Since my family is broke this year we aren't doing presents for Christmas. Instead, my mom and I are going to use my consumer credit cards to finance home improvement purchases for, unfortunately, the old house instead of the new house. The old house is having a hard time selling, and when we did repaint it a couple months ago, if you remember, we rushed through it and didn't verify colors and it ended up turning into a putrid mess of gross bleghs for your eyes. We're taking the thing off the market for a while to try and fix it. Do it right this time. Pick nice, modern and neutral colors. Unfortunately my mom isn't keen on changing the trim colors, which can actually be really constraining on palette choices. We'll see how it works out. Wish us luck. On the lawn we're going to try to grow in the backyard, too! Time to work off our Thanksgiving calories in painting and yard work. Gross and yay at the same time.
Thanksgiving was a grand ol' time. I invited a friend of mine from work who currently doesn't have any family in town (they are in Korea, booo) and she is super preggers and nice/friendly, so that was fun. She learned how to play Yahtzee and really enjoyed it and my brother being his goofball self. My mom and I decided we weren't going with a traditional Thanksgiving meal this year (turkey is not my first choice any day). The menu ended up involving olive oil and chili powder marinated rib eye roast, boiled then baked red potatoes with caramelized onions, and sauteed zucchini, carrots, and roasted garlic. Literally the most perfect meal of all time, and I am surprising myself by saying I am confident I can replicate it. WOW.
In case I follow my current trend of hardly updating ever, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
It would seem that I have an hour on my hands, and, in acquiescence to my inquisitive mood, I read some of your earlier posts that intrigued me.
ReplyDelete-I didn't know it was a separate job to do the actual radiation treatments. It appears I have been misguided by House, as I previously thought it was Oncologists who both prescribed and treated. Reading your description on dosi- dosimet- // your job reminded me of the movie 50/50, and that intensely cathartic moment when he's sitting at the bus stop after chemo. Which makes me ask: is the application of chemotherapy yet another job?
Reading about dosimetry (ha) also reminded me about my past foray into nursing school. Fresh out of high school, it seemed only logical that I choose Something for my major, and with nothing else better that I could imagine I chose Nursing. It still amazes me how utterly wrong that career path was for me, how against it was to everything I am good at. It seems so natural now that I am an English major, and with hindsight vision I can easily trace the signs that this path was right for me. I remember sneaking the Harry Potter series into my parents house, back when they were devoutly religious. I would set the alarm clock for 3 am and read until it was time to get ready for school. I remember reading most of Jules Verne: 20,000 Leagues as well as The Mysterious Island and Around the World in 80 Days. I spent countless breaks in the school library, just reading. I remember writing poetry as well, nine tenths of it terrible. I still have that collection somewhere, hiding in a binder.
-I also read your visit to "Norcal." It felt strange, reading and looking at this odd convergence point, at the rows of vines I drive by every day. I recognize the road in the picture as adjacent to the main highway. There is an Evans on that road, and is a popular place for bicyclists to ride on the weekends. Most of the space I personally hang out in is in the northern ends of Napa and Sonoma valley. From the fourth story of a library I just watched the light shuffle away with a lingering blue. And when the blue darkened into black now I see my own reflection, and I wonder if that is a face of a writer. Is his jaw too wide; are his glasses too angular? I usually don't pay much attention to vanity, but there he is floating in the reflective darkness, sitting cross-legged and writing a ridiculously long response to a post.
Still, it gnaws at me, the facts of existence: the fact that the person who wrote this blog was, during some weekend in May, less than 10 leagues from where I sit this very moment. In the month of May I was probably writing out an essay on Emotional Intelligence, or perhaps reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
I haven't ridden in a hot air balloon yet. It would seem that the most remarkable thing about the experience was the silence, so rare in our modern world. The library is quite noisy if one knows where to listen. There is the AC, the bank of computers, the quiet discussions between other people, even the faint electric hum of the overhead fluorescent lights, emitting a light so harshly white it bleaches my vision. Hyperbolic yes, but undeniably dramatic.
-And, I suppose, in remark to this post. It seems that posting happens best after, the finer moments of living. If you were so dedicated to listen to the thrum of the world, to the events that occupy you (or that you occupy?), and post on an extremely regular basis, why then you might as well call yourself a writer :p
Oh boy, so the above link is to my Google Plus account, which is more remote than the Gobi Desert. If you would like, google [Triss Teh] to find my blog, of which I, vainly, check rather frequently.
DeleteI grew up watching House as well, and my mom would say hospitals aren't run like that. Anywhere you see an imaging machine or anything technical that needs to be done is not actually performed by the doctors but by technicians who specialize in that piece of equipment. In the Radiation Oncology department, the doctor's don't actually DO much of anything. Their purpose is to visit with the patients and make the tough decisions, then delegate tasks to the rest of the department to fulfill. They essentially act as management in this capacity, which is incredibly bizarre to think about now that I'm actually thinking about it. There are exceptions to this, especially in brachytherapy when they have to become a bit more invasive. But yes, chemotherapy is a whole other realm that I know nothing about.
DeleteWhen I was in college I had no idea what I wanted to do. In my first year alone I considered English, Astronomy, and Physics before finally settling into Mathematics. I wondered about English a lot as a teenager because I had always enjoyed blogging and writing short bits of prose about dreams I may have had. But in the end, I don't think it's for me. I like to keep my arts a hobby and pressure-free.
PS: I am also sitting cross-legged as I write!