Semper ubi sub ubi*

So, the dog park membership dude asked me not to bring my treats in a plastic bag to the park, like I mentioned last week. Silly, right? Since we are bringing the treats in a plastic bag which is inside another bag/fanny pack. (Like I'm really going to put my nasty greasy treats in a cloth sack without some barrier in between.) Not such a big deal since we need one for agility class too....

So Luca scrounged up his chalk bag that he used many moons ago for rock climbing. And then he wiped it down. And then I put my bag-o-treats inside.

But the chalk bag has no belt. So at first I was clipping it to my pocket with the carabiner. Then I tried my belt loop. Both options (of course) caused the bag to dangle down to thigh level, well within reach of even a tiny terrier.

The next day I was wearing shorts. Since the shorts had no pockets, I tied a little loop with the draw string and then clipped the carabiner to that. Shortly after (of course) a dog came up and started sniffing around.

It was then that I discovered the evil plot of the man who yelled at me (and the membership guy). For, if a dog were to grab a hold of the treat bag and pull -- while it is precariously attached to my shorts -- no doubt my shorts would go with it. And I would be left pants-less standing in the middle of the park.

Now it all becomes clear.

Those dirty old men.



*Latin for always wear underwear

Biostatistics vs. Lab Research

It's almost as good as, as asked by a cell biologist, "If I take a biostatistics course, can I do clinical research?"

Bwahahahahaha!!!!

(Thanks, Outrider, for pointing this out to me!)

I really should learn to lie better

Yesterday afternoon I hung out with a friend from high school in the late afternoon/early evening. While I was walking to meet her, I ran into a classmate who asked where I was going.*

"Oh! I'm going to meet a friend from high school who I haven't seen in a while."

Then noticing the look of disdain I added piously, "Of course I will be working ALL WEEKEND, since I really should be doing work now. Haha."

And then, since the disapproving look did not go away, "Of course I really shouldn't be taking any time off AT ALL, since I am SO SWAMPED."

There.

God, why can't I just learn to say something like, "I'm headed to a meeting right now. Can't talk -- I'm so swamped -- I've been working 24 hours a day for the past 2 months!"

I really need to learn to be a better liar.




*I just thought I should clarify that my interpretation of her look could TOTALLY have been projection on my part (i.e. I was feeling guilty about not working and was ascribing my own feelings of disapproval to her....). Even though I do COMPLETELY agree that all work no play would make OMDG a dull girl!!

Failures

I met with the women's MD-PhD committee yesterday to talk about events we'll be planning over the next academic year. Many of the events we had last year were very successful:

- Mixer with prospective students
- Panel about mentorship
- A couple of happy hours
- A book talk

There was interest in having a panel discussion with some woman faculty members who are physician scientists now.

But what would we have them talk about?

The usual ideas were thrown out regarding work-life balance and their stories about how they've become successful. A general advice session. (And I gotta say, many of us are tired of hearing the same advice re work-life balance: i.e. there is no convenient time to have a baby and have lots of family support nearby +/- a good nanny. Snooze.....)

Then someone mentioned failures. "Let's have them talk about times when they have failed at something, or when times were difficult and they overcame," someone suggested. I wish I remembered who because it was a brilliant idea.

See, we're all trained to come up with these beautifully crafted narratives of how we got where we are today that make it seem like our life courses were charted out perfectly from the day we were born to the day we got tenure. But the truth is (with a few nauseating exceptions) it's all total BULLSHIT.

For instance: me. My own bullshit beautifully crafted narrative goes as follows:
Old MD Girl majored in Sociology and graduated with honors from the University of Chicago. She worked with very important mentor on her senior thesis on predictors of voluntarism in hospices, and then took a job at a consulting firm that specialized in sales and marketing consulting for pharmaceutical companies after she graduated from college. It was at this time that she discovered that she loved working with data. Her next job at an industrial supply company taught her to manage supply chain operations, and she decided that she wanted to apply the principles she had learned working in the warehouse to health services research. Her next job, managing the health services research projects of two physicians back at the University of Chicago convinced her that the best way to make a real impact in the field was to pursue an MD-PhD in Epidmiology, so she completed a post-bac while working full time, and was admitted to medical school. She decided to focus her dissertation on the problems associated with inpatient patients flows through ICUs, rationing, and Dr-patient communication.

