"The only thing better than a best friend is a best friend with Chocolate."

Friday, September 18, 2009

Poetry and the End of vacation

My 30:30 is going well, over at Splash. There are several of my favorite people on the site have been participating, and the gorgeousness of it all almost had me weeping into my oatmeal this morning. In comparision, my Open Letters pales in prettiness.

Sometimes, I think poems need to be gritty and rough, like driftwood. The poems in Open Letters are meant to reflect that. I like to believe that they fit this hope well enough. At least, I'm not embarassed to share them alongside prettier and more thought provoking poetry from poets who've honed their skills. Seriously, there is even a sonnet. Someone posted a SONNET in a 30:30 - thats the kind of people that make me want to weep for joy.

I posted Open Letters #1 on Poetbay, the response so far has been lukewarm. Part of it may have been the simple fact that I haven't posted there in longer than six months. I think I've outgrown Poetbay, I'm ready to move onto forums and places that challenge me and make me want to write poetry. I'm tired of telling people I love their poetry when really, I don't mean it. I'm tired of offering critique where it isn't welcome and the critique forum is almost a joke. Sure, encouragement IS important, but the same comments over and over again make me gag. Maybe I will go ahead and delete myself from there, and see how I feel about it. The only thing stopping me is the memory of a good friend who passed away and the thought of the few good friends I have made there. But there is always facebook, right?

I think I should go back to the AAP forum or Penshells. What scares me is how easily I can disconnect myself from any place of poetry, how these poetry forums besides Splash don't feel right to me. I can't bring myself to go back and post. It might have to do with the fact that I know that at Splash, I have friends who held my hand through a lot of things. But that isn't an excuse I'm offering myself and whoever else cares enough to read this blog. If anyone besides me reads this, I sure don't know.

Ah the difficult choices I make... haha.

In really exciting news, I received my print copy of the debut issue of Touch: The Journal of Healing. I was published, and they have the first line of my poem as a sort of introduction to the book with a page to itself and my name under it. How awesomely cool is that! This is also the first time I'm holding physical proof that unbiased people like my poetry, and the first time in the past five years that I'm holding a print copy of my poem in my hand. I almost squealed when I picked up the envelope today.

Vacation is almost over and I think I'm ready to go back to work. I'm starting on the peds inpatient service, a sudden change to my schedule. I don't mind the change, but I'm scared. And nervous. And terrified that when I have to draw blood, I'll completely fail and burst into tears. Hopefully, though, I will be better than that. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Sunshine and smiles, atleast while the sunshine lasts!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

I started a 30:30 on Splash. It was surprisingly easy to take charge and lead. I'm not a take charge person most of the time, I'm content to let others take charge and hand me a responsibility - I'll take charge of that. But this time, I started something and so far, I have two well-standing people on my list.

I was thinking about it this morning. In my chosen career, I will end up taking charge of people's lives. Asking them to change their lifestyles to suit their health. Basically, I'll be taking charge of their lives in a big way, though we'll pretend that they did it. I'm actually already doing that, now that I try to be objective about it.

In other news, my brother now has a blog. My decidedly non-literary, non-journaling, non-writing brother. Its got to be the joke of a lifetime, even if he never updates it again. Now that hes got at least one legitimate post, I can tease him about it the rest of his life. Hahahaha. I love you, bro.

I started a series of poems called Open Letters. It is, as the title suggests, a series of letters to people who either have been or are a part of my life. I don't know how many of them will recognise themselves or others that these letters are addressed to. I dont know that any of them will even read these letters. But I'm writing them for myself, imagining myself telling these people some of my thoughts about them.

I'll post the collection here later, some day when I have nothing to blog about.

:)
me.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

I am currently on vacation.
Vacation - three syllables that stand for luxury and daredevil traveling and all that. Despite my love of travelling, I am currently spending my first ever vacation from work at home in my apartment.
A lot has happened since that journal entry on 6/6/09. I got my visa, I came to the US, I started residency, and am currently three months into my intern year. I started making myself a scarf, read a few good books, got a new computer (courtesy of my wonderful wonderful parents), a pretty new phone and an apartment I love.
In the past three months, I also splurged on a new bed - I spent a ridiculous amount of money on this beautiful beautiful bed I absolutely love. Thats the brief update... haha.

I haven't written any poetry in over three months. I haven't found any new music in this period either. I haven't managed to buy all the things I need for my apartment. I havent managed to get my license, or a car for that matter. **shrugs**

I have learned, though, that I love being where I am. I love working with people. There are any number of moments that I don't want to be around people anymore, and I'd give almost anything to be curled up in bed. But I like the people I'm working with, they're genuine and I think we're developing happy bonds.
I have also learned that it is a fine thing to dream, but it is a finer thing yet to be able to fulfil those dreams by myself. Yes, there are loan repayments. Yes there are a million things I can complain about. At the same time, I am finding myself a calmer and more fulfilled person when I go to bed at night, and to me, that is all that matters.

Huggiez,
memememememe.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

6.6.09 - journal entry

tomorrow,
i shall burst into a million dewdrops
on a thousand rosebuds.
will that slake your thirst
or will you leave, smiling,
sated by the shimmering rainbows
in my being?

tonight,
i am myself,
a bumblebee on a chrysanthemum,
jolly in my solitude
and cozy in a flower.
i lean on the night a minute,
wishing to be here for a while longer.

