friday fashion + formspring

good morning!
and, happy friday! while today isn’t a true friday in that i have to work a half-day of clinic tomorrow, it’s still a huge sigh of relief for me. why? because i spent a large portion of the month on jeopardy call, which is our name for backup, and i’m finally free!

truthfully, being ‘in jeopardy’ isn’t so bad: i can count the number of times that i’ve actually been called in to do something overnight on half of one hand.

but at the same time, it’s totally annoying to know that at any moment, plans for the day/night/weekend could be completely obliterated in favor of an overnight stay at casa del duke. NOT COOL for uberschedulers such as myself!

[aside: this is not meant as any kind of negativity toward a resident who is sick or unable to fulfill a shift — actually, the other residents in my program will bend over backwards not to call for backup. partly because they are hardworking and nice (seriously — it’s such a great group!), partly it’s just part of the culture, and finally because weekends/nights are made up by trading a future call night or shift. un-fun.]

but anyway — no more! i have just 4 days left (in june) to be backup resident, EVER. !!!!! and none of them are fridays/weekends. i have a feeling i am going to be talking about my last [fill in the blank] ever for quite some time over the next few months as residency slowly winds to its end. i sort of can’t believe it, but the end is in sight!

what’s left?

■ i’m back in the emergency department for the next 5 weeks (helloooooo, shift work)

■ then i’m on the wards in may. 7 call nights between me and . . . well, no more in-house overnight call nights.

■ finally, i finish with a lovely 5 weeks of GI elective. (time to cram all of those last minute-needed procedures in, too!)

lisa m wisely commented on a recent post: BUT do you see what you did there? Immediately after typing how good it was to have the weight of your talk lifted off your shoulders you looked toward the future stress inducing events ahead. That’s a bad habit that I’m completely guilty of myself and a hard habit to break. Enjoy the moment, k?

YES. lisa, you are right. i will try! while i think it’s fine to look ahead the way i just did, there is no reason to bring a dreadful sense of ‘overwhelmed’ into every day — in fact, the opposite should really be true. i have plenty of time to get things done, it’s spring, and once the time is past, i’ll be wondering where the (#$*& it went.

so, onward! but with a focus on today, or better yet, right now.

fashion friday
it’s been a while since my last anthro round-up! i’ve continued to sale-stalk my last batch of items and scored a deal on the ad infinitum blouse, which fits perfectly. time to put another batch of pretties into my cart and wait patiently . . .

here are two tanks that look like they’d be quite at home paired with denim (capris?) and some cute sandals:

topstitch tank, $78
window box tank, $78
a cute cover-up for those transitional temps (although in all honesty, probably this won’t go on sale until it’s too warm to really be useful!)
honey from the bees cardigan, $118
and one cute skirt! versatile skirts is an area of my wardrobe that is lacking, which is a shame. i love skirts, but have a hard time finding ones that fit right, for some reason. odd, because dresses are usually no problem!

spring tweed skirt, $148
(this would need to go on supersale to even go under consideration!)

formspring catchup
i know i said i would get to the rest of those formspring questions, and i meant it!

here’s a fun one . . .

what’s your absolute favorite restaurant in raleigh/durham/chapel hill?

that is a TOUGH question — i have so many loves! how about a top 5 list, instead?

♥ lantern
♥ watts grocery
♥ four square
♥ bonne soirée
♥ LoYo (fine, not really a restaurant, but still)

there are many others i love (recently, revolution in durham), but i feel like i have to go somewhere at least twice and really ‘know’ the food and atmosphere on a consistent basis to truly call it a favorite.

i still really want to make a restaurant page! it’s going to take some serious combing through of my archives, though. maybe over vacation . . . (in may)

what kind of do training pediatrics residents get re: hospitalized children with autism and severe/intense/non-compliant behaviors. Please tell me they don’t just drug them. Do they just drug them?

we just yell for some IM HALDOL, STAT! no, totally kidding. i’m spending the whole month this month dealing with this population on an outpatient basis, and at any time on the wards we typically have multiple inpatients that fit this category — as they are a very high-risk group for infections like pneumonia.

while i won’t lie to you and say that we never use pharmacological help like ativan at night to calm a patient who truly needs it, we try to do as much as possible without. many patients like this get a sitter in their room, especially if the parents aren’t there. some sitters are trained in calming and distraction techniques. we have excellent help from the child life team as well to work individually with patients to help them get through procedures and other stressful events.

we also try as best we can to work with the families, because they know their kids best (by far)! if mom says that Johnny does best when things are explained fully and a strict routine is followed, everyone will try to accomodate this as much as possible. parents may also have experience with which medications help (“he really does well with a dose of clonidine for sleep at night”) and we listen and follow their recommendations whenever possible.

* * * * * * * * * *

about to hit my last run before sunday’s half marathon! and, i have dinner with a certain awesome local blogger planned. oh, it’s a lovely day indeed . . .

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3.18.10

workout: a quick 4 miler before work. i kind of ignored my workout schedule this week — whatever, i’m tapering. anywhere from 8:41 – 9:13/mi on the TM, 0.5% incline.

restaurant review: this review — much like the restaurant itself — won’t be anything fancy. but that doesn’t mean the food wasn’t delicious! my sister and i met up at tower, a vegetarian indian restaurant located about halfway between our places of residence (i’m in chapel hill, she’s in raleigh — and for the locals, it’s in morrisville right off of the airport road exit off of 40).

for $26 (plus tip), we got enough south indian vegetarian cuisine to feed an army! or, to feed both of us for dinner and for a second meal (we packed up lovely compartmentalized to-go trays for each of us).

sambar idli, fluffy rice cakes in a savory tomato-based sauce, were a fun start to the meal
gunpowder masala dosa: this ENORMOUS flatbread was filled with a potato based filling the was topped with a spice mix that i declared tasted like ‘indian doritos.’ it was fun to tear off handfuls and eat!

closeup of our mutter paneer: mmm, peas and paneer? creamy, rich, and satisfying

fancy? no. convenient? yes. tasty? DEFINITELY. while the decadent dishes weren’t something i’d necessarily want all the time, it hit the spot last night and i would go back in a heartbeat!