It's food!: Mexican Sweet Potato Black Bean Salad

It's food!: Mexican Sweet Potato Black Bean Salad: "Ingredients: Salad: 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks 2 tbsp. canola or other vegetable oil 1 tbsp. ground corian..."

I had this at a potluck and it was surprisingly yummy. Didn't think this was going to taste good because of the combination.

Thanksgiving

of course, I'm on ID and the first day, was told that Thanksgiving is a regular work day, not a holiday or weekend. Bummer, didn't think I was going to be able to go to Eskestrands for the holiday but could make it to the church one though.

That week was also my first official week on ID with just me, senior res and staff and the load of patients just keep increasing and days are long with us meeting our educational requirement. Days go from 7:30a to 6p.

For Thanksgiving, thankfully, it was quiet and the fellow let us go around 1pm whenever we finished with out share of consults. I did manage to get to Eskestrands' luncheon and met some of their friends from their church. It was nice since it's a truly homecooked thanksgiving meal and good people and company. It at least made me feel like it a family gathering.

After the lunch, I basically got home and showered then went straight to the church dinner with Nepalese and Burmese refugees. It was multicultural and was very nice to see other people who were not able to go home for the holiday gathering together because we have God and church in common.

By the end of the night, I was stuffed, got some left over from church that lasted me for another 2 meals. I'm very thankful that God has provided me with friends that willing to take me in and a church that provided me a home away from home.

I did miss my "mistress", Kirstin's, family, I have spent previoius Thanksgiving with them, they are very much like my own family except Americans and do the traditional Thanksgiving meal. I haven't been to my own family's Thanksgiving get together in years. This year, there's not one potluck but just a few of of family members having dinner with my grandmother. It's always one holiday where I don't try really hard to get myself back home. Christmas is the one that I tried harder. Oh well, but I had fun, not too bad this year being alone.

Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows

Movie time ... first movie since the last one I saw with my brother.

Definitely a fan of Harry Potter, never read the books but totally enjoyed the movies. So totally up for this when friends from church made plans for this.

Watched this with Angel and everyone else bailed out on us. Oh well.

The movie was great, intense with humor thrown in every so often. It got both me and Angel on the edge of seats most of the time. I didn't even realized that it's been 2hrs when I checked my watch. Usually I would start checking my watch about 45min-1hr into the movie. So didn't want the movie to end.

Can't wait the next installment in May/June. Totally watching it the weekend it comes out.

Afterwards, we went the Cladagh (Irish pub). They are known for fish and chips around the area. I had that and Angel had their Jack Daniel Burger. Both were yummy. Normally, I don't like restaurant burgers but this one was really good, totally impressed with it. The fish was more fish than dough. Good quality, totally could come again.

COMLEX step 3

Yucky ... glad that it's the last one for the ridiculous COMLEX. My goal is to just pass and if I scored high, then it'll be a bonus.

Materials:
First Aid Step 3 - chose this because bad experience with Crush step 2, not a fan of sentences/paragraphs study guides. Need something that is readable and easy to understand.
Combank - used it for step 2 and it was fine, so I stuck with it. signed up for it for a month.

Plan: read the FA book twice and do the Qbank for the month with the goal of getting around 70%.

Note: By the last week before the test, I got really sick of it, so the weekend before I just decided to not do any studying. I even went to the B-Ball game the week before. I guess it's pretty true that for Step 3, you just need a No. 2 pencil. :) I'm not that crazy but I think if I had studied 10-12 hr/day for 2 weeks, it would've been fine. Certainly glad that I'm done.

Test: it's long, 400Qs in 8hrs. There are some ridiculous questions, like anatomy related to OMM (literally muscle insertion and what not) and ethics/medicare/medicaid. Lots of OB and peds and case related. There are certainly a few of pull out of the hat types as well. Generally the format and the feel were similar to Step 2. Ended up with a headache by the end.

As a treat, I went to SalonBlu for eyebrow wax and a short massage. The therapist was good, excellent. She went right for the muscles and got the eyebrows right. Totally coming back for it even though it was a bit pricey.

Update: 12/18 - passed Step 3. Lowest of the 3 but passed with a good cushion. 487/81.
Also as of now, my eyebrows are still in good shape even a month after. Plan on going back 1-2 weeks before going to Taiwan.

Hospitalist

So glad I'm in anesthesia and not end up in internal medicine. ::happy sigh::

The biggest issues I had was that I felt like a social worker/case manager instead of physician. For every patient, it was dealing with where would they go, how would they get meds, insurance issues, who would take care of them and follow up after discharge. There are little medicine involved. Only complicated patients would I feel like that I'm actually practicing medicine.

Other than that, it has been a fairly good month. Reminding me of some basic medicine since I haven't really seen medicine since Jan of my 4th year. It's a good practice and learning to prep for my Step 3.

The funny thing is that there's a fellow for hospitalist. Why would anyone want do 1 yr fellowship in hospitalist medicine? Shouldn't anyone who had finish IM residency should be able to practice hospitalist medicine? Bizzare.

One thing that really irked me was that a patient was transferred from cardiac ICU after MI was ruled out. When I saw the patient, she was breathing really fast and in pain. There was a CT report of pancreatitis vs cholecystitis. Of course, no abx was started, totally unconcerned that it could turn into necrotizing pancreatitis. When I got patient, decided to watch carefully for the night with low threshold to go to MICU. Of course the next AM, disaster struck. Septic picture, change in mental status, respiratory distress. MICU she went. I followed with what happened. She coded and suffered anoxic brain injury. CT read 75% necrotizing pancreatitis. Passed few days later when family withdraw care. Sad. what a disaster from too focused specialties and units/floors.

NBA Nets vs Cavs

I got tix from CCF to the basketball game for $40/pair in the middle seats. Pretty good seats for the price. I figured why not? It would be my first NBA game and it was pretty cheap game. The only problem was who to ask to come with?

My thought was that I don't really know who would be interested in going with me. So I decided to ask one of the guys I met at church that I knew was interested in B-Ball. VL is from Cali and knew several people from my home church. He's very funny too, great sense of humor. So I asked him to come with as friends, no other intention at all.

He ended up asking me if we want to grab a bite to eat before the game as I would be going staright from work. I didn't even think that this might become a date at all. He did paid for the meal and drove me from dinner to game.

From my close girlfriend, this turned into a date, despite me being completely oblivious about it. This was only supposed to be friendly hangout time. Oh well. We shall see what will happen next.

Otherwise, game was fun but the best part was the end that determined the results. I would definitely be up for another one. The weekend after I found out that there were 2 other girls from church that are up for sports game too. Now I've got buddies to go with for the next games.

This turned out weird, probably me being oblivious. Oh well. We shall see what happens the next time I see him.