NoVa: past, present, and future

It has been such an amazing blessing to be home for this year's holidays... the last time I saw my parents and sister was about a year ago and it is always quite nostalgic, albeit a bit disconcerting, to return "home" to Virginia.

While much of McLean (where I last "lived" in HS) looks the same, I always am struck by how removed I feel from (my former) life here. Attending the Redeemer Christmas Eve Candlelight service made me feel as though I was looking into a window and watching myself (and my peers) "grow up." Kelvin was with me this year, and it is very odd to be here with my family and old friends, while still "living" in California and taking care of day-to-day tasks, and simultaneously busily planning our future [wedding, jobs, etc.]. I feel as though I am caught in an odd place among the past, present, and future.

Time has gone by extremely quickly, with various meetings with close family and work friends, godparents, and friends from my HS and college years. We have drunk and eaten very well, with quality wines, as well as courses of lamb, ham, turkey (plus soup), and my absolute favorite item, my mother's famous rum balls whose taste I can never quite replicate.



Vanessa, K, and I donning our "Christmas crowns"


festive! (looking at past photos, I realize that I wear this [Peruvian] sweater about every 2 years for Christmas)




Little taste of Vietnam

I was surprised to learn that the D.C. area's "Little Saigon" is just a few miles from McLean (Eden Center in Falls Church). K and I took an expedition there, to both take a picture with the lions and make him feel "at home," buy Asian groceries, and eat some good ol' mi la cay (regional noodle soup; wonderful in the cold weather we've been having).




We then made pho for my family, whose presentation ended up being rather comical, as my parents don't have the "deep" Asian bowls good for the noodle soup (nor did they have chopsticks until we purchased some). Rather than use the shallow soup bowls which are the only ones my parents have/routinely use, we ended up eating out of an assortment of various large bowls, including: a salad bowl, serving bowl, crystal bowls (x2-- no, I was not allowed to use one of these!), and, as you can see from the picture with Kelvin, a ceramic serving pot :). My family enjoyed the cultural experience and the food was quite tasty!







Capital to Capital:
We were able to make a quick trip to Richmond to see Sadie and visit my alma mater, UR (Go, Spiders!). It was neat to see the new on-campus football stadium (we used to have to drive to downtown Richmond to catch football games!), international center, and state-of-the-art fitness facility. I almost want to be a college student again! We also made a trip to the Museum of the Confederacy and home of Jefferson Davis (historic sights which I never visited while a student).

Jefferson Davis' "White House"


In all of our spare time, we have been continuing the job conversations and doing more wedding planning which, although painful and stressful at times, seems to be coming along.

And with that, it is almost 2011.... while enjoying past memories and friendships, I have loved the present with my family. Here is a cheer to the New Year and our future ...

'Tis the Season

I cannot believe that Christmas is three days away! I feel that December has kind of gone by in a blur!

I was been on L and D for the past two weeks (... feels like longer!) and have not, in recent memory, had so many busy days in such short a span. It was apparently THE season of births, as everyone seemed to want a pre-Christmas baby!!! We really did have 17 deliveries on 12/10/10. Last week on Wednesday we had two sets of twins trying to deliver vaginally (3/4 successful... I'll let you figure that one out!), several vacuum deliveries (I finally feel adequately prepared to do them... please flashback to a post about 1 year ago where I lamented the "whiteness" of my "cloud"), and lots of other action simultaneously. While stressful at times, it was fun and I feel that my education has been much enriched by this season's chaos :)!

We had a very awesome (the 2nd annual!) White Elephant Christmas party/Applicant dinner at Rocky's house last week, which was, as usual, extremely entertaining. The hot items (most stolen) this year included kitchen spice cannisters, the soundtrack to Glee, and a barbeque pig set!

This week, I have been able to celebrate the spirit of Christmas in a more relaxed style.

Thanks to Ashby for organizing and Wai Kiu for photo-chronicling last night's Christmas activity, caroling at Emerald Gardens Nursing Home (+ belated b'day for Mason).

We had wonderful accompaniment by Fred and Jeremy (playing on violins, mostly by ear!) and Ashby on guitar. Kimie made a fantastic music stand (and choir member!)

(Us, decking the halls!)

Happy (belated) birthday to Mason, our favorite little Santa!

There is only one more clinic day left to survive before the holiday!!!

Merry Christmas, everyone! And now, I must finish the rest of my eggnog...

The next chapter

"The future is called 'perhaps,' which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you." - Tennessee Williams

It is so hard to believe that it is already December, and we are nearly (1/1/11 [cool date, eh?!] will technically be the mid-way point) half-way through this academic year. Just under seven months remain for me in residency (! Can you tell that I am excited?!). It really does feel like just yesterday that I started as an intern and tomorrow I am supposedly in charge as OB chief.

It is very strange to me, and a bit scary, to contemplate all of the changes that 2011 will bring. Although I have moved every three or four years my whole life, this will be a different kind of move and transition. This is the FIRST time since high school that I have not really had to do formal school/educational applications. Having interviewed at some potential employment sites in California, it amazes me how laid back the "job" interviews have been and how different this "selection" process is from "getting in" to med school or the nail-biting residency match. It is interesting to consider that, while some of my high school friends and second-career friends have been through a number of different jobs (or careers!) by now, I feel as though my *real* life (i.e. you are not a *real* adult until you have a husband and a *real* job ;)) is just getting started!

The job search itself is rather stressful and different now in that there are two people to consider-- K and I have to think in terms of what works best for both of us, with me wanting to do full-spectrum family medicine with OB and c-sections, and him having a National Health Service Corps Scholar requirement to work in a health-professional shortage area. This narrows our choices as far as practice locations but also has made us realize that we will have to accept some tradeoffs, whether that means one or both of us has to commute a long distance daily, do more inpatient time/call than we'd ideally desire, accept a more restricted scope of practice, or live far away from friends/family/airports. Despite the above, in some ways and having now gone on several interviews, I wish we had more restrictions as I am less comfortable having too many choices or "the ball in my court," so to speak. We have some difficult decisions to make should the offers come, and hope to have a job sorted out by next month.

Another reason I hope to have the job situation figured out soon is that we have a lot to do with the upcoming wedding in July. While I feel that we are making good "task" progress (K is an unbelievable help!), including the engagement shoot and prints, purchasing wedding bands, getting my ao dai tailoring in progress, scheduling our pre-cana (Catholic pre-marital class), and initial florist/photographer meetings this past weekend, the checklist seems never-ending.

The dress-shopping itself is exhausting and not really up my alley-- I don't know how many times I have heard recently, "Do you have your dress? You really need to get it now, as it takes many months to get it and then have it altered." This obviously does not seem to help my already-high anxiety level about this whole affair. I have actually had nightmares about not getting everything done in time. I look forward to the day/evening/weekend (is the honeymoon here, yet?! :)) when we don't have to worry about wedding planning which, as I mentioned before, feels like it is a full-time job.

I do realize that everything will come together, eventually, regardless about how much stress I feel worrying about how exactly it is going to come together or the possibility that it won't. Corrie Ten Boom, a 20th century Dutch Evangelist wrote, "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." I am working on remembering this faith.