Category: Books

February- First Half

I am lucky that I am here to write about this month. Did you think I died? Well, this little bird almost gave me a heart attack. I woke up one morning and walked into the living room. Channeling my best “Miss Clavel turned on her light and said, ‘something is not right,'” I realized that my little Madeleine-bird was not in her cage. OMG. Where was her little corpse? I crept around trying to find her. Then there was a little shift of yellow in my peripheral vision, I gave a shriek, and we had a tearful reunion. Jk, she hates me. But I did get her back into her cage.

I have some books on my TBR list, thanks to a seemingly belated “Best books of 2022” list that I found. I was about to say I didn’t know where I found it, but looks like the screenshots say it’s elle.com. Such a sleuth.

SMS and I attended our apartment complex’s Super Bowl event, which was a lot of fun. The game was really good! It’s nice when it’s a game where both offenses shine because it’s pretty easy to follow. But, as they say, defense wins championships…

Thursday drinks in the grocery store continues with my favorite work friend. It’s not the fanciest place, but we call it home. Ha, ha, we definitely do not but it is fun. As well as weird. Also, they’re a little off on the pours. Since there was “only a little left” in the red, the guy poured it all out and said, “Ooops, that was a lot.”

We had a feast with long-time friends where we pigged out on chicken biryani and crab. Oh my gosh, it was so good. It was great to see them and tour their under-renovation house. I had fun with holding their baby daughter (~6 months) who has such a luxurious head of hair!

There is a robot “security guard” in the basement. It plays this weird, spacey sound as it rolls pretty slowly through the garage. Although it seems slightly silly, I bet it can speed to the scene of the crime and/or deploy multi-directional tasers. TBD.

Finally, I found some good visual jokes this month. I would put them in a gallery because they’re not that hilarious that they deserve their individual photos, but the Venn diagram is not behaving.

2020 in Books: A Review

In 2020, I read 67 books. 21 were non-fiction, 46 were fiction. Oooo, already I am pretty happy with myself since I did not think I had read that much non-fiction.

As I look at my non-fiction books more, I’m even happier since I read fewer memoirs than I thought. My favorite book was The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by Barry. It shot to the top of my to-read list in April, when I thought I should get better perspective on a historical pandemic. It’s really well-written, engaging, and informative. Learning about the disease spread and its likely start in Ft. Riley, Kansas were new information for me. It was also interesting that the incubation time was 48-72 hours, which meant that once it arrived at a place, it hit like a lightening strike. 5 stars, for sure!

Other recommendations from the year include She Said by Kantor and Twoley, Cork Dork by Bosker, Poor Economics by Banerjee and Duflo, and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Wilkerson. And if you want a totally satisfying memoir in the beach readiest of ways, try Open Book by Jessica Simpson.

For 2021, I would like to read a more “educational” non-fiction book every month that broadens my knowledge base and academic frame of reference. I’m going to focus on the Navy Surgeon General’s list and Bill Gates’ book blog, but I’m open to other suggestions!

Fiction reading is my joy and if I scroll a little less on my phone, I anticipate even more reading in 2021. I gave myself a little grace to be mindless during parts of 2020 but it’s time to shape up!

On my year in review post, I listed all of my five star reads: Olive, Again by Strout; The Dearly Beloved by Wall; City of Girls by Gilbert; Celine by Heller; Writers & Lovers by King; Milkman by Burns; Deacon King Kong by McBride; Girl, Woman, Other by Evarist.

For Olive Again, I would definitely recommend reading Olive Kitteredge first. I really liked this character- a prickly, off-putting, stoic Maine woman. It reminded me of a more modern Ethan Frome where, due to upbringing and temperament, the character suffers because of how much is left unsaid. In Olive’s case, there is also the addition of what is said is often said in a less-than-constructive way. [By the way, I should have started off saying that I am the worst at describing books in a manner that would make people want to read them. But then this paragraph would have made such a warning redundant.]

The Dearly Beloved was a really thoughtful book on two married couples over several decades. The two husbands are co-ministers at a church, while the wives are as different as me and my college roommate (very). I loved the character of Lily Barrett, but all four members of the quartet are well-developed and complex.

City of Girls was a surprise to me since I find Elizabeth Gilbert slightly insufferable in her non-fiction (Eat, Pray, Love anyone?). This novel was well-told, frothy, and fun. I recommend!

Celine might be my favorite book of the year. This sporadically employed private investigator is a feisty, formidable woman in her 70s with COPD but she can still take on bikers in a bar! I so wish that there was a series based on this character but alas, this book is a one and only (so far!). I do like other Peter Heller books but this is tops for me!

Writers & Lovers opened my eyes to how good a writer Lily King is. The main character Casey is 31 and basically, just trying to figure it out. The writing is excellent and I really like it. There are few unlikeable characters, but none fully demonized which is pretty true to life, right?

Milkman is a similarly themed book of a young woman trying to figure it out but set in the time of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Since I had read Say Nothing by Keefe earlier in the year, I had a pretty rich historical context while reading this novel. It may be a little too dreamy and “literature-y” for some, but still, it was a five star for me!

Deacon King Kong features several characters in inner city 1960s Brooklyn. While there are some heavy themes and circumstances, the book is also hilarious. The title’s character ability to get himself into trouble but then somehow comically escape his fated comuppance/score-settling is laugh-out-loud funny.

Girl, Woman, Other starts as several loosely tied stories featuring a different protagonist before tightening up over the course of the book and becoming a pretty cohesive whole. I almost lost the thread a few times but ultimately, thought the book was fantastic.

So, the above fiction books are listed in order read through the year. If I had to rank them (tough for me!), I would say…

  1. Céline by Peter Heller
  2. The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall
  3. Writers & Lovers by Lily King
  4. Deacon King Kong by James McBride

But ask me again tomorrow, I may have a different order!

Best Books of 2015: My picks

2015 was a pretty good year for books.  My total number came in at 33, which isn’t terrible but I thought I had read more.  I guess that’s the surgeon in me- always inflating my numbers!  I’ve included the full list below, which is roughly in sequential order of my reading.  I searched my Kindle list since I download most of my books from the e-library.  I prefer actual books but the portability, ubiquity and weight of my iPhone/Kindle app make the e-versions my everyday go-to.

Picking favorites is always hard for me. I’m much more of a fiction-reader, but I tried to expand my horizons a bit this year.  For 2016, there is a lot heavier emphasis on non-fiction thanks to a few recommendation lists I came across during some of my end-of-the-year research/reflection (post coming soon!).

This year, I have four fiction recommendations:

1. The Narrow Road to the Deep North Richard Flanagan
     This excellent book follows a former Australian POW captured by the Japanese and sent work on the Great Burma Railroad.  It switches among several different times as it looks backwards on Dr. Dorrigo Evans life.  The unexpected inter-relationships among the characters and the plot structure to a horrible climactic event in the work camp are masterfully executed, even if parts of the story itself are horror-inducing.
2. The Bone Clocks David Mitchell
  I love David Mitchell.  I have read almost all of his books and even though I’m not a super-fan enough to recognize all the cameos different characters play in his novels, his attention to detail and clear vision of his body of work as a magnum opus is very impressive.  I really liked the story even though it was a little more fantasy genre-like than I usually read.  
3. The Invisible Bridge Julie Orringer
  There was a lot of WWII reading this year.  I also tried reading The Nightingale after The Invisible Bridge but I thought the books were too similar, head injury to the main character and all.  The Invisible Bridge follows three Hungarian Jewish brothers in the years leading up to and including WWII.  It was a stark reminder, in fictional form, that history is made up of the seemingly mundane everyday events that can only be seen as a cohesive, comprehensible narrative in retrospect.   
4. Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel
  This was a much-buzzed about book early in the year and an enjoyable, well-written read.  Nothing too profound but at the same time, not trashy chick-lit literature either.

