to my brother who gave me his orientation stuff this year (I can't say for what reason ;D),
to my sister who keeps me girly,
to my parents who still see me as their little girl,
to Jill and Melt, for the countless ward visits when I was in toxic rotations, for spoiling me with chocolate & pastel, for the best times ever, and for just being amazing
to Janneth (bebe!) for this year's most surprising birthday present (and for starting the hay-den agenda)
to Pia, who has made it her life's mission to keep me sane in the most outrageous ways (hey I still can't look at that water polo picture. seriously BFF), for the weekend sleepovers, for putting up with my being irreversibly sleepy, and for finding my ipod Sugar Pie
to Fets and Tina Pretty, for all the things we have in common ;)
to Len Chen, for dessert time
to my friends from way back (pre-school & high school), for ummm...knowing me practically all my life :D
to all my cousins, who made sure there was always something silly to laugh about

and to everyone who gifted me with smiles,
who gave me a hug when I needed one,
to everyone who didn't know it but turned many of my days around,
to everyone who taught me anything,
to everyone I've come to respect
and to everyone who was plain nice to me,

(there's many of you and you know who you are)

THANK YOU.

Happy Thanksgiving.

After

9 critical patients (plus 3 discharges)(well, 12 patients then) - 3 intubated, one monitored VS NVS Q15, 3 Q1s, all 9 needing bloodwork daily,

and a tally of 2 almost-BRPs,

I'm so glad my clerkship week at Pedia Ward 11 is over.

Happiest Day of My Life # 1. Move over, End of Internal Med Rotations. IM was Disneyland, compared to Gen Peds :D

Status Post Otorhinolaryngology Rotations. Finally.

Status In Hibernation from ACU Ext (Acute Care Unit Extension)

Never in my wildest nightmares did I ever think I would say this, but, hey, in the spirit of this year proving me wrong left and right, here goes:

I will miss ACU Ext.

I got to assist in casting somebody's broken arm here.
I got to be friends with the fundoscope here.
It was here that I came to terms (well, okay, close to) with the ickiness that can and will ooze into the otoscope nozzle.

And yes, above all else, ACU Ext is the least smelliest ER at my hospital :D

They say that the tracks that connected Venice and Vienna were built even before trains that could make the trip were in existence. They built them anyway, because they knew that someday, the trains would come.

-Frances (Under The Tuscan Sun)

15 days of Ophthalmology showed me the undeniable truth that:
Nothing brings out
the obsessive-compulsive monster
in people
like the Snellen Chart :)

"Well, she thinks, what was true of the finger is true of the foot. She was cursed by the ring; can she be blessed by the slipper?"

-from SapSorrow (Jim Henson's The Storyteller)

Can anything be more perfect than that sunset?
If this were any other insignificant time, I'd say no...
But as of today, in spite of me (all with lack of sleep and with sore throat),
my answer is, and has to inevitably be


Yes.

If you've been catching me laughing to the point of tears for no reason in the last week (chances are, you still will within the next week), it's because Genie (the one with the best pose in the pictures below) told me that

Grimace (from McDonald's)
is a
TASTEBUD.

Seriously.

Am I the only person in the world who didn't know that?!

Why is he purple? Hmmm...let's see -- well, if you were a tastebud and you got severed from a tongue (how, I can never figure out), you'd be cyanotic from loss of blood supply.

Why is he huge? If you were a tastebud severed from a tongue, you'd hypertrophy if you didn't die? Is that even physiologically possible? :D

Why is he called "Grimace"? He's not even grimacing. So maybe, the owner from whose tongue he came grimaced when he got severed? One thing's for sure, though: Grimace, the tastebud, has a tongue of his own :D

Futile attempts at pretending we're not in hell.
This was our Post Ortho Rotations separation anxiety moment.

I miss ortho O.R. work :) OR was always amazing.

Where are the typhoons when you need them??? Somebody raindance, please... before I grow hydroponic roots by doing mundane [pseudo]things :)

I officially shifted out of Orthopedics.

I didn't want to, actually :)

No kidding -- I really did enjoy ortho (whereas this specialty previously scared me. How? Two words: musculoskeletal anatomy. Long story :D).