It's 4 days post-Integrity/Cornerstone camp and the Amazing Race and I'm still spent. Tenting and the wettest June Alberta has ever seen just don't mix. Friday we all slept maybe 2 hours because the rain just started coming down at about 3 in the morning and it was defeaning. Saturday we all risked getting trench foot running around, by Sunday it had cleared up but then it was time to go!

That aside, camp was really fun. Beautiful scenery, an incredibly elaborate and well planned race, an awesome team that for once was just as competitive (if not more) than I am and just relaxing with some new people made this last weekend a fantastic one. Food was just gross...I don't think I ate a vegetable the entire weekend, not counting the wilted lettuce on my burger.

Work has been so-so lately. My days alternate between being really dull and really depressing so it's been difficult to find the motivation to wake up in the morning. Still though, every now and then I meet a patient who really touches me and I know that this is still where I want to be, it's just the job that's wearing me down. I abhor statistics - out of all my undergrad classes it's the only one I stopped going to completely. The universe senses this and the laws of karma demand that every summer job I will hold from now on will in some way involve me pouring over statistics for hours upon end.

This wkend I'll be road-tripping with my extended family to BC. Thankfully unlike the roadtrips of my childhood, not all of us will be sleeping in the same room. Jessica and I used to wrap our pillows around our heads trying to drown out the 4-part choir that is our relatives' snoring.

There are a number of things I dislike about having to share an office with my boss. For starters, I can't give my phone number out to anyone. Because if on any given day I receive 10 work-related calls and one personal call, the rules of the universe dictate that the one and only phone call my boss answers that day will be my personal one. Second there's really no point in asking people to leave me messages. I don't have access to my boss' voicemail and in the 2 months I've been here, I've seen her check her voicemail 3 times. Then there's the added discomfort of her being able to see what websites I've been visiting. The days that I spend reading online stats tutorials, she'll decide to work from home. The one day I'm bored and write a small novella of an email, she'll come in. Gone are the days of Yahoo MJ during work hours. How I miss my "3f fast or boot". (Speaking of which, whatever happened to MJ? Seems like 2 summers ago that's all we ever did.)

I met a kid who was a crack baby today. They think she might have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome too. 2 of her brothers are in foster care. Her and her sister are living with relatives. Today, this job blows.

About 2 weeks ago I was interviewing a patient's mom when a little Hutterite boy was wheeled through the waiting area by his parents. Once they'd passed, the lady I'm speaking to shakes her head and says "someone has to do something about those Hutterites. All that inbreeding. You'd think that in this day and age they'd be able to go to a spermbank or something. Tsktsktsk..." (okay, she didn't really say "Tsk" but she was making little clicking noises)

I was completely speechless.

Haven't blogged in ages. Mainly because I haven't really spent anytime at home in ages. My paternal grandmother and maternal aunt have moved in with us for the next few months and my house has been non-stop noisy ever since. It's the sound of one grandma cooking while the other one vacuums while my aunt peels shrimp for tonight's dinner. It's the phone ringing non-stop to invite them over for dinner or to fellowship at church or to dim sum in downtown. It's being spoken to in 3 different dialects over supper. It's nice that the house is full but I find that I now value my moments of quiet more than I ever did before. Like coming to work, it's now the work itself, but the fact that most of my work happens quietly. Keys on my keyboard clacking gently, soothingly =)

Sometimes I go to other people's houses and I wonder what it's like not to grow up in this kind of atmosphere. Where everyday, at least one person drops by with some fruit or a plate of spring rolls, and where your grandmother spends 3 days cooking 'chong' and then makes you drive around the city delivering them to her friends. Where eating dinner with friends is a bi-weekly event and grandmas have weekly sleepovers. Where the best word to describe your home's atmosphere would have to be 'raucous' and you can't have a 20 min. phone conversation without your call waiting going off. Would I appreciate it for the silence and the peace of mind? Would I miss the life that is always, vivaciously, present in my home.

On a happy note - Congrats to both Keith and Trudy who have both had really amazing news lately. Yay! I'm so proud!

On a not-so-happy note - They just cancelled my pulse membership because one of my friends used my access card and got caught. Yargh...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!! YAY KEITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*squeals, jumps up and down, claps hands together and runs around giving hugs*

Teehee, that is awesome. We all knew you could do it =)

It's been a while since I've sat around and just surfed the net. Makes me realize how utterly bored I must have been in Edmonton =) Everyone in Calgary has been coming up and saying "wow so you must be really stressed out now that you're in med school!!!" Right...stressed... after dinner I watch TV till 7:30, then I gab on the phone for at least an hour and a half if not more (easily more), I play a few games on my computer as a warm-up to my studying and I "study" (interspersed with MSN breaks) for maybe 2 hours. It's a shame to have to dispel all those myths. It makes me sound so noble and hardworking...

Rumor has it that by the time 3rd year comes around I'll be a sleepless, highly-caffeinated, poor, overworked wreck. And I'll still have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. Sometimes I envy those friends who are entering the working world. Those whose weekends are responsibility free, who will be graduating debt-free, who will never have to work an overnight shift in their lives. I'm sorry if I seem like I'm downplaying their difficulties and responsibilities in comparison to mine, I'm not. I'm not trying to belittle anyone's problems. But I try not to think about what I'm giving up by spending these few extra years in school, those years which are supposedly "the best ones of your life". And what am I giving it up for? Being the absolute bottom of the totem pole, trodden on by charge nurses, residents, and staff doctors alike? No sleep, poor food, zero income, hours in the hospital, no sunshine, difficult personal relationships. Thinking ahead, it's really hard to find the motivation, to continue to feel excited about my chosen profession and the sacrifices it entails.

Everyone says I'm lucky. They say "oh good for you" and I must have worked so hard and I must be so dedicated and blahblahblah. But I'm not. And I never really have been. Did I choose this or has something been pushing me towards this my whole life? Do I really want it or did I just follow the signs and come to the logical conclusion that medicine was where I should be?

Technology is making my life much harder than it needs to be. We have these new fancy forms in the office. People fill them out and then some complicated algorithm thing analyzes their handwriting and enters their answers into a database. This means that for every single form I first have to 1) Scan the form 2) Enter the responses by hand if the computer gets confused and can't read a response 3) Proofread every single answer to make sure it's correct in the database. On top of this, most people (not just doctors) have the world's most horrendous handwriting so I end up re-entering a lot of the answers. Also, if the alignment is off by just a little bit the computer misreads the entire form so I end up re-entering the whole form. So now, thanks to technology I have to read and enter a form not just once, but three times. Sometimes the oldies are the goodies...