good.news.

Malarone was covered! $60 for 29 pills. Definitely preferable to $8 each. Should be arriving within the next week or so.

i.have.company.

A. showed up sunday night just before midnight. She has a conference in chicago this weekend, but figured she'd come a bit early to catch up with people in boston (and to help with the 12 hour jet lag). It was very strange- hard to believe i hadn't seen her in almost nine months, the longest (by far- like eight months far) i've gone without seeing her in the past eleven years. Luckily, i've kept busy, so it wasn't as painful as it could have been. Pretty soon, i'll be spending two months with all of them. (Only thirteen days to go!) When i was planning to leave on may 4th, i even tried to convince A. to fly back to hong kong with me. Apparently, she values first class more than a 16 hour long chat with her favorite stephanie. At least i know where i stand!

it's.nearing.the.end.

...and i'm ready for it. Just one more week to go. This weekend was ridiculously beautiful, and since it made me wince to think about spending the entire thing inside working, i made myself a deal. Finish my work on saturday (mowing the yard, errands, the final, my  journal entries, laundry) and have sunday off. I did it, so today i got up bright and early and spent the day with eva at her family's place in swampscott. It just happens to (literally) be in the most beautiful spot in the area- at the tip of a little peninsula. Her backyard consists of a nice thick lawn, rocks, and the ocean. The day was perfect, and we walked what must have been miles along the beach and boardwalk, stopping for some snacks and an open house. Her mom picked us up and took us out to lunch in marblehead (fish and chips, of course) and then we walked about that area for a while. The best part of the day was being with eva, and being able to catch up in a non-school related way. I'm so lucky to have her as my friend.

In her backyard. It was windy.

At the open house. The condo was only $1.3 million. What a steal.

On the beach during our morning walk. The house is at the end of the point that's behind us.

i'm.excited.

I really want to be outside right now because it's beautiful. Unfortunately, i can't yet because i committed to finishing three of the five essay questions left on my final this morning, and i'm only done with two of them. I'm great at procrastinating, so i decided to post some pictures of places i'll (hopefully) be visiting in vietnam. These places are so beautiful that i get giddy everytime i see them. Then i'll get back to my work, promise.

halong.bay.vietnam.

sapa.vietnam.

travel.clinic.

I almost forgot about my vaccination appointment today. I remembered at 10:40 that i had a 10:30 time slot. Luckily, i was headed to the mgh travel clinic which is conveniently located in the same building where i was sitting. Everyone else was running late, so i wasn't shot or kicked out. I was expecting to see a nurse who would take 5 minutes and stick a few needles in my arm. Instead, i met with the doctor who spent a full half hour going over everything with me. He covered the obvious stuff- no un-bottled water, no fruit unless i peeled it myself, etc, but he also pointed out some stuff i didn't think of- no fruity drinks (there goes that margarita i was planning to have on the beach), and bug spray with at least 25% deet at all times. I was impressed- totally worth the $25 copay. I got the hepatitis A shot and the typhoid vaccination pills. Next on the list are the malaria meds. I somehow ended up with an insurance plan that has a $200 deductible for regular pharmacy orders. I've managed to avoid this by getting all my meds through express-scripts in a three month supply. The doctor sent in my malaria prescription with the hopes that they'd approve it (though it's not a three month supply). If not, i get to cover three weeks worth of $8 per pill per day. Anyone have any extra malarone?

mystery.solved.

My neighbor earl is  great. He always comes by to say hi, and makes me feel loved. It's a good thing too, because he's a punk. He routinely kills small animals, and not just mice and birds. A big rat was in the driveway a while ago, and his five year old sister pointed out a headless squirrel. I think i've determined why he's so violet, and it's not just instinctual. Earl's (almost) two year old brother is abusive to him! I witnessed him kicking earl several times, and chasing him around the yard. The poor thing knew he'd be in trouble if he fought back, so he just took it. I may have a new houseguest pretty soon.

my.day.

Today, as i sat inside working on my final, i heard some commotion outside. Looking out the window, i saw my five year old neighbor running frantically up and down the street, crying hysterically. Apparently she couldn't find her mom. A car i didn't recognize pulled up along side her, she got in, and the car drove off. I almost rubbed my eyes to make sure i was awake. I threw shoes on and ran outside to see what was going on. Their house was unlocked, but no one was home. A bird chirped, otherwise it was quiet out. After checking in with two neighbors, a small crowd gathered in the street. Then the five year old's family rode up on their bikes, just as the car pulled up. Turns out it was all a misunderstanding. She was playing with a friend at the park while her family went for a bike ride. She got home with her friend, walked down the street, couldn't find her mom, and freaked out. She ran around, her friend's grandmother pulled up, and she hopped in. So it all ended up working out fine, but i almost had a heart attack. 

squeak.

