Day Off

It’s raining here. Which is better than snowing—only because I still haven’t winterized my swamp cooler. I keep planning on doing it, but just haven’t gotten around to figuring out when the neighbor is going to be home and I’m going to be awake so I can borrow his ladder and his porch. It’s the only way to get on our roofs. Anyway. I was going to be all motivated and get the oil changed in my car. But it’s raining. And I wanted to write on my blog. Which I initially planned to write in the lobby of the car place while they were changing the oil. That’s the handy thing about laptops; you can take them to the oil-changing place so you have things to do while their changing the oil. But it’s been raining all day and it’s my day off. So I find myself in a low oil changing state of motivation. And I’m ok with it. Maybe next week I’ll get the oil changed. And FOR SURE next week I’ll winterize the swamp cooler.
It’s recruiting time again for the residency program. Over the next few months all the fourth year medical students will be flying all over the country to interview at different programs. The exciting thing for me is that the program pays for dinner three nights a week at a pretty nice restaurant for the current residents (that’s me) and the interviewee’s (all those flying around med students). They want us to get to know them ‘in a relaxed and sociable atmosphere’. We’re supposed to try and impress them and tell them how great our program is. And we also get a chance to check them out and give a little input about whether or not we want them in the program.
I went to several of the dinners last year. It was pretty fun and pretty good food. There was one girl who I ended up sitting by sometime in January who left a lasting impression on me. I was trying to be very nice and talk to her about things—anything I could think of because she wasn’t very talkative. And I thought things were going along if not well at least ok. Later during the meal one of the other residents came down and started talking with her. He pointed out some of the people at the other end of the table and said how nice they were. Then she said, “Well, I guess I sat at the wrong end of the table.” Then later when they came around to ask if we wanted any dessert I told the waitress no, I was rather full. To which my little friend said, ‘Ya, you should be, I think you’ve eaten enough.’ Now I had not thought that I ate an exorbitant amount of food. I had a pita pocket sandwich and some French fries. Granted she did have a salad. But I really didn’t see the need for her little comment. Needless to say, she made poor impressions on other people in the program and it was agreed by all, including herself, that she would not be coming here for the rest of her training. Wherever she ended up, I hope she’s having a good time. And I’m glad she’s not here.
And now we’re on to the new recruits. I don’t know why I think it’s so fun to meet them. And then I get all excited for match day in March when we find out who’s going to be coming to our program. Even though I really can’t ever remember who I met or who I talked to.