Cherishing the weekend

I don't think I have ever in my whole life looked forward to a weekend as much I did this one. It is still unfathomable to me that normal working people get every weekend off, whereas it is a humongous GIFT for us to get two days off in a row. I actually had more than 48 hours off, which I felt was amazing (and extremely needed).

Friday night, some interns (Amy, Phi, Adeel, and I) joined some second and third years (Arash, Shomir, Alvin, and Antonina) downtown for pool. Saturday, I made it out for lunch to the New Canton restaurant for Dim Sum, where Alvin ordered for us all. We had shrimp balls, pork pastries, mystery pastries, unknown-named green vegetable, rice noodles with pork, wontons, spring rolls, and more.... there wasn't one thing I didn't like (surprise :)).

I was able to do some "catching up" in the afternoon, cleaning (my apartment was horrendous), doing laundry, calling people back (sorry, guys for being delinquent before!), and taking care of bills/sorting out my checking account (there's this annoying recurring $75 transfer from checking to savings which waives a monthly service fee; before, I also had a combined balance requirement, which, because we get paid at the end of the month, I dropped below and started incurring fees that I just noticed. Aargh. "Are you a student?" the Wells Fargo representative asked me. "Ha! I wish. I'm a resident. I'm just poor." We get paid at the end of the month, instead of bi-weekly, which I think would be preferable). I opened massive amounts of mail (including a very sweet musical encouragement card from Laura--- thanks, babe!) that I had just set aside.

Saturday night, I met Shomir, Arash, Din-Hai, and Trish at the Moon River Inn for karaoke. Now, let's just preface this with the fact that, over the past several years, I've gotten a lot less inhibited/self-conscious with most things in general and had, going there, every intention of joining in the karaoke fun. However, seeing all those people I didn't know just made me freeze up! I know it should be easier doing things like this in front of people you don't know, but it just isn't. It took me about four years before I'd even open my mouth in front of people like John/Wendi (happened quite a bit in Africa...recall Lion King renditions...). In any case, Shomir and Trish both got up there and did great! I may just have to wait until a smaller setting, till I get some self-esteem back, or until I just don't care what people think. It was fun listening to all the music, though!

This morning, I went running with Kate and Lefty, which was also a good time :) Our Fleet Feet 1/2 marathon training starts this week, which I will have to miss Wednesday because I'm still on nights, but I'm going to try to make the weekend run on Sunday. I also was able to go back to Arcade for Sunday service. I've kind of been a heathen in recent weeks due to the Yosemite trip and schedule, being on call the Sunday before that. I'm really not sure how consistently I'll be able to go, but I like the music a lot and introduced myself to the Pastor today (who'd come across my blog because I'd previously linked the church). I know that I still need to be more outgoing and talk to people while I'm there instead of popping in and out. Don't know why I'm getting all shy again-- I thought I was over that whole social anxiety thing! :)

I also slept a lot this weekend, which was very nice. I didn't realize how behind I was. Although I feel that I sleep better during the day than most people do, I was still obviously very sleep-deprived from a week on nights. I slept all Friday afternoon, all Friday night (for like 9 hours, after the little social time I forced myself to have), a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon, all Saturday night, and a few hours this afternoon. I was still haunted by work, though-- I was having dreams of being on Labor and Delivery, but where there were wild animals that you had to fend off. I didn't want to get any more dog/leopard/tiger bites, but was trying to do my job, checking women's cervixes! Very weird.

But no more is it a dream (or a nightmare...) I have to head back to work in about an hour. The upper-level teams switched this week, so I'll be with a different 2nd year and chief, but I hope they're as awesome as were Kyla and Steph. What will be getting me through this week is the thought that Nicole and Bay are going to be in San Fran next weekend for a wedding... I'm going to try to drive there Sat. to meet up with them depending on whether they can "squeeze me in" to their social schedule :). Wish me luck (/pray for me :)) as I start another week of nights...