Weird, we use whipped cream.

2003-01-07 - 1:59 p.m.

You never realize how great waking up every day at five in the morning is until you start having to wake up at four. I woke up this morning at four and managed to get myself out of the house by a little after five. Traffic is wonderful at five in the morning. Not only that, but I was blown away by how much closer to the hospital I can park just by getting there an hour earlier. I shaved a good five minutes off the walk to my car. I was in pharmacy administration by 5:50 and up to the eighth floor for rounds by 6:00.

This is my third rotation in the hospital and it is a completely different rounding style than any of my previous rotations. The SGI team follows patients throughout the entire hospital. Today we had 22 patients and we were done with rounds by 7:30. Let's do the math here. That's 90 minutes for 22 patients or roughly 4 minutes per patient. The patients with serious issues took longer and some patients got no more than a "This is so and so, he's been here forever, no events over night. Next!" This rotation has about 1/10th the work involved as my previous rotation. At 7:30 we went to grand rounds which lasted until 8:30 and then I was done with my work by 10:00am. This compared to MI where I sometimes didn't finish my work until after 6pm. I still can't leave until 3:30 (even though I should be able to leave by 2:30) but that's ok, I have plenty of projects I need to be working on.

Last night Kevin from volleyball called after I had gone to bed. I went to bed at 8:30 last night, I wonder what time he called. I sure didn't hear the phone ring. Anyway, he called me to see if I still want to play on his volleyball team starting this month. I'm trying to make up my mind. The games are on Wednesday evenings starting variably from 6 to 8. With this new rotation I should be able to get off of work in time to make it to the games. Conversely, my new bedtime should be 8, which would make 8 o'clock games difficult. But also, Thursday is my clinic day which means I can sleep in until 6 on those days. I was thinking of saying no, but after writing this paragraph I've changed my mind to say yes. I think it would be good for me to get out and do something. Meet new people. Sweat a bit. Break an ankle or something.

Speaking of sweating, for the first time since November I went to the gym yesterday. I ran 5k. Well, "ran" may be stretching it a bit. Prior to my month-long hiatus in December, I had been running for 40 minutes three days a week, my goal being how far I can run in those 40 minutes. I'm not in very good shape so my record so far had been 4 miles in 40 minutes. Yesterday I was able to maintain that pace for 2 miles in 20 minutes, but then I pooped out. I finished the 5k in 34:03 and then I stopped. I was pressed for time, you see. I still had to go to the library and eat dinner all before 8:00.

Today, while in the process of catching up on all of my favorite diaryland blogs, I was reading Aroha and she linked one of her favorites, Ladeeleroy, in particular, this entry, which very narrowly escaped making me cry. Liking Ladeeleroy's writing, I read more of her entries and came across today's entry in which she linked to one of her favorites, Biloon, in particular, this entry, which very narrowly escaped making me laugh out loud. (For those of you who are unaware, laughing out loud is something I don't do. It's a bodily function I don't seem to possess.)

All of my faithful readers know about the boy who has been on my mind a lot lately. Yesterday he wrote something which I thought was the nicest thing anybody has ever written for me. (I hope he doesn't mind that I've linked to it here. If he does, I'm sure he can let me know and I will remove the link.) I wish I could do a better job of explaining myself to him. I wish I could show him why it won't work. But I don't think I can. I think attempts on my part would just make it worse. I read this article (I realize that link will only be available for a few days, sorry) in the Sacramento Bee this morning (And kudos to my paper boy, by the way, for having the paper delivered by 4:30 this morning. I'm seriously impressed.) about why women have trouble finding the perfect man these days. I can't say anything in it made me say "That's it! That's exactly how I feel!" but it made me think a bit. It's main point is that in today's society we focus more on education-getting and career-building during the time of our lives when in yester years women thought more about family-starting. So we put off family-starting until our biological alarm clocks are ringing and then it's a mad pressurized rush to find the perfect man. But it also sort of contradicted itself by saying that women nowadays can lead fulfilling lives without a man which means that we can afford to be pickier. And I guess the point I'm trying to make is something my grandmother used to say: "You don't want a man you can live with, you want a man you can't live without." And she's right. That's what I want.