When I was in college, we worked on a lot of biochemistry lab reports and papers in pairs.  We divided the responsibilities, and mine usually included formatting the paper.  This involved playing tables and images, deciding on the number of columns, layout of the title, colors, paragraph headings, etc.  And, invariably, no matter how early we started working on any given paper, we were ALWAYS up at 4 AM the night before it was due, perfecting things.  And I was always tinkering with formatting.  And by tinkering, I mean obsessing.  And by obsessing, I mean yelling at the computer, throwin goldfish at it, getting a high squeaky voice, and sometimes cursing (gasp!).  Amy, Tom, anyone wanna back me up on this???  Formating was the bain of my existance, but when it was done and right, it was the difference between a crap paper and a work of biochemical beauty. 

I'm heading to Atlanta for the American Society of Sports Medicine annual meeting soon, and am working on a poster to present there as we speak.  I have about half of the text written.  But I can't do more because I CAN'T PICK A COLOR SCHEME!!!!  You'd think that would be the least of my worries, given that I need to have it done by, say, tonight.  But I have to get it right! 

The writing part it pretty easy, and ultimately pretty worthless.  Being as I've been to many a poster presentation sessions before, I have an idea of how they work.  People walk up to your poster (because it's beautifully formatted, and stands out), then read the title, and then say, "Huh, interesting.  Tell me about your case".  And then you tell them while their eyes glance over the colors and pictures and any words you put in bold and/or red. 

In reality, all that really matters is the formatting.  And having an interesting case to start with that people want to hear more about. 

I'm off to sort through more potential colors... I'm on green and blue right now... it's a possibility.

This weekend, I and 6 other residents ventured to Cleveland, OH to take part in the Ohio/Michigan Tough Mudder.  Never heard of the Tough Mudder?  Check it out at http://www.toughmudder.com/!  Basically, it's a 10-12 mile (I think ours was about 11) military style obstacle course with over 20 obstacles including walls, ice baths, barbed wire, and electric shocks.

We all drove out the night before because, really, who wants to wake up, drive 4 hours, then run 11 miles?  No one, that's who. 

The forecast was overcast, high of 60, and chance of rain.  60 sounds nice, until you are trying to warm up after jumping in a sub-freezing fluorescent colored ice bath.  Then it sounds cold. 

The instructions told us to arrive at the parking lot 2 hours before our scheduled start time.  That sounded a little excessive, but we did it and we glad we did!  The line for the buses to take us to the course was HUGE.  They had school buses in groups of 5 shuttling people the 15 minutes from the parking lot (of a huge factory of some sort) to the course.  There, were proceeded to check in, get marked with our numbers, check in bags, and try to warm up.  Then it was a short climb over the first of many walls to the start line... (yes, you had to climb a wall just to get to the start...)

Then we huddled with about 600 other people in our wave, said the Tough Mudder oath, and were off!  To summarize the next 4 hours, it went a little like this...

Run through mud.
Climb over something.
Run through water.
Jump 25 feet off a platform in to water.
Go through a tube.
Climb over something slippery.
Get electrocuted
Run through mud
Climb over something
Crawl under something.
Run through water.
Climb over walls.
Run through mud.
Get electrocuted.
Finish.

Here's the evidence that there was mud!

This weekend it was 70 degrees, I was outside all day trimming trees, building things, and playing in the yard.

Today, it snowed.

Huh?

Granted, they were just flurries, didn't stick, and the ground didn't even get wet.  But, STILL.  It was cold enough for water to fall frozen, from the sky.  Not acceptable for April.  I'm already in spring mode and that's how I want to stay.  I think it's supposed to warm up by this weekend.  Hopefully this cold snap will break and all falling water from here on out will be melted. 

And since I slacked and didn't post on Sunday or Monday, I will give you a once sentence synopsis of the last two days...

Asphalt shingles wedge in your hands like tiny needles.

I've been trying to slowly give Jake (oh, BTW, I got a dog, in case you didn't know.  His name is Jake.) a little more freedom at night and when I'm out running errands.  So I took a jaunt to Lowe's (like my 5th of the day) and the grocery store, and left Jake out on his own.  I came home to this...

One more rotation is in the books.  Intern year is now officially 10/13ths over.  In medicine, it's important to be precise.

I also head to the wonderful world of non-call block starting tomorrow.  Meaning no call, free weekends, upcoming vacation, and not very many late nights.  It's gonna be awesome.  I've got a lot to do in that time...  here's whats on the list for this weekend.

Finish secret project
Paint kitchen ceiling and hallway
Paint deck lights
Trim giant tree in front yard
Pick up stones and plant grass along fence
Weed
Pull up old bushes
Plant new bushes
Hang pictures
Do laundry
Finish poster for presentation

That shouldn't take much time......

Every once in a while on a call block, we get this beautiful thing called a golden day.  It means you're not on call, and you don't have clinic, so all you have to do is see your patients, go to noon conference, and pretend to be normal.  It's a glorious thing.  Today was a golden day.  And it went a little like this...

530: Wake up.
540: Wake up again.  Take shower.
615: Go to work.
815: Go to breakfast.
1045: Finish seeing patients.
1100: Admit new nursing home patient.
1200: Noon conference.
100: Go home and clean.
200: Drywall man comes to fix hole in ceiling.
300: Nap.
330: Lowes to get paint, wood, grass seed, a shovel, curtains, floor samples, nails, and other stuff.
530: Eat dinner and drink iced coffee.
600: Cut up big fallen branch with saw.
615: Build secret project... well, part of it.
730: Unload dishwasher and clean basement.
800: Learn to use new leaf blower.
900: Book hotel room for Tough Mudder.

And now, it is time to watch HGTV and go to bed.  I lead an exciting life.  But first, a glimpse of my secret project...

I think we've all experienced Blinking Cursor Syndrome.  When you have something to write, want to write, and all you can do is look at the cursor on the screen, hoping that the words will magically appear.  But they don't.

Well, that's what this blog has become for me over the last few months.  I would say that I've just been too busy to write anything, but that's not true.  It doesn't take that long to write a post, whether it's about medicine or anything else.  I think the problem is that I always want to be profound, interesting, and engaging.  Which is admirable... but some days just don't have that in them.  And I feel like this blog is supposed to be about me and my life in residency, which should involve a whole lot of writing about actually being a doctor because thats how I spend most of my time.  But so many of my posts this year have been about other stuff that I stopped writing all together because I felt like it wasn't an accurate portrayal of what my life looks like. 

So, here's the deal.

I'm just going to write something every day.  About something.  And post it.  The more I write, the easier it is to write.  So I'm going to ban the blinking cursor and just put some words on the screen.  Maybe a picture or two... 

Bear with me and hopefully something good will pop up now and then.

Peace out,
Kari