I have three non-fiction recommendations:

1. In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette Hampton Sides
  This book was amazing.  It’s a great story and the story-telling is superb.  What kept crossing my mind as I read it was, “How is this book even possible?” meaning, how did the first-person documentation in the form of crew logs survive when almost certainly, not everyone would live after this misadventure?  To find out how, read the book!  I won’t spoil it for you and this is a definite must-read!
2. On Immunity Eula Biss
  Some interesting insights into the thought processes of choosing to vaccinate children.  To me, it’s a no-brainer but there are interesting examinations of the domestication and false benign-ness of all things “natural” vs. the complexity of the modern world and science.  In addition, there is an interesting reflection on how the world of complementary medicine has very reassuring, straight-forward language (cleanse, natural, detoxify) while the language of modern medicine is more nuanced and less reassuring (complications, side effects).
3. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness Susannah Cahalan
  Thank you sister for my Christmas gift.  This is an easy read and very interesting from both a medical mystery perspective (paging Dr. House) and the fact that our brains are so complex and, at times, terrifyingly fragile to seemingly little insults.

The books can be roughly grouped.  First, to counter-act the high-mindedness of the recs above, I definitely read some beach worthy, chick lit reads.  This is the year I discovered Liane Moriarty and I’m not ashamed!  The best is Big Little Lies.  There are some heavy themes addressed but overall, it’s a really nice read that passes along quickly.  I also read Kevin Kwan’s two books, which were a fascinating, fictional insider’s view to the world of Eastern Asia’s super-super-rich.  Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series was a fun fiction-within-fiction read and also worth reading, especially if you have a background in reading a lot of classics (hello high school reading lists!).

I also read a few comedians’ books, which I really liked despite not having any in my top recommendations.  BJ Novak’s short stories were great and very heavy on the irony.  Is it irony if it’s completely in your face?  I thought there should be an element of subtlety but sometimes, it hits across the face like a baseball bat.

I also read a few memoirs this year, which were all very well done.  I liked Dr. Marsh’s reflections on medical complications but I wish there was more reflection on how to transition from committing the complication to living with it.  In fairness, he did liken it to an open wound healing to a permanent scar but how does one actually live through and process that transition?  It’s something I’m grappling with in my own medical career and any guidance is always appreciated.

Ok, I’m going to wind down with the complete list because this post is getting ridiculously long.  In short, there are no real turkeys on the list below.  [ETA:  The previous statement is a lie!  I would not recommend Pretty Girls!]  I hope 2016 brings you some fun, worthwhile reading in the days ahead!

The complete list
Yes Please Amy Poehler
All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr
The Bone Clocks David Mitchell
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austin
Big Little Lies Liane Moriarty
The Husband’s Secret Liane Moriarty
Three Wishes Leane Moriarty
Redeployment Phil Klay
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories BJ Novak
In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeanette Hampton Sides
Crazy Rich Asians Kevin Kwan
The Narrow Road to the Deep North Richard Flanagan
The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Book 1) Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel
The Martian Andy Weir
The Invisible Bridge Julie Orringer
China Rich Girlfriend Kevin Kwan
The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel Jasper Fforde
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels Jasper Fforde
The Heart and the Fist: The education of a humanitarian Eric Greitens
Something Rotten Jasper Fforde
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot
Food: A Love Story Jim Gaffigan
The Knockoff Lucy Sykes
The Glass Castle: A Memoir Jeannette Walls
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania Eric Larson
Pretty Girls Karin Slaughter
Shotgun Lovesongs Nickolas Butler

Do No Harm Henry Marsh
Art of Fielding Chad Harbach
On Immunity Eula Biss
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness Susannah Cahalan
The Rosie Effect Graeme Simsion

