Mo' Money Mo' Problems

Well ladies and gents, I finally sold the house and managed to make myself a pretty phat chunk of change. I won't reveal exactly how big that chunk is here on my blog cuz I don't want any crazy blog-fans out there trying to put a cap in my ass for the dough. So now that I am such a high roller I have no idea how to spend all the money! A few days ago I attempted to waste a bunch of it on a shopping spree at Target but the most I could manage to get rid of was $35.29. Wouldn't you know it?? When I'm broke as a joke I can't get out of Target without spending less than $100 and now that I got money to burn I can't even drop a Benjamin. And I don't even know if that $35 counts because I spent it on necessities like Windex and toilet paper. What kind of shopping spree is that?!?!

I've decided to pay off the rest of my sweet new ride so that I don't end up paying for it twice in interest, but that still leaves a good amount to burn. I also have to pay of the unbelievable $5000 it cost to have movers bring all my belongings out to Texas. The sad thing is, I'm pretty sure that everything I own doesn't near amount to $5000. I definitely could have bought all new for that much. And that doesn't even include the investment I made in my liquor collection because stupid Mayflower won't move open bottles. Oh well.

So things are going good in Dallas. Doc is much happier at the new place and I think he is going to lose some weight because the apt has a flight of stairs the two places he spends most of his time, the litter box and the food bowl, are on different floors! Fortunately, my mom and aunt came out to help me set up the new apartment. And thank God they did because if they didn't I pretty sure I would be sitting on the couch amongst 400 boxes unable to find a damn thing for the next 6 months. I could not believe how many boxes there were and how much crap I have accumulated over the last 4 years. And the movers pack absolutely everything. I mean, they taped up my dirty laundry basket in a box. It was like Christmas pulling stuff out of the boxes cuz I found stuff I didn't even know I own.

It's really weird renting again after owning my place for 4 years. I had to ask the landlady if I could paint the walls and then of course she wanted to approve the color and yada yada yada...I was like, I'm over this already. There are a few perks though that I had forgotten about. When the toilet broke I called a plumber to come fix it and then remembered that I don't have to pay for that crap anymore so I just subtracted it from my rent. Woohoo!

Here's my latest installment on the man hunt front. Right before I started writing this blog I called my Mexican fix-it man to come over and tune up a few things for me. He's a real jokester. The first time he came over he put some kind of remote controlled fart maker under the cushion on the sofa and everytime my mom bent down to pick something up we all heard a huge rip roarin fart. It was actually pretty funny. Anyways, today when he was finished with everything I asked him how much I owe him and he told me it was up to me. I told him that was ridiculous and to please just tell me how much I owe him. To make a long story short, I now have to go on a date with my divorced 35-45 year old Mexican fix-it man with a child. Awesome. Oh, and being Mexican he is of course, shorter than me. We all know how much I love that.


Cheers!

Men of Dallas

So I thought that when I moved to Dallas there was going to be a whole new world of men open to me and I would meet the man of my dreams instantaneously. Well after going out on the town several times now looking my finest I am not sure this is going to be possible. I was imagining swaggering up to any bar in town and knocking back a cold one with one of many cowboy boot wearin’ tall, dark, handsome fellas all the while talking about what its like to own an oil refinery. The one small problem is that all the men here are gay. Or....they at least look gay. It may be that I’m living in the uber-chic section of Dallas known as Uptown, but all the men here are of the wine smelling, hair gelling, designer clothes wearing variety. I can’t pick out a straight guy from a gay guy to save my life. The thing is, I think all the women here are attracted to that.

Prime example. A few weekends ago I was out at a birthday party when a tall, dark guy wearing a trenchcoat and more product in his hair than was in mine walked up to me, leaned in, and asked “So, what kind of perfume are you wearing?” I gave him bewildered look and replied, “Maybe Baby by Benefit.” To which he nodded “Oh, yeah” as if he was very familiar with the smell. So I said “Did you already know that??” And he replies “Yeah of course. Smells great.” At which point I turn my back to him praying to God that he will just walk away and never speak to me again. I am not sure which I was more turned off by – the fact that he might have actually known what perfume I was wearing, or that he was lying about knowing what perfume I was wearing, or that this was what he actually decided to use as his pickup line. Most alarmingly, after he walked away I turned to my girlfriends from Dallas and said “Yall don’t even know, I attract the biggest weirdos.” To which they replied, “What was wrong with him?? We thought he was totally hot.” Ugh.

Later that night my super shit faced friend Jessica (whose birthday it was) told me that I should totally go bump into the guy in the black shirt sitting at the bar because he was super hot. So I mosey over and toss my hair at this guy and the minute he introduces himself to me I know this was a mistake. Not only is his hairdo so hard from gel I’m certain it wouldn’t move in a tornado, but he also has braces on his bottom teeth. Talk about a turn off. Being the big wussy that I am though, I end up talking to him for next hour about what it’s like to be in commercial flight school at the age of 28 and giving him my digits. So now I am lucky enough to get a daily reminder of the evening everytime my phone rings.

I never thought I would miss the baseball cap wearing, beer drinking men of South Carolina but at least I knew they were interested in me and not my friend Dave!! I’m headed out on the town this evening so I’ll let you know what gems I meet tonight.

Cheers!

A New Day

So I am finally surfacing from my new job to give you an update on my life. Everything is going pretty well, but like any job its frustrating getting the hang of how everything works and where everything is. It doesn’t help that Parkland is an enormous hospital so being my directionally challenged self, its frustrating just trying to find the bathroom. All in all, my new job is MUCH different that my old job. There are, of course, plusses and minuses to this. Everyone in the OB/GYN field has heard the phrase “the Parkland way.” When I was interviewing here for residency I kept hearing the faculty say that everything is done “the Parkland way” and I noticed how protective they are of it. This program is so huge that it works best for everyone to practice the same way so that we can easily change shifts and not too much needs to be discussed. I understand this, but “the Parkland way” is weird and not how obstetrics and gynecology is practiced anywhere else in the world. It’s kinda like - this is the way we do it here and it has been done like this for years and years and we are not sure why we do it but you better do it too. Soo....to anyone reading this at my old program all I have to say is the grass is always greener. So far, this is what I have found to be the pros and cons:

PROS:

1. The hours. This is a big one. The hours are way better at Parkland. There are so many residents that we all work in shifts and the longest shift I have worked and probably will ever work is 17 hours. This is crazy seeing as how I used to pull 24-30 hour shifts every weekend at home. Oh, and if my shift is over at 7:00, I am out the door at 7:01. At home if your day was over at 5:00, that actually meant you would leave anywhere between the hours of 5:00 and 8:00.

2. No clinic. Well, very minimal clinic. We have approximately 4 half days a month in contract to the 4 half days a week at home. And along this same line, another pro is no Logician. Logician is the computer program we used to document notes from clinic. Much to my dismay, we could get Logician on our computers at home so we were expected to see all our patients and then go home and spend an hour or two writing our notes. At Parkland, you just handwrite a quick note in the chart after you see the patient so you never have to take your work home. Thank God.

3. No attendings (these are the old docs who are scary and yell at us). Seriously, I never see them. This pro is kind of a tricky one because it is sort of a plus and minus. At home the attendings were lurking around all the time. We had to check out every patient to an attending and they always knew when we did something wrong and were ready to rip us a new one. Here, they are never around which means that our 3rd and 4th year residents act like the attendings. Which basically means I am scared of all the 3rd and 4th year residents.

4. No dictation. Need I say more??

That’s a pretty good list. But of course with all those pros comes some cons.