The reality is more like this:
OMDG had no idea what to do with her life during college. After reading an article in Newsweek on patient non-compliance the summer before her 4th year of college (and watching a lot of the X-files and being fascinated by Agent Scully), she decided to reconsider this whole med school thing and do a senior thesis on medical sociology. She was assigned her thesis mentor because the head of the sociology department thought she was cute, and that this very important dr would enjoy working with her because of that. The very important dr made her feel like she was the stupidest person on the planet and she quickly became disenchanted with the project quickly (also, it was on a topic she found boring at the time).

Because she had no idea what she was going to do with her life, she decided to get a job at a consulting firm. She knew the moment she started that she was going to hate it. PLUS, she realized half way through that she really wanted to do more analytical work. When she requested this, she was told that as a sociology major, she wasn't smart enough to do it. She thought about grad school but was too chicken to pursue it, and started dating a boat anchor who verbally abused her for the next three years.

Then (because she was desperate to get out of the consulting job) she got a job at the industrial supply company from hell. It was ok for a little while. She learned about supply chain operations and stuff. But again she was passed over for a more analytical position because, as a sociology major, she "wasn't smart enough" to do it. She eventually got promoted to the warehouse, and after a year of not touching a computer, realized she was getting stupider and stupider, and that she was losing any transferable skills she had developed over the past 3 years. She was probably also clinically depressed at this time. Eventually she got fired (pretty common for management candidates at that company), which FINALLY gave her the push she needed to think about how to go back to grad school.

She got the research job totally because of the very important dr who thought she was stupid (she name dropped him on her cover letter and it turned out he had previously worked with the drs she got the job with). She visited the mentors she had from undergrad (the very important dr who thought she was stupid thought med school was a great idea until he found out how old she was -- then he told her it was a bad idea, and the other one tried to get in her pants), and started a post bacc TENTATIVELY thinking med school might be a good idea. Her projects went awesome, and she got good grades and MCAT scores. Dumped the bad bf, met Luca, and applied EVERYWHERE since she had no idea what programs might accept someone like her. Somehow she got in where she is now (she really can't believe it sometimes). Med school's gone well, as has the PhD so far. Go figure. She does research on ICUs because she really can't stand outpatient medicine.

But of course this isn't the perfectly manicured narrative I tell most people because people then think, "She got FIRED?? She didn't know what she wanted to DO with her life? My goodness, what is wrong with her. How unfocused. We will not be hiring/admitting/giving $$ to this person. How could we? She has FAILED before in life." And it's interesting, since most of the kids in my program have gone straight through from college, I really do wonder whether any of them HAVE actually even struggled (much less failed) with anything before in their lives. I've certainly never heard a comparable failure narrative from any of them, and when I tell snippets of my failure narrative, classmates look at me like I'm pond scum....

So in any event, I'm really looking forward to the failure panel. I am curious about what I will hear.

Dear readers, do any of you have a compelling failure narrative? Do tell.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

We talked to the membership guy at the park last night about our little incident. It turns out that the old man who yelled at me has done this to other people. Who knew! It made me feel a bit better. We agreed to get a non-plastic treat bag. We need one for agility anyway, so it wasn't really a big deal.

Otherwise, life is just.... going. Each day I work work work and seem to accomplish nothing. On Monday, which was supposed to be my big catch up day, I spent 3 hours trying to FTP a new dataset from the company we get our data from. This should have taken 15 minutes. Bye bye afternoon!

Yesterday was a bit better. I actually got my HW for the week done. But guys, I haven't done nearly enough on my project! Gah! And I found out that the 2008 data has fewer ICUs in it because of drop out "due to the economy" and now I have to re-run all my analyses without that year! OMG so annoying!!!

I am also in the process of planning my first committee meeting. It's (hopefully) going to be in November. I am terrified. What is one of these meetings even like? What if I haven't made enough progress?

At least agility class with the Boo is fun, though I am wracked with guilt because it causes Luca to have to go to bed late on Monday night, which tends to screw up his sleep schedule for the week. I've tried to tell him he doesn't have to come, but he wants to. And I understand, because it is fun and "our activity." But then he is tired all week.

So, I work work work all day long, wait eagerly for Luca to arrive home from work. And then he passes out on the couch. Then I eagerly await the weekend, and spend it doing chores feeling like I really ought to be doing schoolwork instead. We had so much to do last weekend that we didn't even get to the grocery store.

