Fun? Did she say Fun?

Wow. I am way overdue for a post. Sorry about the hiatus. I have been (surprise!) very, very busy. Still am. But lately I've found new ways to interject fun things. (That's right, I said the f word!)

I've been riding Shilo about three times a week or so. Just yesterday, in my post-call stupor, I managed a very briskly paced trail ride lasting more than 2 hours through Banner Forest. A far stretch from our usual training sessions. I'm not entirely sure, but I think we may have gotten lost for a good portion of it. We made it back to the barn in time for sunset. All three of us who rode the trails forgot our cellphones, but rumor has it there's no reception there anyway. The photo isn't of us (obviously) but Banner looked a lot like the forest at right, but lots of the trees were fatter - and leg-crushingly close to the trails.

I've also been having tremendous fun playing with my new band, Rainbow City Band. I hope to march with them this summer but am on call the parade days. I can, however, make it our next concert where we are playing Danse Macabre, Hall of the Mountain King (a particularly interesting interpretation in that link), Night on Bald Mountain, Nightmare before Christmas music, music from the musical Wicked, Thriller, and possibly more (missed a few rehearsals unfortunately). So check out the links, I bet you know more of those songs than you realize.

All that is not to say haven't been working my tail off. In fact, I have been working essentially every single day from the day after I got back from my Colorado vacation until October 11th - my first guaranteed sleep-in day in a 19 day stretch. Whoever thinks second year is easier than intern year is on crack. I am putting in 80-hour weeks at the least and have been getting up hours before the sun creeps into my patients rooms (in fact, the darkness has been the source of some amusing patient mix-ups). Routinely, I return home long after the sun has set, as the above extracurriculars require about 90 minutes in the car. But it's worth every $4 gallon!

Next rotation... Surgery. Bleh.