CONS:

1. More paperwork. I actually thought it would be impossible to have more paperwork than we had at home, but it is. To discharge a patient I have to fill out at least 10 forms. Just to order a pregnancy test I have to fill out and put stickers on 3 forms. It's ridiculous.

2. The nurses. Well, not that they aren’t nice people because they are, but they don’t help you do anything. They don’t even go in the room with me for an exam so I have to get out all my supplies myself and fill out all the paperwork myself. Which means my patient is sitting spread eagle with a metal thingy in her crotch for four times as long while I bumble around getting all my crap together.

3. Delivery in the operating room. At Parkland we do it old school style where the lady labors in one room and then when the baby’s head starts coming out I have to push her bed out of the labor room and wheel her back into the operating room and get her to scootch herself over to another bed all the while with a baby’s head hanging between her legs. Oh, and when I say “I wheel her back” I literally mean I have to do it, referring back to con #2. No jobs for medical techs here.

4. Vertical skin incisions for c-sections. What?? Ladies, how pissed would you be if you had a big ass scar from your belly button to your whoo-ha?? Especially when all your other girlfriends are looking fine in their bikinis on the beach.

5. And you guessed it.....the number 1 con of all. MEXICANS. I’ve never seen so many in my life. Not even when I was drunk in Mexico when I was 14. And if I don’t learn to speak Spanish pretty darn fast, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna get the ax.

So there they are, my preliminary likes and dislikes. I’m not sure which list weighs heavier, even though the con list is a little longer. The pro list has some pretty important points on it.

Cheers!

Calling Dr. Phil.....

I’m homesick. Like....super homesick. I thought I was this open-minded, tough, cool, independent-type chick that would thrive in the big city. All this about me being a big timer stifled by small city living. What to the ev-er. I want to go home. And by “home,” I mean Columbia, South Carolina. Maybe it’s because I have no job. Which means I sit around all day worrying about when I will start working and then when I do start working, what is it going to be like. Or maybe its because I have no place to live. Which means I am stuck in this postage stamp of apartment surrounded by things that aren’t mine and wishing that I was back in my 1400 sq foot house with modern technologies and a showerhead that is high enough that I don’t have to take a shower on my knees. Or maybe, just maybe its because I have no friends. I miss friends. Friends are good. Speaking of having no friends....Yesterday I did something I have never done before. I went to the movie theater by myself. I have thought about doing it before but always chickened out. Once I even drove all the way to the theater and then turned right back around when I saw a line of like 20 people and became horrified at the thought of standing in line for 15 minutes by myself. Anywhoo, this time I made it all the way to the theater and actually got out of the car. I planned it so that I would get there after the previews had started so that I could inconspicuously slip in and sit at the end of a row. Well, somehow this ingenious plan totally backfired because by the time I got in theater, it was so incredibly packed that I had to crawl over 10 people in the dark to make it to the one seat still open for the loser that comes to the movies by themselves. I don’t even know what happened in the first 20 minutes of the movie because I couldn’t stop thinking about what a big loser the people around must have thought I was. Then I spent the rest of the movie being depressed because I chose to see the most depressing movie ever created. Note to blog-fans: Do not ever attempt to see “Atonement” on your first solo outing. Ugh. Anyways, after the movie was over I basically knocked over an old lady in order to get out there as fast as possible so I wouldn’t be recognized as the girl with no friends.

Well, whatever the reason, the fact still remains. I’m homesick. On a better note....as you all know I have no TV right now so I have been single-handedly keeping the “TV on DVD” section of Blockbuster out of stock. I recently became addicted to a fabulous new TV show – WEEDS!! It’s great – check it out (unless you live in Dallas because if you do, then your local Blockbuster is fresh out. But then again, if you do, why the hell aren’t you hanging out with me instead of trying to watch Weeds?!?!).


I’ve attached a picture reminding me of a great time in my life when I did have friends. I’m lonely. Send me some love.

My New Life in Pics

Ok guys, I realize that I am behind on the blogging but it is not for lack of wanting to blog. My Texas medical license has not cleared yet so I can't start working until that happens. I was told to get out here as fast as possible because the powers that be thought that my license would go through quickly since I dont have a record and I didn't go to medical school in the Caribbean. Soooo...I drop everything and rush out here to sit on a couch in box of an apartment that belongs to someone else with no cable or internet. Sweet. Anyways, all this to say that I have absolutely nothing to blog about.


So, I decided to drive around this morning and take pics of some of my fave places so far in Dallas. By the by, I don't suggest driving around a big city at 8:30 AM (morning rush hour) trying to take pictures out the window of your car. At one point I pulled a Nicole Richie and didn't realize I was going the wrong way on a one way street.




Here is where I am currently residing. 600 sq feet, no internet, and one fuzzy TV station. I've never seen so many news shows in my life. I mean, who watches the news from 4 - 8 PM???Local news, national news, world news, local news, national news......









Here is where I want to live. Directly across the street from I'm living.













Hard to see, but this is the Katy Trail. It's a 3.5 mile path that runs through Uptown Dallas so that all the young professionals can have somewhere to get their jog on and walk their dogs. A lot of apartments back up to the Katy trail so you can walk out your back door and be ready to run. I've looked at a few and you can pretty much add $500 a month for the convenience.

BEST food place on earth - and only one in existence. Think - the prepared food section of Whole Foods /Fresh Market/Dean and Delucca all in a cool, dark atmosphere with loud music playing. I had a salad there the other day and I was expecting a run of the mill yada yada yada salad. But NO! This salad was something else. It mean, it was so good it didn't leave me with the usual "I wish I had had that sandwich" feeling. Yum.

Cute little restaurant around the corner from my apartment. Half priced bottles of wine and the best sparkling Sangria I've ever had.









Hope this is OK for now. I promise to blog the minute something happens in my life.

Cheers!

Road Trip

Oh dear lord. I finally made it to Dallas late Sunday night after what seemed like an eternity of driving. Mapquest told me that the drive (1000 miles) was going to take 15.5 hours so I figured that it would take me around 13 or maaaaybe 14 hours knowing that Mapquest always calculates the trip time for someone traveling at the pace of a grandmother. Well, between the four thousand bathroom breaks, food stops, and pullovers to make sure my cat was still alive, it took me every minute of 15 hours. Boo.

I had called the vet before I left to find out about how to travel with Doc because I knew it was going to be an issue. The only traveling Doc has ever done is the 5 minute trips from my house to the vet's office and he meows the entire time. And not a normal meow, its like a dying meow. She told me that all I had to do was put him in a carrier in the back of my car, cover it up with a towel, and he would be fine. Well, the night before I left I made the huge mistake of looking up "traveling with a cat" on Google. Of course, there were all these horror stories about how cats get motion sick easily and barf all in the car, or meow the whole time or die or whatever. So I freak out and call my friend Julie who also has cats and travels a lot. She told me not to worry because she has some kitty Valium she can give me and all I have to do is give it to Doc before the trip and he will sleep through the whole thing. The next morning I wake up and crush up the pill and put it in some wet cat food. Normal, wet food is a treat and big fat fatty wolfs it down before I can even get it out of the can. Well, two hours pass and he hasn't touched the food because he has clearly figured out that I am trying to be sneaky and drug him. Well I have one more pill so I get my mom to strap him down with a towel so I can food it down his throat. After almost losing an eyeball and an ear, I give up on giving him the drugs and throw my unsedated (and now pissed off) cat in the back of the car.