Anyway, I shouldn't be grousing so much, since only one of my classes this semester is going to be a waste of my time, but yeah. Sometimes I feel like I'm on a treadmill. Or wading through mud. Or both.

I hear this is what graduate school is.

Drama

On Saturday Boo and I and Luca went to the dog park at about 5PM. We've been trying to avoid the busy times on the weekend mornings because there are sometimes 20+ dogs in the park, and that's when fights happen. So we go. And I bring my treat bag and clicker because when I'm at the park, in addition to letting Boo run around and play, I also have been attempting to train her to do stuff.

The treat bag consists of a plastic baggie with hot dogs in it. We use hot dogs because they are highly motivating and nothing else works quite so well. We use a plastic bag because it is disposable, but also because hot dog grease (or the grease from any other kind of dog treat) is nasty and I don't want it all over, oh my purse. Also, we haven't been able to find one of those treat bags at the pet store no matter how many times we've looked. Perhaps it's been bad luck.

Anyway, we arrived on Saturday, and it was a different group of dogs than usual. One dog came over and started sniffing around. This happens from time to time, understandably, but usually if I ignore the dog it will go away.

Well, this dog decided to engulf my entire hand in his mouth to extract the treat bag from it. And he succeeded. And though I tried to pry his jaws open to extract the bag, I was unsuccessful, and some stronger people eventually were able to do it.

I felt somewhat bad, since the dog could have been hurt, but also the owner probably should have had better control since the dog had been jumping on me for about 5 minutes before this happened. And besides, everything turned out fine in the end.

So Sunday we go back to the park, intentionally going 2 hours earlier to hopefully avoid this dog. No luck, he's there again. Tries to do the same thing. I am more careful though, and I go to the back of the park with the Boo to fill up the tub with water and do agility. He keeps jumping on me, though after a little while he DOES give up.

At this point, this old man who is NOT the owner of the dog gets up (which he never does), and walks to the back of the park to start yelling at me. At first I am incredulous, asking him if he is actually yelling at me, and then I tell him that he needs to stop. That he is out of line. He calls me stupid repeatedly, tells me I could have killed the dog. I turn my back on him and eventually he leaves (after about 5 minutes or so?), and goes to sit down in his usual spot.

My husband goes over and sits with him and the owner of the other dog. I try to do agility stuff with the Boo, but am not really feeling it today. I was pretty upset. I wait about 15 minutes before going to the chairs to sit myself. By this time the treat snatcher and Boo are rolling around and playing in the park. No big deal.

So I go over to sit down. Big mistake.

The old man starts yelling at me again (again repeatedly calling me stupid), and the owner of the treat snatcher jumps in too. I again try to calmly explain my thought process and tell them to stop. I am unsuccessful. Finally I tell them to stop being assholes.

Then they flip out at me. They claim that *I* need to stop yelling at them. They threaten to get me kicked out of the park. They tell me that, "They can find a woman for me to yell at," (not sure what that means, but don't think it was flattering, and it was definitely sexist), accuse me of taking a swing at their dog (he takes this opportunity to try to avail himself of the treat bag again and I swiftly lift it above my head), etc.

So we leave.

I cry on the way home. Luca is livid.

They do indeed complain about me to the membership person. We find out because Luca writes a note to him as well. I feel like I am being ganged up on, kind of like in the 6th grade.

I am seriously considering not renewing. There is just too much drama over there. It's supposed to be fun and relaxing, but it's just not sometimes because some people are idiots. Idiots with their dogs, and idiots with the people. I would definitely miss the agility equipment and having a place for Boo to run full out though.

The thing is, I do see the concern about the plastic bag, but I'm not sure there's a good alternative, and besides, it is the owner's responsibility to watch and control their dogs. I have to bring treats to reward my dog when I train her, otherwise there's no point in trying.

Not sure what the best solution is.

Tenure Clock

I was talking to a professor in my department last week about his specialty choice, and how he was blending his research interests with his clinical interests. He was in Emergency Medicine, and had done a fellowship in Critical Care. Now he just did EM and research. He said that he just didn't have enough time to do the Critical Care piece too.

What else did he say.... Oh, that children take up an inordinate amount of time, and that his wife (who is also a dr) is constantly nagging him to spend more time with the kids and helping out at home.

