man...what a week...

Seriously, I never thought this week would come so soon. My roth IRA and 403 savings that I've been watching diligently grow over the past decade has tanked. It's not a huge deal because it was only a few grand, a year's worth of savings. My co-intern and his family lost easily over a half million. All across the country, people must've sat back and watched their security, their retirements savings tank. Years of hard work, earned on tears and sweat. Gone.

We're coming on bad times...I'm hearing trickles and rumors of people committing suicide. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Lets keep our fingers crossed...no bailout. Hope the republicans are right about this one.

-bender

damn, I'm lazy

Man, I haven't blogged in like forever. I'm on my ENT rotation, so it's pretty chill. I roll in around 5:30, check in people for surgery, drain some pus, then bust my ass in clinic til around 2ish. Then I get to go home, unless I'm on call. Call isn't so that either. I get to sleep, which is totally different from my other rotations. I've got my own room with a tv, AC and a bathroom. Seriously, I'm spoiled. To top it all off, I cover for urology when I'm on call, so the urology guys schedule cool surgeries and procedures for me to do in the afternoon so that I don't get too bored. Not a bad life...

Hey, I don't know about golf though. My swing sucks and I don't know if I'll ever make time to get those starter lessons I've been meaning to get. Either way, I wanna play a round of golf with you at los feliz. It's like $4. I hear night golf is best. Instead of a gold cart, people wheel around kegs of beer. Beer golf at night. Sounds like a beautiful thing.

But either way, I feel ya on the couples thing. When I hang out with ma girl's friends, it's totally couple's night out. They're all either engaged or married, and it's kind of weird because they're all working and own their own homes and stuff like that. I mean, I'm gonna be piss poor for a pretty long time. I'm alrite with that, but sometimes I get jealous. Anyhow, her friends in SD are cool. The guys play league basketball and football on the weekends and play Call of duty online together. Eh. Sounds like something I'd be down to do. In LA, I've been mostly going out with rabbit's friends. They're a pretty cool group. On a side note, when did long beach become so nice? We went out to the pike in LBC and it was a fun time...lots of eats to walk around in downtown. Didn't really have that in sac and davis.

Yea, but otherwise, I don't really have too many friends in LA. Rabbit is the only person I hang out with on a regular basis. I have tons of acquaintances and people I'm cool with. Btw, sally had another kid. All the girls are off doing their own things. I don't know if I've become more of a typical guy, but I'd rather sit at home with a beer and watch the game than do the potluck things or a movie night thing with the girls. I think I've just gotten used to the company of guys. I don't really know what to say in when I'm with a group of girls anymore. On a sidenote sidenote, I think surgical residency makes you weird. Either that, or I've always been weird, or maybe a combination of both. Either way, the other interns I've spoken with feel the same way. Usually I'm checking out a wound or examining them when I speak to a patient. If I'm talking to them during a procedure, I usually have a towel over their face. Anyhow, it feels weird looking at people when i speak to them, even worse to make eye contact. But that just makes you weird...like when you pay for your groceries. I don't know where to look. I usually fumble through these interactions now and I get annoyed when people start going into details...but the gold is in the details of stories. ugh...I'm becoming a weirdo.

Anyhow, yea, my life is pretty boring. Working during the day, study every night, then fall asleep a little past 10. I see some nasty stuff in my clinic. Did you know cockroaches can't crawl backwards? I've already seen two patients come in with ear infections because a roach crawled into their ears and died. I told my parents and then they asked me to stop telling them about my day after that. Oh well. whatever.

-bender

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta...

That is probably the best song ever, hopefully one day I'll be able to sing that song and mean it 100%. It'd be great if I was singing it after sinking a 60 ft. putt for a double birdie. Anyways, I've been up to the same ol same ol. Practicing my shitty golf swing at the range and cooking, repeat cycle and let it air dry.

The winter is coming, pretty fast as well. It went from summer to winter in about 2 days. Kinda depressing, but on the flip side, I don't have to water my grass or rosebush for about 5-6 months. WOOT!!

Yeah, so I don't know if this applies to you yet Dee, but Kim has these friends from her masters program, and they plan get together for themselves and their significant others (4 couples in all). Once everyone has arrived we eat, and then we proceed to have what they have deemed "game night" where we play various board games (taboo, cranium, etc.). Now don't get me wrong, it's fun, but at the same time I feel that not all the guys are totally into it. It's kinda like, guys aren't down for the whole hey... sit in this room with strangers and BE friends. Kinda awkward, and I wonder if guys do that to their significant others, we probably do. It took a while but I think I've made friends with one of the guys, one of the other two guys I'll probably never get too close with, and the 3rd guy I could kick it with but he's got kids and all this stuff so he's ahead of me on the whole life process so I don't see it happening too often. Yeah... anyways... couples hanging out... kinda weird... not sure if I am more scared of having friends who are couples or what. Cuz with the exception to Bender, all my friends are single... so I guess it's just more comfortable to be around single people. I don't know, I guess we all have to move on from that point sometime.

So I think I have babbled enough for one day.

Don't be a stranger.

Joe out...

Sleeping in Seattle.

Hehe, I thought the title was clever.

So the weeks feel like they have been flying by. Work has been good to me. I love my job and I love where I work.

Ok, just had to interupt the blog to kill a fucking giant spider. And when I say giant, I mean... like 3 inches tall. Just to inform you, I hate spiders and all bugs in general. Seriously I can handle cholo's, gangsta's, wanksta's all those fuckers, but bugs and spiders.... scare the shit out of me. I think its cuz they have poison (well some of them) and they are just so icky. Seriously... I am more scared of something that is 400 times smaller than me, than I am of something bigger than me. So yeah, killing this giant spider is something I am very proud of (seriously... I am not exaggerating, it was 3 inches tall. The thing looked like it was big enough to eat a fucking lab mouse. Sigh... I hate the bugs in washington. Spiders are huge, the ants are 5X the size they are in LA and they fucking sting like a motherf*cker.

Back to my job, it's fun and I like most of the people I work with. Some people are useless jackasses (but they are everywhere, no?) but mostly they are awesome. I feel like I'm an integral part of the team and I work well with the rest of the team. Lastly I have a shot at becoming a sous chef soon so that's an added bonus.

Other than that, football season has begun and it's shaping up to be an interesting season. My bruins started off strong with a victory over the ghetto ass SEC conference Volunteers. Blech! Pac-10 is where its at, and if you don't know, you don't go.

So anyways, I got a set of golf clubs for my birthday and have been going to the driving range once a week to practice my shot. When we meet up next, we need to go hit a couple, I think I should be pretty good by then. I can go schmooze with your doctor friends and not look like some ghetto cook (which I am).

peace out.
joe

p.s. seriously that spider was fucking huge, I'm gonna have nightmares about it... It was walking in my tv room like it owned the place. Stupid spiders..