Chinese Food
Over the last few weeks, we took the opportunity to hit up a couple of Chowhound favorites, from the tasting menu at Craigie on Main to goat cheese raviolis and pan-seared barramundi at the Jamaica Plains Ten Tables. The meals were a bit pricey, but within the norm for fine dining of this caliber. This weekend, we returned to NYC to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. Now I've been to a fair share of Chinese seafood banquets, but this was my first time shelling out nearly $100 per person for Chinese food. At Brooklyn's East Harbor Seafood Palace, our lavish meal included a lobster salad, dual-style fried jumbo shrimps, crab-stuffed bamboo piths, conch & geoduck with fried tofu, sharkfin soup, stewed whole abalone (the bulk of the cost), deep-fried soft shell crabs, steamed jumbo grouper, longevity noodles, egg and dried scallop fried frice, and a stewed hasma dessert (yes, that's frog fallopian tubes). If there were an "extreme edition" for Chinese banquet meals, this would have been it. It wasn't haute cuisine, but definitely worth it to have my extended family together and see my parents enjoy themselves after a very tough year. On Sunday, we scarfed down some old-school pastrami and beef tongue sandwiches from famous Katz's Deli with one of my oldest friends in NY before returning to Boston.
Year Two
After my last shift as a junior resident, I browsed through my records and estimated having seen between 1200-1300 patients last year in the Emergency Room alone. That's 2500 eyes in 365 days! Yet, all that experience did little to prepare me for my new rotation at Children's Hospital. After trying to examine a crying 11-month-old and an indomitable 3-year-old on my first day, I was already missing the days when patients actually followed directions, or at least not trying to kick me in the nuts. Second year also introduced me to the notion of "home call."As a junior resident, we stayed in house overnight, so the threshold was low to see everyone who was referred to the infirmary. But deciding whether to drive into work when consulted from the comfort of my own bed is a whole other issue. Luckily, working closer to home means more time for fun and relaxation. Despite being on call, we enjoyed a morning brunch and afternoon barbeque with work colleagues over July 4th weekend. And after reaching the unexpected yet satisfying conclusion to Heavy Rain, we are now embarking on the second installation of the Assassin's Creed series. This time, we take to the rooftops of Florence and Tuscany and continue investigating the mysterious plot of the Templars, all with the help of nifty poison daggers, dual hidden blades, scantily-clad courtesans, Leonardo da Vinci, and an uncle Mario, whom we believe was so named for the sole purpose of his unforgettable entrance with the line "it's a-me! Mario!"
Skit and Dance
Traditionally, commencement celebrates the graduating residents and fellows who are completing their training in ophthalmology. However, tradition at Mass Eye & Ear also stipulates an important role for the first-year residents - the junior skit. Over the course of two weeks, my classmates and I collaborated in a momentous effort to gather attending physicians from every department (including our chairperson) to make a fool of themselves in front of a camera. More important than my hacking cough or my grand rounds presentation, the video editing consumed my waking hours. The result was a creative masterpiece in the style of "24" to parody events at the infirmary in the course of a day. Commencement festivities concluded on Thursday with dinner at the downtown Harvard Club overlooking the Boston skyline. Friday was our departmental annual meeting, with a series of research talks that concluded with yet another lavish dinner at Loeb House. To celebrate with the graduating seniors, we set out for drinks at Om followed by dancing at the Royale. Some smart talking and fast money handling (not by me) finagled a discounted cover charge before we hit the dance floor to the beat of hip hop, techno, and pop. It was my first night out in a long while, and it reminded me of how fun it used to be.
Upgrade
As I approach the end of my year as a junior resident, I was slammed with two nearly back-to-back weeks of ED night float. Having barely survived the ordeal, I emerged only to face a new nightmare - my desktop computer wiped out by a virus. Fortunately, this gave me a chance to re-format my workhorse computer and finally upgrade the 10-year-old operating system to the new Windows 7. This meant not only having to back up my important files onto various external drives, which took several days; but also having to upgrade most of my collection of software programs to newer versions. With new 64-bit support and my 6 GB of RAM, the new setup is running quite nicely. This time, I took care to cover my behind with three security programs and switched to Firefox for safer browsing of unsafe sites. So far, I'm liking the new interface - even though it takes a bit of getting used to. My favorite features include the slimmer and more efficient taskbar, as well as the ability to dock windows to fill just half the screen. Aside from the frantic installations and customizations, I also spent some time this weekend catching up with med school friends over homemade ribs, steak, and shrimp at their homes - an auspicious start to my upcoming 3-week stretch without a day off.