He meowed for the first 20 minutes straight. He finally settled down and then didn't start meowing again until I got my first speeding ticket. He meowed again for about 20 minutes and then settled down. I drove for a few more hours and then stopped at Subway for lunch. I picked up a sammich, hopped back in the car, and bliss - didn't hear any meowing. Well, several more hours pass and I start to realized that I haven't heard a peep out of Doc for like 5 hours. Well, I get super stressed and start thinking all these morbid thoughts like how I could have put the towel too tight over the airholes and my cat has suffocated in the back of my car so I pull off the side of the road. With my heart beating like 200 times a minute, I lift the cover off the carrier and hear a little meow. Thank god I haven't killed the cat. Several more hours pass while I'm listening to my God awful book on tape when I start to smell a horrible stench in Monroe, Louisiana. They must have a paper mill or something in town but I once again start having all these morbid thoughts and convince myself that my cat has died in the back and this smell is him decomposing. Sooooo....I pull off the side of the road, lift up the cover heart-racing, and hear a little meow. Thank god, still haven't killed the cat.

Anywho, Doc and I made it to Dallas alive at around 11PM. Right now I am staying at a friend's 700 sq foot apt with no TV and no internet. So pretty much, I am living in a box. I am currently sitting in a Starbucks downt he street typing up this blog. Which, by the way, I have typed twice because I didn't realize that my internet connection had died and once I hit "post" it sent me to a screen to sign on to the internet and I freaked out when I realized all my blog was gone. Ugh.

So, I am loving Dallas so far. There are cute little wine shops and eateries on every corner and all the shopping I could ever imagine. I am scheduled to start work on Monday but I don't know if that is going to happen because my Texas medical license has not cleared yet. And after last ngiht I am not sure I ever want to start. Me and some of the other interns met up for happy and I found out that they are southpaw haters here and make everyone operate right-handed. Little do they know my right hand is so non-functional that I could have lived my entire life without a right arm and would be none the wiser. If they make me operate right-handed I can guarantee you some poor pregnant lady is going to end up with a baby still inside her and minus some other important body part.

Til next time....

Blog REVIVAL!!

Ok, I'm not usually one to make New Year's Resolutions but this year I am resolving to revive the blog. I just happened upon the blog yesterday while I was wasting my life away facebooking and remembered how much I loved the blog and how much joy it brought me (and others, I suppose). I had some awesome blog-fans who left super witty comments that made me laugh even while re-reading them 6 months later. Soooo...I am hereby resolving to post a new blog weekly, or at least every other week. Like most other Americans I have a pretty poor track record with the ole New Year's Resolutions, but by God I am going to make this one work. I think I have only made 2 of them in the past 8-10 years. My most recent one was about 3 years ago. While Susanj, Jodie, Melissa, and I were having a post New Year's Eve hangover lunch at Harper's I confidently stated that was going to be less critical towards others, you know, like a nicer person. Well wouldn't you know it, right as we were leaving the restaurant I spotted a girl crossing the street who had made the poorest choice in sunglasses that it would have been a crime against fashion for me not to have commented on them. And that was the end of that resolution. The only other resolution that comes to mind was while I was in college and I made a resolution to learn more about sports. I'm pretty sure everyone who reads (or used to read) this blog knows that I am extremely sports knowledge challenged. So, I had my friends start giving me a sports fact of the day. You know, the easy stuff, like...the Dallas Cowboys are a football team and Babe Ruth played baseball. Well, that lasted for all of a week before I got annoyed with people quizzing me about my stupid sports facts and I went back to just appreciating sporting events for the beer and hot dogs. All this to say that while I have not made good on my past resolutions, I am going to make a concerted effort this year to stick to this one. So all of you can go ahead and have the blog streamed back in to your PDAs.

I should have a lot to blog about because if you haven't heard yet, I'm moving to DALLAS!!! Yes, the city of big hair and brass buckles. I think I should fit in well because I already like brass buckles, and if any of you have seen me right after I blow-dry my hair, you know I also already have big hair. I just tame it down a bit with a little gift from God I call the Chi. I'll be transferring to the University of Texas-Southwestern program at Parkland Hospital. Good new is, I won't be losing any time in my residency. Yippee! I think it is about time for a major change in my life, and if you will recall from a previous blog I think that for the past 27 years I have been a big city girl trapped in a small town (well, more like a medium sized city). So, the hizzy is for sale and now that I am a high roller and all I bought myself a super new tricked out phatty ride with all the trimmings. I'm gonna pack up the new ride with all my clothes and my puss and drive out to Texas on January 6th - holy crap that's only 5 days from now! Then once my house sells, my mom and aunt are gonna pack up everything, rent a U-haul, and Thelma and Louise it out to Dallas. I'm super excited and would love to have any of my blog-fans come visit me in the big city. Word on the street is the shopping in Dallas is second only to NYC. Ok, that's all for now. I promise to blog again before the week is up.

Cheers!

p.s. if anyone is looking for an awesome 3br house in the ecclectic Rosewood area of Columbia, I've got one in mind.

UPDATE 1/2/08 5:00 PM

Well, now I see how ANTM can be so difficult. I took approximately 25 pics to come up with this, my most model-y pose. Please note the orangetastic interior, in honor of my beloved alma mater.

Sweatin like a slave...

There are no words to describe how my life has changed in the past two months. I think the USC Department of OB/GYN is actually trying to kill me. I have never worked so much in my entire life, not to get into med school, not in med school, never. Here is my daily routine: wake up at 4:30, get to work by 5:15, work like a freakin slave until 7, come home and write notes on my patients from the day, go to bed at 8:30, wake up and do it again. Oh, and I forgot to mention the weekends during which I have the pleasure of staying up all night working like a slave. On the plus side, I've never had so much money in my bank account before because I never have time to spend any! Today is a good day though because I have the whole weekend off and I have a whole weekend of grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and house cleaning to look forward to!

Speaking of work, let me talk for a minute about how only certain people should be allowed to procreate. I have seen the craziest shizzle ever in the past 2 months. For those of you who don't know, the hospital I where I work is the Richland County hospital (which means people with no insurance) and has the only Level 4 nursery within a 100 mile radius (which means we get all the high risk deliveries). Believe it or not, the two kind of go hand in hand. The people with no insurance smoke crack their whole pregnancy and then proceed to have an extremely high risk delivery. Who'da thunk? And it's so funny to see the different thresholds that bring people in to the hospital. Some ladies will come in the minute they feel one contraction and think they are in labor and then some will wait to come in until the baby's head is hanging between their legs telling me to help get him out. I actually had one lady come in thinking she may be in labor so she put on a gown and sat down on a bed so I could examine her. The next thing I know she hiked up one leg and farted out a baby on me. How rude.

Anyways, enough about me. There is a way more important baby in my life who I did not deliver and his name is Alex Byars. I think in my last blog a month ago I mentioned that my sister was in labor. Well after doing everything right, not doing drugs, having routine prenatal care, taking prenatal vitamins, and giving up alcohol for 9 months, my sister ended up having an emergency c-section. Wouldn't you know? If she'da been a crackhead, she would have farted the baby out no problem. Anyways, everything turned out fine and they are settling nicely into parenthood. This is all secondhand information from my mom though because I actually haven't had a chance in the last month to sit down and talk to my sis on the phone. That is what this weekend is for though. My mom left this morning for Denver for a week to help out the new parents and I am so jealous that I don't get to go see him. Sorry the pic is so small, but isnt he too cute?

Just call me Auntie Jessie.....well, almost.

Well, I hope someone actually reads this cuz I am pretty sure all my blog-fans have abandoned me for my horrible lack of blogging....maybe I can get an anonymous out there to chime in. So I had no idea that there were so many hours in a week...I mean, now that I am not wasting them away by doing things like sleeping. Please, note the sarcasm. I have never been so tired in my entire life. And it shows. I look worse and worse everyday at work. Every morning this week I shaved off one more minute of my morning routine in order to sleep that extra minute. Today, I shaved off the mascara. Yikes. By the end of this month, I am pretty sure I am going to unrecognizable as my former self. Anyways, enough about me....

