midterms

Unfortunately, the super awesome long post I was planning to write is unavailable until I get some more work done. This should hold me over for now:

Only one more month of 3rd year! Woohoo! And...less than a year until MD! I can't even believe it. It's exciting but scary. Probably more scary right now.

Speaking of scary, surgery midterm is Monday. Shouldn't be that scary except that I haven't studied for it almost at all yet. I say "yet" because that's the plan for today. That, and about two hundred other things. Did you know that I'm getting married in less than four months? Holy Cow!

And with marriage comes...engagement pictures! We finally got them back from the photographers and are SO happy with how they turned out. They put some up on their blog which you can find here:
http://www.varlandphotography.com/blog/2009/06/chris-and-katie-engaged-part-i/
and most of my favorites are found here:
http://www.varlandphotography.com/blog/2009/06/chris-and-katie-engaged-part-ii/

Chris is in Trinidad this weekend shooting Kateri and Karl's wedding. Technically their third wedding, hopefully after this they can consider themselves really married. Chris also has our engagement proofs that he's been tinkering with during his long flights/layovers on his way to Trinidad. He promised me he would try to post some of them today while he's staying at the fancy wedding resort, and I will direct you to them as soon as I can! Get ready!

Anyway, not much is going on here on the homefront except for my to-do list that keeps growing bigger by the minute. Studying needs to take precedence, but there's a ton of cleaning that needs to be done and working out so I can still fit in that dress I tried on months ago and numerous other things but I'm so tempted to go enjoy this sunny weather! I'm also obsessed with checking my email because that's the only way I can get in touch with Chris, so that's also a bit of a problem...

Well I suppose I'll try to go finish reading the outline of the book (before reading the book and the First Aid and the questions and the answers...and then reviewing it all before Monday morning! eep!) and maybe if I can finish that I can take my book outside and read a little. I need to get my daily (more like weekly) dose of Vitamin D, anyway.

Notes

I just wanted to say:
1) I'm not dead
2) My yellow hair is still nice.
3) Surgery isn't as bad as I thought.
4) I'll probably write more this weekend because Chris is going to TRINIDAD and I will be here and lonely! I will also be studying for the midterm (on Monday) so there will definitely be some procrastination in there.

Love,
Katie

My Hair Story

I was born with "peach fuzz" and it was all I had for more than two years, so ever since my hair began to grow my hair has played an important role in my life. My name is Katie, and this is my hair's story.

Bald and beautiful

I bought my first box of "sun-in" in 7th grade. It turned my hair a nice brassy orange-yellow and definitely didn't help with the awkwardness that is also known as middle school. (Thankfully, most of the photographic evidence from that time in my life has been properly disposed of.) As I entered high school and continued through college, I did a few highlighting kits and dying kits just because, you know, blondes have more fun, and $7 for a new look wasn't too bad.

Nuclear yellow after the white coat ceremony (after vacationing in FL!)

Studying for biochem with long blonde locks

Dolled up for Caduceus Dance ("Med school prom")

After starting med school (and unfortunately experiencing the lack of sleep associated with it) I decided it was time to become more serious and go dark. Besides, people should take me more seriously that way, and maybe (hopefully!) I would stop getting asked what high school I go to. I know that's supposed to be a compliment but it gets old after a while (Ha- no pun intended!). After becoming brunette I would occasionally play around with different colors - reddish brown, light brown, dark brown, I sampled the spectrum of brown-ness and had some fun.

sitting in the bathroom posing for a photo :)

Redhead at Keeneland

For almost a year now, though, I have kept my hair natural...I was sick of dealing with roots and split ends, and it has been awesome! I literally have not cut my hair since 1 year ago today when I chopped it all off.

May 31, 2008

However, after looking online at hundreds upon hundreds of "wedding hair" photos, I decided that I want to lighten up a bit. So today, after searching tons of hair photos I have come full circle and am now back to the tow-headed kid I used to be. It's still growing on me (HA...I just can't help myself) but I like it a lot. And Chris does, too, which is great. He's never dated blonde-Katie (I went brown a few months before we started going out) so he was probably more excited about it than I was! Anyway, here's the old- and new-hair Katie, with curls!

Before:




After!

