Monday, July 14, 2008

"stop this train"??

Week one of psychiatry has come and gone and it's been... interesting. I just still can't believe how much free time I have right now. I don't know what to do with myself! Hopefully it'll pick up soon enough, and/or I'll garner up the courage to actually approach/talk to patients alone. Although, I'm not even sure if we can do that at the hospital I'm in. I really should be using this plethora of time wisely, studying either psych or reviewing all that medicine since I know I won't have any downtime to study at the end of the year while I'm on surgery... theoretically, I know this to be true... theoretically.

It was also my 21st birthday on Thursday, and I had such an awesome day! Just a bunch of little things, little things that made me smile. I finished up at the hospital before lunch and since Kirsty had taken the day off work for her doctor's appointment we hung out for the rest of the day doing things of absolutely no significance whatsoever. And it was nice. Then dinner out with friends, about fifteen of us, at hands down the BEST restaurant in all of Dunedin and I would go even further to say the South Island! I just adore Turkish food -- the one restaurant I loved while on our UK/Ireland trip last summer was a tiny Turkish place hidden away in Notting Hill, London. And now, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this absolutely gorgeous Turkish place right here in Dunedin! Took six years for me to find (why didn't anyone tell me about it??!?) and now I'm hooked. I went there a couple times in a week before my birthday dinner, and after having my 21st there, I'm pretty sure the staff all recognize me now. I went back there for my family birthday meal too this weekend. Told you I was hooked. But the dinner with friends was really... nice. I'm always torn about whether I should do a "big-ish" thing for birthdays. I get excited at the idea, but then remember that I don't really like big parties, much rather getting coffee or dinner with one or a few friends at a time. Good conversation is lost -- almost non-existent -- at large parties, so what's the point unless you're there to get drunk? Anyways, but my dinner turned out to be quite fun. I'm glad I had it. It was great to see all my friends from various times and places in my life come together.

As for presents? :) I asked mum and dad not to get me anything this year since they did more than enough already, helping me pay for my trip to Seattle. Kirsty took me shopping ages ago as my 21st birthday present, but she ended up getting me something else as well -- The Complete Jane Austen Novels, deluxe edition! I love it! I'd been telling her how I wanted to read the other ones, and how I should go buy more of them... and now I have them all! I've started Mansfield Park. :) Another friend of mine got me the most gorgeous scarf (she knows me so well!), and another got me this Latin Jazz CD (we share an eclectic taste in music) and also a fountain pen (encouraging me to keep up my writing in my spare time -- how lovely!). I'm addicted to writing with fountain pens now. And the combination of fountain pen on Moleskin notebook paper? So smooth, so silky, so... cathartic! Some other friends got me coffee vouchers from my favourite coffee shop. Money well spent! Also got chocolates and other various trinkets. It was so great of everyone to get me stuff; I never really like getting presents cos there's not much I want or need (usually just getting it myself at the time)... but it was so thoughtful of them all.
More reflections on being 21 and CHANGE later (cos there's plenty of it going on right now!), but suffice it to say, life keeps chugging along as always. Fast enough to keep me busy, slow enough for me to catch my breath every so often. Life keeps chugging along, whether I like it or not.
I'm 21 now... weird.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

fountain pen. moleskin notebook.

AND you get to go home for lunch. Actual home home.

AND you're about to do surgery.

*cough cough cough jealous cough cough*