the 8th
So... I missed my thing-a-day yesterday. To be honest, I was having a bad day. I was trying to work on Swap-bot, but I came down with a bad case of cabin fever. Plus, the Superbowl really gets on my nerves. Finally, Travis broke down and took my out to dinner at Miriam, an Israeli restaurant near our apartment. It was wonderful. The place was empty and I had seafood risotto. A great start to my birthday week!
For day 8 of thing-a-day, I made this matchbox for my February Love Matchbox Swap. Today is the last day to send your swap package, so I cut it a little close to the deadline. I was going to send one of the previous matchboxes I had made for Etsy Craft Night, but I decided I wanted to make something new for my partner. She likes bright and bold colors. I hope she likes her package!
Clinical Skills
At the beginning of my 4th year I get to take my second licensing exam. This exam, known as Step 2, has two parts. The first part is a knowledge based multiple choice test taken on a computer, similar to Step 1. The second half is a clinical skills exam. For this part, I have to fly to Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, LA, or Philadelphia. There, I will go to some specialized testing center to interview 12 different fake patients and write 12 different progress notes about the encounters. The pass rate for this part of the exam is high and therefore there have always been hyperbolic rumors that this half of Step 2 is really just an English proficiency exam.
To prepare us for this test of our clinical skills, the first three years of med school have been littered with similar encounters our school has developed to mirror the exam. I introduced you to one of these encounters in my previous post. The encounters have ranged from someone presenting to the ER complaining of chest pain all the way to having to fend off a flirtatious patient's advances while conducting an interview (this skill, believe it or not, hasn't been much of a necessary asset lately, seeing as how I'm at the VA right now working with a bunch of old guys).
We receive feedback from these paid actors ($15-25 an hour) and they also videotape each encounter. We're supposed to review the videos and reflect on things we did well and things we did poorly. Unfortunately for me, the way the cameras are positioned I just get a birds eye view of the interview and the only thing I really find myself reflecting on is how much hair I've lost since med school started.
thing-a-day 6: Swap-bot Valentines
Already done with my thing-a-day creation for today! I had been planning to make downloadable Swap-bot Valentines this year and I am so happy that I actually made the time to do it. I designed two cute Valentine cards - one with Ernie, the Swap-bot logo/mascot, and one with Crusher - and a little matching envelope. The PDF file is totally free and you simply download it, print it out on card stock, cut out your Valentines, and give them to your friends!
Download the Swap-bot Valentines PDF here.
There are some basic instructions on the PDF, but assembly is really easy. Cut just inside the black lines, then score and fold the envelope on the grey lines. Fold in the shorter sides of the envelope, then the bottom. You can glue these parts together. Slip your Valentine card inside the envelope, fold down the top, seal it, and give it to someone you love!
I hope that some of our Swap-bot users enjoy them. Crusher was so excited about the cards that he already started handing his out!
day 5: cookies!
I made cookies today. Another food for my thing-a-day. They are chocolate chip-style with a combo of MnMs and swirled white and dark chocolate chips. They were made with whole wheat flour in an attempt to be a little bit healthier. I hope they hold us over during the snowpocalypse that is supposed to hit tonight!
Winter Weather Advisory
No, we are not going down to the woods this weekend!
We may not even go out to get the mail until Sunday.
Nor did we go to Le Fou Frog to try the absinthe ritual.
If Adam comes over this weekend, though, we may have to feed him somehow.
thing-a-day 4: food
Today's "new creative thing" is this healthy salad that I made for dinner. It is Bob Greene's Black Eyed Pea Salad with Turkey Bacon recipe from today's Oprah show. It was extremely tasty considering that it is part of a "managing diabetes" diet. The whole Oprah Show was about diabetes, and even though I don't usually watch, I tuned in today. My grandfather had diabetes and I am just generally scared of it. I should be more concerned about heart disease - and I am- but it doesn't hurt to have even more motivation to eat healthy. The salad consisted of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, black eyed peas, turkey bacon, olive oil, and apple cider vinegar. Bob Green (Oprah's health guru) was touting apple cider vinegar as some sort of miracle liquid that decrease the glycemic index of any food it is paired with. ...but I guess it wouldn't taste good on donuts.
