Busy Weekend

This weekend was crazy, busy, and at times crazybusy. I flew in on Thursday night and was able to catch a ride back to Morris where I resumed my position sleeping on the fouton mattress on the floor of the storeroom. I was glad to have a place to stay and got to spend some quality time with Tim, Tom, and Aaron. On Friday I borrowed Lou's car while he slept after working the night shift. This gave me the opportunity to go out and get some errands done before the weekend kicked off. I got my resumes printed and was able to get in to Career Fair to speak with a few companies. I was frustrated because most of these companies werent willing to tell us if they were hiring so it was kind of a waste of time. I was able to get in to the bookstore and get my diploma frame ordered and looked into getting the class ring. Because of the price of gold the rings are going to cost almost $1000 but ill eventually raise the money. When I got back to Morris I was surprised to find that there was going to be a party held there rather than the peaceful and relaxing night that I imagined. Luckily it broke up relatively early so I was able to get a few hours of sleep before my 9AM interviews.

On Saturday I woke up to pouring rain and had to walk about 20 minutes to school in a downpour. Luckily the first person I interviewed with was jsut as soaked as I was. I interviewed with Kinneys, Walgreens, Price Chopper, and Rite Aid. I think that Kinneys was impressed but there arent any or many openings so I dont know if they will be extending an offer. Walgreens probably has openings and is impressed with my history and previous flexibility for the company, Price chopper was hard to read, and the Rite Aid guy was very impressed. Hopefully I will get at lease 2 offers back so I have options, but as long as one of them extends an offer then I will be all set. If not I am going to contact Hannaford and a few hospitals in the area. After Interviews I went to wingding and hung out with everybody for a few hours. I made it back to Graneys and then crashed for the night. Sunday I went out to breakfast with the guys, then went to Graneys to watch football and eventually back to Morris.

I am currently on a 2 hour layover in Detroit and then going to Salt Lake City, then driving into Nevada tonight. Ill be in Reno tomorrow afternoon and then in San Francisco on Wednesday night.
-O

SLC, Punk

I made it safely up to Salt Lake City yesterday and spent some time with Pete, Marcie, and Smollin. We went out to dinner and to a few bars and were overall have a good time. Today I was able to spend some quality time driving around and exploring. I headed up to Evanston Wyoming and was able to hit the halfway mark of Burritos across the US. I have been able to officially eat a burrito in 24 states and the province of New Jersey. This is a pretty significant milestone, but ive still got pretty far to go.

The rest of today was spent exploring in Park City and in SLC. Park City is a pretty nice place, but seemed overly commercialized. I see why they hosted the olympic skiing events there as well as Sundance. It is an extremely beautiful place and I would definitely recommend checking it out. I headed back to SLC and spent some time running errands and getting everything ready for this weekend. I got a haircut and got all sorts of professional. I have 4 interviews scheduled and am ready to go. I have a little bit of research to to and then I should be all set. My flight leaves tomorrow at 1pm so until then I am just going to crash at Smollin's place tonight and then kill some time before heading to the airport tomorrow morning.
-O

Last Night

So tonight is my last night in Chinle and im excited to get out of here. I had everything pretty much packed after yesterday but I cleaned and vacuumed the house and only have one bag to bring out tomorrow morning. Today I kicked in super time crunch pressure speed and was able to get everything done. In fact I was so efficient that I had pretty much everything all set before lunch. I was able to kill the afternoon by doing busy work and tweaking the projects and reports that I finished over the morning. I would up with a decent 5 page report on parenteral anticoagulants, a 2 page handout on crystal meth, and a 25 page powerpoint on meth use and abuse. I am excited to get out here. I know that it has been a great experience and this rotation was the catalyst for me getting out here, but I am about ready to get back to civilization. Over the course of the next 23 to 24 days I will be driving almost 6000 miles, heading to dozens of states, and hopefully having the adventure of a lifetime.
I am excited to get up to Salt Lake City tomorrow. I get a chance to see several friends who I dont see or talk to as much as I would like. Ever since I first saw the movie SLC Punk almost 8 years ago I have had a pretty cool obsession with the city. I was out there in 2008 for a conference which was one of the best experiences that I have ever had and I am psyched to get out there. On Wednesday I may head up to Idaho and Wyoming and spend some time wandering around SLC. My flight leaves on Thursday around noon. I dont like to fly so ive got to deal with a few extra nerves over the next couple of days, but ill deal.
Ill try to update from SLC or when I get back in Albany.
-O

6 Months

Well im back in the parking lot of Church's Chicken mooching Internet. This will probably be the second to last time I have to resort to living dependent on the good will of the chicken shack. I wanted to catch some of the Bears/Cardinals game on NFL.com, but apparently the bears are playing so badly that its not even worth it. Im actually starting to be glad that I cant watch the game on TV because this is turning into a pretty unwatchable season, but once I get back home I will gratefully suffer through the humiliation of being a bears fan as long as I am in my comfort zone in Graneys.

