Late night projects

Why is it that I decide to reface a clock at midnight?!  And that explains why I'm still up an hour and a half later and why I am so grumpy in the mornings. At least I don't have work tomorrow.  Yay!

Hmm...

I saw pictures of my a cruise trip my aunt and uncle took and my 5 year-old cousin is wearing a surgical mask in all his pictures because he was afraid of catching the flu.  At first, I thought it was hilarious.  After further thought, I think he may be onto something.

Catching up on sleep

So you know, I don't get much sleep.  I was really good my intern year, where I went to bed religiously at around 9, sometimes 10, so that I could at least get 7 hours of sleep.  Now, I'm lucky if I get 7 and it's more like 6 hours.  Granted, I feel like I'm doing well, but it's always bad news when someone tells you that you can't really catch up on sleep.  I mean, am I destined to be cognitively slower for the next 2 years and 8 months AND for however long it takes me to recover from being sleep deprived.  I mean, really, who can "bank" 10 hours of sleep a night? 

This is my favorite quote from the article:
"The scientists found that the "recovery" sleep did not fully reverse declines in performance on a test of reaction times and other psychomotor tasks, especially for subjects who had been forced to sleep only three or five hours a night."

What does that say when you sleep zero hours a night, like last night?

Contagion

I got my H1N1 vaccine last week... really, I was secretly hoping that I would get H1N1 before I got the vaccine because it would mean a mandatory time off until I was asymptomatic.  And yes, residency is bad enough that I would rather have the flu than come into work.  I have dreams of being forced to stay at home and sleep. 

Calling home

Today, I went to the farmer's market and was so excited to be enjoying the beautiful weather and to get there early enough to get some beautiful orchids (albeit, I was post-call, but that's another issue altogether).  However, in the excitement of picking through broccoli rabe or no name pluots, I somehow lost my phone. For a moment, I was delighted because it meant that I could finally get a new phone... then it hit me that I would somehow need to get everyone's phone number again.  EVERYONE'S PHONE NUMBER.  The anxiety hit me and I walked around the farmer's market, asking the vendors from which I had bought produce if they saw a phone.  No luck. 

Long story short, a woman found it and when my friend called my phone for me, she answered and said she would leave it at Starbucks.  I am now reunited with my phone. And delighted. But I will still get a new phone. 

Oatmeal cookies

I love oatmeal cookies.  Love.  I don't even like cookies very much, but I love oatmeal cookies.  Leave it to me to have a favorite cookie that is made of oatmeal, I mean, how old and boring can I get before I reach 30? 

So, I finally gave in and bought oatmeal to make oatmeal cookies (I have never bought oatmeal before - I love oatmeal cookies, but loathe actual oatmeal) and a free issue of Cooks Illustrated came with the recipe for the perfect oatmeal cookies. 

A side note on Cooks Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen.  I'm in love with them.  Love.  If anyone out there wants to get me a birthday, Christmas, or everyday gift, get me a subscription to that magazine.  It's the perfect thing to satisfy the nerd and cook in me.  They test and retest all their recipes until they find the "perfect" whatever-it-may-be. 

Needless to say, I was excited to try their oatmeal cookie recipe.  Alas, I did make some changes to it (they called for lots more chocolate chips than I would like and I omitted the nuts since I thought two additions to my beloved oatmeal cookies would be enough).

Here's the recipe:

Perfect Oatmeal Cookies
(adapted from Cooks Illustrated)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats (I used baby oats, if you can find them)
• 1 cup dried cranberries (their recipe called for sour cherries)
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet or bittersweet (depending on whether you like sweet or not) chocolate chunks (or chips)
• 1 1/2 sticks butter, softened but not soft
• 1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
   
3. In another medium bowl, mix oats, cranberries, and chocolate
4. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar at medium speed until combined, about a minute.
   
5. Add egg and vanilla, beat on medium-low until combined.
   
6. Add flour mixture a little at a time, mix until combined at low speed.
   
7. Gradually add oat/cranberry/chocolate mixture until incorporated.
   
8. Use a spatula to make sure all flour is incorporated.  Be careful, the mixture will be thick, so use a sturdy spatula (I broke mine in the process of making these cookies).
   
9. Roll the flour into 2 inch balls, press into 1inch thick and place onto cookie sheet. 
   
10. Bake for 12 minutes, then rotate pan front to back to ensure even cooking.  Bake for another 8-10 minutes.
    
11. Cookies are done when the edges are brown and the middle is soft.  They will look undercooked.  Take them out now.  Otherwise, you end up with hard, inedible cookies and no one likes that. 
    

Enjoy!

Birdies

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am obsessed with birds.  Not the actual animal (I actually can't stand birds as pets), but more bird motifs.  My daily bag has birds on it. . My daily necklace has a bird.  There are little birds all over my apartment.  But no real birds allowed.  Alas, no one told that to the bird that decided to pay my apartment a visit and leave its mark on my scrabble box.  I have no idea how long this bird has been in my apartment, all I know is that I just noticed it (and it's possible that it's been there for at least a few hours). 

After screaming little "eeks!" to myself, I gently guided the bird to the door (not without it hitting the mirrored closet doors once or twice, though). 

argh!

So, my neighbor is oh so wonderful and plays World of Warcraft on his computer day and night. I could care less about what my neighbor does in his free time (which apparently is any time of day). However, what I care about deeply is my sleep. And my sleep gets interrupted and delayed because of sounds of grenades and tanks and guns. Ah, yes, the exact sounds I want to hear when I fall asleep.

Being the nice person that I am, I go and knock on his door, thinking I'm going to nicely tell him to keep it down after a certain time at night, you know, like around 10pm - you know, cause I have to be at work at 6am. As I'm standing in the cold night, shivering my ass off in my pajamas, he answers the door, with not a hello, but "If you have a problem, just call the *bleeping* cops" and proceeds to shut it on me.

Now, I'm afraid that I will have to deal with the noise even louder, just to spite me. And he's kind of shocked me into anger, which I don't like feeling.

Alas, this is why I'm looking into buying a house (if I can come down with the down payment). No pesky neighbors playing computer games because they don't have a life.

Forgive me, I just had to vent.

Stressin'

Second year of residency is definitely tougher than first year.  People ask you questions and you're expected to know the answer.  People ask you to do things and you're expected to know how to do it. 

The trade-off is that yeah, I get to do a lot of stuff, which, for the most part, is fun.  (Yeah, I realize that sentence has an overwhelming number of commas.)

However, that trade-off is that when you do a lot of stuff, some stuff is bound to go wrong.  And that's the stressful part.

Now I'm scared to do another c-section.  I'm sure I will get over this.  But either way, it's not a great feeling, to go from doing something that you love so much to being afraid of it.  I understand that this is all a part of the training process, learning to deal with complications and surgeries that don't go as planned, but nonetheless, it adds piles upon piles of stress. 

I just had to get that off my chest.  It's been a tough going, but it will pass soon, I suppose.

Toe in the water

I went on a date today.  It was my first date in longer-than-I'd-like-to-admit.  And it was one of the worst dates I have ever been on.  It lasted only an hour and a half and I thought it lasted an eternity.  I didn't know how to end it.  It was terrible.  To make it weirder, I think he was the gayest straight man I have ever met.  Not that there's anything wrong with being gay (channeling that Seinfeld episode now).  Just that I would prefer not to date a gay man. 

All's well though.  I got some Sam Adams Summer Ale on my way home.