My first ATC
Well, I have done it. I have dived into the world of Artist Trading Cards. I have always wanted to start making ATCs, but I always imagined painting them with acrylic paints... and I never wanted to get out all of my painting supplies, so I never signed up for any ATC swaps. Finally, I just decided to go for it when hollandcox decided to host the Inaugural Craft Social ATC Swap in honor of the first Craft Social tweet-up. I am glad that I signed up, not only because I had a great time at the tweet-up*, but also because I can count this ATC as today's creative thing-a-day!
I didn't end up using any paint on my ATC. Instead I used paper, pen, ribbon, and glue. It definitely looks like my style. I didn't really mean for it to, but I guess you can't escape your creativity personality. The sparkly gems make it a bit 3D. I had a lot of fun making it and hope that my swap partner enjoys it... hopefully she doesn't mind pink!
*btw: a "tweet-up" is sort of like a meeting on Twitter
graphic thing-a-day
Quick post today: For my thing-a-day today, I am counting the graphics I made for Craft Critique (the one above is an example). But, I also wrote a nice write-up of last night's Craft Night on the Swap-bot blog and I put together this photo matchbox tutorial on the Etsy blog. It was a busy day!
Etsy Craft Night
Above is the matchbox I made at tonight's Etsy Craft Night. Even though it is a bit boring, I am counting it as my creative thing for today.
I had a great time hosting the Craft NIght tonight. We had about 30-40 people attend during the four-hour event and everyone made amazing matchboxes. It was laid back and fun. Everyone was really nice and creative. (It was all ladies, except for when Travis showed up to help me clean up.) People even ate the chocolate pretzels I brought and said they were good! I also did a virtual demo via video online, which I think went well. It isn't saved for future viewing, so I guess I'll never know. I'll just keep on thinking I did great. ha!
Overall, it was a successful event and a bunch of us went out for pizza at Grimaldi's afterward. Yum! (That is me with Etsy's Community Manager and Organizer of the Craft Night's, Julie, after we had cleaned up the Etsy Labs.)
Breaking Bad News
I knew the diagnosis wasn't going to be good, but it wasn't until I begrudgingly read the words Multiple Myeloma on his chart did I realize how grim it was. I sighed to myself, realizing how difficult it was going to be telling my patient that he had cancer.
"Mr. Smith, may I come in?" I calmly asked after knocking on the door. This wasn't the first time I had seen Mr. Smith. A week earlier I had met him for the first time when he came to me complaining of some innocent back pain.
After I deceivingly asked him how he was feeling and we exchanged pleasantries, I continued, "I know we've met before but I would like to reintroduce myself. My name is Adam and I'm a medical student." Even before the words left my mouth I was wondering how a team could justify sending a medical student in to break this kind of news to a patient. I could only imagine what was going through his mind.
"As you know, we had you come back in today because we wanted to discuss your lab results. We were concerned by the cause of your back pain and that's why we ran these tests." After a brief pause, I swallowed and continued, "The results weren't what we were hoping for."
"You've been diagnosed with a cancer called Multiple Myeloma." He slowly raised his hand to his eyes as he began to cry. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen a grown man cry.
As I let the silence do my talking, my mind began to wander. Why hadn't he brought any family members with him? Then I began to imagine all of the traitorous antibodies coursing through his body, recruiting his cells to betray the bones in his back.
I chose not to go into details about his disease because for one, I didn't know them all, but more importantly, the information would fall on deaf ears due to the emotional levity of the news. Instead, the conversation continued with me clumsily stressing that he wasn't alone and that this wasn't the end. I tried to explain that there are treatments available and that my team and I will be with him every step of the way. Then I awkwardly excused myself, not exactly sure how to end the conversation.
As I stepped out of his room I saw that some of my classmates had already finished breaking similar news. I waited in the hall patiently, reflecting and relieved that the first time I had to tell someone they had cancer, they were an actor instead of a patient. My thoughts were then interrupted by "Mr. Smith" who invited me back into the exam room to discuss the encounter.
thing-a-day february
I went a little crazy and signed up for a big blog challenge for next month: Thing-a-Day 2010. The rules are simple, you create one new thing per day in the month of February and post about it on your blog and the group Thing-a-Day blog. It is supposed to be an exercise in creativity and I think it is geared toward artists, but I am going to be really lenient with myself when it comes to what counts as a new creation. I am going to count home-cooked meals, Swap-bot graphics, crafts for swaps, and hopefully also some "real" art as my new daily creations. So, check back each day this month to see what I am creating! Better yet, go sign up for Thing-a-Day yourself and join in on the fun!
