The end of 2006…

Christmas in Central Park

I woke up and fired up the espresso machine. With latte in hand, I’m wondering where the hell to begin this one…

Internal medicine ended well. I quickly flew back to Oregon. Christie and I went to Bend. Had an early Christmas with the folks and did a lot of skiing. While on the mountain doing some night-skiing, I proposed to Christie. The rest of the week was a blur of friends, family, and celebratory drinking. Now we are just looking forward to the morning of 1/13/07, when Christie arrives in the Bronx via a one-way ticket.

After my week off, I returned to start surgery. I don’t have much positive to say, so I’ll just leave it at that. 3 weeks down, 5 more to go. After this, my life will be much better. Okay… one positive thing I got out of this: I realize how crucial it is for me to enjoy my work, as well as have the time to enjoy the many outside interests I have (running, biking, reading MY books, music, etc).

This was my first Christmas away from home. It was weird to think I wouldn’t be with my family. Luckily, my sister made a trip out here with a case of Jubelale in tow. We had a great time wondering the streets of Manhattan together, and a delicious Christmas dinner at a brewery in the city.

Anyway… Happy new years to all. Is Dick Clark still alive?

Another big one down…

I finished internal medicine yesterday. 3 months of internal medicine, which is a long time. I enjoyed it and am actually missing it a little bit already. I will definitely be missing it in 10 days when I start surgery, which will consist primarily of standing for 15 hours while retracting massive rolls of adipose tissue.

Before that though… A trip home to relax for a bit. I hear that the skiing is good up around Bachelor. I just hope there’s enough snow around Swampy Lakes and Meissner…

I’m off to Manhattan. I haven’t been to the city in roughly 3 months. Sad, no?

Thanksgiving…

I hosted a big thanksgiving dinner a week ago for about 10 of us west coast orphans at school. We had a pretty incredible turnout and people made some pretty kickass side dishes. Also, we ended up having a 2/3 pie:person ratio. All homemade. Not bad, eh?

Anyway… I was nominated/coerced into making the turkey. It was my first attempt, and I must say that I was proud of how it turned out: