Sometimes the world really is your oyster

It has been a crazy week, trying to finish things up at work and seeing as many people as I can before I go. Turns out I haven't been very good at either, because a) I will have to work in Kingston for the next few months to complete the project and b) I have been feeling very torn in all different directions, I don't feel as if I've spect much time with either family or friends!

However, this summer I've had a really great time doing clinical research at Sick Kids. It's definitely due to the great people I work with and I think the project will yield really interesting results! Tomorrow is my last day (so sad) and I've been busy getting gifts ready and now at Hallmark they're giving out free "wind-up wishes" with every greeting card you buy. It's basically a sure fire way to give somebody a heart attack, because what it is is a crazy paper butterfly that goes ballistic when you open a card. I feel really dumb at the moment because it took both me and my sister a good ten minutes how to work the darn thing and it turns out all you have to do is twist an elastic for 40 revolutions and meanwhile I was trying to bend the metal in all different directions. Good thing I didn't go into engineering. I'm definitely going to have to enclose one of these psycho paper butterfly contraptions in my letter to Stephen and Frederick in Kenya. Being about 13 years old, I think they'll love it!

So a lot of things have happened in the past week. First off, I had a reunion dinner with my two awesome teachers from middle school. I can't believe so much time has passed!! We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs and heard many inspiring stories. We're going to try to make it a yearly event.

Then over the weekend my family and I went to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Ontario Place (the obligatory Chinese daughter outing with her parents). It was a lot of fun because we actually stopped by the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) as well and I picked up a really great wine guide. At Ontario Place, everywhere I turned there seemed to be the "white guy" boyfriend with every Asian family and I really wish Mike could have joined us. The lights were quite spectacular, but even better was seeing a movie about Ruth Harkness, the first American to bring a panda back to North America. The scenery was beautiful and really made me want to travel to China! It also made me want to read the book The Lady and the Panda even more, but unfortunately from now on it is strictly medical reading. Which may explain why today for the first time on the subway I actually slept. It's really something I hate to do when I know I could be reading instead... but I didn't really want to read anymore about human physiology... and for the past two weeks I've been so tired and singlehandedly increasing the value of Starbucks shares.

As if that wasn't exciting enough, on Tuesday my sister and I went to the second Mariah Carey concert at the Air Canada Centre! It's the first concert we've ever been to together, as Mariah is about the only artist we both enjoy. I purchased the tickets at about $25 each which was quite a steal, but of course we had the crappiest seats in the house. Even still, it was tons of fun, we were dancing to all her old and new hits and loving the DJ that played old '90s hits in between sets. We were also quite thankful when Sean Paul's opening act was over. It was not very good at all.

To top it all off I finally got to meet up with Nancy, who has finished her clerkship at Western!! Wow, she looks great too after what is supposed to be the most grueling time of a medical student's life so I have hope that it won't be as bad as I think. We didn't meet up in Woodbridge, but we went to a dessert place near my house with the highest concentration of ginos in North York so we made up for the non-Woodbridge location of our outing. It was great catching up with her and she'll be doing an elective in Kingston in December so I am very much looking forward to that! Not to mention she is going to be volunteering in Ghana in November and I am so excited for her (and jealous too, heheh).

Meanwhile, Joel, Jennifer and I are terribly sad we'll be parting ways after tomorrow. We've really had such good times, many many inappropriate inside jokes and too much time spent on Google video watching the Borat trailer and really bad David Hasselhoff music videos (don't "Hassle the Hoff" - wanna cup of hot hoffee?). We've also explored so many new restaurants, and Joel really recommends the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar when I feel like shelling out the big bucks à la Royal Bank. It'll have to be my next stop when Mike and I are back in Toronto at the same time. I got Jennifer a bottle of wine, namely the Oyster Bay Marlborough 2005 Pinot Noir from New Zealand. I hope it'll be a great way for her to remember our amazing night in the Distillery District. The Oyster Bay winery slogan is "sometimes the world really is your oyster". I really like this quote because last semester for my clinical skills course, I actually tried really hard to be good at taking histories and physicals and making verbal reports so that I wouldn't appear as an idiot all the time, and it really paid off because during my evaluation while I was nervous as heck one of my tutors was really supportive and encouraging and she told me, "Betty - the world is your oyster". How truly lucky I have been! I wonder if many medical educators know that a simple sentence like that can mean the world to a lowly medical student.

So I begrudgingly move back to Kingston on Sunday and start school on Tuesday. Here comes third year medicine...

In my medical opinion, a great thing to think about while you're observing in the O.R.: The other day I was in the interventional suites observing a big multidisciplinary case so there really wasn't any room for me to get a close look. So while I stood on the sidelines with my big heavy lead shield (to avoid unnecessary radiation from the procedure) I was thinking to myself, what kind of design would I want for my surgical cap if I ever had to wear one? My answer was immediate - the tackiest African safari design I could get with the giant Luo word "OYAORE" (Hello in English). My greatest dream is to meet a Luo-speaking Kenyan in Canada and I think that would be the surefire way to meet someone! I am dying to speak a little Luo.