and now it's time for christmas.

it's my very first christmas tree. i never put one up when i lived in des moines, and this is the only other time i've not lived in someone else's house at christmas time. see that stick-figure-like snowman on the bottom left-ish in the photo? i have a white and a red one... they're my favorites. :-)

wasted away again in gonorrheaville.

thanksgiving was fab. my absolute favorite day of the year so far. and this has been a big year for me. i loved spending the day with my family. thanks to those of you who made it what it was.

******

this "month" (starting last wednesday), i'll be hanging out in the teen clinic. which is located betwen the ghetto and the slum. and my patient population is a fairly homogenous blend of STD infected teenage girls presenting for their quarterly pregnancy tests and yearly HIV screens. it will be so incredibly relaxing.

the best part is that it's a vacation month. so i'm technically on vacation. and since i didn't see the inside of my house the better part of last month, i'm planning a lot of nothing for this week. i put up my christmas tree (though it's a little sad and empty... my "collection" of decorations is not quite up to snuff...) and turned on my pretend fireplace and listened to christmas music and made homemade beef stew tonight. it's almost like i'm a real person with normal work hours (i did go in to the hospital for a few hours today to finish up paperwork from last month) and a normal life.

i'll bask in the glory of such a week for a few more days. and then? back to gonorrheaville.

chronicles of the purple team.

purple team. ick. it's general inpatients and kids with ridiculously complicated kidney problems. here's what my month has looked like.

we started on a thursday.

thursday: 14 hrs
friday: 11 hrs
saturday: 31 hrs
sunday: see saturday
monday: 15 hrs
tuesday: 12 hrs
wednesday: 11 hrs
thursday: off
friday: 13 hrs
saturday: 31 hrs (thanks to the time change)
sunday: see saturday
monday: 15 hrs
tuesday: 13 hrs (the day of the major meltdown)
wednesday: 14 hrs
thursday: 14 hrs
friday: 12 hrs
saturday: off
sunday: off (and to think, some of you get these "weekend" things every WEEK! lucky!)
monday: 15 hrs
tuesday: 12 hrs
wednesday: off
thursday: 10 hrs (hey! it's the first time all month i left ON TIME!)

and... the rest of my month as "scheduled" (which ends on tuesday...)
friday: 30 hrs
saturday: see friday
sunday: 13 hrs
monday: 13 hrs
tuesday: 10 hrs

anybody else exhausted?