What I’ve been reading…

Compared to my pleasure reading amount over the past few years, I have been binge reading lately and loving it.  Of course, if my Dad reads this post, he’ll say, “But where are the classics?!?!?”  Right here, Dad, right here.  Well, maybe not but I’ve enjoyed (mostly) all of them and here’s my little synopsis.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn: Ok, let’s get this one out of the way first.  I read this book based on the Powell’s Bookstore list of 25 Books to Read Before You Die and based on this one, I’m going to say nope, nope, nope.  The book is set in the present, but mainly focuses on the Binewski family carnival in the form of flashback.  The story is told by Oly, one of the daughters.   She is the most ordinary of the five children and she is a albino hunch-backed dwarf.  Her parents, you see, conceived all of their children with the purposeful intent of creating little freaks, which mainly meant that the Mom took lots and lots of drugs.  The story has several strands but unifies around the main story of Oly’s relationship with her brother Arty, a megalomaniacal, narcissistic boy with flippers for arms and legs.  He is truly one of the most loathsome characters I’ve ever read in fiction and was just a huge “ick” factor through the whole book.  It kept getting worse too…he’s truly a character to revile.  I didn’t like this book but it was like a train wreck I couldn’t look away from so I finished it.  Also, the part of the story set in the present…meh.  It,too, was purposefully weird, but it wasn’t too hard to see intention of drawing parallels between Mary Lick and Arty but it still didn’t make me care about either of those two characters.
Recommendation: Be careful of Powell Bookstore recommendations.

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: This young adult book about two kids who don’t fit in at school in his/her own special way find each other and fall in love.  The book is fine and a sweet testament to the validity of first loves and high school loves, which may be trivialized as we reach our “wiser” adulthoods.  The most standout portion of the book to me was where she cuts off contact to Park for a certain period of time and reminded me of the main character in Americannah not writing to her love after an incident America.  In both cases, I wanted to tell the characters, “No, it’s ok!  Don’t wall yourself off!”  But it’s a book and books do what’s been foretold.
Recommendation: Good, but it’s definitely a Young Adults book which I didn’t realize when I read it.

The Circle by Dave Eggers: An insecure woman goes to work for a Facebook/Google megalith company and manages to find insane success within her workplace but only at the expense of everything’s that’s real- family, friends, privacy.  The book is a dystopian novel focusing on the incredible, insidious pervasiveness of social media in our lives.  The worst part of it is that we willingly acquiesce to our loss of privacy and real connections, except for some true stand-up individuals.  Who die.  This book kept me off Facebook for a few days but then like a little addicted lemming, I’m using it again but conscientiously!
Recommendation: It’s not anything you couldn’t read in editorial form in a newspaper nostalgically bemoaning the way it was.

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman:  This book was good but the TV show is so great that it was hard to compare.  I thought her discussion of the current imprisonment statistics and minimum sentencing requirements was interesting but I would get more out of it in a more academic book rather than a memoir trying to add gravitas and relevance.
Recommendation: Watch the series!

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami: I loved this book.  I loved what he said about exercise, running, habits and life.  The organization is the beautiful series of narratives that are like an interlocking chain, lazily progressing to the narrative finish line, which is the writer’s run in the NYC marathon and his final recollections after that race.
Recommendation: High

Wildwood by Colin Merlot: Written by the lead singer of The Decembrists, this book focuses on Prue, a young girl who lives in St John’s, Portland and must venture into the fantastical Wildwood to save her brother, who’s been carried off by the crows at the behest of the Dowager Countess.  This book is a pleasant read but not enough that I feel the need to read the sequel.
Recommendation: Sure, why not?

