it's summer vacation? really???

It's been just over a week since my summer vacation officially started and, like the eight weeks preceding it, it has been pretty much crazy. Some, like my sister and various other house surgeons/registras I've talked to, think I take on too much especially given this is our last summer vacation as students EVER. And sure it would have been nice to spend the three months travelling... or, just doing nothing, sitting on my butt at home. But travelling and my version of "doing nothing" both require a substantial amount of money, money I currently do not have. Hence, research, research research.

Surgery finished with a bang with tests up until the very last day of the year. The tests, and surgery run on the whole, went really well. In life, you definitely get out what you put in, and needless to say I worked harder on this run than any other time during my four years of medicine so far, and it was worth it. :) Plus, not to mention it was oodles of fun, albeit exhausting (that's probably why I found it so fun).

I had the weekend to recover, then on Monday I was back in my "office" finishing off the research project I've been doing voluntarily (i.e. unpaid grudge work) throughout the year for Prof MS who I worked with last summer. Because I actually got a research scholarship for ANOTHER completely different research project for this summer, I wanted to finish off the project with Prof MS as soon as possible. So for the first three days of summer vacation I was back in that 5x9 windowless room for 10hours a day... sitting in the dark... by myself... photographing cadavaric slices of the anal canal. LoL. But the 10hours a day paid off because I finished everything in three days, and not the eight I had initially set aside. It's kind of sad to be done, completely, because I absolutely love working with Prof MS and I have to admit I'm a little envious of the two summer research students he currently has. I mean, I know if I asked he would have given me preference to work with him again this summer, but I kind of wanted to work in a different area of medicine this time. And I found another incredible doctor (an endocrinologist, Associate Prof PM) who's got me setting up a neat clinical trial which I've never done before, so I'm excited. Yet, I still can't seem to shake this 75%sad-25%envious gut reaction I appear to be having lately. But I know it'll pass with time, especially once my new project gets going. (Yes I went a little insane applying for that ethics application during my last week of Surgery, but I have a bit of a break now before we start recruiting patients.)

So on Thursday (i.e. Day 4 of summer vacation) I flew up to Auckland for a long-weekend holiday to see Kirsty!!! And it was AWESOME. Since the first chunk of my research scholarship money doesn't come through till early December, I'm currently financially challenged so Kirsty just spoilt me throughout the entire weekend, paying for virtually EVERYTHING: shopping, meals out, Phantom of the Opera tickets, even bus tickets! (Kirsty took Thursday and Friday off work to hang out with me). On Thursday we went straight from the airport to one of the biggest malls in Auckland, shopping till about 6pm; dinner out at Wendy's (an Auckland/Queen Street tradition for us, lol); then later that night a friend of ours drove us to Mission Bay where we got gourmet ice-cream from Movenpick. Friday was breakfast on the Auckland Viaduct (another Auckland tradition for us!), followed by shopping on Queen Street which is where I discovered THE BEST STORE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD: Kikki.K Stationary and Gifts. It was HEAVEN. I spent so long in there absorbing it all in, and looking at every single thing they had (and yes, my credit card eventually came out, but it was SO worth it). Dinner Friday night was at a family friend's (basically our surrogate kiwi grandparents), where they always have the most scrumptious home cooked meals. Saturday was breakfast at Cafe Bliss out in Ponsonby where they had the most gorgeous Blueberry Pancakes; then a bit more shopping on Queen Street before heading to the Civic Theatre for an afternoon showing of The Phantom of the Opera. The show was great, the singing much better than the movie, and our Phantom of the Opera cocktails were surprisingly good. LoL THEN, THEN, dinner at hands-down my favourite restaurant of all time, an Italian restaurant called Gina's. Yes, the food was very good, BUT they are unofficially known for their just-as-delicious Italian waiters who were all not only gooooooooooorrrrrgeous, but lovely too. At least, ours was. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say it was a seriously memorable night. I was pretty tired after all that, but some of our friends insisted on going out for the night, and so out we went: John Key won the NZ elections; Jack was there (unfortunately); we made it into The Waterfront, where VIP stamps were inadvertently acquired, and there was a lot of looking silly like a rhythm-less potato on my part; followed by kebabs at 4am... then home. Although I had a great time, I really don't understand how some people can go out like that every week; at the end of the day, it's just not really my thing I think. Given our late "night" on Saturday, Kirsty and I spent all of Sunday in bed. I think we got up around 11am to eat something... then fell back asleep. Eventually I packed, and I was back at the airport by the evening.

It was a great trip -- pretty crazy -- and when I go back at the end of December it'll be a completely different kind of trip as Kirsty will be working, I'll actually have some money, and all the craziness won't be condensed into four short days but rather spread out throughout the two weeks. I love Kirsty's studio apartment, and surprisingly, I am increasingly loving big-city living. I think the combination of visiting Seattle in April, Kirsty moving to Auckland, and this being my sixth year** of living in Dunedin has got me itching to live in a BIG CITY once again. Hence my post-graduation plans are slowly coming together in a very different direction than I initially had, but it's exciting.


Summer's gonna go by so quickly, I just know it. But for now, I'm going to enjoy sleeping in and not worrying about medicine. For now, I'm going to enjoy going for a run everyday, making myself lunch, watching TV whenever, and just... being on vacation.


**To put into context, I've never lived longer than six years in one city in my life; it appears six years is kind of the limit for our family before we start itching to move once again. Funny how that happens. My life seems to be in four to six years chunks: six in Korea, six in Auckland, four in Seattle, and now six in Dunedin -- but it'll be eight by the time I graduate, making it the longest I've ever been in one place... *sigh*... I'm ready for a change.

Afterthought: To make it official (hardly surprisingly) I was stoked at the results of the US Elections. And what was cooler was that I was on the phone with a friend of mine from the States when CNN announced Barack Obama as President-elect. Serious goosebumps (the good kind).