Currently I'm...

Just thought I'd give a little personal update since the last couple of posts have been topic-related. Cheers!

Currently I am --

Reading: "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese. It's taking me a while to get through it since I'm so busy but it's a good read. I'm fascinated by the medical scene of Ethiopia during the 1950's and the mix of primitive and modern practice...especially by Indian and British healthcare providers working together. I wonder how that really would have worked out since I believe that was the time of the partition with Pakistan, but so far it's not addressed in the book. I shall have to see!

Playing: my piano when I get the time. More often than not it's at 2 am when I can't sleep. Good thing I live in the basement and can control the volume on my piano or wear headphones if need be. There's been some soundtrack music that I really wanted to buy the sheet music for but alas, it is unavailable. So I've been working my way around the keys and trying to figure it out myself. I'm pretty close!

Watching: "Once Upon a Time" and "Gilmore Girls"...again. I don't know why I never watched Gilmore Girls before but I finished the series about a month ago, and here I am coming back for more at Season 1. It's the perfect girls night in/food night kind of show. And since that's my life every night I'm not at the hospital it works out pretty great. Staying up to date on "Once Upon a Time"... I thought this show would be a dud after a less than stellar fourth season but it appears to be making a comeback...

Trying: to figure out life. Really just how to get more involved and meet people. Or wondering if I should even stress about it. It's been hard for me to meet people down here, especially since I work every other weekend and during most ward activities. I rarely see my roommates. So do I stress about trying to be social and make new friends (because it's actually causing me a lot of anxiety and proving to be more difficult than I thought) or just do my own thing and stick to a social life at work? I'm not sure yet.

Cooking: not that much. Every once in a while. It's just a lot easier for me right now to eat out. There are enough options down here that I usually can eat pretty healthy, but not as healthy or as cheap as if I were cooking myself. Since I have my own little kitchen area in the basement all of my food and dishes are down there, but my sink is less than functional and I don't have a stove or microwave or anything. So to wash dishes, cook/bake or heat anything up I have to take all my stuff upstairs, then carry it back down when I'm done. Not that big of a deal...until I try doing it for every meal. It's just become more of a nuisance than I thought it would be. Especially since the kitchen upstairs is not usable half the time I need to use it. I seriously cannot wait to have a kitchen all to myself :).

Discovering: a lot of documentaries on Netflix. I love them. I just watched one the other day from PBS about fetal surgeries (intrauterine) before birth. So cool. Highly recommend it! I also watched a Ted Talks debate on nuclear power. I realized that I really know nothing about that and it's kind of a big deal, so I have a little more research to do...

Listening to: anything and everything. Found this new song on the radio the other day and thought it was pretty catchy.

Finishing: all my education requirements at work. When you work in 8 different units at three different hospitals, there are ten times more education requirements than I've had in my past jobs. Not only did it take 6 months to finish orienting everywhere, but I have to keep up on education and training items for each unit. What was I thinking becoming a float nurse?!?! I'm almost done, woohoo! 

Starting: To get ready for grad school. If all goes as planned then I will be starting my master's degree in January. I'm just waiting to hear back from the school on my acceptance (cross your fingers for me) which should be in the next few weeks, then it's back to the grind. It will be interesting to see how school goes while I'm still working full time but I'm hoping for the best. At least my first semester classes - pathophysiology and biostatistics - are classes I already took in my undergrad, so hopefully as graduate level courses they're a little bit easier. 

It's a quick update, but hope you all are doing well!