Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes

So I just realized this blog is going to be my ticket to not falling into dementia as a 27 year old! I need it just like Alzheimer patients need their yellow post-it’s. I was trying to think the year through – you know, it being the last day of the year and all – but I can hardly remember what month I moved to this city, much less what I did a random day in Marts, or April, or October for that matter.

I guess the bigger things stand out – graduating from med.school, starting my first job as a “real” doctor, doing my first surgical procedure, one of my closest friends having a baby, having the family over for Christmas, going to London with sister dearest and the first vacation with just my mom and I. Although, one would think that moving to a new city would kind of qualify as a “big thing”…

Yesterday at work while we were waiting for the OR to be ready for us the surgeon asked me if I had always been this dutiful and committed person – a “daddies girl” or “mommas girl”. I was a bit surprised and maybe just a little bit annoyed with the daddies/mommas girl comment, but said that yes, I guess I had. He then said that when you’re like that, you tend to put a lot of pressure on yourself and always focus on things you could and should do better and that you had to remember to take time to think about how good you are doing and that I was doing really good. He said that I was one of the best interns they’d had in years, and even though my mind immediately goes to “yeah right” – today I’ll try to block that out, and really try to just take it in.

The biggest thing for me this year was finishing med.school – I’ve had this goal of becoming a doctor since I was about three years old, and even though I somehow knew this was what I was meant to do – I’ve spent the last seven years feeling like I’ll never be good enough. But I am, and my New Years resolution will be to try to remember it, cause when I finally start feeling it, I think that’s going to be when I really reach the goal set out so long ago.

The Hunting

Yes, that’s what I’ve been up to today. I’ve been searching, looking, tracking down and trying to find the perfect – well the good enough anyway – dress and last minute flight. So, do the two things have anything in common other than obviously being very hard to come by? Not really, but yeah, kind of a little bit too.

Today was my last day of work until the 9th. of January. That’s a whole lot of spare time! And unfortunately it’s a whole lot of unplanned time. I should have thought about it months ago, although granted my last week off (about 7 weeks ago) was strangely filled with mandatory communication classes and funnily enough – work, so I didn’t really dare to plan anything, in case “week off” actually meant working regular hours. So my thought was that maybe I could take a last minute trip somewhere? I mostly want to go to Paris but maybe that’s better as a springtime trip? So instead I was looking at cheap flights to Tenerife – you know, sleeping on a sun chair is almost the same as sleeping on the couch (which of course is what I will be doing if I stay at home) only I get filled up with Vitamin-D without having to take one lousy pill! Problem is, I had the impression last minute trips were cheap and they’re not really, except if you want to sleep in a crummy old hotel with cockroaches as roomies. Maybe it’s better to go to Paris for just like three days for the same cost it would be to go to Tenerife for a week? See, this is the problem with unspontaneous people like me – I can’t make a quick decision to save my life (or my vacation!)

So, the other quest – the good enough dress. Well, the reason why I need to go away (apart from having the time and feeling obliged to use it to travel) is that I don’t really like New Years Eve, and I feel like the only way I can stand to really celebrate it is if I have something really great to look forwards to after (and I mean like the day after!). So the dress is for tomorrow. New Years Eve – it doesn’t seem like it’s going to slip quietly by this year either. Each year I think, it can’t really get any worse, and each year keeps kicking the previous years butt. Now, I have had some pretty good New Years, and I don’t even know how tomorrow is going to be – so why am I being such a negative Nancy? The problem is – and I’m being strangely honest now, I’m not really sure why – I feel lonely at New Years Eve. Each year I keep hoping the feeling might have gone away, but each year it comes back worse than last, so therefor – not really a fan of the last night of the year.

Ok, so, after all the serious stuff – did I find a dress? ‘Course I did! I found two! One green and one black – the green was sold out everywhere and the black was only left in mini-sizes. Fortunately though I had spotted a white dress a couple of weeks ago that was still hanging there all by it’s lonesome, so I thought, why not be lonely together? And – even better, it’s THE color of next season and one of my favorite colors for spring, so I’ll take a bit of a leap in to the new year, skip the dreary months of slush and go straight to crispy white world of sandals and sunbeams.          