This weekend I have been hanging around the house getting things picked up and packed. I have a little more work to do tonight and tomorrow I will have to sign out the vacuum from the housing office to make sure I leave the place nice and clean. Yesterday I went to the flea market in town and picked up a few counterfeit dvds for only a few bucks, then went to the overlooks at the north rim of canyon de chelly. I was going to hike the white house trail, but ive been pretty exhausted so I put my energies into other outlets. Tonight I am going to finish up the house so that I can get out of here asap on tuesday.

The big significance of today is that I will be graduating in exactly 6 months. Its hard to believe that I only have 11 more weeks of rotations left and I will be done with rotations in March. I know that I have interviews next weekend and that I have spent the past few weeks ordering business cards, gathering salary data, and getting my CV in order but I dont really think that it has set in yet. All I know is that after nearly 7 years of school it is hard to believe that it is coming to an end. The prospect of having to be a grownup is kind of scary, but Im sure that I can handle it. Its just a good feeling to see the light at the end of the tunnel, or as Dr. d'Oney once put it "you spent the past few years shoveling horse shit and you finally found your pony"

Im so disgusted of this game right now im going to skip the 4th quarter and head home. I will probably post something tomorrow to sum up my experience in Chinle, then I will be in Salt Lake City with some friends for a few days before heading back to Albany for interviews.

The last steps are sometimes the hardest

Its almost done, just 3 more days of rotation, one of which is a half day. It always seems that the last few days of the rotations are the hardest, partly because of the frustration of working for so long for nothing, partly because of excitement about the next step of the journey, and partly because you are one foot out the door. This week was relatively sedate. I spent monday just going through the motions, tuesday and wednesday I was at Tsaile filling in for a contract pharmacist who called in sick. I got to do all the counseling and actually enjoyed myself. I worked with Terry the Navajo pharmacist and had a pretty good time, and was even able to pick up on a few Navajo words. Today was spent working on a few projects only to have a big one dropped in my lap. I have to write a therapeutic review for the hospital's PandT committee by the end of business on monday. I need to do the therapy and cost analysis for anticoagulants on formulary and make my recommendations. It should only be a 7 or 10 page paper, but I need to read through dozens of studies and guidelines to get it done. I wish I had more heads up, but it shouldnt be too bad.

This week I have really gotten frustrated by the waste of the Federal system. I wasnt expecting the federal government to run smoothly, be cost effective, or motivate its workers, but this is just ridiculous. Every day I am shocked at the amount of free drugs just walking out the door. Because there are no costs associated with the treatment there are a lot of patients who dont take a proactive role in their health care, they dont have to worry about the ramifications of their conditions because uncle sam will always be there to step in and pick up the tab. The ineffectiveness of the system would never fly anywhere outside of the federal system. If this hospital was a business venture then it would have gone broke years ago. Patients some times have to wait for hours to get their charts sent over then reviewed, then sent back to get edited by the doctor, then sent back to the pharmacy to be filled, people will seriously wait for 3 hours to get a bottle of baby aspirin. Its pretty embarrassing for me to tell someone this wait when I know that the script could be filled at walgreens in a matter of minutes. The staff isnt very motivated, there are a ton of people in the pharmacy and some of them just seem to be treading water. One staff member actually said to me "I need to slow down before I run out of work for the day". I realize that I am not highly motivated, but this is an unpaid internship, and this is her full time job. I dont want to swear off the federal system for good, because who knows maybe ill be a mercenary contract pharmacist in a few years, but right now it is way to frustrating for me.

Tonight I went out to the chinese place in Chinle with my medstudent roommate Ravi and the med students from next door. It turns out that one guy's parents actually live in Saratoga so it turns out to be a pretty small world after all. The best part of all is that the chinese was actually pretty tasty, I was surpised. I am going to the Chinle flea market (navajo selling stuff place) tomorrow and then I will be relaxing all weekend, getting packed and then getting ready to start the drive home.

