Archive for the 'married life' Category

better late than never?

Published on 10 months, 4 weeks ago in married life and medical school. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Tada! She’s alive! Ugh. I’m so bad. If I can’t blog when I have all the time in the world, what’s going to happen when I’m back on the wards and have no time at all? Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll have more to write about since everyday will be a new adventure. Yay.

What have I been up to? Absolutely nothing. Seriously. Nothing at all. Which sucks because when I decided to lengthen my break from school, it was so that I could do some clinical review work to make myself feel more confident when I return. Well, the powers-that-be made it sound so awesome…like they were going to totally hook it up…but when the time came, all I got was nothing. Don’t they know how hard it was for me even to ask for help in the first place? Why must they make me fight for it every step of the way? Well, I didn’t fight hard enough because *gasp* I thought they were actually going to keep the lofty promises they made me, so I ended up doing shit during my time off. What a waste of my time! I’m not getting any younger here!

Well, I’m not that dumb. I didn’t sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs while I waited. I got cracking on studying. Big time. I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve read, but I’ve read at least one book for each rotation, plus Bates, plus Step 2 Secrets, plus others in the time I had off. I don’t know if I retained much. I probably still can’t tell you the difference between croup, bronchiolitis, and epiglottitis, but at least I can make some wrong guesses that don’t sound completely stupid. I got ambitious and tried to set up Step 2 at the last minute, but without having done third year first, I wasn’t going to be able to study enough to do well enough for my standards in less than 60 days, so I gave up on that. If only I’d come up with that idea say 6 months ago? That would definitely have been enough time. But silly me, I was still waiting on my miracle from the administration. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Me.

I’m not whining. I don’t care anymore. I’m just trying to finish it all up now. No more breaks. No matter how scared or overwhelmed I feel. It’s time to just plow through. I’ve got more Chanels to buy, dammit and I can’t afford them with my stipend money! Just a word of caution to other MD/PhDs out there: don’t expect any help returning to your clinical years. Actually, you should expect sabotage. They will do everything in their power to make it harder for you than for everyone else. I guess it’s punishment for being such overachievers. So if you want anything from them, demand it and don’t stop until you get it. There is no being meek or being afraid of seeming too demanding. If you don’t get in their faces, you just get totally and utterly screwed. Like me. Don’t be like me. You deserve better.

i’m no princess nor do i want to be one

Published on 1 year ago in married life and sand people. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I’ve always believed in being self-sufficient. Sure, my parents were super-overprotective when I was young. I was never allowed to go out with my friends or school dances, even the prom. My parents pretty much took care of everything for me. My mom picked out my clothes for me until I was in seventh grade, something that is unheard of today when we have kids wearing one outfit when they walk out of the house only to change into something sluttier and cake their faces with horrid makeup the instant they get to school. But even so, I never thought I was a princess nor did I want to be treated as such.

Maybe it’s because I lost my mom when I was so young and had no choice but to take care of myself (though I suppose I could have been like others I know who just became serial monogamists because they always needed someone to take care of them instead of learning how to be independent). Or maybe it’s because my dad used to always fill up my mom’s gas tank for her…until one day he didn’t and she had to try to get gas herself and didn’t know how and felt absolutely humiliated. I have never wanted to be dependent on another person for anything. To that end, I made it my mission back in college to learn how to take care of my car on my own–I learned how to change my own tire, I learned how to change my own oil, and I Iearned how to drive stickshift so that I would never be limited in what I could drive. I’m handy around the house and I mow my own lawn and trim my own bushes. I’m not afraid to get dirty. I fight my own battles.

Even now that I’m married, I still do plenty of the dirty work. I don’t do much with cars because otherwise, what would my husband be good for? But I still mow the lawn and trim the bushes if he doesn’t have time. I’m not afraid to take out the trash. I do the laundry. And I cook. When we bring home groceries, I’m not a princess who prances inside leaving my husband to bring everything in just because he’s a foot taller than me and way stronger. I insist on helping. Even with heavy things I’m pretty incapable of lifting, like 52″ lcd tvs, bathtubs, and furniture, I still have to help. I just can’t help it. If I am capable, why not help?