From the top left we have; Christian Dior, Carolina Herrera, Elie Saab, Valentino and Cholé. The bottom dresses are all from – the one and only – Chanel.

Spring Fling

Winter has apparently decided it was time for a well needed vacation after a couple of years of working overtime, and honestly I couldn’t agree more. I know though, that Nordic winters aren’t usually very good at holding a whole lot of vacations, so I’m sure it’ll be back just when I start dreaming of summer, which usually is around April…

But, until that day comes when snow leaks inside my short boots and my fingers turn blue after a bike ride, I’ll flirt just a tiny little bit with the thought of spring and summer!

Have you seen the beautiful SS 2012 collections? Above is Valentino in the middle and Louis Vuitton on both sides. Lace, flowery, a bit see-through, pastel and length around the knee. Light and lovely.

The Christmas aftermath

Ten days since my last post, one week since my family flew in, two days since they left and almost 30 hours since I went back to work – and only about four since I got back from the hospital.

The post-Christmas blues – I guess it’s inevitable for someone like me. You build it up, always knowing it’ll never quite live up to it but still hoping it will, get disappointed when it doesn’t and then realize that you actually had a pretty good time and probably would have had a better time if the expectations weren’t so high. Before you know it you’re back at work, doing your regular mundane stuff and already ruining the next Holliday just a few days away buy building expectations – one never learns!

My Christmas vacation was spent decorating the tree, cooking for a whole family, rearranging sleeping quarters every morning and every evening, building my nightstand, pulling a cable so my TV could be moved from the bedroom to the living room and of course talking, drinking thousands cups of coffee and playing board games. Oh, and not to be forgotten – giving and receiving gifts!

Christmas Eve day is almost always a kind of hectic day. The food needs to be prepared, the last cards written and the last minute gifts wrapped. Christmas Day however is almost always really where you enjoy yourself. At one point there was this stillness in the apartment when mom had gone to take a nap in the bedroom, my sister was half asleep on the couch listening to some podcast on my IPhone, dad was surfing on the computer and I was half watching Peter Pan on TV and half napping. I think I love those moments most. Stillness, quiet, everybody is doing their own thing but nobody is alone.

Another highlight of the Christmas week was definitely the Downton Abbey Christmas Special. I absolutely loved it! It’s funny, sad, dramatic and romantic – what’s not to like!?

All the lights are coming on now…

Christmas is almost upon us – in case you hadn’t noticed. I’ve gathered inspiration from all over the net and started a board on Pinterest of all the pictures that just make me go aaaawwww! Problem is I’m so insanely tired (I slept until two o'clock in the afternoon this Saturday!) that even though I brought home my very first Christmas tree yesterday I haven’t even had the energy to decorate it yet. Hopefully I’ll manage it tomorrow after shopping from Christmas dinner, because Wednesday I have another 25-hour shift (though I can’t imagine how I’ll ever get through that!) and Thursday I have to pick up the family at the airport. Christ – I can’t even think of everything I have to get done without feeling a tiny twitch of panic in the pit of my stomach. So I won’t think about it, I’ll just take one last look at these pretty pictures and then really try to sleep (as I was supposed to be about an hour and a half ago…)     

Great idea, I wish I had done this, or that I hade the place to do it in the kitchen. It kind of looses it’s point if you have a real tree I think.

I made a star like this, this weekend. It’s now hanging a bit crooked in my window, but it’s very pretty, if I may say so myself.

I took inspiration from these birds and made some myself a couple of days ago, they are going to go in the tree. I think they’re probably the cutest think I’ve ever done.

As always I love paper cranes. I’ve been doing them since 2nd or 3rd grade when we read about Sadako and The Thousand Paper Cranes. I never knew they made a wish tree every year – make a wish for the world and give it wings. How beautiful is that? In a couple of years I’ll probably have enough cranes to decorate a whole tree with them, I can’t wait!

