this hankerchief will help you look more gangster

I want to dream
And then I want to wake up
I want a break
But I don't want to break up
Face Of The Earth, Joel Plaskett

Just finished a pretty long Saturday on-call. The resident coming on to relieve me this morning is in Psych and I felt pretty bad for her having to do medicine call. There are benefits of having a broad background in medicine, but it must be hard to be interested in adjusting insulin orders when that will really have nothing to do with your future job.

As I was reviewing the 3rd intentional overdose patient on our list, she says

"Yeah, well, it's November".

It's obvious, but November kind of sucks. No more pretty fall. No pretty winter yet. Snow sports are usually still pending. Daylight savings kicks in and you start walking home in the dark. The only holiday involves standing around outside thinking about how brutal humans can be to each other. It rains, it snows, it rains again.

Bleh.

Sorry to be such a downer. Only one more day of November.

Just so no one thinks I'm going to be number 4 on the list tomorrow, I will reassure you by talking about some of the fun things I've done recently.

We actually went snowboarding at Powder King last weekend. There was lots of snow. It was fun and a good workout.

I've been swimming more. There is a sweet steam room at the public pool here, and I find I can usually motivate myself to awkwardly move myself through the water for half an hour if I know a sweet steam room is my immediate reward.

We have booked holiday time for mid-January. No sure what we will do yet.

shaugnessey sticks and stones

You can't wear that, you should put on a suit or something.
-Linda Litzke, Burn After Reading

I've been working on my applications for residency alot lately, and working shifts on my pediatric emergency rotation, so it's been some weird hours and lots of time staring at my computer screen. For my applications, I have to write "personal letters" to the various programs, essentially in an effort to convince them I'm a cool guy. Application processes always seem to bum me out a fair bit. I feel like most of the things that I think are important in my life (or that predict a successful family doctor for that matter), can't be written down on my CV. I understand why we have to go through the process, and no, I don't think I could design a better one necessarily, I just get fed up with everyone trying to make me feel inadequate for not having published any research papers.

So I haven't been as keen to post, as it's just too much writing about myself.

At the best of times I find November a difficult month to cope with. Fall is my favourite season, from an aesthetic standpoint I guess, but for whatever reason, November knocks me on my ass emotionally. I haven't done this, but you could probably go back to all the times I've posted in November, and the message would be this-Bleh.

Anyhow, I guess the good thing is that my CaRMS applications will be done in one week and then November is done.