While I type this blog, my sister is laboring away in a hospital in Denver. I got the call this morning while I was on rounds that she had started having contractions last night and went in to the hospital this morning. So I'm pretty sure that my 3 weeks now practicing the art of obstetrics has ruined the "miracle of birth" for me. My sister is a couple days early and all I could think of while we were on the phone was all the things that could be going wrong. I pretty sure I didn't even say something like "how exciting" or "I'm so happy for you." All I could think of was a differential diagnosis for preterm labor. Sorry Sis. Anyways, it looks like I will be Auntie Jessie to little Alex by the end of the day! My only guess as to why he is trying to make his appearance early is that he just wants his Momma to have a friggin glass of wine already. I have no doubts that my sister will be the first mother ever to pump and dump for the first feeding.

In other news, the HLM is leaving me. She has decided to make the move to the big city. And by the big city, I mean the one and only NEW YORK CITY. And she going to be doing it Dangerous Minds style since she took a job teaching at a school in Brooklyn. She's been on the fence for the past three years about whether she enjoys teaching or not, so I feel certain that this new undertaking will help her figure that out. This Saturday she is having a "yard/garage" sale (and I put this in quotes because she has neither a yard, nor a garage) and she is having people just come in to her apartment and buy anything they want. Then, she's gonna take whatever is left over, rent a car, and drive up there. My HLM's got balls. The only upside of this move that I can see is that I'll have somewhere great to visit if I ever have a day off in the next four years. I mean, it is all about me. So I think that the HLM and I are going to have a goodbye dinner at the place where we met. Well, kind of. The restaurant where we met (Rising High) has since closed down (undoubtedly because we aren't there anymore), but there is a new restaurant in that building. The HLM is the last of a long line of friends who have recently left me in Columbia, and my last touch stone with anything nonmedical so once she leaves I am officially going to have nothing to talk about except work.

Anyways, what's going on with my blog-fans? I haven't talked to anyone in forever....leave me some love.

Cheers!

Oh, the pic shown is of little Alex's nursery. How cute is

it????

A Penis Free Columbia

Hey guys! Time for a quick update.

So I have been orienting my ass off for 8 hours a day since last Friday. I dont start actual work until this coming Monday. Last Friday, Monday, and Tuesday were my OB/GYN orientation days and Wed, Thursday, and Friday are my hospital orientation days. The hospital orientation days are extra-painful for me since I went to school here and am already VERY acquainted with Palmetto Richland hospital. Anyways, during my OB/GYN orientation we got our rotation schedule for the next 12 months. We have 10 months on-service (OB, GYN, Night Float, or Ultrasound) and 2 months off-service (Family Practice). I had specifically requested months ago to start on-service because I wanted to jump right in and not feel left out. So what did I get assigned to first? Why, Family Practice, of course. That OK though because our family practice months are pretty chill. We are just assigned to work in the outpatient clinic everyday and take OB call every other weekend. So, I found out that because I am the resident on FP, I am also in charge of castrating (circumsizing) all the newborn boys in the hospital. I almost had a panic attack when I got this news. I got no problem operating on an old lady for 6 hours, but the thought of accidentally castrating a newborn is terrifying to me. The picture you see above is the torture device we use for removing the excess skinnage on the babies, called the gomco. I was so nervous when I found I had to start off doing this that I had one of the attendings take me over to the newborn nursery so I could practice a few rounds. Well, after the bleeding and screaming finally stopped, I noticed that I had actually created a very nice looking penis for Baby Boy X. I think he will make some lucky woman very happy one day. However, even after my success I am still extremely shaky about the whole thing, so a little word to the wise. If you are reading this blog and about to pop out a baby, you might want to avoid Palmetto Richland for about a month or so. That is, if you want to be guaranteed that your little boy will be able to have children someday. Just damn.

Meet my New BFFs

Well, it's Saturday morning and I am super hungover from the heterosexual life mate's all girls dinner last night and also super bored because nothing is on the boob tube so I thought I would blog again! First and foremost, let me tell you about the wonderful menu the HLM prepared for us last night. The dinner started with my top 2 favorite appetizers, roasted red pepper hummus with pita chips and yes you guessed it, nuts. I think we all know about my love for nuts. After several glasses of wine and even more fistfuls of nuts, we were served our first course of feta, cucumber, and tomato salad. Yum. This was topped only by the main dish of lemon pepper salmon on a bed of spicy mashed sweet potatoes. I love it when the HLM cooks for me. I think Aurelia and Johanna enjoyed it just as much as me seeing as how we all licked our plates.

Anyways, I thought I would go ahead and introduce you to the girls I am going to be spending 80+ hours a week with for the next 4 years of my life. I was really anxious about meeting them because people who go into OB/GYN usually fall into one of two categories. There are the blonde, petite, Lilly Pulitzer wearing nice-to-your-face-but-talk-about-you-behind-your-back types and the big, butch, I-say-whatever-I-want-right-to-your-face types. How I got in the mix I have no idea. Well, there is a total of 5 of us and I already know one of the girls because she went to med school with me. She is married and just had a baby 4 months ago so clearly that is the last you will ever hear of her. So I am very pleased to say that the 3 other girls do not fit in to either of the previously mentioned categories. The first girl is named Julie and I can't remember where she is from but she went to med school in the Caribbean....St. Maarten to be exact. So while I was crammed in a small dark study room with no windows on the second floor of the library, she was lying on a white sand beach switching between her Physiology notes and the new issue of Vanity Fair. What a biznatch. Anyways, she seems really cool and her boyfriend is a vidalia onion farmer somewhere in Georgia. She said she is pretty sure he is not going to be able to move here because apparently he can't farm onions in Columbia, SC. The next girl is Allison and she is from Toledo, Ohio. She moved down here about a month and a half ago and this guy she had been dating for awhile came down to visit 2 weeks ago. She said that during his visit they got a wild hair and decided to get hitched. She bought a place out in the Northeast so they went out to the fountain at Sandhills shopping center and somewhere between buying creams at Bath and Bodyworks and eating at Wild Wings they got married. Huh. Well, she is funny because she said that when she moved down here she thought that everyone was going to be all nice and Southern and that she was surprised because none of her new neighbors had come over to meet her. I thought this was strange so I started asking her some questions to figure out what was going on. It turns out that the culprit is a "Go Away" doormat on her front porch. She said that up in Ohio this is commonplace and everyone knows that this is just a joke but I quickly informed her that that is not how we roll in the South. So I think she is going to get rid of the mat and hopefully make nice with her neighbors. The last girl is named Susan and she is from Pinehurst, NC which I have never heard of but apparently is just up Highway 1 (which I also have no idea where that is). She went to school in Israel and is dating a 7-foot tall Jew that is still over in Israel. He is hoping to get in the Masters of Business program at USC next year so he won't be around for at least a year. Well, thankfully they all seem like a great bunch of girls and I think we are going to get along just fine. Sheeewww.

So tonight is the "Welcome the New Interns" party at the home of my favorite attending, Dr. Sara Smith. It is a cookout and a dessert cook-off for the new interns. I have been testing out recipes all week long and I thought I had this shizzle in the bag until I met the girls yesterday. They also are big cooks and have been feverishly scanning FoodNetwork.com all week for recipes. Crap!! Yesterday at orientation they were talking about sticks of butter, cream cheese, Crisco, lard....I've got my work cut out for me. I found a great recipe for lemon bars and asked my roomie Todd if he thought that would be the golden ticket and he quickly let me know that if I want to win this thing, its gotta be chocolate. So its 11AM now and the party is at 6:30 and I still don't know what I am going to make. Oh, and I'm really hungover and don't even feel like getting off the couch.

Leave me some comments about what you think will win it for me. I'm bored.

Cheers!

UPDATE: I made Emeril's Ooey Gooey Chocolate Cupcakes for the party and didn't win a darn thing, but I did snap a shot of my new BFFs. Pictured from left: Allison, Susan, Mua, Julie. Alicia didn't make it in the pic cuz she was pumping or feeding or doin sumpin wit her baby.

Dayton Rocks!!

Heeelllooo again blog-fans! I have just gotten home from my first day (of 7) of orientation for my OB/GYN residency that starts on July 1st. Let me tell ya, after doing exactly nothing for almost 3 months now, sitting in a room listening to boring ass lectures for 8 hours has really taken it out of me. However, not only am I exhausted, I'm also slightly panicked. This is gonna be rough. Anyways, in an attempt to relieve some tension I thought I would blog about Julie and Jon's wedding in Dayton, Ohio last weekend.

First off, I have to give credit where credit is due. I'm fairly certain that this was the most fun wedding I have ever been to (sorry Willy and Lindsay, but anything short of leg amputation would have made this a better wedding for me). I was worried that I wouldn't get there because when I got to the airport in Charlotte, they informed me that once I flew in to Atlanta I would have to see an agent right away because I didn't have a seat assigned for the flight from Atlanta to Dayton. So of course, knowing me, what's the first thing I do when I get to Atlanta?? If you think it is go find the agent, you clearly don't know me at all because the first thing I always do when I get to an airport is find the nearest bar and order a bloody mary. You know how most people have their own little travel rituals or things that they allow themselves to do only when they are traveling?? Well, mine is eating gummy bears and/or Skittles and drinking bloody marys. At no other time will you see me eating a bag of Skittles.....can't say the same for the bloody marys. Anywhoo, once I finally made my way to the ticketing agent, he seemed shocked and appalled that I didn't already have a seat on this extremely overbooked flight. So the agent goes on the loudspeaker and kindly asks for volunteers to take the next flight. No one stands up. He offers a free roundtrip flight. No one stands up. He offers a roundtrip flight plus AirTran bucks. No one stands up. To make a long story short, he ends up having to give away 2 roundtrip flights, $200 in AirTran bucks, and a free "gift" in order for one measley person to stand up. Just damn. So I happily head towards my coach seat (I was hoping a first classer would offer up their seat but no such luck) and order myself a bloody mary.

Right after I get in to Dayton it is pretty much time to head to the rehearsal dinner which is a cookout at a country club. So Sarah, Susanj, Conrad (Susanj's boyfriend), and myself all make the 30 minute drive out to the cookout. When I got there, I headed straight for the keg and was ecstatic to see that it was a keg of Killian's!! Julie tells me that she got it just for me, but I have my doubts. She said that at Willy's wedding I was the only one who actually bitched about the keg of Bud Light but she knew that if I was the only one speaking up about it, everyone else must be thinking it. Smart girl. Anyways, then I headed over to the food table where I found an array of things that would send me straight to the ER. After deliberating for about 10 minutes over whether I was more likely to choke on an all-beef hot dog or a hamburger, I chose the hamburger. Well, I was completely grief stricken over whether to start eating or not when someone (sorry, I can't remember who) saved me from myself and pointed out the turkey and cheese croissants sitting on the table that I had overlooked. Shew....disaster averted.

Nothing much else happened at the rehearsal dinner, but we tapped the keg within a good hour and a half and then made the drunken trek 30 miles back to the Marriott. We had noticed earlier in the day that the Marriott had a pool bar so we all decided that once we got back we would all meet up at the pool for some more drinking. Sarah and I were the first to get back to our rooms, so I went out on the terrace to look at how many people were in the pool. Well, I could barely even see the pool for the 400 people that were crowded around the bar area. There was even a stage with quite possibly the worst cover band I had ever heard belting out Prince songs. I felt like I was looking down on a club from the balcony or something. Once I went down there for a closer inspection, I saw that there was exactly no one in the pool and that all the girls there were totally skanked out like they were at some LA club and not the Marriott hotel bar in Dayton, Ohio. It was totally bizarre, and I of course forgot to take pictures. Anyways, the night ended up with me finding Sarah puking in the bathroom of our room and everyone else playing Joe's Wii on the plasma TV in the hotel lobby.

On to the wedding day. It was my first Catholic wedding and it kinda seemed like we were at a church service where there just happened to be a wedding taking place also. I guess that's just how Catholics roll. After the service we all headed outside to find not only an enormous RV, but also someone dressed as the Tiger (Clemson's mascot). Apparently, Julie's dad had purchased a 1985 RV just to take the wedding party from the church to the reception. Little did he know, it would also become the drunkmobile at around 11 PM and start taking everyone's sweaty butts back to the hotel. Anyways, we saw the wedding party off and then headed to the reception which was held at a place which apparently serves as a farmer's market where you buy fruits and vegetables during the week. You know what that means, no a/c. And as you know, I am quite possibly the sweatiest person alive. I was rocking a full body sweat after being there for a solid 5 minutes. I think Sarah said it best...."talk about swamp ass..." She was wearing a thong, so she had to pick her dress off of her ass everytime she stood up. Ew.

The reception got off to a great start around 3:30 with lots of drinking, good food, and the classic Long family Goldschlager shot. This is about the time that I met my new BFF Kimberly Sims. Kimberly is our friend Slimer's fiance from Texas and she is awesome. I know by the end of the night, Slimer was wishing I would shut the hell up because I could not stop talking about how much I liked his fiance. You woulda thought I wanted to marry her, for rizzle. Anyways, the reception continued on its merry way and the only bumps in the road that I noticed were an extremely unfunny, long, rhyming poem created by the bride and groom and a bizarro taking off the garter dance that involved sunglasses and what I think was a Right Said Fred song. We managed to drink through that and I think I can credit Clapp with noticing that the centerpieces looked like great things to put beer in. They were like these 3 feet tall skinny glass vases with some flowers coming out the top. We all took bets on how many beers you could fit in one (I guessed four), but it actually turned out to be like 1.5 because the things were so freakin skinny. In the picture below you can see Clapp and Joe drinking out of them. So after drinking a few more vases of beer, everyone decides that it would be a great idea to get in the fountain. All the girls, even Christine in her bridesmaid dress, hike up their dresses and jump in the fountain because shakin' their booties in the fountain sounds like a much better idea than shakin' them on the dance floor. Duh. I gotta say, this is at about hour 6 of the 8 hour reception. To top all of this excitement off, pizza gets delivered to us at around hour 7. Oh yeah, and Sarah is smoking some random cigar with some random bow in her hair. I tried to attach a pic but it wouldn't upload. So after about 8 hours at the reception, the DJ plays his last song, and we all head outside to find the RV waiting to take us all back to Club Marriott.

It was a really great time. Mad props to Jules and Jon. Well, I am much less tense than I was when I started writing this blog but I am very worried for the life of the blog. After my first day of orientation I am fairly sure I'm not gonna have enough time to go to the bathroom, much less write my blog. We'll see how it goes though. Right now I am off to a Friday night girl's dinner prepared by Chef HLM.