Picture nr. 1 from Sweet Paul, nr. 2 from Life is Beautiful, nr. 3 from En mammas dag /Weronica and nr. 4 from Rainbow fund. 

Chopsticks for one?

I’ve had a great day, second in a row actually so I’m slowly recovering from a bit of a hellish 25 hour shift on Wednesday. I know I complain half the time, but I actually do have good days too.

After the shift on Wednesday I had tears streaming down my face on the bike ride home. I guess it was a combination of being seriously sleep deprived, having had a bad couple of days just before the nightshift and listening to a sad song while thinking of a patient I’d seen during the night. I don’t usually get emotional about my patients, I can count the patients I’ve been sad about on one hand. This wasn’t even one I had anything to do with, I just happened to witness a very emotional and private moment in a family’s life and for some idiotic reason I imagined my own family going through it even though we never have and probably never will.

Anyway, I was having a pretty bad morning and even though I had decided to go home and sleep away the day, I suddenly changed my mind and ended up hopping on a train and going to visit a friend. I love that I can do that, decide on a whim to do something completely different from what I had planned. I love that I don’t have to ask or explain to anyone. The visit turned out to be exactly what I needed to get through the day. I got to talk and drink tea and relax, then I got to cuddle the sweetest little girl and experience the thrill of calming her down and making her smile. It just gives you energy and a warmth that you can’t get anywhere else.

Today I got to continue to cuddle babies, only today they were a bit on the sick side. I had my second visit to the pediatric department and it was, of course, wonderful. I got to talk to pediatricians and general practitioners who work there, and though they had a bunch of interesting thing to say they were mostly preoccupied with getting home on time. They had kids, husbands, wives and responsibilities waiting for them after work, they practically missed the smiles and the jokes the kids made because they were so stressed! I was dead tired but I couldn’t help myself – I love it there, and stayed a couple of hours more than planned and again, nobody gets pissed at home and nobody get’s stressed because of my change of plans – my way, my life and nobodies goddam business but my own. I love it.

Though the day couldn’t get much better I stopped for sushi to just really put it over the top, and when the Asian guy asked me if I just wanted chopsticks for one person I gave him the biggest smile I have and said a very happy YES!

I’ve been working like a dog

Seven and a half hours in the operating room without lunch or a pee-break does not a happy Arlen make! My feet and back are killing me, my head feels empty and slow and all I want to do is sleep – well that and get at massage, but that’s a bit more tricky to get at hold of right now. I’m not a surgeon and I don’t want to be (as I’ve told every person who has asked, and some who haven’t), this day and a couple of the ones I had last week, prove why. It’s tiresome, it’s monotonous and I’m not very good at it. Every time one of the surgeons tell me I’m doing something good I practically roll my eyes thinking “what a load of bull”, I’m not killing the patient and I’m happy about that, but it’s hardly good, maybe, sometimes, on a good day it’s decent work, but most times it’s just barely acceptable.

So why do I care? I’m not going to use those skills ever again in my life. I’ve always said I’m not a competitive person, and I can still argue that fact – but I don’t like to loose and I don’t like to be bad at something, actually that’s kind of an understatement – I hate being bad at something! So after standing a whole day, smiling in spite of being stressed and reprimanded by the nurses, and trying my best not to be the stupid, un-surgical person that I am  – I think I now deserve a glass of champagne, a foot rub and some gourmet sushi.

But as we all know that ain’t gonna happen, so I guess a hot bath, nuked pasta leftovers and a good book in bed is going to have to do. That is if I don’t fall asleep on the couch in the next couple of minutes…

 

Tonight I’m in the wardrobe

I never read the Narnia chronicles as a kid which probably is a big shame, but I didn’t even know they existed. This means though that the movies are my first experience with the story and that means that I absolutely love the movies! A wonderful story full of the best kind of fantasy. So tonight I’m loosing myself in a world of talking lions and beautiful winter wonderlands.

Between the sheets

This day – just like the last five, has been spent in bed with a fever, headache, sore throat, terrible coughing and even tummy ache. I hate being sick. I know, everybody does – but it’s embarrassing how much I hate it, how pathetic I get, being all wimpy and feeling sorry for myself.

Some people can make being sick sound cozy and almost like a vacation. They describe it as cuddling up in the sofa with blankets, a cup of tea and a good book. I wish I could be sick like that, cute sick, a little bit like the girl in the picture. Instead I look like a freak with my hair all askew and ragged old clothes. I couldn’t even manage to get out to the living room this morning, so I’ve spent the day (the whole day!) in bed half sleeping half watching The Notebook.

Now of course I’m feeling a little bit better and I’m hungry as hell, and the only thing in the kitchen is tea and gingerbread cookies – where is magical fridge when you need it!?

Pictures from Ikea, Pinterest, Google and The Notebook.

The impossible question

The most dangerous game you can play is the, “what if” game, it leads your head to places it should never go. As I’ve written before I hate it when I go there. I get scared that I’ll get stuck in the past. Even so sometimes you can’t help yourself, it’s so tempting, imagining the life you might have led now, if…

Well actually there’s a problem right there, I don’t really know if what. Maybe if I’d been more honest? Maybe if I had taken a risk and not always played it so safe? If I at least had a moment I could look back on where I could have done it differently, made some sort of declaration or been asked a direct question that I could have answered honestly but didn’t – but I don’t have such a moment. There are just fragments of memories where a moment almost presented itself but then somehow disappeared again. Blink once and the moment has past, blink twice and years have.

Again, as I’ve written before the conundrum around people growing together and growing apart confounds me. The ups and downs of a relationship is probably one of the most mysterious things out there, maybe I should have studied anthropology instead of medicine… I just wish I had some explanation for it, for the downfall of a relationship, or the lasting for that matter – let’s not be so negative.

The best relationship I have in my life is definitely not the easiest one, it has taken years and tears to get here, it has been necessary to be together a lot and also to have a lot of mental and physical space between us. Somehow we’ve ended up becoming each others best friend, but I suppose it could have just as easily turned into a horrible relationship that you would have had to endure throughout your entire life. The point is, I have no idea when or where this relationship turned, suddenly it was just good, but I wish I did know, because if it hadn’t turned out good I would desperately have wanted to go back and change that exact moment.

Just as I want with a couple of other relationships that haven’t turned out as good as this one.

Obviously all this thinking came about after watching “One day” – if you haven’t read the book yet – shame on you! And don’t cheat yourself out of a good book by watching the movie first! 

Friday night in

Well first of all, Christmas is back on track! Very happy about that!

A couple of days ago I made some Christmas candy (it’s called “kola” in Swedish), I don’t remember ever eating it before, so I’m not sure if it tastes the way it’s supposed to – it’s very sweet, like call my dentist my teeth's are falling off sweet! So today I chose to bake some Christmas-cookies that are less sweet and more… hmm, I don’t even know the name for their taste, gingery I guess. Now I have enough gingerbread cookies to last me until may!

So this evening is one of those perfect ones, I’m curled up in bed with tea and newly baked cookies watching nothing important on TV (oh yeah, I have a TV connection now!) and when I fall asleep there will be no alarm, no wake-up call – just sleep, sleep, sleep! I’m just a sucker for the little things in life.

Bad quality iPhone photos, sorry about that…

Working while sleeping

I wish I had a river I could sail away on…

We’re not even in December and Christmas is already ruined. I feel like taking all the stupid stuff down and throwing them out. If they hadn’t already bought their tickets I would have called the whole thing off. Instead now I have to prepare a Christmas that I know won’t be any better than the ones we’re used to having. It’s like there’s a curse on this family. I was stupid enough to think I could do it better, that I could change it – but I can’t, the same people with the same problems make the same type of Christmas, no matter where you are.

I can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep trying and expecting it do be different and then feel myself becoming more and more dark and bitter as the years pass. It’s such a childish wish, I really thought I had left it behind years ago, but then this opportunity comes along, of doing things differently and the wish just pops up again – the stupid childish wish of having a calm, happy, normal Christmas. I feel like I’m five years old building a beautiful snowman that some horrible person just stepped all over, and worst part is that I’m the horrible person doing the stepping.

Close to perfect

I have this tendency of getting really upset and mad from time to time because I feel like I never get what I want. It’s funny really, considering I’ve actually always gotten what I want. The thing is, I always feel like I get the “almost but not quite there”- solution, the fake Fendi. It looks just the same as the real one (it’s a really good fake) – so why does it matter? It shouldn’t, I know it shouldn’t, but it feels different and so it does.

I do realize I sound like a spoiled brat, if that’s any help. Mostly I’m happy to have gotten what I want, it’s just that sometimes I can’t help but think about what it would have been like to have gotten it exactly as I wanted it. I know it sounds terrible, and I am happy that I now am a doctor – but I do think about how it would have been to have studied in Uppsala, close to my family, in my own language, establishing roots close to my hometown and not in a completely different country – the way I had planned it in my head for years. I wonder how it would have been like to have understood the first couple of lectures, how it would have been like not having constantly to explain my presence in another country than my own and last but not least – how it would have been like not having to choose between staying or going.

When I moved down here I never thought I would get as attached as I did, I never realized it would become home and that from that moment I would become torn between here and there. I’ve kept postponing the decision, thinking that it’s not really necessary to make a decision before the absolute last minute, but not making it has also left the question unanswered and the problem unresolved, and ultimately me still torn. I’m happy with what I got; it just would have been easier to have gotten it “the right way”. So have I decided yet – staying or going? Of course not, I thought I would know by the time I graduated, but I didn’t and I still don’t, so for now I’m waiting for that last minute, and from time to time bitching over the fact that in another life, I’d gotten it just as I wanted it and this would never have been a problem.

How can you not get attached when campus looks like this!?

Decking the halls

Today I’m “decorating” my apartment with everything red I can find, which isn’t very much, but I’m not really the “Christmas-lights in the windows, reindeers in every corner, trip over the Santa in the hall when you get in” – kind of person anyhow, so it’s ok. I just wish I could get it a little cozier – I should get a rug and a chimney with a bunch of tree logs, turn this place into an old wooden cabin and pretend I live in the woods. Oh well, for now I’ll just wait until the snow decides to come and also until I find out where I can get a hold of a Christmas tree, that should turn this place into and real life Christmas Wonderland!

In a couple of days now it will be the first of December and that means the real Christmas countdown begins. For years now I’ve been very anti-Christmas, actually it’s probably been because of my bad mood this time of year. But this year we are doing something different for the holidays. Instead of me packing my bags and hopping on a northbound plane, my family is heading south and coming down to see me. It’s the first time we’ll be celebrating Christmas together somewhere else than at home, and it’s the first time I’ll be hosting it. Now, you might think this is something you do when you have kids and a big house, but I have no idea if I’ll ever have that and I don’t see the point in waiting for it either. So we are doing the most taboo thing you can in December, we are breaking traditions.

I can’t guarantee it’ll be a huge success, but I do know it’ll be different than what we’re used to, and being a family that’s never really gotten the hang of the whole Christmas thing I think I’ll be really good for us. This way we can try a couple of different types of Christmases over the years and when we find something we like I guess we’ll just stick to it.

Maybe next year we could try going to the Bahamas or Zanzibar or something, although if I’m being totally honest, putting us four together on a difficult to get off island for a week sounds more like a social experiment gone wrong than a jolly family gathering – but who knows, maybe they’d surprise me.

A brilliant cure

In all my years studying diseases I always knew that someday I would find the perfect one for me, and now I have! It’s got the perfect symptoms and prognosis (I think) and best of all, the perfect medicine.

