marching towards spring

March 6, 2010

rare specimen: a real, live WEEKEND!
YAY! my first since january 23-24. while 6 weekendless weeks actually isn’t a very impressive stretch for a resident (and i DID have days off during that time — just never 2 blissful ones in a row), it was plenty long enough for me. so what am i going to DO with all of this lovely time?


ahh yes, my senior talk. thank you, residency, for making sure that i have something hanging over my head AT. ALL. TIMES. although some of this is my own fault: i was off to an excellent start with my 16-step program, but [oops] i got behind. this weekend, however, is crunch time! i made an appointment to go over a draft version with my advisor on monday, so i have a lot to get through over the next 2 days.

however, this doesn’t mean that i won’t enjoy my 2-day block o’ freedom. other things planned include:

☑ a massage. today! (i promised this to myself after night float!)
☑ a long, leisurely run on sunday
☑ watching our most recent netflix: moon
☑ just getting to hang out with + spend time with josh (although he is working in the mornings)
☑ an oscar party sunday night!

really, not too much craziness, just enjoying the flow of having two consecutive days to follow my own agenda, and hopefully making lots of progress on my talk, because currently it’s the number one thing on the list of things stressing me out.

(not very mindful, i realize, but . . . true.)
((or maybe it is mindful to just acknowledge and notice this stress and move on.))

keeping up with comments and questions
last night i received a formspring comment from someone disappointed that i didn’t answer her question OR respond to a comment that she left. i’ll admit it: it made me a little sad! i wanted to answer her previous question right then and there, but since the formspring is anonymous, i couldn’t tell which one was hers.

i’ve often wondered about how to handle comments and questions. i’d LOVE to respond to everyone, but most of the comments pile up when i’m working, and i don’t see them until hours later. i feel like even if i DID respond to all of them, it would be rare that people actually saw what i wrote!

some bloggers use a plug-in that allows them to respond to comments via email (and the responses end up in the commenter’s inbox). i would love to do this, but i don’t think it is an option in blogger the way it is in wordpress. [and yes — SOMEDAY i’d love to make a switch to a format/template that allows for different pages and more flexibility, but now is not that time. and blogher is not an option for wordpress blogs.]

anyway. i try to always answer comments if they contain a question, but i am not always 100% (or even close to it). i pretty much always answer emails. and looking back, i realize that there are still many unanswered formspring questions!

some of them have been left unanswered because i’m just not comfortable answering them. others i do want to answer, but with a response requiring a good amount of thought, so i’ve been putting them off! i’ll work on getting through that group, though. if there is something you REALLY want to know — email me instead! i promise i will answer you, and i feel better about sharing certain things with individuals than, you know, the vast black box that is the internet.

if you blog, how do you handle comments/questions? and anyone know if there is a way to set up a better comments system while still using blogger?

slog on or jump ship?
the book i am currently reading is called mindsight: the new science of personal transformation. i read about it in elle, and thought that a tome dedicated to the science behind mindfulness would appeal to me.

so far, it hasn’t. at all. it is filled with jargon, and i find it difficult for me to follow — and i’ve been through med school and had an undergraduate minor in neuroscience! while i found some of the proposed neural mechanisms for why we think in certain patterns interesting at first, i didn’t see them as eye-opening or really even useful in any way. after reading some of the reviews on amazon, i wonder if i’m missing something — maybe i ought to go back and read more carefully, or start with the case-study portion and then go back to the more detailed explanatory section.

i’m less than a third of the way through. part of me wants to just quit, since i feel like i get more enjoyment AND enlightenment from murakami! but there is something unsettling about leaving a book partway through. hmmm.

happy birthday
to vickie! the big 25 right? right . . .

PS: i haven’t mailed your present yet! forgive me.

——————————————————————————–

3.5.10

workout: 6 miles outside, average 8:41/mi. 6 miles is definitely my favorite distance lately. it takes less than an hour, but feels satisfyingly long. maybe i need to train for a 10K!

improvised: i think this meal was inspired by some wisconsin bleu cheese (sent by way of philadelphia!). i envisioned a waldorf-type salad, with chicken, apples, walnuts, and bleu, all on a bed of romaine.

unfortunately, the bag of romaine wasn’t looking so hot come friday night, so i mixed together the other ingredients, improvised a dressing (yogurt, mayo, mustard, honey, white wine vinegar, S + P — it worked!), and assembled wraps for an easy dinner.

i’m already looking forward to leftovers for lunch!

3 Comments

  • Reply Anonymous March 10, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    do you get email notifications when people comment? i do and, while i can reply and have it post to my blog that way, i also copy and paste the person&#39s email address into the "to" line. maybe you can hit reply and then do something similar by sending it to the commenter? assuming that their email address gets sent to you too.

    enjoy the weekend!! yay for having 2 days off in a row 🙂

  • Reply Sarah Hart-Unger March 10, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    mm: no, the emails don&#39t get sent to me. is there a way to make that happen!?

    (i see you have wordpress rather than blogger — i think that makes the difference. hmm!)

    pen: well, i did have SOME time off — it wasn&#39t horrible 🙂 plus, i CHOSE to moonlight last weekend (i could have had the whole weekend off if i didn&#39t!). so don&#39t feel sorry for me!

  • Reply atilla March 10, 2019 at 7:26 pm

    jump ship, time is precious

  • Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.