Well, apparently what I think is normal for me is not how other girls women behave. There are women out there who think that their significant others exist only to be their servants/slaves. It makes me sick when I see these poor men so castrated by their women. It makes me hope that these women are giving them damn good reason to give up their manhood so. I’ve seen guys cook for their girlfriends while she does not ever lift a finger for him, even when he is sick. I’ve seen guys loaded down with 15 bags of their girlfriends’ stuff while the girl prances into the house with not a care in the world. I’ve seen guys who escort their girlfriends to places like the bathroom and wait for them to come out. I’ve seen guys who drive their girlfriends (who are damn well capable of driving themselves and have the means to do so) to school even though it significantly disrupts their schedules to do so just because these girls want to look like princesses being chauffeured around by their awesome boyfriends slaves. I would go on, but I think I just vomited a little in my mouth. And I think you get the idea.

Is this really what it means to be in a relationship? If that’s the case, then why do men bother? If I were a guy, I would rather just hire myself some love when I feel the urge. Nothing could possibly be worth the level of humiliation these guys suffer. Nothing. And yet I see it all the time now. Hello, men!? Here’s your wakeup call! You do NOT have to be treated like slaves! In fact, if you are being treated like a slave, then your girlfriend doesn’t love you and is just using you as a slave. Love does not equal servitude. You deserve better. And there is better for you out there. Ditch your ball-and-chain and put yourself out there and find someone who who deserves you! Please! Someone’s got to teach these women that there is no such thing as being a princess in this modern world! It starts with you!

insomnia

Published on 1 year ago in married life. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I can’t sleep. As I lay here typing this post on my iPhone, my husband and both of my dogs are snoring happily away. I’ve always been somewhat of an insomniac, but it had been getting better…one hour to fall asleep instead of two or three. But now here I am two hours out and no amount of reading is making me sleepy. And, of course, the more I think about falling asleep, the harder it is. Perhaps I fool myself. I’ve been staying up until 2-3 am every night for the past six months. Maybe that’s why it has been easier for me to fall asleep…because it’s damn late when I finally hit the sack. Tonight we went to bed at 11. I guess all I have to do is wait for it to be 2 to fall asleep. It’s just that it’s no fun when everyone else is sleeping.

i think my sister-in-law is an alcoholic

Published on 1 year ago in married life and sand people. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

So my husband and I vacationed awhile ago in the vicinity of Sister-in-law and was promised that she would make the 1.5-hour drive to eat lunch with us before we departed. Well, she decided to not show her face that morning at 8am as promised, which I could have cared less about if I wasn’t anxious to get started on our 8-hour drive back home that very same day. Not only did she not show up, but she also did not even bother calling to let us know nor did she (or Miniman) answer repeated phone calls that were made to them.

When we finally contact them, we find out that they have not even left yet and they have the audacity to try to get us to change our plans to work around the fact that they couldn’t get their horny lazy asses out of bed. My husband is far too nice about the whole thing (as usual), so I just grabbed the phone from him and proceeded to chew Sister-in-law out, about how she’s such a hypocrite for not respecting her elders (us) when she continually tries to make it seem like we don’t respect our elders enough (not true), about how she thinks that the world revolves around her, and how we’re supposed to follow her schedule even if it’s extremely inconvenient for us to do so. Suffice it to say, I made her cry, which is no big accomplishment because she cries at the drop of a hat. Well, my silly husband still wanted to meet up for lunch even after all of this drama, so we wait for them to show up. When they finally do, we meet at a restaurant, where we walk in to find Sister-in-law wearing sunglasses. Inside. Who the hell does that besides Hollywood celebrities? Seriously. Who does she think she is? When probed about her reasons for being so pretentious, she continually claims that her eyes are sensitive to light because she stayed out too long in the sun the other day. What kind of bullshit excuse is that?

Not only that, but she’s ordered a glass of wine to go with her lunch. Who the hell drinks wine at lunch with their family when no one else is drinking? And at a pizza place? It’s not like we were having $100-steaks or something. Bad enough she ordered one glass, she ended up ordering another. Maybe one is to be snobby to go with the shades inside thing. But two at lunch? That’s alcoholic territory. It really wouldn’t surprise me if she’s turned into an alcoholic. She’s a super narcissist with an extremely fragile ego underneath it all who’s with a short guy who might be a pedophile just because she’s desperate to get married. I’ve seen less narcissistic people become alcoholics.