For several years now I’ve had periods where I’ve been a less happy version of myself, strangely enough it’s almost always been in the deep dark cold fall and winter months we have up here in the north. I get tired – like sleeping a whole day tired, and I’m a good sleeper no matter what season we have! I get cranky and easily annoyed, some might even call it a bit bitchy – and no, that’s not just my personality! And lastly I get this weird way of thinking that sweets, cakes, ice cream and chocolate (yes, it’s a category on its own) are an undisputable part of every meal. That’s not saying that I don’t sleep or am a bitch (when needed) or love chocolate in the spring or summer, it’s just on a whole other level in the dark months. So, is this really a disease? Well, actually it is and it’s called winter depression – or seasonal affective disorder. It might not be a huge problem for me (I’m almost certain I don’t fill up all the criteria), but for some people it really is something that affects their daily life in quite the negative way.

The “cure”, if you want to call it that, is (apart from antidepressants for people that have it really bad) light. Yes, this is a disease where something as simple as standing underneath a sunbeam just absorbing the light will help. Personally I’m thinking of writing a recipe for myself ordering a week at the beach in some sunny country – although, that might not be the best idea after all the cakes and sweets these past couple of months…

Picture from Pinterest.

Won't you lay me down in tall grass and let me do my stuff…

I often think that I was born in the wrong decade – I should have been part of the late 60’s and start 70’s. I would have made an excellent hippie if I may say so myself. I’d have been a Beatles crazy, Bandstand dancing and Vietnam-protesting, raging feminist that today would tell fabulous stories and be infuriated by the passive youth. Instead I’m part of the same passive youth (yes, still youth – come on I’m not even 28 yet!) who just sits back and complains, waiting for someone else to do something about it. My imaginary past hippie self would be so disappointed!

Alas I am undeniably a child of my own generation, but at least I can listen to the music, envy the clothes and if I get a hold of some incense maybe I can close my eyes and imagine I’m right there in the middle of history being made.

Fabulous music to set the mood – better than most songs out right now.

Pictures from Pinterest – yes, I’m addicted!

What a difference 365 days make

About a year ago I was practically drowning in books and pages. I had some ten days to learn everything in medicine that I didn’t yet know – which unfortunately was a lot! I was under so much pressure you can’t even imagine, and the reason you can’t imagine is I can’t even imagine now. I still can’t really understand I got through it. Somehow you learn to do what you’re supposed to and not think too much about it, you get up, go to the library, read, right – hopefully learn, and then go home and eat and go to bed. Next day you get up and do it all over again. It’s weird to now live a life where reading heavy books isn’t a part of my daily activity. I suppose I’ll start reading heavy books again sooner or later, I kind of already miss them a bit – but I needed this change, I needed to get my nose out of the books and see the world, see the reason why I got my nose in the books in the first place. It’s a great reason – I want to help people, and I need to get better at it. I learn a lot from doing and seeing, but knowing myself I’ll never really get it in my long-term memory if I don’t also read it, write it down and then read it again. I need lists and columns to take the facts in, it’s just the kind of square I am.

So now, inspired by all the med. students on Facebook, who are updating their statuses with how many pages they have read and how many days they have left to learn the rest of the enormous amount of diseases – I’ll take my medicine book with me to bed and read, because deep down, this is my passion and the best thing I got (back) from passing all those exams a year ago is the joy of reading for pure curiosity and interest!

Pictures from last fall with different reading places. The library, a cubicle, the bed and an empty study hall borrowing a friends cubicle. Good times…

All I want for Christmas is…

A strong cup of coffee, a fresh croissant and a fantastic book – I could have it all right here in my living room, but what would the fun in that be? I can’t help but think that nothing less than a Parisian café near the Seine is going to be able to help this longing. It’s quite the problem actually, I don’t have the money or the time to just skip down to Paris for a weekend – or what really is becoming at least a week in my head. Even if by some miracle my pay check this month would be doubled I have more pressing matters to use my money on – or at least I’ll have in the near future what with a move coming up in the spring and me not knowing how far I’ll have to move. But if Santa hasn’t any better ideas this would be the perfect Christmas present!

Pictures from Pintrest.