I pointed out that I would be too old to have additional children by the time the tenure clock became an issue for me. Being that I am geriatric and all.

He said? Oh God, that's awful! You HAVE to have kids during those 7 years. That he got 3 extra months added to the tenure clock for each child he'd had.

WTF???

Ok, I'm all for equal parenting, but I thought this whole policy was cooked up to help WOMEN who typically are trying for tenure right in the middle of their childbearing years, not for men to take advantage of, all the while foisting 90% of the childcare onto their wives anyway.

I told him that perhaps I could develop a critical illness instead, and get my three additional months that way.

"I could also shoot you," he said.

I laughed.

I liked his sense of humor. But what is it about EM guys that they always seem like they just did a line of coke? I mean, I fully recognize that I am a little nuts, but they make me look like the rock of Gibraltar by comparison.

Tag

Today (while I let my SAS run in batch mode for 24 hours+), Luca and I went out to the burbs to go look at fancy kitchen sinks. We've decided that we want an apron sink -- either cast iron or porcelain -- and we needed to pick one out. Our designer (yes we are that bourgeois, but she is our former neighbor so at least we are not THAT bourgeois) recommended this place in the burbs, and so we went.

It was ok. We were expecting to be treated like ass since we were dressed like ragamuffins, but as it turned out, all you have to say is the word "designer" and suddenly sales people start kissing butt.

We also stopped at Chipotle (The carnitas burrito really ought to be its own food group), and DSW shoe warehouse. There I found NOT ONLY a pair of Mizuno Wave Alchemy sneakers, which previously I had paid $100 for, but also a cute pair of flats that are actually comfortable. See, I bought a pair of skinny jeans a few weeks back, and it turns out, skinny jeans look like crap with sneakers.... which is pretty much all I have in my wardrobe. Hence, the trip to DSW. Next: some cute tops to wear with said skinny jeans. I swear, all I have purchased to wear in the last 5 years have been t-shirts at Target. So, I dress like a 12 year old. What's it to you?

In light of my friend's missing dog (who is still missing, sadly enough), we also went to Petsmart to buy a tag for Boo with our phone numbers on it. It turned out pretty well actually, save for the irritating Petsmart logo it lasered onto the tag. Whatever.

Next: dog park, Pattaya carry-out, reading for school. But first, a beer and Chipotle leftovers. Mmmmmmm.

Lest you think I only use this blog to B*tch complain about my life

Not all is f-ed messed up in the world of OMDG. My 2 stats classes are turning out to be excellent, and the PhD seminar, while it is going to probably be a waste of my time (again), there is actually a chance that it won't be. This pleases me.

Also the analysis for my paper is coming along swimmingly, and I am very happy about it. My goal is to have something ready for an abstract to submit to ATS* on 11/3 for their conference next May. My PI tells me that I already have enough for a submission. We'll see. I'm continuing to chug along in the meantime.

I am learning a sh*t-ton. Also, even though my coursework is taking up precious time, it gets me to campus where I have been able to have some ACTUAL SOCIAL INTERACTION with mostly non-medical students. It's funny how it's the little things that make me happy!

Next on the agenda: figure out if I can do health services research as a neurologist, or if I am going to be struggling against the tide for the rest of my career if I opt to go that route -- as opposed to medicine or emergency medicine, for instance.


*American Thoracic Society -- I think

Tile

As you may recall, Luca and I are getting our bathroom retiled. I curbsided my friend who is a contractor at the dog park, and he said to expect to pay around $4000-$5000 for a 5'6x6'6 space including a shower and the tile. We do not need to replace the toilet or vanity/sink, nor are we relocating anything.

Would you like to know what our quote came in at?

I'll give you a moment to come up with a guess.










It was $10,700 mother-f***ing dollars. Not including tile or fixtures. As a "base price."

Hello. OMDG does not enjoy feeling like people are trying to rip her off. She is very displeased.

So of course we are going to have to get more quotes from more contractors. Oh the fun and excitement. Perhaps we can bundle these quotes for the ones we're going to be getting for the kitchen. Kill two birds with one stone. Perhaps I can also get an official quote from my contractor friend as well.

We'd totally consider doing the tile work ourselves were it not for the fact that we know nothing and have no time (mostly though, because we know nothing).

Any thoughts on this, dear readers?