Lovin' the Dirty South

Being in ATL for the past few days definitely affirmed one suspicion that I had about myself....I am TOO BIG for South Carolina. I mean, I was created to live the fast paced city life and am saddened to think that I have been stifled for the past 26 years in country bumpkin South Kakalakey. It was so awesome to just walk out the door of Ryan's apartment and be in the middle of all things happening...awesome shops, restaurants, bars, parks...you name it and it was right there. Even the gym next to his place is a cooler gym than mine with an even cooler name, Urban Body Fitness. I want to workout there. I feel like I have been trying to get out of SC basically since I was old enough to realize that you can get out of SC, and I just can't seem to get it done. WTF?? Clemson had to offer me a full ride, then I had to go to med school, then I had to not match in any of the awesome cities I wanted move to. The forces are really workin' again me here. And since I can't seem to get out, I make a motion that all of my blog-fans move to fun and exciting cities so I can at least go visit you there. Capesh?

I got to ATL around 4:30 (should have been 3:45 but I got stuck in one of the few drawbacks of big cities - traffic) and after checking in on the blog and facebook, Ryan and I headed out to my old stompin' grounds. My sister went to college in Atlanta what seems like a hundred million years ago but was actually when I was around the ages of 8-12. While she was there I discovered the area in Atlanta called Little Five Points. We have a Five Points in Columbia, but Little Five Points is nothing like it and back when I was 12 I thought it was the coolest place that could possibly exist on Earth. It is where all the freaks in the city hang out, playing their slit your wrist music while openly selling and using their hallucinogenic drugs. I remember a time back when I was about 11 years old that a guy on the street asked me if I wanted to buy some ex and after telling my dad about the whole incident, we just continued on our merry way. WTF?? I mean for rizzle now, shouldn't my dad have yanked me out of there so fast I thought I was seeing double?? I don't think any of my current blog-fans knew me in middle school, but Little Five Points is where I bought all the black and white striped thigh highs and neon green skirts I used to wear. Anyways, after walking down memory lane for a little while Ryan and I headed over to a an Italian restaurant called Osteria for some eats. I highly recommend it the next time you go to ATL because it was affordable and just like the food I had over in Italy...oh, and it just happened to be half price bottle of wine night. Yippee! Next we headed over to Pozole for some of the best margaritas I've had in my entire life and I guess it was around margarita number 2 when I started talkin smack to Ryan. For some reason I decided to tell him that I could totally school him at a game of pool and before I knew what hit me, I found myself at a new bar with a pool stick in my hand. For those of you who have played pool with me, you know that I absolutely cannot school anyone at pool, not even my cat Doc. They always say that the drunker you get, the better you get at pool, but I I don't know who those people are because the drunker I got, the more times I whiffed the ball. I was taking a good four to five shots before I even hit the cue ball. So the picture you see of me with my shoes off in a dirty bar (ewww) where it appears that I might be about to win the game, is actually an optical illusion as I did not win any games in any normal or acceptable fashion. I would normally feel really bad for how horribly I was playing, however, sadly Ryan was not that much better. Sorry Bello. Even worse, there was some kind of championship tournament going on at the table directly beside us with people who can actually play pool. Yeah, they hated us.

You may recall, the next day was going to be our day of trivia and moneymaker shakin. After Ryan willingly carried my bags around Lenox Square for a few hours and after we caught up on Season 2 of Arrested Development for a few more hours, we headed over to this bar called Locals for a night of trivia. After stressing over a team name for a few minutes (since this is the most important and humorous part of trivia) we agreed upon the name Twin Peaks. In my opinion the funniest team name of the night went to "Paris Hilton is back in jail and the guards are cumming." Despite the fact that the questions were much easier than I am used to (who doesn't know that "Cleveland Rocks" is the theme song for The Drew Carey Show??), Twin Peaks came in at a disappointing 7th place. Alas, we needed the rest of Substance P. Trivia was over at around 10 PM and Ryan informed me that the dance club did not open until friggin' midnight. WTF?? Well, I was already tired from the night before so I fell asleep at approximately 10:01 PM and did not end up shakin my tailfeather or moneymaker or pretty much anything. I suck.

That was the trip in a nutshell. Tomorrow morning I am off to the booming metropolis of Dayton, Ohio to see Julie and Jon get hitched and will be back Sunday evening. In the words of Dave Atell and repeated to me by Clapp, "I went to Dayton, Ohio, recently. Know what's a fun thing to do there? Pack up and get the fuck out, that's what." Can't wait!

Cheers!

Off to ATL

Hey guys, I know I haven't updated in awhile, but I have been fairly busy believe it or not. In a few minutes, I am headed to ATL to visit none other than Mr. Ryan Bello for a few days before he makes the big move to Seattle. He has guaranteed me plenty of blogging and facebooking time while I'm there so I'll be able to update.

Quickly, the only plans I have for the trip are blogging, facebooking, and shopping to find a dress to wear to Julie's wedding this weekend. Ryan has planned for us a night of trivia and shakin' our moneymakers on Wednesday night at this bar by his apartment. Little does Ryan know that I am solely the entertainment for trivia nights here in Columbia and not actually the brains of the operation. I am nothing without the rest of Substance P. Nevertheless, I'm sure he will figure that out pretty darn quickly.

Check back later for the update.

Cheers!

"I Can't Handle the Meat" AKA The Blog About Joe

Hello there blog-fans! After a short stint of doing nothing and having nothing to blog about, I am finally back in the land of those who have a life. This past weekend one of my friends from college, Big Willy aka William Powell, got married down in Charleston. I was really excited to go down there because this was the first time since college that the whole crew (minus Suanj and the Staff) were going to be together since graduation and I knew that I would finally have something to blog about. I was sure that this was going to be a weekend full of heavy drinking and crazy antics reminiscent of our 4 years together at Clemson. Unfortunately, at least for me, the weekend o' fun quickly turned in to the weekend o'no fun.

Mel and I drove down to Charleston together and got to our friends Julie and Jon's house late Friday afternoon. The two of us were going to be staying there for the weekend along with our friends Suses and Chris Clapp. We all showered up and then headed out for the rehearsal dinner which was a barbeque out on a beautiful river on James Island. Well after I started itching all over, I realized that the so-called beautiful river was actually a freakin cesspool of mating mosquitoes. After about an hour at the party I had appoximately 400 mosquito bites and was full on miserable. My Irish heritage was workin' hard against me that night. I was totally that girl at the party who wouldn't stop complaining about the friggin bugs. Clapp advised me to just get so drunk that I wouldn't care about the pain anymore but this just led me to being drunk and itchy instead of being happily buzzing and itchy. Anyways, this is where my friend Joe and I somehow got to talking about the blog. I learned that Joe is one of those who reads the blog but doesn't comment. He challenged me by saying that no one comments on the blog because it is not about him and that if it was, there would be an astronomical amount of comments. So this is your chance Joe. I'll even post a pic of you to entice any lady friends out there to leave ya a comment. We'll see how many comments you get.

Anyways, after we all finally left the cesspool, we headed over to Justin's house for some more drinking and beer pong. It wasn't long after we had gotten there that we realized that we were actually not young and crazy, but old and tired so we headed back to Julie's house where I slept on a half inflated air mattress and scratched myself to sleep.

I woke up the next morning, showered, and got ready for the 4:30 wedding. The four of us girls decided to go downtown for a little pre-wedding shopping and lunch when tropical storm Berry hit. For those of you who don't know, Charleston is miserable when it rains because the whole city floods, not to mention the fact that the reception for the wedding was indoor/outdoor. There would be a big tent outside that housed the band, dance floor, bar, food, etc.....Well, we got drenched and continued to shop as I informed the girls that all this misery would be worth it if they had my two most favoritest wedding foods, shrimp and grits and the carving station man, at the reception. I could not shut up about how making little meat sandwiches at a wedding makes me sooo incredibly happy.

