Saturday, December 31, 2011

don't wave no goodbye

The end of the year arrived with little warning. I do not feel like celebrating, though I should. The year has been momentous, in good and bad ways both; it has been an extreme year. So I am ending the year tired, just uncertain of whether the intensity of the past year is something sustainable.

It is tempting to wallow because I am so tired, to breathe a sigh of relief, and be glad this tiresome year is over. But maybe that is what age has taught me, to be a bit more measured. I don't try to keep tally anymore, I do not try to calculate a balance sheet, whether the year was a good one or a bad one. It was another year. It was another year that makes me who I am.

Maybe residency has been the ultimate lesson in realizing that nothing is black and white. There are so many exhausting and terrible things about residency, so many problems with it, and there are maybe just a few truly amazing and magical things about it. But I'm not sorry to be a resident. Which is some tricky math.

If there was another big lesson I learned this past year, it was that you never stop learning new things about yourself, and about others. I really thought I had a lot of things figured out the year before, but I can see now that I still have so much to learn. And that part is not exhausting, not tiring. That part fills me with a sense of wonder.

Anyway, the year is nearly over, and I have been much remiss when it comes to blogging, writing. I hope, now that I've passed the halfway mark of internship, I'll have a bit more of a chance to breathe and reflect. But I know better than to make a bunch of resolutions.

In the meanwhile, here are 11 random things about 2011:

  • When I broke work hours (>80 hrs/week or >16 hrs in a shift by the new rules), I listened to Helena Beat by Foster the People to keep me going, and it was like rocket fuel.
  • My 4-year old, adorable godson came to visit and his father taught him to call me Doctor, which is both annoying and comical.
  • Even though there were probably better movies out there, I really loved Drive and would gladly watch it again, gore and all.
  • It turns out I sort of like yoga, except that I took it up at the height of allergy season and found the breathing-through-your-nose part really tricky.
  • Amy Poehler, Melissa McCarthy, Tina Fey, Martha Plimpton and company all bum-rushing the stage for best comedy actress was probably the best thing that has ever happened on an awards show, and definitely the only inspired awards show moment of last year.
  • I sort of knew things weren't going to work out with S and I when he failed to find Ron Swanson a) the most amazing and b) the most hilarious man on television.
  • Though it was published much earlier than 2011, I finally picked up The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga after failing miserably at trying to read those stupid Girls with the Whatevers books (I'm sorry, I tried and tried, and I am sure the plot is fascinating but I could not get past the blah prose that did not engage me though I tried time and again to read the books). I don't get to read novels too often, but that was a good place to spend my reading quota, that's for certain. His writing is new and fresh and just what I want to be reading these days.
  • Months and months later, the FNL series finale's closing moments remain burned in my memory- what a gift it was to have that show for so long. Justified and Terriers were so amazing last year, and sadly only one will be back (but at least that one happens to have Timothy Olyphant on it!). The Walking Dead was infuriating in wasting such initial potential, and The Killing was just infuriating.
  • The bro-seph officially entered permanent grown-up-ville, and went and got himself married at an over-the-top destination wedding, which was, all told, quite lovely.
  • Das Racist's Michael Jackson is mesmerizing- how something can seem both so profound and nonsensical at once is modern art at its purest form in my opinion.
  • I nearly purchased a home this past year, but then realized what I really wanted was space. Now I live in a comfortable (rented) house with a spacious kitchen. Unfortunately, that resulted in a major war with ants at one point last month, but I triumphed. Chocolate ganache, macarons and marshmallows in 2012!

  • A Happy and Safe New Year's to any of you reading. Since I am working in the ICU these days, a special emphasis on the safe part.