if you could just flip them upside down, maybe you could find some leaves and life somewhere.

Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks were in a neck-and-neck competition, alternating their wares at progressive rest stops along the toll road. The further east I drove, the more country music stations there were. The snow accumulation also started to grow, and I began to pass evergreens with branches so laden with snow that they stooped like old widows.

The dress shop turned out to be a perfect midway point, with Ru and I arriving within minutes of each other. We found her size, and begun the process of heaving plastic bundles containing precious volumes of lace, beads, and satin on a rack. (My shoulders are quite thankful that she wasn't interested in the full-skirted dresses.)

She stepped out of the dressing room with the first one and it was amazing. Gone was the girl with the rainbow t-shirt and sneakers I had walked in with. The first dress fit amazingly, so well that it blew the next several out of the water... but it wasn't quite right.

We went back for more, gleaning the rack of everything in her size that wasn't immediately offensive to the eye. A few more dresses, and then there it was. When she stepped out of the dressing room, she suddenly looked like a bride, instead of a pretty girl in a pretty dress. I was pretty sure that we were on to something because she kept that one on longer and endured more of the banal chatting from the saleswoman. Reluctantly, she took the dress off and tried a few more, but clearly we had a winner.

I couldn't believe that we had found her dress in one outing, and Ru was hesitant to make any rash decisions. So, we went out for an early dinner, scarfing obscenely potent garlic bread, spinach salad, gnocchi, and chocolate cake. Ru was back to her quirky self, asking the waiter to bottle up the quart of milk they brought her with the cake. We went back to the shop, made arrangements to pay for the dress, and because I had to work early the next morning, we parted ways. Mission accomplished.

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In other news, Army Guy came back early from Ranger School this past week. He was disappointed to return not having completed the training, but it boiled down to a whole lot of unfairness on the part of the instructors. While I'm disppointed for him, I am glad to have him back early, and have promptly responded to his returning by getting a nasty runny nose and cough, and being great fun to hang around with. Sigh.

Footwork

I just got home from playing on our department intramural soccer team. They have been trying to get me to play for several weeks now (not that I'm any good, more that they were desperate for more players), but the games kept conflicting with my work/sleep schedules.

People weren't really into soccer where I grew up. Honestly, I think the last time before tonight that I played was during 8th grade gym class. And the few memories that I did have of it were of getting kicked in the shins really hard. Well, for this intramural league, players have to wear shin guards, which at least is better than the lack of equipment requirements for our pickup softball league last summer. I played most of the game tonight, and it was a good workout. I think it's a little easier to challenge yourself to doing very short sprints when you are chasing someone down rather than just picking up the pace on a treadmill.

After the game (We lost 2-8), we all went out to a sports bar for drinks and food. I really am happy with the program that I am in here. Our team tonight was made up of nurses, residents, and techs. While there was some gossiping going on, everyone here is just so good-natured and fun to be around. For me, I think that's what has really made moving so far away from friends and family easier. I don't know how people can do it in more cut-throat residencies.

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In other news, I turned in my state licensing paperwork yesterday. It will take a few months for everything to get processed, but that means that I should be on my way to moonlighting in smaller hospitals this summer. It makes me kind of antsy just thinking about being out on my own, but there are some options where you can work in a fast track, or double-coverage with another physician, so I may ease myself out with those.

Army Guy started ranger school yesterday, so phone calls will now be few and far between. I am sure that he will do great, and the time will fly by quickly. Talking was kind of awkward leading up to him starting the program, but like I said before, I'm not the greatest at goodbyes.

It's Not Them, It's Me

On Thursday I noticed that pretty much all of my patients were lovely, nice people. And then I started to think about it. Were they really all pleasant, or was it more that I was well-rested and not stressed out? I think that I am definitely guilty of letting stress influence my interactions with other people. Yes, there were constant interruptions all day long. I even had a secretary personally snip at me for not hearing her page me overhead. The difference was that I didn't let it get to me. Normally, I think I just let people dump their frustrations on me, and I end up internalizing it, and probably passing it on to others. I don't know how long it will be before cynicism returns, but hopefully I can keep it away for a while.

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Yesterday, I spent almost 11 hours with Army Guy. Last night we went to a comedy show, after just spending a day hanging out. We have been dating for a couple of months now, and it's going pretty well. Sure there are times when our schedules don't align (or he gets shipped to Georgia for two weeks for weird training stuff), but I still like him. He's smart, funny, polite and can even tolerate my teasing. I think that it helps that he has a career completely different than mine, so that I don't have to talk about work stuff, but he's always interested to hear about my work escapades. I have some rough scheduling ahead, and he has to run off to Ranger School in a few months, but for now, I am just enjoying having someone to go out and do things with.

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Today I worked at the basketball game downtown. We cover the first-aid station at the local University's football and basketball games. I was allowed to watch the game and have free range of the stadium, as long as I wore a headset and carried a walkie-talkie. It was an exhibition game, so the full crowd wasn't out today, and I didn't get ONE SINGLE CALL. The home team won (although they made us nervous for a bit), and the whole thing was over in two hours.

A funny thing happened during one of the breaks. The male cheerleaders each grabbed a large flag and together spelled out the home team's name. However, for some reason, the last guy wasn't a cheerleader, just some random band guy. Well, the cheerleaders took off at a sprint around the perimeter of the court, forming a parade of the team's name. Poor random band guy couldn't keep up with their pace. It was obvious he wasn't used to running with a large flag. The last letter was sadly a good court length behind the rest of the flags. Worse yet, as he turned the corner, random band guy slipped and fell. The mascot, who was keeping up with him, despite being in a full-costume grabbed his flag and finished off with the others. Guess you shouldn't expect to keep up with trained flag carriers.

It was a good day, and I think my game coverage (three hours total) replaced a full eight-hour shift! We don't get paid extra for covering, but you just can't beat a work day of eating nachos and watching basketball!