Monday, March 23, 2009

The Paperwork Demon

So the Match is over and I Matched to a program I loved since I interviewed there. I am headed to MetroHealth in Cleveland for a four-year combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics residency. I spent two days dazed and incomprehending, then the paperwork demon appeared and brought me back to reality. Like crash-landed me into reality, that I have less than a week to complete as much pen-pushing I can.

I am surrounded and inundated with the white stuff. Its stacked in piles and piles around my room - notes, books, papers, folders, more notes, notices, bills, booklets, pocketbooks, takeout menus - you get the idea. As I'm sitting on the floor on the one corner that is scrupulously paper-free, it strikes me that I'm upto my eyeballs in paper.

I am headed Home in less than two weeks time, and the sheer amount of the ragged paperwork I'm facing is staggering. I just spent three hours figuring out loan repayment schedules and realizing that yes, I am going to be forking over more than half my monthly income in loan repayments alone. While it means that when I finish residency I will be free of atleast one loan, it also crushes my dream of making it back to college - yes, I said college - for that long-sought degree in creative writing. Well, there is still the online classes option, I guess.

Meanwhile, the exercise in numbers reminded me of why I chose a career where the only math skillz I'm going to need are those that can be adequately performed on a standard four-function calculator. I am not fit company when I'm accounting for a huge monthly outgo relative to a small-ish monthly income. Yes, the numbers are still swirling around my head.

Once the number job gets approved, I can graduate. Its been like pulling teeth so far, what with people being to busy to tell me things in advance and then suddenly pulling it out as an obstacle. I feel like I'm running in one spot, unable to surmount this numbered hurdle.

Hopefully, tomorrow I can get atleast something moving at some end, I can get some more printouts and mail out some stuff that has been waiting for ages, including one Christmas present. Wheeeee.

Meanwhile I'm going to watch CSI: Miami online for the third night in a row until my brain lets me fall asleep. My insomnia is back in full force - I haven't slept two whole nights. Hopefully, tonight will be better.

Friday, February 27, 2009

The excited ramble, I guess

The rank order list submission deadline was on Feb 25. Now I'm counting down to Match Day, and I have butterflies and other pretty crawlies in my belly. They're growing bigger and bigger and eating more and more, and hence I will not gain any weight from all the brownies and cookies I'm eating.

Not being allowed to cook also severely limits my culinary variety, so dinner is mostly unhealthy - noodles, ready to eat food, noodles, cookies and milk, occasionally oatmeal and/or cereal, noodles, etc. I have three different kinds of noodles in my room, and that is sad. I suppose I could spend more money at the hospital for dinner, but a salad (>60% lettuce - dosen't that make you feel all rabbitty)costs more than 5$, and I'm heartily sick and tired of grilled cheese sandwiches, "oriental" vegetables and boiled green beans. Not to mention white bread.

I'm just getting over my poetry slump, I wrote one that was well-received over on Splash and that makes me happy. I'm also reading more poems. Not one the workshops, since the hospital computers won't let me access the workshops and the internet at home is pretty unreliable, but published poems, prize-winning poems, poems that take me away from the eventful environment of the not-too-ill into living rooms strange yet familiar, a silent kinship under the skin.

I recently had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Thomas Duffy (yep, the guy who discovered the Duffy antigens, for anyone who understands) talk about the arts in medicine, and poetry in medicine. He could have been talking only to me. Some of the more "grounded" medical students with me were like "What the hell is he talking about?", but I loved it. I love hearing that there are people who do both medicine and poetry and balance them out.

After the 11th, when I walk into a patient's room, I won't introduce myself as a medical student anymore. More likely, I will have a medical student with me whom I will introduce. I will add a doctor before my last name, and fewer patients will know my first name. I will add an MD behind my name, and we all shall be proud. I might also be scared or nervous as I wait for the 19th, Match Day. I do hope I will Match at the program I loved interviewing at.

I'm flying back to Chicago next week. I get to go back and steal hugs from my favorite two-year old, and do a whole lot of shopping. I love shopping, and I have a list of things I have to get before I fly home. Like buy a crazy amount of chocolates. Like a really crazy amount - its embarrassing how much chocolate I'm going to have to buy in the next couple of weeks.

Hershey store, are you listening? I'm coming your way!

Does anyone know if Coldstone has ice-cream that I can carry home to the heat of the Indian summer? :P

Monday, February 9, 2009

Exciting News Blog

SO remember how I wanted to be a doctor as far back as I can remember? Yeah. I'm starting my last rotation on Thursday, and that runs for four weeks. Then, I get to add a "Dr." before my name and an MD after. Isn't that awesome?

I won't have a graduation ceremony, my school isn't having one. I'm so exhausted from all the interviews and travelling and the non-stop working, running, moving, studying, that all I want to do is to go home. So it all works out and yes, I'm flying home on April 3. Yay. I booked my flight on sunday.

Speaking of interviews - I have been thinking long and hard about my rank order list for residency, and I sort of have it figured out. Thats a secret. The results will be out on March 19, just after I'm hoping to receive my MD from my school. Whheeee.

I finish that last rotation on March 11 and I'm flying back to Chicago the next day. Tonight and tomorrow, I'm going to be packing. Just throwing stuff into suitcases and a duffel bag. Aaaaaaaa.

I'm too happy and exhausted to type out my thoughts in order. But my joys are so interconnected, it is sort of hard to pull them apart and figure out what comes first. Am excited for the next couple of months.