Completely Random, why is this bothering me?

Ignore this post, it's stupid and boring and irrelevant to everything you have ever seen, heard, thought about, or cared about.


Last Thursday I went to the gym.
I left my ID card there.
A friend of mine sent me a text saying I had left it there and it was at the security booth.
I was gone for the weekend so I left it there and just remembered to get it today, since yesterday was crazy.

I went to the booth and told the security guard that I'd left my ID in the gym and someone had brought it here.

When did you leave it?
me: Thursday.
him: Where?
me: in the gym.
him: no, that's not what happened.
me: confused look
him: you gave it to someone. you sholdn't give your ID to other people.
me: um...no I didn't.
him: yes you did. You gave it to that girl, who doesn't live on campus, so that she could use the fitness center.
me: no...I went to the gym and I left it there. my friend texted me that it was here, and she even lives on campus so she wouldn't need to do that
him: insists that this is not the case
me: maybe you've got me confused with one of the other ID cards you have?
him: (obnoxiously asks me if I am this other guy whose card he has)
me: no, I'm not a man.
him: well it was you. you shouldn't do that.
me: well I don't know what you're talking about...I assure you it wasn't me....
him: not convinced, says something patronizing and I walk away.

Now....this is weird.

Also...this shouldn't really bother me. Because I'm not in trouble. and this guy doesn't know me from a hole in the wall and has no reason to think I would or wouldn't be doing something I'm not supposed to be doing. why on earth should I care what the security guard thinks of me?
I shouldn't.
but for some reason, It's really frustrating that this guy thinks I did something I didn't do...even if it's not a big deal. I don't know why, but it really bothers me that this guy was reprimanding me for something I didn't do...maybe what bothers me more is that he refused to believe me when I said I had no clue what he was talking about.

I was seriously tempted to get out my phone and show him the text message that said "hey the security booth has your ID you left in the gym" on my way back from the gym, but I thought that would be weird so I didn't do it.

But it still bothers me.

This Block of Med School Brought to You By...NOTHING.

I'm not taking any classes this block. (basically.) I have FCM (foundations of clinical medicine) which includes biostatistics, ethics, community and preventative medicine, and "the integrated clinical encounter", in which we learn how to do doctor things like look in people's ears and eyes. But that's maximum of 1 day/week and relatively laid back.

So what have I been doing with myself while everyone else goes to class and has exams?
An excellent question. I'm not really sure.
I've transcribed a few lectures, gone home for some random things, signed up for online Top Chef University cooking classes (thanks groupon!), pretended to do some research for my literature review...but mostly just procrastinated and whittled away time reading about the air force or about surgery or about...I don't even know...on the internet.

Every now and then I go to class...partly because I get bored, partly because it's sometimes interesting, and partly because I have to take the biochem tests (but as a group with the other people doing the same thing as me)

The whole hurricane we didn't lose power...but randomly a week and a half later the whole campus lost power at 11-ish one night. So everyone went outside or stood on their balconies and it was the weirdest, most surreal thing ever. It's pitch black outside except for the flashlights...and basically everyone started drinking. People were wandering around the courtyard double fisting beer and just wandering around talking to people. We hung out on the balcony for a while and then went inside and played Uno and ate popcorn by candlelight. The next morning I went to class just to see what it would be like with only backup generators. It wasn't that exciting, we just used a non-mounted-on-the-ceiling projector...they brought in stand-alone speakers with extension cords and microphones and we had class pretty much as usual.

I think the most entertaining thing about all of that was how incredibly excited everyone was when the power went out. It was like we had an excuse not to do any work and we were all just going to hang out and have fun together and recreate all those childhood memories of sitting around in the dark house coming up with things to do besides watch TV.

AIR FORCE!

One day I randomly got a phone call from my Air Force recruiter saying they are having another board and am I still interested? I'm like ummmmm yes. I didn't know what that meant, because I was told I had a number, which made me think there was a ranked list and they would just pull people off of it as spots became available. but if that was the case, why would they need a board meeting? So I was just as information-less as before.

Then a couple of weeks later someone I had never heard from and have never since heard from left me a voice mail saying "The Air Force is prepared to offer you a scholarship". So I jumped on that one.

And then it was official! I was offered the HPSP scholarship! :-D

So happiness ensued. I went and signed some papers saying i still have never been arrested, still have not done any illegal drugs, and have not gotten any tattoos or been hospitalized for any deadly disease since last time I signed papers saying such. Then I got fingerprinted...in Applebees...and my stuff was sent off to the FBI so they could do a background check and make sure I haven't done anything bad ever. I haven't.

