Week 9-Happy Halloween

Monday morning started out with the written portion of my anesthesia midterm, followed by 4 miserable hours of anticipation, and then the feared oral exams. This was the first of many oral exams in this program, and we really didn't know what to expect, fortunately it wasn't quite as terrifying as expected. Basically the biggest fear was the unknown, granted the actual exam was no cakewalk! I did feel really good about it leaving though, so that's always nice, especially since I didn't do quite as well as I should have on the written exam... You can't win em all! (No worries, I got a B). As a reward for this experience we went to the on campus bar (which has a really good happy hour, and decent house wines) and had some drinks and discussed our triumphs and failures. When I came home, I decided I deserved more reward so I cooked dinner, and laid on the couch and watched TV for 4 hours and did absolutely NO SCHOOL!!!

Tuesday, brought the return of reality, unfortunately my brain was still checked out, so I just kindof drifted through. On the plus side, after school my friend Adaire and her husband, Will, brought me home and took me to go buy a battery, then we stopped for some delicious pizza at Sette Bello (Al Funghi, I love mushrooms!). Then Will successfully replaced my battery, so my car is up and running again, and I have vowed not to be so stupid in the future!

Wednesday, was a day of recovery! Since the last couple of weeks have been so busy, my house, laundry, errands, etc have been severely neglected, so today I just played catch up with that and with school. Oh! I ended the day with some TACOS, I really miss good mexican, so that's pretty much all I am going to eat when I come home for Christmas. Which by the way, I am coming home on the 15th of December, so lets make plans!!! But I forgot to mention in my post last week that we (me, Rich, and my mom and dad) are going to Mexico for Christmas, so we will be gone December 24th-29th. I am super pumped, we're going to an all-inclusive adults only resort outside Playa, so hopefully it will be super relaxing, because I know I will need it by the time December arrives.

Thursday, I don't really know what I did, except study and watch TV

Friday, last day of the week, I made it through another one, and as a reward I got to have dinner with friends. Nicole had us over for Stroganoff dinner, and Hocus Pocus (the movie). A night of good food, good conversation, and good friends.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! Today was halloween, which has always been one of Rich and I's favorite holidays. Unfortunately we had to spend it apart this year, it's also the first time in five years we haven't had our big party. It was very different, but fortunately for me I still managed to have a really good time. Lauren, a friend from school, had a party at her house in Georgetown, where we enjoyed some food, drink, and fun in the form of catchphrase, before heading down to M street. M street was pretty much AMAZING! It was super crowded and the cops were out in full force, but it was some of the best people watching EVER! I really enjoyed seeing everyone in costume, and have the people were drunk and it was extremely amusing. I also conducted my own social experiment where I randomly started singing a song everyone knows and see how many people join in....it was a great time!

Me and Nicole

Garth and Wayne (Lauren, friend from school)

Only at a party with nurses...Drinking I.S.!

Crew from school, Nicole, Jason, Lauren, Me...P.S. I'm gazing lovingly at the skull because I crashed my plane on a desert island and my navigator died first...I was Amelia Earhart

Sunday, study, study, study and meeting the neighbors. My neighbor (who I had never met) down the hall had a post halloween hangover and housewarming party, so I went. I ate some meatloaf and potatoes, met some neighbors, then headed home for some more studying.

The Job Front

So, most of you probably are not aware of what exactly is going on with Rich and his job search. He is actively looking for a job in DC, and has been for a while. Unfortunately nothing has come up. Then a few weeks ago he randomly applied for a job in Dallas as a program manager, and received a job offer. After having a preliminary discussion with the HR director for this job we were thinking he would accept the job, and just fly to DC every other week. However, once he got the official job offer almost 2 weeks after the verbal offer, the pay scale had been severly altered and was significantly below the low end of fair market value. For us, this was God closing a door, so he turned this job down, and we decided to stick to the DC search.

A week after he turned down the job in Dallas, it seems a window may be opening. Katie, a friend of Rich's at Raytheon in DC, called him to let him know they are unexpectedly loosing someone, and that Richard would be qualified to fill his position. So he sent her his resume, and now we are just waiting for them to close the job posting and schedule the interviews. So at this point we are expecting him to interview in the next 2-3 weeks. If all goes well he could potentially have a job offer by Thanksgiving! So please, please keep us in your prayers!

Week 8-2/3 through Anatomy!

Monday we had our introduction to the anesthesia machine, which is great, it is especially nice to have a break from cadaver lab and blocks!

Tuesday, I had Anatomy round 2 of 3! Had oral exam at 8am followed by a practical exam at 2pm, followed by drinks at the campus bar and finished the day off with my health policy class.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to spend anytime recovering from my anatomy exam, because I had Wednesday to Monday to cram in 2 months of anesthesia work. So this started Wednesday as soon as class was out, and continued thursday (kinda).

Friday and Saturday morning I took a break. Nicole and I went to dinner friday night and went to see the free showing of HP6 on campus. We love HP and didn't want to wait until it's out on video to see it again. Then Saturday (October 24th) was Leo's third birthday and first big birthday party. Sara went all out for Leo's Little Einsteins party, and Leo had a wonderful time. Except for the happy birthday song, he was doing good and had already blown the candles out twice, but then we started singing, and he had a small meltdown (see picture above). I also got to spend some time on baby duty. Josey is getting so big, and is absolutely beautiful. She is such a good girl, she was calm and quiet for the entire birthday and then some. After all Leo's guests left and it was just the family, Leo enjoyed opening his birthday presents. The cutest gift he got was his apron and oven mitts from his grandma.