Funny thing is…I mentioned my theory to my husband because no matter how much I can’t stand her, I don’t want to see his family go through the pain of dealing with an alcoholic family member and he summararily dismissed it. I hate how I get nowhere with them. They are the kings of deny, deny, deny. If we pretend there’s nothing wrong, then maybe everything will be okay even though everything is not. Well, when this all eventually blows up, he can’t say that I didn’t try to help.

happy howlidays!

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago in married life. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Surprisingly enough, it’s been a rather quiet holiday season here for me. I got all of my Christmas shopping done nice and early (and mostly online as well), so I didn’t have to partake in any of that last-minute nonsense. The in-laws are too busy groveling to Miniman to give a shit about what I say or do. I’m spending plenty of time relaxing with my two wonderful dogs. Things are good. Hope they are for you too!

just when i’d lost all hope in mankind

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago in married life. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

So my husband and I braved the weekend and college kid crowd at Ikea today to get a bedframe for our new king bed. Needless to say, it was crowded. And annoying. The last straw was when this lady totally bumped into and then rubbed up against me as she walked behind me while I was in line. It wasn’t even a tight fit and she didn’t even bother apologizing like a decent human being. She was lucky that I had (wisely) chosen not to carry my Chanel because I surely would have kicked her ass if she had bumped into it instead of my ratty Coach purse. Yes, I know it was an accident. And yes, no harm done. But I’m just sick and tired of how rude we’ve become. A simple, “excuse me” would have taken less than two seconds to utter and would have sufficed.

We finally made it out in one piece only to realize that we had underestimated the size of the bedframe we had just purchased. Or overestimated the width of our Prius’ trunk. Either way, there was no way in hell we were going to fit the headboard in our car. We debated whether our other car, a Japanese sports car, would be able to hold it and decided that we had no choice but to try. So I ended up sitting outside of Ikea with our impossible cargo for an hour waiting for my husband to make the trip home and swap cars. It was not fun.

When he returned, it still looked like an impossible task, but my husband was convinced that it would fit. As we were trying to figure out how best to lift the box so that we could angle it into the trunk, we were surprised to hear the young man sitting on a bench nearby offer to help. I would have been less surprised if he had busted out laughing at us and our antics. But true to his word, he helped my husband lift and place the headboard into the car, saving me from having to do so. And yes, it did fit. Barely. And hanging out of the trunk by a foot. But we made it home…thanks to the kindness of a stranger, something that doesn’t happen too often anymore today and gives this jaded writer a sliver of hope that decent people still exist in this world.

At the same time, this event makes me ask myself if I would have done the same I were in that guy’s shoes (assuming that I would have been of help). I know that I would definitely consider helping. I just don’t know if I would act. Sad but true. What about you? What would you have done?

update: of puppies, chanel, and iphones

Published on 1 year, 7 months ago in lab/graduate school, married life and medical school. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Yes, I’ve been MIA again. It’s really hard to write when I’m too busy being a blob.

I deferred my second rotation because the ghost of my dissertation just would not stop haunting me. Translation: my asshole major professor kept demanding a draft from me despite the fact that no one really expects us to pump out a dissertation during our third year of med school. It was a tough decision, but it was just something I had to do in order to make sure that I could focus completely on my rotations so that I don’t fail. One can skate by with only half a mind on Psych, but not while on Peds or Medicine. And I’ve been making good progress so far.

This whole deferment has allowed me to enjoy life a bit more, which is good because I’ve learned to appreciate the little things, like watching my adorable corgi puppy sleep in my lap all day long. It’s also bad because I will have to learn to live a shadow of a life once I return in August. I’m not yet sure how I’ll deal with that yet, but my preliminary plan involves large amounts of Prozac.* Speaking of my puppy, he is absolutely awesome! He’s the cutest thing ever! I always thought that I would miss him having a tail (my other dog has a really fluffy tail that has a tendency to knock things over quite often), but I now find my puppy’s little nubbin to be quite adequate at expressing his emotions and quite cute to boot. From behind, he looks like a bunny hopping when he runs. He’s a handful, but nothing compared to the horror stories I’ve heard about other breeds. I definitely cannot imagine my life without him and can see why Queen Elizabeth II has a bunch of corgis.

