It’s been tough getting back into the groove of things since the new year began, having spent my 2-week holiday vacation doing almost nothing. After spending several days helping out in lab pro bono and also reformatting all my hard-drives, I flew to Portland with Melody to spend Christmas with her family. Besides playing with our baby niece, the bulk of our time there was spent eating, cooking, and planning for the next meal (much like the life of a rat … save the cooking part). I also went back to Brooklyn for a few days to unwind with my folks at home and meet up with old friends. Needless to say, waking up this past Saturday morning and rounding for more than 8 hours post-call on Neurology was more than enough to kick me back into gear with the start of this new year. It also didn’t help that I just came from surgery where we would round on twice as many patients in less than an hour. Luckily, rather than wasting time with scut work, neuro is much more cerebral (pun intended), and should give my brain a good work out in preparation for upcoming rotations.