Then I headed back home for some serious study time...

Sunday, the fun really began. I went to my car to head to my belly dance class and my car battery was dead! Why was it dead? Because overstress from school makes me DUMB + my parking garage is really dark... Seriously, the more I worry about a test the worse I do... Oh well! We will deal with it later because I do not have time, energy, or emotional strength to deal with it today. That will be a lovely thing waiting on me after I finish my oral exams...

Week 7

So this week starts a crazy three week stretch of chaos. In school this week my research group and I formed our problem statement and hypothesis, we will be researching the role of the CRNA in chronic pain management and palliative care. This is a big advancement in my research project, next step is a massive lit review, sounds fun huh?

On wednesday this week Sara and I went to a girls night out event at Constitution Hall in DC. We had a really great time, free drinks, shopping, and girl talk, + free front row parking=winning evening! Also, anything that gets me out of the house on a weeknight is nice.

Then its time to start studying Anatomy! Test two is coming up next tuesday... It was cold and rained all weekend, which was nice because I really didn't want to leave the house all weekend, but on the downside I didn't really want to study either. I wanted to take a nap!

Sunday I started a four week belly dance class at a studio in Clarendon. It was a really fun interactive workout, and we even got a jingly hip scarf to dance with, followed by more studying.

Week 6

Another busy week... Started with Richards visit, and trying to simultaneously get things done and spend time with him. Monday, we got to spend some time with Sara, Tom, and the kiddo's before Rich left.

Tuesday was a rough day for me. It was the hardest day I've had since I've been here, Richard left today, and I don't know exactly when I am going to see him again, probably not until Thanksgiving. That is almost 2 months, which is way longer than the 3.5 week stints we've been doing. So I spent most of the day crying and was really down, it is extremely difficult to say goodbye, especially under these circumstances.

Wednesday was a much better day, I somewhat recovered from the emotional drama of yesterday, and had some time to catch up on my work. In school I feel like I've figured out how I need to study and what I need to do to be successful in class, now it is just a matter of continuing to do it. I have lost a little of the initial back to school steam, and things are starting to drag a bit, fortunately I feel like I am making some friends which makes this much more bearable. The most important thing I've found is that I not get behind, because there is no time to catch up once you're behind. Today we also turned in our research topics, my group has decided to focus on the role of the nurse anesthesthetist outside the OR in various areas of pain management.

Friday, the week is over and I am looking forward to a three day weekend, and I still did biochem work on friday afternoon. Then, Lauren and I went to Cactus Cantina...my first DC mexican, the margaritas gave me a false positive enjoyment. They at least have delicious homemade tortillas, but otherwise the food was extremely bland, and I'm pretty sure my chimichanga was not fried...which makes it a burrito! Then we went and had a good ugly cry watching My Sister's Keeper on campus. On our way home we ran into some drunk undergrads (mind you it is only 1145), peeing in the bushes outside the campus bar, while screaming and running in circles...quite entertaining.

Saturday, study, errands, cooking, studying, Dinner Party! My first dinner guests came over saturday, it was quite successful, we made it through 4+ bottles of wine...which lead to a less than productive Sunday. But it was really wonderful to entertain, first time I have done this since...um... the power outage party in May. Definately a nice end to a stressful week.

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Week 5

This week has been one of the busiest thus far. Trying to simultaneously keep up with 5 classes and studying extra for an upcoming exam is an overwhelming feat. I had my first biochem test on wednesday, which was particularly annoying. It was a 20 question test worth 20% of my grade, and 2 of the questions were over material not covered in lecture or our readings. Oh well! Moving on, after the exam we went to Happy Hour at La Tasca for Sangria and Tapas, good therapy after the exam.

Thursday, I tried to get a lot os studying done before Rich's arrival. He made his second visit, and had his second American Airlines catastrophe. His flight was 3.5 hours late leading to a 1:45 am arrival, when I had class at 8am the next morning. On the plus side, I had plenty of time to get some studying done and work on my health policy paper on cost containment in the reform debate.

Friday, Richard got to sleep, while I had to go to class from 8-3, then he picked me up from school and I went home to take a nap before our outing. After I woke up, we headed to Georgetown to meet some friends for dinner, and a Georgetown ghost tour (which was amazing). It was a good show, very entertaining, and ended at the famous exorcism steps (which I go by every day). Then we hit up the Tombs for some drinks before heading home.

Saturday, we just enjoyed being together. We ran errands, stayed home and cooked dinner, went to go see The Hangover (finally).

Sunday, we spent a beautiful sunny day at the zoo. This is a highly reccommended DC adventure in nice weather, the zoo is really very nice. After the zoo we stopped at Medaterra, a Greek restaurant close by with tasty $3 strawberry margs on sundays...Unfortunately Richard's driver's license is expired and they refused to serve him alcohol. He enjoyed watching me drink! Oh well, time to go home and watch the Cowboys! Actually, I wrote that lovely health policy paper I mentioned earlier, while Richard watched the Boys loose. Then we enjoyed a delicious dinner.

See the Tiger in the background...the battery died right after this picture, glad I got it.