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt: If I haven’t put myself in permanent timeout with my book club because of recommending Geek Love, I’m going to recommend this book.  The book is told through June Elbus, a 14 year old girl who is grappling with the recent death of her beloved uncle from AIDS in the late 1980s, when fear and misunderstanding about the disease was still rampant.  While there are other books who have dealt with teen’s grief better (that was the biggest strength of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt), I was most captivated by the relationship between June and her older sister.  They had once been the best of friends but through misunderstandings, jealousy and the insecurities of being a teenager, they drifted apart into a dysfunctional dynamic that they seem powerless to stop, despite both of the wishing it were different.  Brunt does an excellent job of tapping into the complexities of being a young adult and while I identified with June in my own recollections of high school, her sister Greta was also a sympathetic character.  It’s one of those relationships where I wished everyone could just get together, have a sit-down and get it all out.  But life doesn’t work that way and relationships have to evolve and progress in fits and starts.
Recommendation: High, but it’s not the most intellectual book in the world

Whew and that’s it!  So, as you can see, I haven’t been overwhelmed by my recent reads but I also have to stop getting young adult recommendations from blogs!  Blog rec lists tend to focus on lighter reads, especially in the Summer when people are looking for beach reads.  Maybe I should listen to Dad and read! all! the! classics!

[BTW, I will definitely write a separate entry for Americanah by Chimamanda Nogozi Adichie.  That book was incredible!!!  I also enjoyed the non-fiction Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo.]

For the First Time in Forever…

Ha, ha.  I am now on the unfortunate bandwagon of having Frozen songs stuck in my head.  But do you know what this means?  1. The 6-year old cool girl clique might accept me (wrong!  They’ve moved on to Sherman and Mr. Peabody!) and 2. I have time to watch movies again!  Hooray!  Boards are over!

So, yes, I watched Frozen on the way back to Japan.  I also saw Philomena and started Silver Linings Playbook but since I didn’t like the book all that much, I didn’t want to spend another two hours of my life on the same story.  Philomena was excellent, though.  I’m also halfway through The Secret History by Donna Tartt.  It’s good, but I feel that I’m not the biggest Donna Tartt fan in the world.  Since I read in reviews that some people felt “meh” about The Goldfinch but loved her first book, I wanted to give it a try.  I’m definitely going to finish it but I’m not the biggest fan of novels that focus on the intellectual and emotional angst of New England liberal arts college students.  I already lived it, ha ha.  Another novel that falls into this category is The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides.  That, too, is a good book but not one I’d tell you to run out and get.  Actually, I’d recommend The Secret History more.

But backing up, I left on Saturday, 29 April.  I am fairly certain I missed the Sakura peak so on my way out, I took a little lame photo of a tree that was already in full-bloom.  This will not win any awards, but I didn’t want to get closer and miss my bus to Narita!

A picture doesn’t do it justice, ha ha.

I studied a lot on my flight and barely slept, like maybe 45 minutes.  This was a mistake.  I had the worst jet lag on this trip.  I haven’t had jet lag this badly since I was a kid when we moved to Spain.  Now, I think stress insomnia had a role but it was pretty horrific.  Even the night before the test, I went to bed around 10, woke up at 3, went back to bed at 5 and slept until 10.  So, fortunately, I got enough sleep quantity-wise the night before (and the night before that) my test, but until that point, I was running on 3-5 hours of sleep a night.  My brain did not function very well.

Or…maybe I was excited because I got to see SMS for 3 days in LA! Yes!  On a government ticket, a person can take up to 7 days of “extended layover!”  It’s charged as leave but I was so happy I got to see my husband!  We hung out in Newport Beach and had a great time.  He was super awesome in letting me sleep and study, although a lot of my studying was b/t midnight – 5 a.m. and sleeping was from 5-11 a.m.  (See above paragraph).