The wedding went off with only a few hitches, including a 30 minute delay due to a late 350 lb wheelchair bound grandfather whom our friend Shaun (the best man) wheeled in to the church but failed to lock the chair causing the grandfather to take a little trip backwards down the aisle before Shaun caught him. After several chuckles, the wedding began. Anyways, we all headed over to the reception and I was ecstatic to see that there were shrimp and grits AND the carving station man. I had had a few glasses of wine and was feeling good when we decided it was time to eat. I got a big ole plate of food, sat down, and took the first bite of my meat sandwich when I felt it get stuck in my throat. Now, this is not the first time this has happened. Last Thanksgiving during a party at my aunt's house I got a piece of beef tenderloin stuck in my throat. After an extremely painful and unsightly 2 and a half hours in the bathroom trying to make myself puke, I had to go to the emergency room. Well, at the reception as soon as I felt the meat get stuck I ran to the nearest bathroom knowing what was about to go down. The thing that makes this problem so unsightly is that when something is stuck in your esophagus you can't swallow anything so you have to spit up saliva every couple of seconds. Gross. So, I spent the next 3 hours in the bathroom spitting up and trying to make myself puke while everyone else got drunk. When the reception was over and everyone was deciding where to next, I decided it was time for me to make another trip to the ER. I really didn't want to go and tried to suffer through it all this time because I have the world's shittiest insurance and I knew this trip was going to cost me a small fortune. Well, another problem here was deciding which drunkard to drag with me. Drunk Julie happily surrendered herself but told me that she was way too intoxicated to drive so I would have to drive myself to the ER while spitting and puking. Awesome. We waded through the flood to the car and pulled up to MUSC's emergency room around 11PM. By this time, the pain had reached an all time high so I was quickly called back by a nurse to answer some very important questions about my religous background and my mother's maiden name. I finally get put in a "room," stripped down, put on the gown, and began to wait on the doctor when wouldn't you know it, I felt the damn thing go down. I called the nurse and told her that I felt it go down, but she told me that I still had to be seen by the doctor. After a few minutes the doctor comes in and basically tells me that I am a stoopy and need to stop wolfing down meat sandwiches. Maybe I should try this little thing called chewing.

Well drunk Julie and I leave the hospital and meet up with the rest of the now unbelieveably drunk crew out at a bar. The minute I walk through the door I am bombarded with 3 shot glasses and am being ordered to take them. Believe it not, those drunk stoopies couldn't understand that since I hadn't swallowed in 3 hours I had no desire to chug liquor. Joe did find it very amusing, however, to repeatedly tell me that "I just can't handle the meat." Needless to say, to everyone's surprise including my own, I had my first and last experience as the designated driver that night.

So, Julie and Jon's wedding is in two weeks so I have a chance to redeem myself. Before I left, all my friends informed me that under no circumstance am I to touch any form of meat at their reception. I mean.....pretty sure that won't be a problem guys. As much fun as pain, spitting, puking, and a trip to the ER are, I think I 'll be able to refuse the carving station man.

Cheers!

Note: Joe is on the far right in the above picture. The other fools pictured are Keelan on the left and Jon in the middle.

Twiddling My Thumbs....

Ok, for real now...absolutely nothing is going on in my life. I realize it has been almost a week since I blogged last but I have hit a wall here in my 3 months off. I am ultra bored. Here is a typical day in the life of Jessie:

7:00 wake up
7:30 get out of bed
8-9:30 eat breakfast and drink cup after cup of coffee while watching the Today Show
9:30-11 work out
11-12 shower and watch Rachael Ray
12:00 eat lunch
1:00 - ??? watch endless hours of tv
10:00 go to sleep

My God, you probably fell asleep while reading my daily schedule. And to make matters worse, the HLM is leaving on Wednesday to go on vacay for a whole friggin week!! What the hizell am I supposed to do and why don't I have any hobbies??

Well, hopefully I will have some great dreams tonight and become inspired to hit you up with an awesome blog tomorrow. Otherwise, I am going to need someone to save me from myself. I mean, right now I am watching an episode of my favorite guilty pleasure show, The Girls Next Door, that I have already seen at least twice. Just damn.

UPDATE: June 1, 2007 8:52 AM

Cheers!!

This new signoff is brought to you by none other than the blogaholic Susanj.

My Life on the Wagon

Bad news everyone. This blog is about to get real boring real fast. Since I still have a month and a half left of the last vacation of the rest of my life, I decided it was time to get in shape. Yeah, yeah, I hit up the gym a few times a week already, but the reason I do this is solely so that I can continue my lush lifestyle without becoming a total fatass. I am definitely NOT in shape. So what I'm talking about now is serious shape. I even went out and hired myself a Nazi-style personal trainer named Sue Mi to kick my ass thrice weekly.

I mean, Sue Mi is no joke. We had our first meeting on Saturday before the Crawfish Festival. We spent an hour and a half just talking about what this experience is going to be like, and what I want to get out of it and blah blah blah....Most importantly, she told me that I have to keep a food journal and turn it in to her every time we train. Oh and I had to start today, the day of the Crawfish Festival. For those of you who don't know, a food journal is a book that you use to record everything that goes in your mouth every single day. I told her that I wasn't totally into that, but then she of course told me that this was not an option, I had to do it. Well, seeing as how she was going to be judging me three times weekly by this food journal, I decided to be really up front with her. I informed her that I had no problem eating healthily, but that we might run into a slight problem when it comes to the drinkie drinkie. So Sue Mi gave me an extremely detailed diagram of exactly how each page of the journal should look and told me that the beverage portion works by a hash mark system. For every 8 oz of beverages other than alcohol or coffee you drink, you give 1 hash mark. For alcohol and coffee, every 4 oz is a hash mark. Excuse me please, but when was the last time you drank 4 oz of beer? Let's just say that I got off to a bad start on Day 1 with a grand total of 2 hash marks by water and 18 by beer. Not surprisingly, Sue Mi was none to pleased with the food journal at our first training session today. And she was even less pleased that I had a dinner party last night and drank champagne and a few glasses of wine. So from here on out, I am on a strict 2 glass max diet. Now you understand why this blog is about to get really friggin boring.

So sadly, even with my 18 hash marks from the Crawfish Festival, nothing much to blog about. It was fun, but did not top last year what with Angela taking her top off at the neighborhood bar, being asked to leave the bar, Angela hiding her beer between her tig ole bitties, and then being trailed by a police car for the 3 blocks that it took us to walk back to my house. It's hard to beat that.

Last night I had a Bon Voyage Debi dinner party at my house which was attended by Team Anxiety (Debi, Blair, Kaki, and I) + the HLM. We prepared a Mediterranean feast and topped it off with a strawberries and cream ice cream cake from Marble Slab (pictured above) to send Debi off in style. Side note: The four of us are dubbed "Team Anxiety" because we got so anxious before every oral exam in medical school that we managed to stir our other group members into a state of sweaty frenzy and they all wanted to kill us. Anyways, Debi is the only one of us leaving C-town and moving up to the booming metropolis of Winston-Salem where she will complete her anesthesia residency at Wakeforest. After many tears were shed over how much we are going to miss Debi we decided to each tell our funniest memory of Debi from med school. I'll share my story so that you have a little sampling. One night when we were studying late up on the second floor of the library we decided it was time to take a dinner break because we were all starving. Debi said she had to go to the bathroom down on the first floor (which has a certain "meaning") and that she would meet us downstairs in a few minutes. So I waited about 10 minutes, walked downstairs, and didn't see Debi so I went into the bathroom and saw that she was still in the stall. I, in classic Jessie fashion, said "My God! What are you still doing in there??? Pinch it off already so we can go get something to eat!!" To my horror, I walked out of the bathroom and saw Debi sitting at a computer checking her email. Needless to say, we got the hell outta dodge. A great time was had by all and we are going to miss Debi very much, but not really because her new home has a bar and wet bar. Much love to Debi!!