Yummy

Chris makes the most delicious and amazing vanilla soy chai latte, especially when I need "study juice."

I love him. :)

surgery

Surgery orientation was today, and I have to be in the surgery ICU at 6am tomorrow morning where I can be swept up in a whirlwind of sutures and suction and scrubbing. You're probably not going to be hearing a lot from me for a while. Or maybe you'll hear a lot. You'll just have to check back and find out.

Bye!
Katie

psychos and dentists

Today should have been my psych and neuro shelf exams. Should have been, because somebody in the neurology department dropped the ball and forgot to order our tests. Oops! Unfortunately, this means we must take the exams next Saturday (a week into surgery rotation). On a positive note, it means I was much less stressed today (for only having one exam instead of two) but, it still stinks because I have to study/stress all next week about neuro, when I will have enough worrying to deal with for surgery.

Another positive: because the neuro exam got cancelled, I got squeezed in for a dental appointment! Woohoo! I'm only a month overdue but it was stressing me out that my next guaranteed day off is at the end of July... and I got a clean bill of health this morning so that made me happy! No-Cavity-Katie strikes again!

Now if I could only make all the other doctor appointments I need to make...

So memorial day weekend is hopefully going to be some relaxing, some fun, and maybe some studying all rolled together. Tonight my parents are going out of town (to Maysville KY for my dad to compete in a triathalon tomorrow morning) so I get to "babysit" my 17-year old brother for exactly the reasons you wouldn't want to leave your 17 year old son home alone on a Friday night. Not that Gregory would do anything except play video games and eat cereal.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to take a walk with my dear "MOH" Sabrina and talk about weddings and life. (MOH is a new acronym I learned while reading wedding websites and I think I just like to use it becasue it sounds funny when you say "moh" aloud...or maybe it's just me...) Later Chris and I have been double-booked - Kateri's folks are having a big bonfire and grillout at their home in Danville and it's our friend Andres' birthday and he's having a shin-dig over at his place. Decisions decisions!

Sunday there are plans in the works for a family cookout at my Aunt's house here in Lexington which is sweet because she has a POOL. Yeah! Hope the weather is nice!

Of course, I'll be interspersing neurology studying within all this, but you know how that goes.

What could have been

Listening to music with electronica roots, downtempo influences, use of modal harmonies, and inventive instrumental arrangements somehow takes me back a few years and makes me re-think my life's choices. I guess I listened to a lot of this during first year, when a lot of things seemed to change in my life. Whether these things were good or bad (most of the time I think they were really, really good) doesn't matter, but sometimes I think about what could have been...

I think about my past friendships, and I realize that so many of my friends are getting married, buying houses, and having babies. They're little homemakers, they go to work everyday (and their work stays the same from month to month) and they seem generally satisfied. They go on vacations and are pretty domestic. That life, while it may sound a little boring, is sometimes exactly what I want. I want to go to work every weekday from 9-5 and then sit around enjoying my house and family on evenings and weekends.

The further along I go with this med school business the more I wonder if my life will ever be like that.

I don't know what the next 7-10 years hold (after which Chris and I will both be finally done with residency and finally joining the "real world") so I can't really settle in one place. My job will change from month to month for at least the next four years. Every month learning new things, helping different people, exploring new areas of the hospital and figuring out my superiors' expectations for the month. Never really knowing when I will get home, when I will get a day off, not being able to make doctor and dental appointments for my own health, and constantly striving to be better than I was yesterday.

In ways it sounds great and new and exciting, but in other ways it sounds stressful. The unpredictability of it all is frustrating sometimes. Even after the next 7-10 years, neither one of us is likely to have a 9-5 job, as there will always be call, emergencies, and long days at the office/hospital where our patients will need us at the expense of our family. I don't want my job to be my life, but the further I get into this the more I realize that maybe it has to be. Especially until residency is over.

I suppose I just have to take each day (and each rotation month) as it comes, as a challenge and a chance for me to excel and do my best and really do what I wanted to do all along - help others. Family, friends, homes, and everything else will fit in there someplace.

Maybe I just should change my Pandora station ... I think I'll go make dinner and listen to "Bootylicious Radio."

(Yes, that's exactly what you think it is) :)