Lovely

A friend whose wife is pregnant recently reported to me that his wife had been talking about with her Ob about what would happen if she ended up needing a c-section. Eventually she asked about the scar. How big would it end up being?

The doctor looked her up and down and sneered, "Planning on being in a bikini contest or something?"

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not. Doctors can be total a**holes meanies.

I don't know if she found a new dr or not.

Lost

One of my dog park peeps lost her beagle yesterday. She was at work, and the handyman came in to do something in her house, and her dog escaped.

The handyman didn't notice. She discovered the dog was missing when she came home from work. She wasn't wearing her collar. People from the dog park looked for her in West Philly yesterday, but no luck so far. Hopefully she's hiding someplace in someone's yard and we'll find her today. But IMO -- the dog is gone.

I have a hard time thinking about this. I can't imagine how horrible I would feel if this happened to the Boo. It makes me want to throw up.

AGILITY!!!!!!!!!!

Last night Luca and I went to our first dog agility class. And Miss Boo didn't puke on the drive up there! And she totally passed out on the ride home, so no puking then either. In fact, she still is kinda passed out.....

So, we worked on touches (where the dog touches your hand with its nose), and targeting (where the dog touches a target with its nose). Then we moved on to targeting while the dog is standing 1/2 on and 1/2 off a board. This is to start ingraining the idea that the dog has to contact the obstacle at the bottom before it jumps off.

Then we did some obstacles.

Tunnel, little jumps, table. We need to work on table. She HATES lying down on the thing. Everything else she was good at.

Next week we're going to start working on handling skills and maybe introduce a few new obstacles. Exciting!!!

I'd like to point out that this class is totally for me and Luca, and less so for the dog. We have such a fun time doing it, and watching Boo go bananas for the hot dogs and squeaker toys. It's really a blast. She loves to make us happy, which makes it fun for her too..... we think.

We got home at 10:30 or so. I was so tired!!

Part-ay

Luca and I did make an appearance last night. We were there for about 90 minutes. It was ok.

Notice to grad students/professional students: Please learn how to make polite conversation about topics other than yourselves. It's rude to talk about yourself for 10 minutes straight. One person in particular told me for 10 minutes how he did health policy research before med school, and then said, "I don't know how much of what I'm saying you even understand," before he bothered to ascertain that I was an MD-PhD student at his school with 7 years of health services/policy research experience.

Verdict: One of the girls who lives there is ok. Her boyfriend seems nice too, and they are both total dorks (in a good way). One seens a bit like an ice-queen. I'd never met her before, but she was.... cold, as were her friends when we talked to them. And the owner is relatively nice, and kind of in the middle.

Generally, I introduced myself as "the bitchy girl who lives next door," and people seemed amused.

Attending the party was a boon to our egos in other ways as well: Luca was asked multiple times if he was a grad student (he finished his PhD in 2002). Even if it is only by context, it's good to be mistaken as young. Haha.

Maybe we won't have a war after all?

We'll see.

reading between the lines

The other night, we received this under our door:

Hey,

We wanted to invite you guys to the potluck we are hosting on Saturday night at about 7PM. We'd love to have you! It's going to be our cohorts for the most part, and very informal.

Hope to see you here!

Signed -- The brats next door.*

And on the face of it, I know! You're thinking, hey at least they're trying to be nice. Maybe they aren't so bad afterall.

But take a moment to read between the lines.

A letter written with what they actually think might go something like this:

Hey assholes who won't let us park our bikes on your fence,

We're having a party Saturday night with everyone from our three respective grad groups. We've told them to come at 7PM, but as you know, no party ever ACTUALLY starts until 9PM. God knows when it's going to end -- but that's really the point of a party, right? Getting drunk is the main purpose of this party, so if you want something to eat, please bring your own food. Oh! And if you're going to do that, can you bring enough for everyone? Thanks. Also, it's going to be a group of mostly OUR friends from OUR grad groups, so please don't stay for long and ruin our fun by standing awkwardly on the wall not talking to anyone.

Signed -- The mother of the brats next door.

PS -- We're only inviting you in the hopes that you'll be less likely to call the police when we drunkenly migrate to the front stairs at 3AM and scatter broken bottles all over your garden (not to mention urine). We really don't want you to come. But if you don't come, we'll complain about what assholes you are from now until eternity (we might do that anyway).

