I passed by a lot of people yesterday asking me what big plans I had for my 30th birthday. I told them that I was just gonna spend a quiet evening at home with my wife and family. Perhaps it’s a sign of my age, or general laziness. Or maybe after working in the hospital for 80 hours a week, I appreciate more the few extra hours I can spend at home. I also find it interesting that some people congratulated me on my birthday. I think it’s the only occasion when I get to be applauded for just eating and breathing. Speaking of food, we did meet with some friends this evening for a celebratory meal at New Jumbo Seafood, where we also celebrated Chinese New Year with some of Melody’s co-workers. When things get you down, it’s amazing what a steaming spoonful of fish maw soup can do for you.

I started off Chinese New Year by discharging all the patients on my service. In intern-talk, this is called “winning the game.” Sadly, it lasted only an hour before I had another new patient to admit. Nevertheless, being back at Faulkner’s medicine service has given me more time to relax. Even better, we’ve had the chance to mooch off the many interview dinners for prospective residency applicants. Our dining experiences varied widely, including Eastern Standard, La Morra, Fugakyu, Tasca, Lineage, and Petit Robert Bistro – all at the expense of our generous department. Last weekend, we even got to dance the night away at the Boston Park Plaza for our annual Winter Ball. These moments certainly offer some reprieve from the harsh, cold winter.

The holidays felt like a blur this year, as I spent most of it at the hospital for holiday coverage. In fact, I must’ve over-exerted myself and caught some viral bug last week. Between my intermittent coughs, Melody and I rang in the new year with our sore throats and hoarse voices as we squeaked “Happy New Year!”. With the snowstorm and both of us being sick, we ended up spending much of our time indoors. This also gave us some time to revisit the post-apocalyptic ruins of Washington D.C. in Fallout 3. The game is very reminiscent of our favorite role-playing fantasy game Oblivion, but with guns. With this new generation of video games demanding more and more processor juice, though, I ended up overclocking my 2-year-old processor. So far, I’ve got my 2.4Ghz Athlon X2 running at 2.75Ghz using an 11x multiplier with minimal voltage increase. My hope is to get it up to 3Ghz with a little more tweaking. I’ll just have to be careful not to push it too far, as I often end up doing to myself.