If Thing-a-Day started today, I would have posted about these chocolate-covered pretzels that I made for Etsy Labs Craft Night tomorrow.
Thesis thus far
I am too 35 pages and 4000 words in my thesis. And I wouldn't even say I am half done. Plus I still need to create legitimate appendicii as opposed to the pages that simply say, appendix, and my table of contents is a joke. But its getting there.
And I may have just come up with a partial solution to my spam problem, something I should have instigated long ago, now I need the authors name and email, which may not help that much, but also all comments older then 14 days will have their comments sections closed which should slow the flood to a trickle.
Answer to the mystery
And here is the answer to yesterday's mystery photo.
Fortunately, this was easy to clean. The wax had hardened and pulled up easily from the stovetop. (It even removed some dirt with it!)
projects
Well, today was gone before I even got started! How can 9+ hours disappear so fast?
Travis is home sick today (he was terribly sick yesterday - sickest he has ever been probably) and we both just worked on our computers straight through the whole day. I had a few design jobs and emails to get to, but my main project today was taking photos for a tutorial I am writing that will be published on the Etsy blog in conjunction with the Craft Night I am hosting next week. Have I mentioned that I am hosting Craft Night next Monday, February 1st? Ha! Have I mentioned that we will be making Matchbox Valentines? It will be fun and YOU are invited! Even if you aren't in New York, you can follow along in the Virtual Labs at 5 pm EST. (Although, if you are in NY you should come - I am bringing tons of fun Valentine supplies and treats!) I'll post more details as the event gets closer. Do you think it would be over-kill to send out Facebook invites, too? Hmmm... I guess you can tell I am pretty excited for the event...
Now, I gotta go get back to work. I had this great post planned for the Swap-bot blog with a free crafty download and everything! I might still be able to get it done tonight if I work, work, work!
A flash of red in a world of gray
I'll be glad to see some blue skies again. Maybe later today. In the meantime, here's a flash of red for you.
Really, how much trouble could they get into?
Leave the dogs alone for a few hours on Saturday and what do you think happens?
This happens:
And this:
And a lot of this too:
Fortunately, this was merely a prospectus from one of the investment firms. We never read these things, so it's no big loss, but Flike seemed to know that he'd done something wrong.
A mystery worthy of a great detective
Flike, the best dog ever, has learned to jump on the furniture. It was inevitable. He is big (40 pounds according to the vet yesterday) and strong, with long legs and an ever-curious spirit. Once he learned he could leap onto our bed, he's made that his favored place to sleep at night. (It's not so bad. He curls into a ball down by our legs.) And if he wants to jump on Mom for some cuddling while she's watching a show from the comfort of her recliner, he can do so. He hasn't gotten onto any tables, but he can certainly put his front paws up there and see whatever might be hidden there.
Among his victims is the pink love seat in the front room. In order to get a toy or to get Queequeg or to get into trouble, he jumped up there the other day, knocking the blanket askew and upsetting the cushion. And that little incident leads to our mystery.
When Mom was busy putting the love seat back together, she found something hidden beneath the cushion. There was a book sitting there inside a Barnes and Noble bag. She didn't remember hiding anything there. She'd never seen it before (she alleges). So she took the book out of the bag and realized that it was a gift for me. (Nice how that worked out, isn't it?).
The book is The Bedside Companion to Sherlock Holmes, by Dick Riley and Pam McAllister. It's a wonderful little book (the 2005 edition) that is packed with commentary and trivia about the great detective, his creator, Victorian London, and short synopses about each of the stories and novels. There's even a crossword puzzle about the various mysteries that were never written but referred to in the other tales. It will be great for easy reading.
But the mystery remains. Who bought the book? And who hid it there? And who forgot all about it?
Thanks, whoever you are!
Fine feeder for our feathered forest friends
This is the feeder that Amber and Aaron recently gave me. You see that I've hung it out in the woods, next to the fire ring and not too far from the cabin. I put it up last Sunday, filled with seed. I'm not sure when I'll get out to the woods again, but I expect all of the forest birds will have emptied this much by then. Not to worry. I have the rest of the bag of seed in the cabin, locked tightly in a metal popcorn can. (That white area in the background is the lake.)