-O

Not alone anymore

Yesterday I returned from the 4 corners to find that I had a roommate. A med student named Ravi moved in over the weekend. The people in the housing office told me that they would warn me if someone was moving in and since I didnt hear anything I assumed nobody was coming. I left the house in a hurry on Friday trying to beat darkness when heading up to Moab, so the place was a mess. I feel embarrassed and ashamed that he had to show up and see crap all over since im a slob. I know that wasnt the best foot I could have put forward or the most welcoming thing I could do. He was out hiking when I showed up so I did my best to clean everything up before he showed up so I hopefully redeemed myself in his eyes. He is a really cool guy, who is originally from Long Island. He had just spend 10 weeks in Argentina working at a hospital there so he has some petty cool stories. I have read several books set in Argentina and have always thought it was a neat place, so these stories fascinate me. Im only going to be in this house for 7 more nights but it will be cool to have some company while im still here. I will be sticking around this weekend to pack and get ready for the drive home. I will probably hike the White House trail in Canyon de Chelly again too. Its kind of scary how much I like hiking now. I dont go on the super hard trails, but I have kind of fallen in love with the idea of going out to the woods and just hiking and being left to my own thoughts. I will have to spend some time on the east coast doing some hiking in the Adirondacks or the Green Mountains.

On the home front I have been able to get all my ducks in a row. I have my interviews set up, Im staying at Morris that weekend, Grassi is taking my CV and References list to Staples to get them printed, and my business cards came in today. I will be flying out of SLC on the afternoon of thurs the 11th and leaving albany around noon on monday the 16th so if you want to catch up you can find me then. Im pretty psyched to be able to finally interview, while its been a few nerveracking months and I will be glad when I finally get an offer it is still pretty cool to see how my entire future can be determined over the course of a weekend.

I watched Hi Fidelity last night and was reminded of two things, how much I hate John Kusack, and how many adventures you can have just in normal life. It took me really being on a big time adventure to realize all the little adventures that I went on in the past few years when I thought I was just going through the motions. After having several people throw around the term bucket list in the past few weeks I have also decided to set one up. I used to have one when I was about 14, but I have changed so much that I really need to set up a new one. I think that most of it will include travel, but im sure that there are a lot of really cool things that I can toss on there.

Thats if for today

Rock out with your clock out

11/1/09

Why did nobody warn me it was daylight savings time. That would have been the perfect Halloween costume, just write "Daylight Savings Time" on a tshirt and show up an hour late. Why do I always have these epiphanies the day after an event?

Last night in Durango was fun. I went out to a few bars and even got to go to the Ska Brewery. Since Ska is my favorite genre of music and I love breweries it was just about perfect, unfortunately they didnt have any growlers in stock so I wont be able to add that one to my collection, I may call them and have them ship one once I get home. Since it was Halloween all the crazies were out, I typically dont care about holidays, especially ones that dont make much sense like Halloween, but it looked like everyone in their costumes was having fun. The best costume that I saw was a guy dressed up like bacon, it was an awesome idea and would have only been made better if I would have followed through with my idea for a bacon scented cologne.

This morning I spent in Durango walking around downtown. Because of daylight savings time and all the time zone changes I have been going through I wake up at random times. I am either exhausted or I am wide awake at 6am. Today I was awake 2 hours before my wake up call and spent some time writing post cards and catching up on sports news. I have taken to marking down what time the wakeup call goes off and telling the staff when I check out, todays was 4 minutes late, yesterdays was 16. This might seem petty, but what if I had an important meeting, 16 minutes is a lot of get ready time. I went to lunch at this place John the pharmacist recommended called Steamworks, apparently they had one of the top rated beers at the American brewers festival last year, so I had to try it. It was pretty damn good Durango has a lot of breweries and I only got to go to a few, the extra breweries may entice me to come back. I skipped Mesa Verde because I am starting to get sick of all these national parks, so I just headed back to Cortez and then off to the 4 corners.

The 4 corners park was basically a flat piece of concrete surrounded with flags. It was cool to stand in 4 states at once and to walk around the monument, but it wasnt too big of a deal. I was also pretty pissed off at the family in front of me where the kids were acting like brats and the parents were yelling and threatening. That kind of takes the fun out of going anywhere.

Tomorrow starts my last full week at the rotation site, and I get 2 days in the off site clinics and possibly another day in the anticoag clinic.
-O