"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing milkbone underwear"

I just looked at my schedule for the next few months and let's just say I got sucker punched! And my nose is still bleeding.

I finished my first week at Straub and it went swimmingly (I never really understood what this meant). 8 hour days, 11 patient averages, great staff, and smooth and timely care. Needless to say I was in a great mood and ready for a nice week off. Then I woke up this morning, got on the internet as all people hopelessly trapped by technology do, and checked my email. That's when I saw a message from the dude responsible for making the schedule. I opened it up and noticed that I work over both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Both! I knew that I would have to work holidays but I assumed I would get at least one off. And you know what happens when people assume. But then I also realized that these schedulers (who by the way are fellow MDs whose own schedules depend on everone elses, including mine) inexplicably gave me two weeks off starting today. This is strange, you see, because we are only supposed to get one week off at a time and nowhere else in my schedule do I get two weeks off. Well, then I noticed that this little shift pushed my schedule forward a week and had I only had the one week off I would have had Thanksgiving off and would only have had to work on Christmas day. And with this forward shift, the powers that be were able to get the time off they wanted. I've been a puppet, a poet, a pawn, and a king. But That's Life!

Anyway, we have been doing good otherwise. Our furniture still isn't here and we are living like crackheads in a house that is fitted with a bed, a small TV, a wiley dog and nothing else. The furniture will hopefully be here this week. And I have been studying, STILL, for my boards this Friday.

This week also had it's share of luck though. It turns out two of my fraternity brothers, Jim Pauciello and Jeremy Askin, are here. The former is on his honeymoon and the latter on vacation (you like that). We have spent some time with both and caught up. I haven't seen either in at least 3 years. We also went to a beach called Sandy's (we had mentioned it before) and tried to boogie board. We pulled out our $30 Costco Morey Mach 9 boards and excitedly entered the ocean with the biggest waves I have ever seen. Everyone else was going out with flippers on because apparently you can't touch the ocean floor where the waves break and need to catch up to the waves before you ride them. But the mainland howlies were ill prepared. After getting slammed 3 times, concussed twice, and laughed at by locals I called it a day. Meanwhile Elizabeth was pulling her bikini bottoms up from the only thing that caught them at the last minute, her big toe. These waves are beyond us. We need practice.