A girl that lives in the past

I have this strange thing with sad songs. I love them. I get addicted to them and have to listen to them over and over again. For a period it was River by Joni Mitchell, it always made me cry and I always found it just around Christmas (of course). This year I’ve decided not be so negative about Christmas, so I think I’ll just skip it when I do my “Christmas playlist”. But I still need a sad song, you know – just in case I feel like a good cry, so I’m thinking of making “Friend in a bar” by Tina Dickow my go-to-song for crying. I really do think it’s the saddest song I have ever heard. It hits way to close to home for me to even stand a chance of not bawling when I listen to it. Is there really anything more tragic than wasting your life by your own choosing? Waiting for your “real” life to start, being hung up on the past and not realising until it’s too late. I always panic when I catch myself thinking about my life as a waiting room, it’s probably one of my biggest fears, to miss out and later realise that all this time that I thought of as a waste and just a hassle to get to the good stuff actually was the part I was supposed to be enjoying.

I don’t always love my life – as a matter of fact, I very seldom do. I don’t really think of it as a problem, I imagine most people don’t go around loving their life on a daily basis, but I do think it’s a good life – it’s like a photo before being improved in Photoshop, there’s a lot of potential! So for a while now I’ve been thinking of doing a list – not really a Bucket list, just a list of stuff that could perk up the already pretty ok life I have. Funnily enough just doing that, or thinking of doing that, gives a very mundane Friday a bit of a silver lining, like it’s the start of something – maybe even, a Photoshoped life.

Boom Boom Boom Boom

Heart racing, shallow accelerated breathing, dark slightly unfocused eyes and twitching fingers dancing across the keyboard in a nervous dance – and then suddenly the fingers stop, the breathing stops and the eyes close, all you can hear is the beating heart – the mail is off, lost in cyberspace and out of my control. I’ve sent my first real job application.

The thing is I don’t really expect to get the job, it’s so out of my league I’m almost a bit embarrassed to even apply, but still I have to try, and I can’t help but hope. So now the application is off and hopefully the butterflies in my stomach will settle down long enough for me to get a cup off coffee with my girls. I need all the distraction I can get today!

She works hard for the money...

Can you belive my computer still isn't home with me!? It's insane! It's unacceptable and frustrating and... oh, well - it is what it is. I'm doing quite alright without it actually. Reading book after book and taking long walks in this beautiful weather. Oh, and also - working. Next week I'm working 75h instead of the normal 37 (fantastic!). I'm starting to think I just might become a decent cardiothoracic intern, without even intending to, what with all this forced on practice...

Anyways, I should hit the sack before my phone goes off and I need to scrub in again. So, I'll leave you again (hopefully not for long!) with some of the pictures I've taken on my walks.

Working girl

So my computer is sick again and I've used all my internet for the month on my iPhone - I'm practically in withdrawal! How is it possible that people once lived without immediate access to all kind of life essential information!?

Right now I'm at work, my first real shift as a cardiothoracic surgical resident and what do I do? I blog of course! Well really, what else am I supposed to do? I'm stuck at the hospital for 25 hours and (right now) there's nothing to do. I've admitted patients done rounds and taken care of pleural drains.

Oh, and now I'm being called over - better run!

Wide open spaces

Sometimes I think I might have misunderstood the direction my life should have. I think of the apartments I’ve lived in (that have indeed been minuscule!) and that I’ll keep living in for many years to come and I think, there must be something else. There must be some other way of living.

And then I find pictures like those below and I know I’m right. There is something else, there are places where everything seems so serene and calm that you probably can’t help to become serene and calm yourself. There is nothing pretentious or snobbish about the house in the pictures, not like those old last century apartments I sometimes drool over.

If I had two lives that I could live simultaneously I would definitely buy a place like this and learn to horseback ride (not just start, stop and turning – but really learn!), talk about life quality! How can anybody not be happy living like this!?