Ciao Venezia!

Some BIZ-NASS: I have had many complaints from blog-fans that they have written comments but they don't post. I would totally think this is a bunch of b.s. and people pretending to comment, but it has actually happened to me too. So what you have to do is write your comment, then click "other'", type in your name, and hit publish. Any other order will not work. If you don't see your comment immediately then it did not post.

Doc the Cockblock

Just want to give a shout out to all the blog-fans who kept the blog alive by commenting TWICE as much as the goal of 16 comments. Whoa.

One of my friends was telling me the other day about how her dog is such a cockblock. First of all, just hearing that word made me laugh, and then threw me back to all those nights in college when your roommate or your suitemate or that pain in the ass friend ended up being a total cockblock whenever you were trying to get some play. I even dated a guy for 3 years in college whose nickname was "CB" which stood for "the cockblocker." Not a nickname anyone would strive for. Apparently, he had the uncanny ability to walk in a room at exactly the wrong minute and disrupt any would be play. Unfortunately, this particular person had many other less than ideal nicknames. Fortunately, CB does not read the blog. Anyways, my friend told me that her and her male friend were hanging out on the couch getting a little smooch on when her 70lb dog jumped up on the couch and started barking directly in the guy's face. The dog was clearly not happy with this man getting a little frisky with his mom. So they decided to move to the bedroom and shut the door. Well, this solved nothing as the dog stood outside the door and barked for the next hour or so. Nothing kills a romantical evening like a barking labrador retriever. The next day, my friend (who I'm sure you have figured out the identity of by now) had me over for dinner and told me "God, my dog is such a cockblock."

I am sure most of you know my angelic little pussycat Doc. Well maybe not so much of a little angel and more of a big fat bitch. He is an angel to me, but pretty much Satan in the flesh to everyone else. When I first got him from the shelter he was teeny tiny and looked like he was about to die at any minute. It appears that after a few weeks of spoon feeding him wet cat food, he just never stopped eating because he is enormous. I'm not talking just another fat cat. He is definitely the size of a medium sized dog and his belly drags the ground when he walks.

Anyways, Doc is also a total cockblock. He doesn't follow in the footsteps of the aforementioned dog and meow my male friends to death though. He actually tries to castrate them. His favorite room in the house by far is the bathroom. Anytime someones heads for the bathroom, he's headed that way too. For such an enormous cat, he is lightning quick when it comes to getting in the bathroom. My male friends say they don't even know he's in there until they start doing their business and then get attacked by claws coming at their manhood. I am not sure if it is the stream or the actual frank, but my cat tries to castrate all men in the bathroom. Men beware if you ever come to my house. Satan lurks in the bathroom.

All this to say, if you are a single person out there looking for some love, think twice before getting a pet. You may have inadvertently let a total cockblock into your house.

A Blog about the Blog

All right folks. I hate to be a nag, but we need to get something straight about the blog. You may think that I blog to have a record of my life or that I blog for my own mental health, or maybe even that I blog because I have nothing better to do. Well, if you think any of these things, you are wrong. I blog solely for the comments. The first blog started off with a whopping 16 comments. Next blog, half as many. This last blog about my GRADUMUCATION only scored a measley 2 comments. And one of those comments was from my brother-in-law who was sitting directly beside me when he wrote the comment. This is sad.

Let me just say, all comments are welcome. Even if you are a crazy stalker person, your comment is welcome. Even if you don't want me to know that you read the blog but you do, comment. Even if you think I am the biggest loser in the whole wide world, leave that as a comment. From the lack of comments, it appears that no one is reading my blog except my sister and brother-in-law and if that is true, just damn. I talk to them enough that I don't need to blog to them. Your comment doesn't need to be witty, even though wit is always appreciated on the blog. How bout a simple "Congrats" or "I like the blog" or "I think you're stupid." All will be very much appreciated.

Soooo.... all this to say, I have made an executive decision to not blog again til this blog matches the first blog with a whopping 16 comments. I have faith and I know we can do it together.

Love to all my blog-fans,
Jessie

I'm GRADUMUCATING!!!

Well kids, the day is finally here. The powers that be over at the medical school are letting me gradumucate. At 12:30 PM today I will officially have a license to kill. Is anyone else as affected by that statement as I am??

I have very mixed emotions about this whole situation. Sometimes I feel like the past four years has just flown by, but then when I really think about it, I feel like the first day of medical school was back when women still wore shoulder pads and scrunchies. I would worry slightly about that last statement but if you are cool enough to read this blog, then you definitely aren't wearing no scrunchies in your hair. It's also kinda strange that I thought medical school was the worst thing that ever happened to me while I was going through it. Now that it is over, I look back on it and think to myself, "Self, that wasn't so bad." Hindsight is a funny thing.

I just don't feel like a doctor. One morning while we were in Italy we were having a lovely breakfast down in the hotel lobby when the mother at the table beside me started to choke. I heard these strange noises coming from beside me and when I looked over, she was standing up doing the universal choking sign where you wrap your both your hands around your neck. Her husband started giving her the heimlich maneuver and I just sat there in horror. Was I supposed to run over and help her?? These are the things they don't teach you in medical school. When the lady beside me starts to choke, do I run over? When I see a bad car accident, do I pull over?? All I know is that I completely freaked out about whether I was going to have to help that woman or not. Thank god her husband was able to wrangle the salami out of her, because I'm not sure I would have been able to. I told my friends Blair and Kaki (also in school with me) this story on the way to the lake the other day. I had to get their opinions about what they would have done. Blair said "Dude, I totally feel you because something like that happened to me the other night." Apparently, at 2AM she woke up to her doorbell ringing like crazy and when she opened the door her neighbor was standing there freaking out because her husband had stopped breathing and needed Blair's help. Fortunately, right when Blair started freaking out she saw the ambulance pull up in the neighbor's driveway so she was off the hook. Shhheeewwww. I just feel like at this point in my career I should be a little more confident in myself. Well, at least I'm not alone. There's always Blair.

So last night was Gradumucation Day Eve and I tried really hard to do it up right. For my college graduation, my sister, Jay, Jodie, and I (and the rest of the Clemson crew) got so lit on GDE that it was all I could do to even attend my own graduation the next day. After it was all over and I met back up with my family, I noticed that my sister, Jay, and Jodie all had enormous Hardee's cups in their hands. It turns out they were so hungover that they actually left my graduation and walked down to the nearest Hardee's for some refreshments. I was so mad when I found out but not because they left my graduation, because they got to leave and go to Hardee's without me. Those lucky bitches. Anyways, I went through all the motions last night and tried to recreate my college graduation eve, but it just wasn't the same. Boo. But there's always Daniel.

In other news, the Seis de Mayo party was a huge hit. The weather was perfect and it was bocce ball and margaritas galore. It was actually the most drama packed party I have thrown since college. Here's the rundown: Friend A hooked up with Friend B in the guest bedroom. Then later, Friend A hooked up with Friend C in MY bedroom. Once it got dark outside, Friend B was spotted smooching on Friend D in a dark corner of the yard. At the end of the night, Friend B went home with Friend D and Friends A and C made out in my front yard. I had to omit their real names because I am fairly sure Friend A and Friend C read the blog. I'll try to attach a group pic so you can play a little who's who. Note: I am none of the friends.

Ciao Venezia!