My recruiter told me that I should think of a cool/interesting place to get commissioned and he'd make it happen. Cool beans. After much thought and idea tossing out from myself and others, I decided to commission at Federal Hall, in Manhattan, where George Washington was inaugurated. It was gonna be cool

Unfortunately due to the hurricane, things got messed up, schedules got flipped around, and the powers that be decided everyone had to get commissioned by the end of the week. So I got a phone call on a Monday and my recruiter goes "Hey, wanna commission by Friday?" and I'm like, "I'm sorry, what?"
So We ended up pushing it back to the following Monday because it was not going to work getting my grandparents there on Friday.

So This past weekend I went to Boston-ish to visit some friends, and then sped back to NY to get to the office (short notice = couldn't finish the necessary official things that needed to be done to get Federal Hall) to commission.

Soooo yesterday, I was sworn in as a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Air Force. Wahoo!
By a Navy officer. ha.
It was funny, because they didn't have any 2Lt bars to pin on me. My recruiter searched far and wide and made lots of phone calls but nobody had anything but 1Lt bars. So I got pinned silver bars instead of the gold "butter bars" as they call them, and we just pretended they were gold. ALSO, funnily, the certificate they printed out for me said 1st Lieutenant as well. Accidentally, again. Apparently someone somewhere thinks I should really be a 1st Lt. I can't say I would mind the upgrade.

And then we had ice cream cake at the office, and then we went out to dinner and stuffed ourselves further.

It's incredibly strange to me what is happening here. I have been in the AF for just over one day. I have literally no idea what I am doing. I don't even know how to salute. It was a highly entertaining little episode when my recruiter saluted me, and then had to teach me how to salute him back...and I'm supposedly "above" him. I outrank people who have been doing their jobs expertly for almost as long as I've been alive, in some cases. And I'm clueless.  It's very weird and despite the higher rank, quite humbling, actually. Like...it really is an honor to lead people who have spent their whole lives serving their country, especially when I compare what they've done to how green I am at this whole thing. I have a lot of respect for people who can give respect to and take orders from a person they know is relatively clueless. It kind of drives me to be better at whatever I'm doing, so that I'm actually coming closer to deserving the position. Probably one of the worst things I could do is get a false sense of superiority.

Except in one scenario.
My little brother is in the Army ROTC. On the occasion that both he and I are in uniform, he is technically supposed to salute me. And say "good morning ma'am" if we walk past each other. I cannot WAIT to pull rank on my brother.

But everyone else I still feel like I should be saluting them rather than vice versa.


So the plan from here is...finish the year of school. This summer I will head down to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, for a month of Commissioned Officer Training. Yep. 4 weeks in Alabama in July. Not looking forward to that.
I did survive in the desert of Africa.
But deserts are dry. Alabama is probably humid.
I'll get over it.
Right now all I am is excited and I can't wait to go get my uniform(s) and I am wasting(?) a lot of time on the internet trying to learn all the random tidbits I can via blogs and what not, about COT and the air Force and HPSP.

October?

It appears I haven't posted since the end of September. OOPS!

Let's recap the months.
October
We did limbs in anatomy. I LOVED that block. Most people hated it. The lowest averages for both the practical exam and the written were achieved for the extremities block, but I got my highest grades of the year for that block. Yey.

I have my google calendar opened so I can see what I did. ha.

I went on a CMDA retreat! The greater NYC area chapter of CMDA had a retreat up in the Adirondacks and they sent out a request for people to work in childcare while the parents went to the retreat. So I don't really have any great love for watching large numbers of children at once, but I figured it would be nice to get away and see the Adirondacks at the height of fall leaves changing and meet some doctors and help give them a break to have some relaxed adult time.

It was overall a really great experience. I drove up with 2 young doctors who were both 5 years out of residency. It was incredibly interesting listening to their stories and perspectives on things...I felt like I was a little kid listening in on my parents' adult conversation. I didn't have anything productive to add but I was like "ooh, so this is what real doctors' conversations sound like!" Ha. I ended up rooming with a girl who is a 3rd year medical student who was on her surgery rotation at the time. (everyone who found this out was incredulous that she managed to get away for the weekend, including her) So that was nice, because I got to pick her brain a little bit about what it was like.

I felt really bad for the kids because we had the 0-4 year olds, in a room that had skee ball and 2 air hockey and 2 foosball tables ...which would have been super fun for 10 year olds, but these kids couldn't even see over the air hockey table. So it was interesting trying to entertain them, but somehow we managed.

The speaker for the weekend is (was?) a missionary surgeon. Unfortunately since I was watching the kids I didn't get t hear him, but I went and bought a couple of the books he wrote...I have yet to read them though.

Other things happened...but either I can't remember them or I can't remember when they happened so I'm not going to write about it in the October post. :-P