Hee.

We're totally on the fence about going. We probably SHOULD put in an appearance, if for no other reason than so we know who is actually lives there now.



*Not how note was actually signed.

What's the appropriate thing to do in this situation

Suppose you are sitting chatting with one of your friends at school, and one of the fellows -- who you know from class -- swoops in and starts talking to your friend. Doesn't even make eye contact with you, much less acknowledge that you are sitting there. Then invites your friend to lunch with her and another classmate-friend of yours.

Do you:
a) Say nothing, and politely decline the invitation to lunch awkwardly extended by your friend after the fellow leaves.
b) Interject, "That sounds fantastic! Where are we going?"
c) Resume talking to the friend as if the fellow weren't there.
d) Awkwardly try to join in the conversation between the fellow and the friend.
e) Other (specify)

I ask because doctors engage in this sort of behavior all the time -- I seriously had never seen it so often as since I came to med school, and I need a better coping mechanism than a + seethe about it for hours after.

I wonder if this is one of the reasons female doctors have such a difficult time making friends. I know it makes it harder for me to make friends, since I try to distance myself from people who act like that, and sometimes (in med school) it feels like that's all there is.

On having a med student

I already know it: I'm going to be a bitch to my med students when I'm a resident. Well, maybe not all of them, but definitely some.

I remember back a year and a half ago I was doing my Neurology externship. I was on the consult service, and did a few afternoons a week of outpatient to get a feel for what Neurology was actually like. It was an awesome team! (Actually, all of my Neurology teams have been awesome, so this really shouldn't come as a surprise....) And I loved being given the autonomy to see the patient first -- this is one of the BEST PARTS about no longer being a clerkship student.

Anyhow, med students rotate for 3 weeks on neurology during their core clerkships, and the consult service is very popular because it has the reputation for being "easy." Generally, you arrive at 8, see one patient with an intern, and then round the rest of the morning. Then maybe you'll see another patient in the afternoon.... or maybe you'll just finish rounding in the afternoon on the patients you didn't get to in the morning.

So -- very little work for a med student to do, low stress because you're only really presenting at most one patient, and even if you end up presenting a patient, you'll probably have an intern and another med student telling you what to say before the presentation because there aren't enough patients to go around.

The first part of the month there were two girls who -- to put it bluntly -- were completely AWESOME med students. They took initiative despite the fact that neither were going to go into neurology, managed to act convincingly interested, and only marginally tried to avoid doing work that they'd be evaluated on. And they were pleasant to be around.

The second part of the month, we got four (4!) guys who acted like they didn't care, acted bored, actively tried to avoid doing anything, who basically just sucked. I don't know -- maybe they thought looking interested was uncool or the same as being a gunner? But anyway, since there were four of them and only 2 other interns, I would occasionally get stuck with a clerkship student following ME. Let me tell you -- that was uncomfortable.

First off, I am still learning myself, so I am sloooooowwwwww. Second, when you do a consult, about 1/2 the time is spent reading the chart and past medical record, which about as interesting as watching paint dry if you're watching someone do this. I remembered how I yearned to be more involved when I was a clerkship student, and I felt bad about making the kids follow me only to watch me read. Gah! It wasn't an ideal situation.

So one day I decided -- this kid has already done his medicine rotation, he knows how the floors work at this hospital, why not have him look at Sunrise to compile relevant lab values from the hospitalization and past medical records? That way, he'd have a task that I could review quickly to make sure he had done it right, and he would have a job, and we'd get done faster. Win win, right?

Wrong. I read the chart for about 5-10 minutes, and then I went over to the kid, who I saw was actually checking his email. I asked him to produce the lab values, and he had written absolutely nothing down. He said, "Oh..... I think she had an ammonia drawn last week sometime."

"When? What was the value?" I asked.

"Oh.... I don't remember," he said.

He hadn't even managed to write down her most recent panel and cbc. I wondered if he'd looked at anything at all.

I muttered something about taking initiative, and then went and did all of it myself.

I wondered if he thought I was asking him to do my work for me? That would be bizarre, but maybe. And he had worked previously as an investment banker. I'd have thought he knew at least something about how not to look like a complete ass to the people you're working with.

For the love of God, people. Is this what a lot of medical students are LIKE????? No wonder people hate them.