We also celebrated…my birthday!!!  I love my birthday!  I thought it was going to be a little bit of a wash this year, but SMS and I celebrated with a great dinner out at Fig & Olive in Newport Beach.  The dinner was amazingly delicious- we had oysters, steak tartare, branzino fish (“Glazed with fig & 18 year old balsamic vinegar, snow pea, fig, olive oil mashed potato-”  YUM!!!) and the Fig & Olive salad.  I swear this wasn’t as much food as it sounded but it was all so delicious and wonderful.  The restaurant felt very O.C. (lots of plastic surgery) and the people watching was pretty awesome.  After dinner, we headed to Marty and Pamela’s where they had bought me a birthday cake and we had a little party.  Yes!  I even had a cake with candles to blow out this year- awesome!

Also, for the record, I really do like celebrating my birthday on my birthday but this year, 31 March was an acceptable stand-in! 😉  Oooo, and you know what I just realized during this little recap?  I’ve been wanting to go to Fig & Olive for years!  But I only knew of the Melrose Place location.  Yay for accidental fulfillment of life (mini-)goals!

On 1 April, we had a nice morning and early afternoon together before heading out to LAX.  Then it was off to the lovely greater O’Hare airport area for my Osler Review Course and my *dun, dun, dun* BOARDS!

Holy Smokes!

So, one of my staff said that I would talk as if I were from the 1950s.  Now, this confused me because I think I curse like a modern-day sailor but what I suspect is that my Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books from my childhood influenced the words I say when I want to swear but feel like I can’t/shouldn’t.

So…

Holy Smokes, I found such a delicious recipe!  It’s chocolate chili and it is so amazing.  I thought I wasn’t hungry tonight and I ate a bowl and a half while it was simmering.  Well, it was simmering until it was almost burning but then I added water and saved the day!  Oh my gosh, it is so savory and delicious.  I will definitely eat every last bite before I’m off to the US.  I don’t have a picture because even the professional-ish picture from the cooking blog makes it look like dog food.  But it’s delicious dog food!

Pretty much same old, same old.  I’m day-dreaming of the awesome reading binge I’m going to go on after the boards.  I’ll finally go to the Hospital Ladies book club.  I’ll play park golf with my friends and restart the Lonely Hearts supper club. [<–Two of my friends are also in the coupled-off-but-significant-other-not here demographic so we were having dinner together once a week.  Well, it happened twice.  But it was a good idea and we're going to revive it, yeah!]

I also have some pretty challenging/rewarding cases in April and the month is going to end with a week of leave so I can travel with my AWESOME PARENTS!!!!  I am so excited and the envy of all my friends.  My parents are the coolest and you can’t have them because they’re mine!  (And Ed’s, Brady’s and Joe’s- I can share a little bit:)

Oh, and books I want to read follow.  Share if you have any thoughts! [I can hear my Dad, “Where are the Classics?!?!?”]

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer

January, You Are Over

Oh my gosh, time does go by faster as an adult than as a kid.  While this thought is neither profound nor original, it is still pretty amazing to actually experience.  Fortunately, there’s an element of “the days are long but the years are short” so I do feel that I’ve gotten a lot done and experienced new things.

A few January highlights…
* SMS and I spent 3/4 of the month together.  While we both can’t wait to be together for reals, we had so much fun together.  We went to Singapore, explored Japan, took Japanese lessons, played a new “sport” (Park Golf), ate good food and just had the best time together.  Hooray!

* I read The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  The writing was incredibly lush and the way she put the emotion of grief into words was amazingly gifted.  I even learned a few words…my favorite?  Elide.  But that’s only because I can’t remember any others off the top of my head.  I also really, really want to see the painting now.  But in terms of an overall reading experience, I was moved but mostly in an unpleasant way.  The story is really sad and there’s just so much wasted human life because of an endless loop of misperceptions, undealt-with emotions and fear.  There are a lot of really vivid descriptions of what it’s like to be on drugs, which makes total sense once I realized that the author went to Bennington College.  (Cheap shot alert!)  So, overall, I would recommend it but only if you have a strong resolve to not be affected and filled with malaise while reading.  Hmmm, maybe reading on a bright Summer day would be helpful?  Her writing is so amazing though that I think I’ll read The Secret History at some point.

