the other day this girl i'd never seen before asked, "how's gopooh doing?" her question seemingly came out of nowhere, and as i replied i was still thinking, have we met?... this happens quite a bit. i have no clue who ppl are, but they know who *i* am b/c i'm the asian girl in the ICU this month, aka gopooh's wife/fiancée/gf. it's just a little weird.
one night this guy kept saying that he recognized me from somewhere. he was sure he'd never met me, but still, i looked familiar. whatever that means, right? it's not like i'm on tv or anything. well he soon figured it out... he and gopooh had talked often, and gopooh had shown him our condo pictures, some w/ me in them!
a few days later he was in the hall w/ a million residents, and as soon as he saw me coming he was like, "hey guess whose fiancée this is!" pretty soon anyone who didn't know me suddenly did.
and then there are the ppl who know about gopooh but don't bring him up. like one of the nurses somehow revealed that gopooh'd told everyone, including my senior, that i'd be there. and that's when my senior said jokingly "yeah he told me to give you a hard time so that's why i'm always messing w/ you." until that moment i thought i'd actually met a resident whose only insight into my personal life was what i revealed, but now i'm starting to think that such a resident doesn't exist.
at this point, i'm just glad that my attending doesn't know that the man he played golf w/ 2 weeks ago is my future father-in-law. but then again, maybe he does know and he just isn't saying anything, just like i'm not saying anything. he doesn't seem like he'd keep quiet about smthg like that, but y'never know about these things.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
someone did smthg that made my day yesterday. or actually, i found out about it yesterday but it'll make my day tomorrow morning when i have to work, assuming there won't be a crazy # of new admissions waiting for me (but there very well could be). the way things worked out is fair, but i love when ppl go out of their way to help you out, even if it's just to even the playing field a bit. :)
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
our attending is on vacation this week, leaving us w/ someone i really really don't like. i don't know what this lady's problem is, but every time i have to interact w/ her i think, man what crawled up HER ass today? generally i think ppl have good days and bad days, and how they act depends on a whole slew of factors. but her? just plain sour.
my senior had warned us to keep presentations super neat and strict. whatever that means, right? but he wasn't kidding. the slightest bit of uncertainty or error, and she jumps on it. not only does she correct ppl... she CORRECTS ppl, aggressively, if you know what i mean.
she has a reputation, apparently. i was on call last night, and when ppl asked who my attending was, i'd start by naming our usual jovial attending and finish by saying that she was covering this week. i've never gotten so many sympathetic looks.
we were going to put a femoral line in a guy yesterday. we'd draped him and everything, and then in she walks. right away, she yelled, "absolutely not! no femoral. do an IJ or subclavian. and put it on the left." then she stormed out. and then another woman had a gigantic bruise in her right groin from a catheterization, and she specifically said, "put the line in that femoral. no need to traumatize any other veins." and again, she stomped off. we were left standing there like, "but...?" so this poor woman had her already tender bruise poked.
and she kept referring to the senior on call as 'resident.' "page your resident and ___." or "your resident should ___." she knows the resident's name; they've worked together before, and plus, all the intensivists and senior residents know each other, especially if the senior resident happens to be a 3rd year. and when i saw her at the elevator i said hi, and she looked at me and kept on walking. GOD, i hate her. this week can't end fast enough.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
i love the scent that wafts around department stores' perfume areas. for the longest time i tried to find a scent that most closely resembled that smell (only lighter), but of course that's many many perfumes mixed together, and to imitate that concoction at home would be impossible and possibly fire-inducing.
i have somehow, however, found 2 perfumes i really like. both are actually eau de toilettes and really light, which is perfect for me. the worst is being stuck in a room w/ someone who smells as if she showered in perfume. those ppl tend to be older women, who for one reason or another like heavy florals and spritz them on as if they'd be shot if they didn't use the entire bottle in one day. i remember when i saw chicago in london; someone reeked so bad that my nose actually stung, and switching to mouth-breathing still left me teary-eyed.
men can also be guilty of using too much cologne and/or aftershave. what's the difference between the two anyway? but when men go overboard it doesn't bother me as much. they might get one sneeze and a grimace out of me, but that's about it. i think it's the lack of florals. but i'm starting to wonder if it's not that men actually use too much, but rather the spiciness makes them seem stronger?
so... how much is too much? 'experts' say for women, one spritz per pulse area but the number of pulse areas isn't set. i find that an hour after 2 pumps my perfumes fade drastically, and gopooh rarely smells them after a couple hours either. but then again, his sense of smell isn't the best, and i don't want to spritz on too much and have other ppl wrinkling their noses at me.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
i was wrong about my senior. not about the staring, b/c he definitely stared a lot. but i was on call w/ him last night and we spent hours just talking, laughing and watching tv together. in between doing work, that is. we joked around... we ate dinner... basically, we got to know each other better.
what a huge difference! before, a stranger was looking at me tooo much, and now i make eye contact w/ someone i know. everything is just different. like today he nudged me to see if i'd fall over from sleepiness, and i wasn't like, ewww gross get away! in fact i would've shoved him back, except that he moved away and i missed. and when we see each other in the halls, we can actually carry on a convo and laugh a little bit, instead of having him try to prolong our eye contact while i try to do the opposite.
i guess the 180 turnaround makes me sound bipolar or smthg, but y'know, that just can't be helped, b/c it really DOES seem like he's staring less. maybe he sensed i was uncomfortable, or, as i said, i s'pose it could just be that i don't think of it as 'staring' anymore. maybe a combination? whatever the reason may be, i'm just so glad that the next 3 weeks won't be spent as awkwardly as the first.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
i'm not sure i like my ICU senior. he's nice enough... but he makes me uncomfortable b/c he's always just STARING at me. i know everyone has some sort of baseline expression and sometimes it appears that he stares at a lot of things... but i think this is different.
like if we're doing paper rounds i naturally try to look at the person talking, but if and when my eyes start to roam, i almost always make eye contact w/ him. or sometimes i'll be looking down and feel eyes studying me, and when i look up to see who it is, it's always him. and the thing a/b it is, it doesn't seem like he's staring out into space and i just happen to be in his line of vision. nu uh, no siree bob. when we make eye contact it feels so damn intense that i look away, b/c really, how long can 2 ppl who've known each other (professionally, i might add) a total of 3 days stare at each other?!
but sometimes, when we make eye contact he raises his eyebrows and/or smiles, which is what my fellow interns and i do all the time during rounds as a silent hello. so that's fine, i don't mind that. and when we're working one-on-one, the eye contact is there minus the stare-me-down length, and our interactions feel a lot more normal.
it's really the staring that gets me. it's problematic too, b/c if i think someone's staring at me, my natural inclination is to laugh at the situation, but i can't very well start laughing for no apparent reason in the middle of rounds. so what i end up doing is holding back the grin and looking away. but have you ever stopped yourself from laughing and still maintained a normal facial expression?!