Did i mention we had a mouse in the house? I was cooking with T a few weeks ago when he pointed at the floor and said (very excitedly), "yook! yook at that!" A little gray mouse was sauntering across the floor, and ducked under the fridge. I called the exterminators and they showed up with snap traps, sticky traps, and more bait stations. I assured the man that i was perfectly capable of disposing of any mouse that was caught by such traps. Each night, i came home and surveyed the traps, only to find them empty. Apparently the mouse was not intrigued. Yesterday, before heading to my parents' for easter, i went down to the basement to switch a load of laundry. The laundry room smelled funny. I thought about all the poisoned bait traps that were all over the basement, and began looking for a rotting mouse carcass. Here's what the easter bunny left me:

It may have been the smell, the fact that this mouse was all wet and squished in the drain, or the combination of the two, but i began to seriously regret assuring the guy i could deal with this. Within a split second, i mentally went through the list of people i could conceivably recruit to dispose of said mouse, and came up with 0. When i realized that it would be me, i managed to get my wits about myself and came up with a plan. With rubber gloves pulled up to my elbows, i found two wooden skewers (since i would be disposing of anything that touched the mouse) and used them like chopsticks to move the mouse into the waiting bags. After the whole kit-and-caboodle was in the outside garbage, i proceeded to bleach the entire area, and then spent an hour sanitizing anything a mouse could have conceivably touched, nibbled, pooped on, scurried over, etc, etc. Needless to say, i didn't get any school work done (as planned) before leaving to celebrate easter. As it was, i only had fifteen minutes to shower and get ready. Blech.

4.weeks.left.

About a month ago, i bought my plane ticket. With 59 days to go, it felt so far off, and all the things i needed to do before leaving weren't high on my priority list- staying afloat in school and my internship seemed much more pressing. That was 31 days ago. Now I have just 28 days until my lovely parents drop me at the airport at 4am. TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS! I still don't have my visa (but am much closer thanks to a fantastic cousin who can print me an itinerary), i still haven't received any vaccinations, i still don't really know where i'm backpacking to once i'm there, and i still haven't put much time into thinking through what i'm bringing (in terms of clothes, shoes, luggage, etc, etc). I'm a tad overwhelmed. To boot, i still have three weeks left of school which includes 12 days at MGH, three days in class, and a ginormous amount of busy work (papers, finals, papers, logs, papers, journal entries, etc, etc). I think it will all come together though. I'm making a priority list- first is the visa, and second are the vaccinations. The rest of the stuff can come together or not, either way it will be fine. Once i'm there, my longest stretch for travel time will only be 11 days, so i'm trying to decide where to go. I'm between cambodia/southern vietnam or laos/northern vietnam. I can't decide. Any input?

egg.

In honor of the upcoming holiday, the little guy helped me dye easter eggs. It was super fun. I always buy up a few packs of dye right after easter. They're on sale, and then i have supplies to dye eggs whenever i want. It's much more fun to eat a hard boiled egg if it's turquoise as opposed to brown or white. Why not do so in october as well?

fall.2009.

Though it's only april, we're already interviewing for our fall internship placements. I was matched with tufts floating in the operating room, as well as newton wellesley in the emergency department. I had both interviews today- one at noon and the other at 8:30pm, and they both went very well. I was initially fixated on working in an OR, but have come around to the idea of the ED. After seeing both locations and meeting both child life specialists, i think that the ED would be the best fit for me. This is in part because of the hours (never before 10am as opposed to 6:45am three days/week), in part because of the location (driving 15 mins to newton instead of taking the T 45mins to chinatown), and in part because of the medical focus (more broad procedural stuff that will supplement my inpatient and radiology experience). That being said, i'll have a fantastic experience in either place. Though the supervisory style may be very different, they are both great child life specialists who will provide a great internship placement. I'll let you know once i get the final word, though that probably won't be until may:)

cheers!

In radiology, we make kids drink barium*. They love it (not really). The first time i watched a barium swallow on a poor thirteen year old girl, the radiologist kept asking her to take large mouthfuls and swallow all at once. She puked. Other kids have managed to keep it down, but only by sucking on a lollipop in between sips. Only once have i seen an eighteen monther suck it down and cry when it was taken away (and that's only because he was starving as they're not allowed to eat for a while beforehand). When we describe it, we use words like "chalky" and "thick like a milkshake" and play up the fact that they get to pick the flavor. In reality, i had no clue what it was actually like. So i decided to try it, and today was the day. For a long time, the only two flavor options were strawberry and chocolate. Chocolate was the recommended flavor since it was real Hershey's syrup. The strawberry was purchased from the supply company and arrived bright pink in an industrial sized bottle. The technologist decided to mix things up a bit and a bottle of vanilla flavoring joined the other two. A tech and one of the radiology residents were as curious as i was, so we mixed up a cup and poured shots in three medicine cups. Bottoms up! I can't say it was anywhere near as bad i was anticipating. Not pleasant by any means, but not something i'd be vomiting up either. Now when i convince kids to drink it, i actually know what i'm talking about. Score.

 (* Barium sulfate is mixed with water and flavoring (chocolate, strawberry, or now vanilla!) and is sipped through a straw on the fluoroscopy table. This allows the radiologist to see (via xray imaging) sections of the GI tract, and highlights issues like reflux or gastric emptying issues.)

april.fools.

Google's so funny. Last year it was custom time, and this year it's gmail autopilot. There have been many others in years past that you can check out here. Apparently those googlers are quite the jokers!