What else is new? Well, say hello to my new acquisition:

Isn’t it pretty? It better be because it costed $1000 more than our 52″ LCD TV. I could also have bought the Macbook Air with the amount of money I spent on this purse. Or that Canon 40D DSLR that I’ve been coveting for a year now. But, no, because I am a woman after all, I instead blow my money on a Chanel purse. And all because it’s purple and shiny and super-limited-edition. It was supposed to be my reward for finishing my first draft of my dissertation. I was just at the boutique to try it on so that my husband could then later buy it for me when I fulfilled my end of the bargain, but we ended up buying it because Chanel newbie that I am didn’t realize what incredible good fortune I had to even be able to find it at this late juncture, but at least had the good sense to know that I would forever kick myself if I passed it up. So I possess this purse that I wasn’t planning to buy for another 10 years now and I am quite broke. It is also still all boxed up (my husband was kind enough to let me take it out for a few hours to take pictures of it) waiting for me to finish that draft before it can come out and play. And now you know why I’ve been so productive as of late.

And lastly, somehow beyond all reason, my husband was able to convince me to wake up at 4:30 am the morning of July 11th to head out to our local Apple store to wait in line for the iPhone 3G. Because, of course, I just had to have it. So that’s what we did. And it was quite the interesting experience. We were, of course, not the only crazies as there were already 50ish people there by the time we got there and the line grew to well over 100 people by the time the Apple store opened. I thought I would feel really lame about waiting in line for a phone, but I have to say that I was glad to have experienced it. Of course, my shiny new iPhone 3G was defective and I had to go back a week later to get it replaced, but at least I have one now. By the way, it’s also all sorts of awesome.

*I kid. Sort of.

like a prisoner being given his last meal

Published on 1 year, 10 months ago in married life and medical school. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

That’s what I’ve felt like these past couple of weeks. Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy everything while I still can as if I’m some prisoner enjoying my last meal before my execution. Sad how that statement is pretty much true. It is so unbelievably hard for me to accept that I’m going to have to give up everything that I enjoy indefinitely. Simple things like lounging around the house with my dog, playing Rock Band, cooking, blogging, sewing, tennis…all the things that make me me. All those things will no longer have any place in my life as I enter the abyss that is the third year of med school. Having these things then having to give them up again makes me almost wish I’d never done a PhD so that I would never have tasted such freedom because it is now so hard to let it all go. Well, I think you get my point. Enough whining.

I’ve been MIA for quite awhile now because I’ve been enjoying my last meal to the fullest extent possible and was on a last-minute vacation. It was fun, but the spectre of third year was never far behind so it wasn’t quite as fun as it could have been. But at least I won’t regret not taking a vacation later. I don’t do much on vacations besides eat and shop and this one was no exception. And for some reason, I was obsessed with finding a perfectly functional handbag because I was finally tired of my small yet not-so-functional collection. Not one to cheap out on such things, my husband insisted that I only look at designer bags. I had a Marc by Marc Jacobs in mind, but it ended up looking way better online than in person. I guess handbags just can’t be functional and fashionable at the same time. I then found a Burberry one that I could live with and had settled on it (and was planning to buy it once I got back home) when my husband insisted we check out the Louis Vuitton store on the way out. Now I don’t like LV stuff because I don’t like the monogram and how it’s everywhere, but I decided to humor him since he had already humored me way more than he had to with my great handbag search of 2008 and I figured he deserved it. I really hate going to these high-end stores because the people are just so snobby and act like I don’t even deserve to be in their store. One day, I swear, I’ll stroll in in my scrubs and white coat just to see if I get treated differently. Suffice it to say, I was trying to get in and out of there as quickly as possible, but my husband made me look at their bags, theorizing that maybe so many people have them because they’re functional. Well, he was wrong. But he also found the perfect bag for me while he was at it. And even though I don’t like LV stuff, I caved in and bought it.

There was no way I was going to be able to resist my special shade of purple. And besides, it’s a really nice bag. And it doesn’t have that ostentatious LV monogram all over it. And I’m now $900 poorer. I figure I won’t be shopping much once I start rotations again, so it’ll be okay.

So I start tomorrow bright and early. I still wish I could freeze time and be a slacker forever…or at least until I master every instrument on Rock Band on expert, but I have no choice but to forge ahead. I might disappear for extended periods of time, but not forever. You’re just going to have to be patient and you’ll be rewarded with stories aplenty, I’m sure.

And to those who responded to my Dear Reader post awhile ago, I haven’t forgotten you and will be getting responses up as soon as I stop admiring my new LV bag find the time.