But just in case--rope!

2003-06-25 - 9:51 a.m.

Today is my last day out in clinic, thank God. I think the new pharmacy residents are supposed to show up today for orientation. Possibly I'm supposed to show one of them how to do my ward inspection. Of course nobody has actually told me yet. Wouldn't want me to have too much information. I've passed the morning so far by filling out my final self-evaluation. It took me two hours. That sucker was long!

I got my passport in the mail yesterday. I didn't expect it so soon. It was supposed to come in six weeks. I got it in exactly two. I'm glad I didn't decide to pay extra for expedited service. But the best part is that my picture came out fairly decent. I still haven't bought my plane tickets. The price has already gone up $100 since I started looking into this. The problem is that my dad is still not keen on the idea of me going. I talked to him about it a bit yesterday but he never let me tell him why I think I should go. Instead I spent the whole time refuting his arguments for why I shouldn't go, although I have to admit I left out a few details. For example, I never mentioned that we would be traveling around and staying in youth hostels.

I've been forgetting to mention this, but perhaps you may have noticed, I've added a link that will take you to a random Eucalia entry. Andrew made this function available a little while ago, and although I don't have any particular use for it, I decided I might as well take advantage of it. So until I think of something cool to do with it, you can find the link at the end of my entries. I have another idea for something to do with this page. I'm thinking I'm going to put in a little feature about the books I'm reading. I've had this idea for a while, but recently I've been so busy that I haven't had time to read enough books to make it worthwhile. But now that my residency is coming to an end I anticipate having much more time for reading. But at the same time, I'm going to be gone for almost all of July and a big chunk of August so I won't be able to update this so maybe implementing this idea now would be pointless.

I'm really hoping I won't have to show a new resident how to do my ward inspection today. Actually, I don't mind, I just hope that someone will tell me when so I don't have to sit around wasting my time waiting for something that may not happen.

There's this girl here observing our clinic today. She is a medical student at Georgetown but is interested in coming back to Sacramento for her residency because she was raised here and has family here. I would never want to be a medical doctor. At least to me, the price is just too high. Imagine, if I had taken the med school route I would just be finishing up my second year of med school. Two more years to get my MD, one year of internship, and then depending on my specialty two to four more years of residency. That puts me at 28 at the youngest before I could get a real job. And if I was especially ambitious and wanted to do a fellowship after my four-year residency, that adds another four years and puts me at 34 years old. Meanwhile I haven't made any real money and I've beening running myself ragged working long hours and have had no time for my family. And that's assuming I started straight from high school and took no time off. That's definitely not for me, as you may have gathered from the fact that I got my Pharm.D. only five years after high school. I don't want to spend all my time working. I want to do things.

I have a volleyball game this evening. Kevin isn't going to be here because he's off on some European adventure. I hope Fred will be his replacement. I like Fred. Besides being a nice guy, his sets seem to mesh with my hitting style. Also without Kevin there, there'll be one less person stepping in front of me to steal my plays and clonk me on the head.

Yesterday I had a meeting with Cheesecake and the other residents. We discussed the books about leaders which we had read. I presented Golda Meir. I felt a little guilty because I felt there was no way I could present her life in five minutes and even begin to do it justice. I tried though. Slick did Buzz Aldrin, Fluffy did Jack Welch, and Cheesecake did Peter the Great. It was sort of interesting to hear about these people. Afterwards I went out to dinner with Slick and Fluffy. Slick had invited me to go with them last Friday, but I completely forgot. I was on my way out the door when Slick shouted after me, "Euc, wait! Aren't we going to dinner?" Oops. We went to Chevy's on the river. Fluffy wanted to sit inside, but we still had a nice view. Fluffy is going to Michigan to do an ID specialty residency. I think I will never see him again. I like Fluffy well enough, but I can't say I'm too sad.

I just paged the Mole and he told me that I'm not showing anyone how to do a ward inspection today. Yahoo!