* Currently, I’m reading This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, one of my favorite authors.  It’s good b/c it’s a collection of essays so I don’t get horribly sucked in and neglect sleep, studies and work.

* Hmmmm, no new bands really.  I would like to listen to more Band of Horses and I started listening to some new playlists on Songza to try and be cool.  I looked over the Coachella 2014 line-up and I am pretty out of it.

* I started watching Breaking Bad with SMS but then we went on hiatus b/c it was depressing.  Between that and The Goldfinch I wasn’t doing too well for a couple of days, ha ha.  He’s currently on a watching spree though.

* I got serious about studying for boards.  That’s good because that sort of needed to happen.

*In other work-related news, I signed up for the San Francisco match, which is the application processing center used for neurotology applications.  There is, in fact, no neurotology program in San Francisco.  It’s just the name of the match (which is used for lots of other residency and fellowship programs too).

* Future vacation with SMS?  Start budgeting for said vacation now since I also want to include the Shanghai, Terracota Warriors and Great Wall of China excursion.  Oh my tastes…so expensive.

Movember!

Ha, ha.  I cannot grow a mustache.  Thank god.  But even if I could (and again, thank goodness no), I would not participate in the ridiculousness of Movember (Mustache+November).  For many, many, many people, mustaches are not a good look.  Definitely all ladies and lots of men.  Especially men in the Navy that have to follow uniform grooming standards so they have these truncated little mustaches. Blech.

But what, do you ask, has happened in November for me?  Thank you for asking!  Part of my honeymoon extended into November (yay!) and now I’m back, hard at work.  Work, speaking of, has been pretty great.  I had 5 cases on Thursday, was done at 1430 and had really good outcomes for all the patients.  It was a highly satisfying day.  I wish there were more of them but, eh, I’ll take what I can get!

This week is, of course, THANKSGIVING!  I love the food and I am going to THREE Thanksgiving dinners- yeah!  Go me!  On Thursday, I will go to Rose and Doug’s for linner than Adam and Jen for dupper (supper + dinner).  At Adam and Jen’s, I will eat Kosher turkey so maybe being more pure leads to fewer calories?  Here’s hoping!

On Friday, I have my nerd alert Thanksgiving potluck that Jenn is throwing and all of our favorite surgeons and sig o’s (except SMS *sad face*) will be there.  The texts were flying last week and I suspect that dinner may actually be the best!

I have also organized the apartment a little more.  All of my textbooks are now at work and I disposed of a bag and a half of sentimental memories (read: crap).  It was borderline cathartic to get rid of stuff and the guest room is much cleaner, although still a total bomb.  I’m on track to be done before SMS arrives, which will be nice.  I really want to welcome him to a nice home, not a flat with a decidedly transient air.

Finally, I have read TWO books this weekend!  I’m going on a little fiction binge before reading ENT again in preparation for the oral boards.  I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman and The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling.

The Magicians was described to me as a “Harry Potter in College,” which is sort of true.  The Harry Potter-ish parts were cool as I’m a sucker for imaginative stories about magic.  The College part was not- it reminded me a lot of The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides, which features three insufferable, inwardly myopic early 20-somethings that feel parroting post-Modernist philosophers to be the height of intellectual sophistication.  BTW, this may have been me circa 2000 but med school beat so much of my liberal arts sophistication out of me.  MEMORIZE THE KREBS CYCLE!  NOW!  BETTER YET, YESTERDAY!!!