The pictures are from Skeppsholmens Fastighetsmäkleri and they have so many beautiful places you can buy right now that I’m happy I’m not a multimillionaire cause I’d probably spend all my money buying houses…

The song for this post is (of course!) – Wide open spaces with The (amazing!) Dixie Chicks

I'm starting with the (wo)man in the mirror

“Brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it” President Barack Obama on the passing of Steve Jobs.

I’m not writing on a Mac even though I’d want to. I’ve never been one of the big Apple followers and so I’m not a huge Steve Jobs fan, but I do get that he was an extremely talented man and that when he talked about his products people got the feeling that it truly was an object they really couldn’t live without. I love my iPhone and I really can’t imagine being without it now that I have it, so in a way he changed my everyday-life. He actually changed the world.

I know he didn’t do it on his own, that it’s a whole team of insanely smart people working on the incredible stuff they come up with all the time and that it has taken years to get to the place where they are, but still – he, and they, changed the world. How amazing is that?

Not so long ago I was talking to my sister about the fact that most doctors or med.students I know say that they have chosen to be doctors because they liked science in school and definitely NOT because they wanted to “save the world” (said with sarcasm dripping from every word). It seems arrogant to think that you can save the world – who ever said it needed saving anyway? And why do you think you could be the one to do it? It’s just a job like any other and there is nothing special or big about it, we are definitely not playing God, who would ever want to? Yeah, something like that is the response most give when asked about that part of being a doctor – the saving part.

So am I just a little bit scared of saying, “sure I want to save the world”? Of course I am! (Strangely enough I don’t want people thinking I’m arrogant or playing all mighty God!) But honestly why wouldn’t you want to save the world if you could? Why wouldn’t you want to make a difference if you found a way how? How amazing wouldn’t it be to one day be described as Steve Jobs – creative, bold, talented – and world changer!

I might not be creative, bold or talented enough to change the world, but the least I can do is try to make just a little tiny bit of difference, and hopefully that will be enough.

 

Like an hourglass glued to the table

There is little that scares me as much as time does, imagining it passing, constant and unstoppable. It’s strange; because you’d think that it would make me appreciate it even more, spend every hour of every day as it were my last. It doesn’t. It paralyzes me completely. I just keep fixating on the fact that I can’t do anything about it, that I can’t go back, and that every second passed is a second I can’t get back. Not that I can think of what to do with all of those seconds if I could get them back. Probably just sit there and stare – which is exactly what I did in the first place. I’m not sure that it’s about missing something or wasting it though, I think it might be that the whole concept is too big for my head, I can’t explain why it scares me, but it really does.

So why am I speculating over this in the middle of the night? Well, mostly it’s because it’s at night that it becomes so much more obvious to me. I keep telling myself that I need to go to bed, but at the same time I keep thinking about all the time I’m missing while sleeping, and all the things I should be doing that I haven’t done during the day. But instead of doing them, I just keep thinking about the seconds passing, completely paralyzed.

It’s a little bit like when you were a kid and you thought that if you closed your eyes nobody could see you – I keep thinking that if I stand completely still maybe time will stand still with me.

It just never does.

 

Can’t buy me love

Unfortunately I can’t buy love – but I can buy joy and happiness in the form of books, pretty colors for my nails, washi tape and fruit! I can’t wait for the books to be delivered! I’ve been wanting to read Ape House ever since I read Water for Elephants – an outstanding book, probably one of the best, if not the best I’ve read this year, so now finally (!!) it’s on it’s way!

Other than that my Sunday has been very calm, relaxing and sleeping and watching old episodes of Greys. Only now I have to prepare at least just a little bit for my first day at a Thoracic surgery ward tomorrow. I’m reading the introduction CD right now (68 pages!!) and doing a list over the topics I need to refresh in my schoolbooks. So far I have:

Arrhythmias

Anatomy of the heart

Anatomy of the mediastinum

Valve replacement

And there sure is a lot more to come on that list, but I guess it’s a good thing – I need to get reading more, channeling my inner Christina Yang (hmm, maybe I can even put off “watching Greys” as studying or at least inspirational work… I already feel much better about this lazy Sunday!).