When I talked with my resident about it later, he confirmed that, yes, many med students were like this. Damn. No wonder Neurology was an easy rotation to do well on. Talk about a low bar.

I didn't act like a bitch to the student then, but I definitely avoided giving him anything meaningful to do from then on out, and also tried to avoid talking to him -- at all.

Word to the med students: If a resident or attending talks to you, pays you attention in any positive way, or gives you a task -- RUN WITH IT. Act enthusiastic. Otherwise they will think you suck, and actually? You do suck.

Ran into a med student last week

I was telling her about about home repairs, the joys of home-ownership, and that we're going to have to have our bathroom re-tiled.

Oh how terrible, she said. Blah blah blah.

Well, I said, at least the plumber is hot.

That is so horrible OMDG. How could you say a thing like that? What would Luca think?

(Mmmm.... he didn't think much of it when I told him this story.... take that for whatever it's worth.)

I assured her that I wasn't becoming one of those housewives who invited her plumber/ electrician/ roofer/ etc. over to the house when my husband was at work so I could have a multitude of lascivious affairs. As is the topic of many a blues song.

That's so horrible, OMDG. So sad. How can you listen to music like that?

*Sigh.*

What's the best part about grad school

That I have to interact with med students so seldom.

*Sigh!*

Dog-cation

Now that we have the Boo, pretty much any time Luca and I have for vacation turns into a Boo-cation. We went to the outer banks this spring so that the Boo could go to the beach. This weekend we're visiting my parent's standard poodle William.

It makes me want to get a second dog. Boo and William pretty much self-entertain most of the day, interspersing wrestling with lying on the couch with barking out the window with more wrestling.

Miss Boo also learned to swim this weekend. We wondered whether she'd be afraid of the lake, since all she's seen of the water has been the black tub at the park and the ocean, but she was actually pulling ME into the water. At first she was just walking on the bottom. And then she started getting in over her head, still walking on the bottom (good thing she knows not to breathe during such moments), and the she jumped off the bottom of the lake and started swimming.

If we go back to the lake today, we'll try to get video of it. I think it's really cute, but I am biased.

What was also interesting is that the Boo started off the visit resource guarding me and Luca (which William was amenable to), but gradually she has come to accept that we are permitted to pet William too. She tries to nose in and get in on the action, and -- worst case -- entices William to wrestle with her some more.

Maybe we can steal William when we go back to Philadelphia in a few days? I wonder if my parents would notice.....

I've even been able to do some variable coding while I've been here since the dogs seem to be able to entertain themselves for the most part.

Maybe when we get back to Philadelphia, I can convince Luca that we NEEEEEEDDDD to get another dog. It's for my dissertation, really. :-)

Thoughts on exercising the Boo

This summer, Boo has enjoyed increased amounts of exercise than we were able to provide for her last winter. Most days in the mornings she gets a ~2 mile run + 45 minutes at the dog park where we do agility and run at full tilt with other dogs + 1 mile walk home. She'll also get a second "longer" walk in the evening when my husband comes home that is ~1 mile.

The morning walk usually tires her out pretty well, and she generally walks like an angel on the leash on the way home and sleeps most of the day. However she's getting fitter, and lately (it hasn't even been cool out) she's begun acting annoying in the evenings. She barks at us and demands that we play with her. She rips up magazines. Etc.

We think she now needs even MORE exercise -- in the evening as well as in the morning. It's like the better we've gotten at meeting her exercise needs, the more she needs.

So, the issue is that I don't really want to take her for a SECOND run in the evening. A) I'm just not that fit, B) I have to do work, C) I'll be at school during the day a lot of the time this fall, and D) my poor knees! Also, the stupid people go to the dog park at night, so we'd really prefer not to take her then.

We are starting agility class on Monday evenings in a few weeks, so hopefully that will help. But that's only one evening a week. Also, I worry that if we start running her in the evening that she's just going to get fitter and then require more exercise. I do have time to take her for slightly longer runs in the AM (we're building up to that), but the morning is under decent control now. She doesn't seem to need more exercise then.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Anybody tried a treadmill for the dog?

Today I'm thinking I'll try and take her for a 20 minute walk at around 3PM in the 97 degree heat to see if that wears her out.... here's hoping!

And by the way, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love my ridiculously devoted high high energy dog. I just wish she wouldn't rip up magazines to blow off steam.