On what I am thankful for

I don't know if you know this, but Thanksgiving is a few days away. Regardless of the fact that Medicare doesn't believe in holidays, I do. And I'm working on Saturday just so I can eat and sleep and watch football and be thankful for delicious stuffing. I write this to you as something very delicious is baking in my oven. Something that smells so magical my mind is hardly able to think of anything else.

What is this magical thing? Chocolate baked mousse. Now, maybe you've never had mousse before.  Maybe you don't know in the hierarchy of desserts, it is king. It eats pies for breakfast, stomps on pudding, and laughs at cakes (even the cup kind). I love desserts. But I just don't understand desserts that don't have chocolate. Let me illustrate my feelings.

Don't get me wrong. There are outliers (see above) but in the grand scheme of things, the less chocolate it has the less it is worth eating to me.  Apple pie? Delicious. But if I eat it, it's going to be one of my fruits and vegetables for the day.

In conclusion, my chocolate baked mousse may not be the best thing I've ever made. It may be not fluffy at all. I may just end up as a blob.  But at least it will be a blob of chocolate. And for that, I am thankful.

On the never ending cycle

I really like my job.  I like (most) of my coworkers, it is very laid back, I like (most) of my patients, I have great hours, I'm finally getting the hang of everything so I am not nearly as overwhelmed as I was when I started.  Even though I really like my job, I recently had a bit of a freak out.  While getting my 401K set up, after some quick calculations (I'm 25 now... 65 when I retire..), I realized I was going to be working at least until 2052.  Twenty-fifty-two. That's so far in the future it doesn't even sound like a date. That's when I realized I have entered a never ending cycle.

The monotony of work was suddenly crushing me. In school you have set semesters, with set breaks between them.  Tired of a waking up early? Well, we are going to have 4 weeks off for winter break. And it's not just that I miss the breaks between semesters.  I was prepared for that. I realized that was going to end.  It's the fact that in January I will not be starting something new. Now I am going to be doing the same thing for 40 years.

I guess it's not always the same, though. While I may give out the same exercises, I learn something new pretty much every day.  Like when my patient told me she knew her roommate was a Yankee because she used too much toilet paper.  Before this, I had no idea Yankees used too much toilet paper; now I can spot a Yankee a roll of toilet paper away. She then taught me how to fold the toilet paper (rather than ball it up) so that I wouldn't be confused for a Yankee. Now that kind of education does not happen every day.