The Casual Vacancy was quite good.  JK Rowling is a very talented story-teller.  The main plot line sort of flashed to a brilliant, although sad, conclusion at the very end.  It was a bit of a bait-and-switch since there was a seemingly more obvious storyline, but a key event at the end had one storyline jump out, apart from the rest.  But the weird thing is, there is still so much that needs to play out although the book has ended.  It wasn’t a cliff-hanger, but so many lives and family dynamics were described that would still continue to play out even after the conclusion of the one plot line.  It’s amazing how the families were brought to life.  While I don’t need to know exactly what happens, it’s fun that characters were so well-developed that I can think about what would happen after the small glimpse that the book allows.  So, while this book is not in the Parthenon of my favorite books, it’s well done and I would recommend it.

What your doctor is thinking…

One of the funniest things about medicine is the dark humour and inner monologues that can occur within a doctor’s head. Ok, maybe that’s too generalized to let me personalize- I definitely have had moments where there are two conversations, the one I’m having and the one I wish I was having. Fortunately, I have friends and colleagues that do this too which results in some hilarious conversations usually along the lines of-

Me: So I told her, “Blaugh de blah”
Doctor friend: [gaspy laugh]: You did NOT!
Me: Of course not, I told her “Bleeky boo” but I wanted to tell her “blaugh de blah.”

I think part of the problem for me is that I was raised in a family that valued a little flexibility with recounting events in order to never get in the way of a good story. Of course, I clarify to make sure everything is ultimately accurate but the initial shock value in really telling someone what you were really thinking can be oh-so-satisfying to the story-teller. Ok, ok…me.

Yesterday, I had a really weird experience of telling a patient she had to go home. As in, “You are and will go home.” I’ve never had to be that direct with someone before but I’ve also never dealt with someone who was trying to (really, really obviously) game the system. Granted, she initially did require inpatient care but when she improved and was ready for discharge, a plethora of symptoms came up that she stated she would not leave until they were “worked up.” Which to her, meant very expensive, needless radiology imaging. So, instead (and more appropriately), I had internal medicine examine her and then discharged her when all was verified to be well.

This weekend was definitely my comeuppance for my “Tra-la-la, I’m such a white cloud attitude!” After 4 spookily quiet weekends, my pager exploded this weekend. Whah. It is funny though because when I said how much call sucked in front of one of my attendings I thought to myself, “Tierney! You should be telling him that you think the only bad thing about having call two weekends a month is that you miss the good cases from the other two weekends.” Then I thought, “Bullshit, call DOES suck. That’s why they make residents take it. And there’s hardly ever any good cases, only painful consults.”

But, to not be too woe-is-me, I did have a break Saturday morning and part of Sunday morning. And I didn’t get paged between 2-6 each night so I guess that was nice (no, it sucked! It was only 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep! <–future Mom me is looking at that sentence and laughing).

What did I do with that time? I read Bossypants by Tina Fey which was pretty good and I went to brunch with my friends at Starlite which was also good although I made a poor menu choice. What about “eggless frittata made with veggies and smooth garbanzo flour” sounds bad? How about that it’s borderline tasteless? Oh well, at least I was healthy!

Amazing Read!

I just finished “Stones Into Schools.” It was amazing. I read it in 24 hours and was so inspired. The fact that one man can start a movement that ends up larger than himself and empower so many people who have the most at stake in their own home country is amazing.

I resisted reading “Three Cups of Tea” for the longest time. Oprah + book clubs + a really bad experience with “Eat, Pray, Love” (hate that book) left me wary of memoir/movement/be a better person type of writing. I ended up really liking it and being inspired, although I often wondered how his wife did it. Not in a disparaging way because I completely understand what it’s like to date someone who’s so often so far away. But rather, due to residency and the Navy, I have no concept of what it’s like to have a job where you can be a single parent and make it work, which she seems to have done admirably well. [Aside: there are definitely single parents who make it work in medicine and in the military and I am in complete awe.]

This book, though, was unbelievable. Life can be such a coin toss and so poised on the brink of incredible joy and unmitigated disaster. But the perseverance, perspective and strength of the Afghan and Pakistani people took my breath away. I devoured the book. In this recommendation, I don’